Introduction
There is an irony involved in our participation in the Lord’s Supper that ought not to be overlooked. In order to participate in the Lord’s Supper in most Christian churches, a person must demonstrate that they understand what it means. And if we are growing, we spend much of the rest of our Christian life discovering how little we actually understood about our union with Christ.
If you’ve ever had a paradigm shift in your theology, you know what I mean. Conversion is like this for those who come to faith as adults. You suddenly see the world in an entirely new way, and it brings a radical, permanent reorientation. The doctrines of grace were like this for many of us. I remember when the sovereignty of God finally came crashing into my consciousness. I called my friend and told him, “Either Calvinism is true or the Bible is not, and I know the Bible is true.” There was no going back. I had to accept that God is not only in charge but truly in control of everything, or I had to stop being a Christian, and I knew I could not not be a Christian, because I already knew Jesus rose from the dead.
These types of paradigm shifts are seismic events in experience and consciousness. This is why Lewis described himself as “the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England” when the Divine mercy finally arrested and subdued him (Surprised by Joy). An older preacher described it to me this way: “I readily admit that I could be wrong about many things and that I still have much to learn. But I can’t un-see what I have seen.”
At the risk of over-promising, I hope that a few of you are going to have a paradigm shift this morning, because what we’re going to look at with regard to the Lord’s Supper certainly was for me when I first learned it. I have longed to address this over the last few years, and I have alluded to it a few times in talks at the Table and other sermons and articles. But today I want to develop the idea more fully, albeit still incompletely and inadequately. The holy Supper is a covenant meal, a sacramental sign. Unpacking what that means could easily involve an entire series of sermons. My original plan for this sermon was too ambitious. Today I want to simply introduce you to one idea: what it means when Jesus says, Do this in remembrance of Me.
The New Covenant Meal
The holy Supper is a covenant meal. Much could be said, but for now let it suffice that the Eucharist is the consummation of all prior meals in which God’s grace was received and celebrated by his people, and it is the type and anticipation of the marriage Supper of the Lamb. In one way it is the marriage supper, albeit prior to the resurrection. Just as the disciples truly ate with Christ in the Upper Room, so we truly eat with Christ—and we feed on him—every time we come to the Table. We are not waiting for fellowship. We have fellowship with the risen Lord, right now, and we experience it in true and tangible ways at the Table every Lord’s Day.
In the Eucharist we see the Passover, the peace offering, and the tribute offering. We are met here by Melchizedek, the King of Righteousness and Priest of Peace, coming to refresh us with bread and wine. We are summoned with the elders of Israel to the holy mountain to feast in the presence of God. Christ comes to multiply the loaves so that his one Body and sacrifice feeds a multitude of people in the wilderness. I meet people I don’t trust in parking lots, but God welcomes his friends and family into his house and blesses them with grace and food.
In the words of institution, the Lord says: This cup is the new covenant in my blood. These words echo Moses at the ratification of Israel’s covenant with Yahweh at Mt. Sinai: And Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, and said, “This is the blood of the covenant which the LORD has made with you according to all these words (Ex. 24:8). Israel was sprinkled with the blood of the ascension and peace offerings. Their sin had already been atoned for, and they had been delivered from slavery in Egypt. Their enemies had been drowned in the Red Sea. Exodus 24 was not about conversion but communion. It was not about their initial justification but rather their corporate consecration in relationship with God. The blood was applied to them, and they ate. This is the biblical and covenantal background for understanding what is going on in the Lord’s Supper.
Our sin offering has already been slain. He does not need to be re-offered on an altar. But his blood is being re-applied to us. The congregation is sprinkled with the blood of the covenant, and peace offerings are made and celebrated. Our covenant with God is being ratified and renewed every time we come to the Table. The words of institution demonstrate that this is so. This is the blood of the covenant. The Supper is not a bizarre and mysterious ritual. It is covenant renewal. We are the Israel of God, called to Mt. Zion for the blood of the covenant to once again be applied. Sacrifices of consecration and fellowship are being offered, and we are being reminded of and reconfirmed in our obligation to live according to the covenant.
“This covenant is called new in reference to the Mosaic covenant. The latter was ratified by the blood of animals; the new, by the blood of the eternal Son of God; the one in itself could secure only temporal benefits and the remission of ceremonial offences; the other secures eternal redemption, and the remission of sin in the sight of God. As the Hebrews entered into covenant with God when the blood of the heifer was sprinkled upon them, and thereby bound themselves to be obedient to the Mosaic institutions, and as God thereby graciously bound himself to confer upon them all its promised blessings on condition of that obedience; so, in the Lord’s supper, those who receive the cup profess to embrace the covenant of grace, and bind themselves to obedience to the gospel; and God binds himself to confer on them all the benefits of redemption.” –Hodge, First Corinthians, 227–228
This is not a Roman Catholic notion of the Supper. It is a biblical view. The Presbyterian Hodge goes on to say, “In this ordinance therefore Christ is set forth as a sacrifice which at once makes expiation for sin and ratifies the covenant of grace” (229). Jesus is not re-sacrificed as our sin offering. But the Supper is a presentation of Christ who is our sacrifice. It is a presentation of the blood by which we have been cleansed and are consecrated again in covenant with God.
Unto Christ’s Memorial
Almost every English translation has rendered the last clause in vv.24-25 the same way: do this in remembrance of Me. Let me say clearly that this translation is perfectly acceptable. I am not suggesting your Bible is wrong or that I know better than translators who have worked on this text for many years. But I do want to explain why I think this translation is easily misunderstood. The problem is not how the text is traditionally rendered but in what we assume the words mean.
First, we need to recognize the key word in this clause, remembrance (ἀνάμνησις), is not a verb in the original text; it is a noun. I think most of us have assumed it is a verb. We are supposed to remember Jesus as we partake, right? That’s true. We should remember Jesus. That’s always appropriate. It’s just not what Jesus is saying here. Not directly. He is not saying, “Remember me when you do this.” He says, “This is the remembrance of me.” There is a difference, a big one.
That this word is a noun is obscured in most English translations, but you can see it in Young’s Literal Translation even if you can’t read Greek: this do ye -- to the remembrance of me. The Supper is the remembrance of Christ. This is not a command about how to partake; it is about what we are doing in partaking. The command is at the beginning of the clause: do this (τοῦτο ποιεῖτε). The command is not: remember Jesus or think about Jesus, although it should be obvious that we ought to do that too. The command is: do this. Do what? Eat the bread and drink the cup. Why? Because this is the remembrance of Christ.
Second, the Greek word used here helps us see what is really being said. The noun which is translated remembrance appears four times in the NT: once in v.24, once in v.25, and once in Luke 22:19 in the institution of the Lord’s Supper found there. In other words, three of the four uses of this word in the NT are in the phrase in question, so they don’t tell us much about how we ought to understand it. But that’s not all the evidence we have.
The one other time this word is used in the NT is in Hebrews 10:3. Speaking of the annual sacrifices of the OT, the writer says: But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. Now were the continual offerings of the OT system to help the Israelites remember that they were sinners? No doubt they did that. Were the yearly sacrifices on the Day of Atonement to remind the Israelites who might have forgotten that the Lord pardoned them? No, the yearly sacrifices were a commemoration of that fact. They were a memorial of atonement and grace.
In much the same way we celebrate memorial days in this nation. We do not celebrate Independence Day because we forget that we no longer serve the House of Hanover. We don’t have Memorial Day because we forget that our family and neighbors lost loved ones in military service. Now, of course, later generations may forget the significance of these events and the dates which remember them. But those days are not just to jog the memory. They are to commemorate, honor, and represent the events of which they are the remembrance.
The specific word translated the remembrance in vv.24-25 is only used four times in the NT but at least four times in the Septuagint as well. It appears in the heading of two psalms1 but most significantly in Leviticus 24:7 and Numbers 10:10.2 Leviticus 24:7 refers to the showbread of the Tabernacle and the frankincense which was to be sprinkled on it “that it may be on the bread for a memorial (εἰς ἀνάμνησιν), an offering made by fire to the Lord.” The same preposition and the same noun used in our sermon text is translated: for a memorial. Numbers 10:10 refers to the blowing of the silver trumpets as burnt offerings and peace offerings were made when Israel left camp. It says: “they shall be a memorial for you before your God: I am the Lord your God.” This passage is especially interesting because the Greek says these offerings would be a memorial of you (for you) but in our sermon text Jesus says the Supper is the memorial (remembrance) of Me.
These uses of the word for remembrance in both Hebrews 10 and the Septuagint indicate that the idea being communicated is not remember Me but the memorial of Christ. Remembrance is not a verb and Christ the direct object. Remembrance is a noun with the (definite) article and the reference to Christ (Me) is a possessive pronoun. In other words, we might more clearly translate the phrase Do this for (unto) My memorial.3
Third—and I will be brief here for the sake of time—the word from which this word for remembrance is derived further confirms this interpretation. The word in vv.24-25 is a noun with the prefix ana–, probably here signifying again. The underlying word (μνημόσυνον) can refer to a memorial or memorial offering (Lev. 2:2, 9, 16) and is used that way frequently in Scripture. The Name of Yahweh is his “memorial to all generations” (Ex. 3:15; cf. Hos. 12:5). Passover would be to Israel “a memorial… to all generations” (Ex. 12:14; cf. 13:9). The story of the woman who anointed Jesus at Simon’s house will forever be told wherever the gospel is preached “as a memorial to her” (Mk. 14:9; Matt. 26:13), and Cornelius’s prayers and alms ascended to heaven “for a memorial before God” (Acts 10:4).
Fourth, and finally on this point, Reformed theologians have recognized that memorial is the proper sense of this phrase, even if it has been misunderstood by many in the pulpit and pew.
“As the Passover was a perpetual commemoration of the deliverance out of Egypt, and a prediction of the coming and death of the Lamb of God, who was to bear the sins of the world; so the Lord’s supper is at once the commemoration of the death of Christ and a pledge of his coming the second time without sin onto salvation.” –Hodge, 229-230
“Do this in remembrance of me. Hence the Supper is a memorial (μνημόσυνον) appointed as a help to our weakness…” –John Calvin, Commentary on First Corinthians, 381-382, cf. 3844
The Sacramental Remembrance of the Holy Supper
Who remembers what in the signs of the covenant? If we are correct that Jesus refers to the Supper as the remembrance of him, “my memorial,” then we need to consider what the function of this memorial is in terms of the covenant. Does it remind us of Jesus’ death for us? Most certainly. Is that the primary function of covenant signs, to remind us of something? No, it is not.
Let’s think about covenant signs for a minute. This will not be an exhaustive review, only enough to make the point. Yahweh put a rainbow in the sky after the flood, a colorful bow pointed toward heaven. What did he say about it?
Gen. 9:12-16: And God said: “This is the sign of the covenant which I make between Me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. It shall be, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud; and I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. The rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”
Every time you see a rainbow, you should remember God’s promise, and you should remind your children of what that rainbow means and why it is there. But God didn’t put it in the sky to remind you of his promise. He put it there to remind himself. God is all-knowing, so we can safely assume he doesn’t forget things. But he put a physical sign in the sky to show you that he remembers.
What about the blood on the doorposts during Passover? Why was it there? You can’t even see it from the inside. But it wasn’t put there so that you could see it.
Ex. 12:23: For Yahweh will pass through to strike the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, Yahweh will pass over the door and not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to strike you.
God gave the Grim Reaper free reign to slaughter first born children in Egypt that night, but when God saw the blood, he would protect that house from the destroyer.
What about the signs God puts on his people? What is the significance of circumcision and baptism? Is it to remind us of God’s covenant promise? They do that. But is that their primary significance? No. Before God brings judgment, he marks his people as he marked Israel’s houses.
Ezek. 9:3b-6: And He called to the man clothed with linen, who had the writer’s inkhorn at his side; and Yahweh said to him, “Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within it.” To the others He said in my hearing, “Go after him through the city and kill; do not let your eye spare, nor have any pity. Utterly slay old and young men, maidens and little children and women; but do not come near anyone on whom is the mark; and begin at My sanctuary.”
Rev. 7:2-3: Then I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God. And he cried with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was granted to harm the earth and the sea, saying, “Do not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees till we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.”
Now do you understand the significance of being sealed with the Holy Spirit (2Cor. 1:22; 5:5; Eph. 1:13-14)? Some of you can’t remember your own baptism. But you don’t have to. You are marked with baptismal waters as a sign that you belong to God. You may forget, but he will not.
We could continue to develop this point, but let these connections suffice for now. What is the (primary) significance of the Church’s participation in the remembrance/memorial of Christ? Is it to remind us of his death? No. It is to remind the Father. If we study the OT passages referenced earlier, we will see that the memorial offering is presented to God as a testimony to the covenant and promise he has given to us. The Lord sees the blood of the covenant marking his house, and his judgment passes over us. The Church holds up Christ as a reminder to the Father that our sins have been atoned for, propitiation has been made, and reconciliation has been achieved. No longer the ungodly, now we are the beloved united to the Beloved One. This is what it means for God to remember his people and no longer to remember our sins. It means to look upon us with his favor, to see the mark of the covenant in and on us, and to spare us according to his mercy and grace.5
Pastoral Application: The Command is to Do This
My purpose is not to tell you not to think about Christ as we partake of the Supper or to suggest that there is not a precious reminder to us in this ritual. My purpose is to help you realize what the Supper is and what it is we are doing as we partake of it. Soon we will study vv.27-32 which teach us to examine ourselves. But many Christians have taken this to mean almost that the significance of the Supper lies in our personal remembrance and worthy participation. That is not the case. Should you partake worthily? Yes! But there is an objectivity to the Supper that needs to be recognized and embraced. The command is do this, and doing this is the memorial of Christ.6
We are not supposed to partake of the Supper like pietists, yet that is what we have often done in Reformed and Presbyterian circles. May I point out, gently and respectfully, this is part of the reason some struggled with the decision to sing a psalm and read Scripture during the Supper, even though that is what was done in Calvin’s day? By the time we come to the Table, we have had a Saturday evening email, Sunday morning preparation, and roughly 90 minutes of gospel liturgy to prepare for the Lord’s Supper. But we need another four minutes of musical interlude (for which there is actually no biblical authority) in order to properly focus our minds and avoid eating and drinking judgment. The command is do this, not remember me. The Supper is the memorial.
The Eucharist is not a sign on a historic battlefield reminding us of what happened there. It is the proclamation of Christ by the Church in anticipation of his return and the consummation of salvation history.7 In what way is the Supper in remembrance of Christ? Paul explains it in v.26.8 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till he comes. It does not say, “As often as you concentrate hard and have the proper thoughts and do all of this in exactly the right way, then the Supper will be a testimony of Christ.” It says as often as you eat… and drink. That is why the Corinthians’ abuse of the Supper was so egregious. It is not private, not personal, not subjective. The Supper is an objective act of covenant proclamation, appealing to the Father on the basis of the atoning sacrifice of Christ to pardon us, deliver us, and bring the work and promises of salvation to their full and glorious end.9
Conclusion
We should take the Supper seriously, and taking it seriously means taking it covenantally. Let me speak to the young children who are communicant members: When you partake of the holy Supper, God remembers what Jesus did for you, and he remembers his promise to save you. That should make you happy, not fearful. Let me speak to the young moms: Whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are proclaiming that Christ died for you. The Father sees that blood and remembers you, even if you are a little distracted and frazzled trying to wrestle a baby into submission. Let me speak to the theology nerds: The Supper is what it is, and its significance has nothing to do with how much you know about it. The sign is as objectively true for the most ignorant baptized person in this room as the blood on the doorposts was for every Israelite’s house.
Christian, do not despair of your inadequacies in coming to this Table. It is not a banquet for judgment but a celebration of grace. Do not treat it as if it were merely a meal for your belly. That is what the Corinthians did, and they fell under judgment as a result. But receive it with joyful expectation. The Destroyer is coming, but he will pass over you because you are marked by the blood of Christ. Do not fear. Rather, rejoice with trembling. Christ is crucified, he is resurrected, and he is glorified. He reigns in heaven, and one day he will return. Lord, remember your people! He has, he will. The Supper is a testimony to it. So come, and welcome to Jesus Christ. Amen.
Notes
1 Psa. 69 (70):1: … τῷ Δαυεὶδ εἰς ἀνάμνησιν… Psa. 37 (38):1: … εἰς ἀνάμνησιν περὶ σαββάτου.
2 Lev. 24:7: καὶ ἐπιθήσετε ἐπὶ τὸ θέμα λίβανον καθαρὸν καὶ ἅλα, καὶ ἔσονται εἰς ἄρτους εἰς ἀνάμνησιν προκείμενα τῷ κυρίῳ. Num. 10:10: καὶ ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις τῆς εὐφροσύνης ὑμῶν καὶ ἐν ταῖς ἑορταῖς ὑμῶν καὶ ἐν ταῖς νουμηνίαις ὑμῶν σαλπιεῖτε ταῖς σάλπιγξιν ἐπὶ τοῖς ὁλοκαυτώμασιν καὶ ἐπὶ ταῖς θυσίαις τῶν σωτηρίων ὑμῶν, καὶ ἔσται ὑμῖν ἀνάμνησις ἔναντι τοῦ θεοῦ ὑμῶν· ἐγὼ Κύριος ὁ θεὸς ὑμῶν.
3 Cf. Douay Rheims: “This do for the commemoration of me.” Peshitta (Aramaic): “thus you shall do for my Memorial.”
4 The editor to Calvin’s commentary publishes a helpful footnote: “It is worthy of notice, that our Author has made use of the same Greek term (when commenting on 1 Cor. 5:8) in reference to the Passover, which was intended partly as a memorial (μνημόσυνον.) See p. 189. The term is of frequent occurrence in the same sense in Herodotus, and occasionally in other Classical authors.—Ed.”
5 “This calling into the presence of God, this bringing to life before God, this recalling of the past, this is, on the other side, effective. It has a purpose, it is intended to effect something: that God may remember—mercifully or punishingly. God’s remembrance is, namely…, never a simple remembering of something, but always and without exception ‘an effecting and creating event’. When Luke 1.72 says that God remembers his covenant, this means that he is now fulfilling the eschatological covenant promise. When God remembers the iniquities of Babylon the Great (Rev. 18.5), this means that he is now releasing the eschatological judgment. When the sinner ‘is not to be remembered’ at the resurrection, this means that he will have no part in it (Ps. Sol. 3.11). And when God no longer remembers sin, when he forgets it (Jer. 31.34; Heb. 8.12; 10.17), this means that he forgives it. God’s remembrance is always an action in mercy or judgment.” –Joachim Jeremias, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus (London: SCM Press, 1966), 248-249. Cf. Calvin’s observation that the Supper is a memorial of accomplished redemption: “Christ himself, when he seals our assurance of pardon in the Supper, does not bid his disciples stop short at that act, but sends them to the sacrifice of his death; intimating, that the Supper is the memento, or, as it is commonly expressed, the memorial from which they may learn that the expiatory victim by which God was to be appeased was to be offered only once.” –Calvin, Institutes IV.18.6.
6 “The ἀνάμνησις commandment is therefore fulfilled by the proclamation of the death of Jesus at the Lord’s supper.” –Jeremias, 253.
7 “‘Until he comes’ apparently alludes to the maranatha of the liturgy with which the community prays for the eschatological coming of the Lord. This means that the death of the Lord is not proclaimed at every celebration of the meal as a past event but as an eschatological event, as the beginning of the New Covenant. The proclamation of the death of Jesus is not therefore intended to call to the remembrance of the community the event of the Passion; rather this proclamation expresses the vicarious death of Jesus as the beginning of the salvation time and prays for the coming of the consummation. As often as the death of the Lord is proclaimed at the Lord’s supper, and the maranatha rises upwards, God is reminded of the unfulfilled climax of the work of salvation ‘until (the goal is reached, that) he comes’.” –Jeremias, 253.
8 Cf. Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology III.435-436.
9 “To summarize my argument: it seems to me certain that the command for repetition may no longer be interpreted on the basis of hellenistic presuppositions, but must be interpreted against a Palestinian background. ‘In remembrance of me’ can then scarcely mean ‘that you may remember me’, but most probably ‘that God may remember me’. This means that the command to repeat the rite is not a summons to the disciples to preserve the memory of Jesus and be vigilant (‘repeat the breaking of bread so that you may not forget me’), but it is an eschatologically oriented instruction: ‘Keep joining yourselves together as the redeemed community by the table rite, that in this way God may be daily implored to bring about the consummation in the parousia.’” –Jeremias, 254-255.
