“But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. When you come together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not. 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. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another—if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home—so that when you come together it will not be for judgment. About the other things I will give directions when I come.”

There are many things that when reading the Bible in proper context and with honest intent, seem relatively straightforward. The fact that Jesus is both fully God and fully Man. The fact that His perfect life, sacrificial death, and resurrection opened the path for redemption, leading to eternity with the Father. Matters of baptism, of diet, of the saving power of faith, of our salvation not being based on works – all of these carry what seem to be straightforward answers, and yet depending on when denomination you ask, you may get entirely different responses. Some doctrines have small variations, similar to the point of seeming like two sides of the same coin, while others hold differences that are so intense they’ve become heretical, and profess a faith that cannot be considered Christianity. Protestants and those of the Orthodox church for example, may view many things in different lights, however there is a general unity on the person and Godship of Christ. Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses on the other hand, who profess a faith in Jesus, lower the Son of God to the status of a created being, robbing Him of deity. Despite some verbal similarities to ours, they ultimately practicing a religion that can in no way be called Christianity and teaches blasphemy instead of truth. Even within the primary protestant denominations there is significant difference, bearing in mind that Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Lutheran churches can look and operate radically different from one another, despite many core tenants held in common. In case it’s not obvious, this is relevant to today’s passage, because the matter of Communion, the Eucharist, or the Lord’s Supper is one with vastly different views across the professing Christian faiths. While I’m always curious as to what different churches teach and practice, I’m far more concerned with what the Bible tells us. Tradition and ceremony, doing something because it feels right, looks right, or is simply the way its always been done holds no water, has no foundation if it can’t find its roots in the Word. Bearing this in mind, let’s delve into what Scripture teaches regarding the blessing and miracle of the Lord’s Supper.

The Body and the Blood: A Clear View of the Lord’s Supper

1.      Separation Over Worldly Matters

If we look at the epistles, the letters that make up the majority of the New Testament, we find a series of guidelines to the individual believer, and to the church itself. These letters were written to address matters that arose during the Apostolic era – after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, and in the first generation of the gospel’s spread, but their teachings, being divinely inspired, are in no way limited to the first century. In some we find a commendation for the young church receiving the letter, or the individual recipient. In others we find dire warnings or sharp rebukes aimed at improper practices, warped interpretations of the gospel, and rampant sin. Often, as is the case with 1 Corinthians, we see a mixture of these elements. Paul starts this letter to the church in Corinth (which based on comments in 1 Corinthians, was not his first to them, though it is the first included in the canon of scripture), after making his initial introduction, by saying in 1 Corinthians 1:4–9,

“I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you—so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

This seems like an exceptionally strong start, it helps us see that the bones of the Corinthian church, the foundation that God used Paul to lay is solid. However it’s immediately followed by warning the church against divisions. It seems that despite the firmness of the rock on which they stand, worldliness has crept into the practices of the church. Some of the members have fallen into factions, declaring themselves for Paul, Apollos, Peter, or for Jesus Himself, with some looking to and glorifying the one who shared the gospel with them instead of One who the gospel rests on in its entirety. The letter continues on, addressing problems and giving council to navigate complications, both within the body of the church, and as an individual in ones own life. We see the subject of sexual immorality addressed in chapter five and the second half of chapter six, as well as mention that Paul has already given instruction on this subject in a previous letter, telling us that this was a persistent problem for the church in Corinth. This makes sense given the city’s history, and shows us that Corinth provides a sort of mirror to the world we live in today. This was a place where, by virtue of their position in the midst of trade routes, the Greek and Roman cultures were blended in their religious practices, while also living alongside Jews and new Christians. Historical accounts vary on the level of prostitution generated by the temple of Aphrodite, however given that she was worshiped as the goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation, and some historical accounts grant her temple as many as 1000 cult prostitutes (though it’s acknowledged that this figure may have been inflated through the passage of time), coupled with the fact that the Roman culture has an extremely loosened attitude toward sexuality when compared to Jews and Christians, we can see the sort of influence and attitude that would have pervaded the culture in Corinth as it related to sexual immorality, and why Paul had to drill down on this particular matter so hard. This can also help us see how the Corinthians were influenced in other matters. They were given the good news of Christ, and yet the world still held sway over their actions. They acted out Christianity in a worldly fashion, instead of modeling themselves after Christ – a problem that has always plagued God’s people, and will until the end of this sin-stained world. Before getting into specifics, we see Paul address the general matter of division in the church at Corinth.

“But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.”

Fresh off of commending them for their remembrance of him and maintaining traditions at the start of chapter 11, Paul moved to rebuke them in the section of text we’re in today. Note that while he’s drawing attention to problems in the division of the church, this isn’t an altogether prohibition against division. When John the Baptist speaks of Jesus in Luke 3:16–17 he tells the people,

“… I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

This image of the clearing of the threshing floor shows us division, a separation of wheat from chaff. In Matthew 13:24–30 Jesus presents this same concept in the Parable of the Weeds,

“… The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, “Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”

Separation is not automatically a bad thing – light from dark, clean from unclean, righteous from wicked; these divisions can and must exist. So we see the value of Paul’s distinction – the fact that factions exist within the church at Corinth isn’t the problem, but why the factions exist.

“When you come together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not.”

We’re able to see a graphic example of worldly treatment of a sacred, Biblical practice in their handling of the Lord’s Supper, which is being carried out irreverently, and with a kind of social snobbery, robbing it of all purpose and bringing condemnation down on those who are mishandling the ceremony. We see Jesus establish the Lord’s Supper in Matthew 26, Mark 14, and Luke 22. With all three accounts being quite similar, Matthew 26:26–29 says,

“Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body.’ And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.’”

While Jesus’s instructions given during the final Passover are recorded in all the three synoptic gospels, we actually see first mention of this in John 6, with verses 51–59 saying,

“‘I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’ The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ So Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.’”

We’ll revisit some of the implications from John 6 later, but what we can see from this alongside the institution of the Lord’s Supper from the synoptic gospels is that the flesh and blood of Christ are sacred, holy, and set apart. They are elements given to and for those made righteous by God, and regardless of your denominational stance, is something to be approached with great consideration and reverence, something practiced in Spirit and Truth. Corinth, like many other parts of the world, but perhaps intensified by its prosperous trade, would have seen a great gap between the wealthy and the impoverished. What we see in Paul’s rebuke is that the practice of the Lord’s Supper, something given by God to be done in somber celebration and remembrance of the sacrifice of Christ, had been taken and twisted into a sort of party. This may have been a carryover in practice from the pagan feasts and rituals that were practiced at the temples of the Greek and Roman gods – events of drunkenness, debauchery, and idol worship. In the church, this manifested as the affluent doubling down on their wickedness but dishonoring something holy, and excluding their brothers in the process. This shows us that we cannot take what is God’s, twist it into a form that fits a sinful, worldly standard, and still treat it as something that is God’s. Jesus said in Matthew 7:6,

“Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.”

What is valuable, when given to those who do not understand or appreciate it for what it is, loses its value. In Numbers 21, while the people are in the wilderness, they speak out against God and Moses. Because of this, God sends fiery serpents among them, which bite the people, killing many of them. After they repent and Moses prays for the people, God says in verse 8,

“‘Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.’ So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.”

This was significant, actually foreshadowing Christ lifted up to save the people. The bronze serpent itself wasn’t powerful, but the One who gave it was. If we look forward to 2 Kings 18, we see the establishment of king Hezekiah over Judah. Verses 3–4 say of him,

“And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, according to all that David his father had done. He removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan).”

The bronze serpent would have been considered holy, something made at the instruction of God, a tool He used to glorify Himself in saving the people from what afflicted them in their unrighteousness. But after it was taken and made into an idol it was only fit to be destroyed – it could not be what it once was. Mishandling the ceremony of the Lord’s Supper doesn’t rob the overall practice of significance, it does however remove the sanctity of the act for those who abuse and mistreat it, turning something beautiful and holy into something worthy of condemnation, as Paul rebukes them and corrects their actions. This allows us to see that when we pursue what is worldly, even if it’s under the guise of righteous behavior, we cause separation between us and God, and between those who are truly seeking His face.

2. Separation From Worldly Matters

“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.” 

While pursing the things of God with a worldly spirit may cause us to experience distance from our Father, it is in Him that we are in turn separated from matters of the world. Jesus tells His disciples in John 16:32–33,

“Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

On the cusp of the crucifixion, before He faced the ultimate suffering, and before the disciples were plunged into a world of fear and hopelessness, Jesus gives them this piece of wisdom and truth to cling to. Likewise, we are delivered, raised above the world, and our path to the Father was opened through the death of Christ on the cross. While it was the final triumph over death that was cemented in the resurrection, it was the atonement on the cross that paid the price for the sin of man. We see that the Lord’s Supper is something observed “in remembrance” of Jesus, at His own instruction, and Paul’s further clarification, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” Paul wrote earlier in this same letter in 1 Corinthians 1:22–25,

“For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”

Christ crucified is the point upon which the entire message of the gospel rests – the Love of God displayed on the cross, the work that humanity could never do completed, finished there. Paul writes later in 1 Corinthians 15:17–22,

“And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”

It is in the raised life of Jesus that our eternal hope rests – and yet consider the significance of His death, as there can be no resurrection if there was no death. There are some who water down scripture, who believe that Jesus was only unconscious, comatose and subdued for His time in the grave, that He didn’t truly suffer the ultimate weight of bodily death after enduring the wrath of God. But this is what we remember and commemorate in the Lord’s Supper – that our Savior bled and died for us, that He made the ultimate sacrifice. Philippians 2:5–11 tells us,

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

In the humble and willing death of Jesus, God is glorified, man is redeemed, and we are made separate from the world, from the sin that clings to our flesh. Now concerning what is actually, literally taking place during our observation of the Lord’s Supper, there is some debate among the denominations. Baptists for example hold to the process being memorial in nature (“do this in remembrance of me”), and hold the bread and wine (or grape juice for that matter) as being symbolic – this doesn’t take away the seriousness of the Biblical directions surrounding the matter, or belittle the somber joy we express in commemorating the death of our Lord, but it does differ drastically from what other denominations believe. While there are some similarities amongst the Protestants, the greatest difference is with the Orthodox and Catholic churches, who hold that the bread and wine literally become the flesh and blood of Jesus. They take this from looking to Jesus’s words in John 6:53,

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”

And taking them completely literally. Concerning this it may help to consider other Biblical passages for context. Psalm 119:102–104 says,

“I do not turn aside from your rules, for you have taught me. How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way.”

Does the Psalmist mean that the teachings of God, that His prophesy and instruction are literally sweet in the mouth of those who hear and speak them? It seems to make far more sense that this is in the same line as Proverbs 16:24, which says,

“Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body.”

The problem with the crowds in John 6 is that they take the teaching literally. Jesus is offering them what they desperately need, but not what they want. They have no patience, no perspective to understand the teaching in a spiritual sense, and so taking things literally, they become offended and abandon following Jesus. Their offence comes from taking Jesus’s words as an instruction toward cannibalism, which we need to address clearly, they are not. If we read through the Old Testament, we’ll find that while there’s not an explicit law against cannibalism in the sense of, “you shall not eat human flesh,” we do see again and again that man has been made in God’s image and has a position separate and above the animals of the earth. We see that there is specific provision made for what foods are acceptable to eat, and that the flesh of your fellow man is not among them. Perhaps what is most telling is that when the subject of cannibalism is mentioned, it’s treated as a curse, an act of extreme wickedness, something contemptable, and the response is despair and disgust. We see this play out during the siege of Samaria recorded in 2 Kings 6:28-29. It’s important that we understand the Biblical position on cannibalism, because while Jesus is fully God, He is also fully man. If the Catholic and Orthodox teaching of transubstantiation, or mystical transformation were true, it would be hard to explain how that’s not a form of cannibalism, regardless of how sacredly the matter is handled. What’s more, their teaching that the elements of the bread and wine only undergo their miraculous transformation under the prayers of their priests, that protestants have never partaken of the true Lord’s Supper, seems to have no Biblical basis. Instead, what seems to make sense is that, as Paul tells us in today’s passage (which is also stated in Luke 22), this this is a symbolic act done in remembrance of the sacrifice of Jesus. In regard to His words in John 6:53,

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”

Jesus is the Son of God, the Light of the World, the physical embodiment of the Glory of God, the true imprint of His nature. He is the Rock, the Cornerstone, the Good Shepherd, the Bread of Life, the source of the Living Water – if you do not take what Jesus is inside of you, if you do receive Him, accept the invitation and allow His words in John 14:23–24 to come to fruition,

“… If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.”

If you do not do these things, you have no life in you, because Jesus is the Life. The directions of Christ and the practice of the Lord’s Supper don’t lead to mysticism, to assumed spiritual practices, and rites that verge on Gnosticism. Rather they guide us to a complete and total acceptance of the One who died for us, to living a life fully consumed by Him, and delighting in the separation and deliverance He has given us from a fallen world.

3.      Separation from Judgement

“Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.”

How precious is the life of the only begotten Son of God, of God made flesh, come to dwell among His creation? His life, perfect and valuable beyond our mortal comprehension is what was laid down so that our debt might be paid, so that we might be called up into life out of death. The enormity of this is what we contemplate and consider when we observe the Lord’s Supper. It is something that was lost on some of the church in Corinth. Hebrews 10:30–31 tells us,

“For we know him who said, ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay.’ And again, ‘The Lord will judge his people.’ It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

We see from Paul that whoever participates in the Lord’s Supper in an unworthy manner is considered guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord – a deep and profound blasphemy that we see has cost some of the Corinthians their health and some their lives. God tells David when establishing His covenant with him in 2 Samuel 7:14–15,

“I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you.”

We know that the eternal throne of David is established in Jesus, but concerning, “when he commits inequity” this cannot pertain to the Christ, as He lived without sin. We can then see how this has broader implications, applying God’s justice to His people, correcting us and reproving us so as to draw us back to Him. Paul continuing,

“But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world,”

Shows the hope we have in Christ, that not by our own understanding, but by His Spirit we may discern and judge our actions, so that in Him we may turn from what is wrong and aim always at what is righteous. Outside of this, the judgement of God awaits, but this too is a blessing, as we are, “disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.”

“So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another—if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home—so that when you come together it will not be for judgment. About the other things I will give directions when I come.”

Observing the Lord’s Supper is not an opportunity to sate fleshly hunger, or to display disparity toward our brothers or sisters in Christ – it is a time for unity, acknowledging that it is not by our own merit that we may claim salvation, but by the work of Jesus on the cross. The only response is sober reverence in remembering what God has done for us whom He loved, appreciating the weight and magnitude of who we are in Christ – separated and redeemed, no longer part of a fallen world, and spared from the judgement and the weight of past sins. Revelation 20:11-21:4 shows what we are spared and what we are delivered into, separated from the final judgement by the blood of Christ,

“Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’”

Pastor Chris’s sermon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_bpWFATP4I