Bible Authority For The Lord's Supper

Having bible Authority means we recognize certain obligations. These obligations produce action in our lives. As children of God we have the obligation to spread the gospel, to edify the church, to save souls and to help those in need. The Bible by direct statement and example authorizes us to partake of the Lord’s Supper on the first day of the week.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26- NKJV- Institution of the Lord’s Supper

23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” 25 In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”

26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.

How was the Lord’s Supper instituted? Jesus was with His disciple’s in the upper room just before He was arrested. It was the time of the Passover feast for the Jews. The Passover feast was a memorial observed to remember God’s deliverance from centuries of Egyptian captivity and slavery. The story is repeated of how God’s angel passed over the houses of the Israelite’s sparing them on the night that death came to Egypt’s firstborn

Now we see Jesus instructing them concerning a new memorial feast. This feast would have two elements.

Matthew 26:26-NKJV- Jesus Institutes the Lord’s Supper

26 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.”

The eating of the bread is to remind us of Christ’s body it is a memorial to Christ’s sacrificial death. Have you ever wondered why we use unleavened bread, because it was used then by Christ? The Passover was the most important of Jewish festivals Seven days without any bread with a rising agent (yeast) in it. Matzah, a flat crisp slice of fairly tasteless unleavened bread in memory of the great escape from Egypt. So swift that there was no time for their homemade bread to rise.

Deuteronomy 16:3-4-NKJV

3 You shall eat no leavened bread with it; seven days you shall eat unleavened bread with it, that is, the bread of affliction (for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste), that you may remember the day in which you came out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life. 4 And no leaven shall be seen among you in all your territory for seven days, nor shall any of the meat which you sacrifice the first day at twilight remain overnight until morning.

There is a reason for everything!

Matthew 26:27-29-NKJV

27 Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. 28 For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. 29 But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.”

The drinking of this fruit of the vine both reminds us and teaches us. It reminds us of Jesus’s ultimate sacrifice and shedding His blood for us. It helps to teach us that only through the shed blood of Christ can we have forgiveness of sins.

Romans 6:3-6-NKJV

3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

The Lord’s Supper is a living memorial to Christ. All attention should be on Christ as we remember the cross and celebrate the freedom from sin he paid for us with his own blood.

Does the Bible authorize when to partake of the Lord’s Supper? Paul instructed the church at Corinth when to partake of it.

1 Corinthians 11:26- NKJV

26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.