For *I* received from the Lord, that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, in the night in which he was delivered up, took bread,
Paul answers the Corinthians' disorderly meals by going back to where the supper came from, and he names his source. Two questions follow: why did the Lord give this to a man who was not in the room, and why tie His memorial to the night of betrayal?
Paul was not in the room the night the Lord gave the supper. He could have asked those who were there. Instead the account came to him from heaven.
Thinking about this special revelation adds to the seriousness of the subject. Paul, the chief of the apostles, was not in the supper room with the eleven before the crucifixion. But the Lord spoke to him directly from heaven, so that he heard from His own lips in glory that those who loved Him were to keep this supper.
The way it reached him shows how much the Lord values it, and who He meant it for.
Does this not show what the Lord thinks of the supper, and how He values our remembrance of Himself and our answer to His love? His own heart of love, which brought Him down into death, gives this revelation to Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles. Jews might otherwise have said that the supper was only for Jews, since it was tied to the Passover. But the Lord gives it to him as a distinct and direct message to the Gentiles.
Paul received a special revelation about the supper, but not about baptism. Commentators see a reason for that.
It is interesting to notice that Paul received a revelation of the supper, not of baptism. He was baptized like anyone else, and not even by an apostle, in case anyone twisted that into making him dependent on the twelve apostles. He was baptized by a simple disciple, Ananias… But the supper is the memorial of Christ, and especially of His death, and it is now bound up with the body of Christ… Paul was the chosen vessel who would make known the mystery of Christ and the church. So it seemed good to the Lord that he should receive a special revelation of His supper, the standing sign of its unity and public witness of its communion.
The Corinthians' table had gone wrong. Notice how Paul corrects it: he does not argue with them.
The only remedy for disorder at the Lord's supper — even in the days of the apostles, note — was to go back to the original institution: its spirit, its meaning, its orderly simplicity. Paul did not argue on the subject. In verses 23 to 27, he simply goes back to what the Lord Himself had instituted… Any "order", however grand or beautiful to human eyes, is disorder in God's eyes if it is not God's order.
Two things in the verse repay a closer look: the name Paul gives Him, and the night he names.
The revelation came to him about "the Lord Jesus" — not Jesus only, but the One Who is the exalted Lord in the highest place in glory. When was it? On "the same night in which he was delivered up" (as it should read). That is a much wider thought than the rendering "betrayed", which limits it to Judas' treachery. What does it involve? That was the hour when everything in man's heart came out, when all the wickedness of man rose to its height. There was the treachery of Judas, the weakness of Peter and of His disciples, the hatred of the scribes and priests, the cruel mockery of the soldiers, and the unrighteousness of Pilate, who three times protested His innocence and finally gave Him up to be slain. Behind it all was the power and energy of Satan.
The Lord chose that night on purpose, and the choice carries His message.
No tongue can tell how the Lord felt the betrayal of one of His own! He felt it keenly; but, feeling it, He took the bread and there and then instituted the Supper. What did that mean? To me it meant this. You may not be able to trust anyone else, but you may trust Me. If treachery springs up in this inner circle, who can you look to? My love will not fail you… In days of darkness and nights of treachery and betrayal you will find Me always the same.
With the cross hours away, His attention was not fixed on His own ordeal.
We might have thought that the work the Lord Jesus was about to do would have filled all His thoughts and taken all His attention. But no; He thinks of the love of His disciples, and longs to draw that love, so ready to wander, back to Himself, again and again.
- Received — Paul got the supper straight from the Lord in glory, not from the eleven who were there. The source shows how much the Lord values it.
- Revealed — the Lord revealed the supper to Paul, not baptism. Paul carried the truth of Christ and the church, and the supper is the standing sign of that unity.
- Reaching — it came through the apostle to the Gentiles, so no one could call it a Jewish rite tied to the Passover.
- Remedy — the cure for disorder at the table is a return to the original, not argument. Order that is not God's order is disorder in His eyes.
- Remembrance — He fixed His memorial to the night of betrayal. In every later night of treachery, His own can rest in a love that does not change.
and having given thanks broke [it], and said, This is my body, which [is] for you this do in remembrance of me.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
In like manner also the cup, after having supped, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood this do, as often as ye shall drink [it], in remembrance of me.
The Lord speaks these words over the cup at the end of a meal. They tie a covenant promised to Israel centuries earlier to His own blood. Why name a covenant here, and why repeat the call to remember Him?
The Lord did not drink the cup He handed over, and what He says over it is a command, not a suggestion.
What the Lord lays down is not only a permission; it is also a command... So too with the cup. Supper was ended, and with it the Master's share in the former things. He hands us the new covenant of life and peace, for each of us to accept, in this new and special cup of blessing. The Master would not drink it... But He cannot drink the cup of the new covenant. His blood is not shed for Himself, but for His saints.
Calling the cup a covenant is a figure of speech. The covenant it names is one a prophet had announced long before.
A "cup" is a common picture in Scripture, where the cup stands for what is in it. "This cup," that is, the wine, "is the new covenant in My blood." The Lord is pointing here in particular to the new covenant promised long ago through Jeremiah. God will make it with His repentant earthly people. Then their sins will be put away, and Jehovah will write His laws in their hearts (Jer. 31:31-34). The foundation blessings of that future covenant with Israel are ours now through the blood of Christ.
Jeremiah announced the covenant but left much unsaid. In the upper room the Lord filled in what was missing for the Twelve, His closest disciples.
At last, in the upper room in Jerusalem, the Lord spoke of it to just the Twelve. He spoke of it in a way that showed heaven had not forgotten it... But He added two important things to what Jeremiah had revealed. First, the covenant would rest on the blood of a sacrifice. Second, that blood was to be His own.
The covenant still awaits Israel. The Lord has already shed the blood it rests on.
The Lord's supper then is to remind us of Christ, of His death; not of our sins but of our sins forgiven and ourselves loved. It is in no way the old covenant of condemnation. It is the new covenant: God known in grace, wrongdoing forgiven, and sins remembered no more. It has not yet been made with the houses of Israel, settled for ever in the land under the reign of Messiah. But the blood that is its foundation has been shed, and we who believe, Jew or Gentile, have it in spirit, not in letter... Of this the cup especially is the pledge.
The Lord did not hand out one emblem but two, and their separation is itself the message.
No mystery surrounds this feast such as men delight to import into it. All is simplicity. It is the simple, but touching, memorial of the death of Christ. The bread speaks of His body — Himself. The cup speaks of His blood — His work. The symbols of the body and the blood are separate, speaking of a dead Christ.
The wine is not blood still flowing in a living body.
And so with the cup "after the supper," who could hesitate about what that cup set forth? He Himself says, "In My blood." It is not the blood in the body but apart, separated from it — that is, in death.
The Lord gives the same instruction over the cup as over the bread, and He points to Himself.
Notice how the instruction, "This do in remembrance of Me", is repeated for the cup as well as for the loaf. The Lord Himself is speaking, so He seeks the remembrance of Himself — "of Me." It is very important to remember that the Lord Jesus Christ is the central figure of this Supper. He is there!
A church can keep the ceremony and still forget the Person.
They had observed the appointed ceremony, but had forgotten Him. They shared the bread and the wine, but the Lord Himself was not before them. They thought only of themselves and of their "own supper".
The verse sets no gap between one Supper and the next.
At the institution of the Supper, the Lord Himself made no restrictions... He laid down nothing about how often to take part. Later He gave a special revelation to the apostle to the Gentiles, and even there He did not fix the gap between one feast of remembrance and the next. His silence on this point tells us with the greatest certainty that He has left it to the love and faithfulness of our hearts.
- Blood — the covenant Jeremiah promised needed a sacrifice, and the Lord said the sacrifice would be His own.
- Cup — the wine stands for that blood, poured out and separate from the body; it sets a death before us, not a living Christ.
- Covenant — its terms are grace, forgiveness, and sins remembered no more, and the cup pledges that its foundation is already laid.
- Reach — the covenant itself still awaits Israel, yet its first blessings are ours now through the blood of Christ.
- Remembrance — the Lord repeats it over the cup and points to Himself: never keep the form and forget Him, and keep it as often as love decides.
For as often as ye shall eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye announce the death of the Lord, until he come.
One simple act holds the church's whole life between the cross and the return of Christ: eating bread and drinking a cup. Paul's comment on it raises three questions. What does the act announce? Who hears it? How long does it last?
Two ordinary words stand together here. One writer will not hurry past them:
You could not find two words that mean so much when put together: the death of the Lord. How much is held in this — that He who is called the Lord had died! What love! what purposes! what efficacy! what results!
Those results reach both ways — back to blessings made sure, and forward to a Lord who kept every right through death:
"The Lord's death." Such words invite meditation; they take us back to the past. "Till He come." This carries us on in thought to the future... The Lord had died, but the Lord will return; and He has lost none of His rights by death... by it all our blessings for eternity have been purchased, and are put beyond the reach of uncertainty.
The supper sets before us a death already finished. One writer presses this against any idea that the sacrifice is repeated:
Note well that it is not even a dying Christ, but a dead Christ. Many wrongly teach that His sacrifice is repeated again and again. That is not so. He is a dead Christ: "for by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified" (Heb. 10:14).
Yet the One remembered is not the One we now deal with:
We remember what is not present, never what is. And what we remember is in the past... Clearly the Lord's death is not a present thing, but past: "death no longer has dominion over him." We remember a dead Lord. But the Lord we deal with now is living.
The announcement belongs to the gathered company, not to one person speaking. So no one at the table is a spectator:
Whenever the children of God take the Supper as the Lord set it up, they announce together the central truth of Christianity — "the Lord's death until He comes."... The death of the Lord is remembered there. The believers announce His death every time they take the Supper. It is true of those whose voice is not heard in the assembly, yes, even if some were unable to speak.
A proclamation has hearers. One of them is the world outside, and the message is not comfortable for it:
Showing the Lord's death until He comes is not only a memorial; it is a testimony to the world that they crucified the Lord. The church at the Lord's supper publicly witnesses to the world's sin and its condemnation... For it is no less a witness of the patience of God as of the world's sin. So long as the church remains here, the forgiveness of sins through His blood is preached.
Preaching is not the only testimony to that death:
The Gospel proclaims His death and its wonderful results, whereas His Supper furnishes the lasting and standing witness to its reality.
The phrase sets the supper between two events and settles the question of whether it has expired:
The central event in God's history of the world is the death of Christ upon the cross... The next great event is the Lord's second coming. The Lord's supper connects the two, standing between the past event and the future one... The Lord has not yet come, so those who neglect the supper are without legitimate excuse.
The end point is not our death but His arrival. That makes the hope a shared one:
As regards the Lord's supper, it is said, "you proclaim the Lord's death [not, till death, but] until he comes," 1 Cor. 11:26. There is the basis of our common hope — the death of Christ. We go on showing this until He comes again to receive us to Himself. If I think of death, of my going to be with Christ, I am thinking about myself. I shall be happy, but that is not the whole church glorified.
The Lord fixed the end point but not the rhythm. Writers take that silence as trust:
His silence on this point tells us with full certainty that He has left this to the love and faithfulness of our hearts. We answer His own expressed desire by eating bread and drinking wine as often as circumstances allow... In Jerusalem at the first the saints were able to break bread at home daily. In Troas the custom was to gather for that purpose on the first day of the week.
- Announce — the supper is not silent remembering. The whole company declares a death, and every believer at the table shares in it, even without speaking.
- A dead Lord — we remember a finished death, not a repeated sacrifice. The One who died is the One who now lives.
- To the world — the supper witnesses to the world's guilt in crucifying Him. It also witnesses to God's patience, while forgiveness is still preached.
- Until He comes — the end point is His return, not our death. So the hope belongs to the whole church, not to me alone.
- As often as — He set no interval. He left the frequency to our love, and the supper ends only when He comes.
So that whosoever shall eat the bread, or drink the cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty in respect of the body and of the blood of the Lord.
Paul gives this warning right after retelling how the Lord set up the supper. It lands on a church whose gatherings had turned disorderly. Older translations say "unworthily," and that word has frightened many readers away from the table. Does it describe the person coming, or the way they come?
The warning falls on conduct, not on the character of the one eating. Many readers have taken it the other way.
Paul condemns the way in which the supper was observed. Some people have misunderstood this text and have needlessly stayed away from the Lord's supper for years. They say, "I am not worthy to go; it says in the Bible I ought not to go." But they have not read the passage carefully. The verse does not speak about unworthy persons eating. It speaks about the unworthy way in which some people ate.
If personal fitness were the test, the table would stand empty.
If eating the Supper depended on personal worthiness, no one on earth could take part. No one is worthy in himself to share in the Lord's Supper. We are only worthy in this sense: Christ has taken us in our lost condition and cleansed us by His blood. That fitted us for His presence and gave us the right to take part in the Supper. This right is the result of what He has done for us, and not of any personal worthiness.
Why does careless handling of the bread and the cup count as guilt against Christ Himself?
Suppose someone threw dirt at my mother's picture, or treated it with contempt. He would be guilty in my eyes, not of disrespect to a mere painting, but to my mother, and I would greatly resent it. Now some in the church at Corinth were doing something like that. They were treating the Lord's Supper as a common meal, or worse. They did not recognise its sacred character. It was sacred for two reasons: because of what it represented, and because the Lord Himself set it up as a remembrance of Himself in death.
The problem at Corinth was not who came to the table, but how they came.
It is not a question of allowing unworthy persons to take part. Low as the Corinthians had sunk, they had not fallen that far. But they were in danger of reducing its observance to a form for themselves. They were in danger of taking part in the supper without exercise of soul — either about their own ways, or about the unspeakable love of the One who was reminding them of His death for them... To eat or drink it as an ordinary meal, or a common thing, without reflection or self-judgment, is to eat and drink "unworthily." And it is worse when a Christian does it. Of all men he should feel most what he owes the Lord.
A believer can fail the same way today, taking the Supper while going on in sin he will not judge.
It would show that he did not discern the Lord's body. He did not see in the death of the Lord the judgment of the evil he was committing, or the love that led the Lord to bear that judgment — though by eating the Supper he claimed to see both.
One writer weighs the Greek word for judgment, which older translations turned into "damnation."
The supper, then, was no common meal. To take part in it unworthily was no light matter. Whoever did so was guilty of the body and blood of the Lord — that is, liable to judgment because of the slight put on Him. Such a person ate and drank judgment to himself — judgment (krima), not damnation (katakrima). He did not discern the Lord's body, that is, what the bread stood for... Yet there was grace in the Lord's dealing with them. He dealt with them this way because they were true Christians, so that they would not be condemned with the world.
Paul's remedy is self-examination. Where is it meant to lead?
The Lord would have His own to come, but not with carelessness of spirit or levity... Still He invites all, even while He urges the testing of our ways. Self-judgment is with a view to coming, not to staying away.
Another writer wrote this to a reader who felt unfit to come.
The word says, "Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat." It does not say, "Let him absent himself." It is unjudged evil that affects the assembly. A person who habitually judges himself will never prove a hindrance to the assembly.
- Manner — The warning is not about unworthy people. It is about an unworthy way of eating: treating the memorial as a common meal, with no self-judgment.
- Memorial — The bread and cup stand for His body and blood. Contempt shown to them is contempt shown to Him, as dirt thrown at a portrait insults the person.
- Merit — No one qualifies by personal worthiness. The right to come rests on Christ, who cleansed us by His blood.
- Measure — The outcome is judgment, not damnation. The Lord chastens His own so they will not be condemned with the world.
- Move — Self-examination should bring you to the table, not keep you away. Paul tells the believer to examine himself and then eat.
But let a man prove himself, and thus eat of the bread, and drink of the cup.
Paul has just warned against taking the bread and the cup carelessly. Now he gives the remedy. It raises two questions Christians still ask. What am I looking for when I examine myself? And what should I do with what I find?
Paul is not asking you to hunt for proof that you belong to Christ. He is asking about the spirit in which you come to the table.
"Let a person examine himself," not to see whether he is a Christian, as some say. We should be sure of our salvation. But even then the Lord means us to search our hearts seriously and to question our souls every time, so that we see in what spirit and state we come to the Lord's Supper.
Notice what Paul does not offer as the outcome of the test: a straight choice between eating and staying away.
1 Corinthians 11 is not about the basic question of whether we take part. It is about the way we take part. After examining himself, a person is not left choosing between eating and staying away. The verse says, "and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup" (v. 28). The person in view is a believer who should, and indeed must, examine himself closely. Can he eat in a worthy manner? Or are there things in his walk that he must put right?
The little word "so" ties the two halves together. The believer tests himself and then comes. His right to come never rested on his own record.
Each one is to put himself to the test, and so eat and drink. The Lord wants His own to come, but not carelessly or lightly... He still invites everyone, even as He presses us to examine our ways. Self-judgment aims at coming, not at staying away. For these are people whom grace counts worthy. Whatever their past, whatever their own unworthiness, they have been washed, sanctified and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.
Some avoid the exercise because they expect it to disqualify them. The verse answers that fear directly.
But some may say: I dare not examine myself. If I did, I would find such shocking things that I could not go to the Lord's table, because I would find myself so unfit. That is not what we find here... When self-examination puts us in the searching light of God's most holy presence, we will uncover much that we grieve over before the Lord. But should we stay away from His supper because of that? Certainly not. We judge ourselves, we condemn in His sight everything we have found that is against His mind, and then we eat. And so these precious words follow: "But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged" (v. 31).
Others stay away because of someone else's failure. That reasoning collapses on inspection:
Another person's fault should not keep me away. If it is a good reason for one person to stay away, it ought to stop everyone. Is the Lord to be forgotten because somebody deserves blame? Deal with the person at fault as Scripture directs, by rebuke or otherwise. But my place is to "do this in remembrance of Christ."
The examining is preparation. It is not something to do while the bread goes round.
This does not mean that while I sit at the Lord's table I should look into my own heart. That would be a poor, miserable occupation. I can do that at home. A person ought to examine or test himself. That means judging himself over what he has done and what he is capable of doing. We may be so pleased with ourselves that we forget how easily we go wrong without God's grace.
Paul says examine himself — the person, not just a list of failures.
Remember this. The Table is spread on the ground of finished redemption, but we are to gather round it in the power of personal holiness. Personal holiness does not save us, but we are saved to it — as Christians, grace gives us the right to take part, yet we must examine and judge not merely our ways, but ourselves. Christ was judged for our sins on the cross, and we are urged to judge ourselves, and then proclaim His death. We believe this holy work of self-judgment is deep, earnest and habitual. It is not a formal, wordy confession of the lips on Sunday morning, covering the sins and follies of the past week, soon followed by the sins and follies of the next.
- Examine — the question. Not "am I a Christian?" but "in what spirit and state am I coming?"
- Examine — the depth. Judge yourself, not just your ways. Make it a habit, not a Sunday-morning formality.
- Examine — the place. Do it at home beforehand; the table is for remembering Him, not for staring inward.
- And so eat — the direction. The verse never offers "examine and stay away." Self-judgment aims at coming.
- And so eat — the ground. You are fit because you have been washed, sanctified and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus. Neither your own faults nor another's cancel the invitation.
For [the] eater and drinker eats and drinks judgment to himself, not distinguishing the body.
In the verse before, Paul warns that eating or drinking in an unworthy way makes a person guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Here he names that unworthiness — a failure to discern the body — and that raises two questions: what judgment does he mean, and what is the "body"?
Older English versions translated the word here as "damnation." That one choice has frightened believers away from the table for generations. Commentators say plainly that the word means something else.
The translators have brought in a word and an idea of their own, and it is plainly wrong. They dared to say that "the one who eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks damnation to himself." It is not true. God says, "he eats and drinks judgment to himself."
The "body" here is not the church. It is what the bread stands for: the Lord's own body given in death. To discern it is to tell this meal apart from any other.
"Discerning the body" has no reference to grasping the church's unity or nature. It means only distinguishing between an ordinary meal and that supper which brings before us the body of Christ given for us. It is the memorial of His death that the apostle presses here, not our union with Him. Not to discern the (Lord's) body is to treat this supper as a common thing.
Discerning is not a mental exercise about symbols. It is faith feeding on a Person.
I discern then the body of the Lord — but the body of the Lord given, His blood shed, His death! It is not an ordinary meal, or a simple act of remembrance, if you like. It is an institution Christ has given to His own. They are not meant to find in the elements anything other than the bread and the fruit of the vine. But their faith may feed on Jesus in the sweetest way, by the power of the Holy Spirit — on what He has been for them when He died on the cross.
Many read this verse as a test of personal fitness and conclude they are disqualified.
People usually apply the word "unworthily" here to the persons doing the act, when it refers to the way the act is done. The apostle never doubted that the Corinthians were Christians. He looked on them as saints, and as saints he urged them to keep the Lord's Supper in a worthy manner. He never raises the question of anyone but true Christians being there.
The remedy Paul gives is to examine yourself and then eat.
This does not mean that when I am sitting at the Lord's table I am to look into my own heart, which would be a poor, wretched occupation. I can do that at home. A person ought to examine or prove himself. It means judging himself about what he has done and what he is capable of doing… So, "let a person examine himself" — and not stay away, but come and eat of this bread and drink of this cup.
Careless remembering on Sunday grows out of what filled the heart during the week.
What we are during the week we will be while at the Lord's table. What our heart has been occupied with throughout the past six days it will also be occupied with on the first day of the week while at His table. If we have been careless and indifferent toward the Lord during the week, we are bound to be careless and indifferent toward Him at His table. We will fail to discern His body and His blood in the true sense in the emblems of the Supper. So we will eat and drink judgment to ourselves.
At Corinth this judgment had already begun.
There were many weak and sick among them, and a good many had died. So the judgment of the Lord had to be on them — not because they were not His own, but because they were. As the apostle says, when we are judged in this way we are disciplined by the Lord, so that we may not be condemned along with the world. He draws the sharpest line between this present judgment and the judgment to come. Yet this present judgment is a most serious and awful thing. Love inflicts it — a love which, because it is holy and because it is love, must inflict what is painful to inflict.
- Judgment. The word is judgment, not damnation. It is the Lord dealing with His own now, not the sentence that falls on the world.
- Discern. To discern the body is to tell this bread apart from common food, seeing in it the Lord's body given in death.
- Manner. The unworthiness lies in how a believer eats, not in whether he is good enough to eat.
- Examine. Judge yourself first, and the Lord need not judge you. This test sends you to the table, not away from it.
- Chastening. Where self-judgment is missing, love steps in to correct, so that His people are not condemned with the world.
On this account many among you [are] weak and infirm, and a good many are fallen asleep.
Paul has just described a Lord's Supper at Corinth taken in an unworthy manner. Now he points to the result sitting in front of the church: weakness, illness and death. The verse raises a hard question. Can God lay His hand on His own children over the way they come to His table?
Paul's link is not vague. He traces the sickness back to one failure at the table: treating the memorial as an ordinary meal.
Suppose the true and holy aim of the Lord's supper is treated lightly. Suppose the one taking part does not discern the body — that is, he does not tell the difference between the memorial of Christ and an ordinary meal. Here the Spirit teaches us that such a person eats and drinks judgment as a present thing. He brings on himself the chastening hand of the Lord, in defence of His honour and His love. If people saw the evil at work inside them, they would avoid not only its outbreak in their conduct, but His chastening too.
One principle stands behind the verse. God rules His own household now, and He deals with what goes on in it.
Many had become sick and weak, and many had fallen asleep, that is, had died. The issue is not whether a person is worthy to take part, but that he takes part in an unworthy way. Every Christian was worthy to take part simply because he was a Christian, unless some sin had shut him out. But a Christian might come to it without judging himself... It is the government of God in the hands of the Lord who judges His own house: an important and too much forgotten truth.
Some have argued that the weak and sick people here were not the ones under discipline. One writer answers that claim.
These persons had failed to judge themselves, failed to discern the Lord's body in the broken bread. They had eaten in an unworthy manner, though they were true Christians. So God, ruling His own house, had to chasten them with sickness, even to death. That way they would not be condemned with the world... surely no father would think of chastening a good child for the sin of a bad one.
Paul's choice of word matters. He does not say these people perished; he says they fell asleep — and that word carries its own verdict about where they went.
The word "sleep" is used of death only when a believer is meant. The whole passage tells us that those who were put to sleep in Jesus were believers. The point was this: they were taken to heaven because they were accepted. They were taken from earth because they were NOT acceptable.
A question naturally follows. Is there one particular sin behind these deaths?
Sometimes perplexed souls ask, "What is the particular sin that leads to death?" No particular sin at all. Two believers may go wrong in the same way. Yet the Lord weighs all the circumstances. He may lay one on a sick bed and take the other out of the world. There is no question of the salvation of the soul in these dealings; it is divine chastening.
This verse must not become a rule for reading every sickbed. Scripture shows God using affliction for more than one purpose.
In the light of the New Testament, chastening may be sent for retribution, as we see in 1 Corinthians 11:30. But it may not be. Look at Paul's case — 2 Corinthians 12:7. There the thorn in the flesh was preventive, to keep him from becoming proud and falling. Yet again, it may be neither retributive nor preventive but educational, as Hebrews 12 shows.
- Cause. One thing lay behind the weakness, illness and deaths at Corinth. Believers took the memorial of Christ as an ordinary meal, without judging themselves.
- Hand. What follows is not vengeance. It is God's government of His own house, the Lord judging His household now — a truth writers call important and too easily forgotten.
- Home. "Sleep" is the word used only of believers. They were accepted in Christ, so they went to heaven. The Lord took them from earth because their lives were not acceptable.
- Escape. The chastening aims at rescue, not ruin. It falls on real Christians so they will not be condemned with the world. Judging yourself is the way to avoid it.
- Caution. Not every sickness is a rebuke. Suffering may correct, prevent, or teach — and the Lord may answer the same failure in two believers in two ways.
But if we judged ourselves, so were we not judged.
Many in Corinth were weak, ill, and dying, and Paul traced it to coming to the Lord's Supper without discerning the Lord's body. Verse 31 gives the way out: a judgment we can carry out on ourselves that makes the Lord's judgment unnecessary.
The verb Paul uses is not the ordinary word for passing sentence. It is the same word he used two verses earlier, for discerning the Lord's body.
To "judge" oneself is not the same word as to be "judged" by the Lord. It is the same word used in 1 Corinthians 11:29, "discerning the Lord's body." So our task is not only to judge an evil we have committed. It is to discern our condition, as the light shows it up — and God Himself is in the light — while we walk in that light. This prevents our falling into evil in act or in thought.
A person can admit a wrong act and still leave untouched the state of heart that produced it. That is why the same failure returns.
To judge the open sin is easy. It gives me no assurance at all that I will avoid it in future, and no sign in itself of recovered spirituality. "But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged." To judge our sins and to judge ourselves are two different things. To judge ourselves, we must have distinguished and judged the state that the sins only come out of. That state is the root. Leave it in place, and fresh fruit will surely grow.
Another writer describes what Christian judging actually looks for.
We never get right by only judging this or that outbreak; we should always search out the cause... Judging ourselves does not mean pronouncing judgment on one particular fault. It means judging the real cause, and not just the occasions. That is the Christian way of judging. It does not deal with the surface, but with what lies underneath: the roots we can hardly see behind the acts that anyone can see.
The "judged" of this verse is not hell. It is the Lord's present hand on His own, and He has a purpose in it.
If they discerned the evil at work inside them, they would avoid not only its outward appearance, but His chastening too. If they fail to judge themselves, He does not fail in watchful care, and He deals with them. Even that judgment flows from His love. It takes the shape of chastening, so that they may not perish in the condemnation still to fall on the guilty world. The Lord's express aim in sending these bodily sufferings now is that His failing saints may escape damnation.
Self-examination here is not a check on whether you belong to God.
The people of Israel were not examining themselves to see whether they were Israelites, since that was their birth condition. Nor do we examine ourselves to discover whether we are children of God. That was settled forever when we were born of God by faith in Christ Jesus. But an Israelite who had touched something defiling carried uncleanness on him. He had to be cleansed from it and made clean before he ate of the peace offering. In the same way, we have to be clean when we come to the Lord's table.
Self-judgment goes wrong the moment it becomes a comparison with other people.
First of all, we should judge ourselves. Self-judgment is not comparing ourselves with even the most godly believer we know. It is comparing ourselves with Christ. And if we really do that, we will have no wish to judge where we should not.
The practice leaves a visible mark, and so does its absence.
In our experience, Christians who are hard on their fellow Christians are the ones who do not judge themselves in their own lives. Those who are tender and gracious, and yet faithful, are the ones who truly judge themselves in God's presence.
- Discern — the word behind "judge ourselves" is the word for discerning the Lord's body. It means seeing our own condition in the light, not just admitting a fault.
- Deeper — judging sins and judging self are two different things. Leave the root state in place, and the same fruit grows again.
- Escape — seeing the evil inside spares us the outward failure. It also spares us the Lord's chastening hand, which fell on Corinth in weakness, sickness and death.
- Love — refuse this, and what comes is still not condemnation but the Lord's chastening. Its aim is that we do not share the world's condemnation.
- Measure — the standard is Christ, not the godliest person we know. Those who use it on themselves turn out to be the gentlest with everyone else.
But being judged, we are disciplined of [the] Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world.
Sickness and even death had come among the Corinthians because they treated the Lord's supper carelessly. This verse explains what that severe dealing meant — and what it did not mean.
At Corinth a holy remembrance had become an ordinary, self-indulgent meal. Where these writers say "chastened," the ESV says "disciplined."
They took the Lord's supper as if it were a common meal, and the poor had not enough to eat, while the rich indulged in gluttony and wine. As a result many were sick and even "slept," that is, died. But all this was present chastening in this world. Paul says, "But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world." God chastened the Corinthians for their faults, but did not condemn them with the world as unbelievers.
Paul uses two different words here, and the difference is everything. Older English versions rendered the first one, in verse 29, as "damnation."
In 1 Corinthians 11:27-32 we learn the security of grace on one side, and on the other the Lord's dealing with the inconsistent ways of those who are His. Even godly men, despite their ability and learning, have missed this truth. Their ignorance shows in the mistranslation of a word that is all-important for the true sense. It is not "damnation" but "judgment" in verse 29, expressly contrasted with "condemnation" in verse 32. The Lord was then judging the faulty state and walk of the Corinthian believers by sickness and even death. His purpose was that they should not be condemned along with the world, because they were His and were to be kept from "damnation." He judged them in this present, earthly way for the blessing of their souls.
So what should we call God's hand when it falls on His own child?
We do not like the term "punishment" as applied to the dealings of our loving Father. There is nothing penal, in the strict sense of the word, even in His wise and faithful correction. Christ our blessed Substitute exhausted on our behalf all that was penal. God chastens His children to make them partakers of His holiness, as we learn in Hebrews 12. The Father also judges His house, as we read in 1 Peter 4:17. So sickness and death came on many at Corinth for their disorderly conduct at the Lord's table — but so they might "not be condemned along with the world."
If a believer's place in heaven is settled, why would God take him out of the world?
1 Corinthians 11:32 is a beautiful verse. It means that God is determined to preserve His grace to us. His government will not shrink from taking a believer off this earth, through judgment, if need be. Through the work of Christ, the believer is always fit for heaven. But through his own bad conduct as a Christian, he may not be fit for earth. If we judge ourselves, God will not judge us. But if we refuse to judge ourselves, God will chasten us, so that we may answer to practical sanctification.
Another writer pictures this care as a shepherd going after straying sheep.
If God has a people, He will not only save them, but will also make them partakers of His holiness. Sheep carelessly tended stray, and must be sought... He deals with us according to our state, but on the basis of His own effectual work of redemption. We are not of the world, because His death and resurrection delivered us from it. If we conform to it, or seek its things too eagerly, He will treat us now according to our ways... Meanwhile the world is already under condemnation. God leaves it to run on in its evil course until the measure of its wrongdoing is full.
Self-judgment is the way out. But how should a Christian read his own sickness and trouble?
I do not doubt that much of the sickness and trouble Christians face is chastening sent by God. It comes because of things that are evil in His sight — things the conscience ought to have noticed but neglected. So God has to produce in us the effect that self-judgment ought to have produced before Him. It would, however, be untrue to suppose that all afflictions are chastenings. Though they are so sometimes, they are not always sent because of sin.
- Cause. Careless conduct at the Lord's table brought sickness and death on believers at Corinth. It was God's dealing with them here and now, not a verdict on their souls.
- Contrast. "Judged" and "condemned" are two different words. The old rendering "damnation" in verse 29 destroys the sense Paul is drawing.
- Character. No penalty is left for the believer, because Christ exhausted it. What is left is a Father's correction, aimed at holiness.
- Care. The Shepherd deals with us according to our state, but on the basis of His finished redemption. He will even take a believer off the earth, so that he is not condemned along with the world.
- Cure. Self-judgment heads off the rod. But not every trouble is chastening, so do not read sin behind every trial.
So that, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, wait for one another.
The meetings at Corinth had become so disorderly that what they called the Lord's Supper was no longer that at all. This verse is Paul's practical conclusion, and it comes down to one command: wait for each other.
What Paul corrects is a meal that had drifted into a private free-for-all, with the poor left out of it.
When they came together, they claimed it was to eat the Lord's Supper. In practice it was to enjoy a feast of their own. The Apostle says, "Each one in eating takes his own supper." ... At this earlier feast they let the poor go hungry, while some drank to excess. But apart from these excesses, the assembly was no place for social feasting. "Have you not houses to eat and to drink in?" the Apostle asks. Or were they putting the poor to shame, and despising the assembly of God, which includes rich and poor?
This is not a stray rule of good manners. It gathers up everything Paul has said since verse 20 and turns it into one action.
To work out the force of this exhortation you must pay attention to the connection. It refers back to verse 21. There the apostle describes the abuses that had crept into the Corinthian assembly in connection with the Lord's Supper. Some had gone so far as to eat their "own supper" by themselves. This, he plainly tells them, was not to eat the Lord's Supper (v. 20)... They lost all sense of unity and fellowship in their own selfish practices and pleasures... The next verse (33rd) gives the conclusion: wait for one another, and do not go on eating one before another as you have been doing. Let there be unity, so that all may eat together in remembrance of the Lord.
Why wait at all? The answer is in what the waiting shows: that those who eat are one.
The sin at Corinth was their not waiting one for another. This is clear from the words the apostle uses to sum up the whole question (1 Cor. 11): "So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another." Why were they to wait for one another? Surely, so that they might express their unity more clearly.
The command reaches further than the clock. It shapes how believers treat each other when they meet.
And we have to consider each other too in this connection. We read, "So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another." That does not only mean waiting until everyone can be present. There is much more in it than that. It means we are to be marked by consideration, forbearance, love and grace. In fact, the way the Lord has treated us is the way we are to treat each other... Wait for one another when you come together. By mutual forbearance and sympathy and love and grace, be to each other what the Lord has been to you.
One writer carries the words past the meal itself. The same self-centred haste can show in how each person takes part when the church gathers.
In the body of Christ each one is only a member. If the Corinthians had recognised and taken this in, the one who had a supper would have waited for those who had none, and shared it with them. In the same way, my soul may take in this precious unity of the body, and my own humble place in it as one member. Then I will not be in such haste to act in the assembly that I stop others from acting... "Wait for one another" will surely apply to this as well as to the breaking of bread.
The next verse draws a line: a plain appetite has its place, and that place is not the gathering. And one person's self-indulgence does not stop with him.
The apostle closes his serious rebuke and instruction by urging them to wait for each other when they come together to eat. In this way self would be judged, and love would be at work. "If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, so that you may not come together for judgment." When one person indulges the flesh, it stirs up the flesh in another. The Lord must then judge more than the one who first dishonoured Him.
- Cause. Each Corinthian took his own supper first, so the poor went hungry — the meal was theirs, not the Lord's.
- Correction. "So then" ties the command to everything before it. Self-judgment must show in how you treat the believer beside you.
- Content. Waiting is more than delaying the start. It is consideration, forbearance, love and grace — treating others as the Lord has treated you.
- Consequence. Waiting shows the unity of the one body. Rushing ahead denies it.
- Reach. The same deference covers the whole gathering, not only the bread and cup. If you are hungry, eat at home.
If any one be hungry, let him eat at home, that ye may not come together for judgment. But the other things, whenever I come, I will set in order.
Paul closes his correction of the Lord's Supper at Corinth with two instructions and one promise. Behind the simple wording lie real questions. What was a shared meal doing in their meeting? What does "judgment" mean here? And why would an inspired letter leave some matters unwritten on purpose?
The trouble started with a custom that was good in itself. Their common meal had become tangled up with the Lord's Supper.
The love-feast (or Agape) was a meal which the early Christians shared together. Its aim was to build social fellowship among people who are strangers and pilgrims here. They are called to suffer on earth and to spend eternity together in glory with the Lord. The Corinthians, however, had lost the sense that Christians are strangers in this world. In their zeal for favourite teachers they had let the world's rivalry between schools into the church. In the same way they degraded even the love-feast by keeping class distinctions. The rich feasted on the food they had brought, and made those who had nothing to give feel their poverty sharply.
This was no temporary patch. It settled the matter for good.
The Lord led the apostle to do two things. First, to explain that His hand had been dealing with some in sickness, and others in death or falling asleep. Second, to separate the Lord's Supper from any such feast in future.
Sending the hungry home is not a snub to the body's needs. It marks off what the gathering is for.
The supper was a memorial of Him in His death, but it was a memorial of Him, the living One. It sent their hearts back to Calvary, but He was present; this was the point. They had houses to eat and drink in, if it was a question of satisfying hunger and thirst; let them eat their necessary food at home. But at the Supper the Lord was there, while His death and the manner of His death filled their hearts.
The command follows the call to wait for one another, and the two work together.
We are to depend on the Lord in a way that makes the saints depend on each other too. That is true consideration for one another. We must be careful not to push ourselves forward, and equally careful not to leave all responsibility to others. If it was the physical appetite that needed satisfying, they were to satisfy it at home. Then merely selfish desires would not enter the sacred feast of the Lord.
The older English rendering "condemnation" has misled readers here. Commentators point out that the word is not the same as the eternal verdict spoken of two verses earlier.
"Condemned" is right in verse 32. But a man eats and drinks judgment, or fault, or crime, for it is the thing he is accused of to himself. "Condemnation" is not right in verse 34, where the older translation read, "that ye come not together unto condemnation." The sense is judgment, or fault. Our word "crime" comes from the Greek word. It means the judgment passed on someone, but people also use it for the fault itself.
One person's self-indulgence does not stay contained.
Self would in this way be judged, and love kept in active exercise... The indulgence of the flesh in one person provokes the flesh in another, and the Lord must then judge more than the one who first dishonoured Him.
The whole closing section offers a simple escape from the Lord's discipline.
The closing verses of the chapter give us an example of God's chastening in response to wrong done. God chastens His children so that they may not be judged with the world. If only we judged ourselves, we would escape the evil and would not need the hand of God on us. Let us note that! How excellent is the holy art of self-judgment, and how little we practise it.
The last line of the verse leaves some things for a later visit. That was on purpose.
The apostle did not say everything he might have said. "The rest I will arrange when I come." It would not have served the best interests of the assembly to lay everything down formally. The written word is the unerring standard. The Spirit in living power, not tradition, is its true supplement. We need the Holy Spirit as well as Scripture, and we have Him. But Scripture is the rule, not the Spirit — though we cannot use it rightly without Him. This keeps up practical dependence on God. He would not have us act, alone or together, without the clear light of His word. If we do not have that light, we ought to wait for it.
The size of the correction says something about the church that received it.
Among the Corinthians there was much disorder in their assembly life and gatherings, so that a long passage (1 Cor. 11:17–14:40) is taken up with corrective instruction, and even then the apostle has to say, "The rest will I set in order when I come."
- Cause — class distinction spoiled a shared meal that should have pictured fellowship, and dragged the Lord's Supper down with it.
- Correction — natural hunger belongs at home. Paul cut the common meal away from the Supper for good.
- Consideration — waiting for one another turns a gathering from self-service into interdependence.
- Clarification — "judgment" here is not the world's condemnation. It is the Lord dealing with His own, and self-judgment is the way to avoid it.
- Continuation — Paul left some matters unwritten on purpose. That keeps us depending on God, guided by Scripture and not by tradition.