The first thing we need to examine about ourselves before we take the Lord's Supper is whether we are actually believers. This is not a meal for those who do not know Jesus, nor a meal for those who think it will turn them into Christians. The stark truth about the Lord's Table is that if we participate in the meal as an unbeliever, we will actually increase our degree of eternal suffering, assuming we do not repent and become a true believer before we leave this world. Why is this the case? For at least the following reasons, mostly drawn from the previous devotionals in this series :
- Because of the holiness of the things that are symbolized in the meal. The bread symbolizes the broken body of Christ, and the wine represents His blood, poured out (see Reasons 9-11). The writer to the Hebrews in our text above talks about the severe punishment awaiting someone who treats the blood of Jesus as an unclean, rather than a holy thing. This wine represents the shed blood through which people are redeemed. It speaks of the death of God's "beloved", His One and only Son. Clearly, it cannot be right for someone who has never been made clean by the blood of Christ to drink an emblem of that same blood.
- Because of the purpose of the Table in aiding remembrance of Christ (see Reason #4). Those who take part in the meal are to do so while recalling the sacrifice of Christ in their place - His broken body and His shed blood. Since the benefits of the sacrifice of Christ do not belong to an unbeliever, they have nothing to recollect at the Table - they cannot eat the meal in a manner that accords with Christ's command. Never having known Him, how can they remember Him at the Lord's Supper?
- Because of other things that are represented in the meal. Those who participate eat from one loaf of bread to show that they are all members of the same body - the body of Christ - and are joined to one another (see Reason #14). This is not true of unbelievers, so if they eat the bread, they are hypocrites.
- Because those who take the meal are proclaiming that they are in union with Christ - there is a spiritual communion between Christ and those who are His when the Supper is celebrated (see Reason #5 in this series). Since unbelievers are not in union with Christ, when they take this meal they are actually symbolizing the uniting of Christ with a prostitute. If the joining of a believer with an unbeliever is joining Christ with a prostitute (1 Corinthians 6:15 — Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be!) or the marriage of an unbeliever with a believer is seen as uniting Christ and Belial (2 Corinthians 6:14–15 — Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?) isn't it even worse when an unbeliever takes a meal in which there is intended to be a spiritual communion with Christ?
- Because in taking the meal we are saying we are alive in Christ and dependent upon Him for that life, but if we are not Christians, we are still dead in our trespasses and sins (see Reason #13)
- Because the meal proclaims peace with God through Jesus's blood, but we are still at war with Him (Reason #19).
- Because the meal proclaims that those who partake in it now belong to Jesus, having been purchased by His blood. In fact, unbelievers still belong to and are slaves of Satan (Reason #33).
- Because all the benefits of the meal are obtained through faith in the Lord Jesus, and unbelievers have none.
We could go on finding reasons why it is wrong for unbelievers to take the meal and very dangerous for their souls. The meal can never do an unbeliever good and without repentance most certainly will add to their condemnation in Hell. In 1 Corinthians 11, from verse 23 onwards, Paul tells the church that some of their own members, true believers, had been disciplined by God by being put to death because they did not approach the Lord's Table in a worthy manner. If this is how He treats His own children, what do you imagine the outcome may be for those whom He never knew? Accordingly, we must examine ourselves and not come to the Table unless and until we find that we truly know Christ as our Savior.
In laying out all these reasons for unbelievers not to come to the Lord's Table, we have at the same time shown what a marvelous privilege it is for believers to be able to come and commune with Jesus at the Supper. If anyone could come regardless of their standing before God, perhaps it would not seem so remarkable to be admitted to this feast. But such a costly meal, so holy and so rich in meaning, which belongs exclusively to the brothers and sisters by adoption of Jesus Christ, must stimulate our love and our desire to be present as often as the Table is set!