The sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is one of the precious ordinances which Christ has established in His Church in the world. He has given it to His Church particularly as a feeding ordinance where His people may draw near to Him at His table and experience living communion and fellowship with their now glorified Lord.
In this ordinance there is outwardly the partaking of bread and wine as the symbols of the broken body and shed blood of the Redeemer. Inwardly for the nourishing of the soul there must be a spiritual partaking of Christ through feeding by faith on the broken body and shed blood of the Saviour. In this, as in all else, it is impossible to please God without faith. There must be a living exercise of faith and a gracious laying hold by faith on Christ in all the glory of His Person as the divine Son of the everlasting Father and in all the infinite merit and virtue of His atoning death. In this way He is to His people in the experience of their soul the true manna, the living bread that came down from heaven. He Himself declared: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.” And again, “My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.”
When the Lord says, This do in remembrance of Me, He is calling His people to a feast — “a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined”. It is Christ Himself who is presented to them on the table as all their salvation and all their desire. They are not presented with a cup of suffering or a cup of wrath but with the cup of blessing. Christ is the provision of the table. He is there as “Christ our Passover sacrificed for us.” It is His death they are called to remember, yet not in a way of sorrow except to smite on their own breasts because their sins have crucified the Lord of glory, but in a way of rejoicing in that He has overcome death and the grave and is the ever-living One at God’s right hand. There at His table they remember that He took their law place — the law place of the guilty and suffered and died in their room and stead. Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down His life for His friends. How unspeakably great then was His love who laid down His life for those who were His enemies and were inplacably opposed to Him. “Christ died for the ungodly.”
To whom does He say, This do in remembrance of Me? Surely to those who have experienced His saving power and the manifestation of His love. Such are eternal debtors to free and sovereign grace, and are under eternal obligation never to forget what He has done for them. Because of this, though He would require them to lay down their life for His sake, they could have no ground of complaint against Him because He has done infinitely more for them. But it is not to suffering and death He is calling them here but only to remember in this most suitable way the death that He died for them.
It is a command of the Lord to His people — This do in remembrance of Me. They are called to examine themselves and then partake. “But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.” They are under obligation to be obedient to Christ in all things and in this as in all else. They are not free to do as they please. The Lord’s people need no other special warrant to come to His table but this one — This do in remembrance of me. Rather must they seek a warrant for staying away. Disobedience to Christ’s command can never be God-honouring and those of the Lord’s people who think they honour the Lord more by staying away than by approaching His table do greatly err. So is it certain that they do greater injury to themselves, as well as to Christ by staying away, than if they came, though they think otherwise and conclude that it is the safer course for them. However difficult the duty may be — and the more spiritual the duty the more difficult it is — yet obedience is better than sacrifice. If we are called to honour the Lord in the fires of trial and persecution, so too, are we called to honour Him in those highly spiritual duties to which He calls His people.
It is for a short season at the longest that the people of God will have opportunity to perform their vows unto the Lord in this way. Each passing communion where any of the Lord’s people have failed in their duty of remembering the dying love of their Saviour, is an opportunity that is gone for ever, never to return. In the light of this, what need there is to try and search our ways and turn again to the Lord. Let us remember that it is only a little while and He that shall come, will come. Then our opportunities of performing this service on earth will be over for ever. If our hope is in the Saviour, if the language of our heart is:
“Whom have I in the heavens high
but Thee O Lord alone
And in the earth whom I desire
besides thee there is none”
— then let us be obedient to His dying command, “This do in remembrance of Me”, and let us go forward in the strength of divine grace to remember His death till He come.