This Is My Body: A Messianic Jewish View on Communion with Dr. Greg Stone

Jesus almost plays into this because when he shares with the massive crowd, no one can be a part of me unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. And he doesn’t correct himself. He doesn’t say, whoa, whoa, whoa. I’m speaking symbolically. And they all leave because I imagine because they’re Jewish and they’re like, this is heresy. We’re not going to drink blood. And then at the Passover Seders, when he kind of clarifies, this is my body and he takes the matza, the unloved bread, and so I would understand that is him interpreting what he had said earlier. But I know many of our Catholic friends are saying, no, no, no. See, he doubles down and says, this is my body.

The idea that this becomes my body. I don’t want to sound rude here, but I’m going to talk as a Jewish person here for a moment.

Yeah,

Please. Okay. As just nothing but a Jewish perspective. Okay.

Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Covenant and Conflict podcast with us by popular Demand, our friend and pastor Greg Stone. Also Dr. Pastor Greg Stone. You’re going to see the doctor come out here in a minute. We’re so glad that you’re here. Thank you for coming back.

It’s really good. I’m thankful. Thank you for inviting me.

I’m so excited because last time we had you, we talked about Passover and we’re going to kind of pivot off of Passover and talk about communion, which is amazing because communion was obviously established at the Passover Seder, but it kind of took on a life of itself. And I know that’s something you’re very passionate about and you teach a lot about. We even have handouts, which we will put in the description for you to follow along with if you’d like. So will you just tell us about Passover? I’m interested to hear your perspective not only as a scholar and as a doctor in theology, but also as a Messianic Jew. Because the early church, first century, early church was predominantly Jewish, and a lot of our understanding of communion or the Eucharist goes back to the early Catholic church, which was predominantly Gentile. So we tend to always have lost the Jewish foundation and understanding, and I think communion might also fall into that box of things that we’ve misunderstood. So will you just talk a little bit about Passover or not Passover communion and then we’ll dive into some specifics.

Well, communion was established at Passover, and there are people who believe that when Jesus Yeshua said, do this in remembrance of me, he was talking about this Passover

Meaning do this once a year, and when you do this once a year, do this in remembrance of me.

And I’m not at all suggesting that we should limit our experience and practice of communion to Passover, but the context of what the Lord was actually saying was when you do this and he’s talking about a meal, and I’ve done communion at home by myself many times, and I’m sure we’ll talk about that, but there’s no biblical support for the idea of doing communion alone. The word coin means it’s translated variously as sharing or partnership or contribution, communion community. The idea of doing it alone, that’s really not in the Bible, but I’m in favor of it. I support it. I’ve done it, and I’m sure I’ll do it again. If it draws you closer to God, by all means. But there’s no biblical support for that. It’s something that is done with community. It is something that is done to celebrate our place in the body of Messiah. And we have this idea of how to do communion based upon culture. For example, the little cups that we do, the little,

The crystal shot glasses

That we take, the crystal shock glasses, those crystal shock glasses, the history of them, the first time they were done was in the 1890s. So there’s no history for that. That’s not even close to anything from the three hundreds with the early Catholic

Church. Yeah, I’m assuming that came along because they had to do it in mass. It was no longer a meal

Concern for health. But the meal, that’s an interesting thing also for the first two centuries, and I hope we talk about this. The first two centuries, communion was only at a meal. There was no sense of anything but that. That’s why twice in one Corinthians 11, Paul writes the church, I don’t have any praise for you in the way that you’re receiving communion. He says, because one of you is eating while another’s going hungry. Now how is that not a meal setting? So it’s a meal setting. I’m not suggesting that this is how we need to only do it. I’m trying to help us get ahold of what is the context of the scripture. So this idea of doing it with people eating this meal with people, the first time that communion started to be celebrated in something other than a meal, first time was probably possibly as early as the second century, some will say. But realistically, fourth century, and by the seventh century, it was basically the agape meals, the agape festivals, the agape meal events had been replaced. But there is nobody, not a single person for really two or three generations that would’ve conceived of the possibility. They would’ve thought it was absurd to have communion apart from a meal.
It was table fellowship or what you used in our recent conversation.

Yeah. Which so much of what God’s heart is in the New Testament with the early church is bringing people to the table together. I mean, we’ve talked I think before about the four abstentions that they give the Gentiles in Acts 15. And you can make a strong argument. The reason for those four abstentions is to allow them to have table fellowship as Jews and Gentiles don’t do these four things that would keep you from having this table fellowship with.

And three of those four have to do with eating.

Yeah,

Totally. So it’s like eating is really, it’s a significant part of, they’re called feasts, they’re called eating events. So that’s what they are. And so the early church would get together and have these communion events, these fellowship events, eating festivals, not little cups and little wafers, but actually eating enough to get full. I personally think that this is one of the greatest things that Gateway Church has going is the community nights, all the campuses will have different, they’ll have a meal and people come together and they have a meal, they eat together, they fellowship, and then they have classes. And I just think that that is really going where the New Testament brings us for communion.

So I don’t want to take you too much off of the path of communion, but when I think of Greg Stone theology, I think about eating and worship. Yes. So we just touch on this for a second. I know it’s about to burst out of you.

Okay. So you’re right. Okay. You’re absolutely right. So eating is in my mind, and I think arguably, and I know this is going to sound so strong to some people, but eating is in the Bible, the central act of worship. Okay. I’m not putting, sometimes when you talk about that, then people think you’re putting down on other forms of worship,

Like music or

Praise, right? I’m not putting down on worship on singing, but I am saying that eating is actually the central act of worship from the fall of man, which happens on the battlefield of food till the final chapter of the New Testament. When people are back at the tree of life eating

To

The first miracle of Jesus where he turns water into wine, who is he? Himself is the bread of life to the feasts, which are all eating events

Except

For the one that’s a fast, which elevates the significance of eating all the more because you don’t eat, but it ends with a feast. Yum. Kippur, they’re not called music festivals, which is kind of interesting. That is interesting. I mean, by all means include music. Absolutely. Music is worship. I will say that singing and music is the fastest way to get into the presence of God, but eating is the central act of worship.

And we finished with the marriage supper of the lamb, right?

Marriage, supper of the lamb and Leviticus, there are five sacrifices, Leviticus 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, the whole burnt offering, the grain offering, the peace offering, the sin offering and the trespass offering. And some of them are called holy, and some of them are called most holy. And there’s only one distinguishing factor for which sacrifices are called holy versus most holy. The singular factor is who eats it. That’s it.

Wow.

There’s no other factor.

Wow.

Okay. So the whole burnt offering, chapter one, Leviticus one, the entire animal is burned up and given to God because this is going to sound crazy. It’s going to just not make sense for a moment, but the entire animal’s burned up. So the whole thing essentially becomes God’s food. And that one’s not called most holy. The second sacrifice, Leviticus two, the grain offering, a handful of it is burned up. So that’s God’s food. And then the rest of it is eaten by the priests that is called most holy.

Wow.

So why is it most holy? Because God and the priest eat it. Who’s our priest? Jesus Yeshua. So if God the Father and God the Son eat it, it’s most holy, if only God, the Father eats it. It’s only holy.

Wow.

Isn’t that interesting? Yeah, that’s, I’ll skip Leviticus three. Leviticus four is the sin offering

Here.

The fat and the blood are burned up, God’s food portion and the rest of it is eaten by the priest. So God, the father and the priest, God the Father, God the Son, eat it. So therefore it’s most holy. Same thing happens in Leviticus chapter five, the trespass offering, the fat and the blood are burned up, God’s food and the rest is eaten by the priest. So it’s holy not, or excuse me, it’s most

Holy, most holy

Because the Father of God, the son eat it. Now, the peace offering is a unique one. The peace offering, the fat and the blood are burned up. The rest of the animal is eaten by the worshiper, the person who brings it. And so this is not God, this is not the priest, this is the worshiper, but there’s a portion of the animal breast and the right thigh. And the Leviticus seven goes back and explains Leviticus three. In Leviticus seven, the breast is called a wave offering. This is what a wave offering looks like. So that’s the wave offering and it’s the breast. And then the right thigh is called a heave offering. This is what a heave offering looks like. Now, I prayed about this for 30 years. I’ve never seen it in a commentary. One day the Lord gave it to me. This is what the wave offering of the breast and the heave offering of the thigh looks like when you put ’em together.

Wow.

Is that not cool? Whoa. Okay. And now it gets even cooler because Leviticus seven verses 31 through 34 calls that the priest’s portion of the peace offering. So who is our priest?

Jesus.

And he, that’s the part he gets of the peace or otherwise translated fellowship offering. So now this peace offering is not most holy. It’s only holy. Why? Because somebody other than God the father, and God the Son, eat it. So the singular factor determining which sacrifices are holy instead of most holy is who eats it.

Wow.

Eating is the central act of worship.

You didn’t think you were going to go to church today with Leviticus, did

You? Philippians Paul says, don’t let your stomach become your God. The first Corinthians, I think it’s 10, says, whatever you eat or drink, do it. Un the Lord. In other words, do it as an act of worship. Every time we eat, every time we drink, we ought to see it as an act of worship. The church, the evangelical church, has largely done things like, for example, say abstain from alcohol. And I’m not going there at all, but I’m saying we’re falling way short of what God’s telling us to do with eating

When

We just focus on this one issue. Alcohol. It’s not just alcohol, it’s all eating needs to be something that we’re doing for God. And when we do that, when we eat and taste and see that the Lord is good, and every time I eat, I try to think about God. Every time I chew. Luther once talked about that He emphasized the significance of when we munch on the wafer on the bread. Eating is the central act of worship.

So good. So early first century, ecclesia, church, Jew, Gentile, predominantly Jew, it would’ve been at a table. And do you think that their understanding was do this in remembrance of me, meaning at Passover? And when did it become something that we do all the time? Was that something Paul picks up on when you guys eat together or is that more later in history that we would do communion weekly or monthly versus

Oh, I think in the book of Acts, you could see them fellowshipping in people’s homes from week to week. And

You think they’re taking the bread and saying, this is his body and

Taking the cup. I think that we would do really, really? Okay. So we have this in the church world. I’m not saying this is wrong, it’s like I’m saying, I’m not saying doing communion at home is

Wrong.

Okay. So I’m just trying to give us another perspective.

Yeah, totally.

I think that when we sit down to eat, I remember United with Israel, rabbi Kin once said that the, the only two biblically commanded prayers according to rabbinic Judaism are the prayer after you eat according to Deuteronomy, it says, after you’ve eaten, remember to give thanks. And the other one is the Shma. That’s rabbinic Judaism. All other prayers in Judaism are conceived of as rabbinically oriented, not biblically oriented. So we do see the Bible commanding us to pray after we’ve eaten and we see the example of Jesus while they were eating the bread. So if I were to redo my family now, if I were a young father, young mother, I would give far less emphasis to the idea of let’s pray at the beginning of the meal because that kind of turns into this idea of, Hey, can we all hurry up and get in here because the food’s getting cold and we’re almost blaming God for the food getting cold. Instead, what I would do is I’d follow the example of Jesus. I would say something like, okay, now that we’re all here in the middle of the meal, let’s just take a moment
And give God thanks

Because the food’s good, the

Food’s good. So I would just literally do it in the middle of the meal. And I think that we could literally take every meal and just at some point during that meal, take a piece of bread and give God thanks and take your drink and give God thanks. And I think if we did that, we would be far closer to what the scripture actually says to do. I’m fully in favor of praying at the beginning of the meal because it’s so much a part of our culture that to not do that is almost culturally awkward. But I think the idea of if it doesn’t happen at the dinner table tomorrow night and you just literally pick up and in the middle of the meal, how beautiful that would that be? How beautiful would it be if tomorrow night you have your wife bought some cookies or you brought some cookies home from work and you put ’em on the dining room table and in the middle at the end of your meal, Hey, you know what? Let’s taste and see that the Lord is sweet and he used a cookie.

Yeah,

I mean that just be like a different, that would just bring joy.

I’m ready for it. Yeah,

It doesn’t have to. Yeah, totally. It’s about Jesus. It’s not about,

So when we talk about the communion, which in many Catholic and Orthodox circles, it’s called the Eucharist. There is the belief that, and I think it’s growing in popularity. There’s lots of debates right now between Protestants and Catholics or Orthodox that the bread is the actual physical body of Jesus, that it’s trans substantiated into his body miraculously, and this is what Jesus taught. So will you walk us through the, I know in your notes you have the four kind of historical views of communion just to lay the groundwork and then let’s talk about whether this is symbolic or whether this is physical, whether it’s both.

So four views historically, one of them is called trans substantiation. So the idea with that doctrine is that the fruit of the vine, the wine or the grape juice goes through some kind of a change and it becomes the blood and the bread goes through some kind of a change and it becomes the flesh

After you eat it or as you eat it

When it’s blessed. I guess I’m thinking, I’m not an expert on that question. I would think the Catholic Church would say when it’s prayed for, what is my concern with that doctrine? How was that bread made with human hands? And this literally it was made with human hands. And so the second commandment says, you shall not make unto any grave in image of anything

That

Is in heaven above, even if it’s a heaven that is in heaven above on the earth, beneath or in the waters, under the earth in hell. You shall not make into any grave an image of anything in heaven above on the earth, beneath or in the waters under the earth. You shall not bow down to them nor worship them for I the Lord your God. I’m a jealous God suffering the sins of the fathers under the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me and showing mercy said, loving kindness

To

A thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. So to say that those manmade elements become something that we’re worshiping, I cannot think of a better example of a violation of the second commandment. It’s like there’s no way.

If

You took that bread and you put it under an electron microscope, would you see flesh?

No.

You would see one thing.

You

Would see bread.

Yeah.

Okay. Would you see blood? No. You would see grape juice or wine. You would not see anything else if I treat that cup and that bread as though it were Jesus. And so I bow before it and I treat it and I worship it as though it were God. What I have just done is I’ve now taken something made with human hands and turned it into God. Imagine if instead if the second person in the Trinity showed up in this room right now, you and I would fall to the ground and kiss carpet. Okay, we’d be on our face.

Yeah, totally.

It would be a completely different experience than a little cup and a little wafer. So I think that they’re beautiful. This idea of trans substantiation is just for me is just absurd.

Well, and it feels very gentile in that, I don’t know of any Jewish person that would ever think of the idea that the Messiah, the Son of God, would command people to drink blood because that goes against the Torah. That’s a command you shall not drink of the blood. So it feels like you said, not only in contradiction to the second commandment, but also a contradiction of drinking blood. This very harsh commandment in scripture that you will never do this.

Oh, it’s horrible to do that. And God even makes that one of the four things that he doesn’t want Gentiles to do in Acts 15. But here’s how I would put it. Imagine if I were sitting there with your kids

And

I’m teaching them about something, and I had this piece of paper and I drew on this piece of paper a stick man, and I said, this is me. It’s just a stick man picture. This is me. And I’m trying to explain to your kid how grieved I am over something that just happened and this is me, and I just feel torn because, and I tear this paper in half. Would your kid think that I just said that that stickman on the paper was actually me? No, he would understand. A child would understand that I was using that as a symbol of me and not me. It’s an

Absurdity. Well, and Jesus almost plays into this because when he shares with the massive crowd, no one can be a part of me unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. And he doesn’t correct himself. He doesn’t say, whoa, whoa, whoa. I’m speaking symbolically. And they all leave because I imagine because they’re Jewish and they’re like, this is heresy. We’re not going to drink blood. And then at the Passover Seders, when he kind of clarifies, this is my body and he takes the matza, the unleavened bread, and so I would understand that as him interpreting what he had said earlier. But I know many of our Catholic friends are saying, no, no, no. See, he doubles down and says, this is my body. And there was a debate between a Catholic and a Protestant, and the Protestant went in for about a 45 minute rebuttal about how Jesus speaks symbolically. And then the Catholic, I think it was a Catholic priest, came up and said, you just spent 45 minutes saying that Jesus said, this is symbolic, but Jesus actually said, this is my body, so who should I listen to you or Jesus? And that was kind of the end of the debate, or at least he thought it was. What’s more obvious than that? And my thought is, well, Jesus also said, if your eye causes you to sin,

Plug it out,

Gouge it out. He didn’t say

Symbolically or we call this mountain to be moved. So there are times where he clearly is using metaphors,

Even if he’s not using or symbolic

Language. Well, and as are similes, but metaphors don’t have to use or as metaphor. And the Bible’s full of metaphors or even

Hyperbole.

Hyperbole as well. Yeah.

Gouge your eye out. Yeah.

So the idea that this becomes my body, it’s just, I don’t want to sound rude here, but I’m going to talk as a Jewish person here for a

Moment. Yeah, please.

Okay. As just nothing but a Jewish perspective. Those parts of the church, those sects of the church that have the larger presence of images, statues, idols,

Those

Are the churches that practice transubstantiation idolatry, literally. I mean, I don’t mean to be down on

No, totally.

There’s a lot of strengths with the Catholic church, a lot of them, but let’s be real, they have more images which are from a Jewish perspective, idolatry. The Protestants could learn a lot from the Catholic.

Totally.

Okay. So

No, it’s a tension that we have to manage. I remember being in Jordan and I had a Messianic Jewish rabbi with me, and I had a Protestant pastor with me, and they were talking about iconography, and I had never heard that word before, but it was the theology of images and paintings and statues. And they were talking about, I like iconography and it makes me worship God more. And I see the painting, I see the statues, and I know that it’s not God. It’s just, it’s beholden to God. And I worship God more clearly a human. And I went to the Messianic rabbi and I said, what do you think about this? And he was like,

Eh, not at all. So I would put it in the same category. Now as in James chapter five, we’re told to pray over people anointing with oil. Clearly the oil is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. Nobody thinks the oil is the Holy Spirit. And nobody, I hope, nobody doubts the power, the efficacy of anointing somebody with oil, with a prayer of faith for physical healing. We’re not doubting that. We’re just, so the oil becomes, this is one those four views. Now symbolism, this idea that it really is this symbolic oil, symbolic manifestation of the spirit or the cup and the bread, this symbolic manifestation of the body and the blood. But it’s not transubstantiation, it’s still just materialism or material thing.

So you have transubstantiation, you have symbolism,

Then you cob substantiation would be essentially the same thing, or khan or cob substantiation. Basically it is the idea that the bread actually stays bread, but at the same time, there is also the flesh and the juice stays juice. But at the same time, there’s the blood. And my arguments will be exactly the same. I mean exactly the same because if you put that bread or that cup under an electron microscope, what are you going to see?

Bread

Only, you’re not going to see any flesh. You’re not going to see any

Blood.

So all of the arguments against transubstantiation are just as strong against conb substantiation. There’s no

Difference.

And then the next view is called a memorial or a symbolism. This is Zw was, I think he was from Switzerland or Sweden. I think Switzerland ly was a reformer. And his thought was, it’s just symbolic. And I think he’s right, just a symbolic presence of, and that’s like I just described with the oil. And then there’s a fourth view, which is really this value to it, real presence. There’s a real presence of God there. But again, I’m going to say it’s not the same as God if Jesus showed up in the room right now we’re kissing the carpet. Okay, this is different now. But I do understand the, so I speak with a sense of awareness here. I talked about the little cup and the little wafer. So I would say about 1987, I was part of a church and they were planting another church, birthing another church. And at this service, the established the mothering service, we had communion. And I know that when I ate those elements, I felt God’s presence go down into me. I mean, it was like where those elements went. I felt God, I could feel it go down into me.
So I don’t doubt that God. But that same thing could be said with anointing with oil.

Yeah. It’s like there’s a unique presence that happens during communion or there might be a unique presence during the oil. I think if my understanding of true presence is right, it’s that it’s different than other things that we might do. There’s a special presence and intimacy because we’re doing this in remembrance of Jesus or we’re doing this long lasting tradition. I think that’s kind of the understanding. Right.

And to be frank, I have many times, countless times thought of that experience when I really did feel God’s presence as I was receiving communion and desired it and put my faith in every way I knew how. And I’ve never had a similar repeat of that experience. It was certainly a memory. I mean, I’m talking about something that happened roughly 1987.

So that was a unique experience with friends of

God. And they were planning a church, which I think is an interesting time to have it happen. And I don’t know that anybody else felt it, but I did.

And you’ve experienced the presence of God in communion other times. But that was a unique special,

Almost

More of a manifest presence that was in me

Rather than experiencing the presence of God like we will in a song service. Yeah. Nothing I said is down on the presence of God in a song service. In no way was I trying to diminish that. What I was trying to do is help us get the understanding of eating up to where it needs to be. And I think the reason why the overwhelming, vast majority of the church world does not experience the presence of God when we eat is because we’ve not trained ourselves to do it. So the first time we sang, we didn’t feel the presence of God, we A, B, C, D, E, F, G. Now I said, my ABCs, tell me what you think of me. It wasn’t worship. And we trained ourselves to experience God. And we can, I know I,

We

Can train ourselves to experience God’s presence when we eat. And if we will do that, we can experience God’s presence every day, all the time. How many times a day do we put some food in our

Mouth? Yeah, constantly.

Constantly. How many times a day do I sing? I have days where I sing. I have days where I don’t sing, but if I am alive, I’m eating. And if I’m not eating, I’m fasting, which we only raises the significance of eating more

Because

Counting down the hours before we can eat again. So eating is the central act. Communion is, and going back to this whole eating thing, because there are no songs that the universal church sings, but the universal church practices communion. So watch this. The central act of worship in the New Testament is eating communion.

And it’s the one thing that’s kind of unifying the church right now. Even though we’re very divided,

We might be divided how we do it, but we’d be divided on how we do songs.

Yeah, totally.

I mean, some people like this kind of music, some people like that kind of music

Instruments, no instruments,

Right? Whatever. And we could talk about that. We could do a broadcast

On that. Round three instruments and wine we’re coming at you.

Instruments and wine. They go together, don’t they? Rock and roll. Yep.

We’ll have

Some fun titling that episode. Let’s rock and roll with Jesus. So yeah, communion is, it’s

Eating. So I know in your notes you talk a little bit about the tabernacle and how communion is almost either foreshadowed or just done, and then you kind of walk through the first time we see communion, who takes that communion? So we talk a little bit about those.

In the AK first time bread and wine are mentioned together. It’s in Genesis 14, it’s when Abram comes back from battle. It’s 318 train soldiers, and he goes to rescue his nephew lot and he comes back and he meets Melek, who is the priest of the most high. And Melek gives him bread and wine. So melek from Hebrew seven, I think the church understands melek to either be Jesus or to be a symbolic representation of you.

Like a

Foreshadow. Yeah, foreshadow. One or the other. Either way, let’s just call him Jesus.

Either way. He’s special.

So he’s the prince of Jerusalem, right?

Yeah,

Prince of peace. And so EK gives bread and wine, gives communion to Abram. And that’s the first time they’re mentioned together. And interestingly enough, the response of Abram is very interesting. Abram responds by giving a tithe to melek. So the first time tithing is mentioned is in response to the blessing of having had communion with God. And I think that we would do well if we understood that communion or rather tithing is a response to having been blessed by the presence of God.

Yeah, that’s great.

So that’s the first time bread and wine are meshed together. That’s good. The second time we find communion, as it were mentioned in the scripture, is in Moses’ Tabernacle in Exodus 28 and other places in Exodus, you find this table with the show bread. So that table has 12 loaves each representing one of the tribes. And on that same table, we don’t always recognize this because it’s called the table with the show bread. But on that table there’s also pictures with the fruit of the vine. So there were wine or grape juice on that table.

Got it.

So there’s communion there. So when you walk out of the courtyard into the tent of meeting,

The

First room you come to is the holy place. The second room is the holy of Holies in the holy place. To your right is the table with the show bread. That’s Jesus, right? That’s the bread, the bread and the wine. And to your left is the candelabra.

Yeah, the menorah.

Menorah, which is powered by oil, which represents the Holy Spirit. So you got Jesus to your left, you got the Holy Spirit, Jesus to your right, the Holy Spirit to your left. And in front of you is the golden altar of incense,

Which

Is the place of prayer. And of course that’s up against the veil, which is right before the Holy of Holies. So it’s like when we come to the golden altar of prayer, it’s like we’re coming into God’s presence. We’re approaching his throne. His throne is on the other side of that veil where the ark of the covenant, the covenant we have with him, and it’s covered by the mercy seat. And so we come to this place of prayer. We have Jesus to our right, we have the Holy Spirit to our left, and we bring our prayers to God.

So

Hebrews seven says that our priest ever lives to make intercession for us. That’s not even remotely implying that Jesus is praying for us. What that’s talking about in the context of Hebrews seven is that we have a priest who doesn’t die. He’s always alive comparing to Mel. He’s not born. He doesn’t die. He lives forever. All of the other priests die. Our priest lives forever. So we have this priest who has made the way open for us to come to God all the time. And for me, this is a big deal because in James four verse two, the scripture says, you have not because you ask not. What that tells me is that God is saying that there’s things I want to do in your life, and I’m not going to do it until you ask me. Even though I want to do it, I really want to do it, but I’m not doing it until you pray. So there’s things that God wants to do, but he’s not until we pray. And sometimes he makes us pray again and again. Again, why sometimes he just wants the communion with us and he just wants us around like a father just wants his kids around.
And so what he’s done is he’s created this situation where we are called upon by God. Jesus said, that day will come when I’m not going to pray. He actually says, I will not ask the Father on your behalf, you’ll ask the Father in my name and he will do it for you because you’ll come in my name. So we are told to come to that a golden altar of incense and pray. And our priest ever lives. He’s always there for us. So to our right is Jesus, and to our left is the Holy Spirit. And these two advocates, Jesus called the Holy Spirit, another advocate, another helper.

We

Have these two lawyers, these two advocates

We’re

Standing on either side of us as we approach the Father.

Yeah, it’s beautiful.

Yeah, it’s beautiful. So beautiful.

And from there we’ve talked about Jesus, we’ve talked about Passover, we talked about the Seder. Paul is the one that then picks it up after Jesus. And he’s the one that really dives into how we’re supposed to do communion. And he corrects the Corinthian church on how they’re doing communion. And so I know this is kind of where we want to land this plane because this is the most practical for us as the early church. What were the Corinthians doing wrong and what was Paul’s purpose in addressing communion? And then I have a question because, and this might go into that trans substantiation a little bit because Jesus says, this is my body, but then scripture also says, you are the

Body. Oh yeah.

So it’s like, wait, so if this wafer becomes the body, but I am the body, but I’m a part of the body. And Paul talks about the body in one Corinthians, that’s all he talks about

Many times in one Corinthians 12, he calls the church the body over and over

And over again. Yeah. So it is interesting, and I wonder if there is, and I’d love for you to expound on this, if there is a parallel between us taking communion the body and us being the body, and then Paul saying, why are you not acting like the body? So talk about Paul.

Okay, so we’re talking about one Corinthians.

Yeah.

And in one Corinthians, there are, I think it’s fair to say that the okay, you always want to ask yourself when you’re reading a book of the Bible, why did the author write the

Book? Totally.

So why did Paul write First Corinthians?

Well,

He says right away in chapter one, there’s divisions among you. He says, and I believe it in chapter six, he talks about lawsuits. In chapter three, he talks about some of you say, I’m a Paul. I’m Apollo, I’m ACEs

Is

Christ divided.

Totally.

So the book is written for the purpose of dealing with disunity

And to bring unity

And to bring unity. He says, you guys got to get this

Together.

So when he gets to chapter 12, he uses this phrase, body, could the eye say to the hand, I’m not part of it, right?

Yep.

So he’s really, and there the word body repeatedly is used of the church, not of the bread. So that’s 12 one Corinthians 12. So one Corinthians one through 10, he’s dealing with all of this disunity stuff. And when he gets to first Corinthians 11, he pulls out what I call the big kahuna. Okay. Communion. And Paul’s point with communion, as he says, you got to get along. And so he’s using communion for that purpose. And I kind of want to say for no other purpose,

Like communion was the unifier. It was the thing he was using to bring them together.

In fact, the word communion, koinonia is translated with fellowship or sharing or partnership or communion. So this idea of doing communion alone, that’s wonderful. If I’ve experienced God’s presence doing it alone, that’s fine. That’s wonderful. Anything you could experience God’s presence in your house, by all means do it. But you’re not doing something that the Bible’s telling you to do. So let’s just, what does the Bible say? It

Kind

Of matters a little bit. What does the Bible say? So when we get to one Corinthians 11, Paul pulls out the big kahuna communion and he’s twice we’ll say in this chapter, I don’t have any praise for you guys in the way you are receiving communion. Imagine if a pastor got up and told the church, Hey guys, the way you guys are receiving communion, you ought to be ashamed. I don’t have any praise for you. That’s essentially what Paul says.

Yeah, totally

Twice. And then he explains it. He says things like, for I hear that some of you are eating while other people are going hungry. He says, don’t you have houses to eat and go home and do that? So clearly showing that the only context, not 99%, this singular only context for communion in the first couple of centuries

Is doing it together

Was a meal in the church, eating a meal together.

And when you say in the church is most likely meaning in a home, in a home

With the body of absolutely

Messiah.

So I tell people they need church, but there’s all kinds of models for churches. You got megachurches, you got home churches, you got everything in between church. So that’s the only context for communion in the Bible. It’s this church meal.

Totally.

And so what ends up happening is he says, you’re eating, somebody’s getting drunk and do that in your home. This is not communion what you’re doing. And in the middle of this, and he says, one eats the bread and drinks the cup. In fact, let me, actually, I have those verses here. I’ll just read it. This is one Corinthians 11 because it goes right to what you’re saying. He says in one Corinthians 11 beginning verse 17. Now in giving these instructions, I do not praise you since you come together, not for the better, but for the worse. Imagine if a pastor said, Hey, the way you guys are receiving communion, this is not good. This is actually worse than, it’d be better if you just didn’t do it. Just didn’t do it all. Please stop doing this.

Yeah,

Okay. That’s what he says. He says, for first of all, I hear when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. This is Paul’s concern. And in part I believe it for there must be factions among you that there must also be factions among you that those who are approved may be recognized among you. Therefore, when you come together in one place, it is not to eat the Lord’s supper. He says, that’s not communion just because you’re together. He says for it, eating each one takes his own supper ahead of the others, and one is hungry and another is drunk. What do you not have houses to eat and drink in? And do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I do not praise you. This is Paul telling the people what he thinks about how they’re receiving communion. And lemme just say before really a magic going to a community supper and you got somebody in the line next to you and there’s only one piece of meat left in the tray. Do you take it or do you tell the person behind you to take

It?

Or you imagine you’re looking in this four or five pieces in there, but one of ’em looks really good and you say to your neighbor, that one looks really good right there. Why don’t you take that one? That’s what Paul’s got in mind. So he goes on and says, for I receive from the Lord, which I also deliver to you, that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which he was portrayed, took bread. And he’s talking about communion now

Took

Bread. And when he had given things, he broke it. He said, take eat. This is my body which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same manner, he also took the cup after supper saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. As often as you drink this, do this. Remember something. So he’s mentioning the bread and the cup, and he’s saying these two things are, they represent communion. He says, for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, and as he mentions the bread and the cup again together. So this idea that he’s mentioning them together, this is what matters. He says, as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s that till he comes. And then he says, therefore, whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup, there’s the bread in the cup again

Together. That’s what makes it communion, is the bread and cup

Together, bread and cup, absolutely. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord, in an therefore whoever eats this bread and drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. So you’re receiving these two elements, and if you don’t do it right, you’re guilty. You’re offending the body and the blood. You’re sometimes I like to say, the body of Jesus is in heaven and the body of Christ is on the earth. The anointed one, the anointed we’re the church. The body of Jesus is not on the earth, it’s in heaven. So he says, but if you eat this in an unworthy manner, you’re guilty of something. And then he says, but let a man examine himself and eat of this bread and drink of this cup. And so the church has historically taken that to think that I’m supposed to examine myself to see if Jesus is in me. Am I saved? There’s a problem with this theology because what it essentially does is it clearly communicates you have no security as a believer, every time you receive communion, you need to ask yourself, am I really saved? Am I on my way to heaven or am I on my way to hell? That’s what happens if you think you’re supposed to examine yourself to see if you’re saved. He goes on to save whoever eats this and eats and drinks in an unworthy manner, eats and drinks judgment to himself,
Not discerning the Lord’s body. And notice it doesn’t say body and blood.
And he’s going to go from there in a few moments into chapter 12, where he is going to use the word body repeatedly without mentioning of the blood, without mentioning of the cup, and he’s going to be referring to the church. So what Paul’s really saying here, whoever eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and read judgment to himself not discerning the Lord’s body. Lemme say it this way, not discerning the Lord’s church is really what he’s saying there. For this reason, many are weak and sick among you and many sleep for if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chasing by the Lord that we may not be condemned with the world. Therefore, my brother, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. And if anyone is hungry, let him eat at homet when you come together, lest you come together for judgment and the rest, I will set an order when I come. So what Paul’s really saying to do here in one Corinthians 11 is when you come together and you start to have, and you’re going to have communion,
I want you to use this community event of a meal. And I want you to look around the room and I want you to ask, how am I getting along with everybody else in this room? Because if I’m looking around this room and I’m seeing I have a broken relationship with them, I am failing to discern the Lord’s body. It’s not that I’m failing to discern the bread as the body of Jesus. What I’m failing to discern it is that David is the image of God and I am mistreating him. And when I mistreat David, I’m actually mistreating the image of God. And what Paul is actually saying is when I receive communion, if I don’t discern the Lord’s body, I eat and drink judgment on myself. And then he says, for this reason, and this is really a big deal, many are weak and sick, and he actually says, and many sleep. In other words, many Christians die. He actually says that there are many Christians according to Paul, who prematurely die because they are mistreating other people in the body of Messiah. And what is saying to do is to use communion as this opportunity to examine myself as much as lies within you live peaceably with all men. What do I need to do in myself
To get along with you and with you and with you? What do I need to do?

Discerning the Lord’s body, meaning discerning that we’re all a part of the church, the body. And if I’m not discerning that, then yeah, I’m going to,

And I might die. Ill go to heaven, but I might die. I might be sick. And so this whole idea of how I treat other people in the body, in the church will determine my status in this world and frankly, what kind of reward I might have in the world to come. So the discerning is not, he says, says, examine yourself. It’s not to see if I’m saved. I have security as a believer. The issue is examine myself to see how am I getting along with the body. And so the real call with communion, and it is fine to do it at home, absolutely,

But

It really is. And I like to point out to people the word communion and the word community are the same word just in English. You can see it and you are not receiving. If you never did communion, the bread in the cup again, if you never did it again as an individual, you would not spiritually miss out on anything. If you never did it again in a corporate setting, you would be missing out on the very point. So that’s really where God wants us to do it.

That’s so good

With people. And how am I getting along with you? That’s the point. You are the image of God. And

We are the body.

We are the body. But what Paul is wanting me to recognize is you are the image and we are, this is the church. And when we have these community suppers at Gateway, I’m looking around the room and thinking, is there somebody I need to get right with? Is there something I need to do? What do I need to do? I can’t change them. I can’t change them, but I can change me.

It reminds me of when Jesus says, if you’re going to bring sacrifice to the altar, and then you realize that you have an offense against a brother, leave it there and first become unified with your brother, and then you can make the sacrifice. It’s similar, very

Much so. Okay, this image of God is a big deal. We’re probably going to run out of time here pretty soon.

This is good.

But this image of God is a really big deal. So you’ve got 10 commandments, okay? You’ve got two tablets of the 10 Commandments, the name of Adonai, the ineffable name, the Teragram

Time

Appears in all of the first five Commandments. So literally the name of God appears in every commandment on the first tablet, the name of God, like in Hebrew, every letter has a numeric value. Like in English, we’d say A, B, C. So it’d be 1, 2, 3. So in Hebrew, every Hebrew letter has a numeric value. This is Gria. So you could add up the numeric value of every word, and you would have, what is the words value? The ineffable name, the Tera ground on has a numeric value of 26. The second tablet of the 10 Commandments never has the name of God on it. The second tablet of the 10 Commandments has 26 Hebrew words. Wow. Isn’t that interesting? Very interesting. The ineffable name, the Tetragrammaton, the image of God. All of the commandments that are about people are on that second tablet.

Wow.

How I treat you is how I treat God. When Anani and safari, Peter said, you didn’t lie to a man. You lied to the Holy Spirit. In other words, you lied to the image of God. Right? That’s the issue there. And this is why when we eat or we drink communion in an unworthy manner, we are bringing judgment upon ourselves. And this is why many do get weak and sick. And according to the Bible,

Die.

Die, right? God says, I can’t use you to build my church. I might as well just take you home.

Wow.

Geez. It matters.

Totally. That’s amazing. That’s such revelation. Thank you for sharing that with us and going through it with us. We’re going to make those notes available on our description so you can sift through it yourselves. And I think just our takeaway being that every time we go into a church, no matter what stream of church we go into, if there’s communion being done, or we just happen to be at a fellowship table with other believers and we take communion, I think now everyone that’s listened to this is going to think, is there anybody that I need to get right with? And before we take communion, maybe I need to get it right or be aware of the body, and if the body is disjointed, if it’s divided,

Or I’ll take care of this as soon as I have the chance, I’m going to walk over. As soon as we’re done here, I’m walking over to

Them.

I’m getting this right.

Yeah. Praise the Lord. Well, God, thank you so much for Dr. Pastor Greg Stone. Lord, thank you that we all need to understand the image of God that you’ve placed on the earth, that every person, every human being has value because they’re made in the image of God. And Lord, when we come together as the body, especially in the time of communion, Lord, remind us as we do things in remembrance of you and your sacrifice, but also remind us if there’s any person that we need to get right with so that we would never drink judgment upon ourselves, Lord, that we would never make the body suffer because we’re so self-indulgent or self-focused, that we just want to eat, eat, and get done. That we don’t take a moment to remember your body on the earth, the body of Christ. And so, Lord, thank you for this revelation. Help us all learn and grow so that we can not be puffed up with knowledge, but so that we can look more like you, and that we can be humble like you, and that we can experience the presence of God in our lives and expand your kingdom on this earth. In Yeshua’s name, amen.

Amen.

Thank you. Thank you. That was great.