Elements on the Lord’s Table

When Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper, He did so at the Passover feast He was observing with His disciples. Often this is referred to as The Last Supper. It was during this supper that Jesus took two of the Passover elements and gave them spiritual and memorial significance under the New Covenant and in the New Kingdom (the church). Every meal has a menu of food. The Passover had several items of food and drink required of the Jews. Jesus only took two of these elements and added to His supper. The Lord’s Super only consists of a food (solid) and a drink (liquid). Jesus chose unleavened bread and fruit of the vine. By comparison with most meals, this would be considered physically insignificant. Considered spiritually, it is most magnificent.

Unleavened Bread

By necessary inference, we conclude the bread used for the Lord’s supper should be unleavened. The Lord’s Super was instituted during the Passover Feast which was also part of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Matt. 26:17). The Mosaical Law legislated that leaven must be put out of one’s house during the seven-day observance of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Ex. 12:15,19,20). Anyone who ate leavened bread during this feast would have sinned and was rejected by Israel. Jesus was perfect and did not sin (Heb. 4:15). Therefore, He took no leavened bread or even leaven (yeast) with Him to the Passover. His disciples were sent to make ready for the Last Supper. Part of the preparations would have been the removal of all leaven from the upper room. The only bread available to Jesus to take up and use for the institution of the Lord’s Supper that night would have been unleavened.

The term “unleavened” simply means “without leaven.” According to Webster’s Dictionary the term “leaven” is “that which raises, any substance used to produce fermentation, as in dough or liquids, to make light by a leavening agent,” In his Greek lexicon W.E. Vine writes, “Leaven, sour dough, in a state of fermentation was used in general in making bread.” According to the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, “the leaven consisted, always, so far as the evidence goes, of a piece of fermented dough kept over from a former baking.”

Better Homes and Gardens describes leavening agents as “substances that form bubbles of gas (carbon dioxide) which expand when a batter or dough is heated. Their action makes baked products light and affects that grain and texture. Leavening agents include yeast, baking powder, and soda plus food acid.” Keep in mind, salt is not a leavening agent. “No grain offering which you bring to the Lord shall be made with leaven, for you shall burn no leaven nor any honey in any offering to the Lord made by fire…And every offering of your grain offering you shall season with salt; you shall not allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be lacking from your grain offering. With all your offerings you shall offer salt” (Lev. 2:11,13). The Jews used plain flour never self-rising flour because leavening agents are already added to it. The specified ingredients here are flour, oil and salt.

Jesus gave unleavened bread a spiritual and symbolic meaning. Unleavened was a symbol of purity. It had been used in the Passover in remembrance of bread baked hurriedly under God’s commands before the Exodus from Egypt. Jesus said, “this is my body” in reference to the unleavened bread. It pictures the broken body of Christ which suffered upon the cross. His body would have been as pale and lifeless as unleavened bread.

Fruit of the Vine

Jesus next took a cup containing grape juice and made it part of the Lord’s Supper (Matt. 26:27-29). The phrase “fruit of the vine” meant in the language of the day, the juice or fruit of or from the grapes (Lev. 25:5). There is no evidence that would indicate the use of the fruit of any other vine that of the grape. The word “vine” is used fifty-six times in the Old Testament and thirty-two times in the New Testament and always means grape vine.

The terms “cup” and “fruit of the vine” are used interchangeably in Luke 22:17-18: “ Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, “Take this and divide it among yourselves; for I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” They divided the fruit of the vine. Jesus took “the cup” and said, “divide it among yourselves.” Therefore, the cup is the fruit of the vine. Jesus blessed the contents, not the container.

The fruit of the vine had great spiritual and symbolic meaning in the Lord’s Supper. It was used in the Passover Feast to remember the salvation from death received by those who put blood over their doors in Egypt. Jesus used the fruit of the vine to symbolize His blood, which was shed in death for the salvation of men and the ratification of the New Testament. “Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you. For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom’” (Matt. 26:27-29).

Substitutions, Additions and Subtractions

Since time of Cain, Nadab and Abihu, and King Jereboam, man has felt it necessary to change the commandments of God in regard to worship. This is often true with regard to the elements of the Lord’s Supper.

A group of federal penitentiary inmates in Marquette, Michigan, filed a suit for the right to eat pizza in their religious services. Eating the pizza was supposedly done in commemoration of Christ’s death, and was, apparently, their “Lords’ Supper”. Leonard H. Lundberg, a spokesman for the group, said, “It doesn’t matter if we order a couple of canned hams, a pizza or whatever, as long as the ritual of the church is involved.” Lundberg and his group are members of the Universal Life Church. He continued, “What’s the difference between pizzas and wine and wafers? Whatever a group feels commemorates the body of God in Christ should be allowed.”

This line of argument might work in the court of law of religious rights; however, it will not work with Jesus who specified what He wants in His Supper.

The Mormons teach that: Water is commonly used instead of wine in the sacramental services for the church. “It mattereth not what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink when ye partake of the sacrament, if it so be that ye do it with an eye single to my glory – remembering …my body…and my blood”. (Doctrines and Covenants, Sec. 27, p.40). It seems to have mattered to Jesus and Paul.

From the Associate Press dispatch on April 23, 1969, in St. Louis, Missouri: “the use of hamburgers and soft drinks at Communion is acceptable if those items have religious significance for the communicant,” says Methodist Bishop James Thomas of Des Moines. “It is proper to say that this honored sacrament must be interpreted with meaning and vitality in every age’, Bishop Thomas said at a session of the First United Methodist Convocation on Worship. ‘We are determined not to continue doing things that have no meaning in this modern world.” Just how did unleavened bread and fruit of the vine lose its meaning given be the Lord? And just how did hamburgers and soft drinks obtain meaning?

The Broadway Church of Christ in Lubbock Texas reported in its paper Advance: “one Sunday, a child was happy beyond words that the preacher had taken time out so that everyone could have fool-Aid and cookies. It was the Lord’s Supper.” It appears he has instituted a Lord’s Supper for children.

This kind of adding to and subtracting from and substituting for God’s Word is condemned throughout the whole Bible. Jesus never said, “do your own thing, when it comes to the Lord’s Supper.” He said, “this do.” What Christ specifies excludes everything except what has been specified. We need to do all with His authority not our own. “And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him” (Col. 3:17).

God gave strong warnings against adding and taking away from His Word. “For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book” (Rev. 22:18-19). Remember it is the Lord’s Supper and the Lord’s Table not ours. It is the Lord’s blood and body being memorialized not our own. It is the greatest of insults to the host of the feast to tamper with His provisions for His meal.

– Daniel R. Vess