Resurrection From the Dead, Part 8
Reprint April 21, 2023
Beginning in 2008 and into 2009 Holy
Spirit instructed me to begin sharing Sunday after Sunday after Sunday after
Sunday on the Table of the Lord. Just when I thought we'd about gotten
the full revelation of what takes place, the Holy Spirit would download a whole
new picture. Hence, for some 40 weeks or so in succession, the Lord
peeled layer after layer after layer away so that we began seeing and hearing
an entirely new and expanded dimension of this covenant act.
If you are wondering what all this
has to do with Resurrection Life and resurrection from the dead, buckle your
seatbelt! We are on a fresh journey
through our understanding of what we commonly call the Table of the Lord, or
the Communion Table.
If
you've grown up in and around the church, you've likely had pretty much the
same routine I've had where we would take Communion the first Sunday of every
month. Frequently you will hear the pastor or church leader say something
like the following -- particularly after reading the passage of Scripture from
I Corinthians 11 that reads like this:
I Corinthians 11:27-30: "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."
You've
likely heard something like this: "Now
be careful! Examine yourself! If you have sin in your life, don't
partake of Communion -- not until you repent and make things right with
God. If you do, you could be eating sickness and death to yourself."
What
gets missed in the translation is the last phrase of Paul's admonition, "not discerning the
Lord's body."
If
you were part of the Charismatic Renewal, you likely did something like I
did. I would try to discipline my thoughts and imagination and try to
imagine Jesus' body hanging on the Cross; and I would say, "Oh, Lord, I see you. I see you hanging on the
Cross. I see your body. I see what you did for me."
Nice.......but
stupid! That was NOT the body Paul was speaking of! He didn't
expect us to screw up our willpower and try to imagine Jesus hanging on the
Cross. That word "discerning" in the Greek text is diakrino, which means: to make a distinction, to discriminate, to separate
thoroughly. But Paul uses an interesting Greek word in the statement,
"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."
That
word "unworthily" is translated from the Greek anaxios, which literally
means: to treat irreverently, to treat as commonplace.
The
use of those two words greatly affects how we understand this command.
Let me explain.
When
we treat the Table of the Lord as a ritual, a once-a-month event we are
required to keep (and we do it as a religious duty), we've totally lost sight
of what Jesus commanded, and we are treating this as "commonplace,"
as "ordinary." Once the Table of the Lord, or partaking of
Communion becomes a religious duty and not a covenant act with revelation and
understanding of what is taking place, it simply becomes "another thing to
do" for us as Christians.
We
waste our time, we waste God's time, and....worse....our treating this Table so
cavalierly results in our opening a door of opportunity to Satan to afflict us
with disease, steal from us and even take our lives prematurely.
The
"discernment" Paul is speaking of refers to discerning --
understanding with true revelation -- all that Jesus' body represents at the
Table. This is not eating of a wafer and drinking an ounce of grape
juice. This is not crackers and juice, or a piece of bread and
wine. This is the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, it
is! More than that, it is a part of
walking in the revelation of Resurrection Life, and all that Jesus accomplished
for us with His death and resurrection.
That
said; let me take you to a few foundation scriptures that will unfold the
covenant nature of the Table of the Lord.
Before
I do, however, let me say something that might surprise you. Literally
everything that Jesus said, every miracle He performed (that we have recorded
in the Gospels), everything He demonstrated to the disciples was rooted and
founded in His Table. In the coming weeks, my objective is to help you
see this unfold and radically change your understanding of what takes place
each time you break bread and drink of the cup.
"In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and
without him was not anything made that was made." (John 1:1-3)
But as many as believed in and responded to Him, to them He gave
the authority and ability to become – and be transformed into – begotten
children of God, specifically to those who entrust their future existence and
well-being by faith in His name, rank, position, character, personality and
being;
Who were begotten, not of flesh and blood, nor because human
flesh determined it by its own decision, nor because the mind and intellect of
man seized upon it and willed it into existence, but by God as a sovereign act
of His Will and determination. (John 1:12-13, RAC
Translation & Amplification)
John 6:50-51, 53-58: "This is the bread
which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I
am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this
bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh,
which I will give for the life of the world. .....
“Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink
his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my
blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my
flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my
flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.
As the
living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me,
even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven:
not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread
shall live forever."
Are
you seeing Jesus’ illustration of walking in the Resurrection? You may not see the foundational aspect of
these Scriptures, yet, but stand by. It will become clear as we progress.
Jesus'
statement caused a great stir -- both in the Jews generally, and amongst those
that considered themselves His disciples (not the twelve) and followed
Him. It was a statement that was designed to separate those who could
only see and hear in the natural realm from those who understood the spiritual
significance of what He was revealing. For those whose reference point
was the Law of Moses, it created consternation and even nausea.
John
tells us (see John 6:66), "From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked
no more with him." It was simply more than they could
handle.
They
were only seeing things through legalistic eyes. God had made some very
specific and direct commands concerning the drinking of blood as we see in the
following references.
Genesis 9:3-4: "Every moving thing that liveth shall be
meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. But flesh
with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat."
Leviticus 7:26-27: "Moreover ye shall eat no manner of
blood, whether it be of fowl or of beast, in any of your dwellings. Whatsoever
soul it be that eateth any manner of blood, even that soul shall be cut off
from his people."
Leviticus 17:10-12: "And whatsoever man
there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you,
that eateth any manner of blood; I will even set my face against that soul that
eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of
the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to
make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an
atonement for the soul. Therefore I said unto the children of Israel, No
soul of you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger that sojourneth among you eat blood."
And
that's just a drop in the bucket. There are a host of Scriptures which
emphasize the fact that one does not eat (or drink) blood because all life is
in the blood. But Jesus wasn't talking about eating His literal flesh or
drinking His literal blood. He was referring back to the prophecy all
Jews should have been well aware of -- the prophecy of Passover.
I
won't recount the entire portion of Scripture here that relates to the Passover
(you can read it in Exodus 12), but to summarize, God was preparing to bring
Israel out of centuries of bondage in Egypt and take them to the Land of
Promise He had covenanted to give to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The
Egyptian Pharaoh wouldn't release the Israelites, despite the fact that God had
given him sign after sign after sign, so God was going to send the Angel of
Death across the land.
For
Israel (living in Goshen) to be free from the death angel's power enabling him
to "pass over" them, they needed to eat from a Table that God was
going to prepare especially for this event. They were commanded to take a
yearling lamb from their flocks, kill it, collect its blood and apply it to the
lintels and doorposts of their dwelling places, roast the lamb and eat it along
with cakes of unleavened bread. Once again, they were not to drink of the
blood; they were to apply it to the lintels and doorposts of their homes.
God's
promise to Israel was, "And
the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when
I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you
to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt." (Exodus
12:13)
But
it didn't stop there.
Exodus 12:14-17: "And this day shall be unto you for a
memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the LORD throughout your generations;
ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance forever. Seven days shall ye eat
unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your
houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the
seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.
“And in the
first day there shall be an holy convocation, and in the seventh day there
shall be an holy convocation to you; no manner of work shall be done in them,
save that which every man must eat, that only may be done of you.
And ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread; for in this selfsame
day have I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt: therefore shall ye
observe this day in your generations by an ordinance forever."
I
can see the wheels turning for some of you. OK,
so where is there a prophecy in this? you ask. Glad you
asked. I can't take the time in this series to deal with all of the
feasts Israel was commanded to keep, but each of these feasts -- beginning with
Passover -- was a prophecy, a picture of a future event in time -- to be
fulfilled by and for the coming Messiah.
Notice
that this very first feast (as was every feast Israel kept) began with the
eating of a specific meal. They didn't have a drink specified at this
meal/table (that came later as God spelled out the various offerings to Moses)
because of the specific application of the blood. However, wine was later
specified in the place of blood as an offering to the Lord (Exodus 29:40) and
whenever the covenant Table was kept in Israel, wine became the substitute for,
and symbol of, blood.
Israel
would have the picture of the Table of the Lord continually before them once
the Tabernacle of Moses was established. What we know as the "Table
of Shewbread" was established as a permanent part of the furnishings of
Moses' Tabernacle, and God's promised provision was constantly on display as
twelve prophetic loaves. It was a
prophetic picture of what was to come in Christ Jesus, the Messiah. It was a picture of release from the sentence
of death that hung over them and over the human race.
Passover
was the promise of what was to come. Jesus fulfilled that promise.
And just as Jesus ate of the Passover meal with the disciples on the night He
was betrayed -- becoming the once-and-for-all sacrificial "Lamb
that was slain before the foundations of the world" (and forever
completing the prophecy and picture of Passover) -- He also became the bread of
provision displayed on the Table of Shewbread.
We’re
just getting started on the correlation between the Table of the Lord and
walking and living Resurrection Life, so bear with me. We will pick it up here next week.
In case you are
missing out on real fellowship in an environment of Ekklesia, our Sunday
worship gatherings are available by conference call – usually at about 10:45AM
Pacific. That conference number is (712) 770-4160, and the access code is 308640#. We are now making these
gatherings available by Skype. If you
wish to participate by video on Skype, my Skype ID is regner.capener. If you miss the live voice call, you can dial
(712) 770-4169, enter the same access code and listen in
later. The video call, of course, is not
recorded – not yet, anyway.
Blessings
on you!
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
RIVER WORSHIP CENTER
Temple, Texas 76504
Email Contact: CapenerMinistries@protonmail.com
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