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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/frank-sona/the-lords-supper/
Turn with me to the Gospel of Matthew chapter 26. We've heard about an altar and the Lord Jesus and what I want to take up. He is, if I can put it this way, He is heading to the altar. He is going to die.
He is going to go to the cross and then what He is going to institute for following that will be a memorial of what we are to do in remembrance of His death on that cross. And so I want to look at the subject of the Lord's Supper.
So, Matthew chapter 26 and verse 17. Now the first day of the feast of unleavened bread, the disciples came to Jesus saying unto Him, Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the Passover? And He said, Go into the city to such a man and say unto him, The Master saith, My time is at hand.
I will keep the Passover at thy house with my disciples. And the disciples did as Jesus had appointed them and they made ready the Passover. Now the Lord Jesus then speaks about the one who is going to betray Him, of course Judas and so on.
Now let's go down to verse 26. And as they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed it and break it and gave it to the disciples and said, Take, eat, this is my body. And He took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them saying, Drink ye all of it.
For this is my blood of the new covenant, the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, so we know what the contents of the cup is now, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.
So there is a reference to His absence, almost if we could say a period of Nazariteship where the Lord Jesus is removing Himself from the pleasures, from the company of His people in that way. And He looks at it just as a Nazarite couldn't drink of the fruit of the vine.
He is saying, I'm removing myself from this, but I will drink it new. There will be a time when the days of my vow will be fulfilled. And so keeping that in mind, let's go over now to, there's many passages we could read, but Acts chapter 2, book of Acts chapter 2, and verse 41,.
Then they that gladly received His word were baptized, and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, and in the fellowship, and in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers.
Chapter 20, chapter 20 and verse 6,. And we sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread, and came unto them to Troas in five days, where we abode seven days. And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow, and continued his speech until midnight.
I read this passage here in particular for two reasons. Number one is it tells us that it was upon the first day of the week. Number two, it tells us it was in connection with a company of believers. But number three, it tells us in back-to-back verses that the bread that they used was not unleavened bread.
Because there are individual companies that insist that the bread that is used for the breaking of bread, or the Lord's Supper, is unleavened bread. And they almost pull that as a type from the Old Testament, saying that, well, that's a picture of the Lord Jesus, and He was unleavened.
There was no leaven in Him, no sin, because leaven is a picture of sin and its influence. That is not what the Feast of Unleavened Bread means anyway. And if you go ahead to 1 Corinthians 5 and back to Leviticus 23, you will see that the Feast of Unleavened Bread is what came out of the keeping of the Passover, and it is the reflection of the holy lives of believers.
And so that's why in 1 Corinthians 5, the Apostle Paul says, let us keep the feast. That is not the breaking of bread. That is not the Lord's Supper in 1 Corinthians 5. That is the life of the believer.
He says, let us keep the feast, not with the leaven of malice and wickedness, right? But then he says, with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. For Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.
So we are given in 1 Corinthians 5 the fulfillment of those two feasts. So I read that here because if there was any place in our New Testament where the Spirit of God had the absolute perfect segue to tell us and show us that we should be using unleavened bread in the breaking of bread, it would be right here.
Because the word is in verse 6. He says, but we sailed away during the days of unleavened bread, and we went to Troas, and he says, where we broke bread. Two different distinct words. The one word where they broke bread in Troas, in verse 7, is common bread.
The word in verse 6 is unleavened bread. And I hope it is no surprise to every one of us that the word that is exclusively used in the Gospels, in the synoptics, because we don't have it in the Gospel of John, every time when we read in Matthew chapter 26, when you read in Mark chapter 14 and Luke chapter 22, you will read that it is the same word.
When the Lord Jesus broke bread. This bread is the word common bread. It is not the word for unleavened bread. So someone starts to say, well, I don't understand. They weren't supposed to have leaven in their homes.
How could he be using leavened bread? The great truth of the matter is this, dear brethren, the Lord Jesus was not piggybacking off some Old Testament feast. He was making a break, a distinction, introducing something new.
And that's why we have that word there. Now, lest I get further off track here, let's go to 1 Corinthians chapter 10. 1 Corinthians chapter 10. And in chapter 10 and in chapter 11, we have again bookends of the Lord's Supper that are presented to us from two distinct vantage points, yet representing the same thing.
In chapter 10, we are seeing the Lord's Supper, which is called the Lord's Table, from the vantage point of what God has given to us. And in chapter 11, it is from the vantage point of what we are giving to him.
Chapter 10, we have the jealousy of God. And so the exclusivity of that table, as God is a jealous God and does not want his people having mixed fellowships with that which is mutually exclusive to the truth of what we are, whose we are, what we have been brought into, and what we are doing.
And so we'll read this in chapter 10 and verse 15, I speak as to wise men, judge ye what I say, the cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion or the fellowship of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?
For we, being many, are one bread and one body. What is he talking about there? He's talking about the bread that is on the table. He's talking about that bread that the assembly breaks, and it is representative of two things.
Number one, it is representative, of course, of the body of Christ that was broken or given. Number two, it is representative of the oneness of the company and the commonality, the fellowship, as they each partake one with another and break each one, men and women, young and old, exclusive of anyone who is an elder, who is a deacon, who is a preacher, everyone is one.
And they are expressing the oneness and the fellowship of that company. And he says, we, being many, are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread. Now let me just pause one more time here to say something else.
There are a number of good brethren, good writers, and good men that have taught that this is the table of the Lord. Because then he goes on to say, in verse, if we just keep reading, for we, being many, are one bread.
Verse 18, Behold Israel after the flesh, are not they which eat of the sacrifices, partakers of the altar? What say I then, that the idol is anything, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is anything?
But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. And I would not that you should have fellowship with demons or devils. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils.
You cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and of the table of devils. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? And there are many that teach that this is the Lord's table, and they will go back to Psalm 23, suggesting it has nothing to do with Psalm 23.
It's lovely how people take passages that have no bearing, and because they have the same word, mix them together. Now, there is a principle of fellowship and communion, and David does write in Psalm 23 that he has prepared a table for me in the presence of mine enemies, and that's certainly true in that sense what's happening here, but I don't think it's a stretch at all to clearly see that this is something that is only to be carried out by a New Testament assembly gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus.
So that people who teach that the Lord's table is the truth of the enjoyment of fellowship that is open to all believers is not true, because there are many, many, many believers in this world that have never done this.
They have never broken bread. They have never partaken of the cup, and that's to their loss, but it is clear from this teaching here that this is in conjunction with a local assembly, and he begins his letter by writing to the church of God, which is at Corinth.
So he's writing to a local assembly, and as he progresses through this letter, for example in chapter 4, he is going to write to the Corinthians and tell them that this is not something that I'm, it's a one-off that I'm teaching to you at Corinth.
This is what I teach everywhere in every place. I teach the same thing. Now keeping that in mind, let's go to chapter 11 for a moment, because he says the same thing in verse 15, 16 rather, but if any man seemed to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God.
Now chapter 11 is a very significant chapter in your Bible, because it brings like bookends to fundamental lines of teaching. The first half of the chapter is connected with headship. The second half of the chapter is connected with the fellowship of the assembly expressed in the Lord's Supper.
Now you say, why is that? I wonder why he put those two lines of truth together. Well, if you were to read verse 3 of chapter 11, let's read that,. But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God.
Now keep that in mind. Just file that away right now. The head of Christ is God. Now let's go over to the second half of chapter 11 and verse 23. 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 broke 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. Now he stops there, quoting the Lord Jesus. Paul is now going to add the next, The Lord Jesus did not say this, Paul said it. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death till he come.
Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily or in an unworthy manner shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread.
That examination is not to exclude a person. That examination is to evaluate that person in light of what he's doing. And so let him eat. It says we should judge ourselves and so on. So keeping that in mind, I would like to just mention a few things about the Lord's Supper because there could be a tendency for us to relegate this function, this great sublime activity of the local church to something that is just done again and again and again.
And we come and we lose sight that this activity, this feature, this function is one of the sublimest expressions of truth given to us in our New Testament. As I think about it, it expresses at least seven foundational lines of doctrine that are expressed in the breaking of bread or the Lord's Supper.
For example, it expresses the truth of incarnation. Incarnation. The bread which we're breaking, it's my body. How did the Lord Jesus get his body? In incarnation. And so it expresses the truth of incarnation.
I am that bread which came down from heaven. And expressing that truth of incarnation is also seen in the beginning of chapter 11. That's why we read the head of Christ is God. It could not say, and it does not say, the head of Christ is his Father.
That is, always will be, always has been, an eternal relationship that is enjoyed between the Father and the Son. Never had a beginning, never had an end. But the statement, the head of Christ is God, had a beginning.
And that beginning takes us back to a prophetic quotation in the book of Psalms, Thou art my God from my mother's belly. Of no other man that could be said, but of him it could be. A body hast thou prepared me.
Lo, I come to do thy will, O God, in the volume of the book it is written of me. So the truth of 1 Corinthians chapter 11, the first half of the chapter, brings us to the great truth of his incarnation, Christ becoming a man.
The head of Christ is God. And then we have that expression of rank and order in terms of headship. The second half of the chapter takes us to the truth of what? The Lord's Supper, which means what? As often as you break this bread and drink this cup, you do show what?
The Lord's death, till he come. It is impossible to show his death until he became a man. So the two ends of the chapter are like book ends. Now keeping that in mind, the Lord's Supper expresses the great truth of his incarnation.
It expresses the truth of his identification. I am that bread. I am his deity, the great one who came and became a man in the mystery of incarnation and the mystery of godliness. God manifests in flesh.
It expresses the great truth of prophecy and the Passover and the feasts and the line of truth that was given to us right from the beginning without the shedding of blood. There's no forgiveness, no remission of sin.
It expresses the truth of substitution. This is my body which is given for you. This is my blood which is shed for you. The great truth of substitution is expressed in the Lord's Supper. The great truth of resurrection is expressed in it.
Do this until he come. He can't come again if he stayed in the grave. So he's risen. Truth of resurrection. The truth of his return. Do this until he come. He's coming. His return. And it as well takes us beyond as the Lord Jesus says to his own, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until I drink it new with you in my father's kingdom.
It is the truth of the kingdom. It is the truth as well of covenant theology, covenant teaching because it was the new covenant that was ratified in his blood and that was given. That ratification was given with the insignia of that cup.
And so these are tremendous lines of truth. There are three places that are particularly associated with the Lord's Supper that are of tremendous significance. One place, of course, is the first is Jerusalem.
When the Lord Jesus broke the bread in that upper room, the place of Jerusalem. And in Jerusalem as he breaks that bread and initiates or institutes the Lord's Supper, it is going to be linked with a setting aside of the past.
The setting aside of the past. And just as in our book of Acts, when the place of Jerusalem fades off the scene and Antioch takes its place as the center, so the old is fading off. The next place we read of is in Acts 20, which we read and that's Troas.
And in Troas, the emphasis now is on the singular aspect of the place. They had to wait to break bread. They couldn't break bread on board the ship, even though there were notable celebrities at that time, like Dr. Luke and the Apostle Paul.
It's not the significance of the people that gives the ability to carry this out. It's the significance of the person in his place. New Testament assembly. That is why the breaking of bread in the Lord's Supper isn't carried out by believers as they go on holidays or vacation.
It isn't conducted on a table that would be set up for convenience. It is established to be carried out where there is a local company of believers that have been gathered together in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, a New Testament assembly.
That breaking of bread, in fact, it does not make the fellowship of that company, but it expresses the fellowship of that company that already exists and is taking place. The third place is Corinth. And Corinth would tell us, as Jerusalem tells us about the setting aside of the past, Troas tells us about the singular aspect of that place.
Corinth would tell us of the specific authority of the pattern. I have received from the Lord, and several times in that passage in 1 Corinthians 11, the authority of what has been committed, commissioned, and handed down authoritatively by the Lord to be carried out.
It is the Lord's Supper. It is an integral part of an assembly and of assembly fellowship, and it expresses the fellowship of that company. So there are sometimes terms that are used to places that would have been expressed as an open table.
People say, well, they have an open table. And what they mean, basically, by that expression is that there are certain places that will carry out the Lord's Supper in their thinking, and it is on the basis of the one body.
In other words, of people being saved. You're saved. You can come. You can break bread. And that's between you and God. You examine yourself, and it's between you and God. That actually is really destructive to the very meaning of what's being done, because what's being done is expressing a fellowship of an entire company.
And yet for individuals to turn around and say, well, this is between you and God. What you're doing is between you and God. It's almost like we don't want anything to do with it, but it's between you and God.
How can that be? If I'm taking that bread from you, and I'm giving that to you, we are expressing a cohesiveness, an agreement together, a joint participation and a bond that is spiritually based on agreement of the Word of God and Christ's Lordship.
And we have been received to something that will do that on a continual basis and is expressed by what we're doing. So, the expression of a company having an open table is really not correct, number one, because it's really an open fellowship.
It's not just relegated to the table. It goes beyond that. And that is not a scriptural basis for a company to exist. I want you to think of three things. Number one, the Lord's Supper, what it does. It expresses our unity by our action.
It expresses our unity by our action. There is the consistency, we being the many. In 1 Corinthians 10, there's actually a definite article before the word many. It's a specific group of many. It's not just many, it's the many, the specific many that are part of that assembly.
I'm not even going to say part of that assembly. It is that assembly. It is the many as opposed to all believers everywhere. They are a specific group of believers who now make up the many in that locality.
And so, it expresses, this action expresses our unity, their unity. It expresses our unity by, in terms of activity, our identity. Ye being many are one bread, one body. Now, there are different bodies in our New Testament.
There's the physical body. There's this body. There was the physical body of the Lord Jesus. A body hast thou prepared me. But basically, it's talking about the human body. There is the resurrection body, which all people will have, not just believers, but unbelievers too, will have a resurrection body.
One that will be perfectly suited to our destinations eternally. So, if there's anyone, and you're not saved here today, please listen to this warning. If you remain in your sins, you will receive a body that will be perfectly suited to your destination, for the destination of the lake of fire.
And those of us that are saved, we are going to receive a body that will be perfectly suited like unto His glorious body, that will be perfectly suitable for where we are going to be with Him. There is also the universal body, we will call it, the body of Christ that began at Pentecost and will be completed at the rapture when the entire building fitly framed together that is growing right now as every believer is added to that monumental distinctive body, the body of Christ.
And then there is the local assembly, which is referred to in chapter 10 as a local body of believers. And so, it expresses our unity by our action. And what we are doing in our action is we are taking, we are giving thanks, we are breaking one with another, we are sharing, we are eating.
And eating in our Bibles is indicative of fellowship, of communion. And incidentally, maybe I should just give one aside here. The Bible tells us, the New Testament tells us about the within and without.
Several passages refer to that expression, the within and without. The elders, for example, are to have a good report, a good testimony to them that are without. In 1 Corinthians 5, the Apostle Paul in writing to the assembly says, you judge them for the assembly is responsible to judge them that are within.
He says, you leave those that are without to God. What is he saying? He is saying that there is a realm of the fellowship and everything that is included in the fellowship of that local assembly, that local church is within.
And everything outside that fellowship of that local assembly and other local assemblies gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus is without. That includes believers as well as unbelievers. So, the question is asked in relation now to in chapter 14 of 1 Corinthians, and I am touching on this only because it seems to be becoming more and more a hot topic, the seat or the place of the unlearned.
I am trying to cram in here, but I will. In chapter 14 of 1 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul is writing and he says, if you speak with tongues and there come in those that are unlearned or unbelievers and you speak with tongues, they do not understand you, he said, they will say you are mad.
He says, how is the person that is occupying the place of the unlearned able to say amen at your giving of thanks if he does not know what you are saying? Now, what does it take to say thank you? It is the most basic thing, right?
We want to teach our children. I hope we are all teaching our children to say thank you. It is very important. It is just a common courtesy. It is the most basic thing. Well, what Paul is saying is this, if you are speaking in tongues there and there are those who are in the seat of the unlearned, if they are not even able to enter into what you are saying in the most basic aspect and say amen to your being thankful, how do you expect them to learn what God wants them to learn in that place?
And that is an actual place, the place of the unlearned. That is why in assemblies that we are in fellowship with, we would have in the breaking of bread a place where people can observe. They can look on, they can watch, they can learn what God wants them to learn.
It is not, dear Christian, and I know we do not believe this because the Bible certainly does not teach it, it is not a place for second-rate people. It is not a place that is derogatory. It is the highest university in this world apart from God's assembly.
And people are to learn what that man in chapter 14 learned. God is among you of a truth. He is able to hear and understand that the presentation of truth brings about conviction in his soul, that he is convicted of all that will speak.
Not everything he has done, but all that he hears and all that he sees. And that is very interesting that that is coming in a letter to the Corinthian assembly. Because of all places, you would have thought he did not see anything good there.
So brethren, that is a good thing for us to get a hold of when we become maybe discouraged, depressed, down because things are not going right where we are and we wish it was better and we wish this was happening.
If that could be seen in Corinth and at least the ideal to be seen, then it can still happen where we are. I do not know many places though, however, and maybe it is a testimony to our weakness spiritually in local assemblies and our lack of spirituality.
I do not know many places where people come in off the street, they see what is happening and they fall on their face and say, God is among you of a truth. But according to 1 Corinthians 14, it could happen.
Have you ever seen it? If you have not, maybe we should ask ourselves why? Why we are not seeing it? But let me just say one more thing about this place of the unlearned because it is an actual place.
The word in 1 Corinthians 14 is a place. It is used 92 times in our New Testament. It is used over and over again for specific geographical locations. It is used of when the Lord Jesus refers to heaven and he says, I go to prepare a place for you.
It is used of hell where that rich man went to hell and he says, I have five brothers and he says, they are up there and I do not want them to come to this place of torment. It is not a spiritual vantage point.
It is not simply a perspective of the mind. It is used of Calvary. In Luke chapter 23, when they were come to the place which is called Calvary, was Calvary a spiritual vantage point? Thank God for Calvary.
It is an actual place. And so as individuals look on, that is why that person says, God is among you of a truth. He did not say God is among us as if he was included in that group. He knew distinctively he was not.
Now, the next question that is begged, if you are following me with this, is this. Well, if the within and without exists all the time, and it does, it is 24 -7, we are not gathered together 24 -7. People say, I am gathered to the Lord's name.
No, you are gathered to the Lord's name when you are gathered. But you are in the fellowship 24 -7. So why is it at the Lord's Supper that seems to be the only place where this geographical separation of the within and without is expressed?
I am sure you have asked yourself that. Think of what you are doing at the breaking of bread. Think of what we are all doing in the Lord's Supper. We are all visibly, proactively engaged in expressing the truth of the entirety of this company.
I am taking the bread from you. I am passing it to you. I am taking the cup and so on. And we are expressing a homogenous agreement with every single believer, a oneness that is unlike any company in this world because it cannot be made by man.
It is made by God. And what we are doing now is expressing that oneness as individuals look on. That is why the place of the unlearned is so visible at the breaking of bread because of that. So it expresses our unity by our action.
Number two, it enhances our unity by our awareness. It enhances our unity by our awareness. There is an examination that is done. Let a man examine himself and so let him eat. Do you do that? Do we do that?
A continuous self-evaluation, an examination, what I am handling, what I am doing, what I am involved with. Is it expressing the truth of this fellowship, of his lordship? Is my life consistent or are the places I go to, the activities I am engaged in, the things I listen to, the things I watch, are they inconsistent with what I am handling, what I am doing, what I am seeing, what I am hearing?
It is not meant to exclude. It is meant to conform us more so that we will be more pleasing in his sight in what we are doing. And so individually there is examination. Corporately, there is cooperation as well.
That there is a unity among the believers. That every chain, listen, you are hanging a metal chain, every chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Do you understand that? Every chain is as strong as its weakest link.
So we as believers, if there is very little interest, if there is no worship, if there is no participation, if men aren't even rising to their feet and giving thanks to God as believer priests, then there is a weakness.
And we are working hand in hand with one another. So are there any disagreements among believers? Are there any, is there any animosity? Are there, is there exclusivity? Are there cliques? Are there this?
There are things that individuals are moving toward and others are moving away from. That breaking of bread expresses the unity and oneness of that assembly fellowship, corporately. Doctrinally, it says we are in agreement, our persuasion.
Spiritually, it expresses the realization of who He is as Lord. Lastly, it extols our unity by our attraction, our attraction and our affection. I wish I could say more on this. I want to leave about 20 minutes, so I'm just going to say this.
You do show the Lord's death till He come. We say, what are we doing when we do that? Well, we're showing it to angels. Yeah, that's true. We're showing it, proclaiming it to the world. That's true too.
But we're showing it to Him. We're showing it to Him. Every memorial, every remembrance that people have over a dead person, a person that's died, as far as I know, that person, he's not there. He's dead.
We have memorial services. We have remembrance day and so on. And we're thankful for men who have given their lives, but they know nothing of what we're doing. He does. And every Lord's Supper is a living memorial to the one who has died for us, and He's present, and He sees it, and He hears, and He appreciates.
My God, help us that we might carry this out with the understanding of these simple thoughts on the Lord's Supper.