April 5, 2012 Two Participations in the Supper: Judgment and Salvation
1 Corinthians 11:23-32 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 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.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment. When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world.
I. What is it?
Some people are experts at cooking and eating. When you start to talk about food, their eyes light up and they describe with great detail the texture of the food and the different ways that it was cooked and prepared. Drive-Ins, Diners and Dives is a TV show that goes into the under-belly of different restaurants across America and describes the way the food is prepared. That’s half the fun, seeing how the food is prepared. Just for the fun of it I tried to just drink fruit and vegetable juice for Lent. It lasted for a while, but when that show came on at about 10 o’clock at night, I finally gave in. The food looked so delicious I just couldn’t resist any more.
When we decide to eat somewhere we determine where we go based on what we’re hungry for and sometimes also based on whether we think it is good for us or not. Sometimes we throw caution to the wind and just eat what we want because it looks good and smells good. If we’re hungry enough and something smells good enough we’ll eat almost anything. Afterwards we then feel disgusting after having indulged a bit.
An odd and completely different approach is taken to the food and drink of the Lord's Supper. Instead of making a determination on whether the food and drink is good for us, we need to make a determination on whether we are worthy of eating the food and drink! It is such a completely different concept to even imagine. We figure, “If I killed it, I grew it, or I paid for it; then I can eat it. It’s my body. I can eat what I want.” The very nature of eating and drinking something and using it for our pleasure or our sustenance seems to come with the understanding that we are more important than it.
How can we even find such a mentality of whether we are “worthy of the food” to compare to today? Perhaps in the PETA activist who feels such strong compassion for the animal that he refuses to eat a hamburger. Many feel the animal is equal to the human, so they refuse to eat meat. Or perhaps you might compare this to when you go to an expensive restaurant and someone buys you a dish that is very expensive. You take your time with it and hesitantly eat it because it cost so much money.
Scripturally, you might look back to the example of the women in Samaria who were starving to death from an invasion. Two women made an agreement to kill and cook their sons. (2 Kings 6) After they ate the one woman’s son, the next day other woman decided not to kill her son (which tells me they must have been infants if the food from the first son only lasted a day). The women originally thought that their lives were more important than their children’s lives, so they decided to sacrifice them. Did they chew tentatively and regretfully as they ate the one son? Nonetheless, they had the power to kill their children, and one of the women did for her own survival.
The fact of the matter is that we really can’t find any comparison because in the Lord's Supper we receive the body and blood of Jesus. It is different than any other meal or exotic animal or even a human infant, because it is the body and blood of God made flesh. God didn’t just prepare it by slaughtering a lamb and cooking it on a spigot. He slaughtered His Son and put Him on a cross! This meal contains something more expensive than the rarest animal in the world; this is the body and blood of the One and Only God. It is both rare and yet plentiful. It is not like eating a dead hamburger of a cow having been fried in a pan. It is the living body and blood of the resurrected Christ that has not only been crucified but has also been raised from the dead. It has to be. Were it not, there would be no cautions in what we ate and drank. It has to be something more precious than us for us to consider whether WE are worthy to eat and drink it.
II. What is unworthy eating?
The Corinthians seemed to forget this very concept of the Lord's Supper. Just earlier in the chapter Paul wrote,
18 In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it. . . 20 When you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat, 21 for as you eat, each of you goes ahead without waiting for anybody else. One remains hungry, another gets drunk. 22 Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you for this? Certainly not!
Earlier in the chapter Paul also chastised them by saying,
1 Corinthians 4:7 For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?
According to some historians the church would have a type of agape meal prior to the Lord's Supper, where they would depend on the generosity of the richer members to provide for the poorer members. It is said that many early Christians were slaves and soldiers. Somehow and in some way their church gatherings degraded into a social clique, where the richer and more well-to-do members were able to keep the poorer members from eating or being fed while they had too much to eat and drink. Imagine if some of the richer Christians even had slaves of their own at the time, as Philemon was a slave owner of Onesimus. It would have been hard for them to put aside their distinct social status at worship time, and that was what happened; so that the richer were leaving the poor outside of their fellowship. They were judging themselves to be better than the other Christians.
There are always distinctions in life. People will always have distinct skills that earn more money than others and cause some to have more prestige and honor in one society over another. God’s Word even makes distinctions in who can serve as pastors due to ability and other considerations. It’s the way life is. Whenever we try to equal things out it never seems to work as planned. God’s solution is not to try and equal everything out, but to make the most with what God has given you, learning to be content no matter what the circumstances, rejoicing with those who rejoice and mourning with those who mourn; and to willingly share with those in need.
The neat thing about the Gospel of Christ is that in spite of these differences it still equalizes us in God’s sight. Both in the letter to the Galatians and in the letter to the Colossians Paul said the same thing. Galatians 3:26-28 says, “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” When we are baptized into Christ, we are covered with Christ from head to toe. It makes slaves and free, rich and poor, young and old all look the same under the same body and blood of Christ. None of us can look down on the other or judge another believer as less important when we all realize that we are all sinners who stand under the same grace of Jesus Christ. When we take the Lord’s Supper, we all come before Him as sinners who need the same forgiveness from the same Person at the same time. Even when it comes to our positions in life, we really have no right to be snobbish when we realize that even our temporary gifts are also gifts from God.
But the Corinthians were being snobbish and unloving. They were approaching the Lord's Supper from a position of arrogance. So Paul wrote,
A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment. When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world.
The Corinthians that were taking the Lord's Supper with an almost arrogant attitude. It was as if they forgot that they were receiving the Lord's Supper for their own forgiveness and that they were also receiving the very body and blood of the Holy and Risen Christ!
Luther commented: The Greek word, diakrinein, in Latin, discernere, means to make a distinction, and not to think of one thing like the other, but to consider the one thing nobler, better, more precious than the other. St. Paul means that whoever eats and drinks unworthily, fittingly deserves judgment or severe punishment, because with his unworthy eating and drinking he does not distinguish, does not discern, the body of Christ, but thinks of and treats the bread and wine of the Lord as if it were merely bread and wine, though it is the body and blood of the Lord. For if he seriously thought of it as the body of the Lord, he would not act so carelessly, as if it were ordinary bread, but would eat with fear, humility, and reverence. He ought of course have a sense of awe before the body of the Lord.
Think about it. The Lord's Supper was supposed to be the place where the Christians within the Christian congregation could know and believe that they were forgiven. They weren’t worthless; not in God’s sight. They were loved. They were equal in God’s sight. Think about how much this would mean to those who were slaves; who had nothing else to seemingly live for. Even when they returned to their slavery; for one night; for one Supper; the body and blood of Christ would have said to them; equally forgiven and equally loved. But the well-to-do Corinthians were shutting those desperate for forgiveness and love out. They were telling them they were not equal. They were not worthy of their love. They did not deserve Jesus’ forgiveness.
Worse yet, nobody called them to repentance over it. This pride and distinction was a common thing at their supper. They weren’t judging each other over their own proud and snobbish attitudes. They were doing this while receiving the body and blood of the Lord, acting as if they were completely worthy of such a meal.
Imagine two pigs eating at a trough, one pig leaning to the other pig; snout full of food and snot and saying, “Get a load of that pig over there! Get him out of our trough!” That’s what in effect was happening when the Corinthians were not allowing some to the Supper over social status. It is no wonder that God allowed sickness and death to happen within the Corinthian congregation. He wanted the Corinthians to wake up to the sinful arrogance that was happening within their congregation, so they all realized that they were to eat as beggars at the trough of Christ. They were taking of a covenant of forgiveness which they were in fact rejecting by their own behavior.
So Paul said, Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. Here’s an ironic thing. Paul says “don’t eat unworthily.” But the only way that we eat worthily is if we realize and understand how unworthy we are to receive such a holy thing in our mouths. An unworthy person takes the Lord's Supper without thinking it is a privilege and an honor and a wonderful gift to have the body and blood of the Lord enter us.
III. What is worthy eating?
Jesus was very clear in instructing Paul about His Supper; the words are exactly the same as what He used on the night of His betrayal. He wanted there to be no mistakes, for in this Supper He was giving a covenant of His love and forgiveness, and covenants need to be clear; especially with life and salvation on the line. Since Jesus was giving His last words prior to His resurrection, Jesus needed to make sure that His words would stand and couldn’t be refuted in any court of law. So He reiterated His words very clearly with Paul. Paul wrote,
The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 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.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
Within the bread and wine of the Supper Jesus promised that He would also give the same body and blood that He gave for the sins of the world. He said that with His blood He had established the new covenant; an oath from God Himself that our sins were paid for in full from the cross. With His new covenant He would make the unworthy worthy. The whole purpose of the Lord's Supper was to say to the sinner who needed forgiveness, “You have forgiveness in the body and blood of Jesus that was shed for you on the cross and given to you in this Supper.” The Supper was given to say to sinners, “You are unworthy, but Jesus body and blood is still for you. It is always for you. Jesus wants to come to you with all of His love and forgiveness. He wants to come to sinners who know they need His body and blood that was shed for them for their forgiveness. ”
This forgiveness has always been a serious thing with God, and it ought to be a serious thing with us. Here we are, sinful people, receiving the body and blood that Jesus shed for us; the body and blood of the risen Christ! Here we are; fellow sinners from all walks of life; begging for and receiving the very same forgiveness. When we come to Him with feelings of unworthiness, He encourages us to leave with feelings of forgiveness and love and worthiness in Christ; through His body and blood.
In the Old Testament God forbade the drinking of the blood of the animal, because the life was in the blood, which was being offered to God. Jesus’ blood was already offered to God on the cross. But His blood is no longer lying on the ground in Jerusalem. It is resurrected with His body. He now gives it to us as the resurrected Christ; not as an offering to us; but as His lifeblood; with the promise of forgiveness attached to it and in it and through it. Once shed and always shed, the blood goes on into eternity.
Do this in remembrance of me. Jesus always wanted the central focus of our faith to be on His death; for that is what paid for our life. We always remain sinners who all need God’s grace and mercy in Christ. Every one of us who have been instructed in the Word and who have confessed our faith in Christ together within this fellowship will come to the table together. We will put aside whatever differences we have and say to each other, “We are all sinners. We all need the same grace and forgiveness in Christ. We all need the same righteousness and salvation. Here we have it.” This is what we remember tonight.
A part of eating a meal and enjoying a meal often comes from knowing how the meal was cooked and prepared. It’s part of the story of the food that helps you to appreciate and enjoy it as it goes into your mouth. No meal has gone through more planning, work and preparation than the Lord's Supper. No meal has more unique ingredients than this. No meal has a more powerful promise than this. Nothing could be better for the sinner than this. God put His own Son’s body and blood into this Supper and He GIVES it to us to forgive us and give us eternity with it.
It is no wonder that such a meal with such wonderful ingredients could offer and threaten such different consequences; either eating to judgment or salvation. How will you receive it? Remain humble this night; and remember what this meal is for. It is for unworthy sinners who believe in Jesus as their worthy Savior; who recognize and believe what a holy gift this is from the crucified and risen Christ as He gives us His body and blood; in, with and under the bread and wine; for the forgiveness of their sins. Remember this and believe this and be blessed with salvation in Christ this night and unto eternity. Amen.
