Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3130
“This do in remembrance of Me…This do you, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” 1 Corinthians 11:24,25.
[Other Sermons by Mr. Spurgeon upon this passage and verses before and after, are as follows—Sermons #2, Volume 1—THE REMEMBRANCE OF CHRIST; #2307, Volume 39—THE GREATEST EXHIBITION OF THE AGE; #2595, Volume 44—WHAT THE LORD’S SUPPER SEES AND SAYS; #2638, Volume 45—THE RIGHT OBSERVANCE OF THE LORD’S SUPPER and #3099, Volume 54—THE DOUBLE FORGET-ME-NOT]
IT is a wonderful proof of the deep depravity of human nature that men have made so much mischief out of the too symbolical ordinances which were instituted by the Lord Jesus Christ. You know how the ordinance of Believers’ Baptism has been perverted, twisted and turned aside altogether from its pristine use. And the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper has been quite as shamefully misrepresented. In neither case is there any excuse whatever for this perversion, for in each instance the regulations for its observance are perfectly simple and clear. In the institution of the Lord’s Supper there was not a solitary word said about the new rite being a sacrifice nor so much as a single syllable concerning an altar upon which it was to be offered. It was not instituted in the Temple at Jerusalem, but in the upper room of a private house. It was not ordained at a great Temple festival, but at the Passover Supper, when Christ and His disciples were gathered around a table to feast together according to the ancient Jewish custom. There was nothing said by our Lord about any repetition of His one great Sacrifice by the offering of the unbloody sacrifice of the “mass” of which the priests of Rome make so much. It is as simple and plain as it can possibly be—“This do in remembrance of Me.” Those who stumble here, stumble, surely, in the light—and their eyes must be blinded, for there are no stumbling blocks in the ordinance itself.
Observe that Christ does not prescribe anything in the Lord’s Supper by way of elaborate ceremonies. There is nothing at all resembling the various intricate rules that are laid down for the celebration of the “mass” in the Church of Rome, or even for the celebration of the communion in the Church of England. Nothing is here ordered to be done except the breaking of bread and the eating of it—and the pouring out of wine and the drinking of it. And these two things are to be done in remembrance of Christ. He has not even laid down any rule with regard to the posture that is to be assumed by communicants. I have no doubt whatever that the disciples were reclining around the supper table in the usual Oriental manner, but Christ does not say that we are to recline, or kneel, or stand, or sit for the right observance of the ordinance. Nothing appears to be really essential to the right celebration of this Supper by Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ but just this—“Take, eat: this is My body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of Me. After the same manner also He took the cup when He had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in My blood: this do you, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” How very little there is here of anything like a grand ceremony!
And yet, mark you, there is a certain rubric with regard to the spiritualpart of the Lord’s Supper which is not left to anybody’s choice. It is essential—it is the very soul and marrow of the ordinance that we should remember Christ in it— “This do in remembrance of Me.” The external order may vary in certain respects, but the internal essence must be there, else you will have the mere dead carcass and you will have lost the soul, the spirit, the very life of the whole ordinance! Again and again our Savior says, “This do in remembrance of Me…This do you, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” To remember Christ, then, is the main point in the right observance of this ordinance. To let the memory look Him in the face again, to put the finger once more into the print of the nails and to thrust the hand again into His side.
Once again to adore the Savior whose head was crowned with thorns for us, but is now coroneted with Glory—to remember Him, to recall Him—that is our main business as we gather around His Table. May God graciously grant to us the Grace to attain to that which is the very essence, soul and life of the Lord’s Supper, that is, the remembrance of Christ!
I. And, first, let me remark, dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, that as we gather around the Lord’s Table, OTHER MEMORIES WILL COME, BUT THEY MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO CROWD OUT THE ONE MEMORY—“This do in remembrance of Me.”
Other memories will come—I am sure they will come to me and I believe that they will come also to my Christian Brothers and Sisters here. You will remember well the time when you did not know Jesus. With deep regret our memory will go back to the period when the little that we did know of Christ was misused. When we despised and rejected Him. When we had ill words for His people and hard words for everything that concerned Him. It is a profitable exercise for us to look unto the rock from which we were hewn and to the hole of the pit from which we were dug. That is not an ill memory with which to come to our Lord’s Table—with our eyes full of the tears of repentance for our past sin, yet rejoicing that we are now washed and cleansed, although once we were defiled and altogether unfit to occupy the children’s place!