Fourteenth Meeting
(February 9, 1964 P.M.)
Read:
Exodus 12.
This
evening I am going to say just a little to you about the
Lord's Table. This is perhaps the most universal of all
the features of Christianity. Almost every section of
Christianity in some way or another has the Lord's Table.
In the different sections, of course, it goes by
different names. The Roman Church calls it by one name.
And other bodies call it by other names. We call it
"The Lord's Table." But in some form or
another, by some name or another, it is an almost
universal characteristic of Christianity. It is so
general and so often observed that we are in danger of
losing something of the greatness of its meaning. It has
become something that we do as a part of our order of
things, perhaps every week. And there is, as I have said,
a peril attached to that. We preserve something of its
value. We rejoice in something of its meaning. But, as I
have said, the peril is that we may lose something of the
greatness of its meaning.
I think
we all understand that the Lord's Table or the Lord's
Supper is the new Israel's passover. The Lord's Table is
the successor of the Jewish passover. When the Lord Jesus
began to form the new heavenly Israel, He put the Lord's
Supper in the place of the old passover. But although the
form of it was somewhat changed, the meaning was never
changed. The Lord Jesus took over the spiritual meaning
of the passover into the Lord's Supper. I am just going
to speak a little about the passover as it is found in
the Lord's Table. I think perhaps we are a little apt to
forget that there are two sides to this matter. And we
spend most of our time on the one side, which is, what
the Lord has done for us. Now we can never make too much
of what the Lord has done for us. And this table of the
Lord does speak of the wonderful thing that the Lord has
done for us in His Cross. So that we are quite right in
being very largely occupied with praising Him for all the
love that He showed in dying for us.
If I say
that is only one side, I do not mean to take anything
away from it, but there is another side to this. It is
what this involves us in. On the one side, it is what the
Lord has done for us. On the other side, it is the
greatest possibility that it brings upon us. Of course,
this evening we ought to have read the twelfth chapter of
the Book of Exodus, but there is no time to do that. As
you are all the Lord's people, I take it that you know
that chapter. It is there that we have the account of the
first great passover in Israel. That great passover
night, when Israel went out of Egypt. And you will
remember that passover was the climax of a mighty
conflict between God and all the gods of the Egyptians.
All the gods of the Egyptians represented the prince of
this world, the great kingdom of Satan, which had set
itself against the redemption of the people of God. God
had determined to redeem His people from that evil world.
And all the gods of the Egyptians said, 'They shall not
go.' It was not only Pharaoh and the Egyptians, the Lord
said it was the gods of the Egyptians - the evil
spiritual forces behind the Egyptians and Pharaoh. And
God entered into a great conflict with those forces of
evil. He sent judgment upon judgment on them. Nine
terrible judgments He poured upon the gods of the
Egyptians. But still the battle went on. Then God said,
'I am going to finish this. One more judgment, and we
shall have victory.'
You
remember that last tenth judgment. It took place on this
passover night. Now the point that I want you to notice
here, first of all, is that the passover marked the
climax of a great spiritual conflict. When Jesus took up
the meaning of the passover in His Own Person, to give
His Body like the passover lamb, and His Blood, He
entered into this great conflict with all the power of
evil. AS HE WENT TO THE CROSS, He cried, "Now
shall the prince of this world be cast out" (John
12:31). And Paul says, "He stripped off
principalities and powers, and made a show of them
openly, triumphing over them in His Cross" (Col.
2:15). THE CROSS OF THE LORD JESUS WAS THE CLIMAX OF A
GREAT BATTLE WITH THE POWER OF EVIL. That was the first
meaning of the passover. And that is the first meaning of
the Lord's Table. The Lord's Table means that we have
been brought into the great victory of the Lord Jesus
over all the power of evil. We sometimes forget that, if
ever we remember it, when we come to the Lord's Table. In
this table we are celebrating the victory of the Lord
Jesus, and we are brought into the good of that victory.
Let us remember that! Whenever we come to the Lord's
Table, we are celebrating the victory of our Lord. And
when we take of the symbols of His body and blood, we are
saying, 'We stand into the good of His victory.'
Now the
second thing about the passover. The focal point of the
passover, was the first-born son. The Lord said, "I
will go over the land of Egypt, and I will slay all the
first-born in Egypt." Now the first-born in those
days was always the representative of the whole family.
Really, the first-born was the family. If the first-born
son died, it was as though they had lost everything. All
the fathers' hopes were gone because they were centered
in the first-born. The first-born son was the priest of
the family. He represented the family before God. He
functioned as a priest for the whole family. We, in our
day, do not understand how important the first-born was
in those times. The Lord was going out with this final
judgment to kill the first-born in every family in Egypt.
But He
gave a sign to the people of Israel. It was in the blood
of the Passover Lamb. And He commanded them to sprinkle
that blood on their door posts. He said, 'When I come to
Egypt to smite all the first-born, when I see the blood,
I will not smite the first-born in that house. I will
preserve all the first-born alive.' You see, the focal
point of the whole thing was the first-born. In the
Letter to the Hebrews, which has so much to say about
this matter, the writer called the Church, the Church of
the First-born ones. This means that judgment and death
lie upon all those who are not protected by the blood.
But the blood of THE PASSOVER LAMB has saved the Church
of the First-born ones from judgment and death. This is a
great thing that the passover means. If this has its true
meaning in our lives, then we belong to the Church of the
First-born ones. All that I said about the First-born is
true of us; we represent the whole family of God. We are
made priests unto our God. Ours is a place of great honor
in the Father's house. We are in that position because of
the blood of the Lamb. And that, again, is something that
could occupy a great deal of time.
And
another thing about the passover, there is a picture
behind this passover in Exodus twelve. It is the picture
of the rightful King coming to claim His rights. He is
coming to a country where His authority and His rights
have been rejected. In New Testament language they have
said, 'We will not have this Man to reign over us.' They
have refused to recognize His position as King. And they
have refused to recognize His right amongst them. So the
King comes to claim His rights and His place. And He
brings His executioner with Him. Now He has sent a
messenger before to tell the people that if they will put
a certain sign on their door, He will not send His
executioner in there. So He comes with His executioner.
And as He passes through all the streets, He is looking
at every house. He is looking for this sign on the
doorposts. And when He sees this sign, He says to His
executioner, 'Do not go in there, leave them alone, they
are My loyal people, they recognize My authority.' But
where He does not see the sign on the door, He says to
the executioner, 'You go in there and slay the
firstborn.'
That is
the picture that is behind the story of the passover. When
I see the blood, I will pass over you. You shall
be delivered from judgment and from death. That is the
meaning of the precious blood of Jesus, being taken by us
and being put upon our lives. That sign of the precious
blood is our salvation, our deliverance from all the
power of judgment and of death. That is what is meant
every time we come to the Lord's Table. We are a people
who have been delivered by a mighty deliverance from all
the judgment of God, and all the power of death. Why is
that? Because we have taken, by faith, all the virtue of
the precious blood of Jesus. And in taking the blood of
Jesus, we have said we are the Lord's people. We are on
the Lord's side! We own Him as King! We recognize all His
rights! He is our Lord. He is our King. That is the
meaning of the Lord's Table.
One
other thing for now. The passover marked the absolute
divide between the people of God, and this evil world. It
was an absolute separation. Though sometimes when Pharaoh
was having a bad time under those judgments, he relented
a little. And he said, 'Well, some of you can go out.
Leave your women and your children behind. Just some of
you men go.' What did Moses say? He said, "We shall
go with our young and our old, with our sons and our
daughters, with our flocks and our herds." When we
go, we go absolutely. We will not leave anything behind
at all. It has to be an absolute separation from this
world. 'This whole world', says the apostle, 'lieth in
the wicked one.' And we do not belong to it. The
passover, then, marked a complete and absolute separation
of the people of God from this world. And you know how
the Lord put that into effect. First of all, He smote all
the first-born in Egypt. And when later Pharaoh repented
and pursued the Israelites, the Lord drowned all the army
of Pharaoh in the Red Sea, and put the Red Sea between
the Lord's people and Egypt.
The
passover marked a very clear-cut division between the
Lord's people and this world. And it is so clear that is
what the Lord Jesus meant by the Lord's Table. As He was
praying as the High Priest before He was about to offer
Himself as the sacrifice, He said to the Father, "They
are not of the world, even as I am not of the world... I
pray that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil
one." That is another meaning of the Lord's
Table. When we come to the Lord's Table, do we mean this?
Do we mean, I am of the people whom God has absolutely
separated from this world? I have been delivered from
this evil world. I do not belong to it. The only thing
that I am going to do while I am in it is to testify for
the Lord Jesus. So we remember or testify to the Lord's
death every time we come to the table.
Now I
think you understand what I meant when I said at the
beginning, we are in danger of forgetting something of
the great meaning of the Lord's Table. While we rejoice
exceedingly in all that He has done for us in His Cross,
we must remember that it involves us in something. It
involves us in recognizing the Absolute Lordship of our
Lord over us. It involves us in recognizing that we are
not of this world, because Christ is not of this world. May
the Lord give us spiritual understanding. And, the next
time we come to the Lord's Table, may we remember these
things.