The Lord's Table, the Lord's Supper
and the Service of God
– J. N. Darby, F. E. Raven, C. A. Coates, J. Taylor

The Lord's Supper – or breaking of bread – holds a special place among all those who trace their origin back to that outwardly insignificant yet spiritually momentous beginning in Dublin, c. 1827 – but its importance and relation to the service of God – i.e., collective worship of Divine Persons in assembly – is unknown to many and scarcely understood by others … Widespread misconception exists as to "the Lord's Supper" and "the Lord's Table". These terms are commonly used interchangeably, and considered by most to have the same meaning … A contextual comparison shows that the Lord's Table is a completely different and distinct aspect of the truth from the Lord's Supper … Paul uses "the Lord's Table" to show that Christians cannot have fellowship with idolatry. The comparison with the "altar" shows that Paul is dealing with the public position – that with which we are publicly associated – "whether … Jews, or Greeks, or the assembly of God", 1 Corinthians 10: 32 … The order is purposely changed – the cup first, then the bread – to assimilate them to the sacrificial order at the altar. The blood is shed first, before the body is put on the altar … Just as Israelites who ate the peace offerings from the altar were in fellowship with the altar – the public evidence of covenant relationship to God by sacrifice – so we are in fellowship with the death of Christ and we cannot have fellowship with idolatry – even in its seemingly harmless modern materialistic forms … A prerequisite to the orderly development of the service [worship] of God was the opening up, in FER's ministry in the 1880-90's, of the proper place of the Lord's Supper as introductory to the assembly spiritually – the Lord's death, depicted by the Lord's Supper, being the closing up of one order and the opening up of a new order on the other side of death … A Scriptural and spiritual pattern is apparent in the various features, and the order in which they have been opened up, in JT's ministry from c. 1900-53, and which contribute to greater spiritual intelligence in participation in the service of God … Ex: Studies: The Lord's Supper and the Service of God.

An increased and refined understanding of the title subjects will be observed in the successive ministries.

Related Pages: Ministry: J. Pellatt 1: • The Lord's Supper as the Expression of Christian Fellowship and that which leads to Assembly Privilege Ministry: M. W. Biggs 1: Short Papers on the Church: 10. The Lord's Supper Ministry: J. Collie-Smith 1: Remarks on the Service of God Ministry: J. Taylor 1: The Worship of God Himself - 1935 Ministry: G. R. Cowell: Memorials 14: ® The Lord's Supper is the Kernel of Christianity - 1936 ® The Lord's Supper - Spiritual Movement to the Mount of Olives - 1936 • The Lord's Supper Leading to the Service of God - 1938 Studies: The Lord's Supper and the Service of God - GAR

G.A.R.

There is more than this in the supper of our Lord, because the Lord is really present with us in it, by the Spirit, according to the intention of the institution; and this is very precious.

• But it has pleased Him to give us a physical means by which we may be reminded of Him, so that I am authorized to speak of a portrait by way of comparison.

• I have still further authority to repel the idea of any physical change in the bread and wine, in that the Lord has said, in John 6, which you have quoted,
  • "The Spirit quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing".

The verses of this chapter, however, which speak of eating His flesh and drinking His blood, do not speak at all of the Lord's supper, but of Christ:

• I am – I do not say persuaded, but – sure of this.

• The supper speaks of that of which the chapter speaks; but the chapter does not speak of the supper – the symbol, but of the thing symbolized. This is perfectly evident: one has only to read the chapter to see it.

• If the application that has been made of it to the supper be correct, then not one of those who have partaken of it would be lost, and he who had not partaken of it would be lost, whatever he might be; and those who participate of it would not only be blessed, but they would be eternally saved. See verses 53-54.

• Further, the Saviour says that it is of Himself, come down from heaven, that He speaks – not of the supper – of the same person who will ascend up where He was before in heaven. Verses 35, 41, 48, 51, 58, 62.

The supper presents Christ in only one of these conditions but in that which is, so to speak, central: it presents us a dead Christ; but this foundation of all this precious truth, which could be a motive even for the Father Himself to love Christ –

• this fact, that it is a dead Christ which is presented to us, is the proof that we could not have a living Christ presented to us in the elements.

• This would be to deny the state of death, and to destroy the object and intention of this institution.

• This institution presents to us the death of Christ – a dead Christ – His body broken and His blood shed; but there exists no dead Christ. He desires that we should remember Him:
  • "Do this in remembrance of me";

• but I do not speak of the remembrance of Christ living in heaven.

• I live by Him; He is my life; I enjoy communion with Him; I dwell in Him; He dwells in me: there is no separation. If, through my folly, communion is interrupted, it is no question of remembering Him, but of being with Him anew – with a Saviour who manifests Himself to us as He does not to the world.

And see where these poor Roman Catholics – and I love them much – have been brought, by their material explanation of this precious institution. They wish it should be taken according to the letter – "the letter killeth" – so they take away, in the literal sense, the blood; they do not drink the cup.

• And this is very important, because the fact that the blood is out of the body is the sign of death – of the efficacious work of Christ; we are reconciled, justified by the blood.

• In order to compensate for this loss, they teach that the body, soul, blood, and divinity of Jesus Christ are in [each of] the two kinds. Now, if the blood is in the body, there is no redemption. Without their knowing it, their sacrament is a sacrament of the non-accomplishment of redemption. Such is the effect of materializing this institution.

• There is no greater proof of the manner in which Satan sports with men, when they leave the Spirit for the flesh, than this fact, which is the centre of the Roman Catholic system. I affirm positively that their Eucharist is a sacrament, not of redemption, but of non-redemption.

• If you tell me that many among them think of the Saviour – of the efficacy of His death – I rejoice to believe it; but for this they must quit the materialism of their system for the thoughts of faith.

• They think then of the blood shed, and they drink it; they think of a Saviour dead, and a body given, and they really eat His flesh. Satan has not in this case – blessed be God! – been able to hide from their faith that which is denied in the form to which they attach so much value.

It is the same thing in John 6 as in John 3, where we are said to be born of water. If that is applied to baptism, then we are born of God by the water.

• It is the same system everywhere – a system which the enemy has introduced into the church to destroy the necessity and the power of a real work in the heart, and to reduce Christianity to the level of Judaism – that is to say, to a religion of forms; adding to these forms a pretension, which is not found even in Judaism, to confer on man that which Christianity alone gives him.

• Baptism, they say, procures for us that of which John 3 speaks, whereas it is said in John 15 we are cleansed by the word; Ephesians 5: 26, "the washing of water by the word," which reveals the Word living, dead, and raised again for us.

Now do we by this diminish the importance or the sweetness of this institution? Quite the contrary; we hinder the materializing it, and we insist that the spiritual realization or that which it represents be in the heart, instead of that which is called an opus operatum, which is purely material.

• We are united to a Christ glorified; this is the point of departure. There is no longer a dead Christ; death has no more dominion over Him. I enjoy communion with a glorified Christ; I am one with Him; I shall be like Him. I rejoice; my heart is full of love at the thought of seeing Him, at the hope of the glory of waking up in His likeness.

• Shall I therefore forget His death and His sufferings? God forbid! It is precisely this which unites us to Christ by the most tender affections. There where He had to suffer and to do everything, He was alone: my heart, at least, will be with Him. He does not ask me to be one with Him there; I could not have been. There He was willing to be alone – blessed be His name! – and He has accomplished all.

• But the heart which would give itself for me there is the same which thinks of me now, and which loves me. In remembering His death, His love, His suffering, what shall I say? – divine though human!

• I am united in heart with Him there, where He is – on high; it is not another person, another love.

• Whether in the supper, where we remember Him in such a peculiar and touching way, or whether at other moments, when I think of His death, when I eat Him as dying for me, I am in communion with Him living, and I realise the love of Him who lives – that same love, that same heart of the Saviour: I dwell in Him, and He in me.

• It is not said exactly, "Do this in remembrance" of my death, but "of me." Still we remember Him on the earth, in His incarnation, in His life of humiliation, and finally and specially as dead on the cross.

• I remember Him! – not Him in the heavens, but Him who lives in heaven as once humbled and dead for me.

• There is also a certain action of the heart – we eat. In John 5 the Son of God quickens whom He will: here we eat the bread come down from heaven; yea, we eat His body, and we drink His blood.

It is most important to understand that it is a dead Christ, who in this state exists no longer, because we cannot have any relation with a Christ living on the earth.

• If even as Jews we had had this relation, we should have been obliged to say with Paul,
  • "Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more".

• Death has put an end to all the relations of Christ with the world, according to the flesh, and He lives now as Head of a new race – the second Man.

Thus, then, in John 6: 53, the Lord lays down, as a necessary condition of life, the eating of His flesh and the drinking of His blood – receiving Him in His death.

• Hence we remember Him before His resurrection; we are united to Him as living after His resurrection; as He has said,
  • "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit".

• Thus our union is with a Christ glorified; we do not know Him otherwise: but the most powerful spring of affection for the heart is a Christ – man in the world, and a Christ dead.

• I am nourished by this; I eat it, and I live by this; but if we wish to bring back, so to speak, a Christ such as He has been in this world as present, we overthrow entirely the intention of this institution and even Christianity itself.

• Every time that we eat this bread and drink this cup we shew the Lord's death till He come; but if we will introduce a living Christ to animate this dead one, so to speak, we destroy Him.

Why then is it said, "They discern not the [Lord's] body"? What body? His dead body. A perfect love, His accomplished work, an obedience which was arrested by no difficulty, presents itself to our eyes! Is there anything else there but a dead body? … If so, I know not where I am, nor what the supper means.

• Do not animate it with the life that Christ had before death: His obedience was not yet finished, nor His work accomplished, nor His love perfectly demonstrated. Do not animate it with the life of a Christ now risen.

• You take Him from me as dead; death is no more there – death which is the basis of salvation, the proof of obedience, the glorification of God. Take not from me this death, this body given, this blood for ever shed, which tells me that all is accomplished, and – through the love of my Saviour – that sin is put away for ever.

• If you can lead me to grasp yet more firmly what is precious in this dead Saviour, in the death of Him who is the eternal Son of God; if you can make me eat Him with more faith, more spirituality, more divine intelligence, more heart; ah! I shall be very grateful to you; but let it be my dead Saviour that is left to me!

• When one is in communion with Him living, there is nothing so precious as His death: yes, precious even to God.
  • "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life that I may take it again".

• For my spiritual intelligence it is the end of, or rather the proof and the consciousness that I have done with, the first Adam; that the first creation no longer exists – blessed be God! – for faith; for the heart it is the tender and perfect love of the Saviour

• I am no more either Jew or Gentile, or a man living on the earth; I am a Christian. The death of Christ, Head of all, has put an end to the first creation. He has introduced us into the new creation as first-fruits united to Him.

I discern then the body of the Lord, but the body of the Lord given – His blood shed – His death!

• It is not an ordinary repast, a simple remembrance, if you will, but an institution that Christ has given to His own; not that they may find in the elements anything else than the bread and the fruit of the vine,
  • but that their faith may in the sweetest way, by the power of the Holy Spirit, nourish itself by Jesus, by that which He has been for them when He died upon the cross – a work of which the efficacy remains eternally, even to the Father's eye, but of which the love is all for us.

• If I treat this memorial with lightness, I am guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, for it is that body and blood which are presented to me in it.

I doubt if there is any one in the world who enjoys the Lord's supper more than I do – though I doubt not that there is with many more piety; but that which makes me enjoy it is that it presents to me the body and blood of my Saviour dead, and consequently a perfect love and a perfect work.

• But He cannot be in His dead body which I discern there by faith. He is in me, that I may enjoy Him; if He is introduced living, that which I ought to discern no longer exists.

• All this is in connection with the fact of the entirely new position of the living Christ – a doctrine which Paul presents to us with such divine energy, and which the enemy has always sought to hide, even under the forms of piety, and for the preservation of which Paul has so struggled.

• What anguish he suffered from the efforts of the enemy to draw souls back to Judaism, as if they were still living in the world!
  • "Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God!"

May God give us to discern yet more the body of Jesus – to eat His flesh and to realize His death more! Yes! this death is precious. It meets us in our need just as we are, and it delivers us from it by introducing us there, where He is, in the power of a new life which by His death knows not the old.

I have written you at much length. I could willingly enlarge on this subject for, instead of thinking lightly of the supper of the Lord, it is of all institutions the most precious to me; only to be so it must be a dead Saviour that is presented to me in it. I am living with Him now in heaven.

Ques. Are sisters responsible as well as brothers?

F.E.R. I do not think it is a question of that here, but of the assembly conscience.

Rem. "All the congregation of Israel stoned him with stones", Numbers 15: 36; Joshua 7: 25.

F.E.R. Yes; you get the idea in Israel of collective responsibility in all of them casting stones at the offender. I think the apostle in 1 Corinthians 5, intended to appeal, not to individuals, but to the assembly as a whole.

Ques. The constitution of the assembly was involved?

F.E.R. I think so. There is a danger of a kind of management instead of a collective conscience.

Rem. Trying to set things to rights.

F.E.R. Yes – with the best intentions.

Rem. It affected the whole company, not only the elders.

F.E.R. Yes, it is the assembly as a whole – the assembly has to take certain things to heart.

Rem. It is easy to be understood, as in the case of a family. If there were some sorrow or trial, you would expect the family to take it up.

F.E.R. There were many things among them that were not according to the apostle's mind.

Rem. I think you were going to speak of the steps that led up to this chapter. You were speaking of a sluggish conscience. How would you seek to awaken it?

F.E.R. The very existence of the assembly as such was at issue. He brings in the Lord's table, chapter 10, to enforce separation.

Ques. Was it for instruction or correction?

F.E.R. For correction, I think – to insist upon the obligations of fellowship. There must be certain obligations attaching to fellowship.

Rem. The bond of partnership?

F.E.R. Quite so. It is not here a question of what is within. Chapter 5 takes up that. They are exhorted to flee from idolatry.

Ques. It compromised fellowship?

F.E.R. Quite so. They appeared to be tampering with it. The fellowship of Christ's death is exclusive of every other fellowship. Chapter 10 is separation from what was without.

Ques. How does that affect us today?

F.E.R. We must take care that we are apart from every other fellowship. I could not understand a brother being a "freemason" or an "oddfellow".

• "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the fellowship of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the fellowship of the body of Christ?"

• Fellowship with the death of Christ carries you farther than baptism. You are identified with His death intelligently. Fellowship is your own doing – your own mind.

Rem. We express identification with His death.

F.E.R. I think so. The expression of it is in the Lord's supper. The point is that it is exclusive of every other fellowship.

Rem. The obligations of fellowship come before the privileges.

F.E.R. I think so. You have to recognise the obligations, and not get entangled with any other fellowship.

Ques. Why does he use the word "flee"?

F.E.R. Flee is a very strong word, you flee from what you are afraid of.

G.B. The principle would be the same today and you must not tamper with these things; by doing so you involve others. What you do in that way you cannot ignore, because of the effect upon others.

Ques. Suppose you go into Westminster Abbey, would that be bad? Would it involve others?

F.E.R. I will tell you the effect that it would have upon me. It would be that I should think you did not consider the thing so very bad after all.

• All these cathedrals are relics of popery and idolatry.

Rem. Fleeing is our only safety.

F.E.R. Yes, you must not tamper with them.

Ques. What is the meaning of verse 7: "The people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play"?

F.E.R. It is most solemn; it is in the absence of Moses they did this; with us it is the indulgence of ourselves in the absence of Christ, as if it did not matter whether He is absent or not, "They sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play".

Rem. It is a sacramental system without separation; they ruled as kings "without us".

F.E.R. Exactly and in system everything is neutralised because there is no separation.

J.S.A. This separation would lead up to the assembly.

F.E.R. Yes. Chapter 10 is separation; chapter 11 is seclusion.

• We come to the Lord's supper through the Lord's table.

Ques. What is the Lord's table?

F.E.R. It is the fellowship of the death of Christ morally. The apostle takes up the Supper to set it forth,

• but he might just as well have used baptism: only baptism is the act of another,

• whereas the partaking of the Supper is your own act. You commit yourself to His death. It is your own act and deed.

• The Lord's table is not only for the Lord's day morning, but always. The bread is the table.

• He might have taken them up on the ground of their baptism and if the Corinthians had been true to their baptism they would not have needed this tenth chapter.

• He takes them up on the ground of the Supper because it is their own act to partake of that.

• Where people are content to go on with the world you will find there is a great element of idolatry.

Ques. What is an idol?

F.E.R. Anything that usurps the proper place of God in the heart. Children may be: anything may be.

E.H.C. We may say that the normal thought of the Lord's table takes in all Christians.

F.E.R. Yes, it undoubtedly takes in the whole. I never heard of the table when I was in the Church of England, because they had no idea of fellowship.

• Here the apostle brings in chapter 10 because there must be separation before you can have seclusion in chapter 11.

Ques. Why is the cup prominent in chapter 10?

F.E.R. I do not know unless he takes up the sacrificial order.

Ques. What connection is there between the passover and the Supper?

F.E.R. You should always be keeping the passover – the feast. I am always in the fellowship of His death, but in the fellowship I am bound to regard others. The feast of unleavened bread is always going on for us.

Ques. Was the blood significant of the intensity of their separation?

F.E.R. Yes, he takes them up on a ground with which they were familiar.

E.H.C. Is "we bless" we eulogise?

F.E.R. Blessing the cup is like the Lord's doing it, we all break the bread, it is one act in fellowship.

Ques. The meeting does not begin properly till after the breaking of the bread?

F.E.R. No. I always break the bread and pour out the wine together, for people look upon it as a dual service. You must have the figure of death in their separation.

• It is better that the wine should be poured out already and in the cup when we come in.

Ques. You do not look upon the breaking of the bread and the pouring out of the wine as if it were the Lord doing it?

F.E.R. No.

G.B. It is not a ministerial act; one does it as representing the rest.

F.E.R. There is no pre-eminence in the body. In 1 Corinthians 12 the head is not pre-eminent, all the members are inter-dependent.

• I utterly repudiate the idea of any pre-eminence in the body, every member is dependent upon the other.

Ques. If it is all one service why do we have a giving of thanks between the bread and the wine?

F.E.R. I should not like to pass over the word "The cup which we bless".

J.B.D. What is the fellowship of the body of Christ?

F.E.R. You must take it up in connection with His body – death. Verse 17 is the mere fact that by our own showing we are one body and so we partake of one loaf.

• By the fact of our partaking of the one loaf we become one company – one body.

• When the fellowship of Christ's death is recognised we are in one fellowship – one body, and we must be careful not to do anything to compromise the fellowship. I cannot say, "I will go to that mission or this chapel or church".

• It is a partnership and we must not compromise that partnership.

Ques. What are the deeds of the partnership?

F.E.R. The bond is the death of Christ. We all form one company by partaking of one loaf – one body. The priests were all of one company, one family by partaking of the one altar.

Ques. Does the loaf represent Christ's own body?

F.E.R. Yes. He says, "This is my body".

Ques. Is the unity – the fellowship – expressed in our each partaking of it?

F.E.R. Yes, by your own act and deed.

W.W. There is a question which it seems to us would involve the fellowship greatly exercising the saints here just now, it is as regards marriage.

F.E.R. Oh! better there were none!

W.W. But this is the difficulty. Suppose someone in fellowship were to marry an unconverted man, would that act involve the fellowship?

F.E.R. Well, it would be a thing done without the fellowship of the saints.

Ques. Should such be put out?

F.E.R. No, but she subjects herself to rebuke because of doing in self-will what she did not do with the fellowship of the saints.

Ques. Who should rebuke her?

F.E.R. Some one with the needed amount of moral power.

J.B. The very naming of it in the meeting would be a rebuke.

Ques. Must the subject of the rebuke be present?

F.E.R. You could not make that compulsory, but I should take good care she would know she had been rebuked.

• I have a great horror of defiling the temple of the Lord.

• The ceremony of marriage is simple in itself, but it is most serious not to have the fellowship of the assembly in it.

Ques. As to marriage what do you think about it?

F.E.R. There should be none. It is not the time for it.

To return to our subject, the Supper is intended to call the Lord into presence.

• "He was known of them in breaking of bread".

• It is in the Supper we get into company with Him; it brings Him into presence,
  • John 20 "He showed unto them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord".

• The Lord Himself was present the first time. We touch Him in affection, in the Supper. He was going to be present in a new way.

• In 1 Corinthians everything is presented in a very elementary way.
  • It begins with "the same night in which he was betrayed".

• In John 13 we find treachery comes in and breaks the company. Twelve is a significant number; it is complete. When treachery has broken all up He gives a new way in which He will be present with them.

E.H.C. What is the form of the word "remembrance"?

F.E.R. It is Himself who is remembered. He was dead, and is alive again. You call Himself into presence.

• You could not do that with regard to anyone else who had died – they are not alive again – say the Duke of Wellington, you could not call him into presence for he is not alive again.
  • "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore".

• We call Him to mind in His death, that is in the greatest act of His love.

Rem. If it is in the breaking of bread He is called into presence, it is a long time in our meeting before that takes place, for it is put off so late.

F.E.R. We do things better in England. You notice how heavy the meeting is when it is deferred, and hymns and prayers take its place.

• The Supper is introductory, it would produce in the hearts of the saints that which they try to bring about by prayers and hymns.

• The four chapters in 1 Corinthians which treat of the subject are continuous, 11-14 and the Supper is the first thing touched.

Ques. When should the box be introduced?

F.E.R. I think immediately after the breaking of bread in order that everything of a formal nature might be done together.

• I would give out the notices after the box has gone round in the early part of the meeting.

• You then have freedom for the Lord to act on His own line; no one has any authority to close the meeting. I think it is presumption for any one to take upon himself to close the meeting.

• It is wonderful what an effect the Supper has on people. They come to the Supper meeting often from pressure at home, and where things must be seen to before they can start, and they come in a bustle, but after the Supper has been partaken of there is a calm.

Ques. Would it not be better to have the box at the door going out?

F.E.R. No. I connect it in my mind with what is an expression of fellowship and in going round I would connect it with that part of the meeting which expresses fellowship.

Ques. Why introduce it into the morning meeting at all?

F.E.R. What then would you do? It is a necessity, and a thing which should be done in fellowship and consequently connected with the meeting, which is of that character,

• and as we are speaking of it, I would take the opportunity of remarking that there is not enough liberality in putting into the box, for if it is a thing done in fellowship it should be done liberally.

Ques. You say we bring the Lord into presence in partaking of the Supper, does that bring Him into the midst?

F.E.R. No. He touches the affections as you call Him to mind, and gives an impulse to the whole thing. The object of the Supper is to put everything into place.

• No one should break up the meeting, but we would all have a sense of the spiritual power declining.

Ques. Would you pray for the gospel at the end of the meeting?

F.E.R. We find that done because people in fellowship imitate instead of setting an example.

• We are good theorists, but we are improving in our practice.

• Faith will not help you in the assembly – only love will do that, that is why at the end of 1 Corinthians 12 the apostle breaks off his subject and brings in affection – love.

Ques. We need not meditate upon a subject before taking part?

F.E.R. No. We do not go there to speak. J.B.S. used to say he went like a blank sheet of paper.

• Worship is better than speaking, but the Lord may perhaps make use of the opportunity in that way to help the saints.

Ques. What about ministry before the breaking of bread?

F.E.R. You have not given the Lord what is due to Him in the Supper and I think it is very objectionable to read, minister, or do anything of the kind before the breaking of bread has taken place.

Rem. The breaking of bread itself should do that in the soul which reading and ministry, etc., has been resorted to, to effect.

F.E.R. Yes, the Supper has a great effect upon people in quieting them and putting them in touch with the Lord and it would do it at once only that hymns are given out and spoil it.

Ques. Is chapter 14: 23 for breaking bread?

F.E.R. It picks up the subject again from the middle of chapter 11. The assembly is for the Supper, but the Supper is not the end of the meeting.

• In the Supper we come to Him as the Mediator of the new covenant and then He is Minister of the holy places. The cup is "the new testament in My blood".

Ques. Is there an opportunity for ministry after the Supper?

F.E.R. I think so, or for anything to which the Lord might lead.

Ques. At Troas, did the apostle preach before they broke bread?

F.E.R. It is a very difficult matter to tell: the breaking of bread and the meal became mixed up together and it is difficult to distinguish.

• It says, "And having gone up, and having broken the bread, and eaten" – that was the meal, I think.

Rem. Suppose the company in a place come together for prayer or reading.

F.E.R. That is not the assembly: two or three are free to come together as in Matthew 18 – the assembly is a different thought; you have to give complete place to the head if the assembly comes together.

• In chapter 11 you get the head, in chapter 12 the body; before you have the assembly you must have the head.

Ques. Saints might come together without coming in assembly?

F.E.R. I think so. The first principle in coming together in assembly is that the Head directs. I think the Supper brings Him in as Head. You come to Him as Mediator of the new covenant and then He is the Minister.

Ques. Would Matthew 18 include coming together in assembly?

F.E.R. It would hold good for the assembly, but that is not really the point of it. The prominent idea there is the kingdom.

Ques. When gathered in assembly are we not gathered in the name of the Lord?

F.E.R. Yes; but the assembly is more than Matthew 18.

• The Supper is taken up too literally: it never can have the same application to us as to the disciples.

• The Lord could not say strictly to us, "Do this for My remembrance", because we never had Him with us. It had a direct force to them, not to us.

Rem. But Paul had it from the glory.

F.E.R. Yes, but we have to take it up intelligently. To my mind the death of Christ is a common meeting ground for Jew and gentile.

• The apostle goes back to the institution of it; it had a special significance to the disciples who had companied with Him. Calling Him to mind involves that they had been with Him, associated with Him.
  • "As often as ye shall eat this bread, and drink the cup ye announce the death of the Lord until he come"

• – in its application to us the idea of remembrance is dropped.

Ques. Would the thought of breaking bread and drinking wine have conveyed what is similar to Jeremiah 16: 7?

F.E.R. Yes. Calling to mind involves that they had been in association with Him which could not have literal application to the gentile. I think He instituted the Supper as that in which they would call Him to mind.

• That cannot have literal application to us for we commence with His death. His death presents to us the expression of His self-sacrificing life.

Ques. It brings you to the same point, does it not?

F.E.R. Yes, that is just what it does; we do come to the same point by a different way. His love is here, only His death is the expression of the love that is here, not that was here.

Ques. Is not the Supper meant to call something to our minds?

F.E.R. The Supper comes before us as the great expression of love, the love expressed in death.

Ques. Is it not that in the Supper He presents Himself to us in death?

F.E.R. Yes. Remembrance is bringing the Person before you as you have known Him – calling to mind.

• Paul goes back to the institution, in which he himself had no part. It was not peculiar to Paul or part of his line, but the Lord gives it to him.

• He presents to us the symbols of His death, but His death comes before us as the expression of the love that is here: it is not a means to you of calling Him to mind as He was on earth; our knowledge of Him began in death.

• In the presence of the death of Christ there is a common meeting ground for Jew and gentile.

Ques. Then, to the disciples, the Supper would recall the Lord as He had been with them?

F.E.R. Yes, I think so. Every bit of His life of ministry had been of the same character as His death – all was the expression of self-sacrificing love, the great expression of which was His death, and therefore death was the means of remembrance, but all His life had the same character.

• It is plain enough to everybody that the gentile must begin with His death.

Ques. What would you say is the real difference between the apostles and us as to the way of remembrance?

F.E.R. They recalled Him in love as He had been with them, in a way which we cannot literally. The Supper in that sense gave a ground which would be common to Jew and gentile.

• They could not be on common ground in the presence of His life, but they could in His death. They are not the memorials of His dying but of His death; He is dead; it is death accomplished, the blood separated from the body.

Ques. I suppose in the gospel there was the celebration of the passover?

F.E.R. That was a distinct thing in which the gentile had no part. In the early church they kept up the passover as a yearly festival among the gentiles as well as the Jews.

• As a matter of fact we have begun with the Lord in His death, though the words have not been understood – i.e., calling to mind. You accept His death as a testimony of His love.

Ques. Have we not been much occupied with His sufferings instead of His death?

F.E.R. It used to be, but not so much now, I think. You cannot go back to what is antecedent to death.

Ques. It is clear you must take up the Supper intelligently not literally. Is it the difference between the portrait of one known and one not known?

F.E.R. It must have had a peculiar force to those who had been in His company but we see the wisdom of giving what was common to Jew and gentile. They knew the love in His life; we begin both together in His death and that is the great point in these chapters.

Rem. It gives the Lord's supper a most important place.

F.E.R. The effect is, it connects you with a living Christ; the very fact of the Supper brings you into the presence of a living Christ. Chapter 11 gives the head; chapter 12 the body and the Spirit.

Ques. In the prayer meeting is not the assembly in entire subjection?

F.E.R. In its true character of the assembly, the Head is there and everything else excluded – no activity of mind; a good thing to get rid of. He directs: the mind is like an eye.

• The secret cause of so much weakness is that the head is not recognised.

• The Lord's supper is a scene of life though you have the remembrance of death. The death of Christ is the great expression of divine life – a curious thing to say! It is divine love come into death in the way of testimony; death is all set aside and what remains is life. "He death by dying slew". He came into death to annul death.

Ques. Was it not by rising that He annulled death?

F.E.R. No, morally by coming into it. Resurrection is the expression of its being done.

Rem. The wonderful thing in grace is that the Creator charged Himself with the responsibility of the created; not man, bearing the responsibilities for men, but God charging Himself with what lay upon man.

F.E.R. Then He had to become a man to do it. Exactly. Death is no trouble for me, for divine love has been into death; no one could be frightened at death if he saw divine love had been into it. "Perfect love casts out fear".

Ques. Is the remembrance a sort of backward movement in our souls?

F.E.R. Not exactly that. The assembly comes together as if never come before – all begins anew. The Lord would have it that way.

• He is Mediator of the new covenant: the Testator died that the covenant might be established, that you may understand by the death of Christ the disposition of God towards you.

• Then He is Minister of the holy places, and leads you into all the good of reconciliation.

• With regard to going back – we begin with it, not go back to it. You recall His death, not on our side but on His side, as the expression of what is within, the greatness of His love

Ques. Has there not been the idea that the actual act is the remembrance of Christ?

F.E.R. Yes, but if people knew the force of the word they would not think so. "Calling to mind" has no meaning except as to someone with whom you have been familiar.

Ques. Is it not more the thought of calling Him into presence?

F.E.R. That is what it is practically to us.

Ques. There is a hymn of which one verse begins: "We love Lord Jesus to recall". Hymn 192. Do you think it suitable?

F.E.R. I think that is sentimental, you cannot work yourself up to it. All that is of the Lord's appointment, you can count on the grace of God to give, but if it is after your own fancy, you cannot work yourself up to it.

• In the church of England you never succeeded, it was artificial and effort, but if you take the Supper up according to His appointment, you will prove the grace of the Spirit in bringing your mind into accord with what is presented to you.

• In partaking of the bread and cup you announce His death: what man could boast in is food for us; man could boast in having got rid of Christ, and we can boast in it.

Rem. The bread of comfort and wine of consolation was understood by the Jews. Jeremiah 16: 7.

F.E.R. A great point gained is that the Supper is introductory – not the end as it used to be.

Rem. I think it is still so with many minds.

F.E.R. I was in hope that things had got a little further. To my mind it is introductory that you may be prepared for the ministry of the sanctuary. It is increasing greatly to my mind.

• You enter on a scene where love is at rest – not love in activity as in discipline here, but where love is at rest, because all is according to divine glory in the assembly, it is the fruit of love in activity.

• It is a wonderful thing that you are associated with the Head and are fit to be so.

• Quickening properly refers to the coming of the Lord, but now you are quickened as to affections, not in body – you are competent as regards affections, which are formed according to Christ.

Ques. Is there any thought in the Supper of our taking our stand with the One the world has rejected?

F.E.R. I think you announce His death – you say, Goodbye to the world; there is an end of everything in His death.

• People get up on Sunday and dress in their best as though it were a kind of crowning day; you ought to count it as the end of everything in the world. You are identified with the One whom the world refused.

Rem. The holiest does not belong to the wilderness. Ephesians and Colossians are instructions for individual progress, but you want Ephesians and Colossians for the holiest.

F.E.R. The holiest belongs to the land.

Rem. I remember the awful fog we were all in at Witney about a great many things!

F.E.R. The service of God must be, as man supposes, carried out according to man's order. They put up buildings and think they can worship God according to their own fancy, but you must give Christ the place He has been pleased to take.

• He has taken the place of Centre of the universe, leading everything on man's side Godward.

Ques. Can we enter the holiest except in the assembly?

F.E.R. I think not. You have the priestly company in association with the true Aaron.

Ques. Man may say he will bring the best of everything he has got, but is that according to divine order?

F.E.R. Christ is Minister of the true tabernacle.

Ques. Is it not a very serious matter to give up the breaking of bread?

F.E.R. If things come to that pass that it is necessary, it is a very serious consideration.

Ques. Could individuals in an assembly enter the holiest if the assembly does not?

F.E.R. It must be a question to a large extent of the work of God in individuals. You come together as saints; because a person is not up to the mark you cannot say he must not take part; you have to accept it.

• As to hymns, if the hymn is right and true in itself, not false, it does not present any difficulty to me.

• It is a great point to get a true idea of it; you can hardly raise the question who is in it and who is not. You have to go on patiently, not for a week or a month or a year, but for years and years, till the idea is built up in people's souls.

• Take newly-converted persons – you cannot expect them to be very intelligent about the assembly, but you cannot shut their mouths. Often there is much freshness with them.

• In the perfection of it, the idea of the assembly never can be perfectly realised down here in this scene of imperfection.

• The only thing is, if you do apprehend these things, you ought to stick to it, and not go on on the line of accommodation, but you must have consideration for others – that is the great thing in this world.

• We are so apt to get impatient when things go wrong. To erect these things into a kind of system which you are going to force on people, whether they like it or not, is simply disastrous and fatal.

C.A.C. It was thought that in considering together the precious subject of the Lord's supper we should first of all get some idea of the kind of persons who can eat the supper.

• The thought, therefore, is to see how these people at Corinth came to be the assembly of God, and the features that marked them as the assembly of God.

• It is clear that the Lord's supper has its place in the assembly of God, and to understand it we must necessarily be acquainted with the character of the assembly.

Rem. I was wondering whether the two verses in early Acts would give the thought.

• "Those then who had accepted his word were baptised; and there were added in that day about three thousand souls. And they persevered in the teaching and fellowship of the apostles, in breaking of bread and prayers", Acts 2: 41-42.

• They give the setting of those whom we have in view at the present time.

C.A.C. Yes, the same character of things evidently took place at Corinth. The testimony corresponded with that rendered by Peter at Jerusalem. His testimony was that God had made "that same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ".

• That was the announcement which promptly affected them. Likewise at Corinth – Acts 18 – Paul announced to them in the synagogue that Jesus was the Christ.

• It is well for us to understand that that is the very essence of the assembly position, it is composed of persons who believe the testimony that Jesus is the Christ.

Ques. Do you get that in the opening verses in Corinthians? Paul refers a good many times there to "the Lord Jesus Christ".

C.A.C. Yes, it is important to look at these things from the standpoint of divine testimony. It is not a question of our personal experience or needs at all, but it is a question of a Person to whom God has given testimony that He is the anointed One; He is the Christ, God's Anointed. It is the testimony apart from all feeling or experience that I or anybody else may have.

Rem. "According as the testimony of the Christ has been confirmed in you".

C.A.C. He refers to it further on – "I came to you … announcing to you the testimony of God". It is summed up in "Jesus Christ, and him crucified".

• We cannot be too simple in regard to it, yet it is most profound because of its stupendous reality. We just believe the testimony.

• It certainly must come to us as the testimony of God, and if we received that testimony it would result in our identifying ourselves with the Person who is the subject of testimony: and those who do so, form the assembly in a place.

Ques. Will you say what the testimony of the Christ involves?

C.A.C. It is most important to understand that. The testimony is that there is such a Person as God's Anointed.

• There are many prophetic references to Him in the Old Testament, but the testimony now comes to us that Jesus is that Person, that anointed Man of whom the Old Testament spoke.

• The thought of being God's Anointed means that He is the Man whom God distinguishes and accredits, and we cannot believe that without being powerfully affected. It is the first thing we come to when we have to do with God; we must accept that He is God's Anointed.

Rem. It was said of Simeon that "it was divinely communicated to him by the Holy Spirit, that he should not see death before he should see the Lord's Christ".

C.A.C. That is the whole thing. Jesus claimed to be the Anointed when He stood up in the synagogue at Nazareth, Luke 4: 18-21, and His whole life was the evidence of the fact. I think Paul gave that evidence at Corinth for he "reasoned" with them. It was a matter of careful proof that Jesus was the Anointed.

Rem. The main theme of the first preaching was that God had made Him "both Lord and Christ".

C.A.C. This lies at the very basis of the formation of the assembly; you have no company to take the supper otherwise. It is all a question of believing God's testimony, and His testimony is Jesus. It clears the ground at once.

• Corinth was full of idols and there were schools of philosophy and a synagogue of Jews, but none of these things had been anointed by God. He had put no distinction on any of them. He had put distinction on Jesus.

• These things are in a sense simple, but they are immense in moral power and significance. God is distinguishing one Man, He is testifying that Jesus is the anointed Man. It is no question of our exercises at all.

Ques. Is there a separating power in it?

C.A.C. Yes, I do not want to go on with anything that God has not anointed. God has shewn me a Man who has been anointed. He stands alone – it carries with it a separating power.

• This is a thing that can he reasoned out and Paul shews there is unquestionable evidence that Jesus is God's Anointed Man. If people do not believe it they do not believe God's testimony.

• It was all developed in the life and testimony of Jesus, all was an undeniable proof.
  • "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power; who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him", Acts 10.

• Now God is still submitting the evidence of it to men, and they are responsible to form their own judgment regarding it.

Rem. God has raised Him.

Ques. Why is it that he stresses the crucifixion?

C.A.C. Because the princes of this world had crucified the Lord. The testimony was all there before their eyes. They did not call the blind man of John 9 or Mary Magdalene as witnesses. They did not call any worth hearing.

Rem. It says, "None of the princes of this world knew, for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory".

C.A.C. It shews their blindness. It is just to bring out the utter incapacity of men to receive the testimony of God. So there must he certain persons who are called, and to them Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, but He is to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness.

Rem. Man after the flesh cannot appreciate Christ.

C.A.C. That is the whole thing, so the belief that Christ is God's Anointed Man really delivers the soul from every other kind of man. That is the kind of man God distinguishes and accredits. A distinct issue was raised that none of us can avoid.

• The mass of men do not believe that He is the Christ, and the fact that some do makes a sharp line of demarcation and every believer feels that he must be baptised and take his stand with Christ or with the world that crucified Him. It is a clear-cut issue.

• The Anointing brings out the moral character attaching to Jesus. There was not a single thing about Him that God was not pleased to distinguish; He loved to put distinction on that Man.

Rem. I was wondering whether it went back to the breakdown in Eden. It is a necessity that One who pleases God should come into evidence, and that is the One to whom God is looking.

C.A.C. Yes, that is it. There is a perfect testimony in that blessed Man to all that God is morally. Does that attract me? Do I believe this testimony? If so, I have finished with the world as a system.

• We find how very soon there is a sense even in a child of being naughty; very early there is a sense of not being pleasing to God, even at two or three years old!

• This wonderful testimony comes concerning Jesus – there is everything in Him for God's delight. If I believe that I must stand by it.

Rem. We see it in the first two Psalms. God can anoint the Man in Psalm 2 who pleases Him in Psalm 1.

C.A.C. Yes. This is the supreme question of all time. There is one Man whom God has signalised and accredited, and every other man is discredited. If persons believe that they are fit for the assembly. It is a question of whether I have believed the testimony. It is what I believe, not a matter of experience or formation.

• After the preaching that God had made Jesus "both Lord and Christ" they recognised what an awful state the world was in and said, "We must get clear of it!"

• If I have really believed the testimony of God's Anointed, I have finished with the world. The world is after money and gain and pleasure. There is not a single thing that God has anointed in it

• If there is one divine spark in my soul I am attracted to Jesus. Then I accept the truth of baptism, I have finished with the world – that is what baptism means.

• This is the kind of company who can eat the supper – persons who have believed the testimony that Jesus is the Christ, the anointed Man.

Ques. When did this anointing take place?

C.A.C. It took place at His baptism, which was the public accrediting of that Man.

Rem. I suppose we need to see the beauty of His deeds and Person and the immediate effect of what the world has done, and these would help us to have done with the world.

C.A.C. So that all things are exposed. The princes of the world are exposed; they crucified Him, they are exposed. How could I go on with politics and such things if I believe that Christ is God's Anointed? The assembly is made up of people who have judged these things.

Rem. It involves His coming into His rights down here.

C.A.C. Yes, it must involve that, because the One whom God has anointed must have the supreme place. God has not adjusted things yet, but when God adjusts everything in the universe He will have that place. What you feel is He ought to fill the scene – the universe. He is capable of filling it, we all ought to have that sense.

Ques. Would you say that if we are in the good of God's testimony, the Lord's pathway traced through this scene has a different bearing altogether?

C.A.C. Yes, and then of course His being crucified brings in another element, because if I accredit the Man whom God has accredited, there is another man who is the direct opposite. That is the best way of learning self. The proper way of learning self is to learn Christ first.

• It is reached by believing divine testimony, not on the line of my exercises. We see God expressed there; and everything that is pleasing to Him is all there in that Man and not in a world of learning and pride.

Ques. Will you say why it is the cross here and not the death of Christ?

C.A.C. We learn the necessity to value the cross, because if I really accept Christ as the Anointed of God and contemplate His character in the gospels, I begin to feel I am not like Him.

• He is everything that is desirable, but I am just the opposite – that is where the cross comes in. The cross is a judicial matter, it was intended to be so by the princes of this world. Their judiciary sentence pronounced that Jesus ought to be subjected to the utmost degradation.

• From the divine side we know God would never have let them crucify Him if He had not something else in mind, that is judicially to expose what in us is not in correspondence with Christ. It is exposed publicly for He suffered on the cross what was due to me. He suffered for it, that is God's side of it.

• Everything about me deserved to be nailed to that cross; if I believed that I should never want to lift up my head again. God has been pleased to set forth in the most beautiful Man the condemnation of the degraded man – what I am.

• Every one who comes into the assembly comes in in the light of that, and cannot come in otherwise. It is a wonderful company clothed in white raiment in a world of persons in black garments who do not believe God's testimony.

Rem. "God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ".

C.A.C. It was to mark in the strongest possible way the contrast between those that crucified Him and the place that God has given Him.

• He fills it gloriously and He fills it efficiently; we come together in the light of that. This is really the basis on which the assembly of God stands; when once it gets into the soul you cannot get away from it.

We should be reminded of one thing, that faith cannot be maintained in its integrity without the Spirit, and that is why christians today are in such a lamentable state. At some point in their history they have come to this and they have drifted from it. How is it to be maintained? Only by the Holy Spirit.

• Christians are often not in the grace and power of it because they are not keeping in the company of the Holy Spirit.

• I am sure that we have all come to the faith of it. God is committed to that Man and we have committed ourselves to that Man and to His Name and His company, but the maintaining power of it is the Spirit.

• If I do not keep company with the Spirit I wane in my soul. He is the power of things, and the Spirit never deviates from Christ. I may often do so, but I should be kept steady if I kept in the company of the Spirit.

We were reading last Lord's Day that these persons who are addressed as the assembly of God in Corinth were persons who had believed the testimony of the Christ – that Jesus is the Christ, that Jesus is God's anointed Man.

• What we had before us was that if Jesus was the Man whom God could accredit and distinguish, this necessarily involved the setting aside of every other man.

• That was judicially brought about at the cross, so that "Jesus Christ, and Him crucified" really implies the testimony of God, and it was declared in Corinth.

Rem. This would be foundational and it would be illustrated in the Ethiopian eunuch who wanted to be baptised. That is, it is soul work.

C.A.C. Yes, he believed the testimony and it was testimony of 'some other man". His question was,

• "Of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man"?

• The Ethiopian had some inkling in his soul of some other man. And Philip preached unto him Jesus, He was the other Man!

• Immediately he wished to he baptised. Every one who really believes that Christ is God's anointed Man must desire to be in the good of his, or her baptism, to be manifestly on the side of that Man whom God distinguishes. Those are the people who compose the assembly of God and form the temple of God.

• I thought it would be well to read these verses today to see the greatness of the position the assembly occupies. Unless we do, I do not think we shall he able to enter much into the thought of the assembly.

Rem. Last time you referred to the need of the Spirit to support faith.

C.A.C. Well, I think it is important for us to recognise that faith is not sufficient, there must be a divine power to maintain things, and that lies in the Spirit. Many believers begin with faith, but decline because they do not keep company with the Spirit.

• So in chapter 3 the apostle stresses that fact. In chapter 2 he stresses that his own service has been by the Spirit; here He tells the saints that they are the temple of God and the Spirit dwells in them. The Spirit is needed to support and maintain in our souls the things we have received from God.

Rem. These are such great things and we are so feeble that we need divine power to be maintained in them.

C.A.C. Yes. The thought of being the temple of God would suggest that it is a place where the service of God can go on suitably. That is the thought of the temple. There would be light in the temple.

• There were idolatrous temples in which dark and dreadful mysteries were enshrined. We should he exercised that there should be something in the place where we live which has the character of the temple of God. There is much around that has not.

Ques. When the apostle touches one of these vital points, he says, "Do ye not know?" Why does he say that?

C.A.C. I think it intimates that there may be great realities that we have never recognised. There are christians around who have no thought of the temple.

• Have we recognised the temple of God as a place where there is divine light, and where God can be served and which is marked by holiness?

• It is a very important matter if we are going to serve God in His temple that we should take our shoes off as Moses did before serving. And Joshua too, before he commenced his service was told to take off his shoes in recognition of the holiness of the place where God was.

Rem. That would not hinder liberty.

C.A.C. No, it would create liberty! There is no liberty apart from holiness. We do not want liberty apart from holiness!

Rem. It says, "The temple of God is holy, and such are ye".

C.A.C. If there is a wrong state it can only be put right by the truth. If the testimony of Jesus being God's Anointed is accepted, and the truth of the cross as setting aside every other man, then we come to it that we are the temple of God where He dwells. We have to accept that as a great divine reality.

Ques. Will you please say what you mean by taking off our shoes?

C.A.C. I suppose it intimates to us that we set ourselves aside and any dignity or greatness that might have attached to us and we take the lowest place. The ground is holy. God said to Moses

• "The place whereon thou standest is holy ground".

• That is, there is no suitability in anything being found here that is not of God.

Rem. It says in Ecclesiastes 5,

• "Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and draw near to hear, rather than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they know not that they do evil. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thy heart be hasty to utter anything before God: for God is in the heavens and thou upon earth; therefore let thy words be few".

C.A.C. Yes, I think that is very helpful in this connection. There is danger of saying too much; we had better say a little that the Spirit of God can sanction rather than a great deal otherwise.

• In the assembly you would not look for an excessive amount of utterance but for things to be said which the Spirit could sanction.

• I think that taking off the shoes would intimate putting off what is not suitable for God. The shoes are loosened as not suitable to holy ground.

Ques. In what way is the temple looked at here?

C.A.C. I think that it is the place where God is suitably served, but the prominent thought here is holiness, the definite exclusion of what is not holy.

• We have to recognise that we are connected with what is intrinsically and essentially holy – that is the character of the things to which we belong.

Ques. Would taking off the shoes mean there is no standing for man, but the place is a place of service?

C.A.C. That is very important, so that we serve God in relation to what has come entirely from God.

• "Of thine own have we given thee", David said.

• It is what comes from God into the hearts of His saints and gladdens them, and they can bring it back to Him, and it bears the stamp of holiness.

• Then the thought of the temple suggests intelligence – that God is intelligently served. In heathendom every idol temple would be marked by certain persons who understood, or pretended to understand, how that particular god should be served.

• There was nothing casual or haphazard about the service in the temple at Jerusalem. The courses of the Levites or the priests were all ordered. There were songs, they sang psalms that were inspired, that were indited by the Spirit of God and therefore acceptable to God.

Rem. Ezekiel was to shew the form of the temple to the house of Israel to make them ashamed.

• 'shew them the form of the house, and the fashion thereof, and the goings out thereof and the comings in thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the laws thereof: and write it in their sight, that they may keep the whole form thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and do them. This is the law of the house; Upon the top of the mountain the whole limit thereof round about shall be most holy. Behold, this is the law of the house". Ezekiel 43: 11-12.

C.A.C. That is very helpful. We have to bear in mind that we are in the midst of the christian profession, and we have to learn the true character of the temple and service.

• There are things which God has ordered and appointed, the service in the temple is all in accord with what God has appointed.

The temple of God is a place of light, light is continually shining there. The candlesticks in the temple were bearing light, so light is maintained in the ministry by the Spirit; so that we are instructed priests who know what to do and how to do it.

• It is a great matter to accept these things as the truth of God. They may humble us, but at the same time they lift us up to the holy thoughts of God.

This subject is further developed in chapter 5 where the saints are spoken of as being unleavened.

• "According as ye are unleavened".

• That is what the assembly is in its true character. It is the holy temple of God, and it is an unleavened lump, therefore if anything comes in that belongs to the former state of things it is to he purged out – it is a little bit of the old lump of what we were according to the flesh brought over. Satan would like to bring it over to what is really unleavened.

Then there is a holy watchfulness to be maintained, for the old leaven is not far from any of us – it is myself – and the danger is that it may leaven the whole lump; so we must deal with it promptly and cast it out.

• This does not refer to the evil committed but to the puffing up of the company who had not mourned over it. That was old leaven and that had to be purged out. To meet that the apostle brought in a new apprehension of Christ that they had not had before.
  • God generally does that when we have been wrong; He brings in a new impression of Christ.

• There is a difference between Christ crucified and Christ sacrificed. The Corinthians got away from the former, and God recovered them by presenting Christ sacrificed – a deeper lesson.

• If I am going on rightly God helps me by continual presentations of Christ; if I am going on wrongly He helps me by a presentation of Christ. That is God! It is wonderful!

Crucifixion is a public matter. Everyone can take account of a crucified man as put in the place of curse and dishonour.

• But Christ sacrificed is a more inward thing and refers to all He went through in His holy soul as typically roast with fire.

• As we move on in the epistles we are more able to take account of Christ's death as an intimate matter.

• The attention of the household was concentrated on the lamb for four days before it was sacrificed, intimating that God would have us consider Christ in His spotless character and perfect suitability, and then sacrificed and eaten in this character. This is a private matter. I believe it is an intense, personal exercise before God. It is to be eaten.

• It is not Christ crucified, that was a spectacle, something to be looked at.
  • "Jesus Christ has been portrayed crucified among you" Paul wrote to the Galatians.

• It is a far deeper thing to eat the lamb roast with fire, and it is intended to give the power to get rid of the leaven. If it is an assembly that is affected by leaven, it is only done by this intimate personal eating of the passover.

• He has been exposed to the public judgment of God and now He has been sacrificed. If we want to get to 1 Corinthians 11 we shall have to reach it by way of chapter 5.

• It is possible to see Christ crucified and yet to become bewitched as the Galatians were. But feeding on Him would prevent that; it would give us a constitution that would preserve us from being bewitched.

• The passover was eaten at home; it is the intimate consideration of Christ as coming under the action of the judgment of God. He is our Passover. Thus we become attached to Him.

• The four days give the opportunity for the firstborn sons to become attached to Him. So God secures "firstborn ones". The passover is very important and wide in its range.

The Lord would help us so that we should eat the passover in company with Him, and consequent on that is the keeping of the feast.

• All leaven was to be discarded for seven days, typifying the whole christian period. There is power brought in to refuse the leaven. This is how the assembly assumes its true character.

• Someone might say, "We cannot set ourselves up as being unleavened". Well let us acknowledge the fact that God says,
  • "Ye are unleavened".

• He would say, I am going to bring Christ into your affections in such a way that you will get rid of it without any trouble. This is brought about by private and personal consideration of Christ as the passover.

• I think we have a much too small thought of the passover, as if it were only very initial and elementary, but it is the greatest of all sacrifices, and of which God says, "My sacrifice".

• It is the only sacrifice by which He gets His own firstborn sons out of the world for His pleasure. I think it is correct to say we have to eat our way out.

C.A.C. We were noticing that faith is not sufficient if things are to be maintained. Without the Spirit faith will decline. So the apostle calls attention to the saints that they are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in them and the temple of God is holy.

• We were seeing that in the temple of God we get much light as to Christ; everything in the temple speaks of Christ, and coming to the truth of the temple we get more light as to Christ. So in chapter 5 we have an increased knowledge of Christ; He is known as "our passover … sacrificed".

• That means we have a spiritual view of Him and see Him not only crucified but sacrificed, which brings out the personal sufferings of His holy soul when He was typically roast with fire. By feeding on Him as the Lamb roast with fire we get strength to get rid of all leaven. So the exercise in chapter 5 is to purge out all leaven that "ye may be a new lump".

• Leaven is something that works inwardly causing us to be self-important, something in us that is not Christ. The assembly normally is unleavened, there is nothing active there but the life of Christ. It is only an unleavened company of persons who can truly eat the Lord's supper.

In chapter 10 we come to the thought of communion or fellowship. It is the question of the adjustment of our associations.

Rem. There was a young man in Malta who said his reason for coming to the meeting was because he found more of Christ there.

C.A.C. He was an "intelligent man" evidently as wanting more of Christ. Persons like that are suitable material for the assembly, if they want more of Christ they wish to eliminate what is not of Christ; we must begin personally as leaven works inwardly.

• "That ye may be a new lump",

• that is what the assembly is; a leavened mass could not really be the assembly of God.

• Persons can go a long way on the line of exercise about themselves and their conduct without being much exercised as to their associations. I suppose every believer is exercised about personal conduct who may not be about associations; but if these are not right we cannot eat the Lord's supper.

We get the truth of associations in chapter 10 before the supper in chapter 11.

• It would seem that at Corinth there were some who could go into an idol temple and eat what was offered, doing it on the principle that the idol was nothing and that it did not make any difference if it was offered to idols.

• But the question of association comes in and the apostle shews that they were really in communion with demons.

• God is very concerned about the associations of His people and not only about our personal conduct. It is a serious matter to be going on with something that, in principle, is evil. A recognition of the true character of christian fellowship would save us from that.

• The apostle brings out the only kind of association that is contemplated for christians. They are linked up with the communion of the body and blood of Christ – it is an exclusive fellowship.

• Nothing could be more exclusive than the thought of the body of Christ and the blood of Christ. If we are associated with that it entirely precludes any other kind of association.
  • It says, "Ye cannot drink the Lord's cup and the cup of demons";

• "ye cannot", that is the true principle of all associations. It is not that there is anything narrow about it, it is a far greater and richer fellowship than any other kind of fellowship.

• He would impress that on us by speaking of the blood first* which is not in the order of the supper.
  [* It is the sacrificial order. GAR]

  • "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?"

• He has in mind to give us a sense of the wealthy character and wonderful blessing of the christian association. It is well for us to look at it and see that it is the cup of blessing.

• He supposes that all believers bless the cup and break the bread; the Scripture does not suppose that any christian fails to do so. If he does not he can hardly be said to he occupying true christian ground. Such are not behaving like the believers in the beginning for they "persevered" in breaking of bread.

The blessing of the cup shews very clearly that we think very highly of it. There is nothing about drinking the cup here; it is blessing it, involving that we look at it. You look at it as a cup of blessing and you bless it. It supposes that all christians do it.

• "The cup of blessing which we bless" – he assumes it.

• He is hardly thinking of the cup in its literality but in its import. It is very large in its import and contains every blessing that comes to us in the death of Christ. In this chapter you look at it; it is a cup larger than any cup you ever thought of, and it contains the love of God that comes to us through the death of Christ.

• It shews the necessity for purging out all leaven, for it will obscure our vision of the cup. The thing to do is to get rid of the leaven.

• We see here the immensity of the cup of blessing and we are associated with all that. How can you associate yourself with this defiling world after that? It would be well if some of us came into fellowship!

• If we were to consider all that the cup speaks of it would take several readings. It is a great study to consider the effect and result in blessing of the blood of Christ being shed.

Rem. It is a feast – the feast of unleavened bread.

C.A.C. I am glad you called attention to that. It is not a fast of unleavened bread.

• When you can stamp out a little bit of leaven from yourself it is a happy day for you, as making more room for Christ. It is feeding on the holy, spotless Lamb that gives us power to eliminate the leaven that is so ready to he active in us. We shall never eliminate it in any other way.

• When our associations have been adjusted, we shall be quite free for the supper in chapter 11. Our leaven has been purged away and our old associations put away because of the new associations we have entered upon, then we can sit down together to eat the supper.
  • It was not the Lord's supper that the Corinthians were eating.

• It is a very important point that the assets of the fellowship are put first – the infinite gain that comes to us in the shedding of the blood of Christ. We then have no craving for any other associations among men.

• All of these propose some benefits, but what benefit can it give me if I am in the gain of the benefit of all that of which the cup speaks? It is a fellowship of supreme satisfaction.

Rem. There are worldly attractions as well as religious associations.

C.A.C. There are all kinds of things to ensnare us, but we shall have fewer desires for them as we come, more and more, into the knowledge of our associations.

Then the other important element of the fellowship is the bread;

• "the bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?"

• He suggests to us the thought of partaking. With the cup we are to look at it and bless it, but with the bread it is the thought of eating. The bread which we break – you do not break bread except with the thought of partaking of it, and our object in partaking is that we may become an unbroken loaf ourselves.
  • "We being many are one loaf, one body".

• In connection with the bread he distinctly brings forward the thought of partaking of it. It was when the bread was going to be partaken of that the Lord broke it. That gives us another view of the christian association or partnership.

• Christendom has got very used to the word "communion", and "fellowship" has become with us rather hackneyed, so it is good to use another word. It is a partnership – a most wonderful one, and it brings out what corresponds with the cup of blessing.

• The blessing that is in the heart of God and in the love of God comes to us in the value of the blood of Christ, that is the side of blessing. But that necessitates something else and that is a moral character with us which corresponds with all the blessing, and I think we reach that through the loaf.

• The blood of Christ is a sacrificial thought and intimates the blessing that comes to us from God in the value of the death of Christ. It can never be less and it can never be more.

• The body of Christ reminds us of what was in His body for the pleasure of God. It is the other side of the question. There was a Man here in a body and that body was the vessel of God's pleasure from the manger right through to the cross, and most of all at the cross.

• We are to partake of the bread morally, we all partake of the one loaf. The exercise is important. To put it simply, it shews that the fellowship can only he taken up in the life of Christ, only in that character of life that was expressed in His body. There is a moral significance attaching to it – a moral result.

• The partaking results in our being one loaf, one body. Every christian normally wishes to move on that line, for we can only move on the line of the life of Christ or the line of the flesh. We can see what the life of Christ was in Psalm 16,
  • "Preserve me, O God: for in thee do I put my trust".

• Is it not very attractive to think of partaking of it?

The Psalmist goes on to say that his delight was in the saints, speaking of them as

• "the excellent, in whom is all my delight".

• That is the life of Christ and we delight in the saints too. As to the idolatrous world he says,
  • "Their drink offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips".

• He will not touch the idolatrous world and he finds his joy in God, he has his portion in God. That is all the life of Christ; it came out in His body that was given in death that we might partake morally of it, and then we shall come out as one bread.

• If this one is a partaker of the life of Christ and that one is a partaker of the life of Christ, if we are all partakers of the life of Christ, shall we not come out as one bread? That is the common partnership of the body of Christ.

• This is the association in which we are set today, and it is only as we are true to this in principle that we are fit to eat the Lord's supper. We are not in a condition to eat the supper otherwise.

• It is good for us to see what christianity is. Christianity is Christ. All this puts our associations right, we cannot touch any other kind of association.

• The more clearly we see what true christian fellowship is the less we shall be influenced or attracted by any other kind of fellowship whether religious, political or social. They are altogether inferior and below what we have learnt to value.

• There are associations working for the benefit of man, and christians get drawn into them, but they are inconsistent with the true christian fellowship, and if christians learnt the true character of fellowship they would have to give them up.

Rem. There is the thought sometimes of doing things as an individual.

C.A.C. There is no ground in Scripture for any believer detaching himself from the company of his brethren.

• I have often referred to the young brother who was on a two years" cruise in the navy. He said to himself as he lay in his bunk the first night, "I do not know that there is a single believer on this ship and I do not know that I shall see a single believer for two years, but how I behave myself on this ship will affect the fellowship all over the world".

• If you go into wrong associations you take all the partners with you and it is inconsistent with the association in which God has set us in His great blessing.

C.A.C. I wanted to link these Scriptures together. I thought it was perhaps needful that we should consider that aspect of the Lord's supper which stands in more immediate connection with the passover before we go on to the great thought of remembrance, which is specially connected with it for the assembly.

• That is why I suggested reading the verses from Mark and Matthew. They suggest a certain apprehension on our part which seems to be necessary if we are to take up the supper as it is possible to the saints of the assembly in Luke and 1 Corinthians.

Ques. You think the passover aspect should have its effect on the saints before the remembrance is taken up?

C.A.C. Yes. It would appear that the aspect presented in Mark comes first. That is,

• "As they were eating" – i.e. the passover – "Jesus, having taken bread, when He had blessed, broke it, and gave it to them, and said, Take this: this is my body".

• I think the first thing we should learn is how to take the bread.

Ques. You suggest that the further thought of eating comes in Matthew?

C.A.C. Yes, the first thought is taking the bread, and the second is eating, which comes out in Matthew.

Rem. "Eating" is not in the text in Mark, it is "take" there.

C.A.C. Yes, the Lord does not refer to eating in Mark, and in connection with this great subject it is necessary that we should go carefully and observingly and not miss any part of the Lord's instruction. In Mark He stresses the point, "Take this". Take is the distinctive word.

Ques. Would it be connected at all with the thought of taking the lamb?

C.A.C. Well, I think there is a suggested connection.

It is important that we should take the bread in the wonderful import which the Lord has connected with it. We are told that,

• "Jesus having taken bread, when he had blessed, broke it, and gave it to them".

• It is when He had blessed, not when He had given thanks.

Ques. What is the difference between giving thanks and blessing?

C.A.C. I think blessing gives the thought of the character which the Lord would attach to the loaf. That is, in blessing He gave the loaf such an import as no other loaf had ever before possessed.

Ques. Would it suggest the Lord taking the body prepared for Him?

C.A.C. No doubt it does suggest that. The fact that He took bread, or the loaf, intimates there is something very tangible which would clearly refer to His having become flesh.

• He has come into the conditions of Manhood, and all this blessing and the subject of the blessing is connected with that. The Lord would have us all to ponder deeply the great purpose of the incarnation – what has come into Manhood. It has come into Manhood in order that it might be taken, be appropriated. So the great thought of taking is primarily in this matter.

Rem. "Taking" implies a very deliberate action on the part of the Lord, as if designed to bring something before us.

C.A.C. It was to bring the greatest matter before us that ever took place in the universe, or that ever will take place, the most important matter in the whole of eternity. "Now", He says, "I want you to take it with something of that in your soul".

Ques. Would the body imply that these great thoughts have come into its compass?

C.A.C. Yes, there was so much told out in the Lord becoming Man that is available for us to take.

Rem. And "My body" – it is the Person who comes into it, that Person's body.

C.A.C. Yes, and this blessing connects the immensity of all that with the symbol.

• But the Lord's blessing connects the greatness of His becoming Man with the character of the loaf, it makes it all available to us.

• This matter becomes in this way concentrated, and we see what is infinite compassed in these simple outward emblems, and the Lord would have us avail ourselves of all that His blessing connects with it. I think this would fill out the thought of the remembrance.

• We take it up with little sense of what it is, and what it is we remember; but taking the loaf in the great sense of what His blessing connects with it would greatly help us.

Rem. The Hebrew bondman served for six years as coming into this condition, and in the seventh he said, "I will not go out free". I thought it was the deep affection that was at the back of it.

C.A.C. I think that ought to affect us profoundly, and it comes very fittingly in Mark's gospel where He is the great Servant, and where He stresses that He came not to he ministered unto, but to minister.

• He came to minister. The body He took up was the vessel of service. Who can measure the marvellous service?

• We take the loaf in the sense of what it symbolises. The Lord took it; He connected all in His life of marvellous service with the symbol, and says, Now, I want you to take it that way.

It appears to me that in blessing, the Lord connects with the simple emblem the thought of all that had come in from God in Himself as in Manhood.

• Then He breaks it, to indicate that it is available. It could not be taken unbroken. It was so when He broke the bread in feeding the multitude, it needed to be broken to be available.

• In a certain sense it refers to His death because then it was that all that was there in His body was made available. Otherwise it would not be available. It is a figure of His death in that particular aspect.

• If He had not died there would have been a gulf which we could not have passed over, but He has passed over that gulf and made it available to us. How could we take it all to ourselves, all that He is as incarnate? I could not as a poor sinner!

• So the greatest expenditure of love has been put forth that we might take what will fill eternity. That is, it is all available.

A sister said to me that she could not get as much of Christ as she wanted. That is darkness in the soul, and the Lord saying "Take" is the answer to it.

• This Scripture says nothing but "Take" in all its blessed assurance, and nothing is required on our part but the preparedness to take.

• It is marvellous to think of that great Person – all that He is as Man, and all that He has secured in His death – He has put the symbol of it in a loaf and He says, "Take this". It is available.

• He was among disciples who loved Him – but in the principle of it, it spreads out to the entire household of faith.

Ques. Would you connect the Lord's teaching in John 6 with what is now before us?

C.A.C. In John 6 it is the condition He stresses, which has in view the entrance of believers into eternal life.

• It is not the supper there, it is the appropriation of Himself in death in view of entering into life eternal. It is noticeable that it is all in the singular number in John 6. "He that eateth" etc.

• In the Lord's supper there is nothing individual. We could not bring it down to the individual. The great blessing of the Lord's supper is that it is a company that eats it. It is a company all thinking alike of Christ, all having the same thoughts of that blessed One.

• Some, of course have a little more capacity than others, but there is not a divergent thought. So the young convert looks round and says, "They think just as I do about Christ and better of Him than I do"; and he says, "What a privilege to he among them!"

• Well, we might dwell a long time on that, but we must try and take in the thought that is added in Matthew. There is the additional thought of eating, "Take, eat".

Ques. Taking is appropriation, then what is the thought of eating?

C.A.C. It is assimilation I should think. We first appropriate, that is we see that divine love invites us to take possession of all that is signified by a divine Person coming into Manhood, but with that – the loaf taken – there is the thought of eating.

• That is a further thought, indicating that it is the divine thought that we should become like Him.

• In Matthew the thought of being disciples is very much stressed. There is very little about apostles in Matthew. I think they are spoken of once where it gives their names. But disciples are stressed, that is, those who have come under His moulding and instructing influence.

• There is the thought of training, but it is hardly the thought of discipline, because that suggests the need for correction on our part. The divine proposal is that we should be corrected by feeding on the One in whom there is no possible thought of correction. We are to assimilate the One who needs no divine correction.

• It suggests that by eating we are to become assimilated to Him, which of course has the body in view. What came out in the body of Christ is to come out in the whole company of saints that form His body. It is to get extension, but by way of eating.

• I think it is a weak point with us all that we do not feed upon Him sufficiently. In a physical way the food we take in becomes part of our physical constitution. Now when we feed upon Christ what we eat spiritually becomes part of us spiritually. We take character from what we feed upon.

Now this truth all underlies the supper. It is not merely coming to break bread week by week, though that is essential. What underlies it is this great reality of taking and eating.

Rem. The body and blood are separated to emphasise the import of each.

C.A.C. Yes, it is how we understand. The question is how much have we eaten? What we have taken of Christ, not all the power of earth and hell can ever take away from us. It becomes part of the fibre of our being, part of myself, and that cannot he taken away.

What is introduced to me objectively, becomes part of me subjectively. We shall not really please the Lord in taking His supper if we do not move on these lines.

• We may ourselves become sacramental as if deriving something from the action, instead of being on this line, that we have taken what divine love has made available in Christ, and have really eaten it and made it part of ourselves.

• It is taking and eating, not eating first. There must be the eating too. It is a wonderful thing to get something of Christ into the soul, so that it becomes so part of me that nothing could possibly get it out of me! That is the divine thought.

The Lord introduces us to the greatness of what is available in Matthew and Mark. The question is, "Is there enough in Christ to change me completely from what I am into what He is?" – "to transform me"

• Everyone that knows Him would say, "Yes, there is everything in Him to change all that I am into what He is".

• Then I am a disciple. His great distinction of a disciple is that he becomes as his teacher.

• We ought to ponder all these things. If this is not so, I do not know what it is to eat it, and in saying that I am not referring to partaking of the literal loaf. We might do that for forty years and not enter into the spiritual reality of eating it.

Ques. Would you say that we can break bread and not touch the supper?

C.A.C. That is what they were doing at Corinth, making it part of a common meal. To get away from that we must enter into these spiritual things.

• We need to enter into the import of all that the Lord has conferred upon it by blessing, so that we are in harmony with Himself.

Then there is the eating. The apostle says,

• "Yet not I but Christ liveth in me".

• He must have done some eating! How did Christ get into him? By eating. We have to take up these things from Mark and Matthew in order to be qualified to remember the Lord according to Luke and 1 Corinthians.