Communion
As a child I went to a Church in which I was taught you need to take communion to go to heaven and you needed it weekly. Now I don’t know if this was their organizations firm belief or just what I was led to believe locally. The question we need to ask, isn’t what does someone or some organization say about communion, but rather, what does the Bible say. What is the purpose of communion? Why do we take it?
First, to fully understand communion, we need to look at the Old Testament Passover. Passover is from the book of Exodus when God instructed Moses and Aaron and all the Israelite people in Egypt to mark their door posts with the blood of the lamb. In doing this, the Lord would “pass over” their home and not slay their firstborn. (Exodus 12).
After the Israelites left Egypt, God gave instructions about how to observe the Passover. These are found in Numbers 9:1-4, Numbers 28:16-25, Deuteronomy 16:1-6 and Leviticus 23:4-8. God did not intend the original Passover to be a one-time event, rather an annual feast where the Israelites would remember how God has saved them out of the bondage of Egypt.
In the New Testament, we find it recorded twice that Jesus came to Jerusalem to observe the Passover. The first time, he cleared the temple (John 2:13-22) and the second time He came in on a donkey, when His disciples got a private room for them to observe the Passover.
Matthew 26
26 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body.
27 And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it;
28 For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
Mark 14
22 And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it, and gave to them, and said, Take, eat: this is my body.
23 And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them: and they all drank of it.
24 And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many.
Luke 22
19 And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.
20 Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.
Luke gives the most detailed account. We find that the broken bread is compared to his body, which is given for us. Secondly, the cup in which they drink now represents His blood which is shed for us.
In remembering the Passover, they were to eat unleavened bread as they were to leave in “haste” from Egypt. They also were to kill a lamb and put the blood of that lamb on their door posts. They then ate all of the lamb.
What this blood of the lamb pointed to is the blood of Jesus that He shed on the cross for us. Secondly, the bread in which he broke, represented His body which would be broken for us.
Hence, as the Israelites looked back at the Passover, remembering how God saved them out of the bondage of Egypt, so we take communion to look back at how the Lord saved us out of the bondage of sin.
We read more about communion in Corinthians. In the early Church, there was some misuse in administering communion. This caused Paul to state in his letter to the Church in Corinth guidance on communion.
I Corinthians 11:23-34
23 For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread:
24 And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.
25 After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, this cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.
26 For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come.
The Bible does not say how often a person should take communion, but rather, “as often” as you do it, you are remembering the Lord’s death on the cross until He returns. As stated, I grew up believing I was to take it weekly and it was taken so I could go to heaven. This belief is inaccurate according to the Bible. Rather, when we take it, how ever often, we do it to remember what the Lord did for us to set us free from sin, just as the Israelites held the Passover as a reminder of their deliverance from Egypt.
27 Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.
28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.
29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.
Now here is the one stipulation on taking communion in which we read in the Bible. We are not to take communion “unworthily”. I have heard some state this as unworthy, but we are all unworthy to sit at the Lord’s table, so we all wouldn’t be allowed communion. Rather, the word means irreverent and more properly according to Barne’s Notes: “in a manner unsuitable to the purposes for which it was designed or instituted”. When we take communion, it should be done properly in remembering what the Lord has done for us in laying His earthly life down on the cross.
In summary, according to the Bible, when we take communion, whether weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly, it should be done for the purpose of remembering the great sacrifice our Lord did in dying on the cross that we may be set free from the bondage of sin.
