Rediscovering the Lord’s Supper: Communion with Israel, with Christ, and among the Guests
Overview
Following his father’s classic work Church Dogmatics, Markus Barth considers the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. His work is an exegesis of the Lord’s Supper texts in the Synoptic Gospels, John’s Gospel, and the Pauline letters. Barth’s perspective sees the Lord’s Supper and its accompanying agape meal as a symbolic event that allows God’s people to commune in an atmosphere that remains open to all, including the Jews, whose Passover continues to shed light on this sacrament. His presentation covers the Lord’s Supper, Passover, the relationship of Christians and Jews, and the participation of children in communion. He challenges the definitions of baptism, Eucharist, and ministry as expressed in the Lima Document, offering one of the most sharply stated alternatives available. Barth reexamines the Lord’s Supper as a symbol of ecumenism—the opportunity for all God’s people to celebrate together. This approach makes an important ecumenical contribution to understanding the Lord’s Supper from a New Testament perspective.
Top Highlights
“Certainly, this widespread, high sacramental understanding ignores the framework of the Passover meal. Actually it negates it, for it makes obsolete all elements of remembrance and celebration that may tie the church to Israel. The church’s separation from Israel might have to be accepted as an unalterable fact if it were not based on at least three problematic assumptions.” (Pages 18–19)
“Jesus’ words about the bread and the cup mean that it is Christ, Christ alone, who brings the final sacrifice, which is acceptable to God. It is Christ alone who is the mediator of the new covenant—the covenant that includes the Gentiles. Therefore, his words over the bread and the cup describe himself, not a mysterious change that is taking place in the bread and wine.” (Page 17)
“They assume that during the last meal and henceforth during the Lord’s Supper, Jesus ‘gives himself’ to those sitting at his table. In giving bread and wine, Jesus then actually gives himself to the disciples.” (Page 18)
“In the Bible the thanksgiving addressed to God, the love among brothers and sisters, and the common witness to reconciliation and peace for all the world matter more than other concerns.” (Page 3)
“The condition exists when interpreters despise or ignore the Passover framework in which the Synoptic writers embedded their accounts of the institution of the Lord’s Supper.” (Page 17)
- Title: Rediscovering the Lord’s Supper: Communion with Israel, with Christ, and among the Guests
- Author: Markus Barth
- Publisher: Wipf and Stock
- Print Publication Date: 2006
- Logos Release Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Lord’s Supper › Biblical teaching; Bible. N.T. › Criticism, interpretation, etc
- ISBNs: 9781597528511, 159752851, 159752851X
- Resource ID: LLS:RDSCVRNGLRDSPPR
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T02:37:50Z