Josh Keele, who posts nearly as much on this blog as I do, and with whom I disagree on many things, raises an interesting and important question. If Galatians teaches that the marks of the church are faith and love only, what about the Lord’s Supper?
It’s a good question that deserves an answer. Let me begin by noting that, as regular readers know, I’m very big on the Lord’s Supper — much more so than most members of the Churches of Christ. I regularly post communion meditations and have been known to complain about how poorly we celebrate it most of the time.
On the other hand, despite being known to some as a liberal, I’m actually radically conservative, in that I take the scriptures to be completely and utterly authoritative. Thus, I take Paul very seriously and very literally when he says,
(Gal 5:6b) The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
“Counts” is better translated, as in the KJV, as “availeth” or “avails.” It’s the only thing that accomplishes the purpose under consideration, justification.
Now, “only” means only. But Paul is not excluding baptism. He’s speaking to those who’ve been saved. He’s not addressing how to become saved. Rather, he’s speaking to what the saved must do to remain saved.
When I speak of “marks of the church,” I use the language as used by the 20th Century Churches of Christ. As we used (and some still use) the term, it means those things that define the boundaries of the church. If you don’t have the right marks of the church, you’re not saved at all.
In that sense, no, the Lord’s Supper is not a mark of the church. However, in the sense of what should characterize the community of the saved, yes, it is.
Now, here is where I differ with many of my brothers in the Churches of Christ. I read the scriptures as teaching that only a very few things define the boundaries of the Kingdom, and these are the things that get us into the Kingdom.
To enter the Kingdom, you must have faith in Jesus, you must repent, you must look to Jesus as Savior, and you must be baptized. Period. You must cross these boundaries to pass from the world to the Kingdom of God.
To stay in the Kingdom, you must not cross back over to the other side. If you surrender your faith, you’ve left the Kingdom (1 John 4:2-3). If you surrender your penitence, you’ve left the Kingdom (Heb 10:26-27). If you try to earn your salvation, you’ve left the Kingdom (Gal 5:4). Period.
There aren’t that many commands imposed on those in the Kingdom, however. John gives us a list —
(1 John 3:21-24a) Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. 23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 24 Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them.
Well, John says there are two commands: believe in Jesus and love one another. But he calls them a single command. Why? Well, because faith includes yielding to Jesus as Lord (Rom 10:9), and so requires love. You cannot have saving faith and not love.
Moreover, faith leads to receipt of the Spirit, which leads to love (Rom 5:5; Gal 5:22; 1 Cor 13). It is a gift of God to those who have faith.
And here is where my views become quite different from those of my younger years. You see, Christianity is much more about receiving gifts than about obeying commands. And much more about being changed by the Spirit than obeying commands. It’s not that there are no commands, it’s just that seeing Christianity through a command-centered lens misses the vast majority of the Bible’s teachings — and much of the sheer joy of being a Christian.
Hence, the Lord’s Supper is not an act of obedience performed to earn one’s salvation. Nor is it a response to a command on penalty of damnation. It’s a gift.
Jesus told his apostles to “do this in remembrance of me,” which is a command — grammatically. But it’s like Christmas when, many years ago, I had to say to my three-year, “Open your presents.” It was a command, but it was a command to accept a gift. The penalty for disobedience would be not getting the gift. I wouldn’t have punished or disowned him had he not opened the presents.
The Lord’s Supper, properly understood, is a celebration of what Jesus has done for us. And just as the woman who found her lost coin invited her friends to come celebrate with her, when we are saved, we want to celebrate with our friends in the church. This is communion (which literally means sharing or having in common).
When we make it into a command on penalty of damnation, not only do we run afoul of the book of Galatians, we suck the joy right out of it. And I’ve been to countless joyless communions!
Let me try to explain this one more way. We are commanded to love one another. But people can’t truly love in response to a command. I remember as a 5-year old being told to kiss my grandmother. I didn’t want to. She had that old-person smell. And yet she demanded affection from me. The more she demanded, the more I resisted. She eventually prevailed by bribing me with candy.
But did she really receive affection? No. I just acted that way to get the candy, hating every second of it. It was feigned. I felt dirty, but I’d do anything for candy corn!
When your children fight, you tell them to shake hands and apologize — or else get whipped. They do, they don’t mean it, and they haven’t really apologized.
Just so, if I only go to church, take communion, sing, and love my neighbor out of fear of punishment, then it’s all bogus. God, who knows my heart, cannot be pleased with such “obedience.” It’s just show. What he really wants is my love, and obedience from fear is not love.
Hence, a works-based obedience gets you nowhere. You just can’t love and just can’t truly worship because you were commanded to do so and you fear punishment if you don’t. I know. I lived it for years.
That we are very much like this in the Churches is well evidenced by the fact that many have asked me, if we won’t be damned if we don’t take communion, why would anybody do it?
Well, why do you buy presents for your children? Or your wife? Because some law makes you? No, because you love them.
And if you genuinely love God, if God’s love has been poured into your heart by the Spirit, then you worship because you want to, because it gives you joy. And you worship from the heart.
And when communion is served, it’s not a duty or ritual or a commanded “act of worship.” It’s a gift! It’s a gift just like eating Thanksgiving dinner with your family is a gift. You wouldn’t miss it for the world!
Is the Lord’s Supper something that distinguishes Christians from the world? Yes, most certainly. Is obedience to the command a test of fellowship? No. It’s not a command. It’s a gift. And only an idiot turns down such a marvelous, delightful gift.
And this is why every believing community takes communion, even though many have a more extreme view of salvation by faith than even I have. They do it because the gift is too good to turn down.
Nice humorous intro there. And you are not far off from agreeing with me really, although I'm sure you think we are diametrically opposed here. Certainly we shouldn't observe communion just as some sort of grudging obedience to a command. When Jesus says "If ye love me, keep my commandments" (John 14:15) he makes it clear that his attitude is basically that those who don't love him have no business even pretending to keep his commandments. And certainly, the Lord's Supper is a gift from Christ to us. And as you say, when you command your children to "Open your presents" the only penalty that comes from not doing so is not getting the present. But what is the present when it comes to communion? The very word tells us what it is:
Communion with Christ. This is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:16 "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?" The word "communion" of course means "fellowship" or "joint-participation." If then that cup is the fellowship and joint-participation in his blood, what happens if I do not drink that cup? And if that bread is the fellowship of his body, and I eat not that bread, am I in the body any longer? Paul says in verse 17 "For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread." He says plainly (read it carefully) that their partaking of that bread keeps them in the body. It is because they eat of that one bread that they are still in that one body of Christ. To not eat that bread then, is to cease to be part of the body of Christ. Again, Jesus Himself says as much, when he says in John 6:53 "I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." I beleive he is referring to the communion as his flesh and blood, that is, that the eating is literal whereas the flesh and blood are symbolized. We literally eat a symbol of his flesh and blood in the communion, and thereby have fellowship in his body and blood, and it is to this I beleive that he is referring here, and this (what Jesus says in John chapter 6) is what Paul is essentially interpreting in 1 Corinthians 10 when he says "For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread." Observing the communion is essential to our continued fellowship in the body and blood of the Lord, and when a person ceases to observe the communion, they cease to abide in Christ or to have Christ abiding in them. "He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him." Again, I could throw in what Paul says by way of analogy between Israel and the church, in 1 Corinthians 10:4, that the children of Israel "did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ" which he then uses as a basis and setup to argue that Christians also all drink of a singular spiritual drink which is the cup that is the communion of his blood. It is then well established Scripturally that the communion is a mark of the church, in both senses that you cite, both as a practice necessary to our very salvation and as a practice that characterizes the life of the saved.
The notion of "marks of the church" seems pretty odd to me. I don't see that terminology in scripture. Maybe there needs to be some deeper exploration of where that term came from, how we use the term, and how we decided what characteristics make up the marks of the church.
Implicit in the term is the idea that we have to distinguish the true church from all the false churches, so we need some marks or characteristics on which to base that. The scriptures do give us some characteristics to look for (John 3:34; Matt 5:16; 1 John 2:5-6; 1 John 3:10; etc) but those are not the one churches of Christ typically emphasize. Instead we emphasize the things that make us unique. That is circular logic: "We are the true church because we do the things that make us unique." To be an identifying mark of the true church, the characteristic must not only be correct biblically, but it must be identified biblically as a characteristic that distinguishes true Christians from false. Many of our traditional "marks" don't meet that test.
Alan, are you saying that observing communion versus not observing communion is not a Biblical mark of the church? If so, you show a bias towards foolishness and I think have placed yourself in the category of 2 Tim 3:7. Paul clearly makes the communion a distinguishing mark of the church in 1 Cor 10:21 "Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils." The church eats at the Lord's table, and false churches at the devil's.
Josh,
Your view of the necessity of communion for continued salvation is a common one in Christianity. It is, for example, the view of most Catholics. However, I think the view cannot be sustained on close examination of the scriptures.
Hebrews teaches that when we are first saved, we are saved "once for all" and made "perfect forever." This is contrasted to the Mosaic system where forgiveness had to be obtained over and over. This is explained at /2008/01/26/classes-on-grac…
Similarly, John wrote 1 John to give his readers assurance of their continued salvation, and he didn't once refer them to the fact they continued in taking communion. Rather, he referred them to such tests as faith and love. See /2007/08/19/classes-on-grac…
More fundamentally, if we must take communion periodically to stay saved, then we have a works salvation, in contradiction to countless verses.
Jesus' teaching in John 6 does sound like we must eat his flesh and drink his blood to be saved, though. Certainly he says,
(John 6:51-54) I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." 52 Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" 53 Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
The conventional interpretation is that Jesus is referring to the Lord's Supper. However, this is highly suspect, as there's just no way his listeners could have understand that. Surely he meant something else.
Leon Morris resolves the riddle in his commentary on John in the New International Commentary.
He notes that "eat" and "drink" are both in the aorist tense, referring to a single point in time action, not repeated action. Further, Jesus' use of "flesh" differs from the usual "body" when he and the apostles speak of the communion meal. In v. 51, Jesus refers to the connection of this with his death. Morris suggests interpreting these references in light of v. 47 —
(John 6:47) I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life.
In other words, if faith gives eternal life and if eating and drinking Jesus produces eternal life, then they must be speaking of the same thing.
Morris quotes Westcott,
"To 'eat' and to 'drink' is to take to oneself by a voluntary act that which is external to oneself, and then to assimilate it and make it part of oneself. It is, as it were, faith regarded in its converse action. Faith throws the believer upon and into its object; this spiritual eating and drinking brings the object of faith into the believer."
In other words, Jesus is not talking about the Lord's Supper. Rather, the Lord's Supper is talking about what Jesus is talking about. John relates this event in Jesus' ministry to help explain to the Christian community what the Lord's Supper means — what we are to be reminded of.
See these earlier posts —
/2007/03/11/communion-medit…
/2007/03/11/communion-medit…
Jay, you say "Hebrews teaches that when we are first saved, we are saved 'once for all' and made 'perfect forever.'" If it said we were perfectly perfected at the very beginning, how strange it would be for it to also say in Hebrews 6:4 "Therefore moving beyond the first principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us press on to perfection…" If the believer is perfected perfectly for all time at the beginning, how does he speak of moving on to perfection? Again, you say "Similarly, John wrote 1 John to give his readers assurance of their continued salvation, and he didn’t once refer them to the fact they continued in taking communion." John does say, however, in chapter 1 and verse 7 "if we keep walking in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with each other and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son keeps cleansing us from all sin." So, again, John does not teach an initial once for all perfection, but that we need the continual cleansing of Christ's blood as we go on in our Christian walk to keep perfecting us.
What John says, then, about needing the continual cleansing of Christ's blood in our Christian walk "in the light" helps understand what is being said in Hebrews concerning once for all perfection. The once for all sacrifice of Christ is able to perfect us to the uttermost, not because it automatically perfects us completely at the beginning of our Christian walk, but because that one sacrifice (without needing to be repeated) is able to keep on perfecting us throughout the duration of our walk and will do so "if we keep walking in the light as he is in the light."
"Leon Morris resolves the riddle in his commentary on John in the New International Commentary. He notes that 'eat' and 'drink' are both in the aorist tense, referring to a single point in time action, not repeated action."
Frankly, I think Morris made this up. The word translated "eateth" is trwgwn (I'm referring to the conjugated form as it appears in the text, not just the generic word) which according to The New Analytical Greek Lexicon (edited by Wesley J. Perschbacher) is a present active participle. Again, pinwn, translated here as "drinketh" is identified in the same lexicon as a present active participle. I'm not proficient enough in Greek to immediately recognize the tense, but that's what an analytical lexicon is for, since it gives you the various forms of a word and not just the definition.
Furthermore, in English, I clearly note a contrast in tense manifest in John 6:58, where it says "This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever." The second occurrence of eat there is that present active participle. Because it is a participle I suppose it could also be translated "the one who is eating" rather than "he that eateth" but that would make for odd English. But the point is that there is a difference between those who "did eat" the manna at one point, and those who continue to eat (or if you must be strictly wooden, "are eating") "this bread." The contrast in part must be between the availability of the manna vs the availability of this bread, that this bread will always be available, also able to be eaten, whereas the manna was discontinued. I think, therefore, we would be hard pressed to make "eating Jesus' flesh" out to mean conversion, since conversion will not be available forever, as the opportunity for conversion will cease when he returns, and as you cannot convert multiple times. But the Lord's Supper will continue even then, as he says in Matthew 26:29 "But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom" of which there is a hint again in Revelation 2:17 "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna…"
Robertson's Word Pictures also says "He that eateth (o trwgwn). Present active participle for continual or habitual eating…" Robertson agrees with your position, however, saying "It would have been hopeless confusion for these Jews if Jesus had used the symbolism of the Lord's Supper." Yet this is not a refutation, for it clearly was hopeless confusion for them, and this is the reason why it was so: They were trying to understand what he was saying and in what sense "can this man give us his flesh to eat?" rather than to accept what he was saying because he was credible as his miracles showed. If, as Peter, they had merely accepted it, then they would have later understood it later one, after the Lord's Supper was established.
Josh,
Regarding Hebrews, the question is resolved by Heb 10:13-14:
(Heb 10:13-14) Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, 14 because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
Josh,
Zodhiates says the verbs in v. 53 are aorist, subjunctive, active.
I get the same result from this reference: http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~fisher/gnt/
In v. 57, "he that eateth me" — "eateth" is a present, active, participle.
Why the change? Well, if Jesus is speaking metaphorically of faith, then v. 53 says if you don't believe (point in time), you're lost. V. 54 says to have eternal life, you must believe (continuous action). It's the difference between becoming saved and remaining saved. It's the same thought as in Rom 1:17: "The righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith." Salvation begins at a point in time in faith and is sustained by faith to the end.
Ultimately, one of the major themes of John is the sufficiency of faith in Jesus to salvation. If we take Jesus' and John's statements about the sufficiency of faith seriously, we have to understand this passage as being about faith, as Jesus says in 6:47.
(John 6:47) I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life.
He doesn't say, "He who believes and takes communion weekly."
Hebrews 10:14 refers to the duration of the perfection, not to when it is applied. Now, in your translation it says "by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy." If they are "being made holy" and are not holy yet, then they also are not perfect yet. Hence their being made "perfect forever" relates to the finality of their perfection at the end of their walk and not to present perfection since they at present are in a continual process of "being made holy." This agrees with 1 John 1:7 concerning the continual cleansing by Christ's blood, not a one-time cleansing. It is the effectiveness of Christ's sacrifice that is once for all, not its application to the individual.
As to the verbs in John 6, I didn't realize you were referring to the negative statement. Yes, in verse 53 where we have the negative statement they are aorist, but in the positive statements that follow are present active participles. This ought to be understood thus: "Unless you ever eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you ever, [but] whoever keeps eating my flesh and drinking my blood has eternal life…" Thus the one who eats once or twice and then ceases in essential rejection of Christ has life for a period, and is equivalent to those of Hebrews 6:4 "who were once enlightened" but no longer are, and who "have tasted of the heavenly gift" but taste it no longer and "were made partakers of the Holy Ghost" but not so now.
Josh,
What the Hebrews writer is saying is that we are perfect in God's eyes (perfect forever) even though not actually perfect but growing toward perfection. It's the essence of grace.
I would agree that those who reject Christ are lost. I've said that several times. But that's beside the point. The question was whether the communion is absolutely essential to salvation.
Imagine someone who comes to genuine faith and penitence but is never instructed on the Lord's Supper. Perhaps they have a copy of Romans and John and nothing else. Can they be saved? My answer: absolutely.
But we're not on a colony on Mars or something. In the preceding I haven't been imagining such a scenario. My concern isn't with hypotheticals. My concern is with how people use hypotheticals as if they were real so that they can justify getting rid of communion not hypothetically but actually. In other words, I doubt that you know of such a person who is stranded on some remote Island or something and in drifts a copy of the Bible with all the pages missing but Romans and John. You aren't giving the hypothetical out of a real fear that it may take place, but as a means of justifying putting the kibosh on communion in the rest of the world. You start with the Island to invade the mainland.
I hate to interject anything here just as Jay is preparing to invade the mainland, but I have one question. Other than the Quakers, are there churches that don't observe the Lord's Supper/communion?
Actually, yes Mark there are churches that don't observe the Lord's Supper. For example, there are Preterist churches of various denominations that don't observe the Lord's Supper because they assert that the second coming has already taken place and of course Paul says in 1 Cor 11:26 "For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come."
I'll take your word for it. Other than a few, oddball, AD 70 Churches of Christ, I have never heard of a group that believes the 2nd coming has already taken place.
It started outside and made its way in. Inside its called the AD 70 doctrine and outside Preterism. There's much discussion in the evangelical world on partial-preterism vs full-preterism, and much confusion as a result of both. Those oddball churches of Christ to which you refer are undoutedly partial preterist, meaning they assert the 2nd coming as past but believe in a futre coming too, a 3rd coming or some such. Out there in the wild, however, full prterism, relegating the 2nd coming to the past AND denying any future coming is more widespread and it is full preterists who would discontinue the communion. Gnostics also would avoid the communion since they deny that Jesus had real flesh and blood. Due to the popularity of Gnostic novelties like the so-called gospel of Thomas, Gnosticm has reasserted itself in our modern world to some extent. FRominternet discussion I have also gathered that many home-church-type setups with an evangelical background tend to read 1 Cor 11 completely backwards on communion and replace the Lord's Supper with a potluck.
What about the very nature of Paul's critique?
"Therefore, when you meet together, it is not to eat the Lord's Supper…" (1 Cor 11:20)
Is this just a rhetorical move? It sounds like Paul is saying that not only are some of his brothers and sisters in Christ still polytheists (1 Cor 8:7), his brothers and sisters in Corinth are NOT eating the Lord's Supper.
If you fail to discern the body, you ARE NOT eating the Lord's Supper. You are still Paul's sibling in Christ, but you are not eating the Lord's Supper.
1) Clearly the Lord's Supper is not a "mark of the church."
2) How rarely do our congregations actually "discern the body?"
Oh God, have mercy on us!