A Few Thoughts on Unleavened Bread in Our Time [Booklet]

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Excerpt:

If the Christian hopes to understand the Bible, and God's ways revealed in it, one of the first things he must learn, is that God acts in different ways at different times. This does not mean that God's ways are not always perfect. Surely they are. But what is right and perfect at one time, may be quite wrong at another time. We know this even in our own homes. We get up in the morning, and the father of the home goes to his work, the mother sends the children off to school. This is right and good. But in many places, through God's mercy, on the Lord's Day, this is all changed. The father of the home does not go to work. He does not open his shop or go to the office. The mother does not send the children to school. What was right on one day is quite wrong on another day. Just so is it in God's ways. In the days of Law, God put His people under ordinances and rules. Their approach to God was by external things which they could see and hear and smell. They saw the blood shed. They heard the beautiful music of a multitude of instruments. They smelled the sweet incense going up to God. Every minute detail was ordered and arranged by God Himself. Even in the New Testament the Spirit of God reminds us that God said of these external things: "See, saith He, that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount." (Heb. 8:5.)This was because these external things were 'shadows' of heavenly things.

But now all is changed. The external things have been replaced by the heavenly things. That is why in the Book of Hebrews, which so clearly points this out, we find the word "better" used over and over again. Now we have a "better hope" (7:19); a "better covenant" and "better promises" (8:6). But you count all the "better things" (6:9) for yourself. These better things are not external things we touch, taste and handle: but they are heavenly things that can only be known by faith. So the Spirit of God says: "If ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, ( touch not; taste not; handle not; which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men? Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh." (Col. 2:20-23) Ordinances and rules were right and proper, they were God's own order, in the days of the Law: but now in the day of Grace, God, Himself has changed this: and so He asks: "Why are ye subject to ordinances?" And to be free from ordinances is right and proper now: and it is wrong and displeasing to God to again put ourselves under such rules and ordinances. Another has said truly: "I deny that the idea of obedience to an ordinance belongs to the Christian system. I recognize that Christ has established baptism and the Lord's Supper, but obedience to an ordinance is what has been destroyed as principles by the cross. (J. N. Darby).

But the heart of man loves rules and ordinances and laws. Man thinks that to be under law is the only possible way to live to God: and so we find most people, even most true Christians, are ever seeking to put themselves and others under this bondage from which God has set us free. True Christians will tell us that they know we are justified by faith in Christ alone: but that now we must have the law as the rule of life. It was just this that made the Apostle so indignant with the Galatians, and he exclaims: "Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" (Gal. 3:3). These rules and regulations and ordinances of which men are so fond in our day, are nothing more than fleshly things, "satisfying to the flesh". (Col. 2:23). The people who put themselves, and seek to put others, under them, think they are a mark of humility and devotedness: on the contrary, they are a mark of ignorance of God's ways, a lack of faith and intelligence in His Word, a giving up of Grace and a return to the old ordinances that have been done away by the cross.

The present question that has arisen as to the use of leavened or unleavened bread: fermented wine or grape juice: in the Lord's Supper, is, I believe, just another example of again seeking to put the saints under the bondage of ordinances. The Spirit of God sternly warns us: "Foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes." (2 Tim. 2:23). And these questions have gendered strifes, and have turned the eyes of the saints away from Christ, and from heavenly things, to external things: with their command, Taste not Leavened Bread, or, Touch only Leavened Bread. I sadly fear "An enemy hath done this." I doubt not for a moment the earnestness and sincerity of the saints who are pressing these things: but I also doubt not they are "foolish and unlearned questions." If the Scriptures clearly support the claims of these dear brethren, we are bound to bow to them; but if they do not, it is very sad that they should break the unity of the body, by insisting on what is merely the commandment and doctrine of men.

Let us, with God's help, seek to see what the Scriptures teach about these matters. I believe anyone reading the Old and New Testaments with care must be impressed with the difference, and must see that the New Testament has few clear rules and regulations about matters which you or I, had we been writing it, would have expressed ourselves clearly and strongly. We have examples we may follow. The Spirit tells us that the disciples in the early days broke bread on the First Day of the week: but there is no command that we should so do. Wine was probably used at the supper when the Lord instituted the remembrance of Himself: but how striking that the Scripture does not say so: and as far as I know never once suggests that wine must be used. We find "the fruit of the vine", or, "the cup", but never "wine". To me that is one of the most beautiful examples of the Grace and Wisdom of God. He would not put us under an ordinance in the matter: He would not make an external ordinance of this lovely remembrance of Himself. I have been in parts of China where it would have been quite impossible to remember the Lord at all, had the Scripture taught we must use wine. But this is man's teaching, not God's, The Lord knew all this, and His Grace and Wisdom provided what all could have. Personally, I like to see wine used when it is obtainable, but if otherwise, I am perfectly free, according to the Word of God, to remember the Lord's death with grape juice, or even the juice of boiled raisins, and I have not a doubt the Lord accepts such as a remembrance of Himself: they both are "the fruit of the vine".