We see many bright rays of truth beamed to us from God's message in blood. His wrath is turned away, the records of sin gone, distance between us has been removed, guilt is gone, and His life flows through these mortal bodies. Though each of these truths speaks of a different need God meets through his power, each is closely related and part of His total plan for man. In this study we will take a look at possibly the highest purpose God had in mind through the flow of this crimson stream. And that is restoration to a place of communion, a oneness of spirit between God and man. And this folks is what communion really is, it's not just the act of the taking of symbols of his death but it is a oneness of spirit between you and God. We see the importance first of all in communion.
Exodus 12:13, 14, 24. In the Old Testament the communion as we know it was called the Passover. And so we're reading about the Passover here. "The blood you have smeared on your doorposts will serve as a sign. When I see the blood, I will pass over you. This plague of death will not touch you when I strike the land of Egypt. You must remember this day forever. Each year you will celebrate it as a special festival to the Lord. Remember, these instructions are permanent and must be observed by you and your descendants forever." That word instruction or ordinance is a law and in this particular case because God gave it, it became a divine law. God gave this as a law because there's no life in the individual without partaking of Jesus. And this Passover was a symbol of the Lamb that would come. And these families partook of the Lamb. They used the blood for protection; they used the body for food for their physical health. And so the Word tells us in speaking about this that the body of Jesus, the reason many people are so weak and sick is because they haven't discerned the Lord's body. Their accepting the forgiveness which comes from the blood but they haven't discerned the body. And when we partake of His life then we are not only taking the blood but of the virtues of His body.
Now we may think the human body isn't worth very much but to God it is of tremendous value, because in the atonement and in his plan before He ever started the world, He made provision for the health of the body. Because in His great plan He included, that's why in Isaiah 53:4 he could say, "By His stripes we are healed." Not discerning the Lord's body, they're weak. But when we are in God's presence and we take the full focus of what He intended through communion we receive emotional healing, physical healing, and spiritual healing. That's why Paul in his prayer in the fifth chapter of first Thessalonians said, "I pray God that your whole spirit, your whole soul, and your whole body will be preserved." Well, God made room for preservation and any time we get off on just one little binge or another we're missing God completely. His life provides this. It doesn't mean that if a person is sick that they're not partaking of His life. God's timing and God's purposes, He's looking at it from a different angle than we are. His mercies are new every day and each day may be that day that we look forward to. And even physical health isn't always what people assume it to be but when you come into God's presence and He shares His life with you, you feel that glow and that flow.
There are people that have the anointing of the Spirit just as strong that may not receive the physical evidence of healing. But they have evidences that His life is there. You can go your way happy, rejoicing even though you may have some symptoms of these things that are there. If God has touched you, you can thank God. Many of the people that I have seen healed in just recent weeks have been healed without them even asking God for it, without me knowing anything about it. But God certainly knew and when His life came it took care of it. I think of one lady in particular, Ms. Cora. She came in my room almost dead and left almost dead. She came in sad dead and walked out happy dead. But it was 3 days later when the symptoms of health came to her life. This beautiful provision that God has made, He said, "I want it to be a law forever." This was the Passover. And so the children of Israel every year had to keep that Passover.
When Jesus came He said, "I'm taking away the old covenant, I'm bringing in the new at the completion of my sacrifice." Now the Passover isn't done away with, but the real Passover lamb has come. Now you're able to partake of the real Lamb and the real blood. It won't be a matter of postponing or the symbol of the real, you will be partaking of the real. So when we think of the power of the blood, of the breaking down of the barrier, the reconciliation, of the removing of the records, of the removing of the pollution of sin. All of these things were brought to man in order to bring about communion. God wanted to prepare man so he could have communion with him once again. The only guarantee of acceptance before God is the blood. That's why it says the blood shall be to you a token and when I look at it, when I see that the blood is there you're accepted before Me. And that blood is the mark. John 6:53-57. The blood is the only source of divine life. "Jesus said, I assure you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life within you. But those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them at the last day. For my flesh is the true food, and my blood is the true drink. All who eat my flesh and drink my blood remain in Me, and I in them. I live by the power of the living Father who sent Me; in the same way; those who partake of Me will live because of Me."
There's that fellowship, that communion now, partaking of Him and we live by Him, we have this life. But He said if you don't do it you have no life in you and in this case He said if you do, we'll abide together, we'll have fellowship. And then the promise of the resurrection or of the rapture which ever case may be. 1 Corinthians 11:30. "For this reason many are weak and sickly among you." The verses leading up to this is telling about communion and the need of partaking of Him. And it speaks about eating and drinking unworthily. And this has been held as a threat to people for years and years and years. And the interpretation has been totally wrong, that the drinking unworthily would be if you had something in your heart that wasn't right. But what he's telling you here if you eat and drink unworthily you're eating and drinking if your faith is not in the blood. If your faith is in what you have accomplished, if you can sit there and say, "I've done this and this and this and everything is okay so I'm worthy, you're not availing yourself.
He used the term here that he has never expanded into a doctrine so what he says here about eating and drinking damnation he's using as background material showing that a person is not availing themselves of the life that there is. Jesus said in John 3:17-18, he said, "he that receives Him not is condemned already." So you're just eating and drinking in that state of condemnation because you haven't accepted Him, His life and His body, you're depending on what you can do. And I think that many times Christians because of teaching and God has not judged them because God knows the reasons why and God looks at the heart, where we look at the action and in many cases God doesn't write it down because He sees the pressures that are causing it and knows it is not the true feeling of a persons heart. They're doing what they feel is expected in pleasing God and God sees this but it does rob the person then of the ability to let their faith take hold of what Jesus has done. When we feel that I can't take today because there was a little something that passed into mind that wasn't right, I'm guilty of some sins of omission, I could have done some good that I didn't do. We had a little altercation at our house and I didn't speak as nice as what I should have spoken. And we start looking at all of these reasons and when you start looking for reasons why you shouldn't partake of Jesus, satan will never let you run out of reasons. He'll keep them piped in there coming just as fast. So the Lord said don't look for those reasons, look for the reasons why you can, that blood is for you.
The blood that was shed for you in communion now is taken now and given to you. We can partake of it and let it become part of our life, the injection of divine life. When your faith is not in the blood it's got to be in something else and usually the emphasis is on, have you examined yourself to see whether there are some things in you that would keep you from God. There's no mention of that at all. When he says let a man examine himself and so let him eat, he's letting a man examine himself to see whether he's putting his faith in that blood. God isn't looking for reasons to condemn people; He came that we might have life. For the first 1750 years of the Christian experience they didn't teach that, that didn't start until the last part of the last century. Somebody got an idea where they needed to start putting people with that. But it wasn't in any print; it wasn't accepted in any of the writings of the people down through those years until the last part of the last century. And then all of a sudden people started saying, "you've got to struggle and climb to a place of almost perfection before you could even take the life." It's as much as saying you need to be strong and perfect before you're even alive. Jesus said if you don't take it you don't have any life.
I'm encouraging people if you want Jesus you hold the key right in your hand when you hold that cup, and put your faith in what He has done. And the Lord isn't making it just a psychological thing with them, a change of mind. He is saying I like that and He's pushing the switch and their lives are turning around. The new birth is coming and it happens. Our real communion that we have with God when we accept Him is not necessarily the celebration that we have. We feed on Him and He feeds on our fellowship as we are in His presence. Everyday we're having beautiful communion but those times when we have celebration we're celebrating what we're doing. The blood that God has sprinkled on our life, you can't see that but God can. It just happens everyday as you're in fellowship and you're communing with Him. You're feeding His heart and He's feeding you, that's communion.
I've had some church of Christ people ask me how come you don't have communion every Sunday. I would hate to have to wait seven days before I had communion. The Lord wants us to have it everyday, and if a person wants to celebrate every week, wonderful. But that is just a symbol of what really happens. And the Lord comes and celebrates with you. God wasn't nearly as interested in the details as He was in getting people into communion. That's the reason why you notice under King Hezekiah in 2nd Chronicles 30:17-20. There's the story of those people who hadn't purified themselves after the purification of the temple. They hadn't examined themselves to see whether they had some bad feelings or other things and here they were taking of the Passover and scared the Priests half to death. And so the Priests came to Hezekiah and said, "What are we going to do? Those people haven't followed the rules." And Hezekiah said "well, let's find out what God thinks." And so he said, "God what about this?" And God said, "I like it" and He forgave all of them.
Then it's placed in New Testament worship. The completed sacrifice of Jesus activated a new covenant. So it fulfilled the Law of Moses and began the law of Christ, the law of love which is written on the heart. And he tells about this in Hebrews 8:6-13 about how Christ began the New Covenant, he said that new law I'm going to write on the fleshly tablets of the heart. He was ushering in a new covenant. The new covenant is this and I want you to memorize this new covenant because this is what you're living under right now and this blood is the seal of the new covenant. Here it is, "I will be merciful to your unrighteousness and I will not remember your sin." That's the new covenant. And he said this blood that I give you is the blood of the new covenant. It's the life of the new covenant. I will be merciful to your unrighteousness; He didn't say I'm going to spare you people that are righteous. I will be merciful to your unrighteousness and your sins and your iniquities will I remember no more because here's the blood. God made this real to me and included it during that night when He gave me this message on the blood. But because it hadn't yet been revealed in the way that God is moving now, the impact didn't strike me and for several years I didn't move into that though I had it written out. I had forgotten that I even had it written there until I took them out and put them together for these lessons. I saw that the thing that God revealed to me then and made real to me was the same beautiful truth.
There's another truth here. Jesus made that statement; there is no life without the blood. In talking about communion, Matthew 26:26-29, "As they were eating, Jesus took the blood and blessed it and broke 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 of the New Testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say unto you I will not drink hence forth of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my father's kingdom."
One of the things that was so beautiful when I pulled out these notes and read the truth that now takes on new meaning. As I read this and looked in the commentaries and the Greek and Hebrew Scholars and all, they have put this time that Jesus is speaking about into the kingdom reign where Jesus said this is the last time; I will not do it until my Father's kingdom. But in looking at these notes that I scribbled out that God put in my heart, Jesus said, "the completion of my sacrifice began the kingdom life." He tied that with Isaiah 55:3 where he said the kingdom covenants and also in Isaiah 54 where He said, "these are the covenants of the kingdom that I will make to the people who incline their ear and listen and their souls begin to live and are sharing that life." The kingdom is theirs. All the kingdom life and promises belong to the people that are part of His kingdom. I read those notes and got so excited because I had written down in the New Covenant that Jesus in Revelation 3:20 said, "Look, I stand at the door and knock, now if any man hears my voice and will open the door, I'll come in and we'll have communion together and we'll sup together." It isn't something that's way off in the future but it's right now. Jesus is there supping with us right now. And God was concerned about this because I had written right there that if this were something of a future date then we also have to put the promise of the new covenant of a future date where His mercy to unrighteousness and His forgiveness of sins would have to be some other time because that's the covenant. It's all the same. I will not eat with you until that kingdom day but my New Covenant is when it begins, your sins and your iniquities will I remember no more. So if we take that we have to take the other two that the kingdom promises aren't right now.
So when you take communion and you hold that cup in your hand or in the morning or any time when you have wonderful communion with God, Jesus Himself is supping with you. He's there. If you ever want to get right close in His presence at communion, look across the table so to speak, Jesus is there. He's there supping with you. Communion means a two way street. Just one person doing all the talking isn't communion. So Jesus said, "I'm feeding you of My life but you're feeding Me with your life because I feed on your worship, on your love. When he told the disciples, "I have meat to eat that you know not of," He wasn't eating something else, He was merely drawing from the adoration of a person that He was leading to Himself. And when Martha said, "Lord command that lazy sister of mine to get out here and help get your meal ready." Jesus said, "I'm eating right now. This is the best meal Mary's giving me. I'm feeding, I'm having communion, there's oneness of spirit." So what the Lord is telling us is that when I finish my sacrifice and the Old Covenant is done away and I bring in the new then we're going to have another time of communion together.
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