THE MYTH OF COMMUNION

Tuesday 17 December

What if I told you that there is no such thing as taking communion? You might be offended at first. What if I told you that there is nowhere in the Bible where anyone took communion, ever. Some of you may find that hard to believe even though it is a true statement. Some call it holy communion. Truth be told, you cannot find these two words ‘holy’ and ‘communion’ together in the entirety of the Bible.

The general definition of a myth is a type of story or folklore handed down over generations, where people have introduced certain fictitious events into a narrative that never happened. Communion is in essence a rebranded Passover and many of the occasions that Christians have been led to believe was Jesus having communion with his disciples is clearly not the case.

The Last Supper was one such occasion where it was not strictly Passover. Jesus most likely had it on the Thursday evening at least a full day before the commencement of Passover week.

So what was it? A meal that had the elements of the Passover but it was not technically Passover: Jesus Himself however, was. Remember when Jesus declared Himself ‘Lord of the Sabbath?’ It is possible that He took the same liberty with ‘Lamb of the Passover’ don’t forget Christ was about to be sacrificed for the sins of the world as the true Passover Lamb.

People that try to make it sound like it was communion say it’s about the bread and the cup. The unleavened bread I can understand but Passover had four cups that represented Redemption, Deliverance, Sanctification and Restoration. So which one of those does the communion cup represent?

Another phrase that is commonly mistaken to mean communion is the ‘breaking of bread’. The famous story of Jesus on the road to Emmaus comes to mind. You can read the full account in Luke 24:13-35. Look at verse 30-31. ‘When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.’

The breaking of bread here was sharing a meal together not taking communion. It was at this moment that Jesus chose to reveal Himself. Why? Jesus is the bread of life. He was the bread that came down from heaven.

In John 6:53 Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.”

Although sounding strange at first, this statement is truly profound when it comes to the spiritual meaning of eating and drinking. Remember in the Old Testament, everything was in physical symbols to explain a spiritual reality.

Proverbs 18:21 says ‘death and life are in the power of the tongue and they that love it will eat the fruit of it’

The fruit of what? Their words. What fruit did Adam and Eve eat in the garden? The wrong words.

This is how you eat and drink spiritually in the New Testament. Through the words that you ingest and drink in.

If you think that Jesus wanted us to eat a wafer and drink a ribena in remembrance of Him, then you’re still operating in the Old Testament in which the majority of the gospels are situated in also. When we hear the gospel of Christ; His death, burial and resurrection, we are partaking or eating and drinking of Christ. Everything we do now is in the Spirit.

APPLICATION

Go through all the scriptures in the Bible that you thought were about communion and study them to see what was actually taking place.