When our first parents fell, the occasion of their grief and ours was food. Not only was it food, it was food that was good. The prohibition of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was clearly a temporary restriction. God did not create an evil, and place it in the midst of the Garden.
“And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil” (Gen. 2:9).
“And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat” (Gen. 3:6).
The disaster here was a disaster of timing, and at the heart of that disaster of refusing to hear and heed God, refusing to do what He said the way He said to do it. Sinners like to think in self-excusing and rationalizing ways. We can do as we want here at this Supper because the Lord established it Himself, and placed it at the center of the new Garden. That’s right, He did do that. But have we learned nothing?
Paul tells the Corinthians that when they gather it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper. He tells them that their observance of it was doing more harm than good. When God rebuked Adam and Eve for disobeying Him generally, it is no answer to reply that the food they ate was good for food, which it was. It is no answer to point to a scriptural passage that says that it was good for food. What it is can be fully granted, without saying anything about how we come to it.
In the same way, it is no answer to jab your finger at certain passages of the Bible, insisting that your version of the real presence is dogmatically assured. Rather, we must come when the Lord says to come, and we must partake the way the Lord says to partake. Obedience is the great opener of eyes. We will come to see and know when we come to renew our covenant vows in the way God says to do.
What is that way? In what way will the Lord’s Supper really be fruitful as the Lord’s Supper among us? As we partake, we shouldn’t isolate ourselves. Don’t curl up in a little ball. Look around the room at all your brothers and sisters; look at the body of Christ, and love them. God has summoned everyone here, together with you. These are your people.
We took the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil prematurely. We grasped a knowledge that our heads and hearts were too young for. But we have that knowledge, and our frame has collapsed underneath the weight of it. Jesus came to restore us, to make us fit to carry that knowledge without cratering beneath it. And what is it that restores our frame? It is love, kindness, mercy, gentleness, patience, gentleness, mercy, kindness, and love.