The apostle tells us that when we partake of this holy meal, we are proclaiming the Lord’s death until He comes. Because this is a standing truth, it means that from the first observance of the Supper to the last observance of it just before His Second Coming, the Lord’s death will be continuously proclaimed in the eating of this bread and drinking of this wine.
But the Lord’s death was an authoritative act. He said that when He was lifted up, as He was on the cross, He would by that action draw all men to Himself. “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. This he said, signifying what death he should die” (John 12:32–33). This death is authoritative, meaning that it summons.
Because of His faithful death, the Lord Jesus was raised to life again and was thereupon given dominion and authority over every nation, tribe, language, class, province, state, and empire. All authority in Heaven and on earth has been given to Him, and the ground of this authority is His sacrificial and vicarious death on the cross. That is, literally, the crux of the matter.
So when we come to this meal, we are invited to eat and drink authority. It is the authority grounded on sacrifice, but it is no less authoritative for all that. The little tin tyrants of our age have whatever authority they pretend to have by grasping at it with their tiny right hands. But God sent Jesus to pick up the entire cosmos with His left hand, and that is exactly what He did.
You become what you eat, and what you are eating is sacrificial authority. You become what you eat and what you are eating is universal dominion. You become what you eat, and that is how God establishes us as kings and priests who will reign on the earth (Rev. 5:10).
So come, and welcome, to Jesus Christ.