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"The Cup of Blessing Which We Bless, Is It Not the Communion of the Blood of
Christ?"
1 Corinthians 10:17
Today I want to consider another great question of the gospel age. In a two-part question, the
last part of which I studied in our last study, Paul, the apostle asks: "The cup of blessing which
we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the
communion of the body of Christ?" (1 Cor. 10:16).
In these words, Paul declares that participants in the Lord's Supper are unified and bound
together in one spirit. Later on in the chapter, verse 21, Paul says: "Ye cannot drink the cup of
the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of
devils." Of course, he did not mean it is a physical impossibility, but that it is morally impossible.
What Is On the Table?
In our last study, we showed that the only way one can know that he is partaking of the table of
the Lord is by what is on the table. In the last part of the question, Paul affirms that the
communicants all partake of one bread. We showed that on the Lord's table there is to be one
bread, or one loaf. Since Jesus only had one typical body, that is, the paschal lamb, one lamb
to a house, and since he only had one physical body, and one spiritual body, his church, then
there should be only one communion body, one bread, or one loaf in the communion.
But not only is one loaf to be on the Lord's table, Paul mentions also "the cup of blessing" (1
Cor. 10:16). Can we understand what that is? We know what a cup is, don't we? A cup is simply
a drinking vessel. Thayer, the prince of lexicographers, calls it "the vessel out of which one
drinks." "The cup" does not mean a plurality of cups. So there is to be one bread, or "one loaf"
and "one cup" on the table of the Lord.
But this was not an empty cup-it was a cup of blessing. It contained the fruit of the vine, we are
told. Since the fruit of the vine was chosen to be the blood of Christ, (Jesus called it his blood,
Mt. 26:28-29), then it is a blessing to use physically and spiritually. Isaiah 65:8 spoke of the fruit
of the vine as a blessing. "Thus saith the Lord, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one
saith, Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it" The cup, containing the fruit of the vine, for which we
give thanks, Paul says, is the communion or joint participation of the blood of Christ.
Jesus Took One Cup
Let us look at the scriptures which tell of the institution of the Lord's Supper. Matthew 26:27,
"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 henceforth of the fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you
in my Father's kingdom." You will note here that Jesus "took the cup," and commanded, "Drink
ye all [all of you] of [out of] it"
He "took" the cup. The definition of "took" or "take" is to grasp, to handle, or to take in one's
hand. That is what Jesus did. Over in Genesis 40, there is an account of the dream the butler
had, and told to Joseph. The butler related how a vine was before him, which budded and
blossomed and brought forth clusters of ripe grapes. He said: "And Pharaoh's cup was in my
hand: and I took the grapes and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup, and I gave the cup into
Pharaoh's hand" (Gen. 40:11).
Now that is not hard to understand. Here we have a cup in a man's hand, and a cluster of
grapes which is being pressed. The juice of the grape was pressed into the cup, so there you
have the fruit of the vine in the cup. Here we can plainly see that the cup and the fruit of the
vine which was pressed into the cup are not the same thing. The cup was in the man's hand,
but the juice of the grape was in the cup. It was a cup that he could hand to the other man, and
he would take it into his hand. He said, "Pharaoh's cup was in my hand." He said, "I took the
grapes, and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup." He said, "I gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand."
Now I can understand that. It's plain, isn't it?