Dr. Rodney Plunket

It is a little word and easy to miss.  It is the word “until.”  It is used to locate something in future time, and it plays a significant role in many biblical passages.  But I just want to focus on the New Testament (NT) passages that have to do with the Lord’s Supper.

You see, all of the NT passages which describe the Lord’s Supper use the word “until.”  Please turn to Mt 26:27-29 to see how the Gospel accounts of the Last Supper use the word “until.”  At this point in the Last Supper story, Jesus has already distributed the bread of the Supper to his apostles.  He then gives thanks for the cup and distributes it with these words.

“Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.  I tell you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”

This phrase, including the word “until,” is also found in Mark and Luke’s accounts of the Last Supper of our Lord.

The “until” used by Jesus in these gospel accounts is intended to create a longing within us––a longing for that day when Jesus will drink the fruit of the vine with us in His Father’s kingdom, drink it for the first time since His death.  We should long for that “until” to reach its fulfillment and to be “until”/to be future no more.

What I want you to see is that the Lord’s Supper has a dual focus.  It focuses the believer toward the past.  It focuses us upon the death of Jesus Christ.  However, as the word “until” makes clear, our eyes are not to be trained exclusively upon the death of Jesus in the past.  Our eyes are also to look forward with great anticipation to the time when we will all share the cup of our Lord with our Lord around God’s heavenly table.  Until . . . I can hardly wait until.

But there is one other description of the Supper in the NT.  This one comes from the pen of Paul.  It is found in 1 Corinthians (1Cor) 11:17ff.  Please turn to 1Cor 11 because we will spend the remainder of our time in this chapter.

Please look first at v 26.  There Paul writes, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”  “Until He Comes.”  Through the bread and the cup we “proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.”  Notice the dual focus.  When we partake of the Supper of the Lord we proclaim the Lord’s death; that is the focus toward the past.  But again we can see the future-focused aspect of the Supper; we “proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”  Paul here helps us see that the Lord’s Supper is a meal eaten in the hope that the sound of a trumpet and the coming of Jesus Christ will interrupt it.

But let’s look further at 1Cor 11.  What we will see is that the past and the future focus are supposed to converge and shape the way we eat this special meal in the here and now.

But before we look further we should note that 1 Corinthians 11:17ff can be difficult for a contemporary reader.  This passage can be difficult because it reflects a first-century context for the Lord’s Supper, and that context is different from ours today.  During that early period of time the bread and the cup were prayed over and distributed in conjunction with a common meal, a fellowship meal.

When we realize that and then study 1Cor 11:17ff we discover that in Corinth neither the fellowship meal nor the Lord’s Supper were being observed in a positive way.  Let’s read verses (vv) 20-22:

When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper.  For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk.  What!  Do you not have homes to eat and drink in?  Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?  What should I say to you?  Should I commend you?  In this matter I do not commend you!

The picture is the exact opposite of a fellowship meal.  The Greek word translated into English as fellowship is koinonia, and it means commonness.  This meal was supposed to express mutuality, commonality, and unity in Christ; but that is not what was happening in Corinth.  The picture drawn by Paul here is difficult for scholars to recreate with precision, but what seems to have been happening is that some members of the congregation had their own semi-private meals together.  They would arrive and start eating their sumptuous meals together without waiting for the others, and some or all of those others were poor and/or slaves.  So some members of that church were making pigs of themselves while others were humiliated by the little or nothing which they had to eat.

What I want us to notice is that the inability of these Christians to treat each other as one in Christ during their fellowship meal had serious consequences with regard to the Lord’s Super.  Their disunity meant that the bread and the fruit of the vine could not really be called the Lord’s Supper.  It could not, Paul makes clear, because their attitude to one another was so foreign to the intended nature of the Supper.

Please look with me at vv 27-29 and I think that you will see what I mean.

Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord.  Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup.  For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves.  For this reason many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.

Paul wants his Corinthian readers to look at themselves in the light of Christ.  He wants them to realize that the way in which they are eating the fellowship meal completely undermines their ability to partake of the Lord’s Supper in any but a harmful way.  Because of their attitudes toward one another, their observance of the Lord’s Supper has brought them under divine judgment.  Paul, in v 30 says, that it is because of their evil attitudes that many of them “are weak and ill, and some have died.”

In v 29 Paul refers to “discerning the body,” and there has been some confusion about what that means.  In context, it seems to me quite clear that Gordon Fee is correct when he connects it back to 1Cor 10:16-17 where Paul says,

The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ?  The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ?  Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.

With Fee, I believe that Paul’s words about Christians discerning “the body” in 1Cor 11:29 are to motivate his readers to discern the relationship between the body of Christ, represented by the bread, and the body of Christ which is Christ’s church.  In other words, Paul wants the Christians in Corinth to see how wrong it is to take the bread, which symbolizes Christian unity, when they are divided and so insensitive to one another.

That brings us to the Supper which we will eat together very shortly.  Please hear and embrace the words of Paul as we partake.  Focus upon Christ’s death.  Focus upon Christ’s return.  Allow this supper truly to proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.  But also allow that past and that future focus to become real in the present by connecting lovingly, humbly to one another.  If this meal really is a time when we proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes, then we will love those whom Jesus died to save, those whom He will take with Him to glory when He comes again.  Paul’s words make clear that we cannot claim to have embraced the past and future realities of the Supper if we have not embraced the present experience of unity and love which those realities are to create and nurture.

Adam is going to lead my favorite Lord’s Supper song now to prepare our minds and hearts for the Supper of the Lord.  Adam, come lead us.

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