For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and said, “Take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you; do this in rememberance of Me.” (25) In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My Blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in rememberance of Me.” (26) For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.

The first letter to the Corinthians was written by the apostle Paul. In our verses today Paul addresses disorders connected to the Lord’s Supper. In the early church it was the custom to connect that, in a strict sense, with an ordinary meal; it was connected to a commemoration of our Redeemer’s death but appears to have been a regular meal. Both Jewish and Greek festivals had been accustomed to unite their sacrifices with feasts of more or less public character. Persons brought their own provisions to be common stock but the rich brought plentiful food and drink and the poor brought little or nothing. The Christian feast was meant to be a communion and all guests were to be on terms of equality – but not so in Corinth. Their conduct was inconsistent with the nature of the service and Paul recounts the original institution of the Lord’s Supper – not an ordinary meal but a commemoration of the death of Christ. Paul says very clearly that he received the account of the original institution from the Lord Himself – and had delivered it to the Corinthians.

The same night Christ was betrayed the ordinance was instituted which gives peculiar solemnity to the Lord’s Supper. Having blessed and broken the bread and given it to His disciples was an act of consecration. The bread and wine offered by Christ were the symbols of His body and blood. The bread in Christ’s hand was impossible to be His literal body – as was the wine offered impossible to be the blood still flowing in His veins. What we receive is not our Lord’s body but His life giving power – in consecrated bread and wine is this presence of power.

The Lord’s Supper is a commemoration of Christ’s death as a sacrifice. Blood was shed for the specific object of remission of sin – in this sacrament He offers us , with the symbols of His broken body and shed blood, the benefits of His death. “This do in remembrance of Me” – that He may be remembered as He who died for your sins. This is the specific definite object of the Lord’s Supper. In this involvement we profess faith in Him, a sacrifice for our sins. We are brought into a real communion with Christ and all the believers of this ordinance. It is a memorial – the sacrament makes Christ very real to us and gives us a definite sense of His presence – the real presence of the Spirit, not actual body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ