There are four main items that we must practice in the Lord’s table meeting. First, to remember the Lord at His table is to partake of Him. The biblical ground for this is in 1 Corinthians 10 and 11. Verses 23 through 25 of chapter eleven say, “For I received from the Lord that which also I delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread, and having given thanks, He broke it and said, This is My body, which is given for you; this do unto the remembrance of Me. Similarly also the cup after they had dined, saying, This cup is the new covenant established in My blood; this do, as often as you drink it, unto the remembrance of Me.” This indicates that to remember the Lord in a real way is to take, eat, and drink of Him.
To eat and to drink something is to partake of it. Verse 21 of chapter ten says, “You cannot drink the Lord’s cup and the demons’ cup; you cannot partake of the Lord’s table and of the demons’ table.” It is not our own word to say that we partake of the Lord; in the Bible we have this phrase: partake of the Lord’s table. Since this is a table, it must be something for us to enjoy. In 1 Corinthians 11 there is eating and drinking, and in chapter ten there is the table and the partaker of the table. All of this strongly proves that to remember the Lord, to have the Lord’s table, is to partake of the Lord. When we come to the Lord’s table, we do not merely remember Him in our mind. Rather, we partake of the Lord, enjoy Him once again, eat and drink of Him, and sit at His table with the saints to share Him one with another. This is the first meaning of the Lord’s table.
This thought, concept, and understanding is very much neglected by today’s Christianity. Today when many Christians come to the so-called holy communion, they have the thought that they must remember what Jesus did for us, that He was the Son of God, and that He died on the cross for us. However, when we come to the table, we come again to take something of the Lord Himself. We come to partake of the Lord. The Lord’s table is a table with the Lord Himself spread as a feast on the table. He has given Himself to us by His death and resurrection. Now He offers us not His blood first but His body. That His body is first and His blood follows proves that He is offering us Himself in resurrection. Even though the Lord set up the table before His death, it was something done in anticipation of His resurrection. He has given Himself to us by His death, and He has put Himself before us in His resurrection. Now in His resurrection we come to His table to enjoy Him, feast on Him, and eat and drink of Him.
The second main point concerning the Lord’s table is the exercise of our spirit. The way we come to the Lord’s table to partake of the Lord, that is, to eat and drink of the Lord, is by exercising our spirit. If we do not know how to exercise our spirit, we cannot enjoy the Lord. This matter is neglected too much. Whenever we come to the Lord’s table, we have to realize that we have come to partake of the Lord. Therefore, we need to exercise. Before we come to a delicious feast, we have to get ourselves ready. Many times when I was invited to a dinner, I asked the one inviting me what he would serve. If it is something that I truly desire, I prepare my appetite all day long for the coming dinner. Then I am able to go and enjoy it adequately. To come to the Lord’s table is to partake of the Lord, to enjoy the Lord, to eat and drink something of the Lord. For this we have to prepare our spirit. Therefore, the second main item concerning this meeting is the exercise of the spirit.
Whenever we come to the Lord’s table, we must realize that we are coming to enjoy the Lord. Today the Lord is the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b), and the way He imparts Himself to us is in our spirit. Therefore, we have to exercise our spirit. The strongest ground to prove this from the Bible is John 4 and 6. Verse 63 of chapter six says, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” To this we can add John 4:24: “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him [that is, contact Him, enjoy Him, and partake of Him] must worship in spirit and truthfulness.” We need to exercise our spirit.
We also need to give up all the preoccupying things. This means that we must not only prepare our spirit, but we have to open our spirit deeply. To open ourselves from our very depths is not only to open our mind and heart but to open our spirit. Whenever we come to the table, we have to prepare ourselves by opening to the Lord from our spirit, from the very depths of our being. It is not only that our sins have been purged away and that we have rid ourselves of the worldly things. It is also that we drop anything that preoccupies us, and we open deeply from within to the Lord. Then our spirit will be prepared and exercised.
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