1 Corinthians 11:31

These verses close a section on the Lord’s Supper that runs through 1 Corinthians 11:17–34. The church met in homes, and a shared meal, often called the agape or love feast, went before the Supper or was joined to it. That meal had become a scene of division. Wealthier members came early and ate the food they had brought, some of them to excess and even to drunkenness, while poorer members, many of them slaves or labourers who arrived later from their work, found little or nothing left. Greek and Roman banquets commonly reflected rank, with patrons served first and best, and the Corinthians had carried that custom into the church. Paul says that in this they despised the church of God and shamed those who had nothing (1 Corinthians 11:17–22).

Over against their disorder Paul set what he had received from the Lord: how Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took the bread and the cup and spoke over them (1 Corinthians 11:23–26). Every time the church eats this bread and drinks this cup, it proclaims the Lord’s death until he comes. The warning follows from that. “Wherefore” in verse 27 is hṓste, a word meaning “therefore” or “so that”, which marks what follows as the result of what came before. Because the Supper shows forth the death of Christ, the way we come to it matters greatly.

The concern runs through the whole letter. Paul has already called the Corinthians to unity (1 Corinthians 1:10), and the rest of 1 Corinthians 11 and the chapters after it press the same point about worship, gifts and love.

Paul’s word anaxíōs means “unsuitably”, “improperly”, “in an unworthy manner”. It describes how a person eats and drinks. At Corinth the unworthy manner was there for all to see. The Lord’s Supper was eaten amid greed and drunkenness, its meaning forgotten, while poor believers sat hungry at the same table. To eat unworthily, then, is to come to the table irreverently, without discerning what the meal is, or with a divided heart that disregards the unity of the church.

Paul opens with “whosoever”, which joins the pronoun hós to the particle án and makes the clause general: anyone at all who eats in this way. The warning reaches every person who comes to the table.

Such a person “shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord”. The adjective énochos means liable to a penalty or answerable for a charge. The body (sōma) and blood (haîma) of the Lord (kýrios) stand for Christ’s death for us. His blood is his life poured out, the covenant sealed and sins forgiven. Jesus gave the cup as “the new testament in my blood” (Luke 22:20), and Matthew records how he gave the bread as his body and the cup as his blood (Matthew 26:26–28). Paul had already told the Corinthians that the cup is a communion of the blood of Christ and the bread a communion of his body, so that all who share the one loaf are one body (1 Corinthians 10:16–17). To treat this meal with contempt is to treat lightly the sacrifice it sets forth, and so to sin against Christ himself. Hebrews warns with the same gravity of those who trample the Son of God underfoot (Hebrews 10:29).

Believers differ on how Christ’s body and blood are present in the Supper. Some hold that the bread and cup are signs that set forth his body broken and his blood shed, and others that his body and blood are truly present in them. On either reading the warning stands with its full weight, because the meal is the Lord’s and the death it proclaims is his.

Verse 28 turns from the warning to its remedy, and the small word “But” (dé) marks the turn. The command falls on “a man”, ánthrōpos, a human being of either sex, so every man and woman who comes to the table answers for his or her own heart.

The verb dokimázō means to test or prove something, to scrutinize it and find out whether it is genuine and fit for use, and it is related to the word for “approved”. Paul asks for an honest testing of our own spiritual state, our motives, our understanding of the Supper and our dealings with the believers around us. Such testing leads us to confess known sin, to forgive those who have wronged us and to seek reconciliation with any we have wronged. Its aim is a sincere heart and a reverent spirit, leaning wholly on Christ’s grace.

Then comes “and so let him eat”. The words are kaí, “and”, and hoútō, “in this way”: having examined himself, in that way let him eat of the bread (ártos) and drink of the cup (potḗrion). The command ends at the table, because Paul expects the examined believer to eat and drink. The word for cup means a drinking vessel, and by extension what it holds, and in a figure a person’s lot. Here it is the cup Jesus called the new testament in his blood (1 Corinthians 11:25).

Scripture calls for this testing elsewhere too. Paul later tells the same church, “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith” (2 Corinthians 13:5). David asks the LORD to examine and prove him (Psalm 26:2), and Lamentations calls God’s people to search and try their ways and turn again to the LORD (Lamentations 3:40).

Verse 29 gives the reason for the self-examination. The words “eateth and drinketh” stand twice in this verse, and the second time they carry a fearful object: the one who eats and drinks unworthily “eateth and drinketh damnation to himself”. The very act of eating, done irreverently, becomes the way judgment comes upon him, and it falls “to himself”, on the one who did it.

“Damnation” is kríma, from the verb krínō, “to judge”, and it means a decision, a verdict or a sentence. “Discerning” is diakrínō, to separate thoroughly, to tell one thing from another, to judge between. The Corinthians had failed to tell the Lord’s Supper apart from an ordinary meal, and they had failed to see the believers around them as one body in Christ.

“The Lord’s body” carries both meanings here. It is the body of Christ given on the cross, which the bread sets forth (1 Corinthians 11:24), and it is the church, of which Paul says, “Now ye are the body of Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:27). Christ is head over all things to the church, which is his body (Ephesians 1:22–23), and he purchased it with his own blood (Acts 20:28). The two meanings belong together. The rich believer who ate his fill while his poor brother went hungry despised the people Christ died to make his own, and in despising them he despised the sacrifice the bread proclaims. To disregard either one is to disregard the other.

Paul now names what the Corinthians could see for themselves. “For this cause”, diá toûto, ties the sickness and death in the church directly to the unworthy eating of verses 27 to 29. Many were “weak”, asthenḗs, strengthless and feeble. Many were “sickly”, árrhōstos, sick and ill in body. All this was “among you”, en hymîn, in their own congregation.

The word “many” stands twice in this verse, and it translates two Greek words. The first is polýs, “many”. The second is hikanós, which means considerable or sufficient, a good number. Of that second group Paul says they “sleep”. The verb koimáō is the usual New Testament way of speaking of a believer’s death, and here, by Paul’s own account, those deaths were the Lord’s judgment on irreverence at his table. Even so, the word speaks of rest before a waking. Christ is risen as “the firstfruits of them that slept” (1 Corinthians 15:20), and he is the resurrection and the life for all who believe in him (John 11:25–26).

The Lord who disciplined Corinth is the same Lord who bore our sicknesses. Isaiah foretold that he would carry our griefs and be wounded for our transgressions (Isaiah 53:4–5), and Matthew records his healing of the sick as the fulfilment of those words (Matthew 8:16–17).

Verse 31 shows the way to be spared such judgment. It opens with gár, “For”, which gives the reason behind what Paul has just said: “For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.” The verb for judging ourselves is diakrínō, the same verb the KJV renders “discerning” in verse 29. The believer who discerns the Lord’s body is also to discern himself, sifting his own motives, attitudes and actions and telling right from wrong within. “Ourselves” is heautoû, the reflexive pronoun, and Paul says “we”, counting himself among those who must do it. The second verb, “be judged”, is krínō in the passive, being judged by the Lord.

So Paul sets two kinds of judgment side by side. When believers look honestly at themselves, confess their sin and turn from it, they are spared the Lord’s corrective hand. David knew both sides of this. While he kept silent his body wasted away, and when he acknowledged his sin the LORD forgave its iniquity (Psalm 32:3–5).

Judging ourselves is a discerning look that leads to confession, restoration and growth. It ends in freedom and fellowship with God, for “there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

Verse 32 tells us what the Lord’s judgment on his people is. “When we are judged” uses krínō again, and Paul at once names that judgment: “we are chastened of the Lord”. The verb paideúō means to train up a child, to educate, and so to discipline. It pictures a father correcting the child he loves, and the sickness and death at Corinth, severe as they were, came from that Father’s hand.

His purpose is stated plainly: “that we should not be condemned with the world.” “Condemned” is katakrínō, to judge against, to pass sentence. “The world”, kósmos, means here those who stand apart from God and will face his final judgment. The Lord chastens his children now so that they will be kept from sharing that sentence. Hebrews says, “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth,” and calls such discipline the mark of sons, given so that we might be partakers of his holiness (Hebrews 12:5–11). The same counsel stands in Proverbs: “My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction: For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth” (Proverbs 3:11–12).

Believers are chastened and kept from condemnation because Christ bore the condemnation for them. He became obedient unto death (Philippians 2:8) and was wounded for our transgressions (Isaiah 53:5). Whoever hears his word and believes on the Father who sent him has everlasting life and has passed from death unto life (John 5:24). So the Father’s discipline works toward one end, conforming his children to the image of his Son (Romans 8:29).

With verse 33 Paul turns from judgment to practice. “Wherefore” is hṓste again, the same word that opened verse 27, and here it draws the practical conclusion of the whole section. He calls them “my brethren”, with moû, “my”, and adelphós, “brother”. Paul appeals to them as a family in Christ, whose dealings with each other should follow that kinship and leave behind the rank of the world around them.

“When ye come together to eat” names their gathering. The verb synérchomai means to come together, to assemble, to meet, and phágō means to eat. The command is “tarry one for another”. The verb ekdéchomai is formed from ek, “out of”, and déchomai, “to receive”, and it means to await, to expect, to wait for. The word allḗlōn means “one another”. Those who could come early were to wait for those who came late, so that the whole church would eat together and none would be shamed. This one plain instruction answers the selfish eating Paul rebuked at the start of the section.

The same mind runs through Paul’s letters. He tells believers to be kindly affectioned one to another, in honour preferring one another (Romans 12:10), to esteem others better than themselves and look also on the things of others (Philippians 2:3–4), and to bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2). The command was given for the shared meal and the Supper, and the love behind it reaches every part of church life: the one body with its many members (1 Corinthians 12), the way of love (1 Corinthians 13), and order in worship and in the use of gifts (1 Corinthians 14).

Every part of this warning points back to Christ. The bread and the cup proclaim his death until he comes (1 Corinthians 11:26), and he himself is the bread of life, who satisfies the deepest hunger of the soul (John 6:35). At his table Jew and Greek, bond and free, are one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28). He took the form of a servant (Philippians 2:7), sought out the lowly and welcomed them, and was crucified through weakness (2 Corinthians 13:4). The Lord of the table is the first to have put others before himself, and the church that waits for one another is following him.

The worthiness we need is his gift. By his blood we have boldness to enter the holiest by a new and living way (Hebrews 10:19–20), and we come looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2), who is our life (Colossians 3:4).

Even the Lord’s judgments in this passage are love. The Father who chastened Corinth did it to keep his children from the condemnation of the world, and Christ is making his church holy, to present it to himself without spot or wrinkle (Ephesians 5:27). The Supper looks ahead to the marriage supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:9), where the whole family of God will be gathered at last. So these verses give us a solemn warning and a deep comfort together. We come to the table examined and humbled, waiting for our brothers and sisters, and we come with confidence, because the body and blood we remember were given for us.