I Corinthians 11:17-34: "The Lord's Supper"
Whereas in the last section regarding the submission of women Paul had praised the Corinthians for their holding to the doctrines taught to them by Paul, he had no such praise for them regarding their treatment of the Lord's Supper. MacArthur explains about the Lord's Supper, "Jesus transformed the Passover meal into the celebration of the infinitely greater deliverance He came to bring, of which the Passover was only a foreshadow. When we eat His body and drink His blood, we remember the spiritual and eternal redemption that He brought with the sacrifice of that body and the offering of that blood". However, the Corinthians had neglected to honor and respect this cherished event as Paul writes, "But in giving this instruction, I do not praise you, because you come together not for the better but for the worse". He could not find anything good to say about the Corinthians as they came together as a church. Instead of coming together to remember the sacrifice that was made for them, they had turned it into evil. They had perverted the very sanctity of the Lord's Supper.
Paul begins with his chastisement, "For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that divisions exist among you; and in part, I believe it". Not referring to the actual meeting in the church building, but rather the coming together of the Corinthian believers, Paul writes that he has heard that when they come together there is divisions among them. Quarreling and bickering and divisiveness, much of which Paul had addressed in the early part of this letter, had resurfaced again in relation to the Lord's Supper. Possibly giving the Corinthian's the benefit of the doubt, and feeling some of the reports he had heard had been exaggerated he did not immediately condemn them of all he had heard. However, it was not difficult for him to believe most of the reports based on their behavior. Paul continues, "For their must also be factions among you, in order that those who are approved may have become evident among you". Here, Paul is saying that it is no surprise to hear about factions and divisions among them, for he understands that it is necessary for their to be. Much like Christ said it would be "inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes!" (Matt. 18:7). Although this may seem like an odd necessity Paul explains that it must be so that "those who are approved may have become evident among you". MacArthur writes, "The paradox is that it was necessary for there to be factions in the Corinthian church in or that those who are approved may have become evident among you. The worldliness and fleshly disobedience of those who caused the division would expose and highlight the love, harmony, and spirituality of those who are approved. . . . In the midst of bickering and divisiveness they are separated out as pure gold is from the dross". Just as a diamond is put on a black velvet piece to make it stand out because of the stark contrast, so the good deeds and actions of the faithful believer are made evident against the strife and division going on in the church at Corinth.
Paul moves along to the specific indictment, "Therefore when you meet together, it is not to eat the Lord's Supper, for in your eating each one takes his own supper first; and one is hungry and another is drunk". What should have been a time for love and gratitude in remembrance of the precious sacrifice of the Lamb of God, had turned into a time of complete and utter selfishness and division. There was no proper devotion to the Lord during this time. They did not come for the proper purpose of instituting the Lord's Supper, but rather for a time of hoarding food and getting drunk. MacArthur writes, "The focal point of this evil was the Lord's Supper. The term deipnon (Supper) was the normal word used for the evening meal. The addition of the Lord's gives it special and much greater significance. This was a genuine meal, where the church congregated to eat the 'love feast,' a meal followed by the Communion. The Communion was connected to this supper in the Corinthian church, but abuses were obscuring its divine purpose and destroying its sanctity. In the early church the love feast and Communion customarily were held together, but abuses such as those in Corinth eventually forced the two to be separated in order to protect the Communion. The love feast soon disappeared altogether". What was meant to be in remembrance of Christ, completely left him out of it and became a way for them to exercise their sinful desires. There were obvious social class differences in the Corinthian church, and the poorer church members would come to the feast expecting to share in the food that would be brought. However, by the selfishness of the members, "each one takes his own supper first". There were no thoughts of love, sacrifice, and putting the other first. There was obviously no focus on the purpose of their coming together which was to remember the greatest sacrifice of all. Instead the wealthy would come, grab their food first and not leave anything for the poorer believers who would leave hungry. Those who would bring food and drink would gorge themselves to the point of getting drunk. They were desecrating the sacred day.
Paul was shocked and amazed at this utter display of sinfulness, almost out of disbelief his response to the above is, "What!" Almost as if to say, how can you come together to celebrate the sacrifice of the One who has saved you from your sins, and now you mock it by turning it into a drunken feast? He writes, "Do you not have houses in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God, and shame those who have nothing". MacArthur explains, "If they intended to selfishly indulge themselves, could they not do that at home? Or were they actually trying to destroy the fellowship by flagrantly despising God's church? Or were they so contemptuous of their poor brothers and sisters in Christ that they purposely embarrassed and shamed them? Whatever the reason may have been, they could not justify the harm being brought to the church. If they could not show love, why have a love feast?" Paul's frustration boils over as he writes, "What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? In this I will not praise you". In essence Paul is saying I am ashamed of you, and you should be ashamed of yourself for what you have allowed this celebration to become. You have perverted this in such a way that you will not get any approval from me.
So they may be reminded, and hopefully ashamed of their behavior, Paul gives them the purpose of the Lord's table, "For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which 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". Paul was giving the Corinthians nothing new. Paul had been given direct revelation from the Lord as to what took place that night with the disciples, since Paul was not there himself. Paul had received this and had delivered (past tense) to the Corinthians, and it was for that reason they had understood the meaning of the Lord's Table. Paul's goal was to remind them of it again. MacArthur points out, "Most conservative scholars agree that I Corinthians probably was written before any of the gospels. If that is true, Paul's account here is the first biblical record of the institution of the Lord's Supper, and includes direct quotations from Jesus". Paul goes through that night when the Lord's Supper first took place in which Jesus sat at the table with his disciples and explained that the bread they were breaking together was a symbol of Christ's very own body that would be sacrificed for them. Christ took His very own body, life, ministry, spirit, and gave it all up on the cross for them. Christ, who became carnal flesh for us, had done so not for any other purpose than for it to be sacrificed, so that we might return to a right relationship with God. Paul continues, "In the same way He took the cup also, after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in My blood". MacArthur explains, "The cup that had represented the lamb's blood smeared on the doorposts and lintels now came to represent the blood of the Lamb of God, shed for the salvation of the world. The Old Covenant was ratified repeatedly by the blood of animals offered by men; but the New Covenant has been ratified once and for all by the blood of Jesus Christ (Heb. 9:28), which God Himself has offered". At this point the Passover had been transformed into the Lord's Supper, no longer a tribute to the Exodus, but rather to the sacrifice of Christ for sin on our behalf. Probably as a knife cuts through butter these words cut through the Corinthians, "Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me". The whole point of this feast was to Christ and remembering what He had done. Instead the Corinthians had made it about them and serving their own desires. To drive the point home Paul finishes his explanation of why they are even celebrating, "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes". Through these words we can see that it was the bread symbolizing Christ's body that was merely being used to satisfy their hunger and keep it from the poor. The drink which was to sybmolize the blood that was shed for our sins, was being used to get drunk. Everything that this event stood for was being mocked and trampled upon.
All that being said, Paul moves forward to bring the consequences of such actions, "Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord". It was obvious that the Corinthian's had come to the Lord's Table in a very unworthy manner, all of us come to the table in an unworthy manner when we do not give all our thoughts, devotion, and sin to our Savior. When we have anything less than the proper understanding and perspective of all that Christ has done for us, we are doing Him an injustice. It is not to say if we have sinned that day or that week that we cannot come to the Lord's Table, it is for those very things that we remember Christ. It is if we do not confess these things, recognize our very sinfulness, believe the ceremony itself saves, make it ritualistic, take it flippantly before Him that we trample on the very thing we are to be celebrating. And if we do so, Paul tells us we are "guilty of the body and blood of the Lord". MacArthur points out, "To trample our country's flag is not to dishonor a piece of cloth but to dishonor the country it represents. To come unworthily to Communion does not simply dishonor the ceremony; it dishonors the One in whose honor it is celebrated. We become guilty of dishonoring His body and blood, which represent His total gracious life and work for us, His suffering and death on our behalf". Let us not become guilty of this as the Corinthians had.
This being the case, Paul helps us prepare for the Lord's Supper as he writes, "But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup". Therefore, let us examine our hearts and minds and motives before we take part in the breaking of the bread and the drinking of the cup. We must give ourselves a thorough examination to make sure we truly are giving it the proper respect it deserves, for "he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself, if he does not judge the body rightly". MacArthur writes, "Judgment (krima) here has the idea of chastisement. Because 'there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus' (Rom. 8:1), the KJV rendering of damnation is especially unfortunate. The great difference in Paul's use here of krima (judgment) and katakrima (condemned) is seen in verse 32, where it is clear that krima refers to discipline of the saved and katakrima refers to condemnation of the lost". Therefore we must avoid this judgment by responding properly to this holy occasion. We must understand that God takes this very seriously as we should. For, Paul writes, "For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep". What we must understand here is that these people are not being eternally judged for their sins, however, God is punishing them here on earth for their dishonor of his supper. He had punished some with weakness, sickness, and even death.
Obviously many had not judged themselves properly in the Corinthian church and had to deal with the punishment the Lord allowed them to be afflicted with. However, "if we judged ourselves rightly, we should not be judged". If we are faithful to confess our sins to God and come before Him humbly to respect and honor Him through the participation of the Lord's Supper, than we will not be punished, but rather rejoice in the forgiveness we have in sin. However, for those of us who do not give it the respect and honor it deserves and do it in an unworthy manner as had been said before, Paul explains "but when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord in order that we may not be condemned along with the world". Here Paul helps explain God's purpose in disciplining those who partake in an unworthy manner. Paul shows that God is not doing this to condemn us, but rather to point us back towards the right way. MacArthur writes, "God sends individual chastening to push offenders back toward righteous behavior, and sends death to some in the church to encourage those who remain to choose holiness rather than sin".
Paul concludes, "So then, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home". To help them understand specifically how they can avoid this punishment from God, Paul tells them from now on when you eat together, wait for everyone to come together and share among yourselves. If you are coming to the feast merely to satisfy your hunger, do that at home. Remember why you are here and do it together as a unified body of Christ. He tells them to do so, so that "you may not come together for judgment". Apparently there were other issues pertaining to this that needed to be corrected so Paul writes, "And the remaining matters I shall arrange when I come". Let us always remember to give God the proper honor and respect He deserves, not just in the Lord's Supper, but in living our lives. Let us constantly be in remembrance of His amazing sacrifice, and live a holy life accordingly.
Paul begins with his chastisement, "For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that divisions exist among you; and in part, I believe it". Not referring to the actual meeting in the church building, but rather the coming together of the Corinthian believers, Paul writes that he has heard that when they come together there is divisions among them. Quarreling and bickering and divisiveness, much of which Paul had addressed in the early part of this letter, had resurfaced again in relation to the Lord's Supper. Possibly giving the Corinthian's the benefit of the doubt, and feeling some of the reports he had heard had been exaggerated he did not immediately condemn them of all he had heard. However, it was not difficult for him to believe most of the reports based on their behavior. Paul continues, "For their must also be factions among you, in order that those who are approved may have become evident among you". Here, Paul is saying that it is no surprise to hear about factions and divisions among them, for he understands that it is necessary for their to be. Much like Christ said it would be "inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes!" (Matt. 18:7). Although this may seem like an odd necessity Paul explains that it must be so that "those who are approved may have become evident among you". MacArthur writes, "The paradox is that it was necessary for there to be factions in the Corinthian church in or that those who are approved may have become evident among you. The worldliness and fleshly disobedience of those who caused the division would expose and highlight the love, harmony, and spirituality of those who are approved. . . . In the midst of bickering and divisiveness they are separated out as pure gold is from the dross". Just as a diamond is put on a black velvet piece to make it stand out because of the stark contrast, so the good deeds and actions of the faithful believer are made evident against the strife and division going on in the church at Corinth.
Paul moves along to the specific indictment, "Therefore when you meet together, it is not to eat the Lord's Supper, for in your eating each one takes his own supper first; and one is hungry and another is drunk". What should have been a time for love and gratitude in remembrance of the precious sacrifice of the Lamb of God, had turned into a time of complete and utter selfishness and division. There was no proper devotion to the Lord during this time. They did not come for the proper purpose of instituting the Lord's Supper, but rather for a time of hoarding food and getting drunk. MacArthur writes, "The focal point of this evil was the Lord's Supper. The term deipnon (Supper) was the normal word used for the evening meal. The addition of the Lord's gives it special and much greater significance. This was a genuine meal, where the church congregated to eat the 'love feast,' a meal followed by the Communion. The Communion was connected to this supper in the Corinthian church, but abuses were obscuring its divine purpose and destroying its sanctity. In the early church the love feast and Communion customarily were held together, but abuses such as those in Corinth eventually forced the two to be separated in order to protect the Communion. The love feast soon disappeared altogether". What was meant to be in remembrance of Christ, completely left him out of it and became a way for them to exercise their sinful desires. There were obvious social class differences in the Corinthian church, and the poorer church members would come to the feast expecting to share in the food that would be brought. However, by the selfishness of the members, "each one takes his own supper first". There were no thoughts of love, sacrifice, and putting the other first. There was obviously no focus on the purpose of their coming together which was to remember the greatest sacrifice of all. Instead the wealthy would come, grab their food first and not leave anything for the poorer believers who would leave hungry. Those who would bring food and drink would gorge themselves to the point of getting drunk. They were desecrating the sacred day.
Paul was shocked and amazed at this utter display of sinfulness, almost out of disbelief his response to the above is, "What!" Almost as if to say, how can you come together to celebrate the sacrifice of the One who has saved you from your sins, and now you mock it by turning it into a drunken feast? He writes, "Do you not have houses in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God, and shame those who have nothing". MacArthur explains, "If they intended to selfishly indulge themselves, could they not do that at home? Or were they actually trying to destroy the fellowship by flagrantly despising God's church? Or were they so contemptuous of their poor brothers and sisters in Christ that they purposely embarrassed and shamed them? Whatever the reason may have been, they could not justify the harm being brought to the church. If they could not show love, why have a love feast?" Paul's frustration boils over as he writes, "What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? In this I will not praise you". In essence Paul is saying I am ashamed of you, and you should be ashamed of yourself for what you have allowed this celebration to become. You have perverted this in such a way that you will not get any approval from me.
So they may be reminded, and hopefully ashamed of their behavior, Paul gives them the purpose of the Lord's table, "For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which 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". Paul was giving the Corinthians nothing new. Paul had been given direct revelation from the Lord as to what took place that night with the disciples, since Paul was not there himself. Paul had received this and had delivered (past tense) to the Corinthians, and it was for that reason they had understood the meaning of the Lord's Table. Paul's goal was to remind them of it again. MacArthur points out, "Most conservative scholars agree that I Corinthians probably was written before any of the gospels. If that is true, Paul's account here is the first biblical record of the institution of the Lord's Supper, and includes direct quotations from Jesus". Paul goes through that night when the Lord's Supper first took place in which Jesus sat at the table with his disciples and explained that the bread they were breaking together was a symbol of Christ's very own body that would be sacrificed for them. Christ took His very own body, life, ministry, spirit, and gave it all up on the cross for them. Christ, who became carnal flesh for us, had done so not for any other purpose than for it to be sacrificed, so that we might return to a right relationship with God. Paul continues, "In the same way He took the cup also, after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in My blood". MacArthur explains, "The cup that had represented the lamb's blood smeared on the doorposts and lintels now came to represent the blood of the Lamb of God, shed for the salvation of the world. The Old Covenant was ratified repeatedly by the blood of animals offered by men; but the New Covenant has been ratified once and for all by the blood of Jesus Christ (Heb. 9:28), which God Himself has offered". At this point the Passover had been transformed into the Lord's Supper, no longer a tribute to the Exodus, but rather to the sacrifice of Christ for sin on our behalf. Probably as a knife cuts through butter these words cut through the Corinthians, "Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me". The whole point of this feast was to Christ and remembering what He had done. Instead the Corinthians had made it about them and serving their own desires. To drive the point home Paul finishes his explanation of why they are even celebrating, "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes". Through these words we can see that it was the bread symbolizing Christ's body that was merely being used to satisfy their hunger and keep it from the poor. The drink which was to sybmolize the blood that was shed for our sins, was being used to get drunk. Everything that this event stood for was being mocked and trampled upon.
All that being said, Paul moves forward to bring the consequences of such actions, "Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord". It was obvious that the Corinthian's had come to the Lord's Table in a very unworthy manner, all of us come to the table in an unworthy manner when we do not give all our thoughts, devotion, and sin to our Savior. When we have anything less than the proper understanding and perspective of all that Christ has done for us, we are doing Him an injustice. It is not to say if we have sinned that day or that week that we cannot come to the Lord's Table, it is for those very things that we remember Christ. It is if we do not confess these things, recognize our very sinfulness, believe the ceremony itself saves, make it ritualistic, take it flippantly before Him that we trample on the very thing we are to be celebrating. And if we do so, Paul tells us we are "guilty of the body and blood of the Lord". MacArthur points out, "To trample our country's flag is not to dishonor a piece of cloth but to dishonor the country it represents. To come unworthily to Communion does not simply dishonor the ceremony; it dishonors the One in whose honor it is celebrated. We become guilty of dishonoring His body and blood, which represent His total gracious life and work for us, His suffering and death on our behalf". Let us not become guilty of this as the Corinthians had.
This being the case, Paul helps us prepare for the Lord's Supper as he writes, "But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup". Therefore, let us examine our hearts and minds and motives before we take part in the breaking of the bread and the drinking of the cup. We must give ourselves a thorough examination to make sure we truly are giving it the proper respect it deserves, for "he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself, if he does not judge the body rightly". MacArthur writes, "Judgment (krima) here has the idea of chastisement. Because 'there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus' (Rom. 8:1), the KJV rendering of damnation is especially unfortunate. The great difference in Paul's use here of krima (judgment) and katakrima (condemned) is seen in verse 32, where it is clear that krima refers to discipline of the saved and katakrima refers to condemnation of the lost". Therefore we must avoid this judgment by responding properly to this holy occasion. We must understand that God takes this very seriously as we should. For, Paul writes, "For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep". What we must understand here is that these people are not being eternally judged for their sins, however, God is punishing them here on earth for their dishonor of his supper. He had punished some with weakness, sickness, and even death.
Obviously many had not judged themselves properly in the Corinthian church and had to deal with the punishment the Lord allowed them to be afflicted with. However, "if we judged ourselves rightly, we should not be judged". If we are faithful to confess our sins to God and come before Him humbly to respect and honor Him through the participation of the Lord's Supper, than we will not be punished, but rather rejoice in the forgiveness we have in sin. However, for those of us who do not give it the respect and honor it deserves and do it in an unworthy manner as had been said before, Paul explains "but when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord in order that we may not be condemned along with the world". Here Paul helps explain God's purpose in disciplining those who partake in an unworthy manner. Paul shows that God is not doing this to condemn us, but rather to point us back towards the right way. MacArthur writes, "God sends individual chastening to push offenders back toward righteous behavior, and sends death to some in the church to encourage those who remain to choose holiness rather than sin".
Paul concludes, "So then, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home". To help them understand specifically how they can avoid this punishment from God, Paul tells them from now on when you eat together, wait for everyone to come together and share among yourselves. If you are coming to the feast merely to satisfy your hunger, do that at home. Remember why you are here and do it together as a unified body of Christ. He tells them to do so, so that "you may not come together for judgment". Apparently there were other issues pertaining to this that needed to be corrected so Paul writes, "And the remaining matters I shall arrange when I come". Let us always remember to give God the proper honor and respect He deserves, not just in the Lord's Supper, but in living our lives. Let us constantly be in remembrance of His amazing sacrifice, and live a holy life accordingly.
posted by amesfam | 8:05 AM
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