The Four Symbolic Acts:
(1) The breaking of the bread: Portrays God’s provision and offer of life. According to the custom of ancient times, bread was broken, not cut, and it was broken to share with others. It was a preliminary to eating, partaking, and sharing in the meal. Scripturally, the same emphasis is seen. In fact, the Lord’s Supper is called “the breaking of bread” because it was a time of communion, of fellowship with the Lord and with others (Acts 2:42, 46; 20:7, 11; 1 Cor. 10:16b).
Sometimes we have viewed the breaking of the bread as symbolic of the death of Christ. Some later MSS of 1 Corinthians 11:24 read, “this is my body which is broken for you.” So we have often taught and heard that the breaking of the bread is symbolic of the death of Christ. But the earlier and what many believe are the more reliable Greek MSS do not have this reading. Is this the emphasis of the breaking of the bread?
The emphasis on the breaking of the bread as symbolic of Christ’s death is probably wrong, or at least it is not primary. In fact, this focus could actually cause us to miss what our Lord intended for us to see according the cultural significance of breaking bread and passing of the cup.
His death is certainly portrayed in the bread and the cup which together portray a sinless life given in death as our substitute for sin’s penalty. But the breaking of the bread stands for the concept of sharing and partaking of the Lord in fellowship. It speaks of His offer of His life to us and of our need to share Him with others (see Luke 22:17; 24:30-31). Paul focuses our attention on this very thing in 1 Corinthians 10:16b which reads, “is not the bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ?”
(2) Eating the bread that is given and shared: Portrays our human responsibility and response. This part of the celebration portrays faith in the person and presence of Jesus Christ. It indicates our faith in the life He offers us, both spiritual life (abundant life), and eternal life.
It further should remind us of our need to feed, or live daily by virtue of who Christ is, and what He did for us, and is to us. It should indicate our desire to continue to have fellowship with Him and to enjoy His presence and His ministry in our lives through the Word and through prayer.
(3) Pouring of the cup that is given and shared: Portrays God’s divine provision and offer. This portrays Christ’s offer of the fruits of His death for us as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Robert Saucy writes, “The elements signify something which is done toward man. For this reason, the actions of breaking the bread and pouring the wine do not represent the dying of Christ, but are only involved in the giving of the fruit of His death to the disciples.”
These actions of breaking and pouring represent the offering of Himself to us as the Victorious Savior and are an expression of His desire for fellowship with us through that which He accomplished and is to us. The breaking and pouring stand for the offer and provision of salvation, the assurance of forgiveness, the assurance of His divine presence to be our life, and of His desire for us to live by His life (cf. Luke 22:15). It portrays offering, sharing, and partaking in the fruits of Christ’s death.
(4) Drinking of the cup: Portrays human responsibility and response. As with eating the bread, drinking of the cup portrays our faith in the Lord and our desire to continue to live by virtue of the finished work of Christ as the means of our deliverance from sin’s penalty and power.
Meaning of the Lord’s Supper in Its Time Element
In Relation to the Past
The Supper is first and foremost a remembrance of Christ’s death as that climatic event which brought about the promise of forgiveness of sins and reconciliation to God. It deals with the past and with the fact of the removal of the penalty of sin. This is why Paul said “for as often as you eat the bread and drink the cup, you proclaim His death until He comes” (1 Cor. 11:26).
The separate bread and wine signify his body and blood, and together speak of His sacrificial death as the Lamb of God. It took a perfect and sinless person, the Lord Jesus, dying for us to pay for our sins. But there is more, and this is so important!
The Supper is a reminder of our present fellowship with Christ and of His presence with us.
It is not the recalling of a figure of history who has long passed away, but the proclamation of the death of the risen Lord who is present in the church. He who invited the disciples to share the last Supper continues to be the real Host at each communion service.
As such He continues to be the very source of our spiritual life, without whom we cannot live the Christian life. Our Lord is present spiritually, and eating and drinking of the elements which speak of His Person and work, not only signifies faith in Him and trust in His death, but also the necessity to partake in the riches of His life in continued fellowship with Him in the Word and in prayer. As 1 Corinthians 10:16 states, the Supper is a sharing in the Person and work of Christ.
The outward action of eating and drinking, then, are to be an expression of an inner communion and an inward faith of one who is counting on the worth of the Savior as the source of his or her own spiritual life. It is a reminder of our need and His ever present availability to be the source of our daily life.
The real presence of Christ in the Supper is thus no different than His real presence in the Word. In the one He encounters His people in visible elements and in the other (the Word) in the words of Scripture.
With the words of verse 16, our attention is directed to the future and our eventual reunion with the Lord through the rapture (the catching up of the body of Christ to be with Christ, 1 Thess. 4:13-18) and our time with Him in the joys and blessings of the millennial kingdom.
The Lord’s Supper not only looks back to the first advent of Christ and the cross, but it looks forward with joy and expectation to the future and our partnership with Him in the future kingdom when all our enemies (sin, Satan, the world system, and death) will be put under His feet and He will reign as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. As believers in Christ, we will be there with Him in that glorious place, and if we have lived by virtue of His life through faith, we will know the joys of rewards, reigning with Him in His glory.
So sharing together in the Lord’s Supper not only looks to the past and reminds us of the accomplishments of the Savior’s death, but it should also be an anticipation of the future and should remind us of the need to live as sojourners, as those who live for eternal treasures rather than for the passing pleasures of this life (see Heb. 11:25; 1 Pet. 1:17-19; 2:11).
With this anticipation of the glory of the future for those who have put their faith in Christ, there is the immediate reference (vss. 21-23) to the judgment that would fall on Judas. The betrayal of the Savior by Judas, as one who had rejected His saving life, is brought to the forefront. While a glorious future awaits those who put their trust in the Savior, only divine judgment, eternal separation from God, awaits those who reject Jesus Christ and put their trust in other things like materialism or the religions of the world.
While this is not the prominent focus, the reference to the woe awaiting Judas teaches us the Lord’s Supper is also a testimony or a declaration of the doom that awaits those who, like Judas, have failed to put their trust in the person and work of Christ. Remember, Judas’ betrayal was but the product of his rejection of Christ as his personal Savior.
If you do not know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior through faith in (1) His person as God’s Son, the God-Man Savior, and (2) in His work on the cross where He died for your sin, may we encourage you to acknowledge your sinfulness, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and believe, trust, in Jesus Christ alone as your personal Savior.
Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us
Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, that no one should boast.
John 1:11 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name,
John 3:16-18 For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him. 18 He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
