"This Do In Remembrance of Me" (I Corinthians 11:17-34)

"This Do In Remembrance of Me" from I Corinthians 11:17-34 was preached by Dr. Mark McElreath at the City Baptist Church of Atlanta on June 7, 2026.

Find out more about the City Baptist Church of Atlanta at www.citybaptistchurch.com.

Transcript

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Welcome to the City Pulpit. Bible messages from the pulpit ministry of the City Baptist Church in Atlanta. Please take your Bibles with me, and let's go to the book of 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians chapter 11. And as a church, we've been working our way through the book of 1 Corinthians, and we're just piece by piece working our way through it. The last time we met together, we were in the first part of 1 Corinthians. This evening, we'll look at this last half of 1 Corinthians chapter 11. We'll begin reading in chapter 11 and verse number 17. 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 17. The Bible says, Now in this that I declare unto you, I praise you not, that ye come together not for the better, but for the worse. For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you, and I partly believe it. For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you. When ye come together, therefore, into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper, for in eating every one taketh before other his own supper, and one is hungry, and another is drunken. What? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I praise you not. For I have decided to the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, I have received of the Lord that which also delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, Take ye, this is my body which is broken for you, this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, and when he had supped, saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood, this do ye as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come. Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves we would not be judged, but when we are judged we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. Wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another. And if any man hunger, let him eat at home, that ye come not together unto condemnation, and the rest will I set in order when I come. Would you mark one phrase? This phrase in verse twenty-four, and we'll take this for the theme of the Bible message this evening, end of verse number twenty-four, this do in remembrance of me, this do in remembrance of me. And here in the second half of 1 Corinthians chapter eleven, Paul really is dealing with what we would call the Lord's table or the Lord's Supper, or communion. This is an ordinance. When the Lord Jesus Christ left this earth, he left his disciples, he ascended back into heaven, and he's ever coming again, but he left us two ordinances. That means he ordained or set aside two things to be done in remembrance in his absence. Now we understand he's with us in the person of the Holy Spirit, but he is not with us bodily now, and we're to do two things. The first one is baptism, and that's another one for another time. We've taught on that, spoken about that. That's an ordinance that's carried out by the church. But then here we find his teaching on the Lord's Supper. We find it actually called the Lord's Supper in verse number 20. He calls it the Lord's Supper. Two words can describe these ordinances. One word would be perpetual, that means they're to carry on until he comes back. He actually says that, that we're to do it until he returns. And then also memorial. There is no grace imparted to us in taking a baptism or in taking the Lord's table. No one is saved by being baptized, and no one is saved by taking the Lord's Supper. They are memorial ordinances. When we understand we're a sinner and we need to be saved, and we call upon the Lord Jesus Christ to save us, as it says in Romans 10.13, then we're saved. The only reason we get baptized is it's the first step of obedience after salvation, and it is to show an outward sign of an inward belief. The Lord's Supper here is just to remember the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. There is nothing, we don't call them sacraments because there's nothing sacred. There's nothing of grace that is imparted to us by taking it. Taking the Lord's Supper doesn't get us closer to heaven. Taking the Lord's Supper doesn't make it easier for us to get into heaven. That's all through Jesus Christ alone. All right, we need to remember that. And we do find this emphasis on keeping them, though. You see, in verse number 24, we see those two words, this do in remembrance of me. He says in verse number 25, to uh do ye as often as ye drink it in remembrance of me. And so he is encouraging them, I want you to do this. So let's look at this passage and consider here the Lord's table and this teaching of the church at Corinth, because bear in mind, every time we have clear teaching or doctrine that is given, it's always given within a context. Here, it's given in the context of this church in Corinth. This is a church functioning in a pagan, ungodly city. And Paul has to set a lot of things in order, doesn't he? I mean, all through Corinth. He's saying, all right, well, you need to take care of this, and you need to take care of this, and here we come to the Lord's table, and he says, All right, you really need to take care of this. All right, let's consider some of these things he mentions to us, and let's take our own stock of whether or not we're lining up with what the Lord is saying. Consider with me first, if you're writing things down, taking notes, write this down. Number one, there is a gathering to be improved. A gathering to be improved. Look at verse number 17, because Paul just starts right out on this church. And look, he loves these people, he cares for these people, but he says, look, you've got to deal with this. He says, now in this that I declare unto you, I praise you not. He says, There's something, you're doing a terrible job at this, and I cannot give you any commendation in how you're handling this. He says, I praise you not that ye come together not for the better, but for the what? For the worse. Can you imagine? He says, you'd be better off not meeting up. You'd be better off not coming together. He actually says, your fellowship is not building the church, it's actually tearing down the church. Now, can you imagine if if the Apostle Paul stepped into our church, he said, City Baptist Church, you'd be better off if you split up and some of you wouldn't sat over there and some of you wouldn't sat over there, you'd be better off not being together. Now, I'm glad, I don't think he'd say that, because we do have a unity in the church, and I'm thankful for it. But he says, there's a problem here that you need to deal with. He he delves into it a little more. He says in verse 18, first of all, when you come together in the church, I hear that there be, what's that next word? Divisions among you, and I partly believe it. Now that's interesting, because remember, Paul is writing by letter here. Paul hasn't been with the church at Corinth in quite a while. But he has a grasp of what's going on there. He says, you know, I've heard there are divisions. He mentioned this, he mentioned this in 1 Corinthians chapter 1. He actually dealt with this, 1 Corinthians 1 and verse number 12. He said, Now this I say that every one of you saith, I am Apaul, and I have Apollos, and I have Cephas, and I have Christ. And then he says this in verse 13 in 1 Corinthians 1. Is Christ divided? He says, You come to church and you say, Well, look, I'm of the group, I'm on Paul's side. This group comes, they say, I'm of Apollos' side. This group says, Well, we're actually of Christ. He says, have we all been divided up in that way? If you're making those kind of divisions, that's an earthly division, and that's not something that God has ordained. It's not something that's put together. And so we've got to get that right. He actually says in 1 Corinthians 1 verse 13, he says, Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or are you baptized in the name of Paul? He says, I think God had baptized none of you. And so he's making the point here that you've got to get the unity right because there's a gathering that's got to be worked on. When you come to the church, you bring more problems than you bring solutions, is what he's saying here to them. Look down at verse number 19. He says, For there must also must be also what among you? Heresy. Now, what is heresy? Heresy very basically is false teaching. He says, When you come together, there's divisions, and when you come together, there's heresies. There's false teaching going on. Now here's what's interesting. We would think heresies, I don't want heresy in the church. Now that's true. I don't want false teaching in the church. We need to go to the Bible and teach the Bible. But here's what he says in verse 19. He says, For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you. You say, Pastor, what does he mean there? What he's saying is heresy helps clarify some things. If any of you have studied church history, we find when there's false teaching that crops up, what does the church have to do? The church has to say, here's our clear position. That's what heresy does. It clarifies position and it clarifies people. So we say, here's what the Bible teaches. And then you know what begins to happen? We quickly find out who believes the Bible and who doesn't believe the Bible. Because Paul is saying in verse 19, there must be also heresies among you. Now, I don't want a wolf to come in and take any of the sheep. I don't want any false teaching to come in and drive anyone away. But I heard one Bible teacher put it this way. If you ever heard of Dr.

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Vernon McGee, he said, you need heresy because it's like when you melt precious metal and all of the corruption and all the things that weren't true metal come to the top and they get whisked away. He said, that's what heresy does. People get pulled away to cults and isms. Why? Because they want the cults and isms and they don't want the teaching of the Bible. And Paul says here, are there some that are taken away by heresy? Yes. But that's because then those that are approved among you may be made manifest or may be made known to you. And so he says, look, I don't want anyone to be pulled away, but this is a necessary thing to do what? To clarify our position and to clarify our people. He goes on to say, in verse number 20, he mentions something here. He says, When you come together, therefore, into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's Supper. Now you say, Pastor, I thought he was talking about the Lord's Supper. Well, there's another feast that often was carried out in the first century church. It's called the shared feast or the love feast, where often we believe, according to tradition, when the Lord's table would be taken, the people would also share a meal together. Not just the bread and the juice, but they would also share a meal. And he says here, when you come together, he says in verse 21, in eating, everyone taketh before other his own supper, and one is hungry and another is drunken. Now what he's saying is, you have eaten on your own, and some of you are coming to the Lord's table, and you're coming drunk. Some of you are coming to the Lord's table, and you're you're desecrating the Lord's supper before you even get there. He goes on to say in verse 22, What? Or despise ye the church of God and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? He says again in verse 22, I praise you not. He's saying, there is a gathering that needs to be improved. I praise you not. We've got to ask ourselves, are we better off when we come to church? Or let me put it this way, is the church better off when I come to church? Or is the church worse off when I come to church? We should be adding to the body not just a number, but honestly, we should be adding a quality to the body when we come. Because he says, look, when you guys get together, you're worse off. Would Paul say that about you and I in our Christian life? Is the body believers worse off when we show up? Hopefully not. We should be adding to it. So there's a gathering to be improved. But then he moves, look at me at verse 23, if you write this down secondly, there is a picture to be remembered. A picture to be remembered. Now bear in mind, we're talking of the Lord's table here. It is a memorial supper. There's a picture. All of this is a picture of the death, burial of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here's what he says in verse 23 For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread. He's speaking of the what is often called the Last Supper, where Jesus Christ goes in the upper room. He's with his disciples. This is the last time he'll eat with them together. In just a few moments, he's going to leave that final supper. He's going to go to the Garden of Gethsemane and pray. And Judas is going to betray him. He's going to be marched off to false trials. He's going to be marched off to be beaten. He's going to go to a cross and die for our sin. Just moments after that last supper. And what does Jesus do? It says that he takes bread. Verse 24, it says, and when he had given thanks, he'd break it. Now, this bread that Jesus is using there, the picture in it, is that this is unleavened bread. There's no leaven in this bread. Leaven in the Bible is a picture of sin and a picture of corruption. But the bread that he takes, it has no leaven. It is a picture of the pure, uncorrupted body of Christ. We had to deal with this when we were missionaries in Ethiopia. The word that was used for bread in the Ethiopian Bible was word dabo. It was a word for leavened bread, yeast, yeasted bread, like we would eat. And they used that because that was a cultural word, but you lose the picture if you use that word. Because a bread with yeast in it, a bread that is corrupted, a bread that has this fermentation in it, you lose the picture of the pure body of Christ. There was another word they could have used, and whenever a pastor would come to that passage, he'd always have to explain. This is the wrong word that's used here. Thankfully we have a we have a good Bible. We don't have to worry about that. But it says that he took the bread and he broke it, and he said, Take eat, this is my body, which is broken for you. This do in remembrance of me. It's that whenever you take the bread, I want you to remember the body of Christ that was given for you. Now, when we eat it, we're not literally eating the body of Christ. Alright? The Catholic Church teaches the bread becomes the body of Christ in us. That's not what it is, transubstantiation. It's not what the Lutherans teach in consubstantiation, that the presence is there. When you get the unleavened piece of bread, it's just an unleavened piece of bread, okay? There's nothing special about that bread. The only thing special about it is what it pictures in the body of the Lord Jesus Christ given for us. And he says here, this do in remembrance of me. When we take the Lord's table, we're remembering the death of Christ for our sins upon the cross. That's why it is only for saved people. Only saved people can take of the Lord's table. Because if you have not accepted Christ as your Savior, you have nothing to look back to and remember because you've never trusted him in the first place. But he doesn't just take the bread. Look at verse 25. It says, and after the same manner also he took what? He took the cup. I want you to notice in this passage he never calls it wine. He always refers to it as the cup. I believe it was just the freshly crushed juice of the grape, because if there would have been any fermentation in that juice, you would also lose the picture of the pure, uncorrupted body of Christ. If there's no yeast in the bread, I'm sure there's no fermentation in the juice. Otherwise you miss the whole point. So he says he took the cup, and when he had supped, saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood. Now, he doesn't say that about the bread. He says this New Testament part about the blood. Why? Because what was the Old Testament based on? That was based upon the blood of sheep and goats and turtle doves and all the sacrifices. Imagine all the sacrifices brought through all the Old Testament. Tens of thousands, yea, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of sacrifices all down through the centuries in the Old Testament. And we understand that that blood in the Old Testament is not what saved them. It was the faith in the one true God and looking ahead toward his redemption that would be found in his son. But we find here this New Testament that's found in his blood. Look what he says here in verse 25. The New Testament in my blood, this do ye as often as ye drink it in remembrance of me. We see here that it is commemorating in the past the death of Christ. It is communing, that's present, dwelling with the living Christ, and also pictures a commitment, a future coming of Christ, because he says here in verse 26, as often as you eat this bread, drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death till he come. Till he come. So there is a past memorial, there's a present communion, and there's a future commitment. He says, As often as you drink it, you show the Lord's death. One commentator says, as baptism symbolizes the believer's union with Christ, so the Lord's Supper symbolizes the communion with Christ. Baptism, scripturally administered, is a single act, just as union with Christ is an already accomplished, never-to-be repeated act. He then says the Lord's Supper is regularly repeated, just as our communion with Him is a constantly enjoyed experience in the normal Christian life. Why do we get baptized one time? Because you only got saved one time. That's all you have to do. Well, then why do we take communion at regular intervals? Some churches take it every week. Some churches take it once a year. We try to take it around here about once a quarter, maybe once every four months. Why do we do that? Because just as we have to work at our communion with Christ, that's a daily thing. That's an ongoing thing to work in our fellowship with Him. That's where we have the picture of this ongoing work of the Lord's Supper. So there's this picture to be remembered, and then there's a third thing. He ends the chapter here with this. He says, there's a gathering to be improved, there's a picture to be remembered, and then thirdly, there is a warning to be considered. A warning to be considered. Because with the taking of the Lord's table, there is risk here. No one should take of the Lord's Supper, the Lord's table, lightly. This is not a simple thing. This is not just anyone should take part in this. In fact, Paul's going to give some guidelines here. He says in verse 27, he says, Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. Unworthily here speaks of our relationship with God when taking this. Now you say, Pastor, how could we ever be worthy of taking it? It's not about worth, but it's about self-examination before the Lord, to see that we are right with him, and that we have dealt with whatever, whatever sin may be between us and the Lord. We've dealt with it, and we can in a right conscience take the Lord's table. He says here, if you eat or drink unworthily in verse 27, you shall be guilty of the blood, the body, and the blood of the Lord. He says in verse 28, okay, what are we supposed to do? Let a man examine himself. So let us take a look at ourselves. I'm not examining you, you're not examining me. I am examining myself, you're examining yourself, and he says, so let him eat of that bread, drink of that cup. The point is not that someone would not take of the Lord's table. The point is that we would prepare ourselves properly to be ready to take it. If there's something I had against another one among the congregation, that I would deal with that first, and then I would take of the Lord's table. If there's something between me and the Lord that I need to deal with, that I would take care of it first before taking of the Lord's table. He says in verse number 29, for he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. That's pretty heavy words in verse 29. To eat and drink unworthily, to drink damnation, that's condemnation. There's judgment if we don't take of it properly. He says in verse 30, for this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. There were some in the church at Corinth that were sick, that were dealing with illness. There were some, when he says here that sleep, he's speaking of those that have died. Some had died because they were not right with the Lord when they took the Lord's Supper. That's a pretty heavy thing. When we do the Lord's Supper next, if we were to truly think, Am I prepared before the Lord to take of this and remember his death, burial, and resurrection? Because I don't want to face sickness and illness. Now, bear in mind, not everyone dealing with sickness and illness or that has died in our church is not because they took of the body and blood unworthily, all right? But he says this is a cause. He says in verse 31, if we would judge ourselves, that means if we would self-examine ourselves, we should not be judged. If we deal with ourselves, God won't have to deal with us. He says in verse 32, but when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. He says that if we will deal with our own sin, then the Lord won't have to chasten us. Let me use the example of my children. If my children will discipline themselves and live a disciplined life, then I don't have to discipline them, right? Same is true of the Lord. If we live a disciplined Christian life before Him, then He does not have to discipline us or chasten us. He says in verse 32, when you're judged, you're chastened to the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. Now he's making the point that this chastening is just in this life. If you take of the body and blood of the Lord Jesus unworthily, that doesn't mean you lose salvation. He's saying we're not condemned with the world. Okay? They will face a judgment at the end of all days. But we have a chastening in this life. And then he really rounds it up here and he says, Look, verse 33, wherefore, my brethren, when you come together to eat, tarry one for another. He says, wait on one another. And then if any man hunger, let him eat at home. When you come not together unto condemnation. And the rest will I set in order when I come. Now, isn't that interesting? What do you think the rest was? I would love to know what else Paul wanted to set in order when he was going to come to Corinth. But nonetheless, he said, Look, if you can get this right, everything else is going to fall into place. We'll look at this next time we come to 1 Corinthians, but he's going to deal with spiritual gifts in chapter 12. You realize he doesn't start with spiritual gifts, he starts with the Lord's table and saying, I want you right on the inside, and then you can start working for me, ministering for me, using your spiritual gifts. But I want you to deal with the inside first. I want you to deal with preparing yourself and examining yourself before the Lord. Then let's talk about ministry and service and everything going on on the outside. That's the order that he follows here. And we need to, when we consider ourselves, when we come together, is this a gathering we need to work on? Are we better having been together? Are we better having fellowship together? Are we remembering the picture of the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ? Are we considering this warning that we are self-examining ourselves? Looking at ourselves. Because ultimately Jesus Christ died for our sin to pay the debt for our sin that we may have a home in heaven. Are we living the life that he died for? Are we living up to that? That's really what Paul is getting to when he concerns his writing here in 1 Corinthians 11. Thank you for listening to the City Pulpit. For more information about the City Baptist Church of Atlanta, please visit www.mycitybaptist.com.