#5.

The Lord's Supper is a Communion with Christ

1 Corinthians 10:16 Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of
Christ? Is not the bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ?
We saw in our previous devotional that the Lord's Supper is clearly designed to be a
remembrance to cause us not to be unmindful of Jesus. This time, we will reflect on the fact that
this meal is to be more than a simple reminder for us - it is an act of fellowship or communion
with Christ Himself.
There has been much controversy in the church over the nature of the Lord's Supper and of the
elements of which it is composed. Those of us who believe that the bread we eat is simply
bread, and the wine we drink is simply wine, shy away sometimes from anything further than
this in the meal. Yet it seems that the Scriptures teach that there is more going on at the Table
than a reminder. We do not believe in a transubstantiation in which bread and wine become
Christ's very body and blood. Neither do we believe in a "Real Presence", in which the body and
blood of Jesus are really present in the bread and wine, which nonetheless remain bread and
wine.
However, if we examine the passage above, which clearly refers to what happens when the
Lord's Supper is celebrated, it is hard to argue that the Table constitutes simply an act of
memory.
We are reminded of the difficult (and often misinterpreted) words of Jesus in John 6, which
drove so many of His disciples away:
John 6:4758 Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread
of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread
which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread
that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread
also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh. 52 Then the Jews began to argue with
one another, saying, How can this man give us His flesh to eat? 53 So Jesus said to them,
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you
have no life in yourselves. 54 He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I
will raise him up on the last day. 55 For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. 56
He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father
sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me. 58
This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate and died; he who eats
this bread will live forever.
Jesus is talking here of the union that is forged between Him and everyone who believes savingly
on Him. We have to abide in Christ to have eternal life in Him. He is the One Who supplies all
that is necessary in spiritual nourishment and refreshment for us. We have been joined
irreversibly to Him and unless we receive these things (represented by His flesh and blood) we
have no spiritual life. Another metaphor expresses the same truth in a similar way. Just as the
branches joined to the vine receive sap and nourishment from the vine itself, or they wither and

die, so we receive these things (primarily the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives) in a
spiritual sense through our union with Christ.
Returning to what Paul says in our text, then, we see that true believers are nourished spiritually
through a proper eating of the bread and drinking of the wine. It not simply represents our union
with Christ, but it outwardly represents what is taking place through faith at the Table - a true
communion with Jesus, a feeding on Him as the Bread of Life, a nourishment and strengthening
of our souls by the working of the Holy Spirit.
All this seems quite mystical, but in fact we are saying little more than that the Lord's Supper is a
means of grace - that we enjoy the working of the Holy Spirit in our hearts as we look to Christ
through the bread and wine and He becomes the Bread of Life to our souls.
So let's look forward to the Lord's Supper as an opportunity to do more than remember our
Savior (which we certainly must do, as we have seen). Let's resolve to commune with Him and
to enjoy the benefits of the indissoluble union with Him that we have through the breaking of His
body and the shedding of His blood.
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