The Lord's Supper E-Book

John W. Kleinig

• Herausgeber: Lexham Press
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: Christian Essentials
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 176

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

You receive Communion. But what does it mean? In The Lord's Supper: A Guide to the Heavenly Feast, John W. Kleinig awakens a hunger for meeting Jesus in the bread and wine. The Bible tells us that Jesus came from heaven to earth to give us himself, and his self-giving continues in the meal that he hosts. In the sacrament of Communion, Jesus offers believers nothing less than his holy, life-giving body and cleansing blood. He brings heaven to earth for us and gives us a foretaste of the heavenly supper of the Lamb. And by faith, we commune with him. In the Eucharist, Christians give thanks for God's gift of himself. "My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods." —Psalm 63:5

Leseprobe

THE LORD’S SUPPER

A Guide to the Heavenly Feast

JOHN W. KLEINIG

CHRISTIAN ESSENTIALS

The Lord’s Supper: A Guide to the Heavenly Feast

Christian Essentials

Copyright 2025 John W. Kleinig

Lexham Press, 1313 Commercial St., Bellingham, WA 98225

LexhamPress.com

You may use brief quotations from this resource in presentations, articles, and books. For all other uses, please write Lexham Press for permission. Email us at [email protected].

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV84) are from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NKJV) are from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NRSV) are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The hymn “Wide Open Stand the Gates” on p. 138 is by J. K. Loehe, tr. Herman G. Stuempfle, Jr. Copyright © 2002 GIA Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Print ISBN 9781683597964

Digital ISBN 9781683597971

Library of Congress Control Number 2024939335

Lexham Editorial: Todd Hains, Ethan McCarthy, Paul Robinson, Mandi Newell

Cover Design: Sarah Brossow

To my dear soul brother and fellow servant of Christ, Dr. Scott Bruzek,

for his faithful stewardship of God’s mysteries,

his warm appreciation of the beauty of holiness,

his deep devotion to the regular celebration of the Lord’s Supper,

and his fruitful practice of pastoral care that revolves

around Christ’s bodily presence there.

CONTENTS

Series Preface

Prayer for Meditation on the Lord’s Supper

IOrientation

IIThe Meal of Meals

IIIThe Feast within a Feast

IVAn Ordered Meal

VA Sacrificial Banquet

VIThe Blood of the Covenant

VIIThe Unseen Host

VIIISound Remembrance

IXBread from Heaven

XHow Can He Do This?

XIHeaven on Earth

XIIFull Remission

Scripture Index

SERIES PREFACE

The Christian Essentials series passes down tradition that matters.

The church has often spoken paradoxically about growth in Christian faith: to grow means to stay at the beginning. The great Reformer Martin Luther exemplified this. “Although I’m indeed an old doctor,” he said, “I never move on from the childish doctrine of the Ten Commandments and the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer. I still daily learn and pray them with my little Hans and my little Lena.” He had just as much to learn about the Lord as his children.

The ancient church was founded on basic biblical teachings and practices like the Ten Commandments, baptism, the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Supper, the Lord’s Prayer, and corporate worship. These basics of the Christian life have sustained and nurtured every generation of the faithful—from the apostles to today. They apply equally to old and young, men and women, pastors and church members. “In Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith” (Gal 3:26).

We need the wisdom of the communion of saints. They broaden our perspective beyond our current culture and time. “Every age has its own outlook,” C. S. Lewis wrote. “It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes.” By focusing on what’s current, we rob ourselves of the insights and questions of those who have gone before us. On the other hand, by reading our forebears in faith, we engage ideas that otherwise might never occur to us.

The books in the Christian Essentials series open up the meaning of the foundations of our faith. These basics are unfolded afresh for today in conversation with the great tradition—grounded in and strengthened by Scripture—for the continuing growth of all the children of God.

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:4–9)

PRAYER FOR MEDITATION ON THE LORD’S SUPPER

This order of prayer invites you to read each chapter in the book as a devotional exercise by yourself. It can also be used by a group—with a leader speaking the plain text, and the group speaking the words in bold.

IN GOD’S NAME

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

O Lord, open my lips

and my mouth will declare your praise.

Psalm 51:15

Make haste, O God, to deliver me

make haste to help me, O Lord.

Psalm 70:1

Teach me to do your will, for you are my God

Let your good Spirit lead me on a level path.

Psalm 143:10

Glory be to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit:

as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

INVITATION AND PROMISE

O taste and see that the Lord is good;

happy are those who take refuge in him.

Psalm 34:8 NRSV

Jesus says, “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

John 6:54

RESPONSIVE PRAYER

O God, you are my God;

eagerly I seek you.

My soul thirsts for you;

my body longs for you.

Because your love is better than life,

my lips will glorify you.

My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods;

with singing lips my mouth

will praise you.

Psalm 63:1, 3, 5 NIV alt.

You gave a command to the skies above

and opened the doors of heaven.

You rained down manna for your people to eat.

You gave them the grain of heaven.

They ate the bread of angels;

you sent them all the food they could eat.

Psalm 78:23–25 NIV alt.

Blessed is the one you choose and bring near,

to dwell in your courts!

We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house,

the holiness of your temple!

Psalm 65:4

You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies;

you anoint my head with oil;

my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,

and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

Psalm 23:5–6

I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving

and call on the name of the LORD.

Psalm 116:17

O God, you are my God;

eagerly I seek you.

My soul thirsts for you;

my body longs for you.

Psalm 63:1 NIV alt.

CLOSING PRAYER*

We do not presume to come to this your table, merciful Lord, trusting in our own merits, but in your manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather the crumbs under your table. But you are the same Lord whose nature is always to have mercy. Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of your dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him and he in us.

Amen.

The poor will eat and be satisfied;

Those who seek the Lord will praise him.

Psalm 22:26 NIV

Let us bless the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all.

2 Corinthians 13:14 alt.

Amen.

We do not presume to come to this your table, merciful Lord, trusting in our own merits, but in your manifold and great mercies.

We are not worthy so much as to gather the crumbs under your table.

But you are the same Lord whose nature is always to have mercy.

Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of your dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood,

that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his precious blood,

and that we may evermore dwell in him and he in us. Amen.

I

ORIENTATION

He said, “Go into the city to a certain man and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, My time is at hand. I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.’ ”

Matthew 26:18 ESV

WE DO NOT PRESUME TO COME TO THIS YOUR TABLE, MERCIFUL LORD, TRUSTING IN OUR OWN MERITS, BUT IN YOUR MANIFOLD AND GREAT MERCIES

This is a handbook on the Lord’s Supper. It aims to lead its readers to full participation in the Lord’s Supper as a holy meal, a meal that Christ established for the benefit of his disciples in their journey from earth to heaven. It is, if you like, a menu for a lavish, tasty dinner rather than an analysis of its origin, its composition, and the nutritional value of the food it supplies.

Yet even that is a daunting task. While it is, superficially, a simple symbolic meal that consists of a piece of bread and a sip of wine, in reality it is much more than that. In fact most of it is hidden from human sight, such as its location, its host, its guests, and its food. Its location is not just in the place where a congregation of people has assembled, but also in the presence of God in heaven together with all his angels and all the saints who have gone before us. The risen Lord Jesus is its host and God’s holy people on earth are its guests. Its food is the body and blood of Jesus.

It is no wonder then that the Lord’s Supper has always frustrated all attempts to understand and explain it in rational human terms. It is also no wonder that it has aroused so much disagreement and controversy. It calls into question some of our most widely held assumptions about the nature of the world and our life in it: assumptions about time and space and matter, assumptions about human life and death, as well as our nature and destiny as embodied people. It shows us how limited and one dimensional all these concepts are, and opens us up to appreciate our life on earth as part of a great mystery. Since the Lord’s Supper is itself a mystery, we will be able to appreciate it best, and most fully, if we take it as divine banquet that is hosted by the risen Lord Jesus, locate it within the context of God’s whole history with his people, and use his word to understand it according to his purpose for it.

The struggle to understand the Lord’s Supper goes back to the difficulty that the disciples of Jesus had in naming it. In fact, even Jesus himself did not give it any name but only told his apostles how to celebrate it, and why. So they, and those who came after them, followed his lead and referred to the whole meal by some part of it. Thus Luke calls it “the breaking of the bread” (Luke 24:35; Acts 2:42). Paul calls it “the Lord’s supper” (1 Cor 11:20) and “the table of the Lord” (1 Cor 10:21). By the end of the first century it was called “the Eucharist,” or “the Thanksgiving,” in an early Christian handbook called the Didache, as well as in the letters of Ignatius.1 Eventually it was also called “the Sacrament,” or “the Blessed Sacrament,” or “the Sacrament of the Altar” to indicate that it was a sacred act, and “Holy Communion,” a name that recalls Paul’s description of it in 1 Corinthians 10:16 as our communal reception of Christ’s body and blood and our communion with each other through them.

Since there is no one name for it, I shall use the widely accepted biblical name for it and refer to it as the Lord’s Supper. I prefer that name because it reminds us that it is not just an ordinary meal. It is a divine banquet, a festive dinner hosted by the risen Lord Jesus for his disciples.

In Matthew 26:18 Jesus claims that the appointed time for the inauguration of his Supper had come, the time that his heavenly Father had set for it and for his death, a time that coincided with the celebration of that particular Feast of the Passover at that moment in the life of Israel as God’s people and the life of Jesus on earth. The Lord’s Supper cannot be separated from that context or understood apart from it.

On the one hand, its inauguration comes at the climax of God’s dealing with his people. That began with his call of their forefather Abraham, their delivery from slavery in Egypt, and God’s covenant with them at Mount Sinai, continued in their life with him in the Promised Land, and culminated in the life and work of Jesus as the promised Messiah. The Lord’s Supper marked God’s time for a new Passover for all people and a new exodus from death to eternal life with him. Since it is part of that long story it must be understood in the light of all that God did and promised to do then; all the holy meals that God provided for his people in the Old Testament foreshadowed this most holy of all holy meals, just as the earthly service of worship that God instituted for his people at Sinai foreshadowed their participation in the heavenly service of the new covenant with the risen Lord Jesus as its high priest (Heb 10:1).

On the other hand, the Lord’s Supper was inaugurated at the climax of the life and work of Jesus by his sacrificial death for all people. It was the hour for the completion of his mission on earth, the mission that his Father sent him to accomplish. We cannot therefore isolate that meal from all the teaching of Jesus about himself and his heavenly Father, his work of helping and healing people in need, and all the other meals that he shared with many different kinds of people. These meals prepare us for that meal; they culminate in his Last Supper with his twelve apostles on the night before his crucifixion (Matt 26:20; Mark 14:17; Luke 22:14) and his meal with two other disciples on the road to Emmaus on the evening of Easter Sunday (Luke 24:28–32).

But the story of the Lord’s Supper did not end there. He told the apostles and their successors to celebrate that holy meal regularly and communally with their assembled fellow disciples. Jesus located its subsequent celebration in the life of the church from his resurrection to his reappearance in glory at the end of that age in human history. He continues to host the Lord’s Supper for and with his disciples to deliver the benefits of his sacrificial death to them.

In Acts 2:42 Luke refers to the liturgical context for the celebration of the Lord’s Supper after Pentecost by those who had accepted the gospel and had been baptized. He gives us this report about their involvement in common worship: “They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and the common offering, the breaking of the bread and the prayers” (author’s translation). These four communal acts are the four main components of the new service of worship in the early church. They describe the congregation’s reception of God’s word and the Lord’s Supper and its consequent reaction to receiving them. Thus “the teaching of the apostles” is coupled with “the communal offering,” and “the breaking of the bread” is coupled with “the prayers.” Each of these is qualified by a definite article to show that they are familiar, technical terms which do not require any further explanation by Luke for his readers.

The first of these communal acts was the teaching of the apostles. This term includes two things—the reading of selected passages from the Old Testament and their use of them to teach the gospel of Jesus as the crucified and risen Christ (Luke 24:27, 44–47). Readings from the Gospels and the Epistles were later added to the readings from the Old Testament in what was later called “the service of the word.”

The second communal act, which was associated with the proclamation of God’s word by the apostles, is usually translated as “fellowship.”2 In Greek it describes a common possession, a common relationship, or, as in this case, a common act. In this context it most likely describes the presentation of a common offering. That is how it is used elsewhere in some passages in the New Testament (2 Cor 8:4; 9:13; Heb 13:16).3 Thus in 2 Corinthians 9:13 Paul commends the members of the congregation in Corinth for the generosity of their “contribution,” their common offering for the relief of impoverished Christians in Jerusalem. This interpretation is supported by the subsequent note in Acts 2:44 that all the believers had all things “in common.”

The third communal act was “the breaking of the bread.” For Luke this was the technical term for the communal celebration of the Lord’s Supper as a unique sacrificial meal (Luke 24:35; Acts 2:42; 20:7). This name for that meal recalls what Jesus did when he instituted the Sacrament (Matt 26:26; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19; 1 Cor 11:24), and how he is still present at every celebration of this meal as its unseen host (Luke 24:30). Taken together with “the teaching of the apostles,” it recalls Luke’s description in 24:13–35 of the disclosure of the risen Lord Jesus to the two disciples on the evening of Easter Sunday in two stages, first by his proclamation of himself from the Old Testament, and then by acting as their host at their evening meal.

The fourth communal act was the devotion of the congregation to “the prayers,” which flowed from “the breaking of the bread” and was associated with it. The use of the rather unusual plural indicates that this does not just refer to a single prayer but alludes to the full range of corporate prayers.4 It includes the Lord’s Prayer and other liturgical prayers such as Maranatha (which means “Our Lord, come,” from 1 Cor 16:22), the chanting of psalms and the singing of hymns, as well as intercessory prayer for the church in all places, all people, and even the enemies of the church (1 Tim 2:1–6). So from its very beginning the mother congregation in Jerusalem devoted itself to common prayer in their common worship in response to Christ’s offering of his body and blood to them.

The risen Lord Jesus continues his ministry in word and deed through the service of worship. There he continues to host his Holy Supper. Each of the other three parts of the service contribute to our full participation in it. Both the Old Testament and the stories of Jesus tell us what he is doing for us and giving to us in the Lord’s Supper. The prayers aid our faithful response to the gospel of Jesus, and the offering of gifts is the appropriate response to Christ’s self-giving to us in the Supper.

Since the Lord’s Supper has been established by Jesus, who now presides over it as its host, we depend on him for our instruction in it. He does that in the New Testament by the four reports of its institution in Matthew 26:26–29; Mark 14:22–25; Luke 22:14–30, and 1 Corinthians 11:23–26, as well as his teaching about it in John 6. Through these passages he himself instructs us in what he does and what we receive from him in the Lord’s Supper.

In what follows, I will not adopt an apologetic, defensive stance in an attempt to justify the traditional teaching of the church on the Lord’s Supper, or even my own beliefs as a Lutheran pastor. Nor will I take a polemical, offensive stance in an attempt to refute false teaching and wrong practices of the Supper. I will not deal with it academically by exploring its possible human origin or its complex human development in the history of the church. Nor will I use the resources of philosophy to explain its paradoxes, such as whether and how Christ can be present with his humanity both in heaven and on earth, or whether and how the bread and wine can be the body and blood of Jesus. Rather, I shall invite you to attend to what Jesus himself has to say about his Supper. Thus my approach to this topic will be scriptural and personal and practical.