1. “As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you declare the Lord’s death until He comes” (1 Cor. 11:26).
The word declare means “display” in the original Greek. The apostle said that every time we eat the bread and drink the cup, we display the Lord’s death. This means that we display His death for all to see. The bread symbolizes His body, and the cup symbolizes His blood. The cup placed beside the bread indicates that the Lord’s blood is outside of His body because it flowed out of His body and has been separated from His body. A person dies when his blood is separated from his body. Therefore, when we break bread and place the cup beside the bread, it displays the Lord’s death by spreading out His death before the universe for God, the angels, Satan, the demons, and all creation, including us, to see. (This is the reason that the bread and cup should not be covered by a cloth.) Every time we see the bread and cup, we see a display of the Lord’s death. Although we break the bread in remembrance of the Lord, we also display His death. During the bread-breaking meeting our hearts remember the Lord, our spirits enjoy the Lord, and our eyes should look upon His death.
The Lord’s death is the center of His work of redemption. The Lord’s redemptive work was accomplished through and is based upon His death. His death solves the problem of sin, satisfies the requirements of the law, and quells God’s righteous wrath, causing us to be reconciled and acceptable to God. The Lord’s death resolves the problems of the old man, the flesh, and the old creation, delivering us from sin, the law, and all the bondage and slavery of the old creation. His death also solves the problem of the devil, Satan, and the world, causing us to boast in triumph over him. The Lord’s death is all-inclusive. Everything that is opposed to God, incompatible with God, apart from God, or not of God, including sin, the flesh, Satan, the world, and the old creation, was terminated in this death. When we break bread by placing the bread and cup separately on the table, we display to the universe the all-inclusive death of the Lord which solved all the problems between us and God. As we display the Lord’s death, we also display everything that the Lord accomplished through His death to God, to the created things in the universe, and to ourselves.
1. “Until He comes” (1 Cor. 11:26).
When we break bread, we not only remember and declare but also expect. Our remembrance is to remember the Lord Himself, to enjoy Him; our declaration is to declare the Lord’s death, to display His death; and our expectation is to expect the Lord’s return, to wait for His return. When we break bread, on the one hand, we should remember the Lord Himself and contact Him, and on the other hand, we should contemplate the Lord’s death and await the Lord’s coming. We remember Him because He left and went into the heavens. But He promised that He would come from the heavens to receive us, so we also wait for Him. With respect to our remembrance, He is not visibly with us; with respect to our expectation, He will visibly come again to be with us. Even though He is the Spirit who is invisible but inwardly with us, we must wait for His second coming in order to have His visible, outward presence. When we break bread, we can touch His inward, invisible presence, but we hope even more for His outward, visible presence. His invisible presence causes us to thirst for His visible presence. Thus, when we break bread, we enjoy His invisible presence and we look forward to His visible presence. We contact Him while waiting for Him to come again.
1. “Eat the Lord’s supper”; “This do...unto the remembrance of Me” (1 Cor. 11:20, 25).
Breaking bread has two significant aspects. The first aspect of eating the Lord’s supper is our remembrance of Him. In this aspect, we remember the Lord by eating the bread and drinking the cup, we display His death, and we await His coming. This speaks of our relationship with the Lord. This aspect of bread breaking is emphasized in 1 Corinthians 11.
1. “Partake of the Lord’s table”; “The fellowship of the blood of Christ...the fellowship of the body of Christ” (1 Cor. 10:21, 16).
The second aspect of bread breaking is to partake of the Lord’s table and to have fellowship with all the saints. When we partake of the Lord’s table together with all the saints, we receive the Lord’s body and blood, and through them we have fellowship. In this aspect the Lord’s body and blood become our enjoyment with all the saints, and they are our fellowship with all the saints. This speaks of our relationship with all the saints. This aspect of bread breaking is emphasized in 1 Corinthians 10.
When we break bread, we eat the Lord’s supper on the one hand, and we partake of the Lord’s table on the other hand. The Lord’s supper is our remembrance of the Lord; it is a matter between the Lord and us, and it speaks of the love between the Lord and us. The Lord’s table is our fellowship with all the saints; it is a matter between all the saints, and it speaks of our fellowship with all the saints. We will speak in more detail concerning this fellowship in the following points.