About the Lord’s Supper

Q: I agree with your thoughts about edification and worship. But how did the Lord’s supper fit into these first-century assemblies?

TRW: My response here is not intended to be a full analysis of every aspect of the Lord’s supper. Rather, I will focus on how a fresh look at the New Testament evidence (for my dissertation) forced me to view the Lord’s supper differently than I had before.

Since the Lord’s supper has evolved into a sacred ritual that is perceived to have salvific effects, my response is certain to spawn heated opposition. So, I urge you to view this issue purely from the perspective of first-century Christianity (i.e., the New Testament documents), not from a second-century perspective, not a fourth-century perspective, and certainly not a modern perspective.

Here are five key points that are often overlooked.

1. The Lord’s Supper was a Supper.

While doing my research into 1 Corinthians 11, it dawned on me that “the Lord’s supper is a supper.” It’s a meal! This realization is an example of how our modern practices have clouded our ability to read the Christian scriptures. Again, anachronism has reared its ugly head, making it difficult to understand the first-century text.

Let’s look at the evidence. The phrase, “the Lord’s supper” (kuriakon deipnon), is found only once in the New Testament, in 1 Cor. 11:20. As any Greek lexicon will tell you, the word deipnon means “supper” or “banquet” or “dinner.”

For example, when “Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his nobles and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee” (Mk. 6:21), the Greek word for banquet is deipnon. When Jesus said, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many” (Lk. 14:16), this banquet was a deipnon. In Jn. 12:2, when Martha “gave a dinner” for Jesus and several guests, the Greek word for dinner is deipnon.

The fact that the Lord’s supper is a full meal is clear from the text of 1 Cor. 11:17-34, which describes the Corinthians’ practice of “the Lord’s supper” (deipnon). The chapter explicitly mentions the Corinthian problems of each person “going ahead with his own meal (deipnon)” while some go “hungry,” and “another gets drunk” (11:21). You can’t get “drunk” on a sip of wine. And you can’t relieve “hunger” with a piece of cracker.

The “Lord’s supper” described by Paul was not a miniaturized snack with a piece of cracker and a sip of wine. As I have sometimes said, “It was the Lord’s supper, not the Lord’s snack.” Most scholars agree that the Lord’s supper of 1 Corinthians 11 was a full meal. Indeed, it’s hard to conclude otherwise after seeing the word deipnon and the references to hunger and getting drunk. As I. Howard Marshall said, “These occasions were full meals with plenty of food and drink.” (See his statements in “Lord’s supper,” Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, (1993): 571. See also Gordon Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (1987), 532; and the analysis of δεῖπνον in Silva, ed., “δεῖπνον,” NIDNTTE, 1:643-56.)

Coming Together to Eat

This Corinthian passage contains another interesting clue about the nature of this gathering that included the Lord’s dinner. In 1 Cor. 11:33, Paul summarizes the Lord’s supper event by saying, “So then, my brethren, when you come together to eat …” They came together to eat! Having a meal together was a central focus of their gathering.

This idea matches well with other NT evidence of first-century Christian meetings. Acts 20:7 says, “On the first day of the week when we were gathered together to break bread.” Acts 20:11 also mentions “eating.” Again, they gathered together to eat!

Some might claim that “breaking bread” refers to the Lord’s supper. Perhaps, but let’s remember that a “supper” was a “supper.” It was a full meal.

What did “breaking bread” typically connote in the first century? Earlier in Acts, Luke adds some helpful explanation: “Breaking bread from house to house, they were sharing their food together with gladness” (Acts 2:46). Luke clearly indicates that “breaking bread” is another way of saying, “sharing their food.” A few verses earlier, Luke says the earliest Christians devoted themselves to four activities, and one of them was “the breaking of bread” (Acts 2:42). They came together to eat!

Other respected scholars see “breaking bread” as a reference to a meal. For example, see Darrell L. Bock, Acts, (2007), 150-51; Brad Blue, “The Influence of Jewish Worship on Luke’s Presentation of the Early Church,” in Witness to the Gospel: The Theology of Acts (1998), 488-89; and I. Howard Marshall, “Lord’s Supper,” DPL (1993), 573.

And don’t forget the “love feasts” mentioned in Jude 12. This verse is another likely reference to the common first-century habit of Christians having meals together. Just as in 1 Cor. 11:33, Acts 2:46, and Acts 20:7, they gathered together to eat!

As with so many issues related to the first-century assemblies, we must not force our modern church practices into our reading of the first-century text. This problem of anachronism plagues the modern study of first-century Christian assemblies.

2. The Lord’s Supper was not a Sacrifice.

If you come from a Catholic, Orthodox, or possibly an Anglican/Episcopal background, you are likely to have inherited the view that the Lord’s supper is a sacrifice that we give to God. In support of this idea, they usually claim that Paul’s statements about meat sacrificed to idols in 1 Cor. 10:14-22 imply that the Lord’s supper is a sacrifice.

Let’s look at what Paul said. The main point of his argument in that chapter is that, when a Christian eats meat sacrificed to idols, he is “participating” in idolatry. The idea of “participating” or “sharing” (koinonia) is Paul’s key word in this section. Since he wants them to “flee from idolatry” (10:14), he wants them to avoid “participating” in any part of it.

To illustrate his point, he refers to the Lord’s supper. He says, when Christians consume the bread and the cup, they are “participating” in the body and blood of Christ (10:16-17). Similarly, when people consume sacrificial meat, they are “participating” in idolatry. Consequently, Paul says, “I do not want you to be participants with demons” (10:20).

Nowhere in this passage—or anywhere else—does Paul state or imply that the Lord’s supper is a sacrifice. As I. Howard Marshall said, “It will be clear from what Paul has said that he does not think of the Lord’s supper as itself a sacrifice in any sense of the term” [Last Supper and Lord’s Supper (1980): 122, 174].

As I traced in Video #6 and in this paper, the view that the Lord’s supper is our sacrifice started to emerge in Christian writings outside of the New Testament and eventually led to the introduction of altars, priests, sacred buildings, and the view that Christian assemblies are “worship services.” After all, in that culture, a sacrifice typically required (1) a sacrificial altar, (2) a priest to ensure the sacrifice was offered properly, and (3) a holy place for the offering of the sacrifice.

But in the NT, Jesus is the all-sufficient “once for all” sacrifice that eliminates the need for any more sacrifices. As the writer of Hebrews says, “Every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, … he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Heb. 10:11-12; cf. 7:27; 9:12, 26).

Consequently, Christians have no need to offer sacrifices for sin. And since they have no need to offer sacrifices for sin, they have no need of altars, no need of priests, and no need of sacred buildings for the bloody business of sacrificing. Rather, all Christians can now be viewed as priests (Rev. 1:6; 5:10; 20:6) who offer up “spiritual sacrifices” (1 Pet. 2:5, 9; Heb. 13:15; Rom. 12:1).

Reformation Opposition to “Sacrifice”

The 16 th century Reformers realized the problematic effect of the doctrine of Eucharistic Sacrifice. John Calvin attacked this Catholic idea, saying, “They pretend that (the supper) is a sacrifice by which the sins of the living and the dead are expiated. This is a blasphemy that cannot be tolerated” (Institutes, IV.18.1).

As early as 1520, Luther said that the Catholic idea that the mass is a sacrifice is “the most wicked abuse of all” (Babylonian Captivity of the Church 2.37; cf. 2.69). Luther wasn’t too concerned about the name given to the Lord’s supper “so long as it is not polluted by the name of sacrifice” (An Order of Mass and Communion for the Church at Wittenberg). In 1528, he even regarded the mass as “the greatest of all abominations … when it is preached or sold as a sacrifice or good work” (Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper).

Zwingli, the Swiss reformer, included a rejection of the sacrifice doctrine in his famous 67 Articles (sometimes called the 67 Theses). In 1523, Zwingli posted and defended his Article 18: “That Christ, having sacrificed himself once, is to eternity a certain and valid sacrifice for the sins of all faithful, from which it follows that the mass is not a sacrifice, but is a remembrance of the sacrifice and assurance of the salvation which Christ has given us.”

Besides Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli, the supper = sacrifice idea was expressly rejected in several Protestant statements of faith, such as the 39 Articles of the Church of England of 1553 and 1571 (Article 30 and 31, respectively), the Westminster Confession of 1646 (Chap. 29), and the Heidelberg Catechism of 1563 (Question 80).

I do not cite these Protestant documents as authoritative Christian writings. We have the New Testament documents for that. But if you have some respect for the Reformation, you should know that the primary reformers, Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli, adamantly condemned the idea that the Lord’s supper was a sacrifice.

Denying the Efficacy of Jesus’ Sacrifice

Let’s suppose that it’s legitimately possible to view the Lord’s supper in the New Testament as a sacrifice. After all, Jesus was “a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph. 5:2), and he was “offered once to bear the sins of many” (Heb. 9:26). And the bread and wine of the supper signify “the body and blood of the Lord” (1 Cor. 11:27).

However, it’s an entirely different matter to say that, when first-century Christians ate the Lord’s supper, they were “offering” a sacrifice to God. The New Testament never says that the supper is something that is “offered.” Rather, the Lord’s supper is expressly identified as something “that you eat” (1 Cor. 11:20, 21, 22, 27, 28, 29, 33, 34; cf. John 6:50, 51, 52, 53, 56).

And then it’s major stretch to say that we are “offering” the Lord’s supper as a sacrifice “for sin.” If we say that Jesus’s sacrifice must be repeatedly offered, are we not denying the efficacy of Jesus enduring the cross and sacrificing himself for our sins?

To borrow the language of the writer of Hebrews, I fear that such a denial “spurns the Son of God, profanes the blood of the covenant, and outrages the Spirit of grace” (Heb. 10:29). This teaching of the book of Hebrews may explain why the Reformers were so harsh in condemning the doctrine of “eucharistic sacrifice.”

As a closing thought on this topic, I suggest that we listen to the very words of Jesus: “Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice’” (Matt. 9:13). And if it isn’t enough that Jesus said it once, note that he repeated the citation again in Matt. 12:7: “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice” (cf. Mark 12:33).

If Jesus repeatedly emphasized that God does not desire sacrifice, why are Christians repeatedly emphasizing that we must offer the sacrifice every week?

3. The Lord’s Supper was a One-Anothering Event.

In most churches that I have attended over the last 70 years, the Lord’s supper is a private time between you and the Lord. We often close our eyes and ponder our sins as we reverently hold the bread in our hands—if we are allowed to even touch it.

But in 1 Corinthians 11, Paul described the Lord’s supper as a one-anothering meal together. The major “supper sin” that Paul condemned is when someone would “go ahead with his own meal” without regard for others at the supper. When someone got “drunk” while others went “hungry” (11:21), that person would “humiliate those who have nothing” (1 Cor. 11:22).

So, when Paul spoke about “anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body” (1 Cor. 11:29), he was likely talking about “the body” of believers. Only a few verses later, throughout chapter 12, Paul used the word ‘body’ 19 times in reference to the body of believers (1 Cor. 12:12-27), just as he did in 1 Cor. 10:17 (“we who are many are one body”).

The “Unworthy Manner”

Consequently, when Paul talks about eating the supper “in an unworthy manner” (ἀναξίως), he is addressing the selfishness of people who “go ahead with their own meal,” without regard for the less fortunate brothers and sisters who are “hungry” (v. 21). Thus, the offending Christians “humiliate those who have nothing” (v. 22).

That’s why Paul concludes his discussion by saying, “So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another” (1 Cor. 11:33). The solution is not to close your eyes and ponder deeply about Jesus’s body on the cross. Rather, the solution is to compassionately “wait for one another,” making sure that everyone has food to eat.

So, the “unworthy manner” is selfishly gorging yourself and getting drunk while others in the gathering have nothing to eat. Such behavior is a fundamental failure to show Christian kindness and concern. Be considerate of one another. Share your food with one another.

Paul says the harsh result of such selfishness is that “many of you are weak and ill, and some have died” (v. 30). This astonishing fate is reminiscent of the story of Ananias and Sapphira. At a time when “no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common … there was not a needy person among them” (Acts 4:32-34).

Yet, Ananias sold some land to share with others but “kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it” (Acts 5:2). Just like the fate of some selfish Corinthians who ignored the needy, Ananias and Sapphira died (Acts 5:5-11). Selfishness is clearly a violation of the fundamental Christian teaching of selflessly loving one another, as exhibited by Christ on the cross.

Thus, your supper can be “the Lord’s supper” (v. 20) when you “discern the body” of believers around you (v. 29) and show the same regard “for one another” (v. 33) that Jesus showed when he gave his body and blood for us. But “when you come together” and selfishly show no concern for others during the meal, “it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat” (v. 20).

4. Terminological Accuracy Affects Theological Accuracy.

In my decades of work in trying to understand first-century Christian gatherings, I repeatedly realized the problems of using our modern terms to describe first-century topics and the prudence of using first-century terms for these topics. This is especially true in discussing the Lord’s supper.

Various segments of modern Christianity routinely call the Lord’s supper “the Eucharist.” It’s true that the Greek word eucharistia (εὐχαριστία) is used in the New Testament. Eucharistia means “thanksgiving.” In the New Testament, it does not refer to the Lord’s supper, and it is never used as the name of the Lord’s supper.

You might think that this is a trivial matter, but the modern idea of “taking the Eucharist” is a different idea than the first-century experience of “eating the Lord’s supper.” The three previous points should make this clear.

The concept of “the Eucharist” transforms the meal into a sacred ritual, which changes its very nature. This is certainly true when it is described as “the Holy Eucharist.” So, when we attempt to discuss the event that Paul described as “eating the Lord’s supper” (1 Cor. 11:20), many people automatically think in modern terms of “taking communion” or “receiving the Holy Eucharist.”

This is another example of anachronism, where we are taking a modern convention and assuming that it belongs to a first-century Christian culture. When anachronism happens, confusion reigns, and bad conclusions result. As NT scholar Eduard Schweizer said, “We again have to note the absence of all religious and ritualistic concepts (in the NT); and the Sunday service is therefore not separated as a holy event in a sacred sphere from everyday service.” [Eduard Schweizer, Church Order in the New Testament (London: SCM Press, 1961), 220.]

Yet, the very concept of a “Holy Eucharist” automatically injects religious and ritualistic concepts into a discussion of the first-century Christian gatherings. So, to discuss the first- century Lord’s supper is a different topic than discussing “the Holy Eucharist.”

The anachronism problem persists when we label the supper as “a sacrament,” which is a later term and concept not found in the NT period. The same is true of other terms such as ‘ritual’, ‘mass’, and ‘liturgy’.

To be clear, I’m not condemning these terms. I’m merely saying that they taint our ability to investigate first-century practices with an open mind that is not skewed by later theological ideas. To engage in a scholarly analysis of the NT text, terminological accuracy is a necessary first step that helps us achieve a better understanding of first-century ideas and practices.

5. A Time for Unity, not Division

One more point. Over the centuries, disagreements over the Lord’s supper have caused harsh divisions in the body of Christ. Ironically, the very activity that was meant to be a bonding experience for Christians has become a divisive experience for Christendom.

When Paul introduced his discussion of the Lord’s supper, he said, “When you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you” (1 Cor. 11:18). These “divisions” must have been embarrassingly apparent in the way the Corinthian assembly conducted their supper together.

When Jesus initiated the supper, he said, “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19; 1 Cor. 11:24-25). He wanted his followers to remember how he gave himself for others. Jesus prayed for unity (John 17), and he wanted his followers to serve one another (Matt. 20:26-28; John 14:14-15).

Even though we debate the ways we view the Lord’s supper, I think we violate the central purpose of the Lord’s supper when we condemn other Christians for the way they observe the supper. As Paul said, “Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand” (Rom. 14:4).

Which is the greater sin: (A) Having a different view of the Lord’s supper, or (B) Causing division in the body of Christ? (Hint: The answer is B.)

Regardless of the many Lord’s supper traditions, we should be thrilled that there are other Christians who recognize the saving benefits of Christ’s sacrifice for us. The Lord’s supper should be a time for union and communion, not a time for division and condescension.