TEEN TREE 
OF LIFE
THE LORD’S SUPPER
July 8, 2018
BEFORE we begin, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, take a moment to name your sins to God the Father. This will allow you to be filled with the power of The Holy Spirit as you read this booklet (EPH 5:18 & 1JOH1:9). IF YOU HAVE never believed in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you have that opportunity right now. Simply tell God the Father that you are believing on His Son Jesus Christ as Your Lord and Savior. If you make that decision, you are now a believer and will always be a child of God! When you die, you will spend eternity with Him forever in heaven! (JOH 3:16 & ACT 16:31)
The Lord’s Supper is found in four main passages. Three are the actual account of Our Lord at the Passover Feast on the night He was betrayed – the night before His Crucifixion. Here are the actual accounts:
MAT 26:26-30: While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.” And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins. But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.” After singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
MAR 14:22-26: While they were eating, He took some bread, and after a blessing He broke it, and gave it to them, and said, “Take it; this is My body.” And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, and they all drank from it. And He said to them, “This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly I say to you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” After singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
LUK 22:19-20: And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.
In these three verses, Jesus is giving instructions to the Apostles, first, to receive something very special personally and, second, to continue this same celebration by passing it along to others in the Christian family.
The fourth verse is the account by Paul, a quarter century later, reemphasizing the importance of the Communion Supper in 1COR 11:24-25: …and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
There are two parts to this Celebration: the first part is the breaking and sharing of bread; the second part is the pouring and sharing of the wine in a cup. Let’s look at each part of the Celebration.
The bread is an interesting analogy of the Body of Christ. Two important ingredients needed to make bread are flour and oil. This bread they shared was a particular kind of bread that didn’t rise because it didn’t have any yeast in it. In the Bible, the term for yeast is leaven. Leaven is added to dough to make it ferment and rise. Leaven or yeast represents sin in the Bible. So, the bread referred to in these verses was made without yeast; therefore, it is symbolic for having no sin in it. The bread represents The Body of Christ which went to The Cross without any sin in it. Jesus Christ was a Perfect Sacrifice because He had no sin of His Own and, therefore, could offer Himself up for us who are “filled with yeast” or sinful.
Let’s look more closely at unleavened bread. Flour is made from wheat. Wheat grows from the ground and produces a fruit in the form of a kernel. Our Lord Produced much Fruit while on earth. He fulfilled the Will of the Father perfectly, Producing Divine Fruit. But the kernel itself is not flour. In order to make flour, the kernel needs to be crushed and ground down to a fine powder. Our Lord was ground down through the seven trials, beatings, whippings, and the humiliation He endured. Our Lord talks about this in JOH 12:24: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
Once you have the flour ready, you now need oil to make it into bread. Oil is a smooth, silky agent that flows freely but also binds the flour. Without the oil, the flour would not stick together. In Scripture, oil is both a reference to the Word of God and The Holy Spirit. Without the oil in the soul of the man Jesus Christ, He would not have been able to fulfill the Will of the Father. And remember the flour and the oil must be mixed or kneaded – again, the analogy of crushing, as Our Lord was.
So, as Christ noted in all four scriptures, recounting the Last Supper, the bread represented His Body: His Body which He gave for us; His Body which was without sin; His Body which produced Fruit; His Body which was crushed; His Body which was filled with the oil of The Word and The Holy Spirit; and His Body which was set apart from all others as the One True Sacrifice for all of mankind. And today, we, as Christians, make up His body. This is taught in the following Bible verses. COL 1:18: He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. EPH 4:12: … for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ… 1COR 12:12: For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many. 1COR 10:16: Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ?
The second part of the Celebration is The Cup. Like the bread, the cup also has interesting analogies. There were four cups used in the Jewish Passover Ritual. The first cup was the Sanctification Cup which symbolized believers being set apart. The second cup was the Deliverance Cup which symbolized Our Lord’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt. The third cup was the Redemption Cup which symbolized Propitiation of our sins. (Propitiation means satisfaction; God The Father is satisfied with the Sacrificial Ministry of Our Lord on The Cross.) The fourth cup was the Elijah cup. Our Lord did not drink from this cup, because it symbolized His Return. Our Lord specifically chose the third cup, which symbolized His Purchase of our sins (Redemption), so that we would not have to pay for our sins. He paid the price on The Cross, once and for all. In ISA 53 we learn that “He was crushed for our sins…and by His scourging we are healed.”
Our Lord then said something very interesting about the Redemption Cup and what was in it. He said the cup was a New Covenant in His blood: And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood. (LUK 22:20) A covenant is a peace treaty or a life insurance contract. This cup represented a peace made between God and man, which guarantees man eternal life.
HEB 9:15 tells us: For this reason, He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.
In LUK 22:20 (see above), “In His blood” speaks to the spiritual death Christ suffered on the cross. It is not speaking of His Physical Death. After He had been on the cross for a total of six hours, three in light and three covered in darkness, He said, “It is finished.”(JOH 19:30) The payment of sins was finished while He was still physically alive and had enough blood in His body to sustain His Physical Life. Then as recorded in LUK 23:46, He made His last statement: “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.” And upon His Death, His Spirit went to heaven while His Body with its literal blood remained on earth. This is taught in JOH 19:34: But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out.
Our Lord did all of this, so that you and I would have forgiveness and live forever with Him. This is why, whenever we participate in The Lord’s Supper, we are to solemnly and joyously remember what He Has Accomplished for us. And it is His Desire for us to come together often to celebrate and remember Him: and when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said, “This is My body which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way He took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” (1Cor 11:24-25)