1 Corinthians 11:26

_ _ For — in proof that the Lord’s Supper is “in remembrance” of Him.

_ _ show — announce publicly. The Greek does not mean to dramatically represent, but “ye publicly profess each of you, the Lord has died FOR ME” [Wahl]. This word, as “is” in Christ’s institution (1 Corinthians 11:24, 1 Corinthians 11:25), implies not literal presence, but a vivid realization, by faith, of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, as a living person, not a mere abstract dogma, “bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh” (Ephesians 5:30; compare Genesis 2:23); and ourselves “members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones,” “our sinful bodies made clean by His body (once for all offered), and our souls washed through His most precious blood” [Church of England Prayer Book]. “Show,” or “announce,” is an expression applicable to new things; compare “show” as to the Passover (Exodus 13:8). So the Lord’s death ought always to be fresh in our memory; compare in heaven, Revelation 5:6. That the Lord’s Supper is in remembrance of Him, implies that He is bodily absent, though spiritually present, for we cannot be said to commemorate one absent. The fact that we not only show the Lord’s death in the supper, but eat and drink the pledges of it, could only be understood by the Jews, accustomed to such feasts after propitiatory sacrifices, as implying our personal appropriation therein of the benefits of that death.

_ _ till he come — when there shall be no longer need of symbols of His body, the body itself being manifested. The Greek expresses the certainly of His coming. Rome teaches that we eat Christ present corporally, “till He come” corporally; a contradiction in terms. The showbread, literally, “bread of the presence,” was in the sanctuary, but not in the Holiest Place (Hebrews 9:1-8); so the Lord’s Supper in heaven, the antitype to the Holiest Place, shall be superseded by Christ’s own bodily presence; then the wine shall be drunk “anew” in the Father’s kingdom, by Christ and His people together, of which heavenly banquet, the Lord’s Supper is a spiritual foretaste and specimen (Matthew 26:29). Meantime, as the showbread was placed anew, every sabbath, on the table before the Lord (Leviticus 24:5-8); so the Lord’s death was shown, or announced afresh at the Lord’s table the first day of every week in the primitive Church. We are now “priests unto God” in the dispensation of Christ’s spiritual presence, antitypical to the HOLY PLACE: the perfect and eternal dispensation, which shall not begin till Christ’s coming, is antitypical to the HOLIEST PLACE, which Christ our High Priest alone in the flesh as yet has entered (Hebrews 9:6, Hebrews 9:7); but which, at His coming, we, too, who are believers, shall enter (Revelation 7:15; Revelation 21:22). The supper joins the two closing periods of the Old and the New dispensations. The first and second comings are considered as one coming, whence the expression is not “return,” but “come” (compare, however, John 14:3).