1 Corinthians 11:26:
“For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.”

Question: In eating and drinking you are “proclaiming” — what does this mean?

Meaning of Proclaim

The meaning of the Greek word used here for proclaim matches exactly the popular meaning, it’s to make a clear and public announcement of news, and it’s used elsewhere in the bible to refer to preaching the gospel.

The Proclamation

Partaking of the bread and cup is giving our testimony of God’s gift of salvation through the crucifixion of Jesus.
Jesus commands us to follow this example in Luke 22:19-20, where He connects the bread and cup to the shedding of His body and blood on the cross, and says, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

This command explains His earlier statement in John 5:53-56, which had confused His disciples, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.” When the disciples said in John 6:60, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”, Jesus explained this as the promise of the Holy Spirit. In 6:63 He said, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.”

Our Statement

When we make such a public proclamation, it involves and reveals a personal response which is the foundation of both our personal faith and of the church. In Matthew 16:16-18, Jesus responds to Peter’s confession that, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”, with “on this rock I will build My church … And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”
It is faith which allows us to receive the Holy Spirit into our lives, to live in us and change who we are. John 7:38-39 reveals, “’He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive.”

As we respond with our public statement of faith in this meal, we invite the Holy Spirit to live in us and transform us.

The Form of our Message

The manner of our proclamation can be critical.

Paul describes how the Corinthians had changed the nature of the meal, they were putting themselves first by eating greedily and disregarding the well-being of others, which also stated they were sinning by putting themselves before God! They were rejecting Jesus’ gift of salvation which had been won for us with his body and blood, as revealed in 11:29, “he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.”

Fallen mankind also likes to reduce God’s ways to our own level, to institutionalise or set them in human procedures or concepts, and this has occurred with this meal. Various doctrines about the mechanics of it have been constructed and argued about by different churches. I think Paul’s response to that would have been more severe than his response to the Corinthians! As Romans 11:33 states, “How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!”

My Response

I had the challenge and privilege leading worship in the Lord’s Supper in a church over several years. The guidelines were to keep the discussion to within six minutes, which was ample time to give a detailed introduction. I found that almost every aspect of life could be connected to the Lord’s supper, because the miracle on the cross changes every aspect of our lives. It changes us from within as the holy spirit lives in us, and that transformation has been life changing for me.

Praise God!