The Lord’s Supper in the New Testament

The first of two lectures on the Lord's Supper given in the Free Church College, Edinburgh on 9/4/2014

Perhaps the most surprising feature about the Lord's Supper is that it is not mentioned very often in the New Testament. For example, John does not refer to it in his writings (nor does he refer to Christian baptism) - this has led some to try and find a mention, so they suggest baptism is found in Jesus' statement to Nicodemus about being born of water and the Spirit and they suggest the Lord's Supper is found in Jesus' teaching about eating his flesh and drinking his blood. Peter does not refer to the Lord's Supper in his letters. Paul only refers to it in 1 Corinthians, although he does say there that he had handed on what he had received, from the Lord, which may mean that the Lord conveyed it directly to Paul or that the Lord uses others to inform Paul. One reason for the lack of references may be that there were not many problems connected to the Lord's Supper, with Corinth being the only church that faced such an issue. Yet it is surprising that Paul does not mention it in Romans, which summarises his theology, or in Ephesians, which is an explanation of his concepts of the church. Of course, behind the authors of scripture is the Holy Spirit and obviously since he guided them what to write we have sufficient information about the Lord's Supper.

The Synoptic Gospels

We are all familiar with the accounts of the institution of the Lord’s Supper in the Synoptic Gospels. It took place on the evening of Passover day (the Jewish day went from evening to evening). This raises the issue of what kind of meal Jesus arranged because the Passover Lamb would not be slain until the following afternoon. This has led some scholars to suggest that the meal was not the actual Passover meal but a kind of solemn religious festival meal. Other scholars, such as D. A. Carson, have defended the view that the Supper was the Passover meal. The solution involves complex discussions of calendars and whether or not more than one religious calendar was recognised. I would suggest you read the various commentaries or even my book on the subject if you wish to know more about this detail. Suffice to say here that the timetable I accept is this: 

Thursday afternoon 14 Nisan two disciples prepare for the Passover 

Thursday evening 15 Nisan  Jesus and his disciples eat the Passover 

Thursday evening  15 Nisan Jesus arrested, tried 

Friday                            15 Nisan Jesus crucified 

The Passover could not be eaten until sunset, and the meal had to be taken within the city limits of Jerusalem, which explains why Jesus remained in the city instead of going out to Bethany as he had on the previous evenings. 

At a stage in the Passover meal, Jesus took some of its features and gave them new meaning.  

The significance of the instruction, ‘remember’.  

The remembrance mentioned by Jesus is one that acknowledges his authority to institute a meal, the celebration of which was binding on his followers. It is evident that the early church obeyed this requirement – we have a record of it being done in Troas (Acts 20:7) and in Corinth (1 Cor. 11:17-34) as well as in Jerusalem (Acts 2:42) – which indicates that there was submission on the part of Christians concerning the practice.    

When Jesus instructed his disciples to remember him by means of the Lord’s Supper he was not asking them to shut their eyes and engage in mental imagination in order to recall his death (which is a common response at the Lord’s Table). Rather he asked them to use the symbols of bread and wine as signs pointing to his death. In doing so, he arranged for the Lord’s Supper to be a visual, as well as a verbal, reminder in a way similar to the way in which the Passover was a visible reminder to Israelites. The Passover had its elements of unleavened bread, a roast lamb and bitter herbs, as well as other elements. The Lord’s Supper has bread and wine. The Lord’s Supper is not only about eating the bread and drinking the wine; it also involves watching the breaking of the bread and the pouring out of the wine into the cup. 

Jesus and the new covenant 

In each record of the institution of the Supper, reference is made to the covenant (Matt. 26:7-8; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25). The Passover was connected to the old covenant given through Moses by God, when Moses ratified the covenant by the sprinkling of the blood of a sacrificed animal (Exod. 24:8). Jeremiah had predicted that the old covenant would be replaced by a new covenant (Jer. 31:31-34) in which three salvation benefits would be given. Firstly, God’s laws would be written on the minds and hearts of believers; secondly, all believers would know God by having a personal relationship with him; and thirdly God would forgive them their sins. Kevan notes that Jeremiah’s prophecy is incomplete, in that he does not mention the ratifying blood which Jesus himself mentioned. Because of his ratification, the Lord’s Supper is a source of assurance to Christians that the blessings predicted by Jeremiah will continue to be given to them.  

The cup was a sign of Jesus’ shed blood that would ratify the new covenant and result in forgiveness of sins for those in this covenant. Other covenants that God made with his people had signs that reminded them of his commitment to them: while the rainbow was primarily a sign for God to remember his promise, it was also a sign to Noah that God was keeping his promise (Gen. 9:12-17); Abraham had the sign of circumcision; the Israelites had the details of the Passover and other feasts. In a similar way, Christians have the symbols of bread and wine to remind them of God’s, and Christ’s, commitment to them. 

It is possible that Jesus had in mind Isaiah’s language concerning the death of the Servant of the Lord as recorded in Isaiah 53, particularly verse 12. In Isaiah 53:11-12, the prophet predicts that the Servant will justify the many and make intercession for the many, with both these benefits linked to his bearing their iniquities and sins. It seems clear that ‘the many’ are the people of God because it is only believers who can be described as justified. Some argue from this point that ‘the many’ is limited to the elect and does not include every person. Whether or not the passage is an evidence of a particular atonement rather than a universal one, the benefits of Christ’s giving is limited to those who believe in him, who have ‘experienced the remission of their sins in and through Jesus’ sacrifice and so are enabled to participate in the salvation provided under the new covenant’ (William Lane).  

The disciples’ eating of the bread and drinking from the cup was also symbolic of their communal involvement in the benefits coming from the death of Christ. Jesus’ actions raised for his disciples the question of their identity. This is seen in two ways.  

Firstly, the Passover was a time of remembrance of God’s rescuing Israel as a nation from Egypt; Jesus in telling them to remember him was requiring that they now get their identity from being his people, and no longer as the descendants of those liberated from Egypt. Instead of recalling what had happened on the night of the Exodus they were to recall what had happened to Jesus when he laid down his life.  

Secondly, Jesus’ celebrating his meal with his followers rather than with his family points to a new relationship. The Passover was usually a family occasion, but here the disciples are reminded that their connection to Jesus has priority over earthly relationships. 

Jesus’ actions also raised for his disciples a further dimension as to the question of their loyalty. In a real sense, they had now come to the dividing line between their previous loyalties and their future dedication. Up until then it had been possible for them to be disciples of Jesus and still remain within the Jewish system; indeed Jesus himself had encouraged such participation. But here was a new test. Right at the onset of the Passover, probably the meal that indicated most clearly why they were Israelites called to serve God, Jesus initiates a replacement meal that would take priority over their connection to Israel. 

The institution of the Supper by Jesus stresses several things that we should note: 

• The various actions of the Lord’s Supper point to Jesus, particularly to his death. While it is the disciples who break the bread and drink the cup, they do these actions as symbolic of his voluntary death. Their action could also point to their responsibility in the sense of causing Jesus to have to die for their sins. 
• The Lord’s Supper depicts a substitutionary death by Jesus, in which he used language reminiscent of the Suffering Servant described in Isaiah 53. 
• The Lord’s Supper is a reminder of the new and permanent relationship believers have with God through the inauguration of the prophesied new covenant having come into reality. 
• The Lord’s Supper is a memorial. This is clear from Jesus’ command to his disciples that they remember him. 
• The Lord’s Supper is a communal act. It is not an action for individuals to engage in order to have fellowship with Jesus, as Bible reading or prayer can be. The Supper stresses the togetherness of those who are Christ’s disciples. Does this mean that a housegroup of believers or Christians living in the same street should have celebrations of the Lord’s Supper? The Gospel accounts don’t answer this question, but, as I will argue in the next section, the example of the church in Jerusalem in Acts 2 could indicate that it is appropriate for a large community of believers to have celebrations of the Lord’s Supper at which only a proportion of the believers are present. Indeed, there is no suggestion in Acts that the entire church in Jerusalem met together for any meeting. 
• The Lord’s Supper has a future aspect to it. This is brought out by Jesus’ statement that the kingdom of God is yet to come. As believers look back and remember Jesus through the symbols of bread and cup, they look ahead to what is also signified, the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:9). 
• The Lord’s Supper is a simple ritual, in that the occasion of its inauguration did not involve a great number or detail of rituals. 
• There was a time gap between the eating of the bread and the drinking of the cup. 
• The Lord’s Supper is associated with a meal (either the Passover or another meal) but distinct from it. 

The Lord's Supper in Acts

In the Book of Acts, the Lord's Supper is called 'the breaking of bread' (2:42; 2o:6-12). Some have argued that the phrase only means an ordinary meal, but it is hard to imagine Paul wanting to stay on in Troas merely to have a meal. In 2:42, the Lord's Supper is mentioned along with other corporate activities of the church. Since the activities took place in homes, it raises the question as to who led the services, given that the apostles could not be in every room. Unfortunately, Luke does not tell us.

The event in Troas is definitely a public worship service. It is interesting that the only title in the New Testament of a Christian service is given here, and it is breaking of bread. This, of course, means that Luke would have to find another term to describe most of our services. Luke's description also makes it clear that the Lord's Supper was held every Lord's Day, that on this occasion it was part of an evening service, that Paul preached and interacted with the congregation, and may have intermingled with them afterwards at a congregational meal. 

The Lord’s Supper in the Epistles 

Outside the writings of Paul, there are not many references to the Lord’s Supper in the epistles. Jude refers to love feasts, which presumably included the Lord’s Supper, in connection with false teachers (Jude 12). There may be a reference to the love feast or to the Supper in Revelation 3:20: ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.’ It is not clear that the risen Christ does have the Supper in mind, given that his focus is on an individual rather than a corporate meal. 

What is not often realised is that Paul’s description in 1 Corinthians 11 of the Lord’s Supper is the oldest account of its institution, since 1 Corinthians predated the earliest Gospel by about a decade. First Corinthians is also the only letter in the Pauline correspondence that refers to the Lord’s Supper. Nevertheless, it is likely that Paul gave instructions concerning the Supper in each of the churches founded by him. Paul’s two references to the Supper in 1 Corinthians 10 and 11 indicate that participation in the Supper has consequences regarding involvement in certain non-Christian social activities and in how rich and poor Christians behave towards each another.  

1 Corinthians 10 

In this chapter Paul responds to the practice of some Christians in Corinth of attending meals connected to pagan temple worship. He begins by mentioning the divine judgment that fell on the Israelites in the desert after they participated in pagan feasts, emphasising his point by noting that the Israelites had previously undergone a baptism into Moses and shared in divinely provided food and drink. The parallel between the Israelites and the Corinthians is obvious: the latter had been baptised into Christ and had been given spiritual food and drink in the Lord’s Supper, but because of their involvement with pagan religious meals they were in danger of divine judgment. Possibly, as Fee suggests, the Corinthians imagined that baptism and the Lord’s Supper had magical qualities of protection that secured them from any dangers arising from attendance at the pagan temples. 

Concerning the dangerous situation facing the Corinthian believers, and also believers living in other locations near to pagan temples, Ralph Martin has written: 'The custom of taking a meal in a shrine dedicated to a cult deity, or of receiving wine which had been formally offered as a libation to a cult god, was a very popular one in the ancient Greco-Roman world. An Oxyrhynchus papyrus dated in the second century ad may be cited as a striking parallel to such an invitation as we have recorded in 1 Corinthians x, 27[: "Chaeremon invites you to dinner at the table of our lord Serapis (the cult god) in the Serapeum tomorrow the 15th at nine o’clock." Such an invitation to a meal, whether in the temple or in a private house, would be commonplace in the social life of the city of Corinth. For converted men – and perhaps, at times more acutely, for converted women – there was a problem posed by this custom. Should a Christian join in these feasts (many of them, the Corinthian Church told Paul, were harmless – they were on a par with the lunch engagements of the modern business-man), or may a Christian housewife buy in the market meat that had been left over from the sacrifice?'

Paul makes it clear that sharing in these temple meals involved communion with the pagan gods (or the demonic powers behind these gods), which was similar, in a way, to the communion believers had with Christ at the Supper. Paul’s response was that it was incompatible for a person who had fellowship with Christ also to have fellowship with the demons behind the worship of the false god. This passage indicates that there is a real fellowship between Christ and his people at the Supper. Taking the bread and drinking the cup are acts of communion with Christ (10:16). As Richard Pratt comments, ‘Paul assumed a similar spiritual effect also took place between the demons and the worshippers in the idols’ temples, and he forbade participation in pagan ceremonies as a result.’  

Therefore, the Lord’s Supper was a separating ordinance. It not only gave identity to who or what Christians were, but it also required that they not identify with a group that would compromise what they had in Christ.  

1 Corinthians 11:17-34 

This is the only occasion in the Bible where the meal is referred to as ‘the Lord’s Supper’. The expression can suggest a number of meanings, for example, ‘the Supper belonging to the Lord,’ ‘the Supper hosted by the Lord,’ ‘the Supper which the Lord ordained,’ ‘the Supper at which the Lord’s body and blood are shared.’ Paul’s description of the practice in Corinth reveals that the Lord’s Supper was connected to a meal. His description also reveals that the entire church, particularly the poorer members, did not share in this meal. But what did Paul say the purpose and the meaning of the Supper is? 

The Lord’s Supper is a sacrificial meal, not in the sense that the participators are offering a sacrifice, but in the sense that they, in eating and drinking the elements of the bread and wine, participate in the benefits that Christ gives to them because of his sacrifice. This aspect of a sacrificial meal is evident from Paul’s contrasting the Supper with the pagan sacrificial meals associated with the temples in Corinth (1 Cor. 10:21). A parallel connection is Jesus’ relating the Supper to the Passover, which also involved a sacrificial meal. 

The Lord’s Supper is a communal meal. It is a meal that expresses the unity of the congregation. This emphasis is found in both of the 1 Corinthian passages, 10:14-22 and 11:18-34. In 1 Corinthians 10 Paul uses the bread not only as a symbol of Christ’s physical body but also as a symbol of Christ’s figurative body, the church. His argument is that the solidarity that the Supper brings to the unity of the congregation means it is not appropriate to engage in a meal associated with a false religion. Every believer is a partaker in the Lord’s body, that is, the church, and cannot therefore belong to a group that is linked to an alternative religion (Fee). The implications from this aspect of the communal meal are similar to those of the Supper as a sacrificial meal. 

In 1 Corinthians 11 the emphasis is slightly different, although Paul does use the image of body again. On this occasion he uses the image to argue for behaviour appropriate to those within the body whereas in 1 Corinthians 10 it was behaviour towards those outside the body. Usually, in the early church, the Lord’s Supper was part of a longer meal, the agape. In Corinth the wealthy believers were using this agape meal as an opportunity for gluttony and drunkenness; poor believers, some of whom would have been slaves, were deprived of a share in the agape and were being humiliated. Instead of indicating unity the meal in Corinth highlighted social diversity. Paul’s response was to instruct the wealthy believers to eat their normal menu at home, a response that also suggests that the agape was not essential for the Lord’s Supper to take place. He regarded the selfish behaviour of the wealthier believers in this regard as a great evil, for in abusing the poor they were despising the church of God. It is evident that Paul would not tolerate any activity connected to the Lord’s Supper that denied the visible unity of believers. 

The meal is also a proclamation that says something to those looking on. Donald Macleod notes that it is probable the early Christians did not sit in silence at the Supper. An account of what happened to Jesus was narrated, either from recollection or from written accounts. He also notes that Jesus gave instructions during the first Lord’s Supper. It was this combination of ritual (taking the bread and wine) and Word (reading the accounts) that Paul referred to by ‘proclaim’. Fee comments that ‘the verb “to proclaim” does not mean that the meal in itself is the proclamation, but that during the meal there is a verbal proclamation of Christ’s death. He supports this by noting that on every other occasion of its use in the New Testament the verb means to preach Christ or the gospel.  

Alan Stibbs, while affirming that partaking of the bread and wine was essential to the proclaiming, also suggests that there was a verbal confession of faith by the participants. He thinks that each believer, when taking the bread, ‘proclaimed the Christian significance of his participation’, by saying words such as, ‘I take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for me, and I feed on Him in my heart by faith with thanksgiving,’ and then said something similar regarding the cup.  

This combination of word and action suggests that the Lord’s Supper is an act of prophetic symbolism. Gordon Fee comments, concerning Jesus’ breaking the bread, that ‘for Jesus himself this is almost certainly a prophetic symbolic action, by which he anticipated his death and interpreted it in light of Isa. 53 as in behalf of others’ (p. 551). Old Testament prophets engaged in symbolic actions. Some actions were only illustrative of the accompanying message, such as when the prophet Ahijah tore a new garment into twelve pieces, gave ten to Jeroboam, thus indicating that he would be king of the ten northern tribes (1 Kings 11:29-40). A different type of symbolic action is detailed in the interview between Joash and Elisha in 2 Kings 13:15-17, which resulted in Joash being rebuked for only striking the ground three times with the arrows. Joash was not acting by divine command when he struck the earth three times, yet he is criticised for limiting himself to three strikes. Other symbolic actions include Isaiah’s walking naked and barefoot (Isa. 20:2-4), Ezekiel’s lying on his side (Ezek. 4:4-6), and Hosea’s marriage to Gomer (Hos. 1). The point of a symbolic action was to illustrate God’s purpose for his people, and indicated his initiative in their situation, whether it was a response of judgement or one of restoration. Some of the actions were unexplained until the prophet was asked concerning his unusual behaviour: for example, Isaiah walking barefoot and naked for three years was ‘a sign and portent against Egypt and Cush, so the king of Assyria will lead away the Egyptian captives and Cushite exiles’ (Isa. 20:3f.).   

It is possible that the disciples of Jesus, as they reflected on what he did in the Upper Room, would have concluded that Jesus there acted in a prophetic manner. His actions and words were typical of prophetic behaviour in that they were, as Steve Motyer observes, surprising and shocking, and yet powerful (p. 101). His actions with the bread and the cup, along with his words that accompanied them, were prophetic in the sense of the prophetic symbolism recorded in the Old Testament. 

Jesus is not visibly present at the Lord’s Supper. Yet the bread and wine are signs of his presence, speaking of and giving to us the blessings he obtained for his disciples through his death for them. Yet they have to be received by faith, otherwise nothing is given to them by Christ. The elements are prophetic signs promising pardon and fellowship to those who partake expectantly, believing that what is depicted will take place.  

In this age, all believers are prophets, a feature stressed by Peter in his sermon on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:17-18). This general prophetic status exists alongside the particular spiritual gift of a prophet that Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 12:28 and 14:1-40.  The general prophetic activity can be described as witness to society by word and deed, with the aim of producing a response in which a person asks Christians to explain their actions. The Lord’s Supper is one means of prophetic witness, although its nature means it is always a corporate witness. For example, their meeting together illustrates their reconciliation to God through the death of Christ and their reconciliation to one another in Christ. The failure of the church in Corinth to publicly display this unity by action meant that the accompanying word was not illustrated to observers, with the further effect that true prophetic symbolism was not performed. The unbelievers in Corinth would have asked why there were divisions at the Lord’s table, an indication that the believers were not functioning in a truly prophetic capacity. Prophetic symbolism is a reminder that the teaching contained in God’s Word must be lived out in the lives of his people.  

The Lord’s Supper is also a meal that anticipates another meal, the banquet that is to mark the coming of the eternal kingdom. There is a sense in which believers, because of the blessings of the new covenant, already enter partly into the blessings associated with this future age. But the fullness of that age will not be known until Jesus returns. The Bible often depicts that fullness by the image of a banquet (Luke 12:37; 22:29, 30; Rev. 19:9). Jesus indicated that he was anticipating this banquet when he said, as he instituted the Passover, that he would not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God would come (Luke 22:16-18). Matthew and Mark present Jesus as saying this after the taking of bread and wine, whereas Luke has him saying the words before they took the elements. This suggests that Jesus said this more than once during the evening meal and points to the stress he laid on this aspect of the Supper. The anticipation of believers, as they share the Lord’s Supper, should be one of joy. 

Paul mentions two other aspects of participating in the Lord’s Supper. First, he stresses the need for self-examination as part of the process of preparation for participating (1 Cor. 11:27-29). Second, he mentions the fact of divine judgment because of abuse of the Lord’s table (1 Cor. 11:27-32). 

Self-examination is a reminder that the Lord’s table is holy and that the guests are still sinful (the Lord’s Supper is an holy occasion because the Lord Jesus instituted it as an activity of his church and because he is present by the Holy Spirit). In a passage that has strong corporate emphases, Paul stresses this individual responsibility. Paul does warn against partaking of the Lord’s Supper in an unthinking and irreverent manner. His warning enjoins ‘seriousness and deliberation and at least that measure of hesitancy which regards preparation as indispensable’ (Macleod). 

The initial reason for self-examination is the Corinthians’ failure to discern the body, which may be a reference to the symbols of bread and wine or to the church as the body of Christ. Many manuscripts only say ‘body’ (as translated in the English Standard Version) and not ‘the Lord’s body’ (as translated in the King James Version). Blomberg suggests that the addition is a copyist’s attempt to explain the meaning of ‘body’, which also indicates that there was an acceptance in the early church that it referred to the symbols and not to the congregation. In further support of ‘body’ being a reference to the symbols of the bread and wine is its close proximity to the phrase ‘body and blood of the Lord’ in verse 28. 

Having said that, it is also the case that in previous references where Paul wishes to specifically use the term ‘body’ in connection to Christ or to the symbols of bread and wine he uses the necessary qualifiers, either of action (eat the bread and drink the cup, vv. 26, 27, 28) or of description (‘of the Lord’, v.27). 

The context also lends support to ‘body’ being a reference to the believers; Fee suggests that Paul is referring back to his mention of ‘body’ in 10:17. What Paul may have been doing here is using a term which pointed to both meanings. The Corinthians, in any case, failed in both these regards. With the former, they did not regard the meal as holy, and with regard to the latter, the affluent members mistreated the poorer members and so did not treat the body of Christians as should have been done.  

Paul does not expect self-examination to result in a person not partaking. His comment is, ‘Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat’ (11:28). This expectation is noteworthy given the lax procedures tolerated in Corinth. Paul anticipated that ‘any unworthy Christian would make the necessary amendments immediately’ (Macleod). 

Self-examination followed by appropriate behaviour will prevent divine chastisement. In Corinth, the chastisement involved illness and, in some cases, death (1 Cor. 11:30). There is a parallel between the judgment that fell on the Israelites who abused their spiritual food and drink and the judgment on the Corinthian Christians who abused the Lord’s Supper. The Israelites can be regarded as failing to respect the blessings that God gave them and also of failing to recognise that they were all set apart to be the Lord’s people, which made their sinful behaviour more serious. In the Lord’s Supper, believers are open to both divine blessing and divine chastisement – blessing for those who partake in faith, and chastisement for those who engage in the Supper with sinful aims and actions.   

Paul’s account gives no hint that a particular person was in charge of the Lord’s Supper. As Motyer notes, for Paul, ‘the antidote to disorder is not proper structures — the right words, the right leadership — but proper relationships, rightly understanding the respective roles of men and women in worship’ (p. 93). 

Paul’s short treatment of the Lord’s Supper highlights several crucial elements: 

• The Supper is communion with Christ. 
• The Supper is communion with and an expression of unity with all fellow believers, despite their various social standings. 
• The Supper is a proclamation of Christ’s death. 
• The Supper is a separating ordinance. 
• The Supper is an anticipation of the Messianic banquet. 
• Practices that may cause abuse, such as an accompanying meal, should cease if that is the only way to prevent the abuse.  
• Individual self-examination is essential preparation for sharing in the Supper. 
• Wrong partaking of the Supper will result in divine judgment.