How Communion Perfectly and Beautifully Proclaims the Gospel
When a church takes communion several things happen at once. The three we are most familiar with are remembrance, fellowship and unity. (1) Believers remember Jesus' suffering and death (Mark 14:22-25, Luke 22:18-20). (2) They fellowship with Christ (1 Corinthians 10:16). (3) The church expresses its unity together (1 Corinthians 11:27-33).
But there is a fourth aspect of communion, and I think of the four this has the potential to be the most neglected. But I have been meditating on this aspect, and I think it will do your soul good to mediate with me.
Paul writes, "For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come." (1 Corinthians 11:26, KJV).
I want you to pay close attention to that phrase in verse 26: the eating and drinking of the people of God in communion shows the death of the Son of God. And this is absolutely extraordinary. The word translated to "shew" is καταγγέλλω (pronounced kat-an-gell-o). The word is stronger than to mean something like "symbolize." Of course most of us recognize that the Lord's supper is symbolic. But Paul is arguing for more than this. The word means to announce something, to go public with something so that it will be known far and wide (newer translations like the ESV translate it "proclaim"). The communion meal proclaims the dying sin-bearing substituting Son of God to the world. In Paul's mind, when the church eats and drinks they are making an announcement to the world: "Behold, the death of our Savior!"
As I began to mediate on this verse, this struck me as curious, and left me asking: does communion really do that great of a job at showing the death of Jesus? After all, in the following centuries the church would introduce crucifixes, etches, drawings, and paintings of the dying Messiah. Today we have Mel Gibson's Passion and The Chosen, not to mention thousands of plays all around the world around Good Friday. Let's be honest: doesn't reenactment or imitation do a much better job of proclaiming Christ's death than bread and juice? Is Paul wrong in making the bread and cup central to the proclamation of the gospel?
A parallel text helped me answer with an emphatic "no."
Look at John 6:51-57:
"I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me."
Jesus reaches for an illustration to evangelize his listeners, and it is the eating of his body and drinking of his blood that he deems the most appropriate metaphor. In the context of John 6 he is claiming that like God sustained and gave life to his people in the wilderness, he is the ultimate means of the Father sustaining and giving life to his people in final salvation. Paul is not doing something new by suggesting the communion meal is an announcement of the Gospel - he is following the example of Christ who already made this connection when he told people what was required to be his disciple.
Here is why the Lord's Table is 10,000 times better than the flashiest reenactment you will ever see: to proclaim the death of Jesus in 1 Corinthians 11:26 is not merely to demonstrate the act of crucifixion, but to show its meaning. No image, no reenactment, no cat-of-nine-tails or thorned-crown props, no wooden crosses will ever demonstrate what Jesus' death means. But do you know what does proclaim the death of Jesus? Redeemed sinners eating and drinking together in churches. Small churches and big churches, beautiful cathedrals and unimpressive houses, famous and unheard of - it matters not. When Christians eat and drink they are showing what Jesus' death means for his people: we have eternal life because Christ has given himself to nourish us. Eating and drinking are absolutely necessary for physical life - and when the church sets the table we are making the same statement about our spiritual life. It is not simply that his blood was spilled and his body was broken: we are the beneficiaries of what was spilled and broken. Nothing better communicates this reality in a visible, tangible way than the Lord's table. To eat and drink is to show the world that Christ's death is not just something that happened, much less to merely show them what it might have looked like: it shows them what his death is all about.
So as we bite into the bread, as we drain the juice, an earth-shattering announcement is issued. The proclamation goes out to the world: "There is life to be had, eternal life, in the body-crushing blood-gushing death of the Christ! Turn to him and live!"
Come this Sunday night to remember. Come this Sunday night to fellowship with Christ. Come this Sunday night to express our unity as a church. But don't forget, when we come and eat and drink together, we perfectly and beautifully proclaim the gospel. And we are called to do this until he returns.
But there is a fourth aspect of communion, and I think of the four this has the potential to be the most neglected. But I have been meditating on this aspect, and I think it will do your soul good to mediate with me.
Paul writes, "For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come." (1 Corinthians 11:26, KJV).
I want you to pay close attention to that phrase in verse 26: the eating and drinking of the people of God in communion shows the death of the Son of God. And this is absolutely extraordinary. The word translated to "shew" is καταγγέλλω (pronounced kat-an-gell-o). The word is stronger than to mean something like "symbolize." Of course most of us recognize that the Lord's supper is symbolic. But Paul is arguing for more than this. The word means to announce something, to go public with something so that it will be known far and wide (newer translations like the ESV translate it "proclaim"). The communion meal proclaims the dying sin-bearing substituting Son of God to the world. In Paul's mind, when the church eats and drinks they are making an announcement to the world: "Behold, the death of our Savior!"
As I began to mediate on this verse, this struck me as curious, and left me asking: does communion really do that great of a job at showing the death of Jesus? After all, in the following centuries the church would introduce crucifixes, etches, drawings, and paintings of the dying Messiah. Today we have Mel Gibson's Passion and The Chosen, not to mention thousands of plays all around the world around Good Friday. Let's be honest: doesn't reenactment or imitation do a much better job of proclaiming Christ's death than bread and juice? Is Paul wrong in making the bread and cup central to the proclamation of the gospel?
A parallel text helped me answer with an emphatic "no."
Look at John 6:51-57:
"I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me."
Jesus reaches for an illustration to evangelize his listeners, and it is the eating of his body and drinking of his blood that he deems the most appropriate metaphor. In the context of John 6 he is claiming that like God sustained and gave life to his people in the wilderness, he is the ultimate means of the Father sustaining and giving life to his people in final salvation. Paul is not doing something new by suggesting the communion meal is an announcement of the Gospel - he is following the example of Christ who already made this connection when he told people what was required to be his disciple.
Here is why the Lord's Table is 10,000 times better than the flashiest reenactment you will ever see: to proclaim the death of Jesus in 1 Corinthians 11:26 is not merely to demonstrate the act of crucifixion, but to show its meaning. No image, no reenactment, no cat-of-nine-tails or thorned-crown props, no wooden crosses will ever demonstrate what Jesus' death means. But do you know what does proclaim the death of Jesus? Redeemed sinners eating and drinking together in churches. Small churches and big churches, beautiful cathedrals and unimpressive houses, famous and unheard of - it matters not. When Christians eat and drink they are showing what Jesus' death means for his people: we have eternal life because Christ has given himself to nourish us. Eating and drinking are absolutely necessary for physical life - and when the church sets the table we are making the same statement about our spiritual life. It is not simply that his blood was spilled and his body was broken: we are the beneficiaries of what was spilled and broken. Nothing better communicates this reality in a visible, tangible way than the Lord's table. To eat and drink is to show the world that Christ's death is not just something that happened, much less to merely show them what it might have looked like: it shows them what his death is all about.
So as we bite into the bread, as we drain the juice, an earth-shattering announcement is issued. The proclamation goes out to the world: "There is life to be had, eternal life, in the body-crushing blood-gushing death of the Christ! Turn to him and live!"
Come this Sunday night to remember. Come this Sunday night to fellowship with Christ. Come this Sunday night to express our unity as a church. But don't forget, when we come and eat and drink together, we perfectly and beautifully proclaim the gospel. And we are called to do this until he returns.
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