The Lord's Supper
and the Service of God:
A Historical Review  –  G. A. Rainbow

This brief review traces the main historical developments, and the gradual emergence of the Scriptural meaning and relationship of the Lord's Supper and the service of God

• the Lord's Supper – before His death,

• the preaching of the gospel – after His resurrection.
  • See Matthew 28: 18-20; Mark 16: 15-16; Luke 24: 45-49.

• The gospel, however blessed, is not the subject of this paper.

• Compare Matthew 26: 26-30; Mark 14: 22-26; Luke 22: 16-20.

• Matthew and Mark record the institution before the Lord says that He will no more drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom, whereas Luke records it after that saying,

• Matthew and Mark record His blood as being "shed for many for remission of sins", or simply as "shed for many" – but Luke has "shed for you". Luke alone says of His body that it "is given for you".

• Matthew 26: 13 and Mark 14: 9 connect the memorial with the woman who anointed His head and with the preaching of the glad tidings. Luke alone connects the remembrance with the bread.

• Matthew and Mark imply an immediate application to the disciples in the institution, and do not specifically suggest its continuation.
  • Luke, attaching the idea of remembrance to it, clearly has its continuation in mind and in so doing supports Paul's ministry.

John deals with the effects of the public failure of the assembly.

Paul says explicitly of the Lord's Supper: "I received from the Lord, that which I also delivered to you", 1 Corinthians 11: 23-34.

• He "received" confirmation and expansion of Luke's account "from the Lord" – as ascended.

• The continuation, implied by Luke's attachment of the remembrance to the bread, is intensified and extended by Paul's linking of it with both the bread and the cup.

• This is clearly confirmed by his word, "For as often as ye shall eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye announce the death of the Lord, until He come".

Widespread misconception exists as to "the Lord's Supper" and "the Lord's Table". These terms are commonly used interchangeably, and considered by most to have the same meaning.

• Simple souls may be pardoned – but such denseness in those who take the place of teachers is the most inexcusable ignorance.

• A contextual comparison shows that the Lord's Table is a completely different and distinct aspect of the truth from the Lord's Supper.

Some treat the Lord's Table as identical to the table on which the bread and cup are put –

• a proof of the materialistic thinking of – even so-called evangelical – Protestants.

• With no more intelligence – but unbounded audacity – Romanism claims to spiritualize the actual material bread and wine.

• The "table" clearly signifies the bread upon it, just as the "cup" signifies the wine it contains.

Paul uses "the Lord's Table" to show that Christians cannot have fellowship with idolatry.

• The comparison with the "altar" shows that Paul is dealing with the public position – that with which we are publicly associated – "whether … Jews, or Greeks, or the assembly of God", 1 Corinthians 10: 32.

The teaching in 1 Corinthians 10: 15-22 is based on the bread and the cup of the Lord's Supper.

• The cup is put first, "the Lord's cup", but hardly anyone notices, let alone explains, this fact.

• The order is purposely changed – the cup first, then the bread – to assimilate them to the sacrificial order at the altar.
  • The blood is shed first, before the body is put on the altar.

Paul reasons from our connection with those items which allude to the sacrificial death of Christ as the peace offering.

• Just as Israelites who ate the peace offerings from the altar were in fellowship with the altar – the public evidence of covenant relationship to God by sacrifice –
  • so we are in fellowship with the death of Christ

• and we cannot have fellowship with idolatry – even in its seemingly harmless modern materialistic forms.

• "Wherefore come out from the midst of them, and be separated, saith the Lord, and touch not what is unclean", 2 Corinthians 6: 17.

• "Yet the firm foundation of God stands, having this seal, The Lord knows those that are His; and, Let every one who names the name of the Lord withdraw from iniquity", 2 Timothy 2: 19.

The decline of spirituality and separation, which had already commenced in Paul's day, had spread and increased by the end of the apostolic age, as Revelation 2 – 3 shows.

• It accelerated, and was only briefly stayed by the faithfulness of the martyrs during the great persecutions.

Under the patronage of the Roman emperor, earthliness and worldliness overwhelmed the public church, leading to its domination by the state.

• As the empire declined there was a later reversal of these roles which, in the main, ended at the Reformation.

Clericalism, which had begun developing early, came into the ascendancy after the persecutions and the merging with the world;

• and "the works of the Nicolaitanes" became established in policy and practice as "the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes", Revelation 2: 6, 15.

• Usurping the place of the body, as well as that of the Spirit, the clergy were regarded as the church, and claimed the right of interpretation.

In result, the whole outward character of the Lord's Supper was materialized to suit the earthly-worldly mindset of the multitude

• – no longer qualified morally or spiritually as the body – following the compulsory baptism of hordes of heathen under Constantine;

• and the hocus-pocus of transubstantiation was invented to repress the remaining resistance and to seduce the superstitious masses.

Thus the Lord's Supper – witness to a finished and never-to-be-repeated sacrifice – was perverted;

• and the "table" as the symbol of fellowship was transformed into a material altar for the never-ending perpetuation of the idolatrous sacrifice of the 'mass'.

The Reformation – apart from the recovery of justification by faith – fell short, as the Lord said to Sardis, "I have not found thy works complete before my God", Rev. 3: 2.

Some of Rome's excesses were abolished but things went to the other extreme – and the pulpit replaced the altar.

• The blasphemous perversion of the Lord's Supper was banished, but the true concept of worship was not recaptured – because
  • clericalism, the occupant of the pulpit, and its supplanting of the Spirit's operations were never repudiated.

The situation is unchanged in Protestantism, and among those claiming to be evangelicals.

• Their worship service centres on the sermon, and preachers are often idolized – but their holy communion is downgraded to an infrequent appendage to some other service.

The moral and spiritual basis for the subsequent recovery of the truth of the Lord's Supper was laid by the martyrs – especially in England during the struggling years of the Reformation.

A review of the history of that period reveals that the main reason why the English Reformers were burned at the stake was because

• they refused to embrace what was, and is, one of the most distinctive of the Romish dogmas.

• Almost without exception, their fate – life or death – depended on whether they would bow to Rome on that one crucial point.

Transubstantiation: The main issue was the Romish dogma of transubstantiation –

• that the so-called real presence of the Lord's body and blood – His deity and humanity – is truly there in the bread and wine after being consecrated by the priest.

• Those that did not receive and believe that monstrous claim were burned at the stake.

Various other points were made an issue with some of the English reformers, but belief in the real presence was demanded of all of them.

• When they refused to recant and accept this dogma their fate was sealed.

There were almost 300 martyrs burned at the stake 1555-58 in the reign of "Bloody Mary". Among them were such honoured names as those of John Hooper, Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley. The faithfulness and devotion of such is not forgotten by Him who said,

• "I know where thou dwellest, where the throne of Satan is; and thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith, even in the days in which Antipas my faithful witness was, who was slain among you, where Satan dwells", Revelation 2: 13.

While the Lord can and does act sovereignly, He delights to have a basis in some, at least, of His own on which to act.

• About 170 years later, the faithful witness and sacrifice of the martyrs bore precious fruit.

• The Spirit worked in the hearts of some to rekindle an interest in the revival of the Lord's Supper, in its dignity and simplicity, as a memorial of the Lord Jesus.

Those of us who are committed to the continuation of the Lord's Supper should never forget that the moral and spiritual basis for what we have come into was established

• by the commitment of those who, with less light but great devotion to Christ, refused the Romish corruption of the Lord's Supper and were faithful unto death.

The response to the martyrs' sacrifice was the revival of interest in, and commitment to, the Lord's Supper in Dublin, c. 1827.

At that time several Christians voluntarily separated from the institutional churches – others were forced out –

• refusing to accept the sectarian imposition of a special membership, beyond that of Christ's body, in order to partake at the communion service.

A few of these believers met together, first in a private home and later in a public meeting room. They had meetings for prayer and Scripture reading,

• but the principal meeting was on the Lord's Day for the celebration of the Lord's Supper – or breaking of bread.

This weekly commemoration of the Lord marked them from the beginning –

The Spirit's service through the ministry of the early decades – 1827-1900 – was of a preparatory nature, in which

1. an extended inquiry into prophetic subjects, and the recovery of the truth of our Lord's return for His saints prior to the tribulation, had the effect of separating the saints from earthly and worldly hopes,

2. the opening up of the headship of Christ in heaven to His body on earth awoke the saints to their heavenly blessings and privileges,

3. the exposure of the "notion of a clergyman" and conviction as to the public ruin of the church clearly defined the need for a thorough separation from all ecclesiastical systems – great and small,

4. the recognition of the operations of the Spirit in the assembly established the foundation for the functioning of the local assembly,

5. the early refusal of evil teaching and compromise with indifference as to it, and the later defections of many who held truths formally, made way for a ministry of a moral and spiritual character.

All this worked together to produce a spiritual atmosphere in which the service of God could be introduced and developed.

For many years the meeting for the breaking of bread continued largely unchanged from its early form in Dublin –

• and this rudimentary pattern is perpetuated in most of the groups which trace their origin to those early years.

Such meetings are spiritually unstructured – an unordered series of hymns, Scriptures, prayers, mainly of an individual character and all concentrated on thanksgiving for forgiveness of sins and blessings received –

• with the actual breaking of bread usually taking place at, or near, the end, as a sort of climax.

Some indeed speak of their "morning meeting" as the "worship meeting" but manifest little, if any, appreciation of the true nature of the service of God.

• All this flows from the almost universal mistaken concept of 'remembering the Lord in His death'.

The bread and cup, representing the Lord's body and blood as separate, symbolize a dead Christ, but there is no such Christ now.

• Paul asserts that the Lord said that eating the bread and drinking the cup were to be "in remembrance of Me" – not of His death – i.e., as a memorial of the risen, living and ascended One in glory.

To have the breaking of bread at the end of a meeting just means ending with what symbolizes His death.

• Those who do so go no further. They remain on the earth where He died, like those who "had not yet known the Scripture, that He must rise from among the dead" and who "therefore went away again to their own home", John 20: 9-10.

A prerequisite to the orderly development of the service of God was the opening up, in FER's ministry in the 1880-90's, of the proper place of

• the Lord's Supper as introductory to the assembly spiritually – the Lord's death, depicted by the Lord's Supper, being the closing up of one order and the opening up of a new order on the other side of death.

• "For in that he has died, he has died to sin once for all; but in that he lives, he lives to God", Romans 6: 10.

We then, as assembled and having first broken bread, are to pass over – spiritually – to Christ's side of things and come under His headship in the service of God.

• "For through Him we have both access by one Spirit to the Father", Ephesians 2: 18.

• "I will declare Thy name to My brethren; in the midst of the assembly will I sing Thy praises", Heb. 2: 12.

• "To Him be glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age of ages. Amen", Eph. 3: 21.

A Scriptural and spiritual pattern is apparent in the various features, and the order in which they have been opened up, in JT's ministry from c. 1900-53,

• and which contribute to greater spiritual intelligence in participation in the service of God:

1. the Lord's Supper as the Lord's, not the Father's or the Spirit's,

2. the clarification of Christ's Person, and His Sonship in Manhood,

3. His relationship with His own, both as His brethren and as His bride,

4. His uniqueness as the Son, and our place as of the "many sons",

5. recognition of the Spirit viewed objectively, and thus as One to be addressed in prayer and in worship,

6. the place that Divine Persons have taken in the economy, leading to intelligent worship to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

All these great truths, and many blessed details connected with them, have contributed to the enrichment of the service (worship) of God.

• Of special note are the many excellent new hymns and tunes, written by both brothers and sisters who cherished these truths.

See Ministry: J. Taylor for 'The Worship of God Himself', a 1935 prophetic landmark reading with JT and C. A Coates. See Ministry: J. Collie-Smith for 'Remarks on the Service of God', a valuable address "especially for younger brethren" .

From the beginning of the revival, the enemy has relentlessly attacked those who have sought to answer to the increasing light as to the Lord's Supper and the service of God –

• using the weakness of some, including respected teachers, to cause various divisions.

In more recent times, even those who had the most light from God and – for almost fifty years – had been largely preserved by good leadership from serious divisions, have since been torn apart.

The continuance of the Lord's Supper and the service of God in devotion and freshness – in the closing years of assembly testimony –

• are matters of supreme importance to all who value the rich opening up of truth by the Spirit, in the last revival.

• Let us remember, "For as often as ye shall eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye announce the death of the Lord, until He come", 1 Corinthians 11: 26.

• Whatever others may do or not do, we are to go on, notwithstanding "that in the last days difficult times shall be there", 2 Timothy 3: 1.

"Do not be discouraged, go on, go on, go on. The Spirit of God is always ready by our side, to help in our weakness; all things are in our favour", Ministry by J. Taylor, 66: 336 – 1950.

Miss Frances J. Elwood (1830-1927).
No. 192: 3 – 1973 Hymn Book.

G.A.R.