Lord's Supper

The Lord's Supper (1 Corinthians 11:20) is the sacramental meal of bread and wine that Jesus instituted on the night he was betrayed, commanding his followers to keep it “in remembrance” of him until he comes. Scripture names it variously: the breaking of bread (Acts 2:42; Acts 20:7), the communion of the body and blood of Christ (1 Corinthians 10:16), the table and cup of the Lord (1 Corinthians 10:21), and—from the Greek eucharistia (“thanksgiving,” spoken over the bread in Luke 22:19)—the Eucharist. It is one of the two ordinances (with baptism) commanded directly by Christ for his church.

Its roots lie in the Passover, which Jesus was keeping when he instituted it (Matthew 26:17–19). As the original Passover lamb's blood sheltered Israel from death and inaugurated the exodus (Exodus 12:13), and as Moses sealed the covenant by sprinkling blood with the words “the blood of the covenant” (Exodus 24:8), so Jesus reinterprets the meal around himself: “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5:7). The institution is recorded four times—Matthew 26:26–29, Mark 14:22–25, Luke 22:14–20, and 1 Corinthians 11:23–26, Paul's account being the earliest written. Taking bread, Jesus said, “This is my body, which is given for you”; taking the cup, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood”—fulfilling Jeremiah's promise of a covenant written on the heart (Jeremiah 31:31–34) and securing “the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28).

The first believers devoted themselves to “the breaking of bread” alongside the apostles' teaching, fellowship, and prayer (Acts 2:42), gathering for it on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7). Paul gives the rite its fullest theology in answering abuses at Corinth, where the wealthy shamed the poor at a meal meant to express the unity of the one body: “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Corinthians 10:17). He warns that to eat “in an unworthy manner” without discerning the body is to eat and drink judgment on oneself, and so calls each participant to self-examination (1 Corinthians 11:27–29).

The Supper gathers up the whole gospel in a single act. It is remembrance of Christ's atoning death, communion in his body and blood, and proclamation: “as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26). It looks backward to the cross, present in covenant fellowship with the risen Lord who is the true bread of life (John 6:53–58), and forward to the consummation, for Jesus vowed not to drink of the fruit of the vine again until he drinks it new in his Father's kingdom (Matthew 26:29)—the marriage supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:9). Christians have long differed over how Christ is present in the elements, yet the church catholic has held in common that here, by faith, the crucified and risen Lord truly nourishes his people and binds them to himself and to one another.