Christ is the object of the believers’ remembrance for them to eat and drink, declaring His death until He comes. In 1 Corinthians 11:26 Paul tells us that at the Lord’s supper we “eat this bread and drink the cup.” The bread and the cup are the elements of the Lord’s supper, a feast, set up by Him so that we, His believers, may remember Him by enjoying Him as such a feast. This means that we should remember the Lord by eating and drinking Him. At the Lord’s supper we partake of the bread and the cup as the symbols of His body and His blood in order to enjoy Him. It is by eating, drinking, and enjoying the Lord that we remember Him. The following stanza of Hymns, #233 speaks of this:
We long to eat and drink e’en more,
To take Thyself in spirit thus,
Till Thou shalt all our being fill
And true remembrance have from us.
The more we eat, drink, and enjoy Him, the more we render Him the true remembrance. To remember the Lord is not merely to recall that Christ is God who became a man, lived as a carpenter, and was persecuted, arrested, judged, and crucified. Rather, to remember Him is to eat and drink Him, to enjoy Him. In other words, we do not remember the Lord by using our mind to meditate about the Lord; instead, we remember the Lord by exercising our spirit to feed on Him. Our remembering the Lord in such a way declares to the whole universe that we daily enjoy Him as our food and drink. He is our feast, our enjoyment.
After we have been saved and regenerated, we should come together to take the Lord’s supper in remembrance of the Lord by eating the bread and drinking the cup. On the first day of every week, we need to come together to remember Him by enjoying Him, that is, by eating and drinking Him. In so doing, we declare to the universe that we live by daily eating, drinking, and enjoying Jesus. When we come to eat the Lord’s supper, we come to establish a testimony to the universe, including all the angels, demons, human beings, and creatures, that we are a group of people who live by Jesus, eating, drinking, and enjoying Him.
At the Lord’s supper we not only remember the Lord but also declare His death until He comes. Whenever we eat the bread and drink the cup, we simultaneously remember the Lord and display His redeeming and life-releasing death (John 19:34). In 1 Corinthians 11:26 Paul says, “As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you declare the Lord’s death until He comes.” The word declare here means proclaim, announce, or display. While we are remembering the Lord, we display His death. In fact, we remember the Lord Himself by declaring and displaying His death to the entire universe: to the demons, to the angels, and to human beings. When we remember the Lord, the bread and the cup are displayed separately on the table. The bread refers to the Lord’s body, and the cup refers to His blood; the separation of the body and the blood signifies death. With this display of death, we proclaim and announce Christ’s all-inclusive termination of twelve items on the cross: the angelic life (Col. 1:20), the human life (Gal. 2:20), Satan (Heb. 2:14; John 12:31), the kingdom of Satan (Col. 2:15; John 12:31), sin (2 Cor. 5:21; Rom. 8:3), sins (1 Pet. 2:24; Isa. 53:6), the world (Gal. 6:14; John 12:31), death (Heb. 2:14), the flesh (Gal. 5:24), the old man (Rom. 6:6), self (Gal. 2:20), and all creation (Col. 1:20).
According to 1 Corinthians 11:26, we are to declare the Lord’s death until He comes. This shows that when we break bread to remember the Lord and to display His death, we are also waiting for His coming. We should display the Lord’s death and thus remember Him in the spirit and atmosphere of waiting for His coming. We have a glorious hope: one day Christ will return and change our body (15:51-54). When our body of humiliation is transfigured into the body of His glory at His coming (Phil. 3:21), our redemption will be complete (Rom. 8:23).
We should take the Lord’s supper unto the remembrance of Him by declaring His redeeming death without ceasing until He comes back to set up God’s kingdom (Matt. 26:29). By His first coming the Lord accomplished His death to carry out an all-inclusive redemption for the producing of the church. After His death He went away to receive the kingdom, and He will come again with the kingdom (Dan. 7:13-14; Luke 19:12). The period between His first and second comings is the church age. The church thus bridges the gap between the Lord’s first coming and His second coming and connects His death in the past with God’s kingdom in the future. Hence, to declare the Lord’s death until He comes may imply the declaring of the existence of the church for the bringing in of the kingdom. When we eat the Lord’s supper in this way, with a view to a continual remembrance of Him in His first and second comings, that supper becomes a satisfaction to Him in relation to the kingdom, God’s administration.