I think it was last Wednesday night that Brother Berg mentioned talking to some Baptist preacher. The subject of the Lord’s Supper came up, and eventually the questions focused on the difference between open and closed communion. If I heard and understood correctly, that other man asked whether or not the Apostle Paul would be permitted to observe the Lord’s Table at our church. When he was given a negative answer, the man exploded in self-righteous indignation. That reaction points out the fact that the Lord’s Supper is not often fully examined these days, even among professing Baptists.
The title “Lord’s Supper” is found only once in the Bible – I Corinthians 11:20. In that chapter Paul looks back on what we read here in Matthew 26, and then talks about the way that the Corinthian church was commemorating and abusing that commemoration. But of course, here in our opening scripture, what takes place is not given a name or title. It is not “communion,” “the Lord’s Supper,” or “the Lord’s Table” & certainly not “a celebration of the mass.” Christ and His disciples simply flow from the Passover Meal into an allegorical statement that Jesus was to be slain and that His blood would soon be shed for the salvation of His elect. “For this is my blood of the new Testament which is shed for many for the remission of sin.” Paul will quote that verse to the church in Corinth adding, “as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.”
As suggested by the reaction of that pastor to the words of Brother Berg, there are apparently a lot of people who don’t understand the restrictions which the Bible places on the Lord’s Supper. Briefly this afternoon, using both Matthew and Corinthians, I’d like to point out some of those restrictions. The Lord’s supper is HIS supper, and we must go by the Lord’s rules. No amount of brotherly love can permit us bend the principles that God has laid down. Just as we wouldn’t dare tell a sincere Muslim or Hindu that he is going to Heaven through his false faith, we can’t let someone eat Lord’s Supper thinking it will save his soul, or make him a better person. And similarly, there are rules in place for even the proper observance of this ordinance.
For example, the Lord’s supper should be observed with special bread and the fruit of the vine.
The first and only time that Christ Jesus ate the Lord’s Supper it was the night of the Passover meal. The Old Testament gets pretty specific about the ingredients of that special, annual supper. There were general restrictions placed upon the Israelite’s diet, but at ordinary meals, there could still be a lot of variety. But not on the night remembering the Passover. The menu included roasted lamb or goat, bitter herbs, fruit of the vine and bread.
“The Passover” was the first day of the “Feast of Unleavened Bread,” and by the command of God, only bread without yeast could be served on that night. Throughout the Word of God, leaven has been used as an illustration of sin. It was not usually sin in itself, but it was used as an illustration of sin. However, from the Passover on through the next week, it really was sin in the sight of God to be eating bread which had been raised with leaven or yeast. Not only was Israel supposed to be living sin-free – since this bread depicted the body of Christ, the illustration extended to the perfect purity and sinlessness of Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus was impeccable – without sin – and without the ability to sin. “He did no sin, neither was there guile in his mouth.”
There is no reason or excuse to use anything but unleavened bread in the observance of the Lord’s Supper. I think that it would be sacrilegious – heretical – to serve Pizza and Coca-Cola at the Lord’s Table. Everyone may love cookies, ice cream, and a chocolate milk shake, but such things would be inappropriate for the Lord’s Supper. In fact, I will stick my neck out and say that a mouth-watering rack of roasted lamb would not be right, simply because that was not what the Lord used, nor was it of what Paul spoke.
The second ingredient which we see Christ use was simply styled “the cup.” Matthew, Mark, Luke and Paul all use the word “cup” rather than any other term. At Calvary Baptist, the cups which we use are filled with unfermented fruit of the vine – grape juice. I acknowledge that this is one of the things which seriously divide otherwise friendly Baptists. I have heard self-propelled experts, on both sides hotly debate the subject – wine or juice, wine or juice. But I am not going to join that debate and divide God’s people any more than they already are. Yet I can’t picture Christ using something intoxicating, when Bible clearly tells us not to. The Bible commanded the priest not to drink fermented wine in his religious service. This came up after Nadab and Abihu apparently were emboldened to sin, while under the influence. Although their situation was not a Passover, I think the principle reaches the Passover and the Lord’s Supper. The truth is that the word “wine” in Bible can refer to either fermented or unfermented fruit of vine. The reason I use unfermented wine, is that I feel
this best honors the Saviour, and that is my ONLY desire. But there is an additional point. When Ken Johnson and I were ministering in Calgary, we had an older man attending our services. He was a recovering alcoholic, and by that time his body clearly showed the wear and tear of his abuse. After knowing the man for many months, we conducted his funeral. He died of alcohol poisoning – after a friend invited him to a birthday party where wine was served. Would that man have returned to poisoning himself, if he had a tiny sip of wine at the Lord’s Supper? I don’t know, but thankfully that did not happen and will not come up at the Judgment Seat of Christ.
And perhaps I should reiterate something from this morning. The Roman Catholic believes in “transubstantiation” – that he eats the literal body and blood of Christ. In some mystical, magical way the cracker is changed into flesh and the wine becomes blood. That church proudly practices a type of cannibalism. Most Protestants believe in “consubstantiation” – that bread and wine contain the body and blood of Christ. But the Baptists who meet in this building reject both ideas as totally man-made and fictitious. We serve bread and wine as mere symbols of the sacrifice of Lord Jesus Christ. And isn’t that precisely what Jesus taught as He presented the bread and cup to His disciples?
It is important to recognize the PURPOSE of the Lord’s Supper.
As the Apostle Paul was lead by the Holy Spirit to look back on Matthew 26, he said, “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 brake 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.”
Nowhere in the Bible are we told that the Lord’s Supper or Communion cleanses away our sins. The only sin-cleansing agent that the Word ever proscribes is the blood of Christ, shed at Jesus’ death. The wine of the Lord’s Supper is not the blood of Christ, but only an illustration of that blood. If we drank a cup of liquid Draino it would do more to rid our bodies of its impurities than the Lord’s Supper. Actually a few large glasses of water would cleanse us better than the Lord’s Supper.
Communion shouldn’t be observed simply to please somebody. It is not a very good means of declaring your devotion or piety. It is not a love note sent to God, or something to bind Christians together. The Lord’s Supper shouldn’t be observed in order to make yourself feel better about yourself. This ordinance is an act of remembrance and worship – it is full of thanksgiving and praise.
Now let’s begin to separate the men from the boys – the Baptists from the Protestants.
For several weeks now we have been studying Matthew 26. I hope that we all have a pretty good handle on the characters involved. There was Simon the former Leper, and Mary who anointed the head and feet of the Saviour. But that meal was at least a day prior to the Lord’s Supper. Earlier, Christ had sent some of His disciples to prepare for a private observation of the Passover. You will search the gospels in vain to find anyone at the Passover besides Jesus and the twelve. And if you reach back in your memories, you will recall that those twelve had become the first church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
When the Lord’s Supper was established the only people to celebrate were members of Christ’s first church. The church is not a building – the Lord’s church is a group of people called together by the Lord. The place where the Supper is served does not matter, so long as the Lord’s church is present. It would be improper – unbiblical – for only a segment of the church to observe this ordinance. If members choose not to attend or not to participate, that is one thing. But to offer the ordinance to only those who attend next Wednesday, without inviting everyone – that would be improper. And I don’t give the Lord’s Supper to dying saints in their hospital rooms or bedrooms. The idea is both unscriptural and unnecessary.
There are some related practices which arise when we talk about this as a church ordinance. When restricted to church members, it goes without saying that we are talking about born-again people. No where in Bible do we read of anyone but regenerated people partaking of the Lord’s Supper. Communion was never designed to turn sinners into saints – lost people into Christians. And furthermore it’s the church who is obligated to oversee and apply this restriction. Each church needs to see that their observance of the Lord’s Table is restricted to genuine Christians. The first step in that is restricting it to its own membership.
But more than just salvation, baptism is also a requisite. It cannot be demonstrated that anyone in the Bible took the Lord’s Supper without receiving baptism first. These two ordinances of the church are a matched set; and they are only ordinances we have. Plus, the order of their observance is proscribed by the Lord. Matthew 28:19-20 gives us just one instance of that order. Baptism is the first step of obedience in the Lord’s service. Without baptism we are not qualified to serve God in any other capacity. This is why we have command after command to be saved and to be baptized. And that leads us to the question – what constitutes scriptural baptism? There are four components of Scriptural Baptism. A scriptural candidate: that is a saved person. A scriptural purpose: to depict his new life in Christ; not to save him. A scriptural manner: by immersion in water. A scriptural authority to baptize him: a doctrinally sound New Testament church.
We believe that Christ started a Baptistic church during His earthly ministry. No man-made Protestant church was established by Christ, and therefore no Protestant church has authority to baptize. And that means that no mere saved Protestant has an invitation to observe the Lord’s Supper. Then there is the fact that not every Baptist church is still true to the doctrines of the Bible. It’s not the name “Baptist,” but the authority and doctrine which makes a congregation one of Christ’s churches. If a person has not been baptized by a Baptist church recognized by our church, he will not be given the elements at our observance of the Lord’s table.
But we must take that one step farther to church membership. Acts 2:41-42 says, “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 stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.” The pattern found in God’s word is: salvation, baptism, church membership and then breaking of bread. No matter how you broadly you might define breaking of bread, the Lord’s Supper must be included. In the baptizing of those believers in Acts 2, they became members of the Lord’s church in Jerusalem. And in that they became eligible for the Lord’s Table when it was offered in that church.
What if, later, someone was a member of another of the Lord’s churches, but not in Jerusalem. He didn’t need to be rebaptized to join another church of life faith and practice, but he did need to formally request membership. And until that time, he was not a member, and should not have received communion in that church. We believe that only church members should receive communion. Only members of THIS church should partake of this church’s observance of the Supper. I wouldn’t take part in the observance of the Supper in another church, and it wouldn’t hurt my feelings if it wasn’t offered to me. That other Baptist church should offer the Lord’s Supper to their own members. This is not a relatively new restriction of the Lord’s Table. This was the common practice until some time in the 19th century. But don’t think that we practice this restriction because some ancient Baptists did so. It is because we feel that this is a Bible practice – so that is what we practice. The only people we invite to table of Christ are Christians, baptized and accepted into the membership of Calvary Independent Baptist Church.
I feel that God made this restriction for the protection of the congregation. If we invite all professing Christians to partake, we saying that they are all properly baptized. If we invite every professing Christian, then we are approving the doctrines of their home church. That is precisely how many Baptists of the 19th and early 20th centuries lost their Baptist distinctives and became openly Protestant. Open communion is an example of practical ecumenism, and it will eventually strip the church of its original doctrines.
The Lord laid down this rule to protect His churches.
Here is our doctrine of the Lord’s Supper –
We recognize the Lord’s authority and Biblically proscribed elements of the Table. Then come personal restrictions:Every recipient must be a child of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Then they should be scripturally baptized by a church like us in doctrine and practice. But as we find in the Bible, that person must also be a member of the church observing the ordinance. And that person must have a scriptural reason to partake. Does he want to be saved, then he shouldn’t participate. Does he want to put on a show or deceive someone, then he is incurring the anger of the Lord. If he wants to thank the Lord for saving his soul through the blood and death of Christ, then he may proceed. And if that person is harboring sin in his life, he needs confess and repent before the Lord.
Upon the first occasion of the Lord’s Supper, only the saved members of Christ’s first church were present.