More Proof of Hillsong Danger -- Cookies and Orange Juice for Communion - by Anthony Wade

Excerpt, found here. My comments in bold.

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It seems to me that once you get on the Doctrinal Police's radar, every perceived misstep is a crisis situation.

Here is a video, the source of the current outrage. We have a Hillsongs person suggesting that if you're at home and don't have a pre-prepared communion package, communion can be taken with cookies and OJ. 

This, according to the Doctrinal Police, is apparently beyond the pale. It's sinful. It's heretical. It's blasphemy!

Everyone knows that only a wafer that tastes like cardboard and a splash of grape juice honors God.

The author has appeared in our blog before, with a similarly undistinguished presentation.

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(...)

If you need more recent proof just click on the above link, posted recently from Hillsong. In it the hipster Hillsong representative is encouraging people online to participate in Communion with the Hillsong family. He literally says that we should just grab a cookie and glass of orange juice to partake in Holy Communion with God! The exact term he uses is "whatever is convenient" for you! Now I will grant that teaching on the importance and solemnity of Communion is sorely lacking in the church today but that is no excuse to treat this so cavalierly. (Why it is cavalier is never explained.)

If you are reading this and thinking it is not that big a deal I would be very worried how you are being taught. Before we get to the key verses above, let us start with the overall context:

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. -- 1Corinthians 11:23-26 (ESV)

(Let's read farther to establish context:

1Co. 11:27-34 Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.

28 A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. 29 For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. 30 That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. 

31 But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment. 32 When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world. 33 So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for each other.34 If anyone is hungry, he should eat at home, so that when you meet together it may not result in judgment. And when I come I will give further directions.

Communion is not just a nicety we participate in once a month at church. (Who has suggested this?)

May we never lose sight about what it commemorates. (Who has done this?)

The very night Jesus was betrayed He established the ordinance of Communion. He did not pass out cookies, break them and say that they were His body broken for us. He did not then pass out orange juice and claim it was the blood of the New Covenant. (Bread and wine were staple foods of the time. It's what people ate. It would have been surprising had Jesus used anything else, for bread and wine were very nearly elemental. It was simply so much a part of peoples' lives during biblical times it's almost a given.

We see this basic nature of bread and wine all over the Bible:

Ge. 14:18 Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. 

Ge. 18:6 So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah. “Quick,” he said, “get three seahs of fine flour and knead it and bake some bread.”

1Sa. 16:20 So Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a skin of wine and a young goat and sent them with his son David to Saul.

Mt. 6:11 Give us today our daily bread.

Ac. 2:46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts...

It also represents the blessing and favor of the Lord:

De. 8:7-9 For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land — a land with streams and pools of water, with springs flowing in the valleys and hills; 8 a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig-trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; 9 a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing...

Ps. 104:14-15 He makes grass grow for the cattle, and plants for man to cultivate — bringing forth food from the earth: 15 wine that gladdens the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread that sustains his heart.

Bread is artos ( ἄρτος): properly, bread; (figuratively) divine provision. Bread is a staple, and also it is symbolic of the most elemental of foods, which Jesus Himself is. He is the Bread of Life, the one who gives eternal life. 

Jn. 6:35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.

There is nothing more fundamental than for Jesus to be the Bread of life, the sustenance that eternally satisfies, just as there was nothing more basic to eat than bread.

If Jesus lived today and ate with His disciples, would those elemental things be different? Quite possibly. Our basic, common foods are quite different. Maybe Jesus would have chose a hamburger and a coke today. 

The key to this all is the representative nature of the elements:

1Co. 10:1-4 For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. 2 They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food 4 and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. 

"They" is the nation of Israel as they wandered in the wilderness. "They," together. They were baptized. They ate bread from heaven and drank of the water that gushed from the rock. These are called "spiritual." The provision of God was their portion, a spiritual provision. 

And it wasn't actually bread, nor did they drink wine. The specific foods are nothing special in themselves, and unless one is a Catholic, they are nothing special when eaten. It is what they represent that is important, not which foods they are.)

Every time we break bread and partake of the fruit of the vine we proclaim His death until he comes again! You do not merely replace the elements with whatever is convenient for you! (Undocumented assertion.)

Was His death convenient? Was the cross convenient? (Non sequiturs.)

This is the end result of the purpose driven, seeker friendly models of church preaching. When you do not preach about the cross it will mean nothing to you. When you do not preach about the blood suddenly orange juice will do. (Hyperbole.)

Lest you think I am making too big a deal of this let us now turn to the key verses. Take these words very seriously beloved. Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty! Period! (The author deems cookies and OJ as unworthy in and of themselves without telling us why.

But what is the source of the guilt? Is it what the author says? Here's what Paul concludes: 

1Co. 11:29 For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself.

So is the sin coming from what is eaten, or what is not being recognized?)

Guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord! So the instruction from God is that we examine ourselves before daring to partake in Communion. Why in the world would anyone from Hillsong be examining themselves when they cannot be bothered to examine the very elements they are using to represent Communion with God Almighty! (Leap in logic.)

Whoever eats and drinks without discerning eats and drinks judgment upon themselves! (The author really doesn't even understand what communion is. Communion is not standing silent in a crowd on a Sunday morning with a dry piece of cracker and a tiny cup of grape juice. Communion is a meal, a gathering of the saints in fellowship. Leading into the quoted passage, Paul is dealing with the community coming together for a meal:

1Co. 11:20-21 When you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat, 21 for as you eat, each of you goes ahead without waiting for anybody else. One remains hungry, another gets drunk.

"Supper" is deipnon (δεῖπνον, ου, τό) From the same as dapane; dinner, i.e. The chief meal (usually in the evening) -- feast, supper.

The "unworthy manner" in question here is people pigging out and getting wasted while others don't even get to eat! 29 For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. 

The body of the Lord is His church, for whom He gave His life. 33 So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for each other.

Communion is the interaction of the body of Christ one with another in honor. To dishonor the body is to dishonor Christ.)

Beloved, this is just another example in an avalanche of heresy that should give us enough pause to avoid Hillsong. Every song we sing by them draws people to them. Every album we buy feeds their false ministry. Every exposure to them legitimizes them and eventually we become numb to correct theology. How far away from the Gospel do you have to be to think that using orange juice and cookies for Communion would be acceptable? I guess when you are not actually in communion with Jesus to begin with you just can't see the gravity of sharing in the Lord's Supper in such a blasphemous manner.

Rev. Anthony.