I would like to answer this in three parts: 1) What is Holy Communion? 2) What is the Judgment at the last day? and 3) What consequences are there for a believer if he refuses to participate in Holy Communion?

1) What is Holy Communion? The scriptural name for this is “The Lord’s Supper” (see 1st Corinthians 11:20-26).  It was instituted by the Lord Jesus Himself the night before He died on the cross. The Lord had just eaten “The Passover” supper with His disciples and after they finished we read in Luke 22:19-20, “And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is My body which is given for you; THIS DO IN REMEMBRANCE of Me.’ Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.” The Lord was about to be betrayed by Judas Iscariot, tried by the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate, and then sentenced to be crucified. In love for sinners, He would willingly go to the cross and lay His body down in death and shed His precious blood so sinners could be saved (see John 3:14-16; 10:7-18; 19:28-34). In instituting the Lord’s Supper, He used BREAD to illustrate His body and WINE to represent His blood. The believing sinner knows that on the cross He “bore our sins in His own BODY on the tree” (1st Peter 2:24) and that we have been redeemed “with the precious BLOOD of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1st Peter 1:19). So, when believers are gathered together to eat the Lord’s Supper we are responding to His request, “THIS DO IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME.” We are NOT partaking of bread and wine “to be saved,” but because “we are saved.” As we think on what each emblem symbolizes our hearts are drawn out in praise to the Savior who willingly took our place in DEATH and JUDGMENT (see Romans 6:23 and Hebrews 9:27) to pay for our sins. Today, in Christendom, men have made the Lord’s Supper to be a “sacrament” by which they receive forgiveness every time they partake of the bread and wine, and yet as we have seen the Lord’s Supper is a MEMORIAL FEAST that REMINDS THE BELIEVER, who is ALREADY FORGIVEN, of what it cost the Lord Jesus to forgive and redeem us.

2) What is the Judgment at the last day? The “Last Judgment” is “The Great White Throne Judgment” that takes place at the very end of time. I will now quote Revelation 20:11-15 which speaks of this solemn judgment. “Then I saw a GREAT WHITE THRONE and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.” This “last judgment” is for UNBELIEVERS ONLY. How do I know that? Because ALL BELIEVERS were resurrected to life 1,000 years before this to reign with Christ and unbelievers were left in the grave to be judged after that. We read of this in verses 4-6, “And THEY (believers) lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. But THE REST OF THE DEAD (unbelievers) did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This is the FIRST RESURRECTION. Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. OVER SUCH THE SECOND DEATH HAS NO POWER, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.” What this passage teaches us is that all who are saved through faith in Christ will be raised in the FIRST RESURRECTION and all who rejected Christ as Savior will be raised 1,000 years later in the SECOND RESURRECTION (Jesus called these “two resurrections” the “Resurrection of Life” and the “Resurrection of Judgment” in John 5:29).  In this “last judgment” sinners will face Jesus Christ at the Great White Throne, and there they will learn that their names are NOT in the Book of Life due to their refusal to receive “the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ” (Romans 6:23). They will be cast into eternal judgment in the lake of fire because of their unbelief and their exact punishment in hell will be determined by their “works” (the sins they committed and the light they rejected).

3) What consequences are there for a believer if he refuses to participate in Holy Communion? We have just seen that EVERY BELIEVER will “live and reign with Christ for one thousand years” and that “the second death has no power” over him. In other words, he will NOT be “judged at the Great White Throne” and then “cast into the lake of fire.” That judgment is for those whose sins were never forgiven. The believer’s sins have been forgiven because of Christ’s death on the cross where HE WAS JUDGED FOR OUR SINS and paid the price for our forgiveness by dying and shedding His precious blood. Yet there are consequences for refusing to respond to the Lord’s request, “This do in remembrance of Me.” He will surely lose the “joy of his salvation” (see Psalm 51:12) if he forgets what it cost the Lord Jesus to redeem him. He will also forfeit the “peace of God” (see John 14:27 and Philippians 4:6-7) by not maintaining communion with the Father and the Son. And he will also lose his “testimony before the world” and “future rewards in heaven” (see Philippians 2:12-16 and 1st Corinthians 3:9-15).  (459.5)  (DO)