THE COMMUNION OF SAVED MEN

Dr. W. A. Criswell

1 Corinthians 10:1-6, 16-17

7:30 p.m. 1-08-67

 

On WRR radio you are sharing the services of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, and this is the pastor bringing the evening message entitled The Communion of Saved Men; The Communion of Saved Men.  If you listen on the radio, turn with us in your Bible to the tenth chapter of 1 Corinthians.  We shall read the first six verses, then we shall read verse 16 and 17.  All of us sharing our Bibles with our neighbors turn to 1 Corinthians, the first Corinthian letter, chapter 10; we shall read the first six verses, the first six verses.  Now if we have found the place and all of us looking at the Word together, let us read it out loud; 1 Corinthians, chapter 10, the first six verses, now together:

 

Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;

And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea;

And did all eat the same spiritual meat;

And did all drink the same spiritual drink:  for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them:  and that Rock was Christ.

But with many of them God was not well pleased:  for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.

 

Now we turn to verse 16 and 17, which is the text and substance of the message tonight.  Now let us read the two verses together, 16 and 17:  “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?  For we being many are one bread, and one body:  for we are all partakers of that one bread.”

And you can see the title of the message, The Communion of Saved Men, “the cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the koinonia, the koinonia?”  That is a New Testament word, a word of the finest import and spiritual connotation.  “Is it not the koinonia of the blood of Christ?  And the bread which we break, is it not the koinonia of the body of Christ?”  The word koinonia comes from the idea of “in common”.  The word actually means “a sharing, a participation, a fellowship, a communion”.  And you could translate it with any one of those meanings and it would reflect the actual inspired connotation of the word.  “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the sharing, is it not the communion, is it not the participation of the blood of Christ?  And the bread which we break, is it not the sharing, the participation, the fellowship, the communion of the body of our Lord?”

Now in that there are three things that immediately press upon our souls.  First, in this communion, in this sharing, in this participation, there is first on our part a humble and a truthful confession.  This has to do with our sins.  Christianity has to do with sin.  If a man is not a sinner, if he is unwilling to confess his sins, there is no gospel; there is no message from Christ.  The gospel message of Jesus begins in this:  “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.”  The gospel message begins in this: that we are lost and we face the inevitable judgment of death.  And what shall I do?  I cannot wash my sins away, I cannot cleanse my soul of its stain, and the drag of my congenital innate depravity is ever with me.  I can go no place and escape it because I take it alongside.  Nor can all of my fine, noble resolutions lift me above it.  I sin; what shall I do? 

This communion, this koinonia, is first of all a confession on our part that we are undone, and lost, and face the judgment of death.  This is the gospel of the Son of God, that for confessed sinners Jesus died that we might be saved; that His atoning blood, grace, mercy, forgiveness, might wash the stain out of our souls.  And these who are sinners are invited to come and to participate, to share, to fellowship, in the communion, the koinonia of men who are saved.  And if you’re not a sinner it has no message; and if you’re not lost, He’s not a Savior.  It has first a confession on our part, “Lord, I qualify, I’m a sinner.”

In one of my village churches where the pastor, where I would know all so intimately, the teacher of the men’s Bible class never took the Lord’s Supper.  I went to see him to talk to him about it.  And I spoke to him in this vein, that his example was not a blessing in the church.  Being the teacher of the men’s Bible class, and we have the Lord’s Supper, it is noticeable to the little congregation that he never takes of the bread, or never drinks of the cup.  And I said, “I have come to talk to you about it.”  And he replied and said, “Well, dear young pastor, I am just not worthy.  I am not worthy.”  And he said, “According to the Word of God a man must examine himself and he must be worthy to partake of the Lord’s Supper.  And I am a sinner, and I am not worthy.”

 “Well,” I replied to him, as I have tried to teach you so faithfully, “the Bible has nothing in it about our worthiness.”  The word that is used is an adverb and not an adjective.  An adjective modifies a substantive, a noun; an adverb modifies a verb.  The word has nothing to do with my worth, the word has to do with how, the verbal.  An adverb modifies a verb.  The “worthily” has to do with the manner in which we take the Lord’s Supper. 

The church at Corinth, to which Paul is writing this eleventh chapter, they were riotous, they turned it into an orgy, such as you would see at a Bacchanalia, or a Libernalia, or Saturnalia.  And Paul is writing to them, Oh, oh!  “Whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily”— an adverb, in an unworthy manner—“shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.  For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily,” —making an orgy of it—“eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.”  Our observance of this holy ordinance is to be in deepest reverence and humility; in a worthy manner.

 But the worthiness does not modify us; for who could bow before the Lord and say, “Lord, I deserve God’s mercy; I am righteous and just, and capable of defending my integrity; Lord, all these other men may have fallen into dereliction and error, but not I; not I, Lord”?  All such as that have never come close to God.  The nearer you come to God, the more unworthy you feel.

Like Isaiah: “Woe unto me!  For mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.  I am a man of unclean lips; I dwell among a people of unclean lips.  Woe unto me!”  Or like Simon Peter, “Lord, depart from me, for I am a sinner.”  The nearer we come nigh to God, the less our tendency to boast of our own righteousness, and Isaiah said our righteousnesses are as filthy rags in His sight.  “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy” does God save us.  The first qualification for coming to the Lord’s Table is that I am a confessed sinner.  And when we take that bread and eat it, and when we take that cup and drink it, it is an act of confession: “Lord, be merciful unto me, a sinner.”

The second admission: in this koinonia, “the cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the sharing, the communion, the participation, the fellowship of the blood of Christ?  And the bread which we break, is it not the koinonia, the participation of the body of Christ?”  Our second attitude in coming to the Lord’s Table is this:  it is a humble acceptance, a humble acceptance of God’s provision for our forgiveness.

 

In my hand no price I bring,

Simply to Thy cross I cling.

What can wash away my sin? 

Nothing but the blood of Jesus!

What can make me whole again? 

Nothing but the blood of Jesus!

[“Nothing but the Blood of Jesus,” Robert Lowery]

 

“And He took the cup and gave thanks, and gave it to them saying, Drink ye, all of you of it, for this is My blood of the new promise, of the new covenant, of the new testament, which is shed for the remission of sins” [Matt.26:27].  It is the acceptance, the humble acceptance, of God’s provision for our forgiveness, our healing, our salvation. 

It is the identical thing as John 3:14: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in Him—looks to Him—should not perish but have everlasting life.”  As the people were smitten, and bitten, and dying of the serpent bite, Moses raised a brazen standard in the midst of the camp; and it was so, that if a man would look he would live.  In that look, it was a moral act; in that look, the man confessed that he was dying; in that look, he accepted God’s provision; and in that look, he had the faith to believe and the assurance from heaven that God would give him the promised healing; the acceptance of the way, the salvation, the provision of God.

 

There is life for a look at the crucified One,

There is life at this moment for thee

Then look sinner, look unto Him and be saved

Unto Him who was nailed to the tree.

[“There is Life for a Look at the Crucified One,” Amelia Matilda Hull]

 

“The cup which we bless, is it not the koinonia, the fellowship of the blood of Christ?  And the bread which we break, is it not the koinonia, the communion of the body of Christ?”  It is our humble acceptance of what God hath done to save us from our sins.

And once again, it is not only our confession, “I’m a sinner, Lord, and lost;” it is not only our acceptance, “Lord, this hath God provided that I might be saved; and I receive it, Lord, as from Thy merciful and gracious hands.  I drink the cup, sharing the koinonia, the blood of Christ.  I take the bread, sharing the body of my Lord.  I am in that salvation and that atonement, hidden.”

 

Rock of Ages, cleft for me

Let me hide myself in Thee

Let the water and the blood

From Thy wounded side which flowed

Be of sin a double cure

Save from wrath, and make me pure.

[“Rock of Ages,” Isaac Watts]

 

The koinonia of the body and blood of Christ.  Now third and last, it is a fellowship of God’s people in the church.  “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?  For we, being many, are one bread and one body; for we are all partakers of that one bread.”  And what Paul has in his mind is this: the background of the passage is the identification of the idolater with the idol when he eats the sacrifice; by the act of eating he became identified as a worshipper with that idol.  So Paul says we are not to eat and we are not to drink in the sacrifice to devils.  “I would that ye should have no fellowship with devils.”  We’re not to be found in the idol temples, eating the sacrifices offered unto idols, unto devils, Paul calls them, but our fellowship is with Jesus; and our communion is with the Lord, our koinonia is with our blessed, blessed Savior.  Then he says something: “For we, being many, are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread.”

Now could I say that same thing mathematically?  When I went through school and read those books and worked out those problems, geometry and trigonometry, one of the great fundamental axioms was this:  things equal to the same things are equal to each other.  Isn’t that right?  Things equal to the same things are equal to each other.  Now that’s exactly what Paul is saying here.  If I am in the koinonia of Jesus, in the fellowship and participation of Jesus; and if you are in the koinonia, in the fellowship and participation, in the sharing, the life and forgiveness of the blessed Lord Jesus—look around you, my brother, look around you.  You’ll find yourself one with me, and I with you.  Isn’t that a remarkable thing?  We never started out like that.  We never particularly thought like that, nor did we come to God with the idea that we were going to be one great, tremendous togetherness in whatever organization you call it; ours, a “church.”  But we found ourselves like that:  loving God, we began loving one another; and fellowshipping with God, we found ourselves fellowshipping with one another; and having much in common with God, the koinonia, we found ourselves fellowshipping—much in common—with one another.

 And that is the colony of heaven that we call this dear church.  Sharing with Him, loving Him, looking to Him, I and you.  And here we are, one bread, ourselves, one body, ourselves; for we’ve all been made partakers of that one atonement.  What Jesus hath done for me, what Jesus hath done for you, what Jesus has done for us all; the koinonia, the fellowship, the sharing in our Lord.  And it makes us one in Him.

You could not describe out of a history book the worship, the hero worship, of England for the Duke of Wellington who delivered the continent of Europe and England from the ire, from the scourge, of Napoleon.  The Duke of Wellington, as you know, led the battle of Waterloo whereby Napoleon was exiled forever, and delivered England.  He was the hero of the whole English-speaking world, and of the civilized world.  Well, you know how they take communion in an Anglican church, in the state church of England; and he came down to the altar and knelt to take the bread and the wine.  And there happened to be that day, as the Iron Duke, England’s greatest hero, as he knelt at the altar to receive the bread and the wine from the officiating minister, why, there came a poor, ragged man from the streets of London who knelt there by his side to receive the bread and the wine.  And the officiating minister was greatly indignant, and stooped down to tell that ragged man to move away.  “Move away, don’t you realize that this is the great Duke of Wellington?”  And as the officiating minister sought to move away that ragged man the Iron Duke overheard and said to the priest, “Sir, you leave him alone, leave him alone.  We’re all the same here.  The ground is level at the cross.”  There may be some great in the eyes of men, and small in the eyes of men, but in God’s sight we’re all alike.  There may be honors for some, there may be dishonors for others, but in God’s sight we’re all poor, lost sinners, and it’s like that that we come to the blessed Jesus.

“Lord, make it all things open and seen before Thy searching eyes.  Dear Lord, forgive me, bless me, save me, help me, Lord, lift me up, stand by me now and in the hour of my death.”  That’s what it is to be a Christian.  That’s what it is to be saved; and that’s what it is to live in the koinonia, the communion of the love and mercy of Jesus. 

Now, as we sing our hymn of appeal, somebody you, in faith, in acceptance, coming to the Lord, stand by me; I’ll be down here at the front, on that side of this communion table.  And while we sing this hymn of appeal, in the balcony round, on this lower floor, you, somebody you, “Pastor, tonight I take Jesus as my Savior, and here I come.  I confess my sins to Him, I ask Him to forgive me, and here I am.”  Or a couple you, putting your life in the church; or a family you, “Pastor, this is my wife, and these are our children; all of us are coming tonight.”  As the Holy Spirit shall press the appeal to your heart, make it now, come now, decide now.  And on the first note of the first stanza, when we sing, come, step out in that aisle or down that stairway, “Here I am, Pastor, I give you my hand, I give my heart to God.”  Do it, do it now, while we stand and while we sing.