THE LORD’S SUPPER NOW AND THEN
1 CORINTHIANS 11:17-34
NASB
17 But in giving this instruction, I do not praise you, because you come together not for the better but for the worse. 18 For, in the first place, when you come together [a]as a church, I hear that [b]divisions exist among you; and in part I believe it. 19 For there must also be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become [a]evident among you. 20 Therefore when you meet together, it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper, 21 for in your eating each one takes his own supper first; and one is hungry and another is drunk. 22 What! Do you not have houses in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? In this I will not praise you.
23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” 25 In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.
27 Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. 28 But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. 30 For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number [a]sleep. 31 But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged. 32 But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world.
33 So then, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. 34 If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, so that you will not come together for judgment. The remaining matters I will arrange when I come.
11:18 [a]Lit in church [b]Lit schisms 11:19 [a]Or manifest 11:30 [a]I.e. are dead
NLT
17 But in the following instructions, I cannot praise you. For it sounds as if more harm than good is done when you meet together. 18 First, I hear that there are divisions among you when you meet as a church, and to some extent I believe it. 19 But, of course, there must be divisions among you so that you who have God’s approval will be recognized!
20 When you meet together, you are not really interested in the Lord’s Supper. 21 For some of you hurry to eat your own meal without sharing with others. As a result, some go hungry while others get drunk. 22 What? Don’t you have your own homes for eating and drinking? Or do you really want to disgrace God’s church and shame the poor? What am I supposed to say? Do you want me to praise you? Well, I certainly will not praise you for this!
23 For I pass on to you what I received from the Lord himself. On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread 24 and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and said, “This is my body, which is given for you.[*] Do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, he took the cup of wine after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people —an agreement confirmed with my blood. Do this in remembrance of me as often as you drink it.” 26 For every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are announcing the Lord’s death until he comes again.
27 So anyone who eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord unworthily is guilty of sinning against[*] the body and blood of the Lord. 28 That is why you should examine yourself before eating the bread and drinking the cup. 29 For if you eat the bread or drink the cup without honoring the body of Christ,[*] you are eating and drinking God’s judgment upon yourself. 30 That is why many of you are weak and sick and some have even died.
31 But if we would examine ourselves, we would not be judged by God in this way. 32 Yet when we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned along with the world.
33 So, my dear brothers and sisters,[*] when you gather for the Lord’s Supper, wait for each other. 34 If you are really hungry, eat at home so you won’t bring judgment upon yourselves when you meet together. I’ll give you instructions about the other matters after I arrive.
[11:24] Greek which is for you; other manuscripts read which is broken for you. [11:27] Or is responsible for. [11:29] Greek the body; other manuscripts read the Lord’s body. [11:33] Greek brothers.
A family reunion is almost a thing of the past. I suppose some people would be hard-pressed to name all their cousins, second cousins, great-uncles and great-aunts, much less recall where they all live. The “extended family” has shrunk over the years, so getting together as a group usually occurs only at weddings and funerals.
I was born in the 1930s and raised in the South where family reunions were big. Year after year —sometimes for a whole week —the extended family on my mother’s side would gather for what might just as well have been called a convention or a lengthy powwow. We congregated at my granddad’s bay cottage, and we spent about 75 percent of the time laughing, singing, and having fun and 25 percent of the time eating!
The food would have put any barbeque or all-you-can-eat buffet to absolute shame. My granddad would hire a fellow to come and dig a barbeque pit. One of the uncles who owned a ranch brought the beef and pork and chickens. We caught fish and seafood from the gulf and we would all eat together for five or six solid days. Those were some of the best days of my life, as we renewed relationships that had faded over the course of the year, strengthened family commitments that had waned, and reconciled with those with whom we may have had some minor spats. Each member of the family contributed something to the whole family at our annual reunions.
Family reunions didn’t start in the 1930s, however. Back in the AD 30s, as He celebrated the Passover feast with His disciples the night before His crucifixion (Matt. 26:26-30), Jesus Christ instituted what could be called a Christian family reunion, in which God’s family gets together frequently for sharing, caring, reflecting, reconciling, singing, praying, fellowshipping, recommitting, and commemorating the person and work of Jesus Christ. It has come to be known as the Lord’s Supper. In this celebration of the heart of the Christian message, believers participate together in the most meaningful, most intimate form of worship, which includes partaking together of a common loaf and drinking from a common cup.
THE LOVE FEAST AND THE LORD’S SUPPER
1 CORINTHIANS 11:20
The love feast, or “agapē [26] meal” (Jude 1:12), in the early church looked a lot like a potluck meal today, but it functioned more like an offering on behalf of the poor. The wealthy would either host or provide food and drink from their abundance while those with little or nothing would bring what they could afford. The destitute would come empty-handed and leave with filled stomachs and hands full of provisions to get their families through the week.[60] So, the “love feast” functioned as more than just a fellowship meal. It included family fellowship, but it also involved charity and provision for the needy.
In addition to that “charity meal,” the church also observed the “Lord’s Supper,” which is sometimes called the Eucharist, from the Greek word for “thanksgiving” (eucharistia [2169]). This probably originated as a reference to prayers of thanksgiving offered in conjunction with a special observance of bread and wine in commemoration of Christ’s incarnation and saving death on the cross. As part of the fellowship of the church community, the leader of the service would call attention to the bread and wine, using these elements as a visible, tangible representation of the real, physical, bodily incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Through the observance of the Lord’s Supper, the early church realized intimate spiritual and physical fellowship with one another as the body of Christ, reconciling before God and one another, and consecrating itself anew to God. More than just a memorial, it was a real expression of genuine fellowship as believers lingered to share, sing, and enjoy their time together with all barriers down, all status ignored, and all bonds strengthened.
So, these two distinct but inseparable aspects of early Christian worship —the love feast and the Lord’s Supper —emphasized authentic unity in the body of Christ. This unity was evident not only through words but through actions. As believers came to the meeting of the church physically hungry and spiritually thirsty, they departed physically and spiritually satisfied, having had meaningful fellowship with Jesus Christ through intimate fellowship with His body, the church.
— 11:17-22 —
Like many things they touched, the Corinthians managed to twist and distort the Lord’s Supper. The one element of worship intended to reflect the unity and harmony of the body of Christ had become a mark of disunity and contention. How tragically ironic! The observance meant to bring spiritual strength and health to the church was instead bringing physical weakness and death. The Corinthians had turned what God intended to be a celebration of charity and remembrance into a gluttonous orgy of pride and selfishness. Small wonder Paul refused to praise them for their behavior! Their assembly left people not improved, but divided and discouraged (11:17). Far from edifying their local body, they were destroying it. They had so perverted the Lord’s Supper that Paul wished they had never observed it at all.
These severe words set Paul’s tone for the remainder of the chapter, as he describes the shameful behavior of some of the believers in Corinth. They were supposed to “come together as a church” (11:18) to “eat the Lord’s Supper” (11:20) as a sign of their mutual love and support for one another as members of the body of Christ. Instead, divisions, cliques, and parties developed among them (11:18). Paul acknowledges the impossibility of perfect unity in any local body, because not everybody will exhibit the same level of maturity (11:19). Divisions caused by sinful, carnal, or rebellious members of the church would spotlight the holy, spiritual, and humble, thereby demonstrating who should be followed and imitated. But the degree of divisiveness in Corinth that Paul mentions (1:10-12) indicates that these schisms went far beyond those necessary for highlighting holiness. The whole congregation seems to have been threatened with fracture, disorder, and chaos.
Though the Corinthians were supposed to gather to celebrate their unity in Christ, various factions and cliques huddled into their own exclusive groups. One of the purposes of the charity meal (or “love feast”) was to provide for the needy families of the congregation suffering from hunger. Instead, this opportunity for genuine, unconditional love expressed through the gracious benevolence of the wealthy on behalf of the poor turned into a “Dutch treat” approach in which the rich got fatter and the poor went hungry (11:21). It seems that the classes divided. The wealthy hung out with their own kind, living high on the hog, the middle class shared their bread, vegetables, water, and wine, and the destitute were kept at arm’s length, ignored and abandoned to hunger at a time when they needed the church’s love the most. How insensitive! How pathetic!
Paul completely challenges their carnal attitude and actions at the meal. He bluntly says that what they were doing was not the Lord’s Supper (11:20). It bore no resemblance to what Jesus had instituted and intended to be carried out in their meetings together as a church family. During the Last Supper, Jesus demonstrated the kind of selfless humility they were supposed to exhibit toward one another:
Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God, got up from supper, and laid aside His garments; and taking a towel, He girded Himself. Then He poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. . . . So when He had washed their feet, and taken His garments and reclined at the table again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.” (John 13:3-5, 12-17)
The selfless attitude and actions Jesus expressed during the original last supper looked nothing at all like those demonstrated in the Corinthians’ meetings. So far removed was the Corinthians’ twisted version of the Lord’s Supper from an exhibit of mutual love and humility that Paul could legitimately say, “it is not . . . the Lord’s Supper” (1 Cor. 11:20). The wealthy who always had enough to eat should have followed the example of Christ by eating their fill at home, then joining the church in order to provide for the poor and needy from their abundance. Instead, their gluttonous and self-centered actions suggested that they despised the church and brought embarrassment to those who had nothing to eat (11:22).
Likely speaking in hyperbole —exaggeration for rhetorical effect —Paul contrasts the logical results of such a practice: “one is hungry and another is drunk” (11:21). Like a group of whining two-year-olds, they clung to what they could call “Mine!” Drunken and gorged on their own food and wine, they had not yet learned to share. They had not learned the lesson of Christ’s selfless humiliation at the Last Supper. When I read 1 Corinthians 11:20-21, I picture a father who has rebuked his older son repeatedly for not sharing with his younger siblings. At his wits’ end, Paul exclaims, “What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? In this I will not praise you” (11:22).
— 11:23-26 —
In order to repair the Corinthian church’s self-centered and splintered fellowship meals, Paul dug into the depths of the faith to lay some serious theological groundwork. He doesn’t appeal to common sense, reason, or regulations. Instead, he returns to the very words and actions of Jesus, reminding the Corinthians of the practice he had received from the Lord to be repeated in the churches from that moment on.
Paul says that he received his instructions concerning the Lord’s Supper directly from the Lord Himself (11:23). When did he receive this teaching? In Paul’s initial encounter with the resurrected and glorified Jesus on the road to Damascus (Acts 9), the Lord Jesus articulated the basics of the gospel message of forgiveness of sins by faith in Christ (see Acts 26:18). He also mentioned that He would appear to Paul in the future (Acts 26:16). We are told about some of these visits and interactions between Jesus and Paul (Acts 18:9-10; 2 Cor. 12:8-9). So when Paul told the Corinthians that he had received instructions concerning the Lord’s Supper directly from Jesus, he likely referred to one of the revelations he received during the years leading up to his first missionary journey, perhaps during his three years in Arabia (Gal. 1:17-18). Unlike a middleman who was passing on mere hearsay, Paul’s teaching concerning the Lord’s Supper came from Jesus Himself.
Paul describes in summary fashion the highlights of the events at the Last Supper, although he himself had not been present (1 Cor. 11:23-25). That dark night when Judas would betray Him, Jesus gathered His disciples to celebrate the traditional Jewish Passover meal. At that meal the Son of God did something unexpected, something that completely broke from centuries of tradition surrounding the Passover observance. After He took the bread and gave thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me” (11:23-24; see Matt. 26:26; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19). While His disciples still pondered this sudden change in practice, Jesus took another new turn after the meal, when he picked up a cup of wine and said, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me” (1 Cor. 11:25; see Matt. 26:27-28; Mark 14:23-24; Luke 22:20).
Through His alteration of the Passover tradition, Jesus initiated something new. In fact, He explicitly distinguished this new observance of the bread and wine by calling it a “new covenant” (11:25). The word “covenant” refers to a promise or pact between two parties in which there is mutual agreement. The old covenant was based on the Law of Moses, but the new covenant is based on Jesus’ blood —His sacrifice in our place to pay the complete penalty of sin. While those under the Law were condemned, those covered by the blood of the new covenant are free from all condemnation (see Rom. 8:1-2).
EXCURSUS: THE LORD’S SUPPER OR THE LORD AS SUPPER?
1 CORINTHIANS 11:24
Many people throughout history have taken the words “This is My body” and “This is My blood” (11:24-25) quite literally. Since medieval times, the Roman Catholic Church has held to the dogma of transubstantiation —that the bread and wine are miraculously and literally transformed into the actual physical body and blood of Jesus, so participants mysteriously consume the flesh and blood of the Savior.[61] Though the Protestant Reformers rejected transubstantiation, they had such a difficult time agreeing on the nature and purpose of the bread and wine that the first Protestant Reformers split into two parties —the Lutherans and the Zwinglians. Luther insisted that the words “This is My body” must be taken literally. Zwingli preferred a more metaphorical or symbolic interpretation. The Calvinist or Reformed tradition took a mediating position. To this day, some Protestant traditions hold to a “real presence” or “real spiritual presence” of Christ in the bread and wine. Others believe the bread and wine are visible symbols of an invisible reality, that Christ’s “presence” at the Supper is mediated through the power of the Holy Spirit, just as He is present where believers are gathered in His name (Matt. 18:20).
I think the problem with all of these views is not so much that they are providing wrong answers, but that they’re starting with the wrong questions. Nowhere in the New Testament do we see Jesus or Paul or Peter or any other inspired author interpreting Jesus’ words either literally or figuratively. In fact, the New Testament doesn’t seem concerned with questions about what the bread and wine are. Rather, it seems more concerned with how the proper observance of the Lord’s Supper is meant to affect the participants, the manner in which they are to partake, and the meaning of the celebration.
That being said, my own view is that the bread and wine (or, more often in our culture, the bread and juice) were never meant to be taken as anything more than bread and wine. They are symbols of Christ’s body and blood. We receive them as from the Lord’s hands; we do not receive them as if we were literally and mysteriously consuming the Lord’s flesh and blood. This was the earliest view of the church, as one Roman Catholic historian himself admits: “According to a concept proper to Judaism, this meal was first seen as ‘eating with Christ,’ recognized as present through faith. . . . An evolution occurred in the direction of ‘eating Christ’ according to the concept of Jewish sacrifices . . . and pagan sacred meals, in which the oblations offered to the deity and accepted by it were regarded as bearers of its presence.”[62]
In no way, however, should my view of the bread and wine as symbols be understood as belittling the observance of the Lord’s Supper. They are not mere symbols in the sense that they are therefore insignificant. The proper observance of the Lord’s Supper as described by Paul in 1 Corinthians 11 brings real spiritual benefit to believers who unite around this all-important celebration, demonstrating unity with one another, the remembrance of the Savior’s death, and an attitude of praise and thanksgiving toward God.
The original Lord’s Supper was a touching moment in the lives of the disciples, but at the same time, the men reclining around this table felt disturbed and confused as Jesus spoke of His death and atoning sacrifice. They had been looking forward to a deliverer. They had seen His miracles and had become convinced of His identity as the eternal Son of God incarnate. Jesus, however, spoke not of conquest and victory, but of suffering, death, and departure. Clearly they had not yet come to terms with Christ’s prediction of His humiliation, in which He would empty Himself of all divine glory, as Paul wrote, “Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8).
Jesus made the purpose of the Lord’s Supper clear by repeating the phrase “in remembrance of Me” (1 Cor. 11:24-25). Paul explains the significance of this when he writes, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes” (11:26). The Lord’s Supper is a time for the family of God to reunite around His Table and commemorate His death. The bread and wine take on sacred significance because they represent His body sacrificed for us and His blood shed for us. It is a confession of faith without words —faith in the incarnation of the Son of God and His atoning sacrifice for our sins. It is the gospel of Christ’s person and work that addresses not only the heart and mind, but all five senses, reminding us in the most tangible way of the intimate fellowship we enjoy with our Lord Jesus Christ.
— 11:27-34 —
After presenting the ideal for this church family reunion around the Table of the Lord, Paul returns to the mess the Corinthians had made of it. One of the house rules about the Lord’s Supper is that we are to dress for the occasion —inwardly, that is —casting off the rags of pride, selfishness, gluttony, and drunkenness. Paul spells out the seriousness of disobedience (11:27). To eat the bread and drink of the cup in an “unworthy manner” brings guilt punishable by physical judgment (11:29-30). When believers come to the table in a sinful condition, failing to be cleansed of their sin by the sacrificed body and shed blood of Christ, they bring shame upon Christ’s suffering and death. Coming to the Lord’s Table with unclean souls, with known sin in our lives, brings reproach upon the Savior. The discipline Paul mentions isn’t purely punitive but is also fatherly, intended to bring offenders to repentance and restoration to a holy life and fellowship in the body (11:32; cf. Heb. 12:5-7).
How does Paul say the Corinthians can partake of the Lord’s Supper in a worthy manner and thereby avoid such discipline from God? First, a person must “examine himself” (1 Cor. 11:28), pleading with the Lord as David did:
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me and know my anxious thoughts;
And see if there be any hurtful way in me,
And lead me in the everlasting way. (Ps. 139:23-24)
Second, a person must “judge the body rightly” (1 Cor. 11:29). Some have taken this as a reference to judging whether the bread and wine are the literal body and blood of Christ or merely a symbol, but the context suggests that Paul is referring to treating the corporate “body of Christ,” the church, in a respectful and dignified manner. Paul’s chief complaint is that in celebrating the Lord’s Supper, certain believers in the church in Corinth were completely denying the self-sacrificial humility exemplified in Christ’s incarnation and atonement. Instead of working toward building up the body of Christ, their failure to provide for the poor and needy among them was actually tearing it down.
Third, the observers must “wait for one another” (11:33). Each member of the church must look out for the interests of others. Paul reiterates his advice that those who are hungry and have means of satisfying their appetites at home should do so (11:34), because when they gather around the table, they must see to the needs of others instead of themselves. They should strive for unity through humility, offering themselves as living sacrifices to God (Rom. 12:1-2).
In closing, Paul accompanies his strong warning with a comforting promise. If the wayward, selfish gluttons at Corinth realign their faulty practices with Christ’s attitudes and actions, judging themselves rightly, they will escape judgment (1 Cor. 11:31). Instead of becoming weak and sick or dying, they will experience the blessing of the cup as they fellowship with God and one another around this sacred Table (10:16).
APPLICATION: 1 CORINTHIANS 11:17-34
Affirming the Family Reunion
Something happened in the Swindoll family when we stopped having family reunions. We began to drift apart. The smaller, nuclear families became tiny islands, eventually losing contact with the other islands of aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, and nephews. By and by, it has come to the point that today I can hardly tell you where most of my extended family is located. Why? Because we stopped having a family reunion.
Chances are that in your church you have a regular “church family reunion” around the Lord’s Table. Some churches celebrate it weekly, some monthly, some quarterly. Some churches partake of the Lord’s Supper in Sunday morning worship, some in an evening service, others in smaller groups in a less centralized and less formal venue. Whatever your particular church’s practice, let me encourage you to take every opportunity to participate in your church’s family reunion.
Not only are you invited, but Paul commands you to eat and drink of the bread and cup —to keep on proclaiming the Lord’s death until He comes. Something unhealthy happens when Christians become dissociated from the family of God around the Lord’s Table. Something occurs in their spiritual walk and relationship with others over the passing of time. They lose their sense of belonging to the family, which lessens their feeling of unity with the body. As time passes, a significant part of their spiritual development slows. Why? Because the Lord’s Supper calls all of us to reconsider Christ’s person and work on our behalf. It urges us to rededicate ourselves to living the gospel in our everyday walk and talk. It asks us to reconcile with others as we approach the Table as one body. It requires that we confess and repent of unconfessed sin prior to partaking.
When celebrating the Lord’s Supper, how are your table manners? Do you eat with unwashed hands? Do you share the meal grudgingly? Remember what this family reunion represents. Enjoy it with wholehearted thanksgiving and observe it with appropriate reverence. Most of all, enjoy it together, having sought forgiveness and secured reconciliation with those in the body of Christ you may have wronged.