In remembrance of Me
1 Corinthians 11:17-34 · Vern Peterman · Nov 15, 2009
1 & 2 Corinthians, No. 23
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926147573912

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Just to make an early announcement, here are the electives we're looking at starting in January, which will be a new year, and depending on who you talk to, maybe a new decade, but we'll see. And it's possible we may not even do these if the Lord takes us all home before then, but we'll see.

So at any rate, it says here, please sign up in the lobby. You can't do that yet. If you do that, you're going to mark up the bulletin boards. We don't have those up yet. But I just want to let you know what's coming up and begin to think about which elective might be something that you'd be interested in. Let's see. One of the other things you might have noticed I haven't been doing Expanded and Explained for a few weeks.

Well, I caught up with three chapters and so you can pick those up today on the cabinet to the right there as you exit the room. The expanded and explained, for those of you who may not be familiar with it, is where we take the passage and by using a little more explanation, some additional wording, try to make the point that the author, in this case Paul, was trying to make quite clear to you. Okay? All right. As we look at this passage here, we've been talking about whatever topic Paul happens to be addressing. As we step into this passage, this one is all about the Lord's Table.

Now, Paul addressed the issues that the believers in Corinth were having about the Lord's Table. He had actually begun in chapter 5 to address that in some degree, and even in some subsequent chapters. But here in this particular chapter, he's addressing problems that the believers in Corinth were having with the Lord's Table.

And as we've discovered in recent weeks and months, they had many problems. So this was just one of them that they had issues with. So Paul is trying to address that. It was clear from what Paul wrote in both the passage before what Randy read for us and afterwards that they were having serious sin problems.

Basically what was going on People were coming together for the Lord's Table, and in those days the practice was to have what they called a love feast. It was kind of a grand potluck gathering, and to have the Lord's Table in the midst of that. But instead of having it be a time of sharing and fellowship, it was a time of me first. It was a time of I want mine, and I want mine, and I want mine. And also, I want six plates of I Want Mine, even if that's the plate that you needed. And so there was a great deal of selfishness and gluttony. Some even were getting drunk at these events. And so a contrast we have here, this love feast is what the Christians would typically have.

Probably the initial description of that is in Acts 2.42. And we see it referred to here in this chapter and even in the book of Jude, verse 12, and other accounts of it as well. Instead what they were having was a Roman-style eating and drinking party with selfish gluttony and drunkenness. And so that's the problem that Paul was addressing. So while Paul addresses some really serious problems that were in the church there, and that certainly needed to be corrected, what we'll be doing this morning is focusing on the core of the passage that Randy read for us here, and to look at the Lord's table itself. and not focusing particularly on the problems they had, although they had significant problems, but really looking on what does God's Word tell us about the Lord's Table and what else can we learn about it by examining God's Word.

So in order to do that, we'll be traveling in time. You ready for a little time travel? That might be easier than road travel right now anyway. So we'll be traveling in time. Matter of fact, we'll be stepping back about 3,400 years. So are you ready for that?

Okay, it began at a Passover and that first gets described for us in Exodus chapter 12. It's the beginning place there and the account of the Passover there is in that chapter. Here are the Jews who had been for about four centuries slaves of Egypt. This was after the time when all the sons of Jacob had gone in there initially as an escape from the famine and were in Egypt.

Well then things turned bad for them and they turned from being guests to being slaves. So about 400 years of slavery. Here is on the slide there an Egyptian painting showing a slave master beating one slave while another slave pleads for mercy. And this is by the way a painting of the Egyptians put together. So as you can tell, they were very severe on the slaves.

And we have, interestingly enough, here is a brick. which is basically what the Jews did. By the way, they did not build pyramids. Pyramids were built before out of stone. They made bricks, that's very clear, with straw. And this particular one has Pharaoh's stamp. Every brick that was made had Pharaoh's stamp in it.

So after 400 years, roughly, of slavery under Egypt, they were going to be leaving. And so the Lord says, this is how it's going to happen. and he gave them his Passover celebration. They were going to leave the land of Goshen and wander around through the wilderness for 40 years before entering the promised land Canaan, which you see farther over on the other side of the map there. So at this Passover, the first thing was to take the blood of the lamb and to mark the top and the sides as the points of the cross. over the doorway and then the firstborn would be preserved from the judgment that would come on all the other households that didn't have this marking.

One of the things that Exodus 12 makes clear, and even numbers, is the 10 plagues that had come upon Egypt, and this was the last one that the Jews were going to be preserved from before their exodus, the 10 plagues were all to defeat and show the weakness and frailty of the Egyptian gods. And so we see them here listed in the ranking. And you also have this on page one of your handout there. So this last one, number 10, is the death of the firstborn.

The Jews were preserved from it as they would mark the points of the cross with the blood on their doorways. The other thing that they were to do, aside from marking the doorways with the blood, They were also to have an unblemished male year-old lamb. The Passover lamb of sacrifice was a picture of Christ as our sacrifice. That's what the Passover was pointing to, Christ, the sacrifice. The unblemished male year-old lamb was to be roasted and served with only unleavened bread. along with bitter herbs, and that's a translation for horseradish.

All of it was to be eaten while standing, ready for the exodus. Now the Jews have not carried on that standing tradition. I suspect they got tired of it. So that aspect of it, they seem to have changed. But the original, they were to actually eat it standing. Don't sit down, you're going to get ready to leave. They were going to have standing. They were going to have everybody eat all of it. Everybody eat all of it. You weren't supposed to leave over some. Eat it all.

They were to rid themselves of all the leaven from the very first day. And that's why this Passover is sometimes called the Feast of Unleavened Bread, as you read it throughout the Gospels. They were to eat, following that Passover time, unleavened bread for seven days. The next morning, the Jews were to depart from Goshen, this place that they had on the eastern part of the Nile Delta and the land of Egypt. They were to leave in great haste. Eat fast. Leave fast. That was the idea.

I think somewhere in there he made it sleep a little bit, but not much. The Jews were told to observe all these things as a memorial. Annually, you do this. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, you find multiple references to this unleavened bread as being another name for this Passover celebration. And in some cases, both terms in the same passage. So the timeline we get is this.

The exodus of the 12 tribes of Israel from Egypt, as recorded there in Exodus chapter 12, took place about 1440 BC. Now here, about 1400 plus years later, 30 AD approximately, here is the Last Supper of Christ with his 12 disciples, as recorded in the Gospels.

What is that Last Supper, but it is their observance of the Passover. That's what the disciples expected that they were going to do. This is the Passover. We've grown up with the Passover. As long as we can remember, we had the Passover. So they figured Jesus was going to just have the Passover with them as they had been having as long as they could recall. To them, it was just another Passover. They were going to have it there with the Lord.

Now, the Old Testament, by what that spells out, would have required this unblemished male year-old lamb, roasted, served with the unleavened bread and the bitter herbs. That would have been required by the Old Testament law and would have been, at a minimum, what they would have continued to do. It would have been treated as a Sabbath. That is, no work except on the Sabbath, except for the Passover meal preparation itself. That was allowed.

It's interesting how the Jews have interpreted that Sabbath don't do anything. As you move into our modern era, some of the buildings that have Jewish ownership or substantial observant Jews present, for example, on the Sabbath, the elevators will be programmed on the Sabbath to stop at every floor because pushing the buttons is work. Or if you go into the bathroom, you will find a stack of separate pieces of toilet paper because pulling the individual sheets off is work. So that's how seriously they take this.

The same thing would have been observed for this Passover. It would have been looked upon as a Sabbath. The only work allowed would be the meal preparation. Everything else is forbidden. Requirements for the Passover were given in these various passages, obviously starting with Exodus 12, the beginning point, but these others as well, and you have them listed on page one. As it turns out, from Exodus you have Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, four, the last four of the five books of Moses all contain reference to this Passover here. So the Jews would have maintained all these practices as required by that, but you know how the Jews are. They have tradition, right? They have their tradition. And so they would also have added traditions. Here's how it would have taken place.

Here's a picture of Jerusalem in the foreground looking off into the distance to the Dead Sea. So then you see kind of the middle of the air photo there. There's the Mount of Olives. And then you see the Temple Mount which now It has the Dome of the Rock there. That would have been the temple during Jesus' time. And then the main city of Jerusalem.

So that kind of gives you a perspective on how this would have taken place. As the Bible describes it, Jesus was coming from Bethany and then Bethphage. And as he came up there, by the way, that's when Lazarus was raised. He would have come over the Mount of Olives and that is what we would have called the triumphal entry. I think it's somewhat of a misnomer but that's what it's traditionally called.

Coming over the Mount of Olives and then into Jerusalem. He would have entered this eastern gate that is now bricked up. It was bricked up roughly 500 years ago. The Muslims heard that the Messiah was coming through there and they thought if they bricked it up that would keep him from coming. I don't think so.

Here is Jerusalem about the time that Jesus held the Last Supper. By any indications and investigations we have, they held the Last Supper in this part of Jerusalem. It was within walking distance of the temple. As a matter of fact, they would have gotten their lamb from the temple where they would have had the lamb slaughtered and then brought over here.

There's a three-page supplement available also on the cabinet to the right that has the accounts here of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and this passage here in 1 Corinthians 11 in parallel. So if you're interested in that, you can take a look at that. Feel free to avail yourself of that if that's interesting to you.

According to tradition, and apparently archaeological investigations have found nothing to the contrary, This is the place where Jesus had the Last Supper with his twelve disciples, recorded in Mark and Luke. The upper part, the ceiling part, has been changed since the original, but the floor and some of the base columns would be as they were when he had the Last Supper. This is another view of that same room.

So, in New Testament times, Between the things that are revealed in the Old Testament and the traditions that they had had, whatever aspects of the Passover required by the Old Testament, they maintained those in the New Testament times. One exception, the standing.

But the other one, in addition to that, is there would be centuries of written and oral tradition that they would have added to that and would have become standard practice by the time of Christ's first coming. The Gospels don't record the details of the Passover because every Jew would have known what those details were. So what the Gospels record is substantially what was different from the Passover.

And that's a value to us, as we'll see here in a minute. They record and establish the pattern of the Lord's Table for the church, and we'll see how that takes place here. First of all, they would have been reclining at table. That would have been typical. You see that numerous times in all the Gospels, and in those we have highlighted in blue there, that would be particularly the case for the Lord's Table, as we call it, or the Last Supper.

The cups might have been either pottery, metal, or glass. Probably not some fancy thing like comes up in fables. But fairly simple. Glass is possible, but glassblowing had been invented just before the time of Christ. And this is a New Testament era glass that's whole. That is rare. Because most of them got broken up, right? And so they weren't that common. This particular one happens to be in one piece, which is kind of astounding.

Plates would have been similar to this one. This one particular was found from Samaria. It would have been about a foot across. It dates from a couple decades before the birth of Christ. But because it happens to be whole, even with cracks, it's a good example for us to look at.

By custom, four servings of wine would have been offered. Yes, real wine, but the wine was to be diluted, according to the rabbis, with five parts of water to one part of wine. Extremely dilute. The wine was consumed with a substantial meal, in addition to being diluted, this Passover meal that we talked about, in which you were required to eat the whole thing. You're not allowed to just say, I'll just have this little bit, that's my portion. No, you're required to eat the whole thing. The wine was consumed over a period of a few hours in a typical Passover meal, spread out over time and diluted, five parts water to one part wine.

Drunkenness, of course, was not encouraged, nor was it well thought of. The classical terminology during New Testament times for somebody who was the scum of the earth was drunkards and tax collectors, and tax collectors and sinners, and things of that sort. It was not well thought of. So four servings of wine marked the meal because there was a purpose for each one of the cups. And page 2 of your handout shows this portion that we see here on the left. Each serving of the cup was for a specific purpose.

It was taken from Exodus 6, 6 and 7. And it goes like this. The first cup, they would say, I will bring you out. It would represent the deliverance that they had that Passover night, where the Lord provided for them to leave in haste the next morning. There would be an opening prayer for that day of Passover as they would celebrate. At the second cup, I will rid you of your bondage. This is talking about their freedom. There would be customarily a Passover explanation.

They would sing Psalm 113 and 114. At the third cup would be said, I will redeem you. And then would be the eating of the bread and the lamb and the bitter herbs. At the fourth cup, I will take you for my people and I will be your God. The consummation of this meal. Then they would sing Psalm 115 to Psalm 118.

By the way, there's a typo in there. It should be Psalm 113 to 118 are called the Hallel. Hallel means praise. So we have our word hallelujah, praise God. So between one part and the next of the meal they would sing through Psalm 113 and 118, which by the way would be the thing that they would also sing as they were approaching Jerusalem for several of these feasts. And that's also what they were singing when Jesus had his so-called triumphal entry. They were singing the Hallel as they came. And it said, Hosanna, Hosanna. And that's exactly what you see recorded in the so-called triumphal entry.

They would sing this at different times, including the Passover meal. At this first cup, I will bring you out deliverance. It appears likely that Luke 22, 17 describes Christ as saying the blessing before they all drank from the first cup. That would be the custom. So far, all the disciples are comfortable because this is a typical Passover meal. Nothing unusual going on.

Cup three is where It is said over the cup, I will redeem you. It was during the eating of the bread, lamb, and bitter herbs associated with the third cup that Christ spoke of Judah's betrayal, as well as saying of the bread, this is my body. During that time, he would hold up the bread and he said, this is my body. Now, at that point, they're starting to go, whoa.

Wait a minute. This isn't traditional. What's the deal? You've got to get to the tradition. Stay with the tradition. But that's not what's happening. He all of a sudden begins saying, this is my body. This bread that you eat every year, that's my body. Next, with that third cup, he would have said, this is my blood. That was not according to tradition either. Jesus is in a very, very traditional meal that they'd all grown up with and memorized, saying some very startling, even disturbing things. Wait a minute, what are you doing? This is my body, this is my blood, I don't understand. Where's that in the book? So as he said these things, they were stunned. What's he doing?

One of the other things that is in here, it's really important because remember the instructions that the Jews had, do this as a memorial. Exodus 12 again. It says, Now this day will be a memorial to you, and you shall celebrate it as a feast of the Lord throughout your generations. You are to celebrate it as a permanent ordinance. Keep doing this.

And nextly, later on in that chapter, when you enter the land which the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall observe this rite. And when your children say to you, what does this rite mean to you? You shall say, it is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord who passed over the houses of the sons of Israel and Egypt when he smote the Egyptians but spared our homes. You shall say this. So consider these things.

The Jews' Passover observance every year was to be done as a memorial. Remember this, right? This is the context in which Christ would have understood, this is my body and this is my blood. A memorial. Even though those two statements would not have been what they'd expected at all. Matter of fact, I have to think that they were very puzzled. Both Luke and Paul record Christ as saying, do this in remembrance of me. This is already a memorial, but as you do this, this is my body, this is my blood, do this in remembrance of me. It's a memorial. It's something to be done in remembrance. The Greek word for remembrance here is a synonym for the same word the Jews were taught as their view of the Passover, this memorial. Also, think about this.

When Christ was done with His work on the cross, He said, It is finished. And by the way, in English that's three words. In the original language, it's one. It doesn't work out so well with drama. I've seen some of the movies go, It is finished! Right? He just said one word. And the one word He said that's translated, It is finished, is the word they use on bills that were paid. Paid! The whole thing.

In Hebrews 10.14, for by one offering He, Christ, has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. When Christ died on the cross, was He finished? Yes. Has He perfected you for all time? Yes.

Both finished and perfected in these verses is in the perfect tense, and that's not designed to have you get perfectly tense. It's designed to have us understand it's a completed past action with ongoing results on into the future eternally, and it implies permanence.

It's a done deal. There's all these verses, and it's only a few that we've listed. It's available on page two of your handout. There's this word hapax in there, and the word hapax, a fairly simple word, means once done, perpetually valid. It underscores the same idea.

When Christ paid the price, He did it, it was completely finished, completely done. This is what Christ had in mind then, was to have believers remember Him for what He has done, and I mean completely done, for us and who He is. Do this in remembrance of me, what I have done and who I am. The intent was all to have believers anticipate his coming. How do we know that?

Luke 22, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine from now on until the kingdom of God comes. It's that until. Or we have this, in this 1st Corinthians 11 passage, verse 26, do this until he comes. Until. So the spiritual value of the Lord's table is in this remembrance with anticipation.

Paul applied that Passover very directly and spiritually to church believers here in this 1 Corinthians 5, 6 through 8. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed, done deal, in which he said it's finished. Therefore, let us celebrate the feast. If we look at it, there are contrasts here between the Passover and the Lord's Table.

Under the law of Moses, it was a memorial for Israel. The Jews were to look back at the Exodus every time they did this and look forward to God's salvation of the nation of Israel. That's what they were to do, okay? But under grace, it's a memorial for us in the church. Do this in remembrance of me.

It looks back on the cross and forward to his coming, until he comes, right? Here you have it on page three in a chart that looks kind of like this. So here are the Jews, they're looking back to that exodus, back to that first Passover, back to that event, and looking forward Up until this time that Christ comes, the Passover.

We, however, because of what Christ instituted for the Church there at that Last Supper, He was handing on the Church's practice, not the Passover. We are in a position as we take of the Lord's table to look back on His sacrifice for us. And we have, in addition to that, our identification with him in his death. And how long do we do that? Until he comes. We look forward to the future. So we, like the Jews, have a looking back and a looking forward. But here's the handoff. That's what we're observing now.

They looked to the sacrificial lamb that would come. Therefore, John the Baptist would say, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. We look back on Christ's sacrifice for us. And by the way, we come together here this morning to behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. One more thing.

The one thing that is frequently missed is that from the end of the Gospels all the way into the last chapters of Revelation, is repeated reference to the fact that the Church is the Bride of Christ. This is not something the disciples understood, even though Jesus spoke of it directly with them. We now, as believers, are in a place of anticipating being the Bride of Christ. We are now betrothed to Him. That's the position we're in. The mention of that is frequently missed.

There's a two-page supplement that explains more than we'll go into now that you're free to take. Another supplement, can you imagine that? That explains this relationship and how Christ kept dropping hints and the Apostles all the way to the last chapters of Revelation kept dropping hints about the eternal romance between Christ and the Church and the marriage between Christ and the Church. And so you can feel free to take a look at that.

Let me step into it briefly here as it impacts the Lord's Table. The prospective bridegroom would travel from his father's house to the home of the prospective bride. Let me ask you this. Did Christ come from his father's house to the home of the prospective bride? Yes. That's exactly what he did. He came here in that event we call Christmas.

There he would negotiate with the father or woman to determine the bride price. What bride price did Christ pay for you and me? He paid with his life, right? He paid the bride price. And therefore, when he was done paying the bride price, what did he say? It's finished. It's paid. All paid. Once the bridegroom paid the purchase price, the marriage covenant was thereby established and the young man and the young woman were then considered to be husband and wife, betrothed, as Mary and Joseph were when she was pregnant with Jesus.

From that moment on, the bride was declared to be consecrated, sanctified, and set apart exclusively for her bridegroom. When you read the word sanctified in the New Testament, Do you look upon that as a betrothal word? That's what it means. It's a word that means that we are betrothed to Christ.

The bride price has been paid. As a symbol of the new covenant relationship that had been established, here's what happened. The bride and the groom would drink from a cup of wine over which a betrothal benediction had been pronounced. The bridegroom would say over the cup of wine, this is the new covenant.

Isn't that exactly what Christ said here at the Last Supper? These disciples must have been stunned. Wait a minute, we're here to celebrate the Passover. What are you doing saying these wedding and marriage words? They were freaked out. They have to have been. They didn't understand it. But he had been dropping hints like this all the way along.

I go to prepare a place for you. That was also what a bridegroom would say to a bride when this had taken place. I go to prepare a place for you. And then I will come again and take you to myself. Which is exactly what the bridegroom would do with a bride. And here, here at the Last Supper, what is he doing? More wedding words. More marriage words.

This is the New Covenant. And why could he say that? The bride price was his own blood. This is the new covenant in my blood. Wedding words. The disciples must have been stunned. They were completely baffled at what he was saying. Wait a minute. That's not a part of our Passover tradition. First Corinthians 6 that we studied some weeks back. but you were washed, but you were sanctified. There's that wedding word again, but you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God.

The washing, it was traditional before the wedding ceremony for the bride to have a bridal bath. And it was not just so that she was clean for the wedding, although I'm sure that was desirable, but it was to symbolize her moral and spiritual purity. So here Paul uses this washed and sanctified as two wedding words, basically, with these believers in Corinth. But that's not all.

Additionally, in 2 Corinthians, we're not there yet, he said, For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy, for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin. Even Paul, as he looked at the relationship between this church in Corinth and Christ, that was exactly what he spelled out and said to them.

So as we look at the Lord's table and think about how this gets started, it got started with the Passover, but Christ here at a celebration that was everything traditional that they expected, That was the place where he said, I'm going to change this.

I'm going to start something new. And I'm going to ask you to do this in remembrance of me, of who I am, of what I've done. And I'm going to pay the bride price completely. I want you to look back at that time where I paid the price and I want you to look forward to the time that I come.

Just as in the Jewish wedding ceremony, the bride would look forward to the time when the bridegroom would come for her. And you know when the bridegroom would come for the bride? When the father would tell the bridegroom, go get your bride. Now's the time. In remembrance of me until he comes. in remembrance of me until he comes.