What Happens to Non-Christians Who Take the Lord’s Supper?

00:00:00.000 | Hi, my name is Corey. I'm a pastor in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin,

00:00:04.140 | and I have been a ministry partner with Desiring God for more than 25 years.

00:00:08.060 | You are listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast with John Piper.

00:00:12.340 | Corey is someone I want you to meet, and you will in just a moment.

00:00:19.940 | But first, thank you for joining us on this Monday broadcast of the Ask Pastor John podcast. Today,

00:00:26.020 | we field two pastoral questions. They are related. The first is from a listener named Ethan. Pastor John,

00:00:31.620 | hello, and thank you for taking my question. My church is considering letting known unbelievers take the Lord's Supper.

00:00:37.820 | The argument is that it points the unbeliever to the Lord's work on the cross and his future return, a form of outreach.

00:00:44.440 | What would you say? And a similar question comes from a listener named Matt. Hello, Pastor John. Recently,

00:00:50.060 | I've been thinking about nominal church members who participate in the Lord's Supper.

00:00:54.100 | What happens when an unregenerate person eats the bread and drinks the wine?

00:00:57.940 | What is the specific sin that such a person commits? I believe it is sinful for such a person to take part,

00:01:04.380 | but why is this the case? Pastor John, what would you say to Ethan and Matt?

00:01:08.340 | So let me begin with something blunt to the first part of the question. If your pastors are

00:01:16.100 | thinking of welcoming

00:01:19.500 | unbelievers to eat the Lord's Supper as a way of pointing them to Jesus,

00:01:25.180 | you're probably in the wrong church.

00:01:27.820 | That is so far from the New Testament and what it teaches

00:01:33.340 | about the Lord's Supper that it is very difficult for me to think your pastors are

00:01:39.420 | seriously submitted to the authority of Scripture rather than to their own wisdom. So that's my initial blunt response. It is

00:01:47.860 | irresponsible and ignorant at best and

00:01:50.380 | disobedient and cruel at worst

00:01:53.900 | to encourage unbelievers to eat the Lord's Supper. Now, the reason I say cruel is

00:02:00.300 | that the warnings Paul gives to eating the Lord's Supper unworthily are

00:02:07.260 | ultimately warnings of life and death.

00:02:10.300 | Here's what he says. This is verse 27 of

00:02:15.140 | 1 Corinthians 11. "Whoever therefore eats the bread or

00:02:20.020 | drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty

00:02:25.180 | concerning the body and the blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself and

00:02:32.180 | so eat of the bread and drink the cup." Pause.

00:02:37.140 | What will an unbeliever find if he examines himself? He will find unbelief.

00:02:44.900 | And that's precisely what Paul intends for us to find.

00:02:48.860 | Has disobedience of unbelief gotten the upper hand in our lives? If so, get that fixed and don't eat

00:02:57.020 | this supper assuming that it doesn't matter. That's the whole point of self-examination.

00:03:01.780 | So why would you invite

00:03:04.780 | unbelievers

00:03:06.220 | into that deadly situation?

00:03:09.420 | Continue reading. Verse 29. "For anyone who eats or drinks without

00:03:14.140 | discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself." Pause.

00:03:20.060 | Discerning the body means

00:03:23.220 | grasping the utter uniqueness and glory of

00:03:27.860 | Jesus' physical body as an infinitely valuable sacrifice for sins,

00:03:34.340 | which unbelievers do not do.

00:03:37.900 | Verse 30. "That is why many of you are weak and ill and some have died.

00:03:44.220 | That's why I say it is cruel to encourage

00:03:48.580 | unbelievers to eat this supper." Verse 31. "But if we judged ourselves

00:03:54.340 | truly, we would not be judged.

00:03:57.340 | But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be

00:04:04.060 | condemned along with the world."

00:04:06.700 | In other words, true believers

00:04:09.220 | who need to be disciplined because of the way they're eating the Lord's Supper

00:04:14.820 | can be saved even if they die

00:04:18.580 | through discipline for taking the Lord's Supper. But what would become of an unbeliever?

00:04:23.660 | They're not going to be saved.

00:04:26.340 | When Jesus said and when Paul said that each time we eat the Lord's Supper,

00:04:32.740 | we do it in remembrance of him, he did not have in mind a kind of remembrance which an

00:04:40.340 | unbeliever has of merely

00:04:42.860 | remembering that there was such a person as Jesus. Maybe there was, maybe he existed, and he died for sins.

00:04:50.980 | Maybe he died for sins.

00:04:53.460 | He meant that we should remember the preciousness of what

00:04:59.340 | happened when Jesus died and shed his blood. The memory is a loving memory, a thankful memory, not an

00:05:06.860 | unbelieving memory. And this is made

00:05:10.420 | much more clear as if it could be in 1 Corinthians 10,

00:05:16.860 | not 11, but 10,

00:05:19.620 | 16 to 22. Not many people go here to get clear about the Lord's Supper and what it means,

00:05:26.540 | but it's very important. The Lord's Supper, according to 1 Corinthians 10,

00:05:31.740 | 16 following, is a

00:05:34.260 | participation in Christ.

00:05:37.540 | So here's what it says, verse 16, "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a

00:05:45.020 | participation, a sharing in the blood of Christ, the bread that we break? Is it not a

00:05:53.260 | sharing, a participation in the body of Christ?

00:05:56.700 | Because there is one

00:05:59.140 | bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread." In other words, the loaf

00:06:07.660 | represents the church, the body of Christ,

00:06:11.500 | sharing in, participating in the life of Christ. This is impossible to conceive of as

00:06:18.620 | unbelievers. Verse 21, "You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons.

00:06:24.220 | You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy?

00:06:30.180 | Are we stronger than he?" In other words, Paul was explicitly dealing with

00:06:34.700 | unbelievers who have their kinds of religious ceremonies,

00:06:38.140 | where they eat and drink, and believers who have our kind of ceremony, where we eat and drink, and he's denying that you can

00:06:45.660 | participate in both. It is a tragic misunderstanding of the glorious transaction

00:06:51.580 | between Christ and his people at the Lord's Supper, if pastors try to

00:06:56.160 | reinterpret this supper as an evangelistic tool to point unbelievers to Jesus. Tragic. The glorious transaction is this,

00:07:03.940 | first, there is a remembering of what the foundation of our faith is in the blood and body of Christ sacrificed for us.

00:07:13.420 | Second, there is a communion, or as chapter 10 says, a sharing in, a participation in Christ

00:07:20.300 | spiritually, as we feed upon

00:07:23.380 | him by faith and are nourished and satisfied in our souls.

00:07:28.660 | No unbeliever can do this, and that's the meaning of the moment. It's not designed that they should. Let me end like this.

00:07:37.380 | Yes, yes, yes.

00:07:42.220 | The Lord's Supper points

00:07:44.220 | unbelievers

00:07:46.580 | to Christ and makes crystal clear that they are not

00:07:51.380 | participants in it, in Christ. They are not participants in

00:07:57.460 | forgiveness. They are not participants in salvation. They're not participants in the second coming of rescue from wrath.

00:08:04.980 | That's what the prohibition from

00:08:08.340 | participating communicates as they watch us enjoy Jesus. It communicates, "We want you.

00:08:15.500 | We want you in watching this to see what you're missing." And, Tony,

00:08:20.740 | I can testify with great feeling that it works that way.

00:08:25.500 | I remember, for example, a man who sat in the balcony right in front of me in our old

00:08:31.300 | sanctuary, month after month, year after year, on every Communion Sunday,

00:08:38.100 | believing with his believing wife,

00:08:40.100 | never missing a Sunday horribly. I knew the man. We had conversations about Jesus.

00:08:45.340 | He's a blatant unbeliever, and during Communion when I said, "If you're not yet trusting Christ,

00:08:52.460 | just let the tray go by and

00:08:54.660 | ponder the beauty of the gospel," and I would look right at him when I said those words, right at him, in his face, about

00:09:02.580 | 40 feet away. We knew each other.

00:09:04.700 | Then, one Communion Sunday,

00:09:07.700 | he stopped at the door, took my hand, and said, "Pastor, we need to talk." And at

00:09:14.340 | 1030 p.m. the following Wednesday night, God saved him, and I baptized him a few weeks later.

00:09:21.140 | That's the way it works. Don't kick the unbeliever out of your services.

00:09:26.300 | Show them the beauty of the gospel and tell them that they shouldn't participate yet,

00:09:32.860 | but oh may God grant you eyes to see, because we want you to enjoy this with us.

00:09:38.940 | Thank you for sharing that with us, Pastor John. He had a heart attack just a few months later and died. Oh my. It was absolutely

00:09:45.900 | stunning that his whole family was just

00:09:48.420 | amazed and thrilled that God had saved him in the 11th hour. Oh, wow. Amen. Praise God.

00:09:55.780 | Thank you for sharing that with us, Pastor John. Well,

00:09:59.700 | speaking of pastors, at the start of this episode, you heard from Corey, a pastor in Wisconsin and a friend of ours.

00:10:06.100 | Corey is here on the line with me now. Corey, I wanted to chat with you just briefly.

00:10:10.380 | It's an honor to connect with you. An honor because I know that you have a long track record

00:10:14.940 | supporting DG, over 25 years supporting Pastor John's ministry, which goes back before there even was a DG, back to the old

00:10:22.380 | cassette tape sermon days back at the church, which is amazing. So tell us right now, Corey, today, we're talking about today,

00:10:29.100 | what is it that makes you so eager to be a ministry partner with Desiring God?

00:10:33.900 | It's easy to be a ministry partner.

00:10:36.900 | I financially support the ministry because Desiring God gives their resources away and the resources they give away are worth having.

00:10:44.300 | But financial support has to come from somewhere and both the church

00:10:48.700 | I serve and my wife and I are happy to support Desiring God financially. And for me, the Ask Pastor John

00:10:56.220 | podcast has been helpful both personally and pastorally. Many people in our church listen to the podcast and many

00:11:03.500 | watch and learn from the Look at the Book episodes and many more read every day's Solid Joys devotional.

00:11:11.500 | Wonderful.

00:11:12.000 | I love that the podcast answers are grounded in the Bible and Pastor John also brings

00:11:18.020 | enormously helpful

00:11:20.260 | application for living. And Look at the Book has been illuminating and that's an understatement.

00:11:25.580 | And Solid Joys is a solid way to begin a day. All of DG's

00:11:31.220 | resources have helped people understand God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.

00:11:38.300 | And that might be a motto, but it's also the main thing and DG aims to keep the main thing the main thing.

00:11:45.300 | Amen. Outstanding. Thank you, Corey. And what would you say to somebody who's listening right now?

00:11:49.940 | They've enjoyed the Look at the Book videos, the Solid Joy devotionals,

00:11:53.460 | the APJ podcast, but they've never thought about the financial side of the ministry. They've never considered how expensive

00:11:58.700 | this ministry really is.

00:12:00.820 | What would you say to someone right now who's thinking of giving that first gift or a

00:12:04.800 | reoccurring gift, even a small gift of like 20 bucks a month.

00:12:07.380 | What would you say to those people who are about to make this next step of commitment with DG?

00:12:13.140 | I am glad they're thinking about it.

00:12:15.100 | I don't know of any ministry that gets more bang for the buck than Desiring God and

00:12:20.780 | they find new and better ways to get their messages to as many people in as many places as they can.

00:12:27.820 | It's fabulous. I love that. Thank you.

00:12:30.740 | You're a pastor and you not only give personally, you and your wife, but your church officially supports DG as well.

00:12:38.060 | What would you say to other pastors or maybe to the listener who wants to bring up this conversation with their church leaders about what

00:12:44.580 | that would look like for a local church to support DG?

00:12:48.620 | How would you encourage them? Well, I encourage everyone to think about

00:12:52.460 | sensitively suggesting to your church leaders that Desiring God is a ministry partner worthy of

00:12:59.180 | regular support in your church budget. It helps foster a sense of partnership.

00:13:05.140 | We get more interested in the good things, the great stories that we hear from DG.

00:13:11.180 | And they're doing great things and there are great stories and people in our church are tuned in to what is

00:13:17.140 | happening in the world and God is working and working through Desiring God and we love it.

00:13:23.300 | We will always include Desiring God in our regular budget and we do some over and above things with some regularity as well.

00:13:31.020 | Well, we love serving the local church. So to hear this blesses our heart. Corey,

00:13:34.580 | thank you so much for spending a few moments with us today.

00:13:37.020 | Oh, it's my pleasure.

00:13:38.900 | And if you want to join us as a ministry partner, you, your family, or even your church,

00:13:43.620 | to support us as we make and spread new Bible teaching resources to bless churches around the globe.

00:13:49.460 | You can partner with us right now. Go to DesiringGod.org/donate.

00:13:53.900 | That's DesiringGod.org/donate. We appreciate it. I am Tony Renke. We'll see you back here on Wednesday. Thanks for listening.

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What Happens to Non-Christians Who Take the Lord’s Supper?

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