Communion: Partaking in Christ
- James Collazo
- Jul 18, 2022
- 13 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
Introduction
Every culture marks its greatest moments around a table—births, weddings, reconciliations, festivals, and funerals. Scripture likewise uses meals to reveal God's covenant fellowship with his people. Bread, the staple food of the ancient world, became the natural symbol of God's daily provision. That is why Jesus taught us to pray for "our daily bread" (Matt. 6:11; Luke 11:3). The Hebrew word lechem (H3899) means more than bread; it can also refer to food, nourishment, and God's daily provision.
On Christmas Day in 1914, soldiers from Britain, France, and Germany laid down their weapons and shared food and fellowship across the trenches. After months of relentless warfare, they longed for home and peace. The Christmas Truce became a brief yet radiant moment of humanity amid hatred. For one day, men who had been enemies recognized one another as fellow human beings. The Lord's Table points to an even greater reconciliation, where Christ gathers former enemies into one family through the peace he accomplished on the cross.
Covenant Meals in the Old Testament
From the beginning of Scripture, God reveals himself through meals. In Eden, Adam and Eve enjoyed fellowship with God amid the abundance of creation, receiving every tree as a gift except the one forbidden to them (Gen. 2:16–17). After humanity's fall, eating became associated with both curse and redemption. God later sustained Israel with manna from heaven, teaching them "that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD" (Deut. 8:3). Jesus later quoted these words during his temptation (Matt. 4:4), revealing that physical nourishment ultimately points beyond itself to dependence upon God.
Throughout the Old Testament, covenant relationships were frequently confirmed through shared meals. Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of God Most High, brought out bread and wine to bless Abraham after his victory (Gen. 14:18–20), foreshadowing a greater priesthood fulfilled in Christ (Heb. 7:1–17). Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the seventy elders ascended Mount Sinai after the covenant was ratified, where "they saw God, and they ate and drank" in his presence (Exod. 24:9–11). The Passover meal became Israel's perpetual remembrance of God's redemption from slavery (Exod. 12), while the prophets envisioned a future banquet where God would swallow up death forever (Isa. 25:6–9). These covenant meals prepared Israel to recognize the greater meal Christ would institute on the night before his crucifixion.
Every celebration of the Lord's Table retells the entire story of redemption. The bread recalls creation, manna in the wilderness, the Bread of Life, Christ's incarnation, and his broken body on the cross. The cup recalls Passover, covenant sacrifice, the prophets' promise of a coming banquet, Christ's atoning blood, and the marriage supper of the Lamb. At the Lord's Table, the whole story of redemption is gathered into a single meal. Because Christ's sacrifice was offered once for all (Heb. 10:10), the church returns not to repeat it, but to receive by faith the benefits of the new covenant.
Communion in the Early Church
In many parts of the ancient church, catechumens and other unbaptized worshipers were dismissed before communion began. This practice was not intended to exclude outsiders, but to emphasize that the Lord's Table belonged to those who had publicly confessed Christ through baptism and entered the covenant community. For the first Christians, communion was not a ritual detached from daily life. It was an authentic meal of fellowship, thanksgiving, and love. The Didachē (Greek for "Teaching," G1322), a first-century manual of Christian doctrine and practice, described how believers blessed bread and wine, thanked God for the vine of David, and shared food in unity (Did. 9). Ignatius of Antioch later referred to communion as "the medicine of immortality" (Ign. Eph. 20), underscoring the early church's view of it as participation in Christ's life rather than mere remembrance. By the second century, the apologist Justin Martyr explained that Christians received bread and wine with thanksgiving, believing that God worked through these elements (1 Apol. 66–67). Justin provides the earliest extant detailed description of Sunday Christian worship outside the New Testament. His account shows remarkable continuity between the worship described in the New Testament and the practice of the second-century church.
The early church also understood communion as an act of thanksgiving. The Greek word eucharistia (G2169), from which the term Eucharist is derived, literally means "thanksgiving." This language reflects Jewish table prayers (Hebrew: berachot, H1293) in which families blessed God before sharing bread and wine. Believers gathered with gratitude for God's saving acts in Christ. Thanksgiving transformed an ordinary meal into an act of worship, reminding the church that every good gift comes from God and that redemption itself is received with thankful hearts.
Love Feasts and the Lord's Table
Paul rebuked the Corinthian church for corrupting the Lord's Table. The wealthy flaunted their privilege while the poor went hungry (1 Cor. 11:20–22). In the first century, communion was not a symbolic wafer but a love feast (Greek: agapē, G26; cf. Jude 1:12). Paul called the church to repentance not because they misunderstood the ritual, but because they had abandoned love and hospitality. The Lord's Table calls believers to move beyond ethnic and socioeconomic divisions. It does not promote class warfare but embodies Christ's command to share freely according to need (Acts 2:44–46).
Paul warned that those who partook unworthily faced judgment because they denied reconciliation (1 Cor. 11:27–32). He was speaking about a failure to discern the body of Christ expressed through selfishness, division, and disregard for fellow believers. The Lord's Table calls the church to a holy realism: unity must be lived, not imagined. To share the Lord's Table while harboring division is to eat the symbols of grace without embracing the life they signify.
Luke presents the earliest Christian community as devoted "to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer" (Acts 2:42). These four practices formed the rhythm of the church's life. Sound doctrine produced genuine fellowship, fellowship found expression at the shared table, and the shared table overflowed into worship and prayer. Communion was never intended to stand alone as an isolated ritual but functioned as part of a community shaped by the gospel. The meal strengthened believers to love one another, care for the needy, and bear witness to Christ before the world.
Body and Blood of Christ
Many people grow up hearing the phrase "body and blood of Christ" as familiar church language, but in the ancient world, it was shocking. Roman critics accused Christians of atheism, cannibalism, and incest because they misunderstood both the language of communion and the family terms "brother" and "sister." Outsiders thought believers rejected the Roman gods and held secret feasts where they consumed human flesh. In truth, Christians worshiped the one true God and celebrated a sacrament of love, not violence—using symbolic language to express their union with Christ's life, death, and resurrection. Why, then, does Scripture speak of Christ's body and blood? Jesus declared that those who seek eternal life must eat his flesh and drink his blood (John 6:48–58). His words scandalized his hearers because they pointed to a mystery: through faith and thanksgiving, we share in his life. The setting of John 6 is essential to understanding Jesus' words.
After miraculously feeding the five thousand, he identified himself as the true bread from heaven, contrasting himself with the manna Israel received in the wilderness. Their ancestors ate the manna and eventually died, but those who feed upon Christ by faith receive eternal life (John 6:49–51). His command to "eat" his flesh and "drink" his blood points beyond physical consumption to complete dependence upon his sacrificial death and risen life. His hearers had to decide whether he truly fulfilled the manna, the Passover, and the sacrificial system or reject him as a blasphemer.
When Jesus took bread and wine at his final Passover meal, he transformed them into signs of a new covenant: "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me. . . . This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me" (1 Cor. 11:24–25). The Greek noun anamnēsis (G364), translated "remembrance," carries a richer meaning than simply recalling a past event. In the biblical world, remembrance was covenantal. Israel did not simply think about the Exodus; through the Passover they actively remembered God's mighty acts by celebrating them as participants in his ongoing covenant faithfulness (Exod. 12:14). Likewise, communion is not an exercise in nostalgia but a living proclamation of Christ's finished work. Whenever the church breaks the bread and shares the cup, it remembers the cross by publicly proclaiming the gospel and joyfully receiving the blessings secured by the new covenant.
In Jewish and biblical thought, blood represents life itself (Lev. 17:11), while "body" and "blood" together represent the whole person offered for others. To share the bread and cup is therefore to participate together in Christ's covenant life. The words of the Last Supper therefore draw together sacrifice, covenant, and communion into a single act. The Gospel of John presents the Last Supper within a Passover context yet places special emphasis on Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). As Israel ate the Passover (Hebrew: Pesach, H6453) meal in faith before its deliverance from Egypt (Exod. 12), so we eat in remembrance of the cross and in hope of the kingdom to come.
Paul's warning has often been misunderstood as requiring Christians to achieve moral perfection before receiving communion. Yet the context points elsewhere. The Corinthians were not condemned because they struggled with sin but because they refused to love one another. Wealthier believers humiliated poorer members of the church, turning the Lord's Table into a display of selfishness rather than unity (1 Cor. 11:17–22). To "discern the body" means recognizing the church as Christ's body and treating fellow believers with the dignity, forgiveness, and reconciliation that Christ himself has shown. Self-examination calls believers to repentance and reconciliation before approaching the table of grace.
Significantly, Jesus did not tell his disciples to continue eating the Passover lamb. Instead, he took the ordinary bread and the cup remaining after the meal and invested them with new covenant significance. His sacrifice would soon fulfill everything the Passover had anticipated, making further sacrificial meals unnecessary. From that night forward, Christians would remember the Lamb not by eating another lamb but by sharing the bread and cup that proclaim his once-for-all sacrifice. The true Passover Lamb now sat at the table.
Christ's Presence at the Table
Throughout Christian history, believers have agreed that communion is more than an ordinary meal, though they have differed over how Christ is present in it. The Roman Catholic tradition teaches transubstantiation, holding that the bread and wine become Christ's body and blood while retaining their outward appearance. Lutherans confess sacramental union, i.e., that Christ's true body and blood are sacramentally present "in, with, and under" the bread and wine. Many Baptist and free church traditions emphasize communion primarily as a memorial that proclaims Christ's saving work and strengthens faith through remembrance.
The Reformed tradition best accounts for these biblical themes by affirming Christ's true spiritual presence while maintaining his bodily ascension into heaven. Scripture teaches that Christ's glorified body ascended into heaven and remains at the Father's right hand until he comes again (Acts 1:9–11; 3:21; Heb. 10:12–13). For this reason, Christ's human nature is not physically present in countless locations at once. Yet the Lord's Table is also far more than a memorial. Paul asks, "Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation [Greek: koinōnia, G2842] in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?" (1 Cor. 10:16). Paul's language points to genuine communion with Christ. The Lord's Table does not repeat Christ's sacrifice but communicates its once-for-all benefits to believers through faith. The Heidelberg Catechism (Q. 76) teaches that, through the Holy Spirit, believers are more and more united to Christ's blessed body.
Elsewhere in the New Testament, koinōnia describes the shared life of believers, their partnership in the gospel, and their fellowship with both the Father and the Son (Acts 2:42; Phil. 1:5; 1 John 1:3). Paul's deliberate choice of this word emphasizes that communion is relational rather than merely symbolic. Through the Holy Spirit, believers truly share in the benefits of Christ's redeeming work and enjoy fellowship with the living Savior.
John Calvin described the Lord's Table as a means by which the Holy Spirit lifts believers into communion with the ascended Christ. Because Christ's body remains in heaven, Calvin rejected the idea that Christ is physically enclosed in the bread and wine; instead, through the Spirit, believers are truly united to Christ and nourished by his risen life (Inst. 4.17.10–12, 18). The Lord's Table is one of God's appointed means of grace through which Christ strengthens faith and confirms the promises of the gospel (Inst. 4.17.1–5). Through the Supper, believers receive spiritual nourishment, grow in fellowship with Christ, and are united with one another as members of his body (Inst. 4.17.1, 33). The bread and cup do not repeat Christ's sacrifice but point believers back to the once-for-all sufficiency of his completed work, proclaiming the benefits of his death until he returns (Inst. 4.17.23–26). While FCCF Ministries does not endorse Calvinism as a theological system, this Reformed understanding of the Lord's Table is considered here because it most closely aligns with the lexical and contextual evidence concerning participation in Christ and communion with his body and blood.
How Often Should We Receive Communion?
Scripture does not prescribe a fixed schedule for celebrating the Lord's Table. Instead, Paul writes, "For whenever [Greek: hosakis, G3740] you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes" (1 Cor. 11:26). The Greek adverb hosakis means "as often as" or "whenever." Paul's wording assumes the church will celebrate the Lord's Supper repeatedly without prescribing a specific interval. His concern is not to establish a liturgical calendar but to emphasize what the church proclaims each time it gathers at the Lord's Table. Although Scripture does not command a particular frequency, it consistently presents the Lord's Supper as a regular practice of the gathered church. Because Scripture does not prescribe a fixed interval, Christian churches have celebrated the Lord's Table weekly, monthly, quarterly, and at other intervals. The emphasis falls not on a prescribed schedule but on faithful observance whenever the church celebrates the Supper. Whenever believers break the bread and share the cup, they proclaim Christ's atoning death, participate in the blessings of the new covenant, and anticipate his glorious return.
Communion and the Future
Communion is not only a memorial of the past but a preview of eternity. Jesus told his disciples, "I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God" (Luke 22:15–16). He also promised, "For I tell you I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes" (Luke 22:18). Many Messianic interpreters connect the cup Jesus shared with his disciples to the Passover cup of redemption (cf. 1 Cor. 10:16). Jesus gave the cup to his followers because he is the Redeemer who has no need of redemption himself.
They recognized him only in the breaking of bread, a fitting reminder that the risen Christ continues to reveal himself through the fellowship of his people (Luke 24:13–35). This moment reminds believers that the risen Christ continues to make himself known at the Lord's Table—not physically bound to the elements but spiritually present through the fellowship of his people. Every communion meal points forward to the "marriage supper of the Lamb" (Rev. 19:9). Each table of bread and wine becomes a small foretaste of that future feast where creation is made new.
The elements of communion also remind believers that God redeems creation. Bread is made from grain harvested from the earth and transformed through human labor. Wine is pressed from grapes grown upon the vine, another fruit of God's creation. Christ chose these ordinary gifts not because they were magical but because they represent the world God made and intends to restore. At the Lord's Table, the fruits of creation become signs of new creation, declaring that redemption embraces the whole created order and not merely the human soul.
Jesus knows our need for tangible signs to understand spiritual truths. He gave us the Scriptures and the sacraments of baptism and communion as visible revelations of invisible grace. The English noun "sacrament" derives from the Latin sacramentum, originally referring to a solemn military oath of allegiance. Latin-speaking Christians adopted this term to express the New Testament concept of mustērion (G3466), a divine mystery revealed through outward signs (Rom. 2:15; Heb. 10:16). Luke records parables of the wedding banquet and the great dinner (Luke 14:7–24). Each reveals God's radical hospitality. The tragedy in these parables is not merely the refusal to attend a meal but the rejection of God's invitation to fellowship. Communion anticipates God's purpose to restore all things in Christ. If we cannot share thanksgiving now, we will not share it in the world to come (1 Thess. 4:16; 2 Tim. 4:1; 1 Pet. 4:5).
The Bible begins with humanity enjoying fellowship with God in a garden and ends with the redeemed eating from the tree of life in the New Jerusalem (Rev. 22:2). Between those two meals stands the Lord's Table, where the risen Christ continually nourishes his church until faith becomes sight. Here the church gathers as one family—nourished by Christ, united by the Spirit, and sustained in hope as it awaits the feast that has no end. Until that glorious feast arrives, the church continues to gather around bread and wine, proclaiming the Lord's death "until he comes" (1 Cor. 11:26) and praying with hope, "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus" (Rev. 22:20).
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Translated by Henry Beveridge. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994.
Didache. In Early Christian Fathers. Edited and translated by Cyril C. Richardson. Library of Christian Classics 1. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1953.
Ursinus, Zacharias, and Caspar Olevianus. The Heidelberg Catechism. 1563.
Ignatius of Antioch. Epistle to the Ephesians. In The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1950.
Justin Martyr. First Apology. In The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1950.
Commentaries
Janicki, Toby. The Way of Life—Didache: A New Translation and Messianic Jewish Commentary. Marshfield, MO: Vine of David, 2017.
Monographs
Atkerson, Stephen E. The Lord's Supper: An Actual Meal—Oneness, Fellowship. Atlanta: New Testament Reformation Fellowship, 2023.
Jeremias, Joachim. The Eucharistic Words of Jesus. Translated by Norman Perrin. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1966.
Mathison, Keith A. Given for You: Reclaiming Calvin's Doctrine of the Lord's Supper. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2002.
McCall, Thomas H., and Jason E. Vickers. Love Divine: A Wesleyan Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2026.
Spangler, Ann, and Lois Tverberg. Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus: How the Jewishness of Jesus Can Transform Your Faith. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2018.
Strauss, Mark L. Four Portraits, One Jesus: A Survey of Jesus and the Gospels. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2020.
Weintraub, Stanley. Silent Night: The Remarkable Christmas Truce of 1914. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014.
Edited Volumes
Armstrong, John H., ed. Understanding Four Views on the Lord's Supper. Counterpoints. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007.
Danker, Ryan N., ed. The Faith Once Delivered: A Wesleyan Witness to Christian Orthodoxy. Alexandria, VA: John Wesley Institute, 2022.
Harris, W. V., ed. The Spread of Christianity in the First Four Centuries: Essays in Explanation. Leiden: Brill, 2005.
Journal Articles
Wagemakers, Bart. "Incest, Infanticide, and Cannibalism: Anti-Christian Imputations in the Roman Empire."↗ Greece & Rome 57, no. 2 (2010): 337–54.
Online Resources
Carey, Erica, ed. "Bible Answer: Did Jesus Break His Promise to Abstain from Wine?"↗ Verse by Verse Ministry. May 15, 2015.
