October 8, 2023
Hillsboro, Wisconsin
Zion, the Bride, and the Covenant Community
Communion is a celebration of the oneness shared by those who claim membership in Christ’s Body. Scripture calls those joined together in this covenant commitment the Bride of Christ. The Lord illuminates this through Isaiah’s prophecy to Zion: “You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate, but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land Married; for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married” (Isa. 62:4, ESV).
These promises foretell the coming Messiah, His kingdom, and those who will be brought to birth through His appearing. Isaiah continues: “Your children will commit themselves to you, O Jerusalem, just as a young man commits himself to his bride. Then God will rejoice over you as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride” (Isa. 62:5, NLT). Here an illuminating equation appears. First, the children of Zion commit themselves to Zion; then God makes a covenant commitment to Zion. This reveals the pattern by which the church—Zion—enters covenant relationship with her heavenly Husband and how her children, you and I, must in turn commit ourselves to Zion.
The New Testament makes this identification explicit: Zion is the church. Hebrews 12 declares, “You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind, and to the blast of a trumpet and the sound of words…. But you have come to Mount Zion” (Heb. 12:18-19, 22). The writer of Hebrews goes on and calls that “the church of the firstborn.” Notice the grammatical tense. He speaks to New Testament believers and tells them, “You have come”—not that they will someday come in the distant future. He also cannot be referring to a physical mountain, for he begins by stating that this mountain “cannot be touched.” Instead, what they had come to, according to the writer, was “the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all… and to Jesus” (Heb. 12:22-24).
This suggests that the heavenly Jerusalem—a place believers can somehow come to while still on earth—is, in fact, the church. More than that: to come to the church is to come before the throne of God Himself. The Bride and the Bridegroom are one; therefore, to approach the Bride is to approach the Bridegroom.
Revelation 21 confirms this imagery. John portrays the church as “the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev. 21:2, NASB). Many imagine this as a literal, architectural city descending from heaven, as if lowered by cables or parachutes. But this cannot be John’s intent. Paul teaches that the church is already “the mother of us all,” the Jerusalem “from above” (Gal. 4:26). Revelation’s descent symbolizes the manner of wisdom that characterizes this new Jerusalem—wisdom that “comes from above.”
James contrasts these two wisdoms: one earthly, rooted in ambition and self-exaltation—exemplified in Babel’s attempt to climb upward to heaven through human ingenuity—and the other heavenly, which descends as gift and revelation. The wisdom from above is not achieved, concluded, or manufactured; it comes down from God, like the tablets of stone at Sinai. When this wisdom is forming and shaping a people, we say that Jerusalem is descending because that architectural plan is coming from above to earth.
Thus, when John describes Jerusalem descending, he speaks of a people united by this heavenly wisdom. This fulfills Jesus’ prayer: “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:9-10). Jesus begins by acknowledging that the Father is in heaven, then prays that the heavenly kingdom would come to earth. He indicates that this occurs as God’s will is done on earth in the same manner as it is done in heaven—revealed through the Holy Spirit and shaped by wisdom that descends from above. Through this, the heavenly realm becomes manifest on the earth.
A Corporate People: Salvation as a Shared Covenant Identity
From the beginning, God has viewed salvation corporately. The Israelites did not understand themselves as isolated individuals but as a people—the people of God. Their unity with God and with one another formed the foundation of the old covenant.
At the outset of his journey, Abraham was known as Abram, meaning “exalted father.” God then changed his name to Abraham, “father of many nations.” This shift marked more than a personal calling; it transformed his identity from an individual man seeking God’s purpose into the father of a multitude—a corporate people.
When God made covenant with Abraham, He gave two directives.
First, He commanded Abraham to be in motion before Him: “Walk before Me and be blameless.” Abraham’s life was not to be static but a continually unfolding journey of faith. Paul reflects this in Romans 4, teaching that new covenant believers—the church—are Abraham’s sons and are to walk in the same footsteps of faith as did our father Abraham.
Second, God established circumcision as the sign of covenant belonging, insisting, “Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant” (Gen. 17:14, ESV). Notice that to break covenant meant expulsion from the people of God. Covenant identity was inseparable from corporate belonging.
This same theme continues with the Mosaic covenant, in which breaking covenant similarly resulted in being “cut off” from the community. Moses himself is not presented as an isolated hero but as one whose calling was bound to God’s corporate purpose—he was to lead the people out of Egypt. When Israel rebelled, the angel of the Lord stood ready to destroy them, yet Moses, as a type of Christ, interceded as mediator to avert their imminent destruction.
The apostle Paul preserves this corporate framing. He does not present Jesus as an isolated figure appearing suddenly in history, nor does he portray the cross as merely a private transaction for individual sinners. Rather, Paul emphasizes the continuity of God’s covenantal people. Jesus is the realization of the promise made to Abraham millennia earlier. He did not appear as a detached individual; He came as the culmination of a long, unfolding story between God and His covenant people.
Hebrews affirms this same theme: “By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward” (Heb. 11:24–26). As the adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter, Moses was by right a prince. Yet he rejected the identity Egypt offered him and deliberately aligned himself with the reproach of the people of God. And this was, the writer declares, choosing the reproach of Christ over Egypt’s identity.
Paul deepens this analogy in Colossians 2, where he links circumcision—the entry point into the old covenant—with baptism, which marks entrance into the new covenant (Col. 2:11–14). Just as Moses chose to share in the affliction of God’s people, baptism symbolizes our rejection of the world and its value systems and our willingness to embrace the reproach of Zion, the body of Christ (Heb. 11:24–25).
The Seed of Abraham: A People Born of Promise
Paul writes, “It is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham” (Gal. 3:7). Faith, then, is the bond that connects Christians to the oath God swore to Abraham—the oath of salvation and blessing. Seeing beforehand that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, God “preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham,” declaring, “In you shall all the nations be blessed” (Gen. 22:18). Thus, those who walk in Abraham’s faith are joined to Abraham’s blessing.
Later, Paul adds, “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek [the old nation], for you are all one in Christ Jesus [the new nation]. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:26–29). The promise was given to Abraham and to his “seed”—a word Paul insists refers not to many but to one: Christ (Gal. 3:16).
Who, then, are the covenant people of God? Those who entered covenant by the law, or those who share the faith that preceded the law? Paul’s answer is unequivocal: the true sons of Abraham are those united to the same faith that Abraham exercised—faith that always expresses itself in obedient action. These are the heirs of the promise.
Paul reinforces this in Romans 9: “For they are not all Israel who are of Israel, nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, ‘In Isaac your seed shall be called.’ That is, those who are children of the flesh are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed. ‘At this time I will come and Sarah shall have a son’” (Rom. 9:6–9).
Sarah conceived because of the Lord’s visitation—a supernatural act. The covenant line was always going to be defined not by natural descent (Ishmael) but by miraculous birth (Isaac). The genealogy of God’s people begins with something akin to the virgin birth: Sarah, whose womb is “dead,” conceives by a divine visitation. Likewise, Mary conceives when the Most High overshadows her, and she bears a Son of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:20).
So those who are born of that same Spirit—those conceived spiritually by God—are joined to the one Seed, Christ Jesus, and thus become heirs of the very promise given to Abraham and to his seed.
The terms heir and seed, though translated differently in English, stem from the same Greek root. To speak of an “heir” or “descendant” is to speak of the “seed.” Paul says that Christ is Abraham’s seed because He is born of the Spirit, just as Isaac was. But Paul then immediately says that if you belong to Christ, then you—plural—are Abraham’s seed—singular (Gal. 3:29). Wherever spiritual birth occurs, the promise to Abraham is being fulfilled. Jesus is the ultimate expression of this spiritual birth, but every believer born of the Holy Spirit becomes a participant in God’s covenant promise. In short, we become part of that one heir, that one seed, to whom the promise was made. But we only share in that through rebirth.
John writes, “Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for God’s seed abides in him” (1 John 3:9). Does this contradict John’s earlier admission that “we all sin” (1 John 1:8) or James’s statement that “we all stumble in many ways” (James 3:2)? Certainly not. John is highlighting the existence of two natures within the believer. The fallen nature remains and must be brought into subjection to Christ. The “seed”—the spiritual nature, Christ in us—never sins. When we fail, it is because we heed the wrong voice. But the part of us that is born of God does not sin.
Paul echoes this: “If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the Spirit is alive because of [or, for] righteousness” (Rom. 8:10). When we submit to the life of Christ within us and put to death what is not Christ, the seed in us keeps us from sin. As we become one with the Spirit, we join the people toward whom all the promises to Abraham were directed. We become part of Zion.
Three Categories of Covenant: Flesh, Law, and Spirit
It is helpful to understand covenant through three broad categories.
First, is the world and its covenant of death. Having rejected covenant with God, the world subjects itself to His judgment and wrath.
Second, are those who believe they are in covenant with God solely by virtue of being God’s ethnically chosen people—Israel. They hold that God elected them as the collective people through whom He would fulfill His promises. For them, remaining in covenant is a matter of circumcision and adherence to the law of Moses, and those who do so constitute the group through whom God will bring salvation and judgment to the nations.
Third, are those who deny that the law can bring anyone into right covenant relationship with God. They recognize that the law’s true purpose is to unveil the sinfulness and corruption of the human soul so that one begins to long for a birth “from above”—a spiritual new birth, likened to Isaac’s. Only those who have experienced this birth truly belong to Christ and participate in the shared divine life that constitutes the Body of Christ.
Abraham himself first attempted to bring forth God’s promise through Hagar—a work of his own hands. God required that he die to that tendency. Abraham had to transfer his trust from his own flesh to God’s spoken word—to the One who brings life from the dead, who calls into existence the things that do not yet exist. Abraham and Sarah had reached an age when the promised son could not be produced by natural means. God often waits for us to acknowledge our inability before He reveals His ability. It is precisely here that we exchange the futility of our ambitions for the overcoming power of His Word.
Paul describes this transfer of trust in Romans 4: Abraham believed in “the God who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did . . . . Not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith . . . being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform” (Rom. 4:17–21).
It is in this light that we understand Paul’s statement in Galatians 3 that the gospel was preached beforehand to Abraham. Abraham participated in the gospel—in the pattern of death, burial, and resurrection—in that he reckoned with the death of his own flesh, buried his natural ambitions in Ishmael, and believed that God’s promised life would come by a miracle of spiritual visitation.
Those who walk in these same steps of faith enter the true covenant God has made with His people. It is no longer they who live, but the seed of Christ dwelling within them, enabling them to share His life among His people. All of God’s promises to Abraham are fulfilled in Jesus; there is no salvation outside of Him. Thus, the crucial question becomes: How do we come to be “in Jesus”?
We must die to the Ishmael within us. We must renounce the Hagar-like efforts that attempt to fulfill the promises of God in our own strength. Like Abraham, we must confess that when our flesh is as good as dead, we trust God for a supernatural birth.
From this place of surrender, we make a covenantal commitment symbolized by circumcision. Baptism, Paul says, is “the circumcision made without hands” (Col. 2:11). In baptism, we enter the saving life of Christ, turning from our Ishmael-driven efforts and receiving at last the seed—Christ Himself, in the form of the Holy Spirit—into our lives.
A Prophet Like Moses: The Pattern Fulfilled in Christ
In Acts 3, Peter proclaims that Jesus fulfills Moses’ prophecy in Deuteronomy 18: “The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from among your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things” (Acts 3:22). The parallels between Moses and Christ illuminate the shape of salvation for God’s corporate people. A few examples that link the ministry of Moses to God’s covenant people to the ministry of Christ, also to God’s covenant people:
- Both fasted forty days in the wilderness. (Deut. 9:9; Matt. 4:2)
- Both were connected to a “Miriam”—Moses through his sister, Jesus through Mary (Miriam in Hebrew). (Exod. 2:4; Matt. 1:18)
- Both came out of Egypt—Moses in the Exodus, Jesus when returning from His flight from Herod. Matthew notes this fulfilled Hosea 11:1, originally spoken of corporate Israel, showing Jesus recapitulating Israel’s story. (Exod. 13:17–18; Matt. 2:13; Hos. 11:1)
- Both were baptized—Israel in the Red Sea, Jesus in the Jordan. (1 Cor. 10:2; Matt. 3:13)
- Both multiplied miraculous food—manna for Moses and the loaves and fishes for Jesus. (Exod. 16:4; Mark 6:41)
- Both were lifted up—Moses lifted the serpent; Jesus, the Son of Man, was lifted on the cross. (John 3:14–15)
- Both renounced their princely privilege and right—Moses to empty himself of Egypt in order to lead God’s people, Jesus to empty Himself and become like us. (Heb. 11:24–26; Phil. 2:5–7)
- Both appointed seventy—Israel’s elders and Jesus’ disciples. (Num. 11:16; Luke 10:1)
- Both speak together in glory regarding Jesus’ “departure”—literally, His “exodus.” (Luke 9:29–30)
- Three thousand died at Sinai; three thousand came alive at Pentecost. (Exod. 32:28; Acts 2:41)
- Both are connected to Passover—Jesus as our Passover Lamb, carrying His own wood up the mountain. (1 Cor. 5:7)
The point is clear: Jesus did not appear in a historical vacuum. He came to fulfill, embody, and elevate everything that preceded Him. The Old Testament is filled with metaphors, patterns, and shadows that reveal the doctrine of Christ before His incarnation.
Jesus declared, “Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven . . . . For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (John 6:32–33). The manna was a type; He is the reality.
This echoes John 4, where Jesus tells His disciples, “I have food to eat of which you do not know . . . . My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work” (John 4:31–34). Returning to John 6, Jesus defines that will: “This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day” (John 6:39). The will of God is self-sacrificial love—the laying down of one’s life for others.
Jesus continues: “This is the bread which comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven . . . . The bread which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh” (John 6:50–51). Here, He speaks unmistakably of His sacrificial death. He presses the symbolism further, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves” (John 6:53).
The parallels to communion are unavoidable. The fruit of the vine is blood red; the broken bread signifies His body. Jesus chose this language precisely because it forces a spiritual interpretation from the minds of His audience. He clarifies this immediately: “Does this offend you? …The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:61, 63). They could not perceive this with natural minds; they heard literal cannibalism instead of spiritual communion.
At the Last Supper, Jesus says, “This is My body . . . this is My blood” (Matt. 26:26–29). The disciples then eat the bread and drink the wine. Thus, every time we take communion, we participate—spiritually and symbolically—in eating His flesh and drinking His blood, receiving the life of the One who laid His own life down for the world.
Walking in the Light: Communion as Shared Life (Koinōnia)
1 John 1:5–7 reads: “This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ . . . .”
Let’s stop there. The word translated “fellowship” is the Greek koinōnia—the same word rendered “communion” in multiple New Testament passages. Paul explicitly links communion to “the fellowship (koinōnia) of the body of Christ” (1 Cor. 10:16). Thus, John is literally saying, “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have communion—koinōnia.” Strikingly, he does not say that we have communion with Him (though that is true); he says, “We have fellowship with one another.” Our relationship with God inevitably brings us into communion with each other. One might expect John to say, “If we walk in the light… we have fellowship with Him,” but John’s emphasis is that walking in the light necessarily manifests as shared life with the brethren. Whatever “darkness” is in John’s metaphor, he frames it as a refusal to participate in this shared life of the body.
He continues: “We have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from every sin.” Note the tense—it is ongoing, not merely retrospective. John directly ties walking in the light to loving our brothers; conversely, he equates walking in darkness with hating our brothers. Proverbs echoes this: “The path of the righteous is like the first light of dawn, that shines brighter and brighter until full day,” while the way of the wicked is darkness; “they do not know over what they stumble” (Prov. 4:18–19). Those who walk in unfolding light are those who continually answer the increasing demands of love.
The original sin began as suspicion. The serpent sowed doubt regarding God’s motives; eating the fruit was the result of that inward suspicion. Suspicion—the antonym of love—breeds more suspicion. Even after regret, when God calls, Adam and Eve do not run into the light for help; they hide behind fig leaves. This suspicion escalates in Cain’s murder of Abel. When suspicion becomes rivalry, we impute motives, cease to trust love, envy, and then hate. Hate leads to murder. Hence John says, “Whoever hates his brother is a murderer.” Such a person “walks in darkness and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.” Hate is darkness; love is light.
This darkness is the veil over the human heart—the veil of distrust and suspicion. The light is love, which overcomes suspicion and teaches us to see our brothers as the objects and conduits of God’s love in our lives. To see through the veil is to see Christ as at the Transfiguration—glory illuminating reality as it truly is. Likewise, by the light of love we see the Body of Christ as it truly is: brethren whom we can love and trust—not because they are flawless, but because light makes love possible in spite of imperfection.
We have seen the link between fellowship and communion. The English word communion derives from a Latin term meaning “the exchange of gifts,” like giving presents to one another. Fittingly, Paul’s seminal teaching on communion (1 Cor. 10–11) directly precedes his seminal teaching on spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 12). He warns the Corinthians about their former pagan ignorance—being “led astray to mute idols”—and then explains that Christ’s lordship becomes concrete as we receive His lordship through the gifts of our brothers and sisters. Paul envisions an environment in which believers spiritually nourish one another—returning us to the reality of koinōnia, feeding one another the life of Christ, sharing in these gifts.
Summary: When we walk in the light, suspicion is dispelled and we begin to see our brothers and sisters as both recipients and sources of God’s love. This fosters an exchange of gifts through which the blood of Jesus is applied to our lives in an ongoing cleansing. This does not diminish the once-for-all atonement; rather, it connects us to it. It applies that atonement to our daily lives as it shows how the cleansing blood is mediated among the saints—and this is how we obey Jesus’ command to bind and loose, to forgive and see sins remitted through the Word and forgiveness through the exchange of communion gifts. Baptized into His death, we lay down self-preservation and enter the ordered life of His Body, where we pour ourselves out for others. As we come under the burden of love and are reborn of His Spirit—His Seed—we discover our purpose: to give corporate expression to God’s agape and manifold wisdom within His redeemed people.
Is this not Peter’s meaning? “Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Pet. 4:8). This connects to John’s theme of the blood cleansing us as we live in fervent love and fellowship. Peter continues: “As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God; if anyone serves, let him do so with the strength God supplies, so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 4:10–11).
Paul uses parallel language in Colossians: “Put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, patience; bearing with one another and forgiving one another . . . just as Christ forgave you. But above all these, put on love, which is the bond of perfection. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs . . . . And whatever you do . . . do all in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Col. 3:12–17). Here again: gifts, grace, one Body, love, and the Word dwelling richly through one another.
Continuing in His Word: Ongoing Cleansing in a Shared Life
In John 8, Jesus tells Jews who believed in Him, “If you continue in My word, you are truly My disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” The grammar signals a process: “If you continue in My word, then you are actually My disciples, and you will be knowing the truth, and the truth will be setting you free” (John 8:31–32). Freedom unfolds as we remain within His Word. They object, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves.” Jesus replies, “Everyone who practices sin is a slave of sin” (John 8:33–34).
Jesus emphasizes our fallen nature. We will never, in this life, be incapable of failure, yet we must experience ever-increasing victory. A helpful analogy: a diabetic remains susceptible to the disease; untreated, it can rule and eventually destroy. But with ongoing insulin, the person can take dominion over the condition. Likewise with sin: the only escape is an ongoing antidote—God’s cleansing Word—applied within the life of the Body.
This is John’s point, this is Peter’s point, this is Paul’s point: walk in the light and thus give fellowship among brothers and sisters, the sharing of water and bread. Continuing in the Word—as it comes to us through the brethren—joins us to His disciples in lived communion. As this walk unfolds, we can increasingly say, “I am not a slave to sin, because I live in fellowship with believers who continually bring me God’s Word. I walk in the light, and He cleanses me still.”
Paul parallels this in Ephesians 5 when he compares Christ’s covenant with His Body to marriage: Christ sanctifies and cleanses the church “by the washing of water with the word” (Eph. 5:26). The baptismal imagery suggests not a one-time rinse but a committed context in which washing continues through the Word. Bathing is not a once-for-all event.
None of this denies the necessity of a decisive encounter with the living God, where His love is revealed, overwhelming the bankruptcy of our nature and giving us a new starting point, a brand new beginning, a foundation. Such encounters free us from self and birth us into a relationship wherein sin no longer holds mastery. Something truly changes as God’s Word finds a home in the heart; we become slaves of righteousness. Yet this new life must be discipled into maturity. The only way to grow into light is to grow into love; the only way to grow into love is to cease being isolated. In the Body, we face the demands of love, and whatever in us resists love is put to death by the ongoing nourishment that comes through brothers and sisters.
Thus, repentance ends sin’s tyranny, but repentance must be walked out with others. After washing the disciples’ feet on the night of the first communion, Jesus asks, “Do you understand what I have done for you?” He was not merely removing dust; He was instituting a pattern of mutual cleansing. Though they were fundamentally clean, their feet still picked up the world. Unless they planted themselves where brethren continually wash one another, they would drift back into former filth. So He told them to do for each other what He had done for them.
How often has something lurking in your heart been exposed by a brother’s loving confrontation or a preached word—and you suddenly say, “I see it!”? It is rarely flattering. “All things become visible when they are exposed by the light” (Eph. 5:13). In such moments, a brother’s word brings God’s light, rendering sin visible and therefore actionable. “The entrance of Your words gives light” (Ps. 119:130).
Let Love Be Without Hypocrisy: The Unleavened Loaf of Communion
Is it mere coincidence that communion was instituted on the night of Passover? Passover was the Feast of Unleavened Bread—a time of searching the house to ensure no trace of leaven remained. With this in mind, Paul’s exhortation in Romans 12 comes alive: “Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God… and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. For I say . . . not to think of [yourself] more highly than [you] ought to think” (Rom. 12:1–3). He then outlines the diversity of spiritual gifts and concludes: “Having then gifts differing according to the grace… let us use them.” Immediately after this, he commands: “Let love be without hypocrisy” (Rom. 12:9).
How do we prove that our love is without hypocrisy? Through a willingness to use our gifts—not for self-exaltation, but for communion, for the exchange of truth for truth and grace for grace. If God burdens us with a word or a grace that could meet a need in a brother’s life and we withhold it, how can we claim to abide in love? If He reveals that someone is struggling to believe and gives us a word in a meeting and we refuse to speak it, how can we say the love of God dwells in us?
Jesus warned, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees” (Matt. 16:6). The Pharisees embodied hypocrisy—religious form without relational love. If we are to be an unleavened loaf, we must purge the leaven of hypocrisy that obstructs our ability to love, especially the love of sharing the truth, the light of God’s Word.
Paul teaches in Ephesians 4 that when Christ ascended, He “gave gifts to men”—apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers—“for the equipping of the saints . . . for the edifying of the body of Christ” as they speak the truth in love. This edifying, this eating, is of the communion meal. This truth, exchanged through spiritual gifts, is what sets us free. Why? Because truth spoken in love renders the motives of the heart visible. As the light of God’s Word illuminates hidden attitudes, they can be diagnosed and removed. Consider an abscessed tooth. One may grow accustomed to the pain without understanding its cause. When God’s Word comes with precision and removes the root cause of our sin, the relief is life-changing, just as when an abscessed tooth is pulled. That is the love of God coming in truth to liberate.
My father often said, “We are called to die daily, to crucify the flesh.” But he would point out, “You can nail down both feet and even one hand—but who will swing the hammer for the last nail?” At that moment, we must turn to our brother and say, “Will you put that last nail in?” We cannot be careless. We must apply God’s Word to crucify the sinful nature, but there will always remain one spot out of reach. And so we must say to the Body, “I do not regard you after the flesh. I see Christ in you. Go ahead and speak. It may hurt, but it will cleanse. And in the cleansing I will see the blood of Christ is being applied.”
Discerning the Body: The Prerequisite for Communion
This, I believe, is what Paul was addressing when he wrote: “Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body,” not seeing Christ in one another (1 Cor. 11:28–29). An inability to examine oneself rightly indicates a failure to discern the Lord’s Body. Why? Paul said there were “divisions” and “factions” among them—therefore, “when you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat” (1 Cor. 11:18–20).
Paul is not telling them merely to “remember Jesus’ individual body.” He is saying that their divisions disqualify them from being a true expression of that Body. If they examined themselves, they would discern the source of division and thereby discern the Body. In the previous chapter, he wrote: “The cup of blessing . . . is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break . . . the communion of the body of Christ? For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread” (1 Cor. 10:16–17). He’s saying, “ You want to eat Christ as the bread, but you are part of Christ unless your divisions have kept you from discerning the others who are part of Christ, so that you are not really partaking of Christ anymore.” Here, Christ’s Body is presented not as an isolated individual on the cross but as a corporate loaf.
Returning to John 6, the crowd recoils from Jesus’ words about eating His flesh and drinking His blood: “This is a hard saying.” Jesus asks the twelve, “Does this offend you?” Peter responds with a confession that demonstrates proper discernment of the Body: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life . . . . You are the Christ” (John 6:67–68). Peter discerns that he must remain connected to Christ—to the anointed One, to the source of love. Understanding will come later, but first, he refuses to sever the relationship.
This is what Paul wants believers to feel about the body: that I belong wherever the words of eternal life are coming and feeding and cleansing me. I recognize, I discern, the Lord’s body because I have repented of my judgments and criticisms and divisions that formerly eclipsed that glory from my viewpoint.
To discern the Body is to rightly discern the people with whom God has planted us in His corporate community. It is to see that this is where confrontation happens, this is where forgiveness flows, this is where blood cleanses, this is where light shines. This is the body of Christ. It is where our relationship with God becomes tangible and sustained, where we don’t merely claim to love the God we cannot see while failing to love the brothers we can. Why is this vital? Because it is in this context that the sin which brings judgment is removed.
Consider the first communion. Was judgment present that night? Yes—the judgment of Judas. He no longer discerned what God was doing. Yet when Jesus revealed that a betrayer was in the room, the remaining disciples examined themselves. They did not protest, “Not me!” Instead each asked, “Lord, is it I?”—the very posture Paul later commands. “Am I resisting Your will? Is there an unbroken place in me? Am I capitalizing on divisions?” This is the examination that precedes true communion.
Let that examination end with the Lord saying, “You are still part of the Body. You are not a piece cut off from the loaf. You are part of the one loaf—part of Me.” Let us not preserve an individuality that isolates us. Let us lose ourselves in the one lump, the one bread. “Is there unbelief? Is there judgment in me?” Look at Judas’s judgment when the woman anointed Jesus. Judas cloaked self-interest in a feigned concern for the poor. He brought division into the body. The heart can easily fall into the same trap. “God, search our hearts!”
Jesus said, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man”—that is, partake of Christ in the form God chooses, through His embodied people—“and drink His blood, you have no life in you . . . . My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides, remains, stays in Me” (John 6:53–56). We must feed and nourish one another with God’s Word. We must forgive one another. But first, we must discern one another as part of Christ’s Body, removing the veil of suspicion, self-seeking, and the spirit of Cain.
I long to be part of one people, one Bride—mixed into one loaf with no uncrushed kernels. I long to be so united with God’s people that we become a pure expression of Christ. Communion celebrates this daily reality and should not be taken until we can say with conviction that in our relationships the veil is lifted, the light is shining, and we discern the Lord’s Body—recognizing no one according to the flesh but seeing Zion as the city of light where blood cleanses and grace nourishes.
Without understanding the reality communion proclaims, we risk becoming false. Even in innocence, we become like children playing a pretend wedding—saying the right words without understanding. God may overlook ignorance, but communion is a recommitment: “Lord, I still discern Your Body. I still see what You have done and how You are applying that sacrifice in my life. I still see my guilt and the part I am commissioned to play in loving others without hypocrisy.”
Conclusion: Remembering by Enacting the One Loaf
Paul concludes his teaching on communion in 1 Corinthians 12 by declaring that God has composed the Body and “set each member in place just as He wills.” To discern the Body is to acknowledge this divine ordering. We do not choose our place, nor do we determine the significance of our role or the role of others. God has a design. He has a will. Thus, the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor can the Head Himself—Christ—say to the feet, “I have no need of you.” That would be not discerning the Lord’s body, as Paul cautions in the previous chapter. Astonishingly, the Head makes use of the feet; the exalted Christ makes use of ordinary members to carry out His work on earth. His finished work is unfinished in its application in our lives.
Paul continues: “God composed the Body, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, that there should be no division in the Body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer with it. (1 Cor. 12:24-26)” This is covenantal oneness. When we remain isolated—an individual grape still in its skin, or a single kernel preserving its hard shell—we can stand at a distance and say, “That person is the problem.” But that is a love with hypocrisy! Once that pride is crushed into the one loaf, we can only say, “This is us. If he has a problem, then we have a problem. If I struggle, we all struggle.” Communion is the declaration that we refuse to remain independent, intact, self-protective kernels; we consent to be crushed and mingled into something bigger and better, the one loaf that is the true bread, that is Christ.
Thus, each member carries a double responsibility: not to be the leaven that corrupts the lump, and yes, to purge leaven wherever it appears—because we are bound together. That is what we recommit to when we take the bread and the cup: “We are in this together. Jesus has done this for us. And if He loved me in this way, I must love you in the same way.” As John says, “If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11).
The word “remember” is central to communion. Jesus introduced it. In English, remember suggests recollection—calling to mind a past event, and that is part of what happens in communion. However, in Hebrew thought, remembering is not merely thinking back; it is acting in the present and repeating what happened in the past. For example, when God said, “Remember the Sabbath day,” He was not asking Israel to reminisce about the Sabbath of 3,000 years ago, but commanding them to enact and practice the Sabbath in the present. To remember is to embody.
So it is with communion. We remember what Jesus did—not as passive recollection, but as active reenactment. We enact the same grace, the same forgiveness, the same exchange of gifts, the same humility, the same broken bread and poured-out wine, the same washing, the same Word, the same cleansing blood that binds us into the one loaf. In sharing His body and blood, we recommit ourselves to live what we remember—to become, together, the corporate expression of the crucified and risen Christ.