Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Corinthians 11:27
Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink [this] cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.
27. and drink this cup ] Literally, or drink the cup. Many Protestant translators have evaded the force of the or, from a fear lest they should thereby be countenancing the denial of the Cup to the laity. See Alford, Stanley, Meyer, De Wette, who, while rejecting a rendering clearly incorrect, point out that the fear which prompted it was quite needless. Calvin renders boldly by aut; Wiclif and Tyndale by or. See also note on 1Co 11:25.
unworthily ] “Not merely,” says Estius, “with a mind distracted by worldly thoughts, though that is not to be commended, but in an irreverent spirit,” in a frame of mind unsuitable to so solemn an act; without faith in, or a thankful remembrance of, the great mystery therein commemorated; and, above all, in a spirit which regarded what is essentially the Supper of the Lord as a supper of one’s own, and therefore as one at which it was lawful to be selfish, or intemperate, or both.
shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord ] Either (1) shall be punishable for ‘crucifying the Son of God afresh, and putting Him to an open shame’ (Heb 6:6), “as though thou thyself didst shed the blood,” Theophylact; or (2) for committing an offence against the Body and Blood of Christ, since “the participation presupposes a moral condition which must be in keeping with this most sacred commemoration; but if the condition of the communicant be of an opposite kind, then the holy Body and Blood, into communion with which we enter through such participation, can only be abused and profaned.” Meyer. The word here translated guilty ( reus, Vulgate) signifies the condition in which a man becomes amenable to punishment. Cf. Mat 5:21-22, where the word is translated in danger of the judgment, council, hell-fire (see also Mar 3:29), and Mat 26:66, guilty of death, i.e. of a capital crime. Jas 2:10, guilty of all, i.e. liable to the same penalty as though he had broken all.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Wherefore – ( hoste). So that, or it follows from what has been said. If this be the origin and intention of the Lords Supper, then it follows that whoever partakes of it in an improper manner is guilty of his body and blood. The design of Paul is to correct their improper mode of observing this ordinance; and having showed them the true nature and design of the institution, he now states the consequences of partaking of it in an improper manner.
Shall eat this bread – See 1Co 11:26. Paul still calls it bread, and shows thus that he was a stranger to the doctrine that the bread was changed into the very body of the Lord Jesus. If the papal doctrine of transubstantiation had been true, Paul could not have called it bread. The Romanists do not believe that it is bread, nor would they call it such; and this shows how needful it is for them to keep the Scriptures from the people, and how impossible to express their dogmas in the language of the Bible. Let Christians adhere to the simple language of the Bible, and there is no danger of their falling into the errors of the papists.
Unworthily – Perhaps there is no expression in the Bible that has given more trouble to weak and feeble Christians than this. It is certain that there is no one that has operated to deter so many from the communion; or that is so often made use of as an excuse for not making a profession of religion. The excuse is, I am unworthy to partake of this holy ordinance. I shall only expose myself to condemnation. I must therefore wait until I become more worthy, and better prepared to celebrate it. It is important, therefore, that there should he a correct understanding of this passage. Most persons interpret it as if it were unworthy, and not unworthily, and seem to suppose that it refers to their personal qualifications, to their unfitness to partake of it, rather than to the manner in which it is done. It is to he remembered, therefore. that the word used here is an adverb, and not an adjective, and has reference to the manner of observing the ordinance, and not to their personal qualifications or fitness. It is true that in ourselves we are all unworthy of an approach to the table of the Lord; unworthy to be regarded as his followers; unworthy of a title to everlasting life: but it does not follow that we may not partake of this ordinance in a worthy, that is, a proper manner, with a deep sense of our sinfulness, our need of a Saviour, and with some just views of the Lord Jesus as our Redeemer. Whatever may be our consciousness of personal unworthiness and unfitness – and that consciousness cannot be too deep – yet we may have such love to Christ, and such a desire to be saved by him, and such a sense of his worthiness, as to make it proper for us to approach and partake of this ordinance. The term unworthily ( anaxios) means properly in an unworthy or improper manner in a manner unsuitable to the purposes for which it was designed or instituted; and may include the following things, namely:
(1) Such an irregular and indecent observance as existed in the church of Corinth, where even gluttony and intemperance prevailed under the professed design of celebrating the Lords Supper.
(2) An observance of the ordinance where there should be no distinction between it and common meals (Note on 1Co 11:29); where they did not regard it as designed to show forth the death of the Lord Jesus. It is evident that where such views prevailed, there could be no proper qualification for this observance; and it is equally clear that such ignorance can hardly be supposed to prevail now in those lands which are illuminated by Christian truth.
(3) When it is done for the sake of mockery, and when the purpose is to deride religion, and to show a marked contempt for the ordinances of the gospel. It is a remarkable fact that many infidels have been so full of malignity and bitterness against the Christian religion as to observe a mock celebration of the Lords Supper. There is no profounder depth of depravity than this; there is nothing that can more conclusively or painfully show the hostility of man to the gospel of God. It is a remarkable fact, also, that not a few such persons have died a most miserable death. Under the horrors of an accusing conscience, and the anticipated destiny of final damnation, they have left the world as frightful monuments of the justice of God. It is also a fact that not a few infidels who have been engaged in such unholy celebrations have been converted to that very gospel which they were thus turning into ridicule and scorn. Their consciences have been alarmed; they have shuddered at the remembrance of the crime; they have been overwhelmed with the consciousness of guilt, and have found no peace until they have found it in that blood whose shedding they were thus profanely celebrating.
Shall be guilty – ( enochoi). This word properly means obnoxious to punishment for personal crime. It always includes the idea of ill-desert, and of exposure to punishment on account of crime or ill-desert; Mat 5:22; compare Exo 22:3; Exo 34:7; Num 14:18; Num 35:27; Lev 20:9; see also Deu 19:10; Mat 26:66. Of the body and blood of the Lord. Commentators have not been agreed in regard to the meaning of this expression. Doddridge renders it, Shall be counted guilty of profaning and affronting in some measure that which is intended to represent the body and blood of the Lord. Grotius renders it, He does the same thing as if he should slay Christ. Bretschneider (Lexicon) renders it, Injuring by crime the body of the Lord. Locke renders it, Shall be guilty of a misuse of the body and blood of the Lord; and supposes it means that they should be liable to the punishment due to one who made a wrong use of the sacramental body and blood of Christ in the Lords Supper. Rosenmuller renders it, He shall be punished for such a deed as if he had affected Christ himself with ignominy.
Bloomfield renders it, He shall be guilty respecting the body, that is, guilty of profaning the symbols of the body and blood of Christ, and consequently shall be amenable to the punishment due to such an abuse of the highest means of grace. But it seems to me that this does not convey the fulness of the meaning of the passage. The obvious and literal sense is evidently that they should by such conduct be involved in the sin of putting the Lord Jesus to death. The phrase the body and blood of the Lord, in this connection, obviously, I think, refers to his death, to the fact that his body was broken, and his blood shed, of which the bread and wine were symbols; and to be guilty of that, means to be guilty of putting him to death; that is, to be involved in the crime, or to do a thing which should involve the same criminality as that. To see this, we are to remember:
(1) That the bread and wine were symbols or emblems of that event, and designed to set it forth.
(2) To treat with irreverence and profaneness the bread which was an emblem of his broken body, was to treat with irreverence and profaneness the body itself; and in like manner the wine, the symbol of his blood.
(3) Those, therefore who treated the symbols of his body and blood with profaneness and contempt were united in spirit with those who put him to death. They evinced the same feelings toward the Lord Jesus that his murderers did. They treated him with scorn, profaneness, and derision; and showed that with the same spirit they would have joined in the act of murdering the Son of God. They would evince their hostility to the Saviour himself as far as they could do, by showing contempt for the memorials of his body and blood. The apostle does by no means, however, as I understand him, mean to say that any of the Corinthians had been thus guilty of his body and blood. He does not charge on them this murderous intention. But he states what is the fair and obvious construction which is to be put on a wanton disrespect for the Lords supper. And the design is to guard them, and all others, against this sin. There can be no doubt that those who celebrate his death in mockery and derision are held guilty of his body and blood. They show that they have the spirit of his murderers; they evince it in the most awful way possible; and they who would thus join in a profane celebration of the Lords Supper would have joined in the cry, Crucify him, crucify him, For it is a most fearful and solemn act to trifle with sacred things; and especially to hold up to derision and scorn, the bitter sorrows by which the Son of God accomplished the redemption of the world.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
1Co 11:27-32
Whosoever shall eat and drink unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.
Eating and drinking unworthily
I. The sin consists in doing it–
1. Ignorantly.
2. Irreverently.
3. Uncharitably.
4. Sensually.
II. Its guilt includes–
1. A contempt of Christs sacrifice.
2. A denial of its efficacy; and by implication.
3. A repetition of His sufferings.
III. Its punishment.
1. Condemnation.
2. Temporal chastisement (1Co 11:30) corrective in its design (1Co 11:32).
IV. Its prevention is secured.
1. Not by neglect or abstinence.
2. But–
(1) By self-examination.
(2) Faithful and conscientious self-discipline (1Co 11:31). (J. Lyth, D.D.)
Worthy or unworthy
1. Verse 27 has operated as a hindrance to the approach of many of our best to the Lords table; but it is not so appalling as it looks. Unworthily must be understood relatively to human ignorance and imperfection; otherwise it would act as a bar to the approach of any. Were the right based upon righteousness there would be none but the Great Host at the table. The unworthy are they whose habitual temper is unchristlike, who, being unworthy, are content with their unworthiness. The qualified are those who wrestle with their bad spirit and tendencies, and who pant to be worthier men and the true children of God.
2. A sacrament is an outward sign of an inward experience. And this is the profanation–when he who gives the sign does not yearn for the thing signified.
3. The scruples that hold some back from the Lords table are–
I. As to the age at which a person should make public declaration of his discipleship. Now, the condition of time does not enter into the question at all. The spirit of life in man does not regulate its arrival by the chronometer. When the hour of conscious life in God and conscious fellowship with Him comes, then also comes the hour when you may give the sacred symbolic signs, and take your seat at the guest table of the Lord, no matter how young in years you may be. And, indeed, till the hour does come when you freely place yourself at the disposal of Christs influence, you have no right to claim a place at that board, no matter how many your years.
II. That their minds are unsettled by doubt. Well! the doubting temper is not the most blessed; but at the same time all doubts are not sins. It is not seldom by doubt that God leads us to faith. And as long as doubt does not spring from worldliness or levity; as long as it does not shake our faith in God, in Christ, and in conscience; as long as it drives us to the feet of God in prayer, and not away from them in pride; as long as we wish to believe the things we find it hard to believe, so long may doubt be a schoolmaster to bring us home to Christ. Doubt of dogma is no sin; indifference to Christs claims is; and the Lord has spread this table for the loving and the docile, not for the clear-headed system-maker and the scientific expert. The doubter who sits in the scorners chair, deriding, jeering, sneering, let him alone stay away! and let the reverent and lowly listening doubter come, and Christ, the Host, will not withhold His hand.
III. The consciousness of personal unworthiness of nature. But, if that table were only for the worthy, it were arrogance in any mortal man to appear. Christ invites not the righteous but the sinful to come. Indeed, it is in the feeling that we are unworthy that our only qualification lies. It is not that we be holy, but that we aspire to be holy; and in whomsoever there is this desire, no matter how poor and imperfect his actual attainments are in such, and not in the self-satisfied Pharisee, you find the true disciple who may take his place at the guest table of the Lord. (J. Forfar.)
Worthy and unworthy communicating
I. The sin, unworthy eating and drinking of the sacrament.
1. One may do an action worthily in a threefold respect.
(1) As the labourer is worthy of his hire (Luk 10:7). This exact worthiness may claim a reward due unto it, and the denier doth this worthy party wrong. Now no saint can receive with this worthiness, as appears by the humble confessions of Jacob (Gen 32:10), Jn Baptist (Mat 3:11). So communicants say, We be not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under Thy table.
(2) Though not in a perfect and exact proportion, yet in some fitness unto that which is required (Mat 3:8; Col 1:10; Eph 4:1; Php 1:27)–i.e., let not your life shame your belief; let not your practice be inconsistent with your profession. And we must know that sins of infirmity, through Gods mercy, may subsist with this worthiness. In this acception to eat worthily is to eat so fitted and prepared as may bear some resemblance and agreement to the solemnity of the work we go about.
(3) The worthiness of acceptance, when God for Christs sake is pleased to take our actions in good worth. That is well spoken which is well taken; and that man is worthy who by God is accepted so to be (Rev 3:4).
2. Two sorts of people, then, do eat and drink unworthily.
(1) The unregenerate who (Heb 6:1) have not as yet laid the foundation of repentance from dead works and faith. Without this foundation, the fair side-walls of a good nature, and the proud roof of all moral performances, will both totter and tumble to the ground.
(2) The regenerate, but guilty of some sins unrepented of, who eat unworthily till they have sued out a special pardon out of the court of heaven.
II. The sinfulness of the sin. Shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. As those that deface the stamp or abuse the seal of a king are traitors, so the unworthy receivers of these elements, which personate and represent Christs body, sin against the body of Christ itself. Christs person is out of the reach of your cruelty; as for His picture, it is with us in the sacraments; and unworthy receivers show to the shadow what they would do to the substance if it were in their power. Conclusion: Men generally hate Pilate and Judas, being more angry with them than David with the rich man that took away the poor mans ewe lamb; whereas in some sense it may be said of many of us, Thou art the man. Yet, as for those which hitherto have not taken notice of the heinousness of this sin, let me say to them what St. Peter doth (Act 3:17). And let us all pray with David (Psa 51:14). (T. Fuller, D.D.)
Worthy and unworthy communicating
Perhaps no words in all the Bible have given so much distress as these, yet they need not have given any distress at all. The sufferers have created clouds in their own sky. I want to lift the cloud and to–
I. Recall the circumstances to which Paul addressed himself.
1. In connection with other abuses there arose a peculiar method of celebrating the Lords Supper. As it was originally instituted after a common meal with Christ and His disciples, people at Corinth said, We must have a meal first. In conducting that the rich brought their viands and their rich wines, the poor what they could; and this love feast became a revel. The rich man held up his viands and mocked the poor man, and the poor looked with hungry eyes upon the rich mans banquet; and after they had been thus infuriated alike by passion and by drink, they proceeded to add to their intoxication by the very wine that was meant to symbolise the sacrificial blood. Now you see the exact purport of the apostles words. He says, Have ye not houses to eat and drink in? etc. Take care, this is not for gluttons and drunkards. You do not come to it in a right spirit, you misconceive its meaning, and if you do not take it worthily you eat and drink damnation to your soul.
2. Now there is no church in England in which this practice is indulged. Your mistake has been in applying the word worthily to yourself instead of to the Supper. You must take it in a manner worthy of it, quietly, reverently, self-distrustingly, casting yourself with your sin upon the heart of the Saviour. That is to take the Lords Supper worthily. How can I speak in terms strong enough against the rubbish about people making themselves fit to come to the Lords Supper? Shame on the Pharisaism that gets itself ready to come, and blessings on the penitence that comes all tears and yearnings and self-distress, and says, Other refuge have I none, hangs my helpless soul on Thee. Unfitness may arise from two opposite points: the man who thrusts forth a drunken hand to take this cup, and the man who takes it with a hand soaped and dried in the tub of his own morality. These two hands thrust a sharp cold arrow into the Lords heart. I will presently sit there and say, God be merciful to me, a sinner.
II. What is the true and proper idea, then, of the Lords Supper?
1. It is a memorial.
(1) Christ did not say, This do because ye are angels amongst men, but This do in remembrance of Me. Is He worth remembering? He took just what was going on, and made it sacred by His touch and blessing. He did not go to far countries and bring rich luxuries which only wealth could supply. He never said anything about morally trimming ourselves up for the purpose of being fit for it. All the fitness He requires is to feel our need of Him.
(2) Now, why should any of us go away from this sacred opportunity? Take the children away? Take the poor, broken-hearted sinner away? Take away the poor soul that loves Christ, but knows nothing about theological metaphysics? God forbid. Take away the man who thinks he is fit to sit here, the man who thinks he is conferring patronage upon the table.
(3) Then is this feast to be taken without any self-examination? I think not. There must be self-examination, but beware, if you please, of vivisection. A man may lacerate himself, and he will find noworthiness in his own nature. I examine myself to find whether I am really penitent.
2. Being an act of memorial it is an act of love. Make a ceremony of it, and all the pathos is gone, all the deep, holy significance evaporates.
3. It is also an act of happy prospects. It goes back to the past, and it sets forth the Lords death till He come.
III. Many endeavour to persuade us that the word damnation ought to be softened into condemnation. Let the word stand; only apply it properly. If we had been spending the last hour in eating and drinking, in gluttony and wine-bibbing, the word damnation would itself be too gentle a word to apply to our case. (J. Parker, D.D.)
Desecration of the Lords Supper
The man who tramples on the flag of his country, insults his country; and he who treats with indignity the representative of a sovereign, thereby offends the sovereign himself. In like manner, he who treats the symbols of Christs body and blood irreverently is guilty of irreverence towards Christ. (C. Hodge, D.D.)
The unworthy receiving of the Lords Supper
I. What unworthy receiving is.
1. Something negatively.
(1) Unworthy receiving is not proper only to a man in a natural state. The apostle chargeth here unworthy receiving, not only upon the professing, but the regenerate Corinthians.
(2) Unworthy receiving is not to be measured by our sensible joy or comfort after receiving. Two men that have perfect health, have not equal stomachs, nor equal appetites, and consequently not the same joy in their meals, yet both in health. We should more consider how graces are acted, than how comforts are dispensed. Gods dispensations are not equal to all; some have no tastes, others full draughts; so we may have more joy than strength, others more strength than joy. But–
2. Positively that is an unworthy receiving.
(1) When evil dispositions and beloved sins are not laid aside and for-saken.
(2) When, though beloved sins are discarded, yet there is not a due preparation suitable to the quality of the institution.
(3) It is an unworthy receiving when we rest only in the ordinance, expecting from the work done what we should expect only from Christ in it. When we content ourselves with Elijahs mantle, without asking for the God of Elijah.
(4) When there is a garishness and looseness of spirit in the time of our attendance. Not discerning the Lords body, say some, not minding the Lords body, but letting the thoughts run at rovers, which should be fixed upon Christs dying.
II. The sinfulness of this. It is a contracting the guilt of the body and blood of the Lord. He that doth despite to the image or arms of a prince, would do the same to his person were it as much in his power.
1. It is an implicit approbation of the Jews act in crucifying Christ. If we are not affected with that state of Christ, we consent to, and approve of that act of His crucifiers; not positively, but privatively; not having that temper and affection of spirit which such an action doth call for from us. They were the authors of the first crime, and an unworthy receiver the abettor.
2. It exceeds the sin of the Jews in some circumstances, as well as that exceeded this in others. That was against His person, this against His propitiation.
3. In regard of the relation the ordinance hath to Christ. There is an analogy between the bread and the wine, and the body and blood of Christ. The nearer relation anything hath to God, the more heinous is the offence. It disparageth the whole covenant of grace. How base a disposition is it to sit down at the table of a man with an hostile mind against him, to slab the master of the feast at his own table while he is treating and entertaining us with dainties!
4. It is a great sin, as it is against the greatest testimony of His love.
III. The danger of this sin: he eats and drinks damnation to himself. That which is not melted by the sun grows into a greater hardness. Christ, as a sacrifice on the Cross, was pleasing to God; as the murdered Innocent a burden of guilt on the Jews: so as He is grateful food in the sacrament to a worthy receiver, He is the bane of an unworthy communicant, by reason of his unholiness.
IV. The use.
1. The manner of duties must be regarded as well as the matter. The matter of this ordinance is participated by both the worthy and the unworthy receiver: the manner makes the difference.
2. The holiness of an ordinance will not excuse a miscarriage in it. Some are nourished by this ordinance, others pollute themselves. The fruit is not according to the holiness of the ordinance, but the disposition of the receiver.
3. The sins of those that draw nearest to God are the blackest.
4. The ground of our mischief is always in ourselves. It is not from the emptiness of the ordinance, that is a full cistern; nor from the shortness of Gods grace, He is an overflowing fountain; but from want of those graces, or of exercising those graces which are the bucket to draw, and the mouth to drink.
5. We see here the base nature of sin. It changeth the brightest ordinances, makes the waters of the sanctuary bitter, turns food into poison, and a cup of salvation into one of damnation.
6. If an unworthy receiver be guilty of the body and blood of Christ, a worthy receiver hath a special interest; in the body and blood of Christ. He hath as much advantage thereby as the other hath guilt.
7. Should not all of us, that have at any time of our lives been partakers of this ordinance, reflect upon ourselves, yea the best of us?
8. How then should we take heed, whenever we approach to the Lords table, of any unworthy demeanour towards Him, whereby to contract such guilt, and incur such displeasure? (Bp. Hacket.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 27. Whosoever shall eat – and drink – unworthily] To put a final end to controversies and perplexities relative to these words and the context, let the reader observe, that to eat and drink the bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper unworthily, is to eat and drink as the Corinthians did, who ate it not in reference to Jesus Christ’s sacrificial death; but rather in such a way as the Israelites did the passover, which they celebrated in remembrance of their deliverance from Egyptian bondage. Likewise, these mongrel Christians at Corinth used it as a kind of historical commemoration of the death of Christ; and did not, in the whole institution, discern the Lord’s body and blood as a sacrificial offering for sin: and besides, in their celebration of it they acted in a way utterly unbecoming the gravity of a sacred ordinance. Those who acknowledge it as a sacrificial offering, and receive it in remembrance of God’s love to them in sending his Son into the world, can neither bring damnation upon themselves by so doing, nor eat nor drink unworthily. See our translation of this verse vindicated at the end of the chapter. 1Co 11:34.
Shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. If he use it irreverently, if he deny that Christ suffered unjustly, (for of some such persons the apostle must be understood to speak,) then he in effect joins issue with the Jews in their condemnation and crucifixion of the Lord Jesus, and renders himself guilty of the death of our blessed Lord. Some, however, understand the passage thus: is guilty, i.e. eats and drinks unworthily, and brings on himself that punishment mentioned 1Co 11:30.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Divines agree, that the unworthiness here spoken of, respecteth not the person of the receiver so much as the manner of the receiving; in which sense, a person that is worthy may receive this ordinance
unworthily: it is variously expounded, without due religion and reverence, without faith and love, without proposing a right end in the action, under the guilt of any known sin not repented of, &c.
Shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord; shall incur the guilt of the profanation of this sacred institution; for an abuse offered to a sign, reacheth to that of which it is a sign; as the abuse of a kings seal, or picture, is justly accounted an abuse of the king himself, whose seal and picture it is. Some carry it higher; he shall be punished, as if he had crucified Christ, the profanation of Christs ordinance reflecting upon Christ himself.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
27. eat and drinkSo one ofthe oldest manuscripts reads. But three or four equally oldmanuscripts, the Vulgate and CYPRIAN,read, “or.” Romanists quote this reading in favor ofcommunion in one kind. This consequence does not follow. Paul says,”Whosoever is guilty of unworthy conduct, either ineating the bread, or in drinking the cup, is guilty of thebody and blood of Christ.” Impropriety in only one of thetwo elements, vitiates true communion in both. Therefore, inthe end of the verse, he says, not “body or blood,”but “body and blood.” Any who takes the bread without thewine, or the wine without the bread, “unworthily“communicates, and so “is guilty of Christ’s body and blood”;for he disobeys Christ’s express command to partake of both. If we donot partake of the sacramental symbol of the Lord’s death worthily,we share in the guilt of that death. (Compare “crucify tothemselves the Son of God afresh,” Heb6:6). Unworthiness in the person, is not what ought toexclude any, but unworthily communicating: However unworthy webe, if we examine ourselves so as to find that we penitently believein Christ’s Gospel, we may worthily communicate.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Wherefore,…. Since this is the plain institution of the Lord’s supper, the form and manner of administering of it; and since the bread and wine in it are representations of the body and blood of Christ, and the design of the whole is to remember Christ, and show forth his death; it follows, that
whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. The bread and cup are called the bread and cup of the Lord; because ate and drank in remembrance of him, being symbols of his body and of his blood, though not they themselves; these may be eaten and drank “unworthily”, when they are eaten and drank by unworthy persons, in an unworthy manner, and to unworthy ends and purposes. The Lord’s supper may be taken unworthily, when it is partook of by unworthy persons. This sense is confirmed by the Syriac version, which renders it , “and is not fit for it”, or is unworthy of it, and so the Ethiopic version; now such are all unregenerate persons, for they have no spiritual life in them, and therefore cannot eat and drink in a spiritual sense; they have no spiritual light, and therefore cannot discern the Lord’s body; they have no spiritual taste and relish, no spiritual hungerings and thirstings, nor any spiritual appetite, and can receive no spiritual nourishment, or have any spiritual communion with Christ: and so are all such persons, who, though they may profess to be penitent ones, and believers in Christ, and to have knowledge of him, and love to him; and yet they have not true repentance, neither do they bring forth fruits meet for it, and so as they are improper subjects of baptism, they are unworthy of the Lord’s table; nor have they faith in Christ, at least only an historical one, and so cannot by faith eat the flesh, and drink the blood of the Son of God, nor perform the ordinance in a way well pleasing to God; nor have they any spiritual knowledge of Christ, only what is speculative and notional, and so cannot discern the Lord’s body; nor any real love to him, and therefore very improper persons to feed on a feast of love; nor can they affectionately remember Christ, or do what they do from a principle of love to him, and therefore must be unworthy receivers: as likewise are all such professors, whose lives and conversations are not as become the Gospel of Christ; such crucify Christ afresh, and put him to open shame, and are therefore unfit to show forth his crucifixion and death; they bring a reproach on the Gospel and ordinances of Christ, and cause his name, and ways, and truths to be blasphemed, and grieve the members of the churches of Christ, and therefore ought not to be admitted to the table of the Lord: indeed, no man is in himself worthy of such an ordinance, none but those whom Christ has made so by the implantation of his grace, and the imputation of his righteousness; and whom he, though unworthy in themselves, invites and encourages to come to this ordinance, and to eat and drink abundantly. Moreover, this ordinance may be attended upon in an unworthy manner; as when it is partook of ignorantly, persons not knowing the nature, use, and design of it; or irreverently, as it was by many of the Corinthians, and it is to be feared by many others, who have not that reverence of the majesty of Christ, in whose presence they are, and who is both the author and subject of the ordinance; or without faith, and the exercise of it on Christ, the bread of life, and water of life; or unthankfully, when there is no grateful sense of the love of God in the gift of his Son, nor of the love of Christ, in giving himself an offering and sacrifice for sin; or when this feast is kept with the leaven of malice and wickedness, and with want of brotherly love, bearing an ill will to, or hatred of, any of the members of the church, To all which may be added, that this bread and cup are ate and drank unworthily, when they are partook of to unworthy ends and purposes; as to qualify for any secular employment, and to gain any worldly advantage; or to be seen of men, and to be thought to be devotional and religious persons; or to commemorate anything besides Christ; as the “judaizing” Corinthians did the “paschal” lamb; or to procure eternal life and happiness thereby, fancying that the participation of this ordinance gives a meetness for, and a right to glory: now such unworthy eaters and drinkers are “guilty of the body and blood” of the Lord; not in such sense as Judas, Pontius Pilate, and the people of the Jews were, who were concerned in the crucifixion of his body, and shedding of his blood, the guilt of which lies upon them, and they must answer for another day; nor in such sense as apostates from the faith, who, after they have received the knowledge of the truth, deny it, and Christ, the Saviour; and so crucify him afresh, and put him to open shame, count the blood of the covenant a common or unholy thing, and tread under foot the Son of God; at least, not every unworthy receiver of the Lord’s supper is guilty in this sense; though there might be some among the Corinthians, and is the reason of this awful expression, who looked upon the body and blood of Christ as common things, and made no more account of them than of the body and blood of the passover lamb; but in a lower sense, every unworthy communicant, or that eats and drinks unworthily, may be said to be guilty of the body and blood of Christ, inasmuch as he sins against, and treats in an injurious manner, an ordinance which is a symbol and representation of these things; for what reflects dishonour upon that, reflects dishonour on the body and blood of Christ, signified therein.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Unworthily (). Old adverb, only here in N.T., not genuine in verse 29. Paul defines his meaning in verse 29f. He does not say or imply that we ourselves must be “worthy” () to partake of the Lord’s Supper. No one would ever partake on those terms. Many pious souls have abstained from observing the ordinance through false exegesis here.
Shall be guilty ( ). Shall be held guilty as in Mt 5:21f. which see. Shall be guilty of a crime committed against the body and blood of the Lord by such sacrilege (cf. Heb 6:6; Heb 10:29).
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Unworthily [] . Defined by “not discerning the Lord ‘s body,” ver. 29.
Guilty [] . See on Mr 3:29; Jas 2:10.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread.” (hoste hos an esthie ton arton) “So whoever eats the bread.” – The bread of the Lord’s Supper – the mutilated, broken bread.
2) “And drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily.” (he pine to poterion tou kuriou anaksios) “Or drinks the cup (substance of the fruit of the vine) of the Lord unworthily.” Meaning with the wrong motive or for the wrong purpose, as those who, 1Co 11:20-22, had made it a social feast.
3) “Shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.” (enochos estai tou somatos kai tou haimatos tou kuriou) “Guilty will be (held) of the body and of the blood of the Lord.” To eat the elements of the Lord’s Supper in a social festive manner, as many at Corinth had done, was to act unworthily. It was as if one spat on or desecrated the flag of his country or mocked or tore the queen’s portrait.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
27. Therefore he who shall eat this bread unworthily. If the Lord requires gratitude from us in the receiving of this sacrament — if he would have us acknowledge his grace with the heart, and publish it with the mouth — that man will not go unpunished, who has put insult upon him rather than honor; for the Lord will not allow his commandment to be despised. Now, if we would catch the meaning of this declaration, we must know what it is to eat unworthily Some restrict it to the Corinthians, and the abuse that had crept in among them, but I am of opinion that Paul here, according to his usual manner, passed on from the particular case to a general statement, or from one instance to an entire class. There was one fault that prevailed among the Corinthians. He takes occasion from this to speak of every kind of faulty administration or reception of the Supper. “ God, ” says he, “ will not allow this sacrament to be profaned without punishing it severely.”
To eat unworthily, then, is to pervert the pure and right use of it by our abuse of it. Hence there are various degrees of this unworthiness, so to speak; and some offend more grievously, others less so. Some fornicator, perhaps, or perjurer, or drunkard, or cheat, (1Co 5:11,) intrudes himself without repentance. As such downright contempt is a token of wanton insult against Christ, there can be no doubt that such a person, whoever he is, receives the Supper to his own destruction. Another, perhaps, will come forward, who is not addicted to any open or flagrant vice, but at the same time not so prepared in heart as became him. As this carelessness or negligence is a sign of irreverence, it is also deserving of punishment from God. As, then, there are various degrees of unworthy participation, so the Lord punishes some more slightly; on others he inflicts severer punishment.
Now this passage gave rise to a question, which some afterwards agitated with too much keenness — whether the unworthy really partake of the Lord’s body? For some were led, by the heat of controversy, so far as to say, that it was received indiscriminately by the good and the bad; and many at this day maintain pertinaciously, and most clamorously, that in the first Supper Peter received no more than Judas. It is, indeed, with reluctance, that I dispute keenly with any one on this point, which is (in my opinion) not an essential one; but as others allow themselves, without reason, to pronounce, with a magisterial air, whatever may seem good to them, and to launch out thunderbolts upon every one that mutters anything to the contrary, we will be excused, if we calmly adduce reasons in support of what we reckon to be true.
I hold it, then, as a settled point, and will not allow myself to be driven from it, that Christ cannot be disjoined from his Spirit. Hence I maintain, that his body is not received as dead, or even inactive, disjoined from the grace and power of his Spirit. I shall not occupy much time in proving this statement. Now in what way could the man who is altogether destitute of a living faith and repentance, having nothing of the Spirit of Christ, (699) receive Christ himself? Nay more, as he is entirely under the influence of Satan and sin, how will he be capable of receiving Christ? While, therefore, I acknowledge that there are some who receive Christ truly in the Supper, and yet at the same time unworthily, as is the case with many weak persons, yet I do not admit, that those who bring with them a mere historical faith, (700) without a lively feeling of repentance and faith, receive anything but the sign. For I cannot endure to maim Christ, (701) and I shudder at the absurdity of affirming that he gives himself to be eaten by the wicked in a lifeless state, as it were. Nor does Augustine mean anything else when he says, that the wicked receive Christ merely in the sacrament, which he expresses more clearly elsewhere, when he says that the other Apostles ate the bread — the Lord; but Judas only the bread of the Lord (702)
But here it is objected, that the efficacy of the sacraments does not depend upon the worthiness of men, and that nothing is taken away from the promises of God, or falls to the ground, through the wickedness of men. This I acknowledge, and accordingly I add in express terms, that Christ’s body is presented to the wicked no less than to the good, and this is enough so far as concerns the efficacy of the sacrament and the faithfulness of God. For God does not there represent in a delusive manner, to the wicked, the body of his Son, but presents it in reality; nor is the bread a bare sign to them, but a faithful pledge. As to their rejection of it, that does not impair or alter anything as to the nature of the sacrament.
It remains, that we give a reply to the statement of Paul in this passage. “Paul represents the unworthy as guilty, inasmuch as they do not discern the Lord’s body: it follows, that they receive his body.” I deny the inference; for though they reject it, yet as they profane it and treat it with dishonor when it is presented to them, they are deservedly held guilty; for they do, as it were, cast it upon the ground, and trample it under their feet. Is such sacrilege trivial? Thus I see no difficulty in Paul’s words, provided you keep in view what God presents and holds out to the wicked — not what they receive.
(699) “ Veu que par consequent il n’ha rien de l’Esprit de Christ;” — “Since he has, consequently, nothing of the Spirit of Christ.”
(700) “ Vne foy historique qu on appelle; (c est a dire pour consentir simplement a l’histoire de l’Euangile;”) — “An historical faith, as they call it; (that is to say, to give a simple assent to the gospel history.”)
(701) “ Car ie n’ose proposer et imaginer Christ a demi;” — “For I dare not present and imagine Christ in half.”
(702) This celebrated saying of Augustine (which occurs in Hom. in Joann. 62) is quoted also in the Institutes, (volume 3,) where our author handles at great length the subject here adverted to. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(27) Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord . . .Better, Wherefore, whosoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord. The entire weight of MS. evidence is in favour of the conjunction or, not and, which was probably retained in the English version lest the disjunctive or might seem to favour the practice of receiving in one kind only. It is, however, clear that if in these early days there was a considerable interval between the receiving the bread and the wine, it would have been quite possible for a partaker to have received one only unworthily, and the Apostle intimates that in either case he is guilty.
Sin was the cause of that body being broken and that blood shed, and therefore the one who unworthily uses the symbols of them becomes a participator in the very guilt of those who crucified that body and shed that blood.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
27. Eat and drink The and, by the best readings, should be or. Alford thinks, apparently, that our translators have “unfairly” made it and to evade the Romish argument drawn from it in favour of withholding the cup from the laity. But the or does not aid the Romish practice. The or does make Paul say that dishonouring either one the bread or the cup renders guilty; but it does not, therefore, say that either one shall be withheld.
Guilty of the body That is, it is the body and blood of Christ which he slights or insults. He is guilty, not of dishonouring mere bread and wine; he is guilty of dishonouring what they represent Christ’s body and blood.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Wherefore whoever shall eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.’
This being so what a great sin it is that men participate in the Lord’s Supper in anything but the most genuine way, and without the most serious of thoughts. Especially that they participate in a spirit of disunity. By doing so they are trifling with the cross, are guilty of His death because they treat it lightly, and are as it were crucifying Him afresh to no purpose (compare Heb 10:29; Heb 6:6). And this is precisely what the Corinthians were in danger of doing, for they were openly negating one aspect of what He had come to do, the uniting in one in full equality of all who are His. And many of them were also approaching Him in a casual spirit.
‘In an unworthy manner.’ In context this means casually, both in casualness of spirit (being merry) and in sinful disharmony and with sinful discrimination (being in disunity), without regard for what the Lord’s Supper represents. This does not refer to our not sufficiently appreciating what we are participating in, for none of us ever do that, nor does it refer to our not being in a state of total worthiness, for we never are although we should seek to be. Our total worthiness is rather in Christ. So it rather means not approaching participation in a totally casual way, which includes in this case overt disunity and lack of brotherly love, with the result that participation has become a meaningless exercise, trivialised and lost in other excesses.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Consequences of Abusing the Lord’s Supper – In this section Paul will explain the consequences of abusing the Lord’s Supper. He has just told them how they are abusing this ordinance (1Co 11:17-22), and then explained the original meaning and purpose of this ordinance (1Co 11:23-26). He will now tell the Corinthians the consequences of the abuse of this holy sacrament.
1Co 11:27 Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.
1Co 11:27
1Co 11:20-22, “When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord’s supper. For in eating every one taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken. What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise you not.”
1Co 11:27 “shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord” Comments – The words, “charged with” seemed to come out of my mouth in the place of “guilty” while meditating on this passage. We are charged with the crime of scourging and crucifying Jesus, as if we had performed the evil deed ourselves.
Most commentators interpret this to mean that they become guilty of treating the body and blood of the Lord with profane disrespect. Note a similar passage in Heb 10:26-29 that refer to a believer turning back and counting the blood of the covenant as an unholy thing.
Heb 10:26-29, “For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?
1Co 11:28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.
1Co 11:28
2Co 13:5, “ Examine yourselves , whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves . Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?”
1Co 11:29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.
1Co 11:29
Exo 32:6, “And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.”
1Co 11:20-22, “When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord’s supper. For in eating every one taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken. What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise you not.”
1Co 11:29 “not discerning the Lord’s body” Comments – Modern English translates read, “not judging the Lord’s body correctly” ( NIV, KJV), “not judging the body correctly [rightly]” ( RSV, NASB). Some commentators note that this means the guilty ones made no distinction between the sobriety of the Lord’s Supper and the pleasures of an ordinary feast.
Kenneth Hagin explains that there are two aspects to the phrase “not discerning the Lord’s body.” First, Jesus shed His blood for our sins, but His body was broken for our healing. Thus, these Corinthian church members, who were sickly and dying prematurely, were not recognizing and applying the physical healing that Jesus provided through His atonement. Second, the “body of Christ” refers to the Church. The Corinthian believers were behaving themselves in an unworthy manner with each other, particularly when they came together to partake of the Lord’s Supper. In other words, they were not walking in love with one another, and God had no choice but to judge them because they were not judging themselves. [147]
[147] Kenneth Hagin, Love the Way to Victory (Tulsa, Oklahoma: Faith Library Publications, c1994, 1995), 228-33.
In 1990 Robert Tilton, pastor of Word of Faith Family Church, Dallas, Texas, organized two prayer warriors to pray in a separate room during the Sunday morning church service. On Sunday, April 22, 1990 Robert Tilton was preaching while two of us were assigned to pray throughout the service. I was taking my turn praying in the prayer room that Sunday. Tilton began to tell how through satellite God’s Word is raining down across this nation. I had been praying in tongues about one and a half hours into the service. When he said that, I began to envision souls being saved and the kingdom of God being planted everywhere and I said, “I can see the body of Christ!” Immediately, the Lord quickened to me the phrase used here in 1Co 11:29, “not discerning the Lord’s body.” I knew at that time that the term “the Lord’s body” was a reference to the church, also called the body of Christ. We must see that God is saving souls from all walks of life, even homosexuals, prostitutes, murderers, etc. In this particular passage (1Co 11:17-34) Paul was telling the church that they were not receiving the poor into their church; but rather, they were causing divisions and divided groups within this group of believers. This was a sin against the other believers. Why so; because they were not “discerning”, or “recognizing”, the other members of Christ’s body in love and acceptance. The rich believers were not properly recognizing that the poor in the church were also a part of the body of Christ. These rich believers then become guilty (verse 27) of the body (i.e., sinning against other believers) and guilty of the blood (not remembering that Jesus’ blood cleansed them also) of the Jesus Christ. Illustration:
In October 2000 Benny Hinn received the opportunity to hold an international crusade in Dubai, of the United Arab Emirates. This is a country beside Saudi Arabia and is primarily Muslim. As is the custom of Benny Hinn in his miracle healing crusades, he allows people to come up out of the audience and testify of their healings. Therefore, the Lord spoke to Benny Hinn and said that he is not to ask the person of what religious faith that person is coming from, because “I have accepted him.” [148] God accepts anyone who comes to Him in faith through Jesus Christ, regardless of a person’s background.
[148] Benny Hinn, This is Your Day (Irving, Texas), on Trinity Broadcasting Network (Santa Ana, California, October 2000), television program.
1Co 11:30 For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.
1Co 11:30
[149] Leon Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew, in The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 376.
Comments – 1Co 11:30 describes the effects in our lives of God’s chastening, a familiar concept in the Old Testament (Psa 38:1, Pro 3:11-12, Mic 6:13). Note that this verse lists the effects of God’s chastisement in a progressive order. The phrase “many are weak” refers not so much to physical weakness, but to spiritual and mental weakness. It describes a Christian who is beat down and overcome in heart and soul because of the stress of circumstances around him and the lack of peace and rest in God. “Sickly” refers to the sickness in the physical body as another aspect of divine chastisement. “Sleep” refers to the death of the saints when the Lord takes some believers home before their promised time of departure from this earth life, meaning some Christians die before their seventy-eighty years of promise are fulfilled (Psa 90:10). We see this early death in Proverbs for those who reject God’s correction (Pro 5:23).
Psa 90:10, “The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.”
Pro 5:23, “He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.”
God first allows problems to come into our lives to get our attention. These problems weaken us. If we still persist, God will allow sickness to come into our lives. Finally, if we continue in sin, God will take us home early to be in heaven.
Psa 38:1, “O LORD, rebuke me not in thy wrath: neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure.”
Pro 3:11-12, “My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction: For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.”
Mic 6:13, “Therefore also will I make thee sick in smiting thee, in making thee desolate because of thy sins.”
It is interesting to compare this progression of events to that found in Isa 1:3-9. The people hardened their hearts (1Co 1:3) and became very corrupt as a result (1Co 1:4). This led to sickness (1Co 1:5-6), then divine judgment upon their nation (1Co 1:7-8) and eventually the destruction of all but a remnant of people (1Co 1:9). This was all because God gave up on His chastisement realizing it would not do any good. Thus, He says, “Why should ye be stricken any more?” (1Co 1:3).
Illustration I have raised three children and each of them have required different degrees of discipline. Elisabeth received few spankings as a child because she trembled at my words of correction. When Victoria was three or four years old, she went through a period of hitting her sister Elisabeth. I initially spoke to Vicky and corrected her on this issue. When she persisted in hitting Elisabeth, I increased my degree of chastisement to stronger words, then a light spanking, then a heavy spanking. The day came when I took her into her bedroom and gave her five good spanks on her behind. I then turned her over to face me and shouted at her to never, never hit her sister again. Vicky stopped hitting her sister at this degree of discipline and she received very few spankings since then. My third child Michael received greatest degree of discipline. When he was about to turn six years old, he threw a toy at Vicky and injured her. I had been dealing with him about throwing things when he was angry. This time, I took a belt and spanked him at least ten times. I took him into the bedroom and he fell asleep. My wife and I spoke to him when he woke up and I explained to him why I had to spank him so hard on that occasion. He never threw an object since then when he was upset. Each child of God requires different degrees of chastisement as do our natural children, as explained in 1Co 11:31.
1Co 11:31 For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.
1Co 11:31
1Co 11:31 Comments – J. Vernon McGee says that 1Co 11:31 means if we will take the initiative to deal with and get rid of our own sins, then we will not be judged by God. [150] This verse reveals to us a fact that I have experience in my own Christian growth. It is the realization that God gives us some space to misbehave while growing up in much the same way that we patiently give our own children space to act up within a given set of bounds. Once they get out of bounds, or do not correct some bad behavior, we then inflict some form of punishment. In growing up spiritually, I have misbehaved often, and have been chastened by the Lord, as well as by my spiritual leaders. However, God is gracious, and will work with us despite our failings. He does this so that we do not become discouraged due to harshness and give up, as we can imagine our own children would do the same under harsh conditions.
[150] J. Vernon McGee, The Epistle to Philemon, in Thru the Bible With J. Vernon McGee (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Pub., 1998), in Libronix Digital Library System, v. 2.1c [CD-ROM] (Bellingham, WA: Libronix Corp., 2000-2004), comments on 1 Corinthians 11:31.
Note God’s forbearance to sin in Rev 2:21.
Rev 2:21, “And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not.”
1Co 11:32 But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.
1Co 11:32
We must forgive and love the brethren. Jesse Duplantis tells the story of a friend of his calling him one day and asking him to come to his town and pray for his wife, who was dying of cancer. Jesse agreed to make the trip. While driving the Lord spoke to Jesse and instructed him to tell the wife to forgive her husband. So, when he arrived in the hospital room and met the man and his wife, he told them what the Lord had asked him to do. In an instant the woman sat up with the strength left in her body and declared that she would never forgive her husband, who committed adultery several years earlier. Needless to say, the woman was not healed and died in her sickness. [151]
[151] Jesse Duplantis, Jesse Duplantis (New Orleans: Louisiana), on Trinity Broadcasting Network (Santa Ana, California).
If we offence one of the brethren, God will hear their cries and judge the believer quickly for his sins. We see in the Old Testament that the poor cry out to God against the oppression of their brethren, and God quickly judged the oppressor. We note how God judged Sodom and Gomorrah because of the cry of the oppressed:
Gen 18:20, “And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous;”
God delivered the children of Israel out of bondage when they cried out to God because of their oppression:
Exo 3:7-9, “And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them.”
God writes this divine principle of judgment in the Mosaic Law:
Deu 15:9, “Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest him nought; and he cry unto the LORD against thee, and it be sin unto thee.”
Deu 24:15, “At his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it: lest he cry against thee unto the LORD, and it be sin unto thee.”
Throughout the book of Judges, God delivers the children of Israel when they cry out to Him. God then judged the oppressive nations around Israel:
Job 34:28, “So that they cause the cry of the poor to come unto him, and he heareth the cry of the afflicted.”
David cried out to God because of those who oppressed him, and God judged the enemies:
Psa 12:5, “For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the LORD; I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him.”
David spoke King Saul’s judgment:
1Sa 24:15, “The LORD therefore be judge, and judge between me and thee, and see, and plead my cause, and deliver me out of thine hand.”
God hears the cry of the oppressed even in the New Testament:
Jas 5:4, “Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.”
1Co 11:31-32 Comments Divine Judgment – Note these insightful words from Frances J. Roberts regarding these verses in 1Co 11:31-32:
“I have sent My Holy Spirit into your hearts now that He might judge your hearts daily, so that ye may be accounted worthy to escape the day of wrath. For if ye walk now in the light of My revealed truth and if ye judge yourselves, ye shall not be judged at that coming day. And if thou shalt allow the searching eye of the Holy Spirit to find thee out, then it shall not be said to thee, ‘thy sins shall find thee out’.” [152]
[152] Frances J. Roberts, Come Away My Beloved (Ojai, California: King’s Farspan, Inc., 1973), 171.
1Co 11:33 Wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another.
1Co 11:33
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
1Co 11:27. And drink The original is, or drink. Our Saviour, in the institution of the Lord’s supper, tells the Apostles, that the bread and the wine were sacramentally his body and blood, and that they were to be eaten and drunk in remembrance of him; which, as St. Paul interprets it, was to shew forth his death till he came. Whoever, therefore, ate and drank them so as notsolemnly to shew forth his death, followed not Christ’s institution, but used them unworthily; that is, not to the end for which they were instituted. This makes St. Paul tell them, 1Co 11:20 that their coming together to eat as they did, namely, the sacramental bread and wine, promiscuously with their own food, as a part of their meal,and that, though in the same place, yet not all together, in one company,was not the eating of the Lord’s supper. Shall be guilty of the body, &c. means, “shall be liable to the punishment due to one who makes a wrong use of the sacramental body and blood of Christ in the Lord’s supper.” What that punishment was, see 1Co 11:30.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
1Co 11:27 . From that . . [1869] it follows how great is the sin of participating unworthily . This reference of the is sufficiently pointed and appropriate not to require us to go back further (to all that has been said from 1Co 11:20 onwards), as Rckert would have us do.
] does not stand for (Pott and older expositors); [1870] but the meaning is: a man may partake of the one or the other unworthily, he is alike guilty; neither in the case of the bread nor of the wine should there be an unworthy participation. We must remember that the two elements were not partaken of in immediate succession, but the bread during the meal and the wine after it, so that the case was quite a possible one that the bread might be partaken of in a worthy, and the cup in an unworthy frame of spirit, and vice vers . Comp also Hofmann. The guilt, however, of the one or the other unworthy participation was the same , and was alike complete ; hence is not repeated in the apodosis. Roman Catholics (see Estius and Cornelius a Lapide) find in this a support for their “communio sub una .” See Calovius in opposition to this.
] as in 1Co 11:20 ; 1Co 10:21 .
] in an unworthy manner , i.e. in a way morally out of keeping with the nature (1Co 10:16 ) and design of the ordinance (1Co 11:24 f.). Paul does not define it more closely; hence, and because an unworthy participation may, in the concrete, occur in many different ways, the widely differing definitions of interpreters, [1872] which are, however, quite out of place here. For the apostle leaves it to his readers to rank for themselves their particular way of communicating under the general , and not till 1Co 11:29 does he himself characterize the special form of unworthy participation which prevailed among them by . . See on the verse.
. . [1873] ] with the dative and genitive (see Matthiae, p. 850) expresses the liability of guilt (see Bleek on Heb 2:15 ): he shall be from the moment he does so under guilt to the body and blood of Christ , i.e. crimini et poenae corporis et sanguinis Christi violati obnoxius erit (comp Jas 2:10 , and the classical , Plat. Legg. ix. p. 869 B E); inasmuch, namely, as the proclamation of the Lord’s death at the participation in the bread and the cup presupposes a moral condition which must be in keeping with this most sacred act of commemoration; and if the condition of the communicant be of an opposite kind, then the holy body and blood, into communion with which we enter through such participation, can only be abused and profaned. Comp 1Co 11:29 , . . [1876] The often repeated interpretation: “par facit, quasi Christum trucidaret” (Grotius, following Chrysostom and Theophylact), appears once more in Ewald; but it neither corresponds sufficiently with the words themselves (for had Paul meant that, he would have said distinctly and suitably: .), nor with the parallel thought in 1Co 11:29 . This holds, too, against Ebrard’s view ( Dogma v. Abendm. I. p. 126); each man by his sins has a share in causing the death of Jesus; if now he communicates unworthily, not only do his other sins remain unforgiven, but there is added this fresh guilt besides, of having part in nailing Christ to the cross (which, with every other sin, is forgiven to the man who communicates worthily). But that would be surely no new guilt, but the continuance of the old ; and in this sense Kahnis explains it, Dogmat. I. p. 620. But to bring out this meaning, the apostle, if he was not to leave his words open to misunderstanding (comp Joh 3:36 ; Joh 9:41 ), must have written not . , but . or . Olshausen again, with older expositors, thinks that our passage implies a powerful argument against all Zwinglian theories of a merely commemorative ordinance. This, however, is too hasty and uncertain an inference; because the profanation of an acknowledged symbol, especially if it be one recognised in the religious consciousness of the church (suppose, e.g. , a crucifix), does injury to the object itself represented by the symbol. Hofmann is not justified in disputing this. Comp Oecolampadius, Piscator, and Scultetus, who adduce, as an analogous case, an injury done to the king’s seal or picture. [1879] Rckert, on the other hand, is wrong in supposing that we have here a proof that the bread and wine are only symbols . [1880] For, even granting that they are really the body and blood of Christ, there was ground enough for the apostle’s warning in the fact that his readers seemed to be forgetting this relationship. Our conclusion therefore is, that this passage in itself proves neither the one theory nor the other, as even Hofmann now acknowledges, although he goes on to infer from 1Co 11:29 that Christ’s real body and blood are partaken of in the Sacrament. See, however, on 1Co 11:29 , and comp on 1Co 10:15 f.
[1869] . . . .
[1870] To this mistake, too, is to be traced the reading (in A D, some min. vss. and Fathers), which Fritzsche, ad Rom. III. p. 191, and Rckert approve. It was suggested by ver. 26, and gained support from the which follows; but is not necessary, for there is a change of conception.
[1872] Theophylact, following Chrysostom, makes it . Theodoret holds that Paul hits at those fond of power in Corinth, the incestuous person, and those who ate the things offered to idols, and generally all who receive the sacrament with bad conscience. Luther: “he is worthy who has faith in these words, ‘broken for you, etc.’ ” Grotius: “qui hoc actu curat, quae sua sunt, non quae Domini.” Bengel: “qui se non probant.” Flatt: not with thankful remembrance of the death of Jesus, not with reverence towards Him, not with love towards others; so also in substance Rckert in his Commentary, and with more detail and to some extent differently in his work on the Lord’s Supper, p. 234. Billroth: with offence to the brethren. Olshausen: what is primarily meant is want of love, a disposition to judge others, but with the underlying idea that it is impenitence that makes an unworthy communicant. Kahnis: “unbelief, which does not acknowledge a higher intrinsic worth in the Lord’s Supper.” At all events, it is the lack of a constantly present, lively, and active faith in the atonement brought about by Christ’s death, which is the source of the various states of moral unworthiness in which men may partake of the Supper; as was the case also with the Corinthians when they degraded it into an ordinary meal for eating and drinking (and Hofmann goes no further in his explanation of the ). The more earnest and powerful this faith is, the less can that participation, by which we are conscious of coming into communion with the body and blood of the Lord, and thereby commemorating Him, take place in a way morally unworthy. Bengel is right indeed in saying: “Alia est indignitas edentis , alia esus ” (comp. Rckert, Abendm. p. 253); but the latter in its different moral forms is the necessary consequence of the former.
[1873] . . . .
[1876] . . . .
[1879] Luther’s objection to this in the Grosse Bekenntniss resolves itself, in truth, into mere hairsplitting. The argument of the old systematic divines again is: The object against which we sin must be present; we sin against the body and blood of Christ; therefore these must be present. This conclusion is incorrect, because the major premiss is so. The presence of the object “in quod delinquimus quodque indigne tractamus” (Quenstedt) is not always necessary, and need not be a real presence. Thus a man sins against the body of Christ, even when he sins against what is recognised as the sacred symbol of that body, and against the blood of Christ, in like manner. Comp. also Neander.
[1880] Otherwise in his treatise vom Abendm. p. 236, where, on the ground of 1Co 10:3 f., 1Co 10:16 , he does not doubt that what is meant is a direct offence committed against the very things there present.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
DISCOURSE: 1979
ON EATING AND DRINKING OUR OWN DAMNATION
1Co 11:27; 1Co 11:29. Whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord . For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lords body.
THE more excellent any thing is, the greater is the guilt contracted by the abuse of it. A contempt of the law is not so bad as a contempt of the Gospel [Note: Heb 10:28-29.]. An irreverent attendance on Divine ordinances is exceedingly sinful; but to profane the Lords supper is worse, inasmuch as that institution is more solemn and brings us nearer to God. Hence when St. Paul reproved the former, he spake mildly [Note: 1Co 14:33; 1Co 14:40.]; but when he reproved the latter, he spake with great severity.
I.
What is it to eat the bread, and drink the cup of the Lord unworthily
To understand this, we should inquire how the Corinthians behaved [Note: ver. 2022. Their conduct seems at first sight to be absolutely inconsistent with a profession of Christianity. But, having been accustomed to such behaviour in their feasts during their Gentile state, they were as yet too much addicted to their former habits.]. The abuses of which they were guilty are impracticable now: nevertheless we may imitate them in our spirit and temper. Like them we shall eat and drink unworthily if we do it,
1.
Ignorantly
[The Corinthians did not discriminate between the common and religious use of the consecrated elements. Many at this time also partake without discerning the Lords body: they, not remembering his death, defeat the end for which the Supper of the Lord was instituted.]
2.
Irreverently
[The customs of our country do not admit of our meeting in the tumultuous way that was practised at Corinth [Note: 1Co 11:21.]; but many are altogether as destitute of reverence and sacred awe. A light, worldly, impenitent heart, is unbecoming that solemnity: such a frame, if habitual, mates us partake unworthily.]
3.
Uncharitably
[The rich did not impart of their provisions to the poor [Note: 1Co 11:22.]. We also may be equally destitute of Christian love: we may be haughty, injurious, unforgiving, &c. Such a frame wholly unfits us for the Lords table [Note: Mat 5:23-24.].]
4.
Sensually
[The Corinthians made it an occasion for intemperance and excess: though we cannot imitate them in this, we may be as carnal as they. A want of spirituality and affiance in Christ makes our service carnal; nor can such a service be acceptable to Him who will be worshipped in spirit and in truth.]
To attend at the Lords table in such a manner is no slight or venial offence.
II.
The consequence of so doing
The consequences mentioned in the text respect,
1.
The guilt we contract
[They were guilty of the body and blood of our Lord who crucified him, as they are also who apostatize from his truth [Note: Heb 6:6.]. They too are involved in the same guilt who partake unworthily of the Lords supper: they manifest a contempt of his sacrifice [Note: Heb 10:29.]. What a dreadful iniquity is this! How careful should we be to abstain from the commission of it!]
2.
The punishment we incur
[The word damnation imports temporal judgment [Note: The Apostle explains his meaning in the following verse; for, for this cause, &c and he tells us that it was a chastisement inflicted to keep them from eternal condemnation, ver. 32.]. Eternal damnation is by no means a necessary consequence of this sin [Note: Mat 12:31.]: yet if it be unrepented of, no doubt this punishment will follow; and we may expect some spiritual or temporal judgments for it here. We should therefore examine ourselves well before we attend the table of the Lord [Note: ver. 28.].]
Address
1.
Those who urge this as an excuse for neglecting the Lords supper
[There are many who under this pretext cover their own unwillingness to yield themselves up to God; but God will not admit their vain excuses. The habitual neglect of their duty ensures the punishment which they desire to avoid. Let all then devote themselves to the Lord in the use of all his instituted ordinances.]
2.
Those who are really kept away by a fear of incurring this punishment
[Many are kept from the table by a sense of their own unworthiness. But to be unworthy, and to partake unworthily, are very different things [Note: A rebel against a mild and merciful prince is unworthy of pardon: but if he receive with gratitude the pardon offered him, and return to his allegiance, he receives it worthily. Thus we are unworthy of the smallest mercies, and much more of the childrens bread: but if we receive this bread with humility, gratitude, and an increasing devotedness of heart to God, we receive it as we ought, that is, worthily.]: yet if we have partaken unworthily in past times, let us humble ourselves for it; and then may we come again with joy: this has been the experience of many [Note: 2Ch 30:15-23.], and may be ours also.]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
Conditions of Renewal
Heb 6:4-6
1Co 11:27 , 1Co 11:29
There are some few passages of Scripture which have caused a great deal of difficulty and heartache. There are others which have kept away from the altar, yea, from the Cross itself, many a young, timid, reverent spirit. The question is whether there is any need for this? I think not. I do not know of any passage of Scripture that ought to keep any soul from God, from God’s house, from God’s ordinances. We are so differently constituted that some of us can only be nursed for heaven. We want continual encouragement; we are soon made afraid by shadow, by unexplained and sudden sound, by incidents uncalculated and unforeseen. We must take care of that section of society; they must be encouraged, consoled, stimulated, comforted; whatever lies in their way of progress towards the Kingdom of heaven must be resolutely removed. Others are very courageous by nature: are extremely robust, words of encouragement are misspent upon them; they have a fountain of encouragement within their own hearts. Whether they are physically so strong, or intellectually so robust, or spiritually so complete, we need not stay to inquire; suffice it to say that they have no shadows, no spectres, no doubts, no difficulties.
There are two passages of Scripture which seem to have kept a good many men in a state of fear and in a state of apparent alienation from the Church. It may be profitable to look at these passages. If the difficulty can be taken out of them by fair reasoning, and by established laws of grammar, and the philosophy of language, a great point will have been gained. One of them is that remarkable passage already quoted in the text “It is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.” This has been a great battleground; innumerable Calvinists have slain innumerable Arminians within the four corners of this most solemn declaration. There was no need for the fray. All the energy was misspent All the high debate about election, reprobation, apostasy, was utterly in vain, so far as this particular text is concerned. There is nothing here to cast down the heart of any man who wants to come back again. One version of the Bible has put in the word “difficult” instead of the word “impossible.” This little contribution of clemency we have received from the sternest of all languages, the Latin. We do not need the contribution. The word “impossible” is better than the word “difficult” in this connection. It is clearer, more to the point: it comprehends the case more entirely; let it therefore stand in all its tremendous import. There can be no doubt as to the characters represented by Apollos or Paul, whoever the writer may have been. He is urging the great doctrine and duty of progress; he wants the Church to get on “Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith towards God,” and many other things. The Apostle was a man of progress. Speaking thus of baptism, he says, “It is impossible for those who were once enlightened” literally, for those who were really baptised: we say really baptised, because he is not referring to water-baptism, he is referring to the inner, the spiritual baptism, the chrism of fire, the visitation of the Holy Ghost upon the soul. It is impossible for those who have been baptised by the Holy Ghost, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and who were not only baptised by the Holy Ghost, but have been made partakers of the Holy Ghost, it is impossible for them if they fall away, to renew them again unto repentance. What construction can we put upon these words but that if we once leave Christ for one moment we can never get back again? If having been in Christ we do wrong, we commit one sin, we must commit a thousand more, for we are on the downward road, and we cannot be arrested in the infinite descent. There is no such reading in the text. We cannot stop the text at a given point, and say, “That is the doctrine, and certainly it would appear to be such.”
But the text proceeds to give a reason why it is impossible to renew certain persons again to repentance, and that reason is this “Seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.” Is not that a final reason? Yes, it is: but it is not a correct representation of the Apostle’s reasoning. The English is to blame for the ruin it has brought. Over this false grammar have men fallen into despair. The Revisers were timid, because they were conservative. I blame them distinctly for want of courage. They had learning enough, prestige enough; they could have encountered momentary prejudices in a dignified and successful manner: but who ever got twelve or twenty Christian scholars together without their devouring one another, so courteously as sometimes perhaps in some degree to fall short of the point of courage? The tense changes in the latter part of the statement. “Seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame” should read thus: “It is impossible for those who” then read the description “If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance, whilst they are crucifying the Son of God afresh, and putting him to an open shame.” The latter tense is present, it indicates an immediate and continuous action, something that is going on now, at this very moment; and the Apostle says, Brethren, if you continue to crucify the Son of God afresh, you can never get back again to your original state of acceptance, you can never recover your sense of adoption; the very act you are doing is fatal. Why then, should you be discouraged, if you really want to come back to Christ, and if you are endeavouring to lead a good life? If you are bethinking yourself, and trying to say the old sweet prayer, and if it be really your heart’s desire to be recovered from your backslidings, there is nothing in this passage to hinder you coming home now.
The passage thus rendered is supported by all the experience of life. It is impossible for any man who has fallen from sobriety to be renewed again to temperance, so long as he is debauching himself night and day with the drink which overcame him; if he will set it down, and retire from it, he shall yet be a sober man, but if he mean to recover his sobriety by drinking more deeply, then manifestly he is perpetrating an irony that is ridiculous and shameful. It any man have fallen from honesty it is impossible to recover him so long as he continues to steal. He must drop the action, he must feel burning shame on account of what he has done, and when his felonious hands would go forth to repeat the nefarious deed, he must draw them back and say, No: I will cry mightily unto God if haply I may yet be an honest man. Thus talking there shall be no doubt about his honesty. The Apostle’s reasoning then is simply this: that if we continue to sin we cannot repent; whilst we are in the very act of crucifying the Son of God afresh, and putting him to an open shame, it is impossible for us to repent, to pray, to return. This is the noble teaching of the Apostle, this ought to be a comfort to us all. We sin every day, and yet it we do not want to sin, and if the sin be followed by heartache, confession, contrition, and mighty prayer at the Cross, we shall be renewed again unto repentance every eventide; but if we think we can, by simply confessing the sin, gain a new licence to recommit it, then our confession is a lie, and the very act of contrition is a trick which aggravates our guilt. The action must be bon-fide, the soul must mean what it says, the reality must be equal to the profession. We have therefore to declare this sweet gospel would God we could declare it in adequate music! There is no soul that has gone so far away from God to be unable to repent: and we have to declare this solemn truth, that any man who talks of repentance, and is at the same time crucifying the Son of God afresh, continuing to love his sins and to wallow in them, is a liar in the sanctuary. Return, O wanderer, to thy home: come back, poor soul, made afraid by backsliding. We have all been guilty of backsliding; the oaths are lying round about us like a million withered leaves: but if we really do not want to crucify the Son of God afresh, if we are really earnest about desiring to return, we can return. “Return, ye backsliders, and I will heal your backsliding!” is the cry of the Old Testament, is the gospel of the Cross.
Now, nearly immediately connected with this passage is one which the Apostle has written in connection with the administration of the Lord’s Supper. The two passages may fairly be said to have a distinct and almost vital relation. How many people have been kept back from the Lord’s table by these words: “Whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord…. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.” Timid souls by the hundred have been kept away from the Lord’s Supper by these words. Yet there is nothing in them to keep away any soul. We have been frightened by shadows. We cannot but admire the timidity which says, I am so conscious of unworthiness that I dare not touch the sacramental bread, and sacramental cup. But such unworthiness is not referred to in this particular passage; therefore this passage must never be quoted when that sense of unworthiness is felt. When that sense of unworthiness is most deeply upon us, then should we come most reverently and hopefully to the Lord’s table. What were the circumstances under which this declaration was made? Everything depends upon understanding the circumstances of the case. We must penetrate the atmosphere, if we would understand the admonition. Everything was debased in the Church at Corinth. That early Christian Church seemed to have a genius for deprivation and perversion and all manner of wrong. The Lord’s Supper was instituted there as in other churches; the people came together to partake of the Lord’s Supper, and instead of making a distinctly religious festival of it, they turned it into a carnival, holiday-making, feasting, rioting; so much that the Apostle says, “Have ye not houses to eat and drink in?” why should you come to the Lord’s table to have a saturnalia, to feast yourselves in this way, and to debase yourselves in this riotous manner? Understand, therefore, that the Corinthians were not recognising the Lord’s body in this matter but were simply feasting together and rioting together, eating bread and drinking wine together, until the religious consciousness was lost, and the whole ceremony became one of simple social festivity. Addressing himself to such circumstances, the Apostle said, Beware: you are contracting a guilt you ill suspect: if the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness! the Lord’s Supper was meant to be a religious festival, a time of solemnity, a time of heart-inquest, a time of memory, so that all the pages of the Lord’s earthly story might be recalled and felt in ever-deepening emotion; instead of this, you are making that holy feast a riot: whoever eateth this bread, and drinketh this cup, unworthily, irreverently, debasing the whole action into its very lowest forms, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself. And that is right.
Then will you not come to the Lord’s table? Shall there not be a great inrush upon the holy scene? Men have been afraid lest their unworthiness would keep them back. The unworthiness was not in reference to the individuals but in relation to their want of discernment as to the meaning of the feast. No longer was the Lord’s body present amongst them, but a mere ceremony of eating and drinking. Will you then stand back any longer? Will you not come in, it may be timidly, and say, I, too, would like to touch this bread and this cup of memorial? Thus two classes are addressed, the backslider who says, “I once could pray, but I do not pray now” if he can add, “but I want to pray,” then the first passage need not stand in his way; secondly, the timid, self-distrustful, and self-renouncing, the passage in the Corinthians has no reference whatever to you. If you say, “This feast is holy,” and wish to observe it with becoming reverence, the doors are thrown wide open, and God’s welcome is as broad as God’s love. Why stand ye then outside? Come in! Come now! See me, or your own minister or friends in your own locality immediately, and say you wish to come to the Lord’s table. That means making a profession without ostentation, doing a deed the sanctifying effect of which ought to flow through the whole life. Will you not say Yes? Then this will be your birthday if you will.
Prayer
Almighty God, we bless thee for the uplifted Cross, whose light fills creation. We see a Cross everywhere; its great shadow makes the night and the morning of the world; without that Cross there is no security. It is in everything; where anything lives something else has died. We found this in the garden, and in the nest of the birds, and in the jungle of the wild beasts, and in our family life, and in our spiritual and educational life; that some may live some must die. Thou hast put death upon thy table, and made thy sacrament and oath and immortality even in the grave and in the presence of death. God forbid that we should glory save in the Cross! If men would lead us to the throne may we go to it by the Cross. Inasmuch as we have been called by thy love to see the Cross and know somewhat of its holiest meaning, if we be risen with Christ may we prove our resurrection by the heavenliness of our love, by the heavenliness of our citizenship, by the heavenliness of our service. O Christ, the Living One, thou didst come to take us to the Father. Show us the Father: may we know that he is close at hand, though we cannot see him; that if we could but open our soul’s eyes we should see the Father in every little child, in every broken heart, in every budding flower. Oh, for eyes to see, heart-eyes, soul-eyes, the vision of the inner life, penetrating all cloud and darkness, and seeing the Shining Glory. Then should our life be rid of its burdens, its pains and its sorrow and its fear, and we should live the life of liberty. If any man is foolish enough to be making his own gospel, do thou chastise him with many disappointments day by day, until he shall begin to pray at the right altar. Thou hast sent thy Son to save us, to seek and to save the lost, to call sinners to repentance: help us to hear the music of his inviting voice, and to answer it because our sin is exceeding great. Oh, hear thou in heaven thy dwelling-place the prayer thy servant prayeth, and when thou hearest, Lord, forgive! Amen.
Things That Accompany Salvation
Heb 6:9
IT is quite right to be interested in a salvation that is central; that is essential, but salvation is not solitude. Salvation represents a great sociality. Salvation is the heart of a noble fellowship. Many writers and preachers have, no doubt, set forth the text as conveying the idea of a procession; salvation red as blood, bright as light, tuneful as embodied music, at the head, and then all the retinue, a thousand or ten thousand strong, following, their very march music, their very look an expectation and a prophecy. It is a beautiful picture. Every man’s life is to be such. If we have regarded salvation as monasticism, loneliness, one little or great idea dissociated from other thoughts, and especially dissociated from active and expressive character, we have done injustice to its first, midst, and last idea and purpose.
There may be too much said about salvation when that term is too narrowly interpreted. No selfishness is so selfish as pious selfishness. No cruelty is so cruel as Christian cruelty. The bite of the wolf is nothing to the lie of the soul. What if your salvation and mine are of infinitely less consequence than we have supposed? If we have been looking on that term as simply expressive of that comfort, individual certainty of going higher and higher, and doing less and less, and enjoying the indolence of doing nothing, some strong man may one day arise who will tear that idea of salvation to rags and tatters. It is not true, therefore it is not healthy, therefore it ought to be put down. “Are you saved?” may be a wicked inquiry. Some will not understand how this can be, because some are only at the alphabet, and some have not begun to study their letters. There are children in the world who have never heard of the existence of the alphabet. We do not consult them upon higher statesmanship or the higher mathematics. In another sense there is no greater question than, “Are you saved? are you a new creature, a liberated soul, a mind on which there shines the whole heaven of God’s light? Are you a soldier, a servant, a helper of the helpless, a leader of the blind? Are you akin to the soul of Christ?” It is impossible for us to get at Christ in any sense of acceptance, assurance, and identification, except through one gate. Can we not climb up, pierce the roof, and enter by a way of our own making? No. What is the name of the only gate that opens upon the presence-chamber of the Saviour? The name is the Cross. Have you ever heard it? That you have heard it as a name, we know, but there is hearing and hearing. The Cross may be a word, or it may be a sacrifice; a literal fact, or a suggestion infinite in its resources as the heart of God. It is in the latter larger, truer sense that the Cross is a gate, the one gate and the only gate to the presence and favour of the King.
Many men are saved who do not know it. I have known so-called bad men whose disposition I have coveted. I have known them more largely than they have known themselves, though their breath is burned with unholy suggestion. I have known that their souls have been fruitful in noble and kindly thoughts. Let God say who is saved. “Lord, are there few that be saved?” No answer. Christ takes the statistics, but he does not publish them. He says in reply, rather than in answer, “Strive to enter in at the strait gate; do not be inquiring so much whether there be few or whether there may be many that be saved. Strive ye yourselves to enter in at the strait gate.” We may be asking questions about others when we should be executing duties on our own behalf. There is nothing meaner in all God’s universe, so far as we know it, than a pious miser, a miser by self-thought, self-condolence, self-flattery, self-regard, as though he should shut himself into his own garden and his own banqueting-hall, and should say, “What a wicked world it is, and how few that attend to religious ordinance and ceremony, and how much men are to blame themselves for the evil they are in and for the suffering they endure!” Talk of a man so, he is the devil’s hired servant.
What are the things that accompany salvation? To the youngest, let me say, to accompany is to go with as we should say, “Are you walking to-day in the field? if so, I will go with you.” Things that accompany salvation are things that go with salvation, keep it company, belong to it, have a right by kindred and by quality to be there. But what things can accompany salvation when salvation is interpreted in its higher and deepest sense? Is it a virgin beautiful with ineffable loveliness? Oh! were it not better she should walk in her fine linen alone on the green hills, in the flowering gardens, in the laden orchards? No. She will have with her a thousand little children, multiplied by ten thousand more, and cubed up into an unimaginable number. That virgin is social, friendly, a great housekeeper, and she goes forth, not in vanity, but in a natural expression of kindliness accompanied by others akin to her own soul.
Sometimes you see a procession and not the head of it. Did that sight ever deceive you? Never. Beholding the retinue, the procession, you say, Who is this? Not, Who are these? but, What is this? as if it were a single and not a plural explanation. Who is it? One soul. What is it? One event, yet not a soul alone, not an event dissociated from a common history. Are you satisfied to look upon the procession, upon the retinue, to see nothing besides? You know you are not. You want to see the leading figure, the main idea, the life of which these are the lives. Is the child satisfied to see the tail of the kite? The dear little child rounds his eyes and looks for the kite itself, and with joy he points it out, saying, “There, I see it.” Dear little child, was it not enough to see the floating tail of the kite? No! the child will see the chief image itself. In that little figure, homely enough, and therefore all the better, we see the whole idea of this conception of a procession, a retinue.
“Things that accompany salvation.” That word “accompany” might be made much larger and much more vital. Sometimes the procession is abreast of the king. It so happens that in this march sometimes the things do not accompany in the sense of following behind, but in the better and the excellent sense of going along with, as if arm in arm, placed so that it shall be difficult to say who leads so far as the mere stepping is concerned, and yet not difficult to say who leads so far as the larger life and regnacy of will are concerned. Some men make places for themselves. You say there is no room, these men soon find room enough. They do not claim it, it is conceded to them. There may be momentary opposition or envious interpretation, but all things give way before sovereign power, before supreme and noble character. At the last, confidence is promoted, integrity is crowned, but who has the deepest, clearest, largest, best ideas will always lead the empire and make republics into sovereignties.
What are the “things that accompany salvation”? There are some things that would not accompany it. There are some things that through the very force of shame would decline to be in the retinue. Can a poor, tattered, ragged, dishonoured, self-discredited vagrant join the procession of the king? He says, “No, it is not my place, put me out of sight, let me die in darkness.” Among the “things that accompany salvation,” we find first of all purity of character. But does purity of character mean perfection? It does not. There is no perfect man. This cold space, this cage of time, could not hold him. Perfect man can only bloom in heaven, where the climate is pure and where the day has no night. By purity of character let us mean a real, honest motive, a just and noble desire, a wish to be, not in heaven, but heavenly in mind, thought, life, speech. This definition enables me to include a great number of persons in the Church who do not include themselves. It is sad to see how things are always placed in the Christian kingdom. There are some pedants who will not come in, and therefore ought always to be outside. Pedantry has no status in the New Jerusalem. There are some conceited persons who think they have attained all that is desirable; they do not come in, and in very deed they ought to be kept out. Self-complacency is not a virtue anywhere; in the New Jerusalem it is a blasphemy.
There, are, however, men who are getting wrong seven times a day who ought to be in the Church. They are Christlike and do not realise the fact. I have seen in their eyes tears which must have travelled to their eyes by way of the heart. Yet they blunder; I know it well; they fall flat down in the devil’s mire. I have seen them many times; they are inflammable, passionate, wanting in self-control. Surely. But they are pressed and driven by five hundred ancestors who were worse than they are. The five hundred ancestors are smiting them as with scorpions. Blessed be God, it is not ours to judge. Christ will shut out no one that he can bring in, and he must be a son of perdition whom Christ cannot bring into his own feast of love and eternal fellowship.
Among the “things that accompany salvation” I give a foremost place to unselfishness of service; the service that never looks at itself in the Church mirror; that never dresses itself to go out to be seen ostentatiously in public; the service that is crowned with self-unconsciousness; that does good things by stealth and blushes to find them fame; the service that does things as a monarch does them, not knowing that they are being done, without any sense of taxation, and sacrifice, and painfulness. There is a doing that would rather do than not do. There is an action that must take place because the suppression would be not only unreasonable but intolerable. Love must serve. Many are working in that way who have no earthly fame. The Apostle recognised all such in the very text in which we find the words on which we are discoursing, for he says, “God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love.” Here is one of the things, therefore, which accompany salvation. Doing, always doing; doing simply, doing kindly, doing lovingly, doing in the Christly spirit. There are some actions that are oppressive to the very individuals for whom they are performed. Why? Because the manner of doing them is burdensome, aggressive, oppressive. Some people help you and therefore hinder you. Some people do for you things little or great with such self-effusiveness and self-display and with such an unreasoning expectation of gratitude, that the receiver of such services would gladly dispense with them. There is an action subtle as the atmosphere, silent as the night, always operating, never displaying, or demonstrating, or self-magnifying.
What shall we say of charity of heart? Does not that also accompany salvation? That is the larger love, that great mother-love which says, “If the house will not hold you, we must add another wing to it.” Great love never takes out a two-foot rule and says, “There will only be room at this table for thirty,” but love says, “You must find another table.” But the room will not hold it. “Then take down the wall, and go into the garden.” Love keeps pace with necessity. When the great feast was spread those who went out to call in the unfamiliar guests said, “Lord, it is done as thou hast said, and yet there is room.” It was Christ who spoke that parable. He is great in finding room, but never was prevented from doing anything because there was nothing, or because there was little to begin with. “Five loaves” would do to begin with. The prodigal said, “There is bread enough in my father’s house and to spare.” All the evangelists who went out to call the hungry people to the supper said, “Lord, we have searched everywhere, and brought in everybody we can find from hedge and ditch and hole and rock, and still there is room.” Who ever exhausted God? Who ever overthronged his heaven?
This must be the spirit of the individual Christian also. But here is a poor heretic who does not see his way clear to several of the dogmas of the Church. Oh! tell him to speak nonsense no longer, but to come in at once. Here is a soul greatly troubled because his experience is different from other experience that he has heard of. Tell him to come in this very instant, for there is a chair set on purpose for him at the corner of the table. Here is a man who rather revels in his infidelity, and gets drunk on his unbelief. Then keep him out. If a man is proud of his scepticism, we do not want him inside the Church, or out of it. He is not wanted anywhere. But if a poor soul should come in and say, “Oh, sirs, it is so dark; which is the way? Will a little child take hold of my hand; and if any wise man is here, will he kindly tell me where I ought to begin, what I ought to do, and how I ought to begin?” make room for him. You need not make room for him; the King, in drawing up his list of wedding guests, set a chair for him next himself.
Where there is this charity, Christ is. Where, then, charity does not exist, there is no Church. Unutterably do I hate a man and the disposition that would keep out of the Church any poor, maimed, bruised soul that wants to be in it. “But he does not think as we do.” And who are we that should do the superior thinking and set up a standard theology? I will not be one of the number. I was born yesterday; to-day I am groping and struggling and wandering and stumbling in prayer; and tomorrow I shall not be here. Does the poor soul want to love Christ? If so, here is a seat for him at the Lord’s table. “Is not the Lord’s table set up for perfect people?” By no means. For then would it be a banquet in a wilderness far from any human heart.
There is another accompaniment to salvation which must not be forgotten; let it be named as final in the list, but only as initial in its suggestions. And it is evangelistic zeal. What is the meaning of evangelistic? It means that some soul has a truth, a gospel, which he says he must go and tell everybody all over the world. That is the meaning of evangelistic. The truth burns him until he tells it. The gospel that fills his soul is the gospel for every creature. And he must talk about it; propagate it, publish it, circulate it. He must breathe it on every wind, and send it to every sea to be carried to every golden shore. What did the Apostle mean when he said he was a debtor to the barbarians? This has often been misinterpreted, and the Apostle Paul has been represented as a very humble person, because he confessed his obligations to everybody, to the Jew, to the Gentile, to the Greek, to the barbarian, to the bond, and to the free. And the favourite pulpit idea has been that Paul was so willing to acknowledge that everybody had been favourable to him, and kindly disposed towards his life, and had contributed something towards his service. Nothing of the kind. Paul’s idea was the evangelistic idea. What I hold, said Paul, belongs to the very first man I meet, and the man beside me, and the man behind me, and all the world, Jew, Gentile, Greek, barbarian, bond, free. Wherever there is a man, I am his debtor. “Oh, sir, come, I know this truth, and therefore I owe it to you” that is the Cross of Christ in eloquent action. Not, “I have received something from you, poor barbarian, and therefore I must give something back.” “I never received a thing from you in my life, but I know a truth that would make a man of you, I know a gospel that would serve you, therefore I am your debtor. Come, and I will pay it. This truth I do not hold as mine only, but as yours also.” Fly abroad, thou mighty gospel, go forth, thou queen of truth and love, and be thy retinue more in number than the sands upon the seashore, brighter than the stars that beam in the diadem of night!
Prayer
Almighty God, we have heard that thy mercy endureth for ever. All the great houses of history have said this. We know it of a truth; we take up the great song and sing it with our whole heart; for we have tasted and seen and handled of the Word of life. Thou hast saved us. Thy mercy has been near us all the day and all the night; thou hast come to us in the darkness of our despair and in the humiliation of our weakness, and thou hast breathed great gospels into our sinking hearts. Oh, how loving is thy voice, how majestic and tender in music! Behold, thou canst speak a word in season to him that is weary, and thou canst order the armies of heaven. We rejoice in thy love; we draw near to thy pity; because there are tears in thine eyes and thou didst look upon sinful men, we dare come quite close to thee and say, Have mercy upon me! Thy mercy endureth for ever; this we will say in the morning and in the evening; when we awake in the night-watches we will say, Thy mercy endureth for ever. Teach us that we live in thy mercy; because thy love faileth not, our life is permitted to add to its days. We do not live because of thy greatness or thy justice, thy power or thy majesty, but because of thy tenderness and love, and pity and gentleness, and fatherly-motherly care. What are these great, sweet words thou hast sent unto us to live upon, to hide in our hearts, and turn into daily life? Like as a father pitieth his children; casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you; last of all he sent his Son; God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son: these are thy words; we cannot mistake them; these voices are not earthborn; behold these great utterances fall from heaven, and bring all heaven with them. Help us to answer their grand appeal, that we may be broken in heart, humble in spirit, meek of disposition, obedient in will, and abounding alway in the fruits of the Spirit. Amen.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
27 Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.
Ver. 27. Shall be guilty ] Because they profane the holy symbols and pledges of Christ’s blessed body and blood. These are in some sense as guilty as those that spit upon Christ’s face, or that spilt his blood. As the Donatists, that cast the holy elements to dogs; or as that wretched Booth, a Bachelor of Arts in St John’s College in Cambridge, who being popishly affected, at the time of the communion took the consecrated bread, and forbearing to eat it, conveyed and kept it closely for a time, and afterwards threw it over the college wall. Not long after this, he threw himself headlong over the battlements of the chapel and so ended his life. (Bishop Morton, Instit. of the Sac.)
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
27 .] A consequence , from the nature of the ordinance being, to proclaim the death of the Lord: the guilt of the unworthy participation of either of the elements . The death of the Lord was brought about by the breaking of His body and shedding His blood: this Death we proclaim in the ordinance by the bread broken the wine poured out, of which we partake: whoever therefore shall either eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord unworthily (see below 1Co 11:29 ) shall be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord: i.e. “ crimini et pn corporis et sanguinis Christi violati obnoxius erit :” Meyer. Such an one proclaims the death of Christ, and yet in an unworthy spirit with no regard to that Death as his atonement, or a proof of Christ’s love: he proclaims that Death as an indifferent person : he therefore partakes of the guilt of it . Chrysostom strikingly says, , , p. 247. But the idea , Theophyl. (and Chrys., ; , ., &c., as above), is irrelevant here, see 1Co 11:29 . The Romanists absurdly enough defend by this (the meaning of which is not to be changed to , as is most unfairly done in our E. V., and the completeness of the argument thereby destroyed) their practice of communicating only in one kind . Translated into common language , and applied to the ordinary sustenance of the body, their reasoning stands thus: ‘Whoever eats to excess, or drinks to excess, is guilty of sin: therefore eating, without drinking, will sustain life.’
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
1Co 11:27 draws the practical consequence of 1Co 11:20-26 , stating the judgement upon Cor [1767] behaviour at the Supper that a right estimate of the covenant-cup and bread demands: “So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily, will be held guilty ( ; reus tenetur , Bz [1768] ; rather, tene-bitur ) of the body and blood of the Lord”; it is this that he ignores or insults; cf. 1Co 11:29 . On with ind [1769] , see note to 1Co 3:7 . What “unworthily” means is patent from 1Co 11:20 ff. The or , for and , between and supplies the single text adducible for the R.C [1770] practice of lay communion in one kind : “non leve argumentum,” says Est., “non enim sic loqueretur Ap., si non sentiret unam speciem sine altera sumi posse”. But and appeared in just the same connexion in 1Co 11:26 , and reappears in 1Co 11:28 f.; “or” replaces “and” when one is thinking of the parl [1771] acts distinctly, and the same communicant might behave unworthily in either act, esp. as the breaking of the bread and taking of the cup at this time came in probably at the beginning and end respectively of the Church Supper, and were separated by an interval of time; see notes on and . . (1Co 11:24 f.). (from – , to hold in some liability) acquires in late Gr [1772] , like , a gen [1773] of person against whom offence is committed; see Ed [1774] in loc . To outrage the emblem is to outrage its original as if one should mock at the Queen’s picture or at his country’s flag. Except , the vbs. throughout this passage are pr [1775] in tense, relating to habit.
[1767] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.
[1768] Beza’s Nov. Testamentum: Interpretatio et Annotationes (Cantab., 1642).
[1769] indicative mood.
[1770].C. Roman Catholic.
[1771] parallel.
[1772] Greek, or Grotius’ Annotationes in N.T.
[1773]
[1774] T. C. Edwards’ Commentary on the First Ep. to the Corinthians . 2
[1775] present tense.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: 1Co 11:27-32
27Therefore 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. 28But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. 30For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. 31 But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged. 32But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world.
1Co 11:27
NASB, NKJV
NRSV”whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord”
KJV”whoever eats this bread and drinks this cup of the Lord”
TEV”that if one of you eats the Lord’s bread or drinks from his cup”
NJB”therefore anyone who eats the bread drinks the cup of the Lord”
“And” is not in the original text of 1Co 11:27, but it is in 1Co 11:28-29. “Or” is in the Greek text. The King James Version translators were afraid of the Roman Catholic understanding where the priest drinks the wine and the laity the bread, and intentionally mistranslated this verse! The NKJV has corrected this intentional mistranslation (see Bart Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, p. 154).
NASB, NKJV,
NRSV”in an unworthy manner”
TEV”in a way that dishonors him”
NJB”unworthily”
The context implies this refers to the disrupted unity of the church caused by the factious groups’ arrogance and pride, but some have understood this to refer to the mandate for a proper spiritual attitude when observing the Lord’s Supper (cf. Heb 10:29).
1Co 11:28 “But a man must examine himself” This is a present active imperative. The term “examine” has the connotation of “to test with a view toward approval.” See Special Topic: Greek Terms for “Testing” at 1Co 3:13. In one sense all Christians are unworthy because they all have and continue to sin. In this context it refers specifically to the disunity and factious spirits of some in the church at Corinth (cf. 2Co 13:5).
1Co 11:29
NASB”if he does not judge the body rightly”
NKJV”not discerning the Lord’s body”
NRSV”without discerning the body”
TEV”if you do not recognize the meaning of the Lord’s body”
NJB”without recognizing the body”
“His body” seems not to refer to (1) the physical body of Jesus nor (2) the participants, but to the Church as a group (cf. 1Co 10:17; 1Co 12:12-13; 1Co 12:27). Disunity is the problem. A spirit of superiority or class distinctions destroys the fellowship.
“judge” See note at 1Co 4:7 and Special Topic at 1Co 10:29.
1Co 11:30 Paul is asserting in plain language that believers who violate the unity of the church may suffer temporal physical consequences, even death (cf. 1Co 3:17). This is directly connected to a lack of respect for the body of Christ, the church, the people of God (cf. Acts 5; 1Co 5:5; 1Ti 1:20).
1Co 11:31 “if” This is a second class conditional sentence, which is called “contrary to fact.” It should be translated “if we had judged ourselves rightly, which we did not, then we should not be judged, which we are.” See note at 1Co 4:7.
1Co 11:32 “disciplined by the Lord” It is difficult to know when Christians are suffering because
1. they live in a fallen world
2. they are reaping the consequences of their sinful acts
3. they are being tested by the Lord for spiritual maturity (cf. Heb 5:8)
God does test and discipline (cf. Heb 12:5-11). It is an evidence of His love and our family status.
“so that we will not be condemned along with the world” The temporal judgment of believers who are hurting God’s church may be an act of love in sparing them a more severe judgment related to destroying the church (cf. 1Co 3:10-17).
I like a quote from George Ladd in A Theology of the New Testament.
“The world also has its religion that holds men in a bondage of asceticism and legalism that may have the appearance of wisdom and promote a kind of devotion and self-discipline, but it ultimately fails to provide a solution for the moral dilemma with which man is faced (Col 2:20 ff). Viewed from this point of view the world stands under the judgment of God (1Co 11:32) and is in need of reconciliation (2Co 5:19; Rom 11:15” (p. 399).
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
unworthily. Greek. anaxios. Only here and 1Co 11:29 (which see).
guilty. Greek. enochos, as Mat 26:66
of = in regard to. The Genitive of Relation. App-17.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
27.] A consequence, from the nature of the ordinance being, to proclaim the death of the Lord: the guilt of the unworthy participation of either of the elements. The death of the Lord was brought about by the breaking of His body and shedding His blood: this Death we proclaim in the ordinance by the bread broken-the wine poured out, of which we partake: whoever therefore shall either eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord unworthily (see below 1Co 11:29) shall be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord: i.e. crimini et pn corporis et sanguinis Christi violati obnoxius erit: Meyer. Such an one proclaims the death of Christ, and yet in an unworthy spirit-with no regard to that Death as his atonement, or a proof of Christs love: he proclaims that Death as an indifferent person: he therefore partakes of the guilt of it. Chrysostom strikingly says, , , p. 247. But the idea , Theophyl. (and Chrys., ; , ., &c., as above), is irrelevant here, see 1Co 11:29. The Romanists absurdly enough defend by this (the meaning of which is not to be changed to , as is most unfairly done in our E. V., and the completeness of the argument thereby destroyed) their practice of communicating only in one kind. Translated into common language, and applied to the ordinary sustenance of the body, their reasoning stands thus: Whoever eats to excess, or drinks to excess, is guilty of sin: therefore eating, without drinking, will sustain life.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
1Co 11:27. ) Some read formerly for , but [103] remains, as in what follows, of the body AND blood of the Lord. From the particle Pamelius, writing to Cypria[104] concerning the Lapsed, impugns the necessity of communion in both kinds. The disjunctive particle, if any one thinks that Paul used it, does not, however, separate the bread and the cup; otherwise the cup might as well be taken without the bread, as the bread without the cup. Paul twice demands, both with the bread and with the cup, the remembrance of the Lord Jesus, according to His own words, 1Co 11:24-25; but in the manner, in which the Lords Supper was celebrated among the Corinthians, a man might at the same time both eat this bread and drink the cup, and yet apart [separately] he might eat this bread unworthily or drink this cup unworthily, since the remembrance of the Lord was certainly profaned by any impropriety, though it were only in the case of one of the two elements, 1Co 11:21. But if any one among the Corinthians even in that time of confusion took the bread without the cup, or the cup without the bread, on that very account he took it unworthily, and became guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.- unworthily) They do so, not only who are without repentance and faith, but who do not examine themselves. The unworthiness of him, who eats, is one thing, of eating, is another. Some indeed say, that he excludes, not a person unworthy, but one receiving unworthily, from the sacred ordinance. If then even a worthy person approaching unworthily is kept back, how much more an unworthy person, who cannot worthily partake?-Pelagius among the works of Jerome.
[103] The margin of the second edition, with the Germ. Ver., confirms this, his more recent opinion, which is different from the decision of the first edition.-E. B.
[104] yprian (in the beginning and middle of the third century: a Latin father). Ed. Steph. Baluzii, Paris. 1726.
BCDGfg Vulg., Cypr., read , which may seem to favour the Romish doctrine of communion in one kind being sufficient. A (and according to Lachm., which Tisch. contradicts, A or D) and translator of Orig. read .-ED.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
1Co 11:27
1Co 11:27
Wherefore whosoever shall eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner,-[To eat or drink in an unworthy manner is in general to come to the Lords table in a careless, irreverent spirit, without the intention or desire to commemorate the death of Christ as the sacrifice for sins, and without the purpose of complying with the obligations thereby assumed. The way in which the Corinthians ate unworthily was that they treated the Lords table as though it were their own; making no distinction between it and an ordinary meal; coming together to satisfy their hunger, and not to feed on the blessings of the body and blood of Christ.]
shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.-Inasmuch as the eating and drinking were intended to proclaim and keep in memory the death of Jesus Christ, whoever should eat of this memorial in a light and frivolous manner, in forgetfulness of the spirit of sacrifice that led to the death of Christ, is guilty of profaning the body and blood of Christ. He incurs the guilt of treating lightly the slain body of the Lord Jesus.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
The Importance Of Self-Judgment
1Co 11:27-34
Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lords body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. Wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another. And if any man hunger, let him eat at home; that ye come not together unto condemnation. And the rest will I set in order when I come. (vv. 27-34)
We have in the two Christian ordinances, baptism and the Lords Supper, two witnesses to the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, His vicarious atoning death, which our Lord has set in His church to be observed until the end of the age, until He shall return. In these ordinances we have constant testimony to the death that our Savior died on Calvary. Baptism is the initiatory ordinance of the Christian faith; the Lords Supper is to be observed frequently throughout the believers life until he shall see his Savior face to face.
We come now to consider the portion beginning with verse 27 which deals with the state and condition of believers as they approach the Table of the Lord. Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. Very solemn words these. They should surely put a check upon the carelessness and the levity of our hearts. How often some of us have been guilty of approaching the Table of the Lord in a very careless spirit, and perhaps with considerable levity, forgetting that we have here something which in the eyes of God is most sacred, most holy.
What does it mean to eat the bread and to drink the cup unworthily? A misapprehension of this term, unworthily, has kept some conscientious people from ever approaching the Table. They reason like this, I never can be sure that I am worthy. I know my Savior is worthy, that all holiness, all purity, all goodness are His, but I am so conscious of the impurities that surge up from my own evil heart, I am so conscious of my frequent failure in thought, word, and deed, that if it is a question of worthiness I dare not come to the Table of the Lord, I dare not receive those sacred elements, for I am very far from being worthy. Let me say to you, my conscientious friend, that the word here is not unworthy, but is rather unworthily, referring not to the person, but to the state of mind in which one comes to the Table of the Lord. Of course in ourselves we are altogether unworthy, but we have found acceptance in the worthy One, and in Christ every believer is worthy to approach the Table of the Lord. I remember reading of an aged saint oppressed by a sense of his unworthiness. He bowed weeping as the sacred emblems were going around and refused to touch the bread. When the deacon offered it, he sobbed, I am too great a sinner to receive that which is so holy, and the aged Highland minister exclaimed, Take it, mon, take it; it is for sinners and for none else that Jesus died. Oh, yes, my very acknowledgment of my sinnership is that which gives me the right to come because, This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners (1Ti 1:15). If I truly feel my sinfulness, confess it, and put my trust in the Savior of sinners, then in Him I find my worthiness.
But here it is not an adjective, it is an adverb, unworthily. It refers, you see, to manner or behavior. What is the meaning? If I come to the Table of the Lord in a light, frivolous, careless way; if, as the bread and the wine are being prayed over, I am thinking of a thousand and one other things, perhaps occupied with the business of the week, or recalling the latest foolish story I have heard; if when the bread and the cup are actually passed to me, I am not thinking of the Savior of whom they speak, but perfunctorily participating in it as a religious ordinance, I am taking the loaf and the cup unworthily. Or perhaps I come altogether unprepared, I have spent no time with God in the morning thinking of the solemnity of all this, I rush into His presence bringing strange fire, as it were, and I fail to recognize that in the loaf and the cup we have set forth the precious body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. To partake in such a spirit is to do so unworthily. Whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. It is as though I crucify Him afresh and put Him to an open shame in forgetting that it was my sins that caused His death upon the cross. I act as though He had never yet died. I fail to realize what these symbols set forth.
Then am I to remain away from the Table? Not if I am a Christian. Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. Observe, it does not say, Let a man examine himself, and so let him refrain from participating, but, Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat. No matter what he sees in himself of that which is evil and unholy, if he judges himself before God and confesses his own unholiness, he is in a state of soul where he is free to participate in this sacred service. In other words, he is to come into the presence of God with self-judgment. He who does not do this eateth and drinketh damnation [or judgment] to himself, not discerning the Lords body. He only exposes himself the more to divine judgment because of his frivolous behavior.
You say, In what sense does he fail to discern the Lords body? Let me illustrate in this way. How frequently we have gone to a funeral service and have seen before us the casket containing all that was mortal of some loved one. What a solemn time it was. What would you think of some light, flippant person coming into such a service and perhaps hardly taking his seat before he leans over to the person next to him and says, By the way, I heard a most amusing story; let me tell it to you while we wait for the minister to begin. Every respectable person would look upon him with indignation and say, What is the matter with the foolish man? Does he fail to discern the body of our dear one lying there? The bread and wine upon the Table of the Lord set forth the precious body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and any one coming into such a scene carelessly, failing to discern the Lords body, does not recognize that this is a memorial of death, this is a remembrance of the One who died for our sins.
Because these Corinthians had allowed themselves to become very careless in this matter the apostle says, For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. Just what does he mean? What does the word sleep mean? If you go through the Epistles of Paul carefully, you will see that it is a term used over and over again for the death of the believer. It is not the sleep of the soul, but the sleep of the body. When the believer dies, the spirit is absent from the body and present with the Lord. Let me direct your attention to that lovely word in the third chapter of the epistle to the Ephesians where it says, For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and on earth is named. Notice this, the whole family. By this he means all of Gods children, the entire redeemed family. And where does he locate the family? Part of it in heaven and part on earth. If Saint Paul were a soul sleeper, he would have said, Of whom the whole family in the grave and on earth is named. But he did not think of our departed loved ones in Christ as being in the grave, but in heaven. Elsewhere in Scripture we find that death for the believer is to depart and be with Christ, which is far better, and yet the word sleep is used many times, but only in reference to the body. The tired, weary bodies of believers are put to sleep to rest until awakened on the resurrection morning.
It is a blessed thing to sleep in Christ, and yet there is such a thing as a believer being put to sleep before his due time. We read, The ungodly shall not live out half their days, and it is quite true that even godly persons may so fail, so fall into sin, that God may not permit them to live on to a green old age, but may take them home in youth or in middle life. I would not say that when a young believer dies it is always an act of discipline, for many a young saint has been taken away from the evil to come, in grace rather than in judgment. Some ripen earlier than others, some of us develop so slowly it will take fifty or sixty or seventy years to bring us to spiritual maturity, but there are others like Borden of Yale who ripen so young that the Lord can say, I am going to pluck that fruit and take it home to heaven, it is ready early. On the other hand, very frequently early death is an evidence of the Lords discipline. That is what Paul is saying to the Corinthians, You have been dishonoring me at the Table of the Lord, approaching it in a light frivolous manner; you have been given to levity and have misused this sacred ordinance and mingled it with a feast for yourselves. Therefore, many of you are weak, many of you are sickly, and many of you sleep. Sickness is one way by which the Lord often chastens His people. Chastening is not necessarily punishment, but it is educational, and the Lord uses sickness in order to bring us to realize our littleness, our insufficiency, and the importance of living only for eternity. Many a young or middle-aged Christian has gone on perhaps for years without much recognition of the Lords authority over his life, and then sickness has come, and for long weary weeks or months and sometimes years that dear one has been laid aside. At first very restlessly he has asked, O God, why do I have to suffer? Why cannot I go out to enjoy things with others? But little by little there comes a change, and by-and-by there is a chastened spirit, and the sick one says, Lord, perhaps Thou hast lessons to teach me which I would not learn while in health and strength; make me a ready pupil in Thy school, and God uses the chastening to lead that believer into deeper fellowship with Himself. It is a very serious thing to be under the hand of God in chastening. I am afraid that some of us are more or less under it almost all our days because we are so slow to learn our lessons, so self-willed; it takes us so long to get to the place where we judge ourselves in the presence of God so that His hand may be lifted.
If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. This is a call to self-judgment. But how am I to judge myself? By bringing my inmost thoughts, my ways, my outward behavior into the light of the Word of God and asking myself, Are these thoughts of mine, is this behavior of mine, in accordance with what is here written? And if I find that there is something in which I am continuing, certain ambitions I am cherishing that are contrary to the Word, if I find that this Word has something to say to me personally about my thoughts and ways, then I am to turn to God and confess my failure, acknowledge my sin, and seek by His grace to walk in obedience to His Word. And as I thus judge myself I come out from under the place of discipline, For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.
In regard to this matter of self-judgment, Gods Word should always be the standard of judgment. He says something in His Word and I say, Oh, yes, I see it there on the page of the Bible, but certainly it has no application to me. Yet it is Gods direct Word to my soul, and I am putting away a good conscience, and so I need not expect to hear Him speak to me again until I am ready to listen to Him in this matter. Why should He reveal other things to me when I refuse to bow to Him in this? When you read the Bible, do you read it to become acquainted with it as literature, to become familiar with its history, its philosophy, to derive help from its comforting passages, or do you read it in order that you may obey it, make it the Man of your Counsel?
Let me give you a word of personal testimony. For the first six years of my Christian life I was largely dependent upon what I called the Spirits guidance. I knew very little of the guidance of the Word. When perplexed, I would say, I will ask the Lord what His will is, and as I felt impressed I would act. But I found as I read my Bible that I was often going contrary to the written Word. I shall never forget the night I knelt before God, and opened my Bible to a passage of Scripture on the subject of baptism, which I had been avoiding for years. I would say, I am going to ask the Lord about it, and then I thought I had an inward feeling that baptism of the Holy Spirit was all I needed, and every time I read a Scripture and saw baptism before me I dodged it. I had a lot of dodging to do, for there were a great many Scriptures that had to do with that subject, but finally before the open Word I said, Blessed God, by Thy grace from today on I will never try to dodge one thing that is written in Thy Word for Thy people in this age. If Thou wilt make it clear to me, by Thy grace I will walk in obedience to it, and from that time I had blessing I had never experienced before. Two weeks after that I went down to the seaside and was buried with Him in baptism, and a week later I sat at the Table of the Lord. I had said, All you need is to feed mentally upon the body and blood of Christ, you do not need the outward symbols. One by one many things came before me that I had tried to make myself believe were all right, but I found they were contrary to His Word. I have sought conscientiously now for many years to yield obedience when God speaks. I do not always understand why He tells me to do certain things, but it is not necessary for me to understand, the thing for me is to obey, to do what God has asked me to do, and it is as we obey the Word that we are kept clean. Christloved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word (Eph 5:25-26). And so, as we judge ourselves, as we obey the Word and confess our failures, we come out from under the judgment of the Lord.
But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. When we are judged, when we become the objects of divine discipline, when God has to deal with us because we will not judge ourselves, it is in order that we may not be condemned with the world. The unsaved man is going to be dealt with in the day of judgment, the child of God is judged by the Father in this life. Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth (Heb 12:6). Every bit of pleasure and enjoyment that the worldling is going to know he has in this life. Sometimes people say, I do not understand it, I am a Christian, and yet it seems to me I have nothing but trouble. I look at the people of the world and they seem to take things so easily. You do not need to be surprised at that, the worldling gets all his heaven right here.
The Christian gets all the sorrow, all the trouble, all the tears he will ever have right here. When he is chastened of the Lord, and comes under the rod and is beaten for his naughtiness, when God has to deal with him here, that is in order that he should not be condemned with the world. And when he gets to heaven there will be no more punishment. Yonder, God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and they will be forever with the Lord. But until we get home, let us remember we are here to glorify our Lord. That is the only thing worth living for, there is nothing else that matters, just to live for Jesus, to glorify Him. We have only a little while to do it and I do not want any thought of ease or pleasure or having a good time in this world to keep me from being one whom God can use until called to Himself.
The apostle closes this portion by saying, Wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another. That is very sweet, for the Lords Supper is a matter of fellowship, that is why we observe it together, that is why we read, Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them (Mat 18:20). And so we tarry and together show the Lords death until He comes. This is not something to gratify appetite. If any man hunger, let him eat at home. Just a morsel of bread, just a sip of wine will do. It is only a reminder. We are to come together, not to condemnation but in a serious manner, so truly occupied with Christ that we will have the Lords approval.
We come now to the last words of the chapter. I like to think of them as not merely the words of the apostle Paul to the Corinthians but as the words of our blessed Master to the whole church. And the rest will I set in order when I come. There is so much that we can never regulate, so much that will never be right down here, so many things that are out of gear in our individual lives, in our families, and in the church of God. We may try to set them in order, but we readily blunder. He says, Walk in obedience to My Word, and the rest will I set in order when I come. I will be back soon, and what a day it will be!
I have searched this old Book for a great many years and have never found in it one Scripture that would intimate that I must put one moment between this present hour and the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. He may come today, but I rejoice to know that all who have put their trust in Him are ready to meet Him when He returns.
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
unworthily
i.e. in an unworthy manner; cf. vs. 1Co 11:20-22.
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
whosoever: 1Co 10:21, Lev 10:1-3, Num 9:10, Num 9:13, 2Ch 30:18-20, Mat 22:11, Joh 6:51, Joh 6:63, Joh 6:64, Joh 13:18-27
shall be: 1Co 11:29
Reciprocal: Gen 17:14 – broken Lev 4:13 – and are guilty Num 18:32 – pollute Mal 1:7 – The table 1Co 11:24 – this 1Co 11:25 – This Tit 1:15 – but Heb 10:29 – wherewith
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
1Co 11:27. The general character of the persons eating and drinking is not under consideration, but the manner or purpose of the act is the subject. (This will be enlarged upon in verse 29.) Guilty of the body and blood means to be guilty of sin against the body and blood of Christ.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
1Co 11:27. Wherefore whosoever shall eat the bread[1] or[2] drink the cup of the Lord unworthilyunsuitably; out of keeping in mind and heart with the design of this ordinance, not as it becometh the Gospel (Php 1:27), not walking worthily of the Lord (Col 1:10), not bringing forth fruits worthy of repentance (Luk 3:8).
[1] Not this bread, as in die received text; the cup stands even in the received text.
[2] The Authorised Version has and drink this cup,” though the text before them had or. No doubt this was done from fear of giving countenance to the Romish practice of withholding the cup from the laity. But besides that it is die duty of translators to let the text speak for itself, they needed to have DO such apprehension, since the next verse expressly supposes the communicant to partake of both elementssolet him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. Tyndale, with a noble fidelity, has or in his version, and so have Calvin and Beza.
shall be guilty of the body and the[1] blood of the Lordguilty, that is, of His death. So Chrysostom and Grotius, we think, correctly understand this. The only objection is, that it seems too harsh to charge this upon unworthy communicants. But to eat and drink at the Lords Table as at a common meal (for that is the case supposed) is certainly to put an affront upon the body and blood of Christ; and since, in the Epistle to the Hebrews (1Co 10:29), those who sin wilfully after having received the knowledge of the truth, are said to count the blood of the covenant a common thing (i.e. nothing differing from other blood), the two expressions seem so entirely akin, in the general conception intended by them, that there seems no good reason for shrinking from this as the idea in view.
[1] The article before blood is according to the true text.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
The apostle having in the foregoing verses declared the original institution of the Lord’s supper, he comes now to instruct the Corinthians in the right use of it; and to excite them to a due regard in their approaches to it, he acquaints them with the great danger of an unworthy receiving of it; Whosoever shall eat this bread, &c. unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.
Quest. 1. What is it not to eat and drink unworthily?
Ans. (1.) To receive the sacrament with many doubts and fears, with a weak faith, with a trembling hand and fearful heart, all this may be, and yet the person not receive unworthily.
(2.) The want of perfect holiness, and a complete freedom from sin, doth not denominate a person an unworthy receiver; for this ordinance was not instituted for angels, but for men; to make sinful men good, and good men better.
(3.) Backwardness to the duty, deadness and dullness in the duty, when involuntary and lamented, makes not a person an unworthy receiver.
Quest. 2. What is it to eat and drink unworthily?
Ans. (1.) It is to receive without such a disposition of mind, such a preparation of heart, such reverence and devotion, as ought therein to be exercised; to receive without knowledge, without repentance, without faith, without resolution for a sincere obedience, without sincere reconciliation to our neighbour.
Quest. 3. What is it to be guilty of the body and blood of our Lord?
Ans. (1.) It is an implicit approbation of the Jews’ act in crucifying Christ.
(2.) It is implicitly a jesting with the body and blood of Christ, a playing with the most tremendous things in the world.
(3.) It is a crucifying the Son of God afresh: it is to stab the master of the feast at his own table, whilst he is treating us with the richest dainties.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
The Proper Attitude Is Required
Paul stressed the need for the proper attitude in partaking of the Lord’s Supper. Irreverence while partaking would have shown a light concern for the sacrifice being remembered. Each participant, then, needed to ask himself whether or not he was eating and drinking in thankful memory of Christ’s sacrifice. Such was especially true because an improper attitude would lead to condemnation ( 1Co 11:27-29 ).
Paul declared many in Corinth were suffering spiritually because of a wrong attitude in receiving the supper. In fact, many were spiritually asleep or nearly dead. The apostle tried to encourage the brethren by assuring them that condemnation would not come upon those who kept a close watch on their attitude. The Lord only disciplined those in the wrong so they might not be lost eternally ( 1Co 11:30-32 ).
When the Lord’s Supper was eaten, Paul told the Corinthian Christians to wait to have fellowship with each other. To avoid turning the Lord’s Supper into a common meal, Paul instructed them to eat at home. With their appetites thus cared for, they would have been able to participate in a proper manner when they ate the Lord’s Supper. Other, probably lesser, problems were to be straightened out when Paul came to visit ( 1Co 11:33-34 ).
Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books
Vv. 27. Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. From the essential character of the Supper, expounded in 1Co 11:26, there follows the gravity of its profanation. The , or, should be remarked, instead of which we should rather expect , and, as in 1Co 11:26. But here, no doubt, is the reason of this , or. Though one may not eat the bread unworthily, there is still the possibility of profaning the use of the cup, which did not come till later, at the end of the feast. And the danger was greater, not only because it increased as the feast was prolonged, but especially because it was drink that was in question. The Catholics have therefore sought in vain to justify communion in one kind by this or. The argument would have had a certain show of reason if the were found in 1Co 11:26 instead of .
The word , unworthily, has been explained in a host of ways: with a bad conscience, and without repentance (Theodoret, Olshausen); with contempt of the poor (Chrysostom, Billroth); without faith in the words: given for you (Luther); without self-examination (Bengel), etc. etc.; see Meyer. The explanation to which the context naturally leads is this: Without the grateful memory of Christ’s sufferings, a memory which necessarily implies the breaking of the will with sin. The apostle is thinking of the light and frivolous way of communicating whereby the Corinthians made this sacred feast a joyous banquet, like those which the Greeks loved to celebrate, either in the family, or in a select society, or at a club meeting. The unworthiness of the communicating does not therefore arise from that of the communicant, for by repentance he may always render himself fit to receive Jesus; it arises from his mode of conducting himself inwardly and outwardly. As Bengel well puts it: Alia est indignitas edentis, alia ess.
The term , from , to be held in or by, denotes the state of a man bound by a fault he has committed. The regimen may be, either the law which has been violated (Jam 2:10), or the judge charged with applying the law (Mat 5:21-22), or the penalty incurred (Mat 26:66; Mar 3:29), or the person or object in respect of whom the violation has taken place; it is in this last sense that the term is used in our passage.
The object to which offence has been given is the body and blood of the Lord. The apostle’s expression finds a very natural explanation on the supposition of the real presence of the body and blood (the Catholic and Lutheran opinions). But it can be justified also on the symbolical interpretation of the Holy Supper; for to sin against the object which has been solemnly consecrated and recognised as the sign of a thing, is to sin against the thing itself. He who tramples the crucifix under foot, morally tramples under foot the crucified Himself.
If such is the gravity of the offence implied in a profane communion, the believer, before communicating, ought to do everything to prevent such a danger. This is what the apostle impresses in 1Co 11:28-29.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
Wherefore whosoever shall eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. [It is possible to partake of either emblem unworthily, and so be guilty as to both (Jam 2:10). Though we may be unworthy, we may still eat worthily, i. e., in a prayerful, reverent, repentant spirit; but if we eat unworthily, we profane not only the symbols, but the Lord who is symbolized–comp. Heb 10:29]
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
27. So whosoever may eat the bread or drink the cup unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. What an awful responsibility! How consummate the delusions of the devil, which have long ago girdled the world with wicked carnal communicants, thus involving themselves in the guilt of the Lords innocent blood, shed by the diabolical rabble led on by the fallen clergy.
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament
Verse 27
Unworthily; in an unworthy manner; that is, in the irreverent and disorderly manner condemned above.–Guilty of the body and blood, &c.; guilty of treating them with profane disrespect.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
11:27 {19} Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink [this] cup of the Lord, {k} unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.
(19) Whoever condemns the holy ordinances, that is, uses them incorrectly, are guilty not of the bread and wine, but of the thing itself, that is, of Christ, and will be grievously punished for it.
(k) Otherwise than how such mysteries should properly be handled.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
2. The correctives 11:27-34
Paul proceeded to urge the Corinthians to change their observance of the Lord’s Supper and explained what they should do to correct their conduct.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Discerning the body 11:27-32
He explained that the Lord’s Supper is more than a personal, introspective remembering. It has implications for the church because in His death Jesus Christ laid the foundation for a new community of believers who bear His name. Thus the Lord’s Supper should lead us to reflect on our relationship to one another as Christians as well as to recall Calvary.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
An unworthy manner is any manner that is not consistent with the significance of Christ’s death. This does not mean that every participant must grasp the fullness of this significance, which is hardly possible. Nevertheless everyone should conduct himself or herself appropriately in view the significance of the Lord’s death. Even a child is capable of doing this. The divisions that existed in their church (1Co 11:18) and their selfish behavior (1Co 11:21) constituted the unworthiness of the manner in which the Corinthians were observing the Lord’s Supper. They had also lost the point of the memorial, which involves proclaiming salvation through Christ’s death portrayed in ritual. The gospel goes out when we observe the Lord’s Supper in a worthy manner.
Being guilty of Christ’s body and blood means being guilty of treating them in an unworthy manner, of profaning them. It does not mean that such a person is in some special sense responsible for the death of Christ.