For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come.
For - in proof that the Lord's supper is "in remembrance" of Him.
Show - announce publicly х katangellete (G2605)]; not dramatically represent, but 'publicly profess each of you, the Lord died FOR ME' Wahl). Paul means, not literal presence, but vivid personal appropriation by faith of Christ crucified in the Lord's supper (Ephesians 5:30: cf. Genesis 2:23): realizing that we ourselves are "members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones," 'our sinful bodies made clan by His body (once for all offered), and our souls washed through His most precious blood' ('Church of England Prayer Book'). "Show," or 'announce,' applies to new things (cf. Exodus 13:8). So the Lord's death, and all the saving blessings resulting from it, ought always to be fresh in our memory (cf. in heaven, Revelation 5:6). That the Lord's supper is in remembrance of Him, implies that He is bodily absent, though spiritually present; for we cannot 'commemorate' one absent. Our not only showing the Lord's death, but eating and drinking the pledges of it, could only be understood by the Jews, accustomed to feasts af ter propitiatory sacrifices, as implying our personal appropriation of the benefits of that death.
Till he come - when there shall be no longer need of symbols, the body itself being manifested. The Greek [no, an (G302), before elthee (G2064)] expresses the certainty of His coming. Rome teaches that we eat Christ present corporally "until He come" corporally!-a contradiction in terms. The showbread, literally, bread of the presence, was in the sanctuary, but not in the Holiest place (Hebrews 9:1-8); so the Lord's super shall be superseded in heaven, the antitype to the Holiest place, by Christ's own bodily presence: then the wine shall be drunk "anew" in the Father's kingdom by Christ and His people together, of which heavenly banquet the Lord's supper is a spiritual foretaste (Matthew 26:29; Revelation 19:9). Meantime, as the showbread was placed anew every Sabbath on the table before the Lord (Leviticus 24:5-8), so the Lord's death was shown (announced afresh) at the Lord's table the first day of every week in the primitive Church. We are now "priests unto God" in the dispensation of Christ's spiritual presence, antitypical of the HOLY PLACE: the perfect dispensation to come when Christ shall come is antitypical to the HOLIEST PLACE. Christ our High Priest alone in the flesh as yet has entered the Heavenly Holiest (Hebrews 9:6-7; Hebrews 12:24); at his coming, believers too shall enter (Revelation 7:15; Revelation 21:22). The super joins the consummations of the Old and New dispensations. The first and second comings are two phase of one coming; whence the expression is not 'return,' but "come" (cf., however, John 14:3).