§32 Recalling the Origins of the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11:23–26)
These four verses recapitulate the early Christian tradition concerning the institution of the Lord’s Supper. They are the earliest preserved description of this central event in the life of the first believers. Paul reiterates this tradition as the foundation of his ensuing teaching in 11:27–34. In light of the Corinthian situation he explicates matters related to the tradition, but he does not explain or theologize the tradition directly. Commentators are almost certainly right to assume that basic teaching about this practice would have been done at an earlier time when Paul was personally present among the Corinthians, although Paul makes no overt reference to his elaboration or interpretation of the tradition of the Lord’s Supper.
Despite their brevity, verses 23–26 are enormously important for the church in both belief and practice. Full-scale comparative analysis of this passage in relation to parallels in Mark 14:22–24; Matthew 26:26–28; and Luke 22:17, 19–20 is imperative for development of theology of the eucharist, but that larger project is both unnecessary and impossible in the context of this commentary. What seems most important in Paul’s representation of the tradition of the Lord’s Supper is that he emphasizes that the supper is the Lord’s and that he calls the Corinthians to an involvement with the Supper that will take any inappropriate focus off themselves as they remember that their participation is done in remembrance of the Lord and as an act of proclaiming his saving death and his anticipated coming. As the Corinthians participate in the Supper, Paul insists that the reality and the meaning of the death of the Lord are to take hold of their lives and, as they celebrate the Lord’s Supper, the truth of Christ’s death and the promise of his coming are to shape and direct their living as a community. Thus, the Lord’s Supper embodies or actualizes in a celebratory way the reality, as well as the theological and subsequent social implications, of the truth of Jesus’ saving death.
11:23 / Verse 23 claims the Lord as the ultimate source of this tradition, since the words Paul is about to recite concerning the elements of the Supper go back to the Lord whom Paul understands to be raised and who is alive in the Spirit. Whether Paul means to claim a more direct or independent revelatory experience in relation to his knowledge of this tradition is impossible to determine from what he writes at this point. While his use of words is concise, the selection of terms and the form of the phrases is important.
The way Paul refers to receiving and passing on tradition occurs again at 15:1–8, where he recounts the resurrection appearances of the Lord. Paul’s manner of phrasing the way he knew and taught traditional materials does not explain the source of his information or the circumstances of his reception of the material. Attempts to rationalize Paul’s knowledge as coming from other Christians and attempts to defend the supernatural revelation of the tradition are equally speculative and indefensible. With regard to another context, however, see Paul’s explicit statement at Galatians 1:12.
Paul’s language concerning receiving and passing on the tradition was technical vocabulary in both Greek schools and Jewish synagogue thought. Ancients understood the reception and the handing on of tradition to imply several important points. First, lines of authority were established and recognized in the transmission of tradition. Authoritative teachers instructed recognized students who in turn became authorities in their own right. Second, the transmission of tradition through selected channels of communication guaranteed the veracity of the tradition that was passed along from one person to another. Thus, in saying, I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you, Paul establishes both the authority and reliability of the teaching.
As he continues, Paul alludes to the Lord Jesus, a frequent manner of reference that here has the concrete, historic effect of recalling the historical Jesus and a specific time in his life. Paul does not belabor this point, however, although the way he continues indicates that he intends to renarrate a set of past events that were fixed in the memory of the early church. Moreover, it is remarkable that nothing in the tradition of the Lord’s Supper as Paul presents it in this verse or in the lines that follow necessitates the Passover setting found in the Gospels. It is true, however, that the Passover setting in the Gospels is not in the words of institution, but in the narrative, so perhaps it is not peculiar that the Passover setting is absent in 1 Corinthians. Nevertheless, the simple mention of the night he was betrayed—referring to a particular time and a particular act that need no explanation—shows the fixed nature of this tradition and points to its association with the larger passion narrative.
The verb “was betrayed” (Gk. paredideto) is passive and may be translated “was handed over.” Thus, the reader is uninformed as to who handed over Jesus. Interpretations that understand this passive to be a divine passive (God is the one who handed over Jesus) are grammatically defensible, but the range of NT texts concerned with the handing over make it clear that Judas Iscariot (unnamed in any Pauline writing) betrayed or handed over Jesus. Divine passives occur throughout the NT, but when a plausible nondivine actor is well-known in relation to a particularly infamous act, there is no reason to overread the text.
11:24 / The last words of verse 23 recount that Jesus took bread, and verse 24 narrates the first act of the Supper in relation to that bread. In their original Jewish context thanksgiving and breaking of bread were table customs that were performed by the head of a household or a host. The words this is my body refer to the bread alone. Brokenness is not in view in this traditional line; rather, the emphasis is on the phrase which is for you, words that recognize the vicarious nature of Jesus’ death. Some interpreters contend this clause is inherently sacrificial in focus, but that view is not necessary.
The following words, translated do this in remembrance of me, are ambiguous in Greek in terms of their point of reference, though they clearly interpret the ritual. In Greek the phrase literally says, “Do this unto my memory.” Does this mean that as Christians do and remember what Jesus said, they perceive the power and presence of Christ, or that as Christians do these things, God’s memory of Christ or Christ’s own memory of his disciples is jogged toward realization of the Parousia (or both)? Both interpretations are suggested by scholars, although the first option finds by far the most support.
The determination of the original meaning of the Lord’s original words is an important matter, both historically and theologically. Paul’s understanding of these words and the interpretation of the sayings that he taught the members of the congregations he founded are also significant subjects. Nevertheless, because Paul is not interested at this point in expounding such topics, the reader of the letter cannot discern Paul’s deeper levels of understanding and teaching regarding the Lord’s Supper from this text. (For further discussion, however, see the Additional Notes below.)
11:25 / Paul moves to the narration of the second, similar act. In saying in the same way, Paul recognizes that Jesus gave thanks over the cup. One should notice particularly that the focus of this statement is the cup, not its contents. This observation helps the reader to understand that the interpretation (the new covenant in my blood) attaches to the administration of the element (the content of the cup), not to the element itself (the drink). Moreover, the two acts stand separately as well as together as sacramental communications. One should notice that the covenant is related to the cup as Paul recalls the tradition in these verses. The blood defines or establishes this new covenant. Unfortunately, the type of covenant that Jesus or Paul had in mind is not indicated by these statements, though the relationship of the covenant to blood recalls, in the context of 1 Corinthians (see 5:7), the motif of the Passover lamb. The language of new covenant does, however, bring the text of Jeremiah 38:31: LXX (NIV: Jer. 31:31–34) to mind and signifies the eschatological significance and nature of the events around Jesus’ death.
Nevertheless, the repetition of the words of the Lord Jesus end on the same note that concluded his words concerning the bread: do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me. Whatever this ambiguous reference to remembering means, there is no question that the motif of remembrance anticipates repetition of the acts.
11:26 / In bringing this formal, traditional segment of his teaching to a conclusion, Paul extends the repetitive theme and brings together the bread and cup in the declaration you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. In referring to the Lord’s death in this way, Paul connects it with God’s future in the Lord’s coming. In the context of this discussion, particularly in the framework of this letter, this concluding note places the observation of the Lord’s Supper in the larger conceptual framework of apocalyptic eschatology. It takes the Supper as a prescribed celebration that is essential for the time between the cross and the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul has already dramatically registered the importance of the cross as the foundation of God’s salvation in chapter 1, especially 1:17–25. In turn, in chapter 15 he will take up the eschatological issues of resurrection and “the end”; but at this point, he is focused on the present as a concrete form of life that finds its shape and direction from Christ’s cross and God’s ultimate reign over all.
In reminding the Corinthians that they are proclaiming the Lord’s death until he comes, Paul highlights the essentially missional nature of even so congregationally oriented a ritual as the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. The participation in the Supper was to have an evangelistic cast, for one was not merely receiving the elements for one’s own sake (or the sake of the community). The believers gave themselves to the celebration as a means of proclaiming the death of the Lord, a death that yielded mysterious salvific benefits for all who heard and believed the proclamation. Note, the Supper is not presented as a means of strengthening believers so that they could proclaim the Lord’s death; rather, participation in the Supper is understood to be that proclamation itself. By manifestly observing Jesus’ self-giving death and the formation of the new covenant, the believers made known a christological truth of eschatological importance.
11:23 / For a different opinion, see L. Luke, “ ‘The Night in which He was Delivered Up’ (1 Cor 11:23),” Biblebhashyam 10 (1984), pp. 261–79.
11:24–25 / Two elements of the Gk. text require observation. First, Paul refers to Jesus’ act of giving thanks using the Gk. verb eucharisteō, from which the church derives the designation for the Lord’s Supper as the Eucharist. That title gives emphasis to the celebratory nature of the entire Lord’s Supper. Second, the words do this (Gk. poieite) may be rendered “you are doing this,” and in translating in this fashion, Orr and Walther (1 Corinthians, p. 267) suggest, “[The verb] can … be either imperative or indicative.… It seems better … to take poieite as an interpretive instruction than as a command for future repetition.” Nevertheless, Paul and the early church did not read the verb this way. One sees from Paul’s phrasing of vv. 24–25 that he meant to inform the Corinthians that every time they celebrated this Supper, it was for remembrance of the Lord.
Attempts to reconstruct the original words of Jesus from the lines of this tradition, usually read in conjunction with the parallel materials in the Synoptic Gospels, have produced a wide variety of results and conclusions. (Consult B. D. Smith, “The More Original Form of the Words of Institution,” ZNW 83 [1992], pp. 166–86; and for an exercise in skepticism and pessimism, see H. Maccoby, “Paul and the Eucharist,” NTS 37 [1991], pp. 247–67.) On one extreme there are those who deny that Jesus uttered any words of institution over the elements at table with his disciples, and on the opposite extreme there are elaborate harmonizations of the differing canonical accounts that argue that Jesus said each and every word exactly as it was recorded in Scripture, although no one account preserves the full record of his sayings; rather, all accounts must be taken together to know all that he said. Comparative analysis of the four (three, since Matthew is so close to Mark) canonical versions of Jesus’ words at the Last Supper is helpful, since such comparison allows the reader to perceive the particular emphasis that each author brings to the individual accounts of the words. For two different attempts to do such comparison, see Fee, Epistle, pp. 545–47; and M. L. Soards, The Passion According to Luke: The Special Material of Luke 22 (JSNTSup 14; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987), pp. 28–30.
Reconstructions that go beyond comparison are highly speculative. They are attempts to discover and recapture a history behind the texts rather than attempts to understand the texts themselves. Although such studies are not pointless, they produce dubious results. One example (with brief critique) of such work suffices to show why such reconstruction is avoided here.
Many scholars contend that the words do this in remembrance of me are a later addition by the church to specify Jesus’ intention in speaking about the bread and the cup. “The main argument for this view is that the words are absent from Mark’s account” (Watson, First Epistle, p. 122). Even so, some of the same scholars argue that “the words, ‘Do this in memory of me,’ can be accepted as a guide to Jesus’s intentions at the Last Supper, even if they do not represent his actual words” (Watson, First Epistle, p. 122). Counterarguments prove nothing about the authenticity of these words, although they may address the matter of the probability of the authenticity of the lines. One should note that Paul’s account in 1 Cor. is probably fifteen years older than Mark’s version of the Supper; Luke’s version of the narrative is probably older than Mark’s as well. Both Paul and Luke know and include the words “Do this in remembrance of me.” Paul’s “older version” and Luke’s “correcting hand” might be taken to imply that Mark left these words out, deliberately or accidentally. Moreover, when Paul (or the earlier church) wants to clarify the meaning of Jesus’ actions and statements in this context, one finds such interpretation from a third-person perspective—as in v. 26, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes”—not in the first person, in remembrance of me, with Jesus as the speaker. The text itself shows that when interpretation was needed it was offered from a later point of view, not that explanatory words were written onto Jesus’ lips. Furthermore, attempts to reconstruct what Jesus “really” said in Aramaic are even more speculative and ultimately imply that what is important for true comprehension is something other than the text of the biblical materials. However, whatever Jesus said—probably in Aramaic—the texts that preserve his words are all written in Gk. Since we have only the biblical texts, I have restricted the work in this commentary—except for this explanatory disclaimer—to commenting on the text that lies before us.
11:26 / The grammatical form of the words until he comes in Gk. (achris hou elthē) both gives a future cast to the coming, lit. “until he may come,” and implies that the matter of the Lord’s coming is an eschatological issue open to the Lord’s own discretion. Yet, while Paul looks and points toward the future, his focus on the Lord’s death is the strongest point of emphasis in relation to the situation in Corinth.
The temporal aspect of this verse runs deep and takes important turns. The eating and drinking, which are present actions, look back to the death of the Lord, a past event; but the eating and drinking make that past death present in and through proclamation, thus qualifying the present in relation to the past so that those in Corinth look forward to the future (when the Lord will come) from the vantage point of the cross.