Citrusdal | Clanwilliam | Graafwater | Kompas Gemeente Vredendal | Somerset-Wes

KINGDOM DYNAMICS
1 Cor 11:23 Faith At the Lord’s Table, FAITH’S CONFESSION. Just as the act of water baptism outwardly declares or confesses an inward experience of salvation through the blood of the Lord Jesus, each observance of the Lord’s Table is a powerful occasion for faith’s confession. In the ordinance, the Christian confesses before all heaven that he not only has believed, but that he has not forgotten. “In remembrance” involves more than just memory; the word suggests an “active calling to mind” (Wycliffe).
The word “for” introduces the reason the Supper is continually repeated. It is an acted sermon, for it “proclaims” the Lord’s death. The outward act of faith, as the bread and cup taken, is explicitly said to be an ongoing, active confession—literally “you are proclaiming” (1 Cor 11:26). Each occasion of partaking is an opportunity to say, proclaim, or confess again: “I herewith lay hold of all the benefits of Jesus Christ’s full redemption for my life—forgiveness, wholeness, strength, health, sufficiency.” The Lord’s Supper is not to be simply a ritual remembrance, but an active confession, by which you actively will to call to memory and appropriate today all that Jesus has provided and promised through His Cross.
At Jesus’ institution of the Lord’s Supper with His disciples (Matt. 26:26–29; Mark 14:22–25; Luke 22:15–20) the bread and cup were part of a meal, with the bread probably broken near the beginning (cf. “when He had given thanks,” 1 Cor. 11:24) and the cup taken at the end (cf. “after supper,” v. 25). By the time Paul wrote, the Lord’s Supper was celebrated in two stages which consolidated the partaking of the bread and cup at the end of a communal meal. The worship with the bread and cup came to be called the “Eucharist” (Didache 9:1; Ignatius Letter to the Philadelphians 4), from the Greek word for “thanksgiving” (eucharisteō). The communal meal was called the Agapē (Jude 12; Pliny Letters 10. 96. 7), a Greek word for “love.”
one factor contributing to those divisions is evident here, namely, economic differences in the church (1 Cor 11:21).
1 Cor 11:20–21. The Lord’s Supper should have been the remembrance of a preeminently selfless act, Christ’s death on behalf of others. Instead the Corinthians had turned the memorial of selflessness into an experience of selfishness and had made a rite of unity a riotous disunity. While one brother went hungry because he lacked the means to eat well, another brother drank to excess.
The Communion:
1 Cor 11:24 Broken for you refers to both Jesus’ substitutionary role as Savior as well as the One who bore our pain and sicknesses (Isa 53:4-6)
1 Cor 11:25 The new covenant, sealed by the blood of Jesus, was prophesied in Jer. 31:31-34. That covenant was new in its nature and in its content, securing the forgiveness of sins and writing the law of God in the hearts of believers. The old ritualistic system is replaced by the gospel of Christ, which He established by His death (see Heb. 8:7-13).
To act in a spirit of selfish disregard for the needs of a brother was to despise the church of God, composed not of lifeless stones but of living people who could be grievously hurt. The bread represented the incarnate body of Christ unselfishly assumed (Phil. 2:6–7) and unselfishly given on the cross for the benefit of others (2 Cor. 8:9; Phil. 2:8), that kept needing to be remembered (cf. 1 Cor. 4:8–13).
1 Cor 11:25. The wine was a poignant reminder of Christ’s blood, without the shedding of which there could be no forgiveness from sin (Heb. 9:22) and through which cleansing and a new relationship (covenant) with God was made (Heb. 9:14–15). The word “covenant” referred to a relationship in which one party established terms which the other party accepted or rejected. The focus of the Old Covenant was the written Word (Ex. 24:1–8). The focus of the New Covenant is the Living Word (John 1:14–18). Christ intended the cup to be a representational (cf. John 10:9; 1 Cor. 10:4) reminder of Him: do this … in remembrance of Me.
The body of Christ is the church, which consists of individual believers (cf. 1 Cor. 12:12, 27). His body, the church, is also pictured by the bread of Communion (1 Cor 5:7; 10:16–17). Thus to sin against another believer is to sin against Christ (1 Cor 8:12).
One body of diversity – (1 Cor 12:13; Gal. 3:28; Col. 3:11)
They should seek out the wronged brother and ask his forgiveness. Only then could a true spirit of worship flourish (cf. Matt. 5:23–24)