The Lord's Supper: Our Promised Place of Intimacy and Transformation with Jesus

Book Review (Jonathan Black)

From the foreword: "WHEN YOU THINK of Pentecostal-charismatic meetings, you generally don’t think of liturgy and sacraments."

I confess, when I think of Pentecostals, I don't think of serious doctrine, and I am highly sceptical of a lot of what takes places in Pentecostal circles, doctrinally and pragmatically. So you might be as surprised as I am to find me reading a book on the Lord's Supper from a Pentecostal perspective. And, quite frankly there are some important doctrinal beliefs that Black and I disagree on. But here we are, and I was pleasantly surprised by this volume.

Why did I end up reading this? Well, I have been doing some thinking and reading on the Lord's Supper for a little while now, and I've followed the author Jonathan Black on the-site-formerly-known-as-twitter for a goodish while now, and when his book released a short time ago, I was intrigued enough to give it a go.

I'm so glad I did, too. I'm sure there are plenty of other wonderful books about the Supper, but this one manages to ground itself in what I'd call a deep Reformed stream, while embracing some of the best of the charismatic spectrum. Let's consider some of the material. The opening chapter helps us situate and understand what the Supper is, by means of connecting it to the Emmaus incident (Luke 24), the last supper, God's presence on Sinai when he feasts with the elders (Ex 24:10-11), and the Temple. We're given an account that connects the Scriptural dots to help us see the Supper as the promise of the Lord to be with us, in the intimate fellowship of the feast.

Chapter 2 takes us on a hearty dive into history, the Reformation, Zwingli, Luther, and Calvin on the Presence, and most of all recapturing a sense of awe and reverence for the presence of Christ in the Supper. It deftly combines historical acumen while attaching us to the key point from chapter one - the presence fo Christ. Chapter 3 similarly helps bring into sharp focus the connection between the Supper and Jesus' atoning and sacrificial death, so that the Supper truly is the proclamation of his death for us.

I really appreciated chapters 4 and 5. The title of chapter 4 is "Holy Ground", and begins with the problem - God's presence is holy and we are not, so how can we possibly come into his presence (in the Supper or at all)?

The Lord is not waiting for us to find a way to cleanse ourselves of our sinfulness before we approach Him. If that were the case, no one would ever come. Instead, He is the God who calls sinners. And He is the God who forgives and cleanses sinners; who, by His Holy Spirit, convicts us of our sins and draws us to Jesus, the Savior of Sinners, in repentance and faith. p.62

Black then goes on to consider the call to "examine yourself", and how this works. That it's not a "barrier to coming to the table; it’s an invitation." (p.67). Here's how he beautifully puts it:

By calling us to examine ourselves, Jesus is reaching out His nail-scarred hands to us in love, to draw us back to Him for forgiveness, for cleansing, for restoration, for transformation and to welcome us into His loving embrace at the table. p.67

We ought very much to take seriously the need to examine ourselves before participating in the Supper, and dealing with our sin by bringing it to God, never by thinking that we need to clean ourselves before we can come to God.

Chapter 5 turns from being right with God to being right with each other. Black treats us by showing the connection between communion and fellowship, we can't have one without the other. We come as one body to the one bread.

Our fellowship is with Christ, and then through Him with those who also share in His fellowship. Apart from Jesus there is no real fellowship. Christ is at the center of all true communion. And that means fellowship isn’t something we can create. p.85

From which it follows that

If communion and fellowship mean the same thing, and if our fellowship with one another flows from our fellowship with Christ, then we can’t have bad fellowship and good communion. If we’re holding things against people who are coming to the table with us, it’s not just between us and them. p.86.

Not everything in this book is convincing. I disagree with how Black interprets the Lord's Prayer as referring to the Bread, rather more directly than I would. In part because I think ἐπιούσιος really does mean 'for the coming day' rather than following Jerome's supersubstantialem. I did find the broader argument of bread, manna, and John 6 more convincing, and it probably helped persuade me that my position (that John 6 isn't directly about the Supper) needs at least some nuancing (I still don't think the events within the historical framework are about the Supper, but about the reality the Supper points to; but I do think that John the Evangelist means for us to connect it to the Supper, even though he never mention the Supper in his gospel).

You don't hit anything that is out-and-out pentecostal-ish until chapter 8, when we are treated to a stream of witnesses to the experience of overwhelming joy and similar in the presence of Jesus in the Supper. And yet even here Black shows pastoral wisdom. He acknowledges that hearing all those testimonies may not encourage but discourage, because we ask, "why don't I have those experiences?"

The Bible says nothing about our feelings at the Lord’s supper. Jesus is there, whether we feel it or not. Faith is what’s necessary when we come to the breaking of bread, not a particular type of feeling. p.141.

He tempers our expectations with a two-fold approach. There is absolutely nothing wrong with your faith or your experience if you never have any particularly feeling or subjective experience of the Supper beyond the rather ordinary. But at the same time, it is absolutely proper that we do seek 'spiritual joy' by means of the Supper, precisely because in it we come into the presence of the Lord in his feasting with us.

In chapters 9 & 10 Black considers some of the blessings to be found in the Supper: life and holiness (ch 9) and healing and the outpouring of the Spirit (ch 10). Chapter 10 feels the most Pentecostalish of the book, and yet even here there is a theological and pastoral grounding that I appreciate.

First, there is healing in the supper, because Jesus the Healer is present in the supper. It’s not eating bread and drinking wine while thinking about Jesus that heals. It’s Jesus Himself who heals. The healing power of the supper isn’t in anything we do when we take Communion; the healing power of the supper is in Jesus, who meets us in all His grace there. p.167

Second, to understand the place of healing at the Lord’s Supper, we have to realize that receiving the supper does not guarantee healing. The supper isn’t a mechanical thing. p.169

Photo by James Coleman on Unsplash

He has invited us to the table to meet with Him. And when He meets with us there, He may well choose to heal. But if you come to the table looking for healing instead of looking for Jesus, you’ve come looking for the wrong thing. Seek the Giver, not the gifts. Seek the Healer, not the healing. And seeking Jesus, we find every spiritual blessing in Him. p.170

I could not have said such things better myself! I'm less on-board with the comments on the outpouring of the Spirit, if only because I'm convinced on theological and biblical grounds that there isn't such a thing as a 'baptism with the Spirit' that refers to anything other than initial conversion and regeneration; subsequent experiences of the Spirit, sure, but I would not configure them through the lens of Pentecostal theology the way Black does. Neither can I mount any argument against various testimonies of revivals and outpourings - anecdata is difficult to disprove. What I can agree with and affirm with Black is that since Jesus meets us in the Supper, why would we not expect the Spirit to be there in abundance?

The final chapter considers the way 'heaven and earth meet' in the Supper. And again, I have a lot of reservations about the way Pentecostals I know speak about heaven and earth meeting, because usually it involves what I consider some very unbiblical ideas about unleashing heaven's power to provide a life of victory and health, wealth, and prosperity here for you on earth. Not that Black is saying that, but his theology at least occupies some shared space with those types of theology. So, this chapter didn't sing to my soul, but I do agree with Black about the transtemporal and transpatial nature of the communion we partake with in the one body - joined with believers past and present, here and there, in the presence of Jesus who invites us to come and feast with him, and taste and see that the Lord is good.

You've heard in this review some of my general reservations about Pentecostalism at large. But I want you to hear the end of my review clearly - this book was a delight and a refreshment, and deepened my appreciation and perspective on the Lord's Supper.