Jesus said unless you eat my flesh and blood you have no life in you, so he broke the bread, in the last supper.
The key to understanding what Jesus was saying is found in the word, “blessed”.
MATTHEW 14:19 And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and broke, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. 20 And they did all eat and were filled: and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full.
What happened to the bread when Jesus blessed it? It underwent a change. Life or virtue was added to it, which caused it to multiply. To bless is to impart something.
Usually, this was done with the laying on of hands when one person blessed another. We are told to lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover as virtue is imparted to them.
Likewise, when Jesus blessed the bread and wine something was imparted to those elements that caused a miracle to happen.
MATTHEW 26:26 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. Both the bread and the wine received an impartation because Jesus had commanded a blessing. We are instructed to do likewise.
Of the bread:
1 CORINTHIANS 1:24 And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this [the bread] is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. And of the wine:
1 CORINTHIANS 11:25 After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as often as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.
Here, the apostle Paul is teaching on the subject of communion or the breaking of bread. He then continues to discuss how this is not to be done casually or without thought and understanding.
1 CORINTHIANS 11:29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.
The word unworthily is the Greek word anaxios (G370): unfitting, irreverently, to treat as common or to take lightly. The Greek for damnation is krima (G2917): judgment, verdict, condemnation.
Discerning in Greek is diakrinó (G1252) and means to separate, distinguish and judge. Now what does this all mean?
Paul is saying that because the Corinthian believers were taking communion as a normal meal (v33) they were missing out on the real benefits of the Lord’s table.
As they did not discern or make a difference between a normal meal and the table of the Lord, many became sick. Paul was saying that when we partake of the Lord’s supper or communion, it is not the same as eating a normal meal.
The bread and the wine in the Lord’s supper have been blessed; the life of the resurrection body of Jesus has been imparted to the bread, and the power and substance of the Lord’s blood have been imparted to the wine.
We must discern and make a difference between normal bread and blessed communion bread and wine. If we don’t, we are open to sickness and death.
This is not the doctrine of transubstantiation, but the teaching of Jesus, which means that by taking communion, His life is available to us, which, if properly understood and entered into daily, would make a dramatic difference to our lives.
Just as Adam had to come to the tree of life in order to continue to live, we also must also understand that similarly, communion is coming to Jesus, the tree of life and that in faith, we can receive this life. Transformation will occur and we will be changed and live in the life of Jesus.
ROMANS 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: 4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit …
11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.