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The content of the church is Christ, and the intrinsic reality of every single matter in the church is Christ Himself. If we do not touch Christ and gain Christ, then even our worship and service will be meaningless. Just as the reality of believing in the Lord is Christ’s coming into us, and the reality of baptism is our union with Christ, so also all the services in the church should be related to Christ.
After a person is saved, he encounters several things. The first is baptism, and the second is the breaking of bread.
What is the meaning of bread breaking? And what is the reality of bread breaking? Once we mention the breaking of bread, almost all Christians will say that breaking bread is for remembering the Lord. It is true that in the Bible even the Lord Himself told us that we have to break bread in remembrance of Him (Luke 22:19). Thus, based on this word, many Christians conclude that the significance of bread breaking is the remembrance of the Lord. Although this word, this definition, is not wrong, the meaning of remembering the Lord is not simple.
The remembrance spoken of by the Lord is different from our thought concerning remembrance. When we talk about remembrance, we have our own concept. What is this concept? For example, after a father dies, his children remember him. We all understand this kind of remembrance, but is this remembrance the same as our remembrance of the Lord? I am afraid that many people would say that our remembrance of the Lord is simply our meditating on the Lord. This kind of concept, however, is very different from the thought of the Bible.
According to our natural concept, we think that when we break bread in remembrance of the Lord, we have to calm down and meditate on the Lord in a detailed way. We feel that we need to contemplate how God came down to the earth from the heavens; was born in a manger; lived in Nazareth for thirty years; trod through Galilee and the land of Judea; suffered man’s reproach and persecution; was betrayed, bound, and scourged for us; bore the cross to Golgotha; was crucified; endured unbearable pain; bore our sins; and was judged by God on our behalf. Moreover, we feel we need to contemplate His burial, His resurrection, His ascension, and His sending of the Holy Spirit. We also feel we need to contemplate the fact that He is now sitting in the heavens as our High Priest and that one day He will come again to take us to be with Him forever to enjoy His glory in eternity. We have all these scenes within us: from the throne in the heavens to the manger in Bethlehem, from Galilee to Judea, from the virgin Mary to Golgotha, and from the tomb to resurrection, ascension, the second coming, the rapture to be with the Lord, and the enjoyment of glory forever. However, this kind of remembrance is based upon a kind of religious concept that is void of any revelation or spiritual value.
All the terms and all the utterances in the Bible are different from our natural comprehension of things. The faith referred to in the Bible is different from our understanding of faith. The repentance mentioned in the Bible is different from our comprehension of repentance. And the remembrance spoken of in the Bible is definitely not according to our realization of remembrance. When the saints remember the Lord in the Lord’s table meeting every Lord’s Day, if they all concentrate in their mind to meditate on the Lord Jesus silently, does this mean that they all love the Lord, are spiritual, and have the Lord’s presence? This kind of remembrance by meditation is not the result of revelation but is a kind of religious worship. This is not service that is according to revelation but service that is according to our natural concept.
In the Bible we cannot find the Lord telling us to meditate on Him in our remembrance of Him. What then did the Lord say? While eating the final Passover, He “took a loaf and gave thanks, and He broke it and gave it to them, saying, This is My body which is being given for you; do this in remembrance of Me” (Luke 22:19). The Lord did not tell the disciples that at the Lord’s table they had to quiet their heart to meditate on Him in remembrance of Him. Rather, the Lord said, “This is My body which is being given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” What the Lord indicated was that to remember Him is to eat Him. The remembrance in the Bible is not meditating. First and foremost, it is eating. What do we eat? We eat the Lord’s body.
Verse 20 continues, “And similarly the cup after they had dined, saying, This cup is the new covenant established in My blood, which is being poured out for you.” What the Lord meant was that He wanted them to drink the cup in remembrance of Him. Hence, what is it to remember the Lord? We remember the Lord when we eat the Lord’s body and drink the Lord’s blood. The remembrance of the Lord in the Bible is to eat and drink the Lord. To remember the Lord is to eat the Lord’s body and drink the Lord’s blood.
What does it mean to eat the Lord’s body and drink the Lord’s blood? To eat the Lord’s body and drink His blood is to eat and drink of the Lord Himself. A person may say, “I have eaten some chicken.” How was he able to eat the chicken? Without death and without the shedding of blood, the chicken could not have entered into him. The reason that the Lord Jesus can enter into us and become our food is because He died and shed His blood.
One day the Lord Jesus told the Jews, “Work not for the food which perishes, but for the food which abides unto eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you” (John 6:27). This meant that the Jews should not have sought to eat bread and be filled, because that bread was merely physical food and was temporary. Instead, they should have sought the food that abides unto eternal life. The bread that the Lord would give was His flesh, but the Jews did not understand Him, so they contended with one another, saying, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” (v. 52). Then the Lord Jesus said, “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life...For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me and I in him” (vv. 54-56). Then many of His disciples said, “This word is hard; who can hear it?” (v. 60). This was due to the fact that they were full of their natural concepts.
What is it to eat the Lord’s flesh and drink the Lord’s blood? To eat the Lord’s flesh and drink His blood is to take the Lord into us by eating and drinking Him. The Lord is life. Therefore, when He comes into us, eternal life comes into us.
From this we see that it is through His death that the Lord gave Himself to us. If He had not died or shed His blood, He could not have any relationship with us and would not have a way to enter into us. The reason why He can enter into us is because He died and shed His blood and thus became edible and drinkable to us. Now whenever we turn to our spirit, believing and receiving the Lord who died and shed His blood for us, we eat His flesh and drink His blood. We believe that in His body He bore our sins on the cross, that He died for us, and that His blood was shed for us on the cross. In God’s eyes, when we believe and receive the Lord in this way, we are eating His flesh and drinking His blood.
What was accomplished by the Lord’s flesh and blood is now our portion. When we believe in Him and receive Him, He enters into us through the Holy Spirit. Thus, when this happens, He is in us and in union with us, and we are in Him and in union with Him. Thus, to eat the Lord’s flesh and drink the Lord’s blood is to receive the Lord Himself as our enjoyment, our life within, and our food. This is to eat the Lord’s flesh and drink the Lord’s blood.
The greatest principle in eating and drinking is receiving, and the principle in receiving is union. Whatever you eat and whatever you drink will enter into you. Moreover, you are united with what you eat and drink. No matter how much we meditate on a person, he cannot come into us. Hence, bread breaking is not to meditate on the Lord but to eat the Lord’s body and drink His blood. In baptism we enter into Christ and are united with Christ, and in bread breaking we eat and drink the Lord Himself and are thus united and mingled with Him. Every time we break the bread, more of the Lord comes into us. Every time we remember the Lord, we have a deeper union with the Lord. This is to remember the Lord.
In the past when we remembered the Lord, many of our concepts were religious and much of our remembrance was in our mind. Every time we came to the Lord’s table, we contemplated His being God, His becoming flesh, His living on the earth for thirty-three and a half years, His dying on the cross, His being raised in three days, His ascending to the throne, and His waiting to come again. We always remembered the Lord in this way — we worshipped and meditated on Him in our mind. However, the Lord said that He is Spirit and that those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness (4:24). Only when we use our spirit and are in our spirit can we touch the Lord, worship the Lord, and genuinely remember the Lord.
Our genuine remembrance of the Lord is our receiving the Lord and allowing Him to enter into us again. The Lord said, “This is My body which is being given for you; do this in remembrance of Me...This cup is the new covenant established in My blood, which is being poured out for you” (Luke 22:19-20). We eat the bread, which signifies the Lord’s body, and drink the cup, which signifies the Lord’s blood. We do this in remembrance of the Lord. Our eating and drinking of the Lord is our remembrance of the Lord. The Lord does not want us to meditate on Him or contact Him with our mind; rather, the Lord wants us to contact Him, eat Him, and drink Him with our spirit. When He was broken for us on the cross, He shed His blood and released His life. The bread and cup we touch outwardly signify His body that was given for us and His blood that was shed for us. This means that He has died and His life has been released from within Him. Now we not only receive the visible bread and cup outwardly, but at the same time, we also touch and receive the Lord Himself in our spirit. We allow Him to come into us again, and again we gain Him, receive Him, and enjoy Him. The Lord said that this is to be “in remembrance of Me.”
In breaking bread we turn to our spirit and through the symbols receive the Lord again and again. Every time we break bread, we receive the Lord once more, and every time we break bread, we again contact the Lord who died and resurrected, touching Him in our spirit. If we really see this, the next time we break bread, we will realize that inwardly we have been filled with too many other things so that the Lord is not able to find any place, any empty room, in us. When we realize this, we need to pray, “O Lord, remove all the things that should not be in me so that You may have a place in me.” The revelation we see will touch our inward problems and cause us to tell the Lord spontaneously, “O Lord, I am glad to pour myself out and empty myself. O Lord, I receive You as the Spirit into me. Fill me with Your resurrection life.” By doing this, after breaking the bread we definitely will be filled with Christ.
There was once a brother who had been at odds with his wife for a long time. Inwardly, he felt that it was not right, but he simply could not help it. Every time he came to the Lord’s table, after singing a hymn and calming down, he would begin to pray, “Lord, You are God, who took the form of a sinner and humbled Yourself for us. You were born in Bethlehem, grew up in Nazareth...” He enjoyed his prayer, and the saints were joyful in their spirits. However, just as he was not happy with his wife before the Lord’s table, he also was not happy with her after the meeting. After the Lord’s table and after this meditation and prayer in his mind, he still had not been touched by the Lord inwardly. Therefore, he was the same after the meeting as he was before the meeting. He was still intact and was the same as he had always been.
One day, however, after receiving revelation and seeing that to remember the Lord is actually to receive the Lord, he could not touch the bread anymore. Why was he unable to do this? He could not touch the bread because he realized that since he was not pleased with his wife, he could not receive Christ into him even though he might take the bread outwardly. Thus, he could no longer break the bread. He felt very bad, and so he poured out his sins and everything that was in him, saying to the Lord, “O Lord, I pour out all my displeasure, my self, my sins, and the world that is within me.” This was not a meditation in the mind but a receiving of the Lord into him. In that one hour of remembering the Lord by breaking bread, he enjoyed the Lord again. As a result, he became a different person.
The Bible tells us that when we break bread, we partake of the Lord’s table (1 Cor. 10:16-17, 21) and enjoy the Lord. When we invite people for a meal, we cannot serve ourselves as food. However, the Lord’s table is different. In the Lord’s table the Lord Himself is spread on the table. What is spread on the Lord’s table is the Lord Himself. In remembering the Lord we come to His table, and on this table His flesh and blood are displayed. Today Christianity has made the Lord’s table a religious matter, without the reality of Christ. However, when we come to the Lord’s table, we come to receive the Lord Himself. We empty ourselves so that the Lord can come in. In this one hour we enjoy the Lord by eating and drinking of Him. By the end we have received and enjoyed Him inwardly. As a result, the world and the flesh are gone.
To partake of the Lord’s table is to remember the Lord. Is there anyone who would attend a feast merely to observe and think but not to eat and drink? Everyone who attends a feast surely eats and drinks. Thus, if we really know what it is to remember the Lord, we will definitely eat and drink to our heart’s content at the Lord’s table. Then every time we remember the Lord, we will be able to say with boldness that all our hunger and thirst are fully satisfied. When people ask us about what we are eating and drinking, we can tell them readily that we are eating and drinking the Lord Jesus. When we receive Him into us, He becomes our life and strength within, enabling us to love those whom we cannot love, to do what we cannot do, to be what we cannot be, and to live in a way that we cannot live. Then during the week He will be digested in us to become our everything, making us joyful and satisfied. This is to enjoy Christ and to receive the Lord.
I hope that our remembrance of the Lord will not be centered on meditating but will be based upon receiving. Every time we remember Him, may we eat Him, drink Him, and enjoy Him inwardly. Then may we take His riches back with us so that we will have Him as our satisfaction, joy, and supply. This is to remember the Lord.
