3617 — The Bread and the Wine
By Editor
If the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper are not changed into the actual body and blood of Christ, why did He say, "This is My body," and "This is My blood"? If we are not to value tradition, please explain what Paul meant in 2 Thess. 3:6; 1 Cor. 11:2; 2 Thess. 2:15. W. P. M. L. The Greek did not use the term "signify," or "symbolize," or "represent," as we would in such a case as that. They simply used the direct declarative word itself. "This is My body;" that is, this represents My body. "This is My blood"—this represents My blood. We have the same form of expression in John 15: "I am the true Vine." "I am the Vine, ye are the branches." It would be more elaborate, and more verbally correct, to say, "I am represented by the vine," or, "The vine represents Me; the husbandman represents My Father; the branches represent you." We would say, "The field represents the world; the good seed represents the children of the kingdom; the tares, the children of the wicked one;" but Jesus said, "The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one." See the apostle Paul's directions in 1 Cor. 11:26: "For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till He come." It is Jesus Himself who says, "The flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." John 6:63. The Lord's Supper was an occasional emblem of a continual feast. The emblem was the bread and the wine; the feast is the feeding on the word of Christ, the drinking in of His Spirit. The term "tradition" simply means that which has been received. It seems to us that the apostle's words clearly indicate just what was meant—not only his own teaching which God gave to him, but that which had been delivered to him,—that which had come down from the past, which might be either oral or written. Says Vincent in his "Word Studies" on 2 Thess. 2:15: "Not emphasizing a distinction between written and oral tradition. 'Tradition' in the Scriptural sense may be either written or oral. It implies on the part of the teacher that he is not expressing his own ideas, but that he is delivering, or handing over, a message received from some one else." It is therefore of an authority external to the teacher. It may have been taught by the Word of God, and it may have been of the teaching of Christ or His apostles. But it was not like the traditions which men emphasize nowadays, simply that which has been handed down through the ages from one man to another, having the authority of the human; but that which was truly authoritative in the beginning, and comes down to us unchanged.