In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul makes a plea to the Church to understand the uniqueness of gospel-centered relationships because their behavior was incongruous with the gospel (20-22). Unregenerate behavior is to label and divide. Factious “tribes” are what cause conflicts, and even in the Church, those divides may be drawn along cultural, ethnic, political, or socio-economic lines as they were at Corinth. There were also spiritual leader tribes, “I am of Paul” or “I am of Cephas.” Then there were factions created by comparing gifts and functions in the Church as if some were more important than others.
As Paul instructed the Church about the significance of the Lord’s table (23-26) he emphasized the meaning of the body of Christ. A body is one complete whole and the important thing to remember is that Christ took our brokenness upon Himself to rescue us from it and make us whole. The pronouns and verbs He used about the Church (“you” & “do” ) are plural. So, “discerning the body” (29) is a call to understand Christ-centered relationships. The way this practically plays out at the Lord’s table is to “wait for one another” (33). In other words, do this together as one.
Jesus provided a shocking picture of what humble oneness looks like – serving one another. He, the Creator and Lord, washed His disciple’s feet!
"If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you."
~ John 13:14–15
He, after all, is the One who made the provision for other-focused oneness to become a reality through His redeeming work of reconciliation. We who were alienated have been “brought near by the blood of Christ.” He is our peace and has “made us one” (Eph. 2:13-14). Based on this provision, Paul announces our placement through faith in the body of Christ by His Spirit. A body is a clear picture of diversity in unity – every part of the body moves in the same direction and is under the control of one head (1 Cor. 12:12-13).
The pronouncement he makes to the Galtian believers is clear,
"For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
~Galatians 3:27–28
It is not that these categories do not exist any longer, clearly there are still male and female people, but the point is that in Christ we all have equal standing – at the foot of the cross. That place of humility and oneness compels us to follow the pattern laid out to the Ephesian church – “the unity of the faith,” and “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” In Christ the whole body is joined and held together. “Each part working properly makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love” (Eph 4:13-16).
This was on the Lord Jesus’ heart and mind when He communed with His Father the night before His crucifixion. He prayed, not only for His disciples then, but for “those who will believe in Me through their word” (John 17:20) – that’s us! What did He pray for?
"…that they may all be one, just as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You have sent Me. I in them and You in Me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that You sent Me and loved them even as You loved Me."
~John 17:21–23
The purpose of God is sure, and Jesus saw His spiritual offspring through the travail of His soul (Isa. 53:11), so the prospect was not just a potentiality, it was definite. What the Lord Jesus could see during His passion was the new (redeemed, reconciled) humanity in unison around the throne.
"After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
~Revelation 7:9-10
Every time we gather corporately it is a dress rehearsal and foretaste of the grand reunion of God’s family where we will be forever with Him and perfectly like His Son.
But until that time, Jesus left us with this instruction, “By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). Because of the presence of His Spirit in us, He raised the bar on the standard for love. Building on “Love your neighbor as yourself” He gave a new command to “love as I have loved you” (34). This is the trademark of being Christian – it is our chief witness. So, John asserts, “let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth (1 John 3:18). Paul backs that up with the directives, “Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor” (Romans 12:10), and “…through love serve one another” (Galatians 5:13).
At the Lord’s table we are called to remember Him and His sacrificial work of redemption. But remembering does not just mean recalling to mind, but to act on what you know. The best way to remember the Lord is to live out the humble, loving unity for which He redeemed us. We don’t create unity; we live in it. As we last met at the Lord’s table the distribution of the bread and the cup was by serving each other and reciting what the Lord Jesus commanded us to do, “I will love you as Christ has loved me.” It was a special and moving time. May we remember Christ by living in the oneness for which He prayed and sacrificed Himself.
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