Why the Lord’s Supper Matters: Six Truths Christians Must Not Forget

Every Sunday morning as we come to bring our worship service to a close at VBC, we observe what the Bible calls “communion” (1 Corinthians 10:16) or “the Lord’s Supper” (1 Corinthians 11:20). A practice where we eat bread and drink from a cup to remember Christ together as he commanded his disciples to do on a regular basis until he comes again.

What exactly is the purpose of the Lord’s Supper? Do you know? What role does it serve in the life of the church? Why is it important, and why have Christians practiced it faithfully for two thousand years—continuing to do so until Jesus returns?

In 1 Corinthians 10 and 11, and elsewhere in Scripture, we learn several essential truths about the Lord’s Supper that I’d like to walk through with you in this post. These truths help us understand why this simple, repeated act of eating bread and drinking the cup is so spiritually significant. Let’s walk through them together.

Truth #1: The Lord’s Supper is an ordinance of Christ, given to help us remember Jesus and his sacrificial death on our behalf on a regular and frequent basis.

The primary purpose of the Lord’s Supper—according to Jesus himself—is remembrance. When he instituted the Supper, he said, “[Eat this bread] in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19; 1 Cor. 11:24) and “[Drink this cup] in remembrance of me” (1 Cor. 11:25). In all of these passages, “remembrance” is a noun, meaning that our eating and drinking in the Lord’s Supper are meant to function as a means of remembering Christ — a tool to help us recall Christ’s death on our behalf.

The bread and cup are meant to call our minds back to the night Jesus was betrayed, to his prediction that his body would be broken and his blood shed for us, and then to the fulfillment of that prediction as Jesus hung on the cross and gave up his life there for us and for our sins. Eating and drinking in the Lord’s Supper is meant to serve as a trigger for our minds — just as a particular scent or familiar food might trigger a childhood memory. So the bread and cup of the Lord’s Supper are meant to trigger the memory of Jesus’ sacrificial death on our behalf and remind us of what he did for us on the Cross.

Why do we need this? Because we are prone to forget what he did for us in his death. We forget that our sins were paid for in full on the Cross — even the darkest and ugliest of sins — and we despair and doubt whether we are truly forgiven by God.

We forget that there is nothing we could ever do to make ourselves right with God, and we become puffed up with arrogance and proud of our works.

We forget that we are no better than anyone else in the church, that we are no more deserving of God’s kindness and grace than anyone else, and that we stand on level ground before God with every other member of the church.

So then the Lord’s Supper is given to us to regularly and frequently remind us of these things. How regularly and frequently? As regularly and frequently as we need to keep Jesus and his Cross fresh in our minds and hearts as his people.

Truth #2: The Lord’s Supper is a ceremony that reminds the church of God’s faithfulness to us as his redeemed covenant people.

This is why theologians refer to the Lord’s Supper as the “sign” or “signal” of the New Covenant. When Jesus instituted the Supper, he called the cup “the new covenant in my blood” (1 Cor. 11:25), which means that he wants us to remember not only the fact of his death on our behalf as we eat and drink in remembrance of him, but also the benefits his death secured for us forever.

Now in case your memory needs to be refreshed at this point, the new covenant is the covenant promised way back in places like Jeremiah 31:31-34, and Jeremiah 32:36-40, and Ezekiel 36:22-38.

If you know anything about that covenant, you know it is an amazing covenant. The new covenant is a unilateral covenant of God – entailing God’s promise to save a people for himself by his grace. To purify the hearts of his people so that they are no longer filled with sin. To write his law upon their hearts so that they will not turn away from him in unbelief. To love and protect his people as their God forever. To cause them to know him personally and savingly. To forgive their sins once and for all.

As we eat and drink, God wants us to be reminded that all the benefits promised in the New Covenant have truly become ours by the blood of Christ. Because of Jesus and his blood, God has made us new creatures by his Spirit. Because of Jesus, he has written his law upon our hearts and is working to ensure that we will not fall away from the faith. Because of Jesus, God is preserving us and will keep and hold us fast forever. Because of Jesus, God has truly forgiven our sins and will remember them no more. Because of Jesus, God will make us inheritors of the whole earth.

But how can we be so sure of these things? It’s because Jesus’ body was broken and his blood was shed for us. That’s how.

And so our eating and drinking in remembrance of Jesus reminds us that the promises of the new covenant are forever ours in him.

Truth #3: The Lord’s Supper is a time for humble self‑examination and repentance from ongoing sin.

In 1 Corinthians 10 and 11, Paul’s teaching on the Lord’s Supper comes in the context of confronting the Corinthians for sins that were corrupting their participation in the Supper. In chapter 10, the problem was double‑mindedness — participating in pagan religions during the week and then coming into the gathering of the church to worship Jesus. And in chapter 11, the problem was divisiveness in the church, remembering Jesus in the Supper while treating one another selfishly and unlovingly throughout the week.

So Paul says to them, “When you come together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat” (1 Cor. 11:20). In other words, whatever they were doing, it wasn’t what Jesus intended. They were making a mockery of the Lord’s Supper, and that was not okay.

So in 1 Corinthians 11, Paul extends a serious warning to them: “Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord… That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died” (vv. 27, 30).

The idea is that there is a right way, and some very wrong ways, to observe the Lord’s Supper. One wrong way is living in sin all week, worshiping idols, and then coming to “worship” Christ. Another wrong way is treating your brothers and sisters in Christ selfishly and then acting like you’re grateful for Jesus’ saving love for you.

The right way, however, is to “examine yourself” before you eat and drink (v. 28) to remember Jesus. That is, before you eat the Lord’s Supper it is good to evaluate whether you’re living in a way that honors Jesus. Are you pursuing obedience? Fleeing idolatry? Confessing sin? Thinking of yourself humbly? Loving the people God has put in your life? Loving your brothers and sisters in Christ faithfully and graciously? Once you’ve gained a proper awareness of your ongoing sinfulness and ongoing need for a Savior, then and only then are you ready to eat and drink in remembrance of Jesus.

Now, some have turned this call to self‑examination into an overly introspective, legalistic, and discouraging command, and I believe that is truly unfortunate. To them, it is as if Paul were saying you must identify and confess every single sin before you can partake of the Lord’s Supper, or that if you have any serious sins in your life, you should let the bread and cup pass and refrain from eating and drinking at all.

But Paul does not say that. he says, “Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.” Thus, I would argue that the only reason a professing Christian should consider avoiding the Supper is if he refuses to repent at all, which may indicate he is not truly a Christian. Otherwise, the Supper should be seen not as something you can only enjoy if you repent perfectly first, but as the very means by which you bring your sins to God and ask for grace to live obediently.

Truth #4: The Lord’s Supper is one of the primary ways God delivers strengthening and sanctifying grace to his people.

The Lord’s Supper is what many Christians call a primary means of grace. That is to say, we are not the only ones doing something in the Supper, rather God does something in it too. Consider what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:16 where he writes, “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?”. What does that mean?

I believe Paul is saying that by drinking and eating in the Supper, in remembrance of Jesus, and in humility and repentance, Christians actually share in the benefits that were procured for us by Christ on the Cross. These benefits include the strengthening of our faith, the writing of God’s commands on our hearts, sanctification and growth in godliness, the preservation of our faith in Christ, a growing love for God, and the ongoin forgiveness of all our sins.

These are the blessings Jesus purchased for us on the Cross, and the wonderful reality is that he delivers them to us through the Supper, just as he does through other means of grace like the Word, prayer, fellowship, and baptism. This is why the Reformed tradition says the Supper is given “for the confirmation of the faith of believers in all the benefits of Christ’s death, their spiritual nourishment and growth in him, and their further engagement in and to all the duties they owe him.”

This means that the Lord’s Supper is more than a simple remembrance of Jesus. It is actual communion with Christ and participation in the benefits of his death that strengthen and mature us in the faith.

Truth #5: The Lord’s Supper is where divisions in the church go to die and unity in the church is preserved.

Have you ever noticed how Paul emphasizes the unifying effect of the Supper in 1 Corithians. Consider what he says in 1 Corinthians 10:17: “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread”. What he is saying there is that the Supper reminds us that we are all on equal ground before God. We are all sinners in need of the same Savior. There is no social hierarchy, no caste system, no classes of Christians in the local church (or at least there should not be). We are one body that partakes of one bread, and the one bread is Christ.

This is why Paul is so bothered by the divisions in the Corinthian church. Their behavior contradicted the meaning of the Supper. The Supper is meant to remind every member of the church that the only reason any of us are members of God’s spiritual family — and the only reason any of us can approach God — is Christ alone. The Supper should be the place where our self‑importance, our inconsiderate attitudes, and gracelessness, impatience, bitterness, and sins like these are acknowledged, confessed, and repented of. The Lord’s Supper is a direct means of protecting the church’s unity in Christ.

Truth #6: The Lord’s Supper reminds us and announces to others the only hope of humanity.

Most weeks after we eat and drink in the Lord’s Supper, one of our pastors quotes Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 11:26. “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes”. That word “proclaim” is an important one which means “to announce publicly.” What this means is that in the Lord’s Supper, the church of Christ is publicly announcing the Lord’s death, his death for sinners, as the all‑sufficient payment for sin.

In the Supper, we announce publicly, first to ourselves, then to one another, and finally to any non‑Christians present in our gathering, that Jesus is the only hope for sinners. That Jesus is the only way to be saved from God’s judgment and made right with him. This tells us that it is not only the sermon that proclaims the gospel on Sunday mornings. We proclaim the gospel together every week when we eat and drink in remembrance of Jesus. And as we do, we pray that everyone in our midst will hear that Gospel and believe in Jesus before it’s too late.

Conclusion

These six truths serve to help us understand why the Lord’s Supper is so important, and why Jesus wants his people to observe it until he comes again. Perhaps some of these considerations are new to you, or perhaps you could have written this post yourself. Either way, may the Lord never let us forget how important it is that we regularly and frequently come together to eat and drink in remembrance of Jesus.

The Lord’s Supper matters. And it should matter to us all.