Lord, there is, Thou knowest Thyself, and Thou knowest where we are concerned, a very special need related to this time. It is the need of being free from familiarity, free from common acceptance, from tradition, from habit, from just doing something as something which is done amongst Christians.
And the need, I have seen in a new way, with a new impact upon it, what this means. We can have this service, close the conference with it, but it could be the most telling thing of all. It could be something that we never, never forget, and that ploughs deep into our very being and changes our whole conception.
Well, Lord, if You really feel this is necessary, see it to be necessary, then do it, and make this indeed a sacred, memorable occasion.
Oh, may there indeed be, in the realm of the spirit, a tasting of things Thou living God hast provided. We pray, fence our hearts now. Do in every way get us rightly related and adjusted to what we are about to do. Hear, answer, for Thy name’s sake. Amen.
I shall make the word I have to say as brief as possible, so as not to overload this time with words. But I trust that the Lord will enable that, however brief, it may be an internal work—something that will go deeper than the words and the ideas, and be wrought in an inward way.
Will you please turn to scriptures which, of course, are so familiar in this connection? From John Chapter 6, John’s Gospel, Chapter 6, at Verse 51:
I am the living bread which came down out of heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: yea and the bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.
The Jews therefore strove one with another, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
Jesus therefore said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves.
He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me, and I in him.
—John 6:51-56
First Corinthians, Chapter 10, and Verse 16:
The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a communion of the body of Christ?
Seeing that we, who are many, are one bread, one body: for we all partake of the one bread.
—1 Corinthians 10:16-17
The cup: is it not a participation of the blood of Christ? The bread: is it not a participation of the body of Christ? Participation—that is the word. One bread. We will speak of the bread, of the body.
Here it is precisely stated that there is an identity between the true believer and Christ. It is a common participation of the one with the other. Here is, of course, a spiritual—not a physical—body, a spiritual entity.
And the statement here is as utter as any statement could possibly be. The context, as you notice, is that which we have heard already: the eating of flesh offered to idols. And the apostle says that those who do that become participants with idols, with demons. They are participants with demons.
They imbibe what is devilish. They take it into themselves, and it becomes constituent in their very being. They are partakers; they eat of the table of idols. It is a very utter thing.
And so the apostle says of believers that, when they eat of the table of the Lord, in a spiritual way they are imbibing, taking into their very constitution, what is Christ—becoming constituted by Christ.
Now, you know that we are constituted by what we eat. First of all, our very measure is according to our eating—how continuous it is. Stop eating, and you will shrink away. You just grow less and less until there is nothing left.
We are because we eat. Very simple language, but this goes to the heart. We are because we eat. And then, very largely, our character and disposition are determined by what we eat.
You see people who are eating too much of one thing. There is something that comes about in their very constitution. If you eat too much canned food, your skin will become pale. People will know what you feed on, and how that is true in that connection is, of course, true in others. We become what we eat.
The mystery, of course, of the transmutation of our food into ourselves may never be solved by the best medical experts, but the fact remains. The fact remains. And so, in order to get certain constitutional values, you eat certain things.
Your diet, I expect, has proved that plenty of fish is for brain power. And for this or that, constitutionally, you should eat certain things. And those certain things make you mentally, as well as physically, what you are. Well, I need not labour that. Everybody knows that. But that is what is here.
What you take in becomes you. That is your constitution.
Now, the Word states quite clearly that, in Christ becoming to us as food, the basic truth is this: Christ becomes our constitution, our life, our nature, our disposition, our behaviour, our temper, our everything. He becomes, quite literally, our very being.
This is what is meant by participation in Christ. It is a union which—if you can get between your food and what you think tomorrow—well, you have worked a miracle.
You start feeding, and you will subsequently, sooner or later, start thinking. And when you express your thoughts, you are only really expressing what you had to eat a few days before. You cannot get in between those two things. It is a fact; it is identity, is it not? Between food and being, food and life.
Now, the Lord Jesus is just saying that the union between Himself and us is like that. He becomes our constitution, our nature, our disposition, our conduct, our behaviour. He just becomes the basic value of our life.
There are other metaphors, of course. Husband and wife: “and they twain shall become one flesh.” In the deepest reality of their relationship, there is an affinity; and if it is the proper kind of relationship, a God-constituted relationship, the one cannot live without the other half.
You find there is a gap, there is a vacuum which comes to kill, if it is the right kind of thing. This union between Christ and the believer is said in the Scriptures to be like that.
And for me, for you, to be separated even temporarily, or estranged, from the Lord Jesus means that, well, everything has gone out of our life. We have lost the real meaning of life.
A common participation—it says here twice over—a common participation in the body of Christ. You cannot describe it. Cannot describe it. But here is the thing.
And, dear friends, would not this revolutionise what we call the Holy Communion, the Lord’s Supper, the sacrament, or whatever you call it? It would completely revolutionise our conception and idea.
When we came to this table, we would be reminded—really reminded—and remind ourselves of this position: I am testifying to the fact that there is such a union between the Lord Jesus and me that He and I have become one entity. And to divide us is to take our very life away.
That is simple language, but it is life. What we are talking about now is not our Christian life and how we are living; it is what we mean when we come to this table.
Not a ceremony, not a bit of ritual. It is not something that Christians do as part of the Christian creed and performance. It is a testimony to one of the most profound and wonderful facts in this universe: that between us and Christ, and Christ and us, there has become a constitutional union.
Oh, I do wish that everybody really got hold of this, because, you see, there are so many who think they can give up Christianity—give up the Christian life. And they think sometimes that they will. They feel tempted, as they say, to give it all up.
Well, you may as well go down to the sea and drown yourself, if this thing is real, because you are going to give yourself up; you are going to commit suicide. You are going to take your own life. No, you cannot do it. You just cannot do it.
If you really do know what it means to be a true born-again Christian, you cannot say, “I am going to resign. I am going to give it up.” You just cannot think like this. You know quite well that you are going to tear the very heart out of your being if you do anything like that.
And some people who do get into darkness and despair and accept the suggestion that the Lord has left them—they are in hell already. They are in hell already. The heaven has gone, their life has gone, everything that is of God has gone. They are wandering in desolation. Is not that true?
So real is a true participation with Christ.
Now we follow that through. That is the body. The body, of course, is the vehicle of the spirit—the Spirit of Christ. And pass over to the cup.
The body is union with His humanity. The cup is union with the life in that humanity. And all that the Lord Jesus said about the cup was that, in this common participation, we enter into a covenant.
“This cup is the new covenant in My blood.” A covenant. And we ought to know where that came from and what that means: a covenant of blood.
This is recognised in other than Christian realms. Probably it came originally from the Semites; we do not know whether it came from somewhere else and was taken over by the Semites, by Abram and others, or whether it started there. But the fact is that it is well-nigh universally recognised, especially in the East.
And Henry Clay Trumbull has investigated that and given us a lot of insight. He says this very thing, this covenant of blood amongst the Arabs, works in this way.
Two Arabs, who are not naturally related, want to enter into a fellowship of life, to bind themselves to one another and to commit each one to the other absolutely. And so they institute a covenant.
They meet, and each one bares his arm. Each opens an artery, and then they put their arms together at the point of the opening, where each one’s blood flows to the other.
It is a covenant in blood, and the terms are now: “You have my very life in you. Wherever you go, you carry my life with you, and I carry yours. Whatever is done to you is done to me. Whatever is done to me is done to you.”
“If anybody speaks against me, you say at once, ‘Look here, you are speaking against me.’ It is me, not against him; you speak against me. If anyone does me an injury, you say, ‘Look here, that injury is done to me.’ I am he—is that right grammar? I am he. We have the same blood in us.”
We are identical by a covenant in blood, so that as long as we live, the one lives for the other. We are each other, though we be thousands of miles apart. That is the covenant, says Trumbull, amongst the Arabs, made in blood.
Now, where it originated, again, does not matter. But that is what the Lord Jesus is saying: “This cup is the new covenant in My blood,” a covenant made between us.
A covenant demands two parties. I make it with you, but you enter into it with Me. And because of My blood, which is My life given, wherever you go, you represent Me.
What happens to you happens to Me; it affects Me. And so, in reverse, if the Lord is assailed, it hurts us; it goes to us. Anything said about the Lord—why, it touches us acutely and keenly.
So great is the union: “He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of His eye.” And this, of course, if we were expanding it, is the real meaning of the anointing: “Touch not Mine anointed.”
The anointing means that He has committed Himself to the anointed. Touch the anointed, and you touch the Lord. David, even when Saul was hunting him, one day cut off the fringe of Saul’s garment, and it says that David’s heart smote him. “Dare I touch the Lord’s anointed, even though he is persecuting me?” That anointing puts us in a different realm.
Well, I do not want to say too much—too many words. What I am getting at is this: here we are. Does this table really mean this to us when we come to it today?
Such a covenant relationship in blood, that we share one life, have one common participation, one common concern. I expect it is good for us all. But, you know, we can get into a habit of the custom. We can have the Lord’s Table and go away, and that is part of the service, be it morning or evening, carried out perhaps once a week, or more or less frequently.
But oh, that we might be in the presence of the reality. You see, this is a fellowship in the blood, a fellowship in the body. It means, on the one side, the fellowship of His sufferings—participation in the sufferings of Christ. You have heard much of that.
This covenant also means a fellowship in security. The covenant makes us secure.
If Christ can be slain and brought to an end, then we can. If He cannot, then we cannot. In His blood, we are secure.
I do not know—I am not going to open the subject as to whether we can repudiate the covenant, count the blood of the covenant, wherewith we were sanctified, an unholy thing, and do despite unto the Spirit of grace. Well, leave that. But while you and I abide faithful to the covenant, we are secure, no matter what the enemies are, the forces at work.
Fellowship: participation in His sufferings, participation in His security.
I am glad the Lord Jesus is in heaven, are not you? He is in heaven. You know, we talk about the ascension, but it is not often spoken of in the New Testament. It does say, “He, when He ascended up on high”; but it more often speaks of His being received up into glory.
Which means that He could be received there; heaven could be open to Him because He had done everything that heaven required. Heaven was satisfied, and so He could be received through the everlasting doors.
“Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors: and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty.” He is the King of glory. A mighty welcome for Him.
He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens—secure. No heavens, no earth can reach Him, and hell cannot reach Him. And we are seated with Him in that security, if we are in Christ, in the blood of the covenant.
And then: participation in His glory. In His glory. If we suffer with Him, we shall be glorified together with Him.
It is all this “with, with, with”—a mighty “with.” And that is the word that stands over the table: with Him. In the very depth of our being, in our very constitution, in our conduct, in our service, and ultimately, through ourselves, in His glory—participants.