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Clean enough for communion!
In the past, I would sometimes skip the Lord's Supper because I felt that I was not "clean" enough to eat the bread and drink from the cup. I would remind myself that I had fresh sins that were not confessed and forgiven yet. And there was a fear that if I went ahead and partook anyway, God would punish me for defiling something so holy. Many Christians believe that they must be "worthy" before they can take the Holy Communion, or suffer some sort of divine punishment. Their idea of "worthy" usually means "free of sin". So to become "worthy" they will, before coming to the Lord's Table, begin to confess all their unconfessed sins that they can remember and ask God for forgiveness for each one of them (see 1 John 1:9 and true confession of sins). Of course, there will be the not-so-holy folks who just feel too "unworthy", and simply give up and stay away from the Lord's Table.
But was that what the apostle Paul meant by "unworthy" in 1 Corinthians 11:17-34? The first thing we should realise is that the passage is not talking about believers being "unworthy" to take the Holy Communion because of unconfessed sins. Nothing about this is even mentioned. What it does talk about is "unworthy manner" (verse 27), not "unworthy believer". The manner in which the Corinthian church was taking the Holy Communion was "unworthy" because they were turning it into an eat-and-drink-all-you-can party -- getting drunk and gobbling up the bread, not waiting for one another (verses 20-22). By taking the Holy Communion that way, the Corinthian church was "not discerning the Lord's body" (verse 29). And it was for this reason that many in the church were weak and sick, and many had died (verse 30). It is interesting to note that no where else in the New Testament are we told why Christians fall sick and die prematurely, except here. It behoves us then, to know what we are to discern about the Lord's body when we take the Holy Communion.
What to discern about the Lord's body Discerning the Lord's body when taking the Holy Communion means to believe and receive by faith what has been purchased for us on the cross by our Lord. What divine exchanges took place on the cross between Him and us? There are many. The most common one that Christians know is that Christ took their sins so that they can take His righteousness when they receive Him as their Saviour. But since the subject here is sickness, we will focus on health and healing. Other divine exchanges are mentioned briefly at the end of the article.
Surely He bore our sicknesses and pains Besides our sins, Jesus also bore our sicknesses and pains on the cross to give us health. He was also scourged so many times until His flesh was torn and His bones exposed to buy us healing.
In Isaiah 53:4, the words "griefs" and "sorrows" are actually "sickness" and "pain" (physical and mental) in the original Hebrew text (the Old Testament was written in Hebrew). Any good Hebrew lexicon will tell you that. The English translation is thus unfortunate. Some have insisted that the verse has to do with "spiritual healing" only. But let the Bible interpret the Bible. The verse is quoted again in Matthew 8:17. How does the Holy Spirit translate Isaiah 53:4 in Matthew 8:17? He says, "He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses." The word "infirmities" is astheneia in the Greek. Astheneia means bodily weaknesses. So Matthew 8:17 is saying that Jesus bore our bodily weaknesses and sicknesses, implying that the verse has to do with physical healing.
Moreover, the preceding context of Matthew 8:17 -- verses 14-16 -- proves that the verse is referring to physical healing. Jesus healed Peter's mother-in-law of a fever, and when evening had come, He healed all the sick who were brought to Him. These were not "spiritual healings", but physical healings. The term "spiritual healing" is also a misnomer. Our spirits are not "healed", just as our minds are not "healed", but renewed by the Word of God. When we were born again, our spirits were recreated or made alive, not "healed". Note also that the word "Surely" is used in Isaiah 53:4. God knew that Christians would have little difficulty believing that Jesus bore their sins, but would find it hard to believe that He also bore their sicknesses and pains. Hence, He added the word "Surely". You will not find this assurance in verse 5, which talks about Christ bearing and suffering for our sins. He visage was marred beyond recognition
Again, the words "grief" and "sorrows" here are actually "sickness" and "pain" (physical and mental) in the original Hebrew text. The translation here is also inaccurate. As with verse 4, this verse is talking about Jesus' suffering on the cross. He became a Man of pains acquainted with sicknesses because He was carrying all our diseases as well as physical and mental pains. In fact, His face and body were so disfigured by the diseases and pains that those who saw Him were appalled and hid their faces from Him (verse 3). Isaiah says the same thing in the preceding chapter:
He was chastised so that we could have shalowm Isaiah 53:5 The chastisement that brought us "peace" was laid upon Jesus. In other words, Jesus was chastised so that we could have "peace". The word "peace" is shalowm in Hebrew. Shalowm is a very rich Hebrew word. It does not just mean peace of mind or a nice peaceful feeling. According to Brown Driver & Briggs Hebrew Lexicon, shalown means:
As you can see, shalowm is a very rich Hebrew word, and its meaning includes health and soundness of body. It also includes safety or protection, and prosperity. I like how someone described the word: "Nothing missing, nothing broken!" Do you believe the report? Isaiah and Paul both asked, "Who has believed our report?"
In other words, do you believe this wonderful aspect of the gospel -- that Christ also bore our sicknesses and pains, besides our sins? If Christians would believe and receive this report gladly, that is, obey the gospel, then "the arm of the LORD" -- His miraculous powers -- will be revealed to them. They will receive their healing. The same crime cannot be punished twice What does all this mean for Christians? Because Christ bore our sicknesses and pains on the cross, it would make no sense for us to bear them again. Do we go around carrying our sins and feeling condemned? No, because Jesus already bore our sins for us. He was judged and punished in our place because He was carrying our sins. So for us to carry on bearing our sins and condemning ourselves is to not trust in the finished work of Christ and to dishonour it. It is the same with sicknesses and pains. Why should a Christian suffer cancer and be in pain when Christ has already borne that cancer and pain in His body on the cross? If Christ has already been punished with that cancer, why should that Christian be punished again with the same disease? The same crime cannot be punished twice. If you get a speeding ticket, you do not pay the fine twice or thrice, do you? God is not unjust -- He is faithful to the perfect payment of His Son. It is Satan who is unjust. It is the devil, not God, who puts diseases on the ignorant Christian. God says that His people are destroyed due to a lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6). Christians are still getting sick and dying prematurely because they do not know their rights or inheritance in Christ, and Satan has taken advantage of their ignorance and indifference. When they partake of the bread during the Holy Communion, they fail to acknowledge and appropriate the health and healing that have already been purchased for them by Christ. So start seeing that disease on Jesus' body at the cross and not on your body. The disease cannot exist in two places at the same time. Focus on the fact that Jesus did bear that disease for you when He hung on the cross. Stop focusing on the disease. Stop focusing on the medical reports. Stop focusing on your circumstances. Look to Jesus and His finished work. The bronze serpent on a pole
That is why Moses was told to lift up a bronze serpent placed on a pole -- a type of the crucifixion. (Interestingly, the traditional medical symbol used today is a serpent coiled around a staff.) Any Israelite who was bitten by a snake received healing as long as he focused on the bronze serpent on the pole (a type of Christ bearing our sicknesses and pains on the cross). But those who focused on their snake bite wounds (their natural circumstances) died.
But how can the bronze serpent be a type of Christ? In the Bible, a serpent symbolises a curse (Genesis 3:14). Jesus was made a curse on the cross for us.
Bronze speaks of judgment. In the tabernacle of Moses, the altar and the grating for it where the sacrificial animals were burnt were made of bronze (Exodus 38:30). Christ, the sacrificial Lamb of God, was judged on the cross for our sins. He bore God's fiery wrath on our behalf. The pole, of course, symbolises the wooden cross that Jesus was judged on. Redeemed from every type of sickness Under the Old Covenant system of law, God blesses His people if they obey all His laws (Deuteronomy 28:1), but allows terrible curses to come on them if they do not (Deuteronomy 28:15). The latter is referred to as the "curse of the law". Deuteronomy 28:15 Galatians 3:10 In Deuteronomy 28, there are 11 verses on blessings (verses 3-13) and 53 verses on curses (verses 16-68). Since there are more curses than blessings here, the Christian ought to study what these curses are, lest he calls something a blessing when it is really a curse! One of the curses is this:
Notice that the verse says "every sickness, and every plague". This means that any and every sickness or disease is a curse. In other words, a sickness can never be a blessing. So if you say that your sickness is a blessing from God, you are contradicting Deuteronomy 28:61, which implies that any sickness is a curse. But praise God that because of Christ's work on the cross, we have been redeemed from the curses of the law, including Deuteronomy 28:61.
In other words, healing is part of Christ's redemptive work. Healing was purchased for us in the atonement of our Lord. So we cannot say that God chooses to heal some and not others because the truth is that healing is offered to all through the cross. If we say that God is willing to heal only some people, it is like saying that God is willing to save only some people. Neither can we say that God chastens His children with diseases (see Does God chasten with sicknesses and deaths?). If that were true, God would be contradicting and dishonouring the work of His Son. Out of Egypt Egypt in the Bible represents the secular world. Just as God called the Israelites out of Egypt through Moses, Christians are called out of the world through Christ. Another way of saying it is that Christians are in the world but not of the world. John 17:11
11 Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world,
This means that Christians need not suffer sicknesses like people of the world do. Sicknesses are of the world. Sicknesses belong to the world. Christians are in the world but not of the world. They are of God's kingdom. In Deuteronomy 28:60, God calls diseases, "of Egypt". In God's eyes, sicknesses are of the world. But in God's kingdom -- and we are of His kingdom -- there are no diseases.
The way the bread is made If we examine the Jewish matzah, which is the unleavened bread the Jews eat during the Passover, and which many churches use today for their Holy Communion, you will notice that it is striped with tiny holes. It also has many burnt marks. Interestingly, before the dough is baked, it is pierced using a special tool which forms rows of tiny holes. The holes are probably there for a practical reason -- to keep the Matzah flat and crispy. But there is a deeper spiritual truth here (see diagram).
The matzah clearly represents the body of our Lord. The stripes speak of the scourging He endured to buy us healing. The holes speak of His piercings by the crown of thorns, nails and Roman soldier's spear. And the burnt marks speak of the fiery wrath of God, which He bore because our sins were being judged in His body. Perhaps the most visible are the stripes. Isaiah says that "by His stripes we are healed".
This phrase is quoted by Peter in the New Testament.
Jesus bore every one of those painful lashes to buy us healing.
Forever righteous by the blood When we drink the cup of wine or juice, we remind ourselves that it is Jesus' blood that continuously keeps us clean and righteous before God. Our performance -- good or bad deeds -- has nothing to do with it. We also remind ourselves that not just our past sins, but our present as well as future sins, were all forgiven the moment we believed in Christ. We were cleansed of all unrighteousness forever when we were born again (see 1 John 1:9 and true confession of sins). God's forgiveness and His gift of righteousness are certainly not given in instalments depending on our performance or obedience.
In fact, that is why we ought to take the Holy Communion when we fall into sin. As Christians, we still fall into sin now and then. And when we do, we feel frustrated and condemned. Hence, we need to be reminded that Jesus' blood has cleansed us of every sin, and that it is His blood alone that continuously makes us righteous, not our confessions, fastings or Bible readings. God does not need to be reminded of this, we do. Once we understand this, we will not feel condemned. Indeed, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). And if we are firmly established in the fact that we are righteous forever by His blood alone, no matter what sin we have just fallen into, we can always come boldly (Hebrews 4:16) to the Lord's Table with faith to receive from God and be encouraged.
The blood for our protection When we drink the cup of wine or juice, we can also claim protection from accidents, sicknesses, attacks and the like, physical or spiritual. We read in Exodus 12 that as long as the blood of the lamb (a type of Jesus and His blood shed for us) was applied to the lintel and two side posts of the door (a picture of the cross), the destroyer passed over (from which you get "Passover" feast) the house and did not kill the firstborn (man or beast) in that family.
The destroyer passed over a house not because the people in it were Israelites (Christians), but because he saw the blood. The blood tells the destroyer that someone else (the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ) has already been killed in the firstborn's (our) place for the firstborn's (our) sins. It tells the destroyer that a life has already been taken so the penalty of death because of sin need not be enforced again -- the same crime cannot be punished twice. It was at that time that the Lord instituted the Passover feast to remind the Israelites of how He had graciously delivered them out of Egypt. Note that it was not the previous nine plagues but this last judgment that finally forced Pharaoh (a type of Satan) to let God's people go free. In other words, it was the sacrifice of an innocent lamb (the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ) and the shedding of its (His) blood that bought God's people freedom (redemption and salvation) from the clutches of Pharaoh (Satan). As Christians, we are already saved from hell. But when it comes to divine protection, the blessing does not fall automatically into our laps just because we are Christians. Like the Israelites in Egypt, we must still apply the blood. The Israelites had to apply the blood on their doorposts, or their firstborn would have been killed along with the firstborn of the Egyptians. Today, we apply the blood for protection over ourselves or our loved ones by simply speaking or praying in faith. For example, the head of the household can lay his hands on his child and say, "Father, I apply the precious blood of Jesus over my son who is going to school now. Watch over him and protect him from the evil one." If ever you sense danger in your spirit, whether it pertains to you or your loved ones, do not hesitate to apply the blood of Christ through prayer. Many Christians and their loved ones have escaped serious accidents and deaths just by being sensitive to the unction of the Holy Spirit in them to pray and apply the blood of Christ for protection and deliverance.
How to examine or judge ourselves
Many Christians have been taught that before they can take the Holy Communion, they must "examine themselves", that is, think hard to see if they have sins which need to be confessed and forgiven. So they go on a soul-searching, sin hunt -- digging up all sorts of sins. The serious and honest ones often find that the Holy Communion is already over when they are only halfway through their confessions! The above verses simply mean that before we take the Holy Communion, we are to check ourselves to see if we have believed and received by faith what the bread and wine represent -- the pierced, striped, burnt and broken body of our Lord for our healing, and the blood for our ongoing righteousness and for our protection. Are we laying hold of these truths and claiming the benefits by faith as we partake of the elements? This is what it means to examine or judge ourselves.
Judgment and condemnation?
Verse 32 is not saying that God gave sicknesses and death sentences to the Corinthian church. Notice in verse 29 that it says "eats and drinks judgment to himself". This implies that the fault lies with the partaker himself and not God. The partaker was "not discerning the Lord's body". We live in a fallen world. We have wars, earthquakes, unpredictable weather and all types of diseases. The human body is fallen too. It gets tired and is susceptible to sicknesses. It all began after Adam sinned. And things will pretty much remain the same -- as far as the world is concerned -- until Christ comes back. So humans falling sick and dying prematurely are defaults in this fallen world. And by taking the Holy Communion without discerning the Lord's body, we allow these defaults to be enforced in our lives. In other words, we allow ourselves to be "condemned with the world" (verse 32). For example, when the flu bug comes around, we expect to fall sick just like everybody else, as if there is no difference between a child of God and a child of the world. But thank God that we do not have to be "condemned with the world". Christians do not have to suffer diseases and premature deaths just because the world suffers these things. They can live in divine health and serve God to a ripe old age. And this is possible through taking the Holy Communion in a worthy manner -- discerning the Lord's body and blood. So if we would examine or judge ourselves concerning these things, God would not have to judge us (verses 31 and 32). The judgment of the Lord here is not referring to sicknesses and premature deaths. Verse 32 says that this judgment is His chastening. God chastens us with His Word to our spirits (see With His Word, to our spirits), which was what Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, was doing to the Corinthian church in his letter. So the Lord was chastening the Corinthian church (through Paul's letter) so that they would not suffer the same sicknesses and premature deaths that the world was suffering -- "that we may not be condemned with the world".
As mentioned, most Christians know that Jesus Christ died for their sins and that by believing in Him they are saved from hell. That is certainly true and this is the most precious aspect of His work on the cross.
But that is not all there is. There are many other divine exchanges that took place on the cross. For example:
The list is by no means exhaustive. There is so much more that Jesus suffered and died to give us. We are only scratching the surface of God's grace. Perhaps that is why Paul said that he was determined to know nothing else but Christ and Him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2), that is, Jesus and what He has accomplished on the cross for us. Incidentally, the Greek word for "saved" in the New Testament is sozo. It means more than just saved from hell. According to Thayer's Greek Lexicon, sozo means:
So just by studying the Greek word for "saved", we learn that salvation is more than just forgiveness of sins or "fire insurance". It includes physical healing, protection and, basically, deliverance from whatever troubles we encounter.
Conclusion The next time you take the Holy Communion, come reverently and boldly to the Lord's Table without guilt, shame or condemnation. Know that all your sins have been forgiven and that His blood has washed you whiter than snow -- forever! If you do feel "unworthy" because you have just fallen into sin, all the more you should drink from the cup and remind yourself of the power of His blood to continuously keep you clean. Remember, it is not your confessions, prayers or your banging your head against a brick wall that makes you righteous before God. To believe and do those things is nothing more than self-righteousness. No, only the blood of Jesus can make you righteous once and for all. And it did, the moment you believed on Him. Have more faith in His blood than in your sinning. And when you eat the bread, do not just go through the motion and do it as a ritual. Recognise what Christ suffered in His body to give you, be it health and healing, prosperity, a Father-son relationship or righteousness. Believe the benefits, receive them by faith and you will be partaking of the Holy Communion in a worthy manner.
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