How Important Is Communion To Salvation? (Part II)

HOW IMPORTANT IS COMMUNION TO SALVATION?
(PART II)

After partaking of the Passover feast, the bible declares that “Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take eat, this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks and gave it to them, saying Drink ye all of it: For this is my blood.” St. Matthew 26:26-28. What was in the cup?

What a strange question, you may say. Everybody knows what was in the cup. Jesus says he was giving them His blood. We can’t very well get His blood to drink now; He is not here with us. Besides, we are not cannibals. What else could it be but wine or grape juice? They are closest to the colour of blood and everybody knows what to take. Is this really so? Does everybody really know or do we just accept what we have been given or have seen done without really searching the scriptures?

In St. John 4:14, Jesus tells the woman at the well “But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” Follow me! In preparation for the institution of the Communion, the Lord in St. Mark 14:13, instructed the disciples to go into the city and follow the man bearing a pitcher of water. This they did and made ready for the Passover as well as the institution of the Communion of the Saints. When it was time, Jesus came in and ate the Passover and “as they were eating” He blessed the bread and the cup and gave it to them. Advising them that, “this is my blood of the new testament”.

They were already eating. He had already blessed the food. Yet, with this new testament, He stopped, blessed the bread and the cup and gave it to them. He further told them “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood ye have no life in you”. Do you understand the significance of what was done here, Genesis 1:2 tells us that “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters”. Again it moved when Jesus was instituting the Communion of the Saints.

In none of the gospels does it clearly state what was in the cup. Hence, it is necessary to be taught of God in order to know what was in the cup. Back in Numbers 20:8, God gave these instructions to Moses, “…and speak ye unto the Rock before their eyes; and it shall give forth His water”. It became necessary for the Corinthians to be reminded of what happened in Numbers in I Corinthians 10:4. How the children “drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them and that Rock was Christ”. The Corinthians had a problem too; they also wondered what was in the cup, so they were taken back to the book of Numbers.

When we take the communion, we are reminded of the suffering of Christ on the cross as He purchased our pardon. On the cross, there were three things that came out of Christ:

In St. Luke 23:46 it declares “And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, He said, Father, into they hands I commend my spirit”,

In St. John 19:34 “But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced His side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.”

I John 5:6-8 “This is He that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ: not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.”

Jesus would not have cut Himself and given us His blood to drink. He is not here anymore so even if it were His blood that He gave, we could not get it. There is only one substance in earth now that agrees with the blood. As the scripture declares, it came out of Christ on the cross. His word clearly states the agreement. It is the same substance in which we are asked “are you washed in the blood of the lamb?” This is as it relates to baptism. Yet it changes when we come to partake of the body and blood.

“Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.”

Search the scriptures!