Protestants commonly use the term Lord’s Supper for the act of worship that centers on the table of the Lord. The Lord’s Supper originated with Jesus’ last supper with his disciples, in the context of the Passover, and shares with the Passover the theme of the Lord’s deliverance of Israel. As interpreted in the Gospels and by Paul, the Lord’s Supper is symbolic of Christ’s death, a memorial that places the worshiper at the Cross. It is the ratification of the covenant between the Lord and the people of God, an emblem of the communion or mutual participation of all members of the body of Christ. The Supper is a proclamation of the gospel and a symbol of faith in Christ.
Introduction
The expression “Lord’s Supper” (kuriakon deipnon) occurs only once in the New Testament (1 Cor. 11:20), where it refers not only to the special Christian rite of breaking the bread and drinking the cup but also to the “love feast” that accompanied it. The expression “breaking of bread,” found several times in Acts (Acts 2:42; 20:7, 11), may be another reference to the Lord’s Supper; certainly it became so in the subsequent history of the church. Later names for the Supper, such as Eucharist or Communion, are not used in the technical sense in the New Testament. The former, however, is derived from Jesus’ act of thanksgiving (eucharisteō) before offering the cup to his disciples (Mark 14:23) and the latter from 1 Corinthians 10:16, where Paul writes of the “communion” (koinōnia) of the body and blood of Christ.
The Lord’s Supper, by whatever name, began with the Last Supper of Jesus and his friends before his death. The principal texts dealing with this subject are Matthew 26:26–29, Mark 14:22–25, Luke 22:14–20, and 1 Corinthians 11:23–26. Apart from Paul and the synoptic Gospels, the New Testament is virtually silent on the rite of the Lord’s Supper, although allusions to it may be present in John 6:22–59; Acts 2:46; 20:7, 11; Hebrews 6:4; 13:10; 2 Peter 2:13; Jude 12; and Revelation 14:15–20. The early church may have felt a need to keep its central act of worship a “mystery” or secret hidden from the prying eyes of a hostile culture; the general silence of the New Testament could also mean that the Lord’s Supper was well known, at least within the church, and it was unnecessary to mention it except where disorders called for clarification.
The Lord’s Supper and Passover
Whether Jesus’ last supper with the disciples was an actual Passover meal (and there is some question in this regard with respect to the interpretation of the Gospel accounts), his words instituting the new Christian meal were spoken in the context of the Passover celebration and may be understood accordingly. The liturgy of the Passover began as the presiding person (usually the family head) pronounced a blessing (kiddush) over the first cup of wine, which at Passover was always red. After he and the others present had drunk the cup, they took bitter herbs and ate them after dipping them in a fruit sauce (haroset). Next came the explanation of the feast as the food for the meal was brought in. The son asked his father why this night differed from other nights, and the father explained why the different foods were eaten: the Passover lamb because God passed over the house of our fathers in Egypt (Exod. 12:26–27), the unleavened bread because our fathers were redeemed from Egypt (Exod. 12:39), and the bitter herbs because the Egyptians embittered the lives of our fathers in Egypt (Exod. 1:14). After this, the family or group sang the first part of the Hallel (Ps. 113 or Pss. 113–114). Then came the drinking of a second cup, after which the president took unleavened bread and blessed God with these words: “Blessed art thou who bringest forth bread from the earth.” He then broke it and distributed it to the guests. At this point the meal proper was consumed, ending with another prayer by the president, a prayer of thanksgiving for the meal pronounced over a third cup of wine, “the cup of blessing” (cf. 1 Cor. 10:16 nasb). After supper the group sang the remainder of the Hallel, through Psalm 118. The liturgy concluded with a fourth cup of wine, taken to celebrate God’s kingdom.
Jesus’ Words of Institution
It is not possible to be certain exactly what Jesus said when, following the Passover ceremony, he singled out the bread and the cup of wine for special consideration and reinterpretation. The principal texts that relate his words do not agree in every detail and have been translated into Greek from Jesus’ original expressions in a Semitic language. When all sources are woven together, the words over the bread take the following form: “Take (Matthew, Mark), eat (Matthew), this is my body (Matthew, Mark, Luke, Paul), which is given for you. Do this for my remembrance (Luke’s longer text, Paul).” The saying over the cup is also recorded variously: “All of you drink from it, for (Matthew) this (Matthew, Mark, Luke, Paul) cup (Luke, Paul) is my blood of the covenant (Matthew, Mark; ‘is the new covenant in my blood,’ Luke, Paul), which is poured out (Matthew, Mark, Luke) for many (Matthew, Mark; ‘for you,’ Luke) for the remission of sins (Matthew). Do this as often as you drink it for my remembrance (Paul).” These cup words are followed immediately in Matthew and Mark by Jesus’ promise not to drink again of the fruit of the vine until he drinks it new with his disciples in the kingdom of God. The same eschatological hope is found also in Paul, though worded differently, and he too places it after the cup saying. Luke, on the other hand, couples the promise not to drink of the fruit of the vine with a similar promise not to eat again of the Passover until its real meaning is fulfilled in the kingdom, and he places both these sayings before the words spoken over the bread and the cup.
Essentially, then, there seem to be two accounts that are independent of each other—that represented by Mark and that of Paul. It is difficult, and perhaps unnecessary, to know which is older, for there are “primitive” elements in each. And despite all the minor differences between the accounts, they are in substantial agreement.
Meaning of the Lord’s Supper in the Synoptic Gospels
A Symbol of Christ’s Death. The bread and wine of the Last Supper are a symbol of the Lord’s body and blood, a symbol of his death: “This is my body given,” Jesus said, “This is my blood poured out.” The verb conveys merely the idea of represents or signifies (as in the interpretation of the parables, Matt. 13:38; cf. John 10:9, 14). It would have been almost impossible for Jesus to have equated the bread with his body and the wine with his blood, and then have asked his Jewish disciples to eat and drink. It is more likely that they viewed Jesus in the tradition of the prophets of Israel and interpreted his words and actions accordingly. As the prophets had predicted future events by symbolic and dramatic actions (1 Kings 21:11; Jer. 19:1–11; Ezek. 4:3), so Jesus broke the bread and took the cup as an acted parable to denote his impending death and to point out its meaning. Several other ideas cluster around this basic symbolism of the Last Supper.
A Substitutionary Death. The Lord interpreted his death as a substitutionary event, one of self-giving on behalf of others, universal in scope: “This is my body given for you”; “this is my blood poured out for many.” This “many” is not to be understood as a limiting expression, in the sense of “some, but not all.” It is a Semitic way of contrasting the many with the one, resulting in the meaning “all” (cf. Matt. 10:28 with 1 Tim. 2:6; Rom. 5:18 with Rom. 5:19).
Ratification of the New Covenant. Jesus further interpreted his death as the means of ratifying the new covenant proclaimed by Jeremiah (Jer. 31:31–34). This may be observed in his words, “my blood of the covenant” (Mark 14:24), which are almost identical with those of Exodus 24:8, where the ratification of the old covenant with Israel is recorded. But the addition of the pronoun my indicates that Jesus placed his blood in contrasting position to that of the covenant-inaugurating animal sacrifice of the Old Testament and that he viewed his death as fulfilling and bringing to an end the old covenant and as the supreme sacrifice necessary to introduce the new and give it permanent validity.
A Means of Forgiveness. There are also elements in the account of the Supper that indicate that Jesus interpreted his death as the consummate act of the Servant of the Lord described in the prophecy of Isaiah. This is particularly clear in Matthew, who adds the words “for the forgiveness of sins” to the saying about Jesus’ blood poured out (Matt. 26:28; cf. Isa. 53:12: “He poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors”).
Passover Themes: Deliverance, Messianic Anticipation. Perhaps the most obvious meanings attached to the Lord’s Supper are those associated with the Passover, since apparently, the Lord’s Supper originated in a Passover context. In the first century, Passover was in reality a celebration of two events: it looked back to commemorate Israel’s deliverance from the oppression of Egypt (Exod. 12:14, 17; Mishnah, Psaḥim 10.5), and it looked forward to anticipating the coming messianic kingdom (Mishnah, Psaḥim 10.6; cf. Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah, Mkhilta, Exod. 12:42; Rabbah, Exod. 15:1). Two themes are prominent in the narrative of the Last Supper. Selecting only two elements from the liturgy of the Passover—the unleavened bread and the cup after the meal—Jesus seemed to be saying, “As Israel was spared from death at the hand of the destroying angel and delivered from servitude to Pharaoh by the death of the Passover lamb and the sprinkling of its blood, so you are spared from eternal death and freed from slavery to sin by my body broken and my blood poured forth.” In Jesus’ action, the original meaning of the Passover has been superseded. Christ is the Paschal Lamb (1 Cor. 5:7), and by his death becomes the author of a new exodus, the Redeemer of an enslaved people. Such, at least, was the understanding of the early church, an understanding most beautifully expressed in a sermon of Melito, Bishop of Sardis (died c. a.d. 190):
For this one, who was led away as a lamb, and who was sacrificed as a sheep, by himself delivered us from servitude to the world as from the land of Egypt, and released us from bondage to the devil and from the hand of Pharaoh, and sealed our souls by his own Spirit, and the members of our bodies by his own blood.
This is the one who covered death with shame and who plunged the Devil into mourning as Moses did Pharaoh.
This is the one who smote lawlessness, and deprived injustice of its offspring as Moses deprived Egypt.
This is the one who delivered us from slavery into freedom, from darkness into light, from death into life, from tyranny into an eternal kingdom, and who made us a new priesthood and a special people forever.
This is the passover of our salvation. (Homily, 67, 68)
The cross and the fish are ancient symbols of the Eucharist. The artistic depiction above is from a floor mosaic found in a church at Tabgha in Galilee in the fifth-century a.d. This symbol is rooted in biblical teaching.
The other theme of eschatological expectancy is also present in the Lord’s Supper. It is found in Jesus’ promise not to eat the Passover or drink the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God shall have arrived. This promise is not a word of despair but a note of joy. Jesus sees beyond the darkness of Calvary to that time when he would share with his disciples the messianic banquet and enjoy with them the life of the age to come (cf. Isa. 25:6–8).
Massey H. Shepherd has summarized the meanings of the Last Supper in these words: “Thus Jesus offered his disciples in the Supper a full participation in the atoning benefits of his own self-offering on the cross—deliverance from the bondage of this world, remission of sins, incorporation into the new people of God, an inner obedience of the heart to the will of God, and the joy and benediction of his presence and fellowship in the age to come.”
Paul’s Understanding of the Lord’s Supper
The disorders at the Lord’s Table in Corinth gave the apostle Paul the opportunity to provide teaching on the Lord’s Supper that appears nowhere else in the New Testament. Paul’s account of it is generally thought to be the earliest in the New Testament by several years. He says he “received from the Lord” (1 Cor. 11:23). This may mean that Paul learned of the events of the Last Supper and its meaning in the same way he says he had earlier received the content of the gospel: not by human teaching, but through a revelation of Jesus Christ (Gal. 1:12). More likely, however, Paul’s statement should be interpreted to mean that he understood himself to be handing on in unaltered fashion that which had come to him as church tradition. The words he uses for “receive” and “deliver to” are equivalents of rabbinic terms for the normal passing down of tradition. Paul may have meant, then, that he received the story of the Last Supper and its meaning from the Lord through the apostolic witness. For the Lord was not simply a remembered historical figure but a living presence in the church, guiding the community into all truth (John 16:13) and seeing that this truth was transmitted accurately to each succeeding generation.
A Memorial Feast. “Do this in remembrance of me” (1 Cor. 11:24–25) occurs in Paul and Luke but does not appear in Mark and Matthew. Paul, therefore, understands that the purpose of the Lord’s Supper is to commemorate the death of the Lord Jesus and that this purpose originated with the Lord himself. Here again is a parallel between this new feast and the feast of the Passover. As the Passover was basically a remembrance celebration calling to mind the mercy and greatness of God in delivering his people from Egypt (Exod. 12:14; 13:8–10), so the Lord’s Supper is designed to constantly remind the church of God’s greatest act, that of deliverance from sin through the death (not the teachings) of the Lord Jesus.
But the biblical idea of “remembering” is more profound than our modern conception of it. For the biblical writer, it meant more than simply having an “idea” about something that happened. It also involved action, a physical response to the psychological process of recollection. When the dying thief asked the Savior to “remember” him, he meant more than “Have an idea of me in your mind”; he meant, “Act toward me in mercy. Save me!” There was, then, this closeness of the relation between thought and action. Thus when the Jews celebrated the Passover, they did more than just think about what happened to their forefathers. In a sense, they reenacted that event and themselves participated in the Exodus. They became as one with their past.
There may also be this dimension to the word remembrance as it is used in 1 Corinthians 11. When the Christian partakes of the Lord’s Supper, he or she not only has an idea in his or her mind about a past event; in a sense, the worshiper “recalls” that event in such a way that it can no longer be regarded wholly as a thing “absent” or past, but rather present, and powerfully so. Uniquely in the Lord’s Supper, then, the death of Christ is made so vivid that it is as if the Christian and the worshiping body of which he or she is a part were standing beneath the cross.
A Proclamation of the Gospel. Paul also understood the Last Supper to be a proclamation: “For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death” (1 Cor. 11:26). The verb proclaim found here is used elsewhere in the New Testament of heralding the gospel (1 Cor. 9:14) and of making known one’s faith (Rom. 1:8). Hence, its action seems to be directed toward humankind rather than toward God. In performing the rite, the celebrant proclaims to all the Lord’s death as victory. The Supper, therefore, becomes the gospel, a visible verbum, as Augustine said.
This idea of the Lord’s Supper as gospel is helpful in understanding the Lord’s presence in the Supper. In the New Testament, proclamation has the character of event. As Edouard Schweizer has said, the Word is never “merely” something spiritual intended for the intellect. Christ himself comes in the Word: “He who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me” (Luke 10:16). In a similar way he comes in the Supper. Christ’s presence is brought about not
“magically by a liturgically correct administration of the sacrament.… It comes to pass where the Lord’s Supper is understood as gospel, whether this gospel is believed or rejected.… This means, therefore, that the real presence in the Lord’s Supper is exactly the same as His presence in the word—nothing more, nothing less. It is an event, not an object: an encounter, not a phenomenon of nature; it is Christ’s encounter with His Church, not the distribution of a substance” (E. Schweizer, The Lord’s Supper According to the New Testament [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1967], 37–38).
Communion (koinōnia). The words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:16 are not easy to translate, especially the expressions “communion of the blood of Christ,” and “communion of the body of Christ” (KJV). The word translated “communion” (koinōnia) may also be translated “fellowship,” meaning a group of people bound together in a “communion” or “fellowship” by what they have in common with each other. And the preposition of does not exist in Greek but is an interpretation of the genitive case. It may also be interpreted to mean “brought about by” or “based on.” Translated this way, Paul is saying, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not (does it not represent) the fellowship which is brought about by the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the fellowship brought about by the body of Christ?” The Lord’s Supper, then, is understood to witness to the fact that Christians belong to a special family, which includes the Son and the Father (cf. 1 John 1:3) and is marked by unity and love. It is a communion that required the death of Christ to create and that is so close that it is as though believers were one body: “For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread” (1 Cor. 10:17 KJV). Perhaps, then, this was the great disorder in Corinth that prompted what little teaching there is on the Lord’s Supper. The Corinthians’ sin was in not “recognizing the body” (1 Cor. 11:29), that is, in failing to understand the oneness of the body of which each person was a part.
In Paul’s day a fellowship meal preceded the breaking of the bread and drinking of the cup. It was not an unimportant part of the Lord’s Supper, and Paul had no desire to abolish it. What he was concerned to do, however, was to correct its abuses. For instead of symbolizing the unity its name intended, the fellowship meal at Corinth had become an occasion for manifesting the opposite. The freemen despised the slave class, going ahead with the meal before the latter had the opportunity to arrive (1 Cor. 11:21). The wealthy scorned the poor, feasting to the point of gluttony while the latter went hungry (1 Cor. 11:21–22). Thus eating and drinking unworthily (1 Cor. 11:27) may have meant for Paul partaking of the Lord’s Supper while holding each other in contempt, neither party striving to live up to the unity that the Lord’s death had brought about.
The word koinōnia has still another meaning. It means also “participation in.” Hence, 1 Corinthians 10:16 may be translated as the Revised Standard Version does: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?” If this is so, then perhaps Paul understood the cup and bread to symbolize the worshiping assembly’s participation in the death of Christ. Perhaps by borrowing his vocabulary from the mystery religions he showed that the Redeemer and the redeemed are so intimately bound up with each other that what happened to the Redeemer happened also to the redeemed. Thus when Christ died, the Christian died also, and partaking of the Lord’s Supper symbolizes this participation in the body and blood of the Savior. Such a description of the Supper is Paul’s way of stating what Christ had already said: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.… I tell you the truth unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:51, 53).
The Lord’s Supper, though of great importance to Paul, is not all-important. There are no magical qualities to it. It has no more power to communicate life and maintain it than did the spiritual food and drink provided Israel in the wilderness (1 Cor. 10:1–13). It cannot in and of itself debilitate or bring about death, despite the fact that Paul says that many who eat and drink unworthily are weak and ill and some have died (1 Cor. 11:30). Such sickness and death resulting from the judgment of the Lord (1 Cor. 11:32), not from any magical power of the Supper. The importance of the Supper exists solely in the person it points to and whose redemptive acts it proclaims.
The Lord’s Supper in the Gospel of John
There is no specific reference to the Lord’s Supper in the fourth Gospel. John describes a final meal Jesus had with his disciples (John 13) when he taught them the importance of humble service to others by himself washing their feet. But there are no bread or wine here, no words of institution. Many, however, see the Johannine Eucharist in John 6, the discourse on the bread of life. It is here that Jesus says, “My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him” (John 6:55–56). [This possibility is reinforced by the reference to Jesus giving “thanks” in John 6:11, 23, using the Greek verb related to the word eucharist.] If this is so, it appears that for John the Lord’s Supper is spiritual food (cf. John 6:63) that nourishes and strengthens the life of the Christian (cf. Didachē 10.4).
But perhaps John’s primary aim was to discourse, not on the Lord’s Supper but on the meaning of faith. Certainly, this is a subject that is continually being put forward in his Gospel. What does it mean to have faith in Christ? When “I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life” (John 6:47) is placed over against “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life,” ( John 6:54), it seems that John, in searching for the way to answer this question, has at last found the model he needs. To believe in Christ is analogous to eating him. As one would take food and eat it, so that it is assimilated into the system and becomes one’s very life, so faith is a similar appropriation of Christ with the result that he is at the very center and is the energizing force of the Christian’s life. In any case, this is precisely what the Lord’s Supper is designed to remind us of.
When Was the Lord’s Supper Observed?
One might expect that if the Lord’s Supper developed out of the Passover meal it would be celebrated only once a year, on 14–15 Nisan. There is some evidence in early church history to support this idea. Epiphanius, for example, observed that the Ebionites (an early Jewish-Christian sect) celebrated the Eucharist as an annual feast, like the Passover, in memory of Christ’s death (Haereses 30.16.1). And Christians in Asia Minor in the second century held a special Eucharist as a parallel to and at the same time as the Passover. The mention in Acts of the disciples “breaking bread” every day (Acts 2:42, 46) need not refute this idea, for these meals, which were similar to religious meals elsewhere in Judaism, may have originated in the post-resurrection meals Jesus had with his followers (Luke 24:30–43; John 21:1–14; Acts 1:4; 10:41). Whereas the Lord’s Supper, as described in the New Testament, was a remembrance of Christ’s death, these daily meals of the Jerusalem church were times of joyful fellowship celebrating Jesus’ resurrection and his continued presence with the church.
In time, however, as the church moved out from Jerusalem and the role of Jewish influence in the development of Christian worship was reduced, the two meals were combined into one event. In Paul’s discussion of the Lord’s Supper, the joyful post-resurrection fellowship meal has become the “love feast” element (1 Cor. 11:20–21), and the annual Passover meal has become the Eucharist element (1 Cor. 11:23–26). By this time, the Lord’s Supper was apparently celebrated neither daily nor annually, but weekly, on the first day of the week, the day of the Resurrection, and possibly in the evening, like the Passover ceremony (Acts 20:7; cf. 1 Cor. 16:2; Rev. 1:10; Didachē 1).
How Was the Lord’s Supper Observed?
The New Testament provides little information about how the Lord’s Supper was observed. However, from 1 Corinthians 11:20–34, it is possible to reconstruct the following order: (1) There was a dinner or love feast, to which each worshiper brought his or her own food (1 Cor. 11:20–22), though the intent was no doubt to share the food among the participants. (2) There may have been a period of self-examination, suggested by Paul’s words “a man ought to examine himself” (1 Cor. 11:28–29). However, it is impossible to tell whether the form of this examination was inward, a public confession to the church, or a corporate confession in a liturgical prayer (cf. Didachē 6.14; 14.1). [However, since the burden of Paul’s admonition to “examine [oneself]” is that the worshiper might “recognize the Lord’s body” in the Supper, rather than discover some hidden personal shortcoming, this self-examination may not have been a part of the rite at all, but simply a warning Paul inserted in his teaching on the Lord’s Supper. (3) Finally, the Lord’s Supper proper involved only the bread and the cup, which recalled the death of the Lord Jesus (1 Cor. 11:24–26). Acts 20:7–11 suggests that some sort of homily may have preceded these actions, forming part of the liturgy of the Supper. The New Testament contains no traces of the eucharistic prayers found in other early Christian literature (Didachē 9.10), nor is there evidence of the ceremony of foot-washing in association with the Lord’s Supper. [Also, the New Testament gives no indication as to which ecclesiastical officers customarily presided over the celebration.]