Holy Communion

Holy Communion Part 1 of 2

Key Scripture for series: 1 Corinthians 11:23-32 (NKJV)

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.

27 Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.

28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

29 For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.

30 For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep.

31 For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged.

32 But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world.

Jesus, as the Head of the Church, left us with two ordinances that we, as Christians and believers in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross, are to observe and practice on a regular basis until He comes. The ordinances are water baptism and Holy Communion. These are a proclamation of Jesus’s death, but also of His resurrection and His return to earth, which is imminent. Holy Communion is the most solemn ordinance that we as a church have been instructed to observe, as it was instituted by Jesus on the night in which He was betrayed. Let’s go a bit deeper with this in the sense of studying the Old Testament origins of this and then go into the context of what Paul is actually saying to the Church of Corinth.

1. The origin of Holy Communion in the Old Testament

Gen 14:18 Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine, he was the priest of God most High.

Who was Melchizedek? He was a believer in the most high God and Jesus is called a priest after the order of Melchizedek. (Psa 110:4) His name probably means my God is just. Bread and wine were staples of everyday use, but here it signifies God delivering Abraham and his troops from five kings that were out to destroy him. Melchizedek bringing forth bread and wine is a foreshadow of Jesus coming to deliver us from sin and death. (Heb 5-9)

Exodus 12:1-11 (NKJV)

1 Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying,

2 “This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you.

3 Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: ‘On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household.

4 And if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of the persons; according to each man’s need you shall make your count for the lamb.

5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats.

6 Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight.

7 And they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it.

8 Then they shall eat the flesh on that night; roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.

9 Do not eat it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roasted in fire—its head with its legs and its entrails.

10 You shall let none of it remain until morning, and what remains of it until morning you shall burn with fire.

11 And thus you shall eat it: with a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. So you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover.

Let’s look at this quickly. When God gave the command to Israel to celebrate Passover, they were in slavery in Egypt, and after He had sent plagues on Egypt, Pharaoh said the Israelites can go; but every time he hardened his heart. Now God had to intervene and the manner He chose to do so is by sending an angel of death that would strike every firstborn child in the land of Egypt. The Israelites were to celebrate Passover by eating a lamb that had no defect and put some of the blood on the two doorposts as well as the lintels of the house in which they were eating the Passover. The purpose of this is that when God saw the blood, it fulfilled the demand fore atonement by blood and was a shadow of the blood of Jesus being shed for our sins.