Bread and wine

Two simple ingredients.
One very controversial meal.

Why is it that communion, or the Lord's Supper, or the Eucharist, has caused so much division between Christians over the past centuries?

Does it matter what we believe about the bread and the wine?

I've been thinking this through recently and I've come to the conclusion that it DOES matter. In fact, it is a crucial gospel issue.

Before Jesus Christ came, God had given His people the Law. The Law outlined God's requirements, and what the people were to do when they failed to keep those requirements. Through a priesthood and sacrificial system, the people could express their repentance and be accepted in God's sight.

'on this day atonement will be made for you, to cleanse you. Then, before the Lord, you will be clean from all your sins.' (Leviticus 16:30)

The Day of Atonement was an annual occasion which involved several rites and rituals:
-A bull and a ram were offered as a sin offering and a burnt offering respectively for the High Priest's sins
- The High Priest would wear a sacred tunic
- A goat would be sacrificed for the sins of the Israelites
- A different goat would have the sins of the Israelites confessed over it and then sent away into the wilderness (as a scapegoat)

If you read Leviticus 16 you will see there is minute detail given for where blood must be sprinkled over the atonement seat and the altar, and the washing rituals after the sacrifices take place.

When Jesus Christ came, everything changed. The Old Testament shows an awareness that the sacrificial system was not a permanent feature in God's plan. God was really interested in the attitude of the heart that made the sacrifice, which is why the prophets often criticise the people for sinning and then simply making a sacrifice without really repenting:

'"The multitude of your sacrifices— what are they to me?" says the LORD. "I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.' Isaiah 1:11

Isaiah 53 wonderfully prophesies of a day when the Lord's Servant will come and die for the sins of His people:

'But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all' (Isaiah 53:5-6)

Jesus was the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29). In dying on the cross, a completely innocent death, He was the ultimate sacrifice. He took upon Himself the punishment for our sins. And so the gospel message is this:

You either pay for your sins yourself

or

You let Jesus pay for them for you on the cross.

Just before His death, Jesus shared a "Last Supper" with His disciples. In it, He used the bread and wine to visually demonstrate to them what was going to happen to Him and why:

'And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me." In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.' (Luke 22:19-20)

After His death, Jesus appeared, resurrected, before two of His followers on the road to Emmaus. They did not recognise Him until He 'took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them' (Luke 24:30). Their eyes were opened and they realised the significance of what Jesus had done. It seems that the early church re-enacted Christ's Last Supper as Acts 2:42 says 'They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.'

The sharing of communion together, then, serves to remind us exactly what Jesus did for us on the cross. Its primary function is so that we remember the gospel: that 'Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God (1 Peter 3:18).

The New Testament letter to the Hebrews makes it clear that Jesus was not instigating another ritual or perpetuating the Jewish temple-priesthood-sacrificial system. That system had ended decisively with His death. The writer vividly contrasts the old system with the new way through Jesus:

'Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says:

"This is the covenant I will make with them
after that time, says the Lord.
I will put my laws in their hearts,
and I will write them on their minds." Then he adds:
"Their sins and lawless acts
I will remember no more."

And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water'. (Hebrews 10:11-22)

Jesus' death was enough to pay for all sins past, present and future. No other sacrifice needs to be made. And that sacrifice never needs to be repeated. It is done forever, and Christ is now exalted in heaven, worshipped by all the angels.

This means we can have utter confidence in approaching God, because we don't approach Him through our own merits, but through Christ's perfection. We can have assurance that we are accepted before Him through our assurance that Christ's sacrifice was accepted: this is shown because God raised Him from the dead (Acts 2:24).

So any theology of the Lord's Supper which suggests that it is a sacrifice we make to God, or that it is Christ's sacrifice repeated, goes fundamentally against the gospel. It's not about what we can bring to God; it is about trusting in what He has done for us.

A system of priesthood is also unhelpful, for in the Hebrews passage the role of High Priest is taken by Jesus. In the New Testament, the term 'priesthood' is applied to all believers (1 Peter 2:9)- unlike the Old Testament there is no separate strand of priests from the rest of the people.

Finally, I am not convinced that the celebration of communion in a ritualised setting is helpful either. It seems that Jesus designed the Last Supper to remind people of His death for them whenever they ate or drank- bread and wine were the staple of every meal. In the New Testament, the breaking of bread would have taken place in people's homes, around their table. Their fellowship was such that they ate together and remembered the Lord's death together.

The Lord's Supper is designed so that we are reminded to feed on Christ and receive Him. This is why Jesus said:
"I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you." (John 6:53)

It is no use believing in an abstract way that Jesus died for you. You need to actually receive Him and trust in Him, and that's why communion is aimed at believers. It is a vivid reminder that we need to keep on receiving Christ, keep on reading His Word and allow it to change us. We struggle with sin and we need to continually bring our sins to the cross, and leave them there.

There is a solemn warning for us in 1 Corinthians 11:27:
'Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.'

We can't go through the motions of receiving communion if, in our hearts, we are harbouring sin against God, or even worse, we have never really given our lives over to Him. Therefore communion was instigated by Jesus to remind us of our need to commit ourselves to Him, and to renew that commitment every time we eat physical food ie. all the time!