To break bread is to eat the Lord’s supper. Since this is a great matter in the New Testament, which expresses our relationship with the Lord Jesus and our relationship with the saints, we cannot neglect it.
1. “The Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. 11:23-25; see also Luke 22:19-20; Matt. 26:26-29).
The breaking of bread was established by the Lord Jesus; it was not ordained by the apostles. What the Lord established was passed on to us by the apostles. Thus, our breaking of bread is not merely a matter of keeping the teachings of the apostles; it is our receiving of what was ordained and established by the Lord.
1. “In the night in which He was betrayed” (1 Cor. 11:23).
The Lord Jesus established the table in the night in which He was betrayed, that is, after He ate the Passover feast together with His disciples for the last time, which was also His last supper on earth. It was on the evening of the fourteenth day of the first month of the Hebrew calendar (Exo. 12:2-11). The establishing of the breaking of bread at this time is very meaningful.
1. To replace the Old Testament Feast of the Passover (Luke 22:14-20; 1 Cor. 5:7).
In the Old Testament the Israelites kept the Feast of the Passover to remember how God saved them in Egypt through the Passover lamb. The lamb typified the Lord Jesus, and its death typified the death of the Lord Jesus. When the Lord Jesus and His disciples ate the Passover for the last time, He was about to be put to death to shed His blood to accomplish the new covenant. Consequently, at this time He established the breaking of bread as a remembrance for those in the New Testament age to replace the Old Testament Passover. Since He fulfilled the type of the Passover and His death fulfilled the type of the death of the Passover lamb, He abolished the Passover and established the breaking of bread as its replacement. Just as He and His death fulfilled the type of the Passover, His breaking of bread replaced the remembrance of the Passover.
1. “Jesus took bread and blessed it, and He broke it and gave it to the disciples and said, Take, eat; this is My body”; “Which is given for you” (Matt. 26:26; 1 Cor. 11:24).
When the Lord established the breaking of bread, He first broke the bread and gave it to His disciples, telling them to take and eat. He said that it was His body, which was given for them. Therefore, each time we break bread, there is a loaf of bread on the table for everyone to break and eat. According to the Lord’s word, the bread is a symbol of His body. His body was given up for us on the cross. Through His death on the cross, He broke His body and distributed it for us to enjoy. Every time we break the bread and eat the broken pieces, we demonstrate and announce that the Lord’s body was broken for us and that through His death on the cross, He has become our portion.
Bread in the Bible refers to life. The Lord said that He is the bread of life and the One who gives life to the world (John 6:33-35). Thus, when we speak of bread, we should think of life. The Lord broke His body for us and distributed it to us like bread; this means that He gave up His body so that we could receive His life. Our receiving of His broken body is our partaking of His life. His life was dispensed to us through the breaking of His body. Thus, He distributes His broken body to us as the bread of life as our portion in life for our enjoyment. This is what is signified by the broken bread.
The Bible shows that God’s eternal purpose is to dispense the life in His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, into people. Therefore, through incarnation His life was embodied in the Lord Jesus, and He came to earth so that men could receive His life (1:4; 10:10). The Lord Jesus wanted people to receive the life of God within Him, so He needed to die in order to release the life of God from His broken body. Through the death of His physical body, He dispensed the divine life within Him to us. This is the main reason for His giving up His body through His death on the cross. This is the reason He first broke the bread and gave it to the disciples. When He established the breaking of bread, He signified that He was giving up His body for us so that the divine life within Him could become our portion. When we see the bread, when we receive the bread, when we touch and break the bread, we should realize and, even more, manifest and declare by faith that the body of the Lord Jesus was broken for us, enabling us to partake of the divine life within Him. The breaking of the bread speaks of this, and we should manifest this to the entire universe each time we break bread.