1 Corinthians 10:16

COMMUNION WITH CHRIST

‘The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?’

1 Corinthians 10:16

As those to whom this Epistle was sent read St. Paul’s argument, they might or might not agree with the conclusion to which he sought to lead them; they might feel it to be unduly strict, or, at any rate, impracticable; but it is surely clear, from the way in which St. Paul writes, that he was confident that they would grant him the hypothesis from which he sets out. He knew that none of them would deny that when they drank of the consecrated cup they had communion with the blood of the Lord, and that when they ate of the consecrated bread they had communion with the body of the Lord. The course of his argument is therefore conclusive that to him the Lord’s Supper was not a mere commemoration, not a bare memorial. Such an interpretation of this Sacrament falls short of the plain requirements of his language. We cannot so impoverish the phrases which come from him. We cannot so deny the richness of his language. His thought is essentially the same as that which underlies the familiar lines—

‘Bread of Heaven, on Thee we feed,

For Thy flesh is meat indeed.’

I. No misinterpretation of the great doctrine ought to tempt us to a denial of it.—Let us do all we can to protect it from travesty; but do not let us make the mistake of repudiating what is true and reasonable for fear of opening the door to what is false and misleading. We cannot get rid of the words of institution. We cannot escape from the teaching of this passage from the pen of the Apostle to the Gentiles. We cannot overlook the suggestiveness of the sublime discourse in St. John 6, which does not indeed refer directly to the Holy Communion, but which is built up on a conception identical with the idea underlying the Lord’s Supper. Christ did indeed speak in a figure; but can His words mean less than that in that rite He gives His own Manhood—that Manhood which was once slain for us, but which is now exalted to the throne of thrones? Through the Incarnation He, in Whom all life was then gathered up, is able to impart Himself to men. ‘The Son of Man,’ said Bishop Westcott, ‘lived for us and died for us, and communicates to us the effects of His life and death as perfect Man. Without this communication of Christ men can have “no life in themselves.” But Christ’s gift of Himself to a man becomes in the recipient a spring of life within.’

II. The Holy Communion! Do we not feel the need of the gift which comes with it?—Have we any reason to expect that gift of gifts if we stop away? Have we any right to suppose that absence from this Sacrament will involve no injury to our spiritual lives, when that absence is the outcome of insensibility, recklessness, impenitence, lovelessness? Why is it that so many of us are never found at the table of the Lord? Do we not realise how essential to us is His Presence with us? Are we not all conscious that we require to be spiritually fed by His Body and Blood? Do we not all know that without Him our souls must starve? We need Him—not merely His example or influence or teaching, but Himself.

III. There are perhaps some of us who once were regular communicants, but who have now dropped the old practice.—Do they never look back with regret upon the days when they received the blessing which this service is capable of bestowing? Do they never wish, as they reflect upon what they are now and remember what they were in that bygone period, that they had not fallen away from the highest standard of worship? If that be the case with any of us, let us make a fresh start. Let us come back again. Let us renew the old sacramental life. And there are those among us who have never come to that supper. Surely their responsibility is a very grave one. This service is based upon the direct command of Christ Himself. He Himself told us that the bread should be to us as His Body, and the wine as His Blood. Do we not believe Him? But if we do, then why do we never from year’s end to year’s end ‘draw near with faith and take this holy sacrament to our comfort’? What is it that is keeping us back? Is it a sense of sin? It is the very thing that should bring us. Perhaps there are some who are about to come for the first time. They have yet to learn what the Holy Communion can be to those who partake of it in all earnestness and sincerity. They cannot expect too much. The danger is that they may expect too little. ‘I seek,’ says a modern devotional writer, ‘much more in the Eucharist than to look at a picture and be touched by it. I seek to be fed in that holy ordinance; to be spiritually nourished, through the elements of bread and wine, with that Flesh which is meat indeed, and that Blood which is drink indeed.’ Let us also seek and find that supreme and wondrous privilege.

—Rev. the Hon. W. E. Bowen.

Illustration

‘Christ the sustenance of man! Christ the nourishment of man! The Self-communication of the humanity of Christ! His Manhood the food of our manhood! The conception finds frequent expression in our Liturgy. “Wherefore it is our duty to render most humble and hearty thanks to Almighty God our heavenly Father, for that He hath given His Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, not only to die for us, but also to be our spiritual food and sustenance in that holy Sacrament.” “For then we spiritually eat the Flesh of Christ, and drink His Blood; then we dwell in Christ, and Christ in us; we are one with Christ, and Christ with us.” In that exquisitely beautiful prayer which immediately precedes the prayer of consecration, we beseech God to grant us His grace “so to eat the Flesh of Thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink His Blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by His Body, and our souls washed through His most precious Blood, and that we may evermore dwell in Him, and He in us.” In the prayer of consecration itself we ask that “we receiving these Thy creatures of bread and wine, according to Thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ’s holy institution, in remembrance of His death and passion, may be partakers of His most blessed Body and Blood.” When the bread is given to us, we are bidden “feed on Him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving.” Again in the second of the alternative prayers for use after the actual Communion we offer up our thanks “for that Thou dost vouchsafe to feed us, who have duly received these holy mysteries, with the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of Thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ.” Our Church does not regard the rite as a simple act of commemoration. She attaches to it a deeper import, a fuller and richer meaning. Her mind is a faithful reflection of the Apostolic mind.’