UNLEAVENED BREAD AT COMMUNION.
By M. C. W.
The following question and answer occurred in a late number of the Herald of Truth, the leading Baptist paper on the Pacific Coast:— “There are some among us,” writes an esteemed pastor in our State, “not of our church as yet, who insist that our use of leavened bread at the communion table is wrong. They will not come unless we have unleavened. What would you do with such people?” “Answer—We should not urge their coming at all. Better to have none such than to introduce discord into the working fellowship of the church. Rev. J. R. Broadus, D. D., says: ‘It was unleavened bread of course our Lord used, as required by law, but our Lord makes no reference to this, and it is not wise to insist on using only unleavened bread at the Lord’s Supper.’ It might be told to these stickers for the mint and anise of things, at the Lord’s table, in their demand for unleavened bread, that one might just as well demand feet-washing at every celebration, in order to be exact followers of Jesus. See John 13: 1-17.” We wish to briefly notice a few points:— 1. The church should have yielded, when no principle whatever would be in any way compromised, to those who could conscientiously partake only of unleavened bread. In so doing they would obey the injunction of the apostle, “that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way.” “But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably. Destroy not him with thy meat, for whom Christ died.” Rom. 14:13, 15. See also 1 Cor. 8:13. The principle is just as good in this case, as in the one which called out the apostle’s words, even admitting that unleavened bread had no other claim than custom. Apart from all other considerations, it is not bad or wrong in any way, and no one had any scruples of conscience against it. 2. But those who insisted on unleavened bread are, by the above answer, admitted to be right; and they are right. The paschal lamb of which our Lord and his disciples partook, was to be eaten with unleavened bread. Seven days the feast of unleavened bread was to be kept. Ex. 12: 8, 15; Deut. 16: 1-8. The fourth verse reads: “And there shall be no leavened bread seen with thee in all thy coast seven days.” Certainly this makes it clear that our Saviour used unleavened bread “as required by law.” 3. Christ’s example ought to be sufficient for Christians in such a matter as this,—the institution of an ordinance for the church, till he should come. But this appeal to example is met by a sneer at the ordinance of feet-washing, which was designed to ever present before the people of God an example of humility and union. Why not “demand feet-washing”? We have not only Christ’s example, but his positive injunction and specific blessing concerning it. “So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Master and Lord; and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet. For106I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. . . . If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.” John 13: 12-17. We know not what could be plainer. 4. We cannot in this connection help referring to two things. What would not Sunday-keepers give if they only had one-third of the evidence for Sunday observance that is given for feet-washing. If they could find but one example of the first day kept as a Sabbath, one command—one “ought”—for its observance, one “happy are ye,” how grateful they would be! But they cannot be found. How happy would they be to find as much proof for Sunday sacredness as for unleavened bread at that memorable institution of the Lord’s supper! But it cannot be found. 5. Again: Our Baptist friends have always been great sticklers for the mode of baptism. They claim to follow that practiced by the primitive church. But why cling to “the mint and anise of “Baptism, any more than that of the Lord’s Supper? Would not the same principles, the same logic, lead Baptists to be Baptists no longer? Or, if they cling to the word of God concerning baptism, ought they not by the same logic to accept of unleavened bread and unfermented juice of the fruit of the vine at the Lord’s Supper? Ought they not also to accept of the ordinance of feet-washing, and to disregard the Sunday holiday? We put these questions to Baptists. Are they followers of Christ in all things? Then let them take up the down-trodden truth of God. It certainly ill befits a Baptist to criticise a thing so evident as the above. 6. Why did our Saviour use unleavened bread and unfermented wine at the institution of the Lord’s Supper? For this reason: Just as a lamb without spot or blemish was required to represent the great and perfect sacrifice, so unleavened bread and unfermented wine only could rightly symbolize and memorialize the pure and perfect offering of Christ. Ferment and leaven are evidences of decay and corruption. Leaven is a symbol of hypocrisy. Luke 12: 1. And right in connection with our Lord himself, the apostle uses these words: “Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us.” 1 Cor. 5: 6, 7. And right in harmony with this principle is the following from Ex. 23: 13: “Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread.” 7. Very particular was Jehovah concerning the ordinances of his house in the past dispensation; is he less particular to-day? With him is “no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” James 1: 17. “He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses.” Every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward, can we escape if we neglect or despise what he has given? Are we wiser than he? Heb. 2: 1-3; 10: 28, 29. Would it not be true that they who sit in judgment upon the institutions and precepts of God now, would have offered strange fire then, as did Nadab and Abihu (Lev. 10), or have drawn by cart the holy ark, and then put forth unholy hands to steady it? 2 Sam. 6: 3-7. We are glad that God has been so merciful to a backslidden church; glad for the word of life; glad that he is particular as regards his precept, for we then know that he will be concerning his promise; glad that he is enlightening the world with a message, which, if heeded, will bring men back to the simple truth of the Bible. The fermented wine and the leavened bread are fit symbols of the departure from the simplicity of Christ. May God help the honest in heart to accept of the pure truth, and purge out the leaven of all evil and error.