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"ThursdayReflection"
17th April 2025
'John Piper'
Founder and teacher of Desiring God.com
"Why we eat the Lord's Supper"
"For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes."
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
There are two ordinances that the Lord Jesus commanded for his church to perform.
One is baptism, the other the Lord's Supper.
The doctrine in question was the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the consecrated elements of bread and wine in the Lord's Supper.
Did they, or did they not believe that the body and blood of Christ were really, that is corporally, literally, locally, and materially, present under the forms of bread and wine after the words of consecration were pronounced?
Did they or did they not?
That was the simple question. If they did not believe and admit it, 'they were burned'.
I mention these two facts - the martyrdom of those who held that only believers shall be baptized, and the martyrdom of those who denied that the physical body of Christ was really there in the form of bread and wine - to show that there was once a time when the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper carried meanings that were very important - worth dying for, and some thought, worth killing for.
Perhaps I should give just a brief word about why so much was at stake.
With regard to baptism one crucial issue in the 16th century was the relationship between church and state.
If baptism was a voluntary act of a believer, then church would become a free and voluntary assembly.
And that would compromise the rule of secular-religious authority over the population as a whole.
When Felix Manz was drowned in 1527 in Switzerland for being a Baptist, the court records said,
"They do not allow Infant Baptism.
In this way they will put an end to secular authority."
In other words, being a Baptist was a capital crime because it was seen as treason against the secular authority.
With regard to the Lord's Supper, the issue was more directly theological, but also political.
Would England be a Catholic or a Protestant nation?
Both used the sword against the other.
So when the Catholics ruled, any serious attack on Roman Catholic doctrine was an attack on the crown.
The heart of the Mass was the real physical, material presence of the incarnate body of Christ in the form of bread and wine.
This was essential, because in the consecrating words of the priest, another crucial sacrifice happened with this body.
This is what the Protestant Reformers saw.
And this is what they believed undermined the gospel of Christ crucified once for all for our sins.
A sacrifice that needs to be repeated is not a perfect and complete thing.
Let no one say, "What's the big deal?"
Rather let us humble ourselves and realize that while we may enjoy freedom of religion in this country, so that no one is burned or beheaded for religious reasons, we may also have lost all sense of the weight and wonder of what Christ has given us in the ordinances of his church.
It would do us well to admit that if their age was marked by brutality, ours is marked by superficiality.
They may have weighed things differently than we would, but it may be that we have lost the capacity to feel weighty truth at all.
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This is a very edited version.
The full article and Bible references, are avaiable on request
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John Piper
is founder and teacher of Desiring God and chancellor of Bethlehem College and Seminary.
For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Foundations for Lifelong Learning: Education in Serious Joy.
More
What Does "This Is My Body" Mean?
So if the words, "This is my body," does not mean, "the physical body of Jesus materializes in this bread," what then is the positive meaning of "This is my body" and "This is my blood"?
Here are three things the words mean
(and there are more).
1. Proclamation (1 Corinthians 11:26)
1 Corinthians 11:26, "As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes."
"This is my body" means: By this representation of my broken body you proclaim my death for sinners until I come.
You proclaim the gospel.
The bread and cup proclaim the saving death AND resurrection of Christ (because "until he comes" implies the resurrection).
2. Remembrance (1 Corinthians 11:24, 25)
1 Corinthians 11:24 and 25, "Do this in remembrance of me."
"This is my body" means:
Let this representation of my body and blood remind you of me. First, the death of Christ is proclaimed.
And then by this proclamation we are reminded of Christ.
Remember me, Jesus says, sitting with you in fellowship.
Remember me being betrayed - and knowing all along.
Remember me giving thanks to the God who ordained it all.
Remember me breaking the bread just as I willingly gave my own body to be broken.
Remember me shedding my blood for you so that you might live because I died.
Remember me suffering to obtain for you all the blessings of the new covenant.
Remember me promising that I would drink this fruit of the vine new in the kingdom (Mark 14:25).
Let the memories of me, in all the fullness of my love and power, flood your soul at this table.
Which leads to the third and final meaning of the words, "This is my body."
3. Feast by Faith (John 6:35)
John 6:35, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst."
"This is my body," means, as you eat this bread and drink this cup come to me and believe on me.
That is, sit with me at table and trust me to be your life-sustaining food and drink.
Let the proclamation of my death and remembrance of all that I am for you awaken faith and draw you into deeper communion with me.
"This is my body," and "This is my blood," mean eat spiritually, that is, eat by faith.
That is, feed your soul on all that I am for you.
Nourish your heart on all the blessings that I bought for you with my body and blood (see 1 Corinthians 10:16).
That is what faith is:
faith is a being satisfied in all that God is for us in Christ.
Christ has given us the Lord's Supper to feed us spiritually with himself.
So, even though I think it is dangerously wrong to say that the bread and the blood turn into the physical, incarnate body of Jesus, nevertheless, I am not saying that what happens in the Lord's Supper is mere, intellectual recall of facts.
The supper proclaims.
And faith comes by hearing and seeing and tasting that proclamation.
And faith is a spiritual feasting on the risen, living Christ so that all that God is for us in him satisfies our soul, and sweetens our love for him, and breaks the power of sin in our lives.
Let's love the Lord's Supper together.
And let's love Christ more and more as we meet him there together.
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