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.