When the Lord Jesus died, rose, and went to heaven, then from His ascension glory He gave gifts to men. It was a new source of supply from above. What He did when on earth was to send a testimony to Israel. The disciples were even forbidden to preach to the Samaritans or to the Gentiles: this therefore could not be Christian ministry. No doubt eleven of the disciples previously used were again sent forth now, but they had a fresh mission when Christ went up to heaven. Has Christ then, I ask, ceased to give gifts to men? or is He still owned by us as the Head of the church, not in word only but in deed and in truth? And those who in practice and principle deny this and take His place, are they not really conspiring against Him and His rights as the fountain of all gifts for the church? Rome is the chief of the conspiracy against the Headship of Christ—the harlot who rises up in insubjection to the Lord of all. Babylon—the false lady, the would-be-queen—was not content to be subject, and she is therefore looked upon as an enemy going to be judged by God. Take care that you do not fall into the same error of disowning the Headship of Christ in another form.
So far from questioning Christian ministry, I hold it to be a divine institution and a permanent one. If others plead for change, I hold that, if divine, it is the same now as when Christ first ascended. Christ, and Christ alone, through the Holy Ghost, has authority in His hands. He gives gifts, and appoints ministers. I feel it to be a part of my work in His name to recall the saints to what they have forgotten by making the church regulate ministers, instead of bowing to Christ in this matter. Christ alone has the title as Head of His church; and the Holy Ghost is come down as alone competent to carry out His mind on earth in accordance with the written word of God.
But I want you to see that, while we would hold up the place of Christian ministry, and slight none who are Christ's ministers—owning all who are really His, and disowning all who are not—while we maintain this to the full, still there is one occasion where all distinctions disappear, where only One is or ought to be prominent, even Christ and His grace to us; where, no matter what our position and standing in the church, everything for the time gives place to Christ and His death; and this occasion is the Lord's Supper. It is precious to merge all else and have nothing before the soul but Himself who died for us in infinite love. This it is the Lord, (the night before He was betrayed) commended to the saints. This it is He would have us to do in remembrance of Him till He comes. It is well even for the most richly gifted not always to be in the position of giving out; and it is well for the poorest saints not to be ever taking in. An evangelist might else get so occupied with winning the souls of others as to forget he has a soul of his own to praise and remember the Lord; and so with every other gift. “They made me keeper of the vineyards, but mine own vineyard have I not kept.” It is good for the heart of any man, no matter what his gift, that all should have for Christ the Lord a little quiet time, and that these quiet times should not be too far apart.
All this is provided for amply in the Lord's Supper. It is blessed and wholesome for the soul to have seasons when it is occupied neither with delivering nor with hearing a sermon. It is blessed when even the apostle is merged in the saint, when we and all are called to be occupied only with the remembrance of Christ. There is a feast provided by His love, in which we all may enjoy Him together, and enjoy Him to the full; for He does not want us to treat His love as a doubtful thing, or an uncertain sound. On the contrary, He would have our joy to be full; but if you do not value this feast, because of its own nature and His love who invites you, no wonder you do not enjoy it. If you join in a rite which bears His name but with its character altered, how can you expect it to be the feast to which He invites you and guarantees His presence? Some make an idol of the Eucharist and worship its elements; others, running away from the idolatry of Rome, seem to have forgotten His word and to have put His supper nowhere, save as a gloomy appendix to the sermon and that once or twice a year.
The early disciples came together not once a month, nor once a quarter, nor once a year, but the first day of the week to break bread. And I assure you it is not myself or others who have put this into God's word. It is no strange Bible, but your own from which I am reading to you. It is no new theory or notion of moderns or ancients, but what God has written. Does it not concern you as much as me? I am speaking of Christ's feast for His disciples, for what in a special way concerns you, children of God, though Christ and His glory even more.
I remember the time when the Lord's Supper was a thing of awe and dread, lest one might fall into the condemnation that is written here—eat and drink “damnation,” being guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. No wonder a person with so fearful a danger before him could not enjoy the Lord's Supper; and being a believer, with no one to show me any better, it was so much the more a tremendous burden to me. It was no feast, but a fast of the most solemn description. Was it not a perverting of the Lord's Supper to produce such a result? Of course it was. Nor was mine at all a singular case. Think me not wandering away from what is of importance for souls in giving you this bit of personal experience. Somewhat similar alas! is the condition of many a soul now.
But the Lord Jesus died on the cross to suffer for the sins of believers and to blot them out. Yea, He glorified God about sin itself, instead of leaving it to stand as a perpetual reproach to God. He, the Son of God, having gone down Tinder it in love, and risen again without it in righteousness, from His ascension glory gave these words to Paul for us. They come, in the infinite grace of God from the Lord and Savior who bears witness to judgment borne for us, from resurrection accomplished, from the ascension revealed to us in all its glory: thence the Lord commends to us this institution of His grace. Do not treat it as a mere commandment, and hence a means of grace for those who have not faith. It is a call of love, embracing all who are His, and only for His, by faith: “Do this in remembrance of Me!” It is not for those who, slighting His love, love Him not.
For whom it is, need I argue more? The only persons who have the smallest title to the Lord's Supper are those who are resting on Him and His redemption. You might even be converted, and not be in a fit state to partake of this feast. For the Christian state is more than being converted (that is, by grace turned from one's evil ways to God). Besides this, the Christian believes the gospel of his salvation; he has peace with God, being justified by faith. He is not waiting for righteousness, but made the righteousness of God in Christ. He is therefore waiting for the hope of righteousness, that is, for glory. We do not get righteousness when we go to heaven. It is here by grace we have it, the object being to glorify Christ when we are in. the presence of His enemies and now called to serve Him. It is here we are to confess by faith in His cross and glory, how truly all the evil is already judged, all the good is already given in Christ by our God and Father.
What does a person come to the table of the Lord for? Is it to pour out his doubts? If he has them, he will; but this would be to make it a fast, and not a feast. You would scarcely like this even at your own festivities. You would not like to have at a marriage feast one with a gloomy heart and face: this would slight the bridegroom and the bride, and might spoil it for every one else. You would say such a person was best away; and the more you loved the person, the less you could desire his presence thus, because his sadness would be the more a burden to all concerned. It would be a poor proof of love to be indifferent to his troubles, and to be just as joyful in presence of such a breach of fellowship, not to speak of propriety.
The soul that is troubled with doubts and fears had better look to Christ and listen to God's gospel. The Lord's Supper is the best and the holiest feast on earth; but whatever does not consist with His presence in peace and liberty and love is not fit for it.
Ministry is not meant to furnish, adorn, or guard the table; even an apostle comes there merely as a saint. Ministry has to deal with souls, to preach the gospel, to give meat in due season, to guide, instruct, correct and rebuke. But in the Lord's Supper we rightly come only as members of Christ's body—as once sinners but now saints, justified, made happy because of Christ's love, full of peace and joy in believing. We are walking in the light: such is the place of a Christian; but the next point is that we should walk in accordance with the light in which we are. This is the object of ministry, in dealing with saints to fit them for and keep them in their place at the Lord's table. Thus the Lord's Supper is the present practical end, we may say, of ministry; and the end is greater than the means.
I should scruple to call it the Lord's Supper when it is not taken according to the Lord's own institution. But we may notice that there is a difference in the way in which the apostle speaks in 1 Cor. 10 as compared with the language in chap. xi.: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?” In this passage it is not the Lord's Supper viewed from within, i.e., not the state, of those partaking it. Neither their right state nor their wrong state is the point here discussed, but communion with Christ compared with what was outside. It is an external view. The apostle is comparing it with what the Jew or the Gentile had. It is not the internal view of eating worthily or not; but, contradistinguishing the Jew and the Gentile in their worship, he proceeds to show what the nature of the church's communion is. “We being many are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread.”
“The table of demons” has been foolishly applied to that which is not celebrated in accordance with the Lord's own institution. This is certainly not the meaning of the apostle's words, but to my mind a grave error on the part of those who have so applied it. The apostle is contrasting what the Christian has with what the Jew had on the one hand, and what the Gentile had on the other. What the Gentiles sacrificed was to demons. The idol might be nothing; but their danger was from forgetting the demon that was behind it; and it is a dangerous as well as a wicked thing to have to do with demons. But if you go to these idol-feasts, you are tampering, you, have fellowship, with demons.
Israel, again, had their peace-offerings. They were their symbol of communion with Jehovah's altar; while the church of God, as he shows, is as distinct from the Jew as from the Gentile.
Thus the apostle is contrasting both with the Lord's table which Christians have.
But in chap. 11 he is dealing with the state of soul of those who regularly partake of the Lord's Slipper. It is a question of Christians rightly or wrongly partaking. If you know the joy of remembering the Lord's death, do not you satisfy yourself with the fact that you are a Christian. You are made worthy by the blood of the Lamb to partake of that Supper; but put yourself to the proof whether you are partaking of it in a worthy manner.
How can a Christian partake of it in an unworthy manner? If the day comes and you merely go to it as a religious habit, it seems very like an unworthy partaking of it. Familiarity breeds contempt where the soul is unexercised; where self-judgment is kept up, the spirit of worship is strengthened and enlarged. Do you go to the Lord's Supper in the morning and to your supper in the evening in much the same spirit? Surely this is not a worthy manner. Not that you should go to any meeting or even meal lightly, but seriously. Still the Lord's Supper makes a distinctive appeal to the conscience, as it has a special place for the heart. This is not a theory, but the doctrine of God in 1 Cor. 11.
As for the notion that you may have the Lord's Supper without the Lord's table, it is beneath sober Christians. We may distinguish, where we must not separate. All such speculations are but the fruit of idleness with a certain small activity of mind, but none the less injurious to faith and practice.
To you who have no doubts I speak now. Your danger is in coming to the Lord's Supper without adequately weighing your ways and state of heart. “Let a man examine himself,” not to see whether he is a Christian, as some say. But, if assured of salvation as we should be, the Lord intends that there should be a solemn searching of heart, and challenging of the soul every time, with a view to our seeing in what spirit and state we are coming to the Lord's Supper. He that eateth and drinketh unworthily is guilty with respect to the body and blood of the Lord; for he falls into no small offense as to Christ who treats His Supper irreverently. Consequently the Lord does not fail to come in and vindicate the honor of His name thus set at naught, and to judge, as we see He did at Corinth.
He does not suppose that, when a man has thus tried himself, he will stay away. “Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat.” It is well to search, judge, and blame yourself. For it is always assumed that a Christian is one who is here to obey the Lord and please God. To partake unworthily then means not that the communicant is not a Christian, but that the Christian partakes without due self-examination and self-judgment.
But, again, “damnation” here is quite wrong. The word κρίμα should be rendered “judgment.” The only possible meaning of the word here is very simply judgment in this world. The context is decisive and plain in giving this sense, even for those who have no knowledge of the language in which the Holy Ghost wrote. The saints have to judge themselves in order that they may not be condemned (or damned) with the world. Thus the solemn guard of the Lord comes in to maintain gravity and holiness among those who partake, on the peril of His judgment now.
When a soul begins to be careless, the first thing the Lord does is to make him feel miserable and distressed as to his ways, applying the word to his condolence. If he bows to the word, it is well—he is humbled and walks more softly in future. If he is hardened by not heeding the word, then comes in the work of those over him in the Lord to admonish, entreat, or rebuke, seeking to restore. A little evil unjudged always leads to a great deal more. If those that meet as the church are in a bad state and fail, the Lord never fails to come in and judge them here by sickness or even by death. Such is the meaning of “sin unto death.” It is death in this world. So Ananias and Sapphire sinned unto death. The time and circumstances made their sin the more heinous, and brought down on them the Lord's unsparing judgment in a peculiarly solemn form; but the principle is the same.