THE TEXT (King James Version):

1 CORINTHIANS 11:23-26----tell us……

For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, "Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me." After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, "This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me." For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.

The New International Bible states:

For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me." In the same way, after super he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant" in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me." For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Have you ever tried to play a game and did not know all the rules or fully understand the ones that you did know? Was there ever a song that you heard and loved so dearly, and sang it quite often in the years to follow? However, one day, you suddenly came to the realization that you were singing the verses incorrectly! Why of course, most assuredly and without a doubt, most of us can relate to these experiences in our life at one time or another. I can remember so vividly, when as a three to six year old kindergartner, singing Holy! Holy! Holy! Lord God Almighty! early in the morning "TH E S U N" shall rise to thee. It was not until later in my life that I came to know the true words to the song to be: "early in the morning, "O U R S O N G" shall rise to thee. I’m now able to sing the song in truth; with an understanding, and subsequently, be all the more spiritually blessed for having done so.

However, the ‘Text’ speaks of a matter that carries a far greater impact upon our everyday lives than that of games and songs. It speaks of the grace of God, which was made known to the world--in the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. When we celebrate the Lord’s Supper we do so in remembrance of his sacrifice on our behalf; the just for the unjust. Christ’s sacrificial death became the foundation of all other spiritual blessings, and results in everlasting life. When we celebrate the Lord’s Supper we employ a means to God’s grace! Any and everyone who believes can partake of this grace!

The sacrament of the body and blood of Christ is interchangeably referred to as Eucharist, Communion, or the Lord’s Supper. The earliest title, however, is that of Eucharist and is based upon the Eucharistia or giving of thanks with which the Lord set apart the bread and wine at the Last Supper as memorials of Himself. The title Communion comes from 1st Corinthians 10:16, where, we find that the word is used as a verb (i.e., showing action) and not as a noun (i.e., naming a person, place, or thing). Consequently, the word communion in this verse is indicating the ‘participation’ or ‘taking part of’ and not giving name to the ordinance itself. Additionally, we find the name, Lord’s Supper, to be Scripture based from 1st Corinthians 11:20. Likewise, in this verse it also does not apply to the sacrament itself. But instead it is used in reference to the Love Feast or Agape, a meal commemorating the Last Supper, and which was celebrated in conjunction with the Eucharist at the time Saint Paul wrote unto the Corinthians.

In addition, our text portrays a problem that existed not only for the Corinthians. The Corinthians misunderstood the purpose of the Lord’s Supper. That same problem exists in many of our lives today! Many Christians fail to understand the significance of the Lord’s Supper. What then, can we say, is the solution to the problem? Most assuredly, it can be found in the fact that: Every Saint Of God Should Be Aware Of The Significance Of The Lord’s Supper! And it is from the topic: "God’s Blessings", that I want to make known unto some, and bring to the remembrance of others, the significance of the Lord’s Supper. When we ask in what ways should the Lord’s Supper be meaningful to the Christian today, three concepts—relating to the past, present, and future—can be helpful in providing an answer:

• Firstly, The Lord's Supper Is A Time Of Remembrance And Thanksgiving.

• Secondly, The Lord's Supper Is A Time Of Refreshment And Communion.

• Thirdly, The Lord's Supper Is A Time Of Recommitment and Anticipation.

Prior to addressing these three concepts, I want to turn aside for a moment and examine the context of the Textual Scripture. In order for the understanding to be established and/or enhanced concerning the meaning of any text, it is first necessary to place that text in its proper context. By context, we mean what comes before and after, helping to fix the meaning; or the circumstances in which an event occurs. In order to explain the text as it relates to the passages of Scripture that precedes and follows it, my contextual analysis focuses on three different perspectives (i.e., historical, literary, and theological). The term theological is merely a form of the word theology. It refers to the study of the move of God in our everyday lives—through which we gain the understanding which allows us to realize that it is in God that we live, move, and have our being.

Firstly, the historical background of the text encompasses the facts that the Greeks resistance to Roman domination brought disaster to this principal city in Greece; and in 146 B. C. it was reduced to ruins. The Corinth, which Paul knew, was rebuilt on the same site a century later probably under orders from Julius Caesar, and quickly grew to be an important Roman colony. The letter reveals some of the typical Greek cultural problems of Paul’s day, including the gross sexual immorality of the city of Corinth. The Greeks were known for their idolatry, divisive philosophies, spirit of litigation, and rejection of a bodily resurrection. Located on the narrow neck of the land which served as a land bridge between the mainland of Greece and the Peloponnesian peninsula, Corinth was infamous for it sensuality and sacred prostitution. Even its name became a notorious proverb: "to Corinthianize" meant to practice prostitution. The city’s chief deity was Aphrodite (Venus), the goddess of licentious love, and a thousand professional prostitutes served in the temple dedicated to her worship. In short, the spirit of the city showed up in the church and explains the kind of problems the people faced.

Secondly, from a literary perspective First Corinthians is a pastoral letter, written to resolve doctrinal and practical problems within the local church. Paul’s authority gives the letter apostolic application to all "the churches of God. Having a central theme of Christian life and conduct, it emerges from the third missionary journey of Paul about A. D. 59 and at the close of the apostle’s three-year ministry while in Ephesus. Paul had received disturbing reports concerning moral laxity among believers in Corinth. To remedy the situation, he sent the church a letter, which has since been lost. Shortly after, a delegation sent by Chloe, a member of the church in Corinth, reported to Paul concerning the existence of divisive factions in the church. Before he could write a corrective letter, another delegation from Corinth arrived with a letter asking him certain questions. Paul immediately sent Timothy to Corinth to help correct conditions there. He then wrote the letter that we know as 1st Corinthians, expecting it to reach Corinth before Timothy.

Lastly, the letter deals theologically largely with the subject, salvation, or what theologians refer to as Soteriology (i.e., the study of salvation). Its central concept is that redemption must be applied to everyday situations. The apostle employs logic, sarcasm, entreaty, scolding, poetry, narration, and exposition to emphasize that the believer is to remember that the new life in Christ calls for a new way of living, as a result of the relationship of the Holy Spirit to the believer. The letter consists of Paul’s response to ten separate problems: a sectarian spirit (division in the church), incest, lawsuits, fornication, marriage and divorce, eating food offered to idols, wearing of the veil, the Lord’s Supper, spiritual gifts, and the resurrection of the body. No epistle in the New Testament gives a clearer insight into the life of the first-century church than 1st Corinthians. In it, Paul provides straightforward instructions for such moral and theological problems as sectarianism, spiritual immaturity, church discipline, ethical differences, the role of the sexes, and the proper use of spiritual gifts. It should be noted that where these same problems exist in the modern church (and truly they do exist today) the remedies are still the same. Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever. Notwithstanding, in the light of all the aforementioned, every True Believer should be aware of the significance of the Lord’s Supper.

THE LORD’S SUPPER IS A TIME OF REMEMBRANCE AND EUCHARIST

The Lord’s Supper is a time of remembrance and Eucharist. Jesus said, "Do this in remembrance of me". This is not to be so much our dwelling on the agonies of the Crucifixion as it is to be our remembering the marvelous life and ministry of our Savior. The Eucharist is to be an occasion for expressing our deepest praise and appreciation for all Jesus Christ has done for us.

Just as one step in the Jew’s Passover meal was to proclaim the Hebrews’ deliverance from Egyptian bondage, so in the Supper, Christians proclaim their deliverance from sin and misery through the death of "Christ, our Passover’.

Adam and Eve made a vain attempt to cover themselves with their own efforts by sewing together fig leaves. However, God’s order provided covering by means of a sacrifice. The covenant love of God required that innocent animals be sacrificed to provide garments of skin as a covering for Adam and Eve. That covering or atonement points toward the necessity of judgment upon the innocent to provide a covering for the guilty.

Under the New Covenant, we are required to be clothed with Christ rather than with our good works. God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for atonement or reconciliation with separated mankind. Fellowship with a holy God could only be realized through atoning for the sins that separated mankind from God and His covenant promises. Through God’s atoning grace and forgiveness, we are reinstated to a relationship of restored unity with God, in spite of our sin. Every Saint needs to know that Jesus’ blood became the ATONEMENT for our sins.

Every Little One should be aware that Jesus became the PROPITIATION or appeasement of God’s wrath for our transgressions. Suggesting primarily the appeasement of an offended God, propitiation means "to atone" or "to appease"—to establish grounds for reconciliation. In the Old Testament the blood was poured on the mercy seat, covering the sins of the people and was but shed for a few. Jesus’ blood is shed for many. It is his shed blood, and his death at Calvary that has redeemed us. "He himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world".

Every Child of God should be able to let the world know that Jesus is also the EXPIATION for our sins. Christ died at Calvary, and made it possible for all who truly repent of their sins and believe on Him, to have as a result of that sacrifice, their guilt canceled, and the punishment of their sins remitted.

THE LORD’S SUPPER IS A TIME OF REFRESHMENT AND COMMUNION

The Lord’s Supper is a time of refreshment and communion. As we participate in the benefits of Jesus’ death and resurrection life, we are actually being nourished and empowered from the risen Christ through the Spirit. Every Born Again Witness should realize that through Jesus we have a right relationship with God. Right relationship, not mere ceremony and sacrifice, is the goal of God’s covenant-making activity. Therefore, sacrifices without a sincere desire for relationship with God pervert the real purpose of the sacrificial system, and are unacceptable to God. God’s judgment was fully put upon Christ, the blameless sacrifice, for all sins both past and present. It is through faith in the precious blood of Christ that mankind is justified in God’s eyes. The blood of Christ, then also becomes the bond that joins people to God, and entitles them to God’s covenant provisions. The blood of Christ is forever the only means of right relationship with the holy God.

Every Saint of God should be aware of the Lord’s Supper as a means to the grace of God whereby we have RECONCILIATION unto God. By means of the atoning death of Christ, God can be merciful to the sinner who believes in Him, and reconciliation is effected. The New Covenant which is procured and ratified by the blood of Christ, is a charter of pardon, an act of indemnity, in order to bring about reconciliation between God and man. Reconciliation is the process by which God and man are brought together again. The Bible teaches that God and man are alienated from one another because of God’s holiness and man’s sinfulness. Although God loves the sinner, it is impossible for Him not to judge sin. Therefore, God took the initiative in reconciliation—while we were still sinners and "enemies," Christ died for us. Reconciliation is thus God’s own completed act, something that takes place before human actions such as confession, repentance, and restitution. God Himself ‘has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ’.

Truly, Every Babe, ought to be able to testify that Christ’s sacrificial blood is the agency for cleansing, forgiveness, and REDEMPTION. The New Testament describes the exact cost of redemption: that cost is none other than "the precious blood of Christ, which believers are exhorted to remember as they pursue obedient service, faithful ministry, and personal holiness." Redemption is salvation’s provision which "buys back" what has been lost. Although we all have sinned, "we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. As saints of God, our lives are living epistles of the New Testament promise of God’s ability in Christ to redeem from the slavery of sin, from enemy oppressors, and from the power of death.

Ancient man, whether Jew or pagan, conscious of his sin and alienation from God, sought to do this by a sacrificial offering of expiation, usually by way of a living, i.e. bloody, animal who was costly and hence in some degree a substitution for his own life. But, such a manner of expiation—to "cover" or "blot out" sin and restore divine favor,--was essentially ineffective. The victim was unwilling; the offerer in fact, if not in intention, was unrighteous. God himself resolved man’s dilemma by sending his Son to be the expiation for our sins. Not only was the blood of Jesus offered willingly; he was also, as offerer, perfectly righteous. He is our advocate, who pleads our cause and intercedes for us. Therefore, by his act we may be assured that when we confess our sins God forgives us. But our confession is real only if we keep his commandments and his word. We must abide in him and walk in his way, if our love and fellowship with God are to be perfected.

THELORD’S SUPPER IS A TIME OF RECOMMITMENT AND ANTICIPATION

The Lord’s Supper is a time of recommitment and anticipation. We are to examine (literally "prove" or "test") ourselves and partake in a worthy manner. In so doing we renew our dedication to Christ and His people, in hopeful anticipation "till He come". After Christ’s return, we shall partake with Him—in His physical presence—in the kingdom.

The Corinthians misunderstood the purpose of the Lord’s Table. The indulgence of the love feast had led to drunkenness and selfishness, completely contrary to the concept of Christ’s sacrifice. In the text, Paul rebuked the Corinthians for their pride and greed during the meal that accompanied the Eucharist. Then he described the institution of the Lord’s Supper and emphasized the need for Christians to partake in a worthy manner. Many of them who had not been doing so were weak and sick, and many had even died, because of misappropriating or neglecting the purpose of the Lord’s Supper.

Why does Paul use such strong language when speaking of the abuse of the Lord’s Supper? The Corinthians were not properly discerning or recognizing the Lord’s body. The wealthy Corinthians who shamed their poorer Christian brothers and sisters by their selfish eating practices were not discerning the true nature of the church as Christ’s body in which all distinctions such as social class and race were blotted out.

On the other hand, Christians who received the bread and the cup after behaving disgracefully were failing to discern that Christ would not automatically bless and empower those who received the sacrament in this manner. Such persons were guilty of sin against the body and blood of Jesus.

The passage in verse 29 (concerning self examination, unworthiness, and discerning the lord’s body) has been in times past and is often misapplied in much of the church today. The purpose is not to deny participation, but to assess the spiritual needs of the believer in order to receive the dynamic release, potential for healing, and spiritual renewal available through partaking at the table. It is not a matter of the Lord’s visitation of wrath upon an unworthy individual. But rather, a warning to those who by "not discerning the Lord’s body"—because they conducted themselves in an unworthy manner—did not and can not receive the intended benefits.

Therefore, Paul made an appeal and extended an invitation unto the Corinthians. And, I make that same appeal and extend the same invitation unto each of you on today: Celebrate the Lord’s Supper frequently. Receive Jesus’ life from it through faith. It is for this very purpose that Jesus died. Approach Communion humbled and cleansed through confession of sin. It is the establishment of the New Covenant: in it; because of it; and the grace of God we receive through it that we are made worthy, and receive justification (i.e., righteousness imputed to us by God as though we had never sinned).

In conclusion and retrospect we can now realize that----From the Garden of Eden to the garden in heaven’s paradise, the blood of sacrifice is the constant testimony of God’s grace. As fallen man was clothed with skins of animals sacrificed by God Himself for such provision , so the blood of the Lamb was shed to clothe in the righteousness of God every member of mankind who will receive His gift.

What then is the significance of communion’s covenant? The Passover celebration was to be the last meal that Christ would share with the disciples before His death. It was also the setting in which He chose to transform the meaning of the cup and the bread into New Covenant thought. Now receiving the cup is a participation in the blood of Christ, and the breaking of bread is a participation in His body. The mystery involved in the covenant meal extends beyond Christ’s relationship to the individual. Partakers of the covenant meal are also joined together in the body and blood of Christ. The blessings and responsibilities of the covenant are therefore extended laterally among those who partake of Christ together, as certainly as they are vertically between God and the believer in Christ.

There Exists a Human Need. Because of Adam’s sin and our own personal sins, no person is worthy of relationship with a holy God. Since we are helpless to correct this situation and can do nothing to hide our sin from God., we all stand condemned by sin. It is human nature (our sinfulness) and God’s nature (His holy separateness from sin) which makes us "enemies".

For this Human Need, There is God’s Gift. God’s gracious response to the helplessness of His chosen people, the nation of Israel, was to give them a means of "reconciliation through Old Testament covenant Law. This came in the sacrificial system, where the death or "blood" of the animal was accepted by God as a substitute for the death which the sinner deserved: "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls".

God’s justice was served in the death of Jesus Christ as a substitute who "not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption." "For this reason He is the Mediator of the New covenant".

God’s Gift Call for Our Response. The Lord Jesus came according to God’s will "to give His life a ransom for many", or "for all". Though God "laid, on Him the iniquity of us all" , yet Christ "has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God", so that those who believe in Him might receive atonement and "be saved from [God’s] wrath" through "the precious blood of Christ".

Celebrate the Lord’s Supper frequently. Receive Jesus’ life from it through faith. It is for this very purpose that Jesus died. Approach Communion humbled and cleansed through confession of sin. It is the establishment of the New Covenant: in it; because of it; and the grace of God we receive through it that we are made worthy, and receive justification (i.e., righteousness imputed to us by God as though we had never sinned).

Partaking in the covenant blood of Christ is the means of being joined to God and receiving the benefits of His life. Christ is the covenant sacrifice and is God’s provision for our sustenance. When we feed on Him through faith, we become partakers of the divine nature, which is life eternal. Through the work of the Holy Spirit, we receive His life and partake of His promises. Those who share in this mystery of relationship with Christ are assured of being raised up at the last day into eternal life.

AMEN