1. “Jesus took bread and...gave it to the disciples and said, Take, eat; this is My body. And He took a cup...and He gave it to them, saying, Drink of it, all of you, for this is My blood” (Matt. 26:26-28).
When we break bread, the Lord gives us the bread and the cup and tells us to take and to eat and drink. He wants us to receive His body and blood as our enjoyment. This speaks of our being joined to the Lord, and it testifies that we are joined to the Lord. When we eat the bread and drink the cup, we take them into us, signifying that, through the Lord’s giving up of His body and the pouring out of His blood, He came into us and joined Himself to us. When we receive the Lord’s body given for us and His blood poured out for us, we also testify that we have partaken of both Him and His accomplishments for us and thus are joined with Him. Every time we break bread, we testify that we and He, He and we, have been joined as one because of the redemption accomplished through the Lord’s giving up of His body and the shedding of His blood. We are now in Him, and He is now in us. The bread that we break testifies that His life was released to become our life. As we break the bread, we testify that we have obtained His life and are joined to Him in life because of what He accomplished by giving up His body and being broken for us. The cup that we drink testifies that we are worthy to be joined to Him because His blood was poured out to expunge our sins. As we drink the cup, we testify that we have obtained His life and are worthy to be joined to Him in life because of the redemption accomplished by the shedding of His blood.
1. “We who are many are one Body; for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Cor. 10:17).
When we break bread, not only do we testify that we are joined to the Lord, but we also testify that we are joined to all the saints and are in oneness with all the saints; that is, we are in the oneness of the church. This is testified by the breaking of bread as it relates to the Lord’s table. The breaking of bread as it relates to the Lord’s supper refers to the Lord’s own body (His body of flesh) and signifies that the Lord’s own body was broken for us; the breaking of bread as it relates to Lord’s table refers to the Lord’s mystical Body (the church) and signifies that the Lord’s mystical Body is one. The Lord gave up His physical body to produce His mystical Body. He is the grain of wheat who produced many grains through death and resurrection to form the many grains into one loaf (John 12:24), which is the one Body. The many grains are those who have obtained His life in every time and every place. As the many grains, we are not scattered; rather, in the Holy Spirit, we are one bread, one Body (1 Cor. 12:13). Although we are many grains with life, many people with life, we do not exist individually, grain by grain or one by one; instead, all of us have become one bread, one Body. Therefore, the apostle says, “We who are many are one Body.”
Thus, the bread that we break in the aspect of the Lord’s table refers to the entire Body of Christ, including all the saved ones in every time and every place. Peter and Paul are in this bread; Martin Luther, J. N. Darby, George Müller, D. L. Moody, all of us who are saved today, and all those who will be saved in the future are in this one bread. All the saved ones, whether in the past, in the present, or in the future, are in this one bread, and all partake of this one bread.
Therefore, when we break bread, on the one hand, we testify that we are one with the Lord, and on the other hand, we testify that we are also one with all the saints, that is, with all the saved ones in every time and every place. We and all the saved ones in every time and every place are one in the Lord’s life, that is, are one Body. All those with the Lord’s life in every time and every place participate in the Lord’s mystical Body, are one in His life, and have become one Body. This is what the bread that we break and eat signifies in relation to the Lord’s table, and this is our testimony when we break the bread in this aspect. Therefore, the bread that we break signifies not only the Lord’s own body but all the saints in every time and every place. We must not break bread only to remember the Lord and display His death; we must also testify that we are one with all the saints in every time and every place. We and all the saints in every time and every place partake of this one bread. Although we are all in different times and different places when we break the bread, we all still break this one bread. In the past Peter and Paul broke this one bread; today we are breaking this one bread. The brothers in China break this one bread, and the brothers in other countries break this one bread. It does not matter that we are in different times or places when we break the bread; we all break one bread because we all belong to this one loaf, and we are all part of the one Body represented by this bread.
The bread that we break represents the one Body of Christ in the universe, so the bread that we break in every time and every place is a representation of the one bread, the one Body. The bread that we broke last year, the bread broken this year, the bread broken last Lord’s Day, the bread broken this Lord’s Day, the bread broken in Taipei, the bread broken in Kaohsiung, the bread broken in Hall 1, and the bread broken in Hall 5 are all the one bread which symbolizes the one Body. In the universe there is only the one Body of Christ, and this Body is one. Our breaking of only one bread testifies to this fact.