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 being given for you”; “And He took a cup and gave thanks, and He gave it to them, saying, Drink of it, all of you, for this is My blood”; “Which is being poured out for you” (Matt. 26:26; Luke 22:19; Matt. 26:27-28; Luke 22:20).
When we break bread, the Lord gives us the bread and the cup; as we receive the bread and the cup from Him, we have fellowship with Him, and He has fellowship with us. He gives the bread and the cup to us; that is, He gives us His body and His blood, which means He gives Himself to us in fellowship. We receive the bread and the cup from Him; that is, we receive His body and His blood, which means we receive Him personally and thus have fellowship with Him. He gives His body and His blood to us in fellowship, and through His body given for us and His blood poured out for us, He gives Himself to us in fellowship for our enjoyment. We receive His body and His blood through His body given for us and His blood poured out for us, and we enjoy Him and have fellowship with Him.
Fellowship is communion, even an intimate communication, between two parties; therefore, in order for two parties to have fellowship with one another, they must have the same life and nature. The Lord Jesus was incarnated to put on our nature and to become the same as we; He gave up His body for us so that we could have His life and become the same as He is. His incarnation and His giving up of His body caused Him and us, us and Him, to have the same life and nature. Even though He is God, He has the human life and nature; even though we are men, we have God’s divine life and nature. Thus, He and we, we and He, have the same life and nature. In this same life and nature, we and He, He and we, can have fellowship and intimate communication with each other. Despite the fact that we were originally full of sin and could not contact Him as the sinless One, He shed His blood and fully redeemed us from our sins, causing us to become as sinless as He is; thus, we can contact Him and have fellowship with Him.
Because the Lord gave up His body and poured out His blood to enable us to have fellowship with Him, His body and His blood have become the factors of our fellowship with Him. We fellowship with Him through His body and His blood, and in this fellowship with Him, we enjoy His body and blood. His body and blood enable us to have fellowship with Him; they are the fellowship between us and Him. In this fellowship we contact Him through His body and blood, and we receive everything that He accomplished through the giving up of His body and the pouring out of His blood as our enjoyment.
1. “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the fellowship of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the fellowship of the body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16).
This verse speaks not only of our fellowship with the Lord through His blood and body but even more of our fellowship in the Lord’s blood and body with all the saints. We have fellowship with the Lord when we enjoy the Lord’s blood and body by drinking the cup and eating the bread. But we do not drink the cup and eat the bread individually, and we do not enjoy the Lord’s blood and body by ourselves. Rather, we eat, drink, and enjoy with all the saints. We drink the Lord’s cup as our corporate enjoyment of the Lord’s blood together with all the saints, and we eat the Lord’s bread as our corporate enjoyment of the Lord’s body together with all the saints. Thus, when we drink the cup and eat the bread, we have fellowship in the Lord’s blood and body with all the saints. The cup and bread enter into us, and they enter into every one of the saints. Every saint partakes of the cup and the bread, so we all partake of His blood and body; that is, we all receive the redemption accomplished by the pouring out of His blood and the life dispensed by the giving up of His body. The Lord’s blood and body are the common portion that we enjoy with all the saints, and this portion causes us to have fellowship with all the saints. In fact, it is the very fellowship that we have with all the saints. This is why the cup that we drink is the fellowship of the Lord’s blood, and the bread that we eat is the fellowship of the Lord’s body. Every time we drink the cup and eat the bread, all the saints have fellowship in the Lord’s blood and body. Therefore, our bread breaking is not merely a remembrance of the Lord, an enjoyment of the Lord, or a fellowship with the Lord but also a fellowship with all the saints. It is not merely a matter between us and the Lord; it is also a matter among all the saints. If our breaking of bread does not cause us to have fellowship with all the saints, if it does not speak forth our relationship with all the saints, it is improper and problematic.