The Lord’s Supper In The Church Meeting

Copyright© 2020, 2023, 2024 Eric S. Weiss

The traditional thesis that justification for the post-Reformation separation of a ministry of preaching and the Eucharist lies in the existence of two different forms of worship in the NT—the one deriving from the synagogue worship tradition, the other from the institution of Jesus—has proved to be untenable in modern exegesis (at first O. Cullmann, then G. Kretschmar, Hahn, et al.). In place of the Jewish (and pagan) cult Christ instituted a table fellowship within which the proclamation of the Word to the community took place (H. W. Heidland). (emphasis added) Alongside this was the service of baptism and also missionary preaching. Other meetings are to be regarded as complementing the basic eucharistic structure or as singling out specific elements of this structure, and they are always to be related to it.

Nathan D. Mitchell, Frank C. Senn, et al., “Worship,” The Encyclopedia of Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI; Leiden, Netherlands: Wm. B. Eerdmans; Brill, 2008), 787.

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Paul Bradshaw, a contemporary liturgical scholar, has critiqued a common way of narrating the origins of the Eucharist. In this common way of telling the story, a single highly standardized eucharistic practice developed early on in the Christian church. This fairly uniform practice was based on Christ’s words and actions at the Last Supper. Bradshaw calls this “the Dixian hypothesis” after Dom Gregory Dix. Dix was instrumental in making this the standard story through his influential book The Shape of the Liturgy. Bradshaw argues in numerous books and essays that instead there were at least two points of origin, the meal ministry of Jesus and the Last Supper. Drawing from John’s Gospel, the Didache, Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus, he argues that some parts of early Christianity understood their eucharistic meals not against the background of “the Last Supper nor … the impending passion,” but rather the meal ministry of Jesus. Christ’s life-giving “flesh” rather than sacrificed “body” was being remembered, and “an eschatological anticipation of God’s Kingdom” was being celebrated, one in which “the hungry are fed” and in which “tax-collectors and sinners” are being welcomed. (emphasis added)

Bradshaw argues that the loss of this other emphasis over time, especially as eucharistic liturgies became more standardized in the fourth and fifth centuries, led in part to a decrease in the frequency of reception of the elements of bread and wine by members of the church. The greater emphasis on the “sacrifice” of the Eucharist accomplished by the priest in remembrance of the sacrifice of Christ’s “body” made the reception and co-celebration of the people less central. As Bradshaw puts it, there was “a disproportionate emphasis, if you like, on altar rather than table.” (emphasis added)

David L. Stubbs, Table and Temple: The Christian Eucharist and Its Jewish Roots (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2020), 136. (Reference is being made to Paul F. Bradshaw, Eucharistic Origins; Reconstructing Early Christian Worship.)

Also read this blog post: The Lord’s Supper—A Fellowship Feast

NOTE:

• This blog post begs the question of whether every church gathering in Paul’s time included or usually included communion/the Lord’s supper. While 1 Corinthians, especially chapters 11–14, gives us the most detailed information in the New Testament about how Christians interacted or were to interact in their church gatherings, it’s not clear if communion/the Lord’s supper was shared whenever the church met. See Paul’s Church Meetings for more on Paul’s expectations and instructions for church meetings and worship and the Lord’s supper.

• For more on the meaning and background of Jesus’s “Do this for my memorial” see Joachim Jeremias On The Memorial Formula.

• The Didache (Greek Διδαχή Didachē, pronounced dih-duh-khay or dih-duh-khee; full title (there are both short and [long] versions): Teaching of [the Lord through] the Twelve Apostles [to the Nations] Διδαχὴ [κυρίου διὰ] τῶν δώδεκα ἀποστόλων [τοῖς ἔθνεσιν] Didachē kyriou dia tōn dōdeka apostolōn tois ethnesin), which many scholars date to 80–110 CE, and some even as early as 50 CE, gives a different order of service for the Lord’s supper than we read in the gospels and in 1 Corinthians, and its Eucharistic prayers seem to support what I state about the “do this for my memorial” aspect of communion being a reminder to the Father rather than a personal or corporate reflecting on Jesus’s death. See The Didache for more about this important document and how it has both informed and complicated our understanding of the early Christians’ meals and meetings, as well as how the bread and wine of the Eucharist were regarded and what was the “sacrifice” of the Eucharist.

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   A long time ago in a town far,    
   far away....                                   

Denton, Texas / June 22, 2000

I had an interesting experience tonight, which I will have to continue to think about.

It was years and years of doing just that, as well as overseeing and experiencing and partaking of many different forms of communion, from the common small cracker and thimble of grape juice to a loaf of bread and a shared cup to the Eastern Orthodox priest-administered Eucharist, etc., that led me to write this blog post.

At the end of the prayer meeting at 813 W. Sycamore Street in Denton, Texas, where some of the young men from a local assembly live, and where they have a weekly Thursday night prayer/worship meeting, Timothy Sheaff asked me to administer the Lord’s supper/table/communion. This was totally unexpected, by me at least. In other words, I hadn’t “prepared” anything, and also I hadn’t really been participating in the meeting in any exceptional way—I hadn’t shared anything, I hadn’t been waiting to say something, etc.

As I began speaking and breaking the bread (originally thinking just to recite Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 11 by rote), I sensed a tangible “presence” of the Lord in our breaking of the bread and eating it that I had never before experienced during communion, a reality of His presence that I had never even associated with communion other than in a “theological” sense (and I have taken communion for nearly 23 years now, and was responsible for administering it in our former church on a monthly basis for perhaps 5 or more years). As best as I can describe it, it was like our communing was a fulfillment of Jesus’s words that He would not again drink of the fruit of the vine until He drank it new with His disciples (including us) in the Kingdom of God. I sensed—or maybe I can be so bold as to say that I knew—that Jesus was present in our gathering. He was there in our eating of the bread and in our drinking of the cup. He was there with us, maybe even eating and drinking with us. Maybe even eating and drinking as us. Or both.

It so impressed me that instead of just passing the cup around shortly after I had broken and passed the loaf around, I continued speaking and praying aloud about the bread, His body, giving everyone time to eat the bread slowly and to experience Him as I was experiencing Him, and to finish it before the cup came.

This was not for me something to be analyzed theologically, like:

1) Are the elements just symbols, or 2) is Jesus a) spiritually or even b) physically present in the bread and wine/juice, or 3) is it something else along the spectrum of which these two views are the extremes?

Rather, it was a suprarational thing, maybe even mystical (without the bad associations that word sometimes has)—or at least it was to me. I don’t know if anyone else there sensed what I sensed. It transcended reality and the words the Scriptures use to relate what Jesus said. It didn’t contradict them (though one could perhaps read the Scriptures literally and find fault with what I am saying here), but in a sense it overshadowed them and gave them life—like there was a web or cocoon of light that enveloped the inscripturated words, thus containing them and likewise illuminating them. (This was the “image” that was sort of impressed on me as I talked later with Timothy about it, though I didn’t mention this to him.)

And it likewise touched on Jesus’s words that “where two or three are gathered together in My name, there I am in the midst of them.” He really is there with us in those times, not just “by faith.” And He was there tonight.

And He wasn’t there apart from our “communion”; He was there because of it, in our gathering together and in our eating and in our drinking of His body and His blood. Eating and drinking with us in His Father’s Kingdom.

Our “communion” time is perhaps only a foretaste of the Kingdom which is to come—and yet tonight it was the Kingdom, here and now. And it is the Kingdom, here and now. Communion with Him.

I talked with Timothy a bit about it afterwards.

I shared this by e-mail with some who were there and with some who weren’t.

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In my opinion, Thomas O’Loughlin in his book The Eucharist: Origins and Contemporary Understandings provides the scholarly support I have long sought re: what communion/the Lord’s supper/the Eucharist is supposed to be in terms of its form, practice, procedures, setting, meaning, and purpose. 

This also impacts how believers are to meet when they have “church.”

I am now even more persuaded that “The Normal Christian Church Meeting” (with apologies to Watchman Nee) should be a gathering for a shared meal which incorporates the blessing to the Father over the shared loaf and the shared cup as a memorial to Jesus (per his “do this for my memorial” τοῦτο ποιεῖτε εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν touto poieite eis tēn emēn anamnēsin Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24–25.), and which also includes time for worship and sharing/reading from the Scriptures, praying, prophesying, etc., with the participation/activity being done or able to be done by all the assembled members and not just by a (or the) pastor or leader.

This “do this for my memorial” was not intended to be a personal or corporate reflecting on Jesus’s death, but a remembrance/reminder to the Father, as Louis Bouyer explains: 

We must add that the Seder Amram Gaon, in conformity with the oldest rabbinical tradition, prescribes certain variations in the third berakah, either for the Sabbath or for a high holy day.⁹³

The festive form is especially noteworthy, and all the more so because it is the object of very specific allusions in the Toseftah.⁹⁴ After the petition for the kingdom of the house of David to return to its place, it introduces this passage:

“Our God, and the God of our fathers, may the remembrance [or “memorial”] of our fathers and the remembrance of Jerusalem, thy city, and the remembrance of the Messiah, the son of David, thy servant, and the remembrance of thy people, the whole house of Israel, arise and come, come to pass, be seen and accepted and heard, be remembered and be mentioned before thee for deliverance, for good, for grace, for lovingkindness and for mercy on this such and such a day. Remember us, jhwh, our God, on it for good and visit us on it for blessing and save us on it unto life by a word of salvation and mercy, and spare, favour and show us mercy, for thou art a gracious and merciful God and King.”

NOTE: I added the underlining of each occurrence of “remembrance” and also inserted “[the remembrance]” before “of our fathers” to reflect the wording of the Hebrew original. See images below⁺ showing the English and Hebrew text from David Hedegård’s book that Bouyer quotes from (marked with red brackets) and the occurrences of zikkaron (green underline) within the quoted section.

What is remarkable in this text is the so abundant use made of the term memorial* (in Hebrew: zikkaron). It is impossible to imagine a better confirmation than this text for the thesis already so solidly established by Jeremias in his book on the eucharistic words of Jesus.⁹⁵ The “memorial” here is not merely a simple commemoration. It is a sacred sign, given by God to his people who preserve it as their pre-eminent spiritual treasure. This sign or pledge implies a continuity, a mysterious permanence of the great divine actions, the mirabilia Dei commemorated by the holy days. For it is for the Lord himself a permanent attestation of his fidelity to himself. It is therefore the basis for a trusting supplication that the unfailing power of the Word which produced the mirabilia Dei renew them and accompany them in the present. It is in this sense that the “memory” of the divine actions which the people have kept faithfully can urge Adonai to “remember” his people. For our subjective commemoration is merely the reflection of an objective commemoration, established by God, which first of all bears witness to himself of his own fidelity. Hence this prayer formula, which is so characteristic and which was to pass over from the Synagogue into the Church: “Remember us, O Lord.”

The meaningful expressions petitioning that “the remembrance of thy people, the whole house of Israel, arise and come, come to pass, be seen and accepted and heard, be remembered and mentioned before thee for deliverance, for good, for grace, for lovingkindness and for mercy on such and such a day …” underline the objective character rightly attributed by Jeremias to the memorial understood in this sense. A pledge given by God to his faithful, precisely so that they will re-present it to him as the homage of their faith in his fidelity, and in thus becoming the basis of their supplication, the “memorial” therefore becomes, as Max Thurian emphasizes, a superior form of sacrifice,—the sacrifice that it fully integrated in the Word and the act of thanksgiving which it arouses as a response.

Nothing proves this better than the fact that this “memorial” formula was added similarly to the Abodah prayer, which originally consecrated the Temple sacrifices. Hence the sacrificial character attributed to the communal meal.⁹⁶ In blessing God for its meal and in acknowledging in it through this berakah the memorial of the mirabilia Dei of creation and redemption, the community acknowledges it as the efficacious sign of the perpetual actuality within itself of these mirabilia, and still more precisely of their eschatological accomplishment in its favor. The prayer for everything which leads to this accomplishment finds here the assurance of a pledge. In “acknowledging” the inexhaustible power of the Word that creates and saves, the faith of Israel, we may say, becomes one with its object. The people here is itself consecrated to the accomplishment of the divine plan, while it welcomes it in a mysterious and real anticipation.⁹⁷ Here we have, the source as it were both of the Christian notion of the eucharistic sacrifice, and more generally, of the efficaciousness of the sacraments, as this was understood by the first Christian generations. As we shall see, the sacramental-sacrificial power of the eucharist will actually find the basic development of its expression in this third berakah, which has become the eucharistic anamnesis, together with its further extension in what will be called the epiclesis.

* The passage quoted from David Hedegård’s translation of Seder R. Amran Gaon uses “remembrance” instead of “memorial.”

Footnotes 

⁹³ D. H., pp. 151 ff.

The footnote reference “D. H.” is to David Hedegård, Seder R. Amram Gaon, Part I, Hebrew Text with critical Apparatus, translation with Notes and Introduction (Lund, 1951), available online here:

English: https://archive.org/details/DavidHedegardSederR.AmramGaonLindstedt1951/mode/2up 

Hebrew: https://archive.org/details/sederravamramgaonparticriticaltextdavidhedegard1951/mode/2up

⁹⁴ Tractate Berakoth, III, 49 a. For the text, D. H., p. 152.

⁺ See images below (from the above links) of the English and Hebrew texts of David Hedegård, Seder R. Amram Gaon, pp. 151–152, section LXXIX/(79)

⁹⁵ Op. cit., pp. 237 ff. See also B. S. Childs, Memory and Tradition in Israel (Naperville, Ill., 1962).

⁹⁶ Cf. J. H. Hertz, op. cit., p 148 and p. 972.

⁹⁷ Cf. Max Thurian, The Eucharistic Memorial (Richmond, 1960–61), pp. 18 ff.

Louis Bouyer, Eucharist: Theology and Spirituality of the Eucharistic Prayer, trans. Charles Underhill Quinn (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968), 84–86.

In conjunction with the above, Bouyer also writes:

Every time Christians celebrate it [the Eucharist], as St. Paul says, they “announce” or “proclaim” this death, not first to the world, but to God, and the “recalling” of Christ’s death is for God the pledge of his fidelity in saving them.⁴⁶

Footnotes 

⁴⁶ 1 Corinthians 11:26.

Louis Bouyer, Eucharist: Theology and Spirituality of the Eucharistic Prayer, trans. Charles Underhill Quinn (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968), 105.

Conversely, every time Christians eat together they can, via a shared loaf and cup, proclaim their shared fidelity to Jesus and bless and thank the Father for God's fidelity to them. I.e., every meal can be a Eucharist. (The significance of partaking from a single loaf and drinking from a common cup is addressed at length by O’Loughlin on pp. 159–176 of his book.) As O’Loughlin writes in his book:

The inappropriateness of a special ‘sacral meal’ category also clashes with a belief in the incarnation: if the Lord has come among us and shared in the ordinariness of our humanity, then every table must be capable of being a locus of divine encounter, and to designate the Lord’s table or the Lord’s supper as being in a wholly distinct class (however it might be perceived phenomenally by someone attending a Christian liturgy) is tantamount to adopting a functional docetism.

Thomas O’Loughlin, The Eucharist: Origins and Contemporary Understandings (London; New Delhi; New York; Sydney: Bloomsbury, 2015), 118.

Over time the church separated the Eucharist from the fellowship meal. (Scholars debate when this process began.) The fellowship meal, which was the original and intended setting for the Eucharist and the church gathering, eventually faded from practice and memory. The church also began treating the Eucharist as being sacramental, including regarding the bread and wine as being or becoming Christ’s real body and blood. In conjunction with or subsequent to that, a hierarchical priesthood arose or was instituted in order to offer the bread and wine as sacrifices, and to oversee or effect their supposed change into Christ's body and blood, and possibly also to “protect” the Eucharist.

I cannot think of anywhere in the Old Testament that the people of God were told to eat and drink the real body and blood of deity, or to expect to do that one day as part of their covenant and faith. But there are many instances in the Old Testament where the people of God ate and drank, or were told to eat and drink (as well as rejoice), together before God. I believe that is what Jesus and the apostles established or sought to establish re: how the church is to meet.

NOTE: All persons sipping/drinking from a shared cup might be a problem for some. Possible solutions:

• Using a silver cup: While silver has antimicrobial properties, there doesn’t appear to be any research supporting that using a silver cup has any significant germ-reduction effect.
• Using wine instead of grape juice: Wine does not have sufficient alcohol to reduce germs compared to grape juice. (The choice of whether to use wine or grape juice is a separate issue. There is evidence that some early Christian groups used water.)
• Intinction: Having people dip their piece of bread into the cup is likely worse, as hands often have more germs than mouths.
• Wiping and rotating: Having each person wipe the rim with a cloth after sipping and then rotating the rim so the next sip is taken from a different part of the cup (where it’s not warm from body heat, which is something that germs like) might reduce the already very slight chance of spreading infection. (E.g., you are far more likely to get something like COVID or even a cold from simply being in the room with an infected person than from sipping from the same cup they sip from.) This is how we did it at the Denton, Texas, home group mentioned earlier.
• Voluntary abstaining: You can ask that people who know they are sick or have a cold or a cold sore abstain from the cup when it’s passed to them.

You can get O’Loughlin’s book here: The Eucharist: Origins and Contemporary Understandings. The author addresses some of the same things in his earlier book The Didache: A Window on the Earliest Christians.

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Orr and Walther on I Corinthians

I discovered that William F. Orr and James Arthur Walther in their Anchor Yale commentary on I Corinthians said much of what I have been saying about the Lord’s supper/communion. Thomas O’Loughlin’s views seem to align with many of theirs, though he doesn’t mention either of the authors in his books that I refer to in this blog post, even though their commentary is from 1976.

As Orr and Walther state in the lengthy extract below:

If (as it would appear) the mistake of the Corinthians was a gentile misinterpretation of essentially Jewish language and the controversies of the later church have been founded on a faulty translation of the first-generation Christian ideas rooted in Jewish social and religious experience, then Paul’s explanation of the Lord’s Supper furnishes no justification for the complicated eucharistic theologies that were developed.

I have long thought that the belief that the bread and the wine of the Eucharist change or have to change into Christ’s body and blood—a foundational and non-negotiable doctrine of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches and their institutional priesthoods—might have been based on a gentile misunderstanding of Jewish practices and culture. In fact, questioning and then rejecting belief in the change or the need for the change was a major reason I left the Eastern Orthodox Church after three years. It was nice to find my hunch validated by these scholars.

COMMENT

No subject has been more controversial in the church than the meaning of the Lord’s Supper. Not only were there deep differences in understanding between Roman Catholic and Reformation doctrines on this subject, but dispute about the precise meaning produced lasting divisions among Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli. Arguments about the metaphysical nature of Christ’s body and universal presence have been virulent down to the present day.

Modern efforts toward formulating an ecumenical theology have made slow progress on the question of “transsubstantiation, transsignification, or virtualism.”* The source of the disputes is in the idea that Jesus meant to provide a material means for physical or metaphysical consumption of his body—that he could miraculously supply in the sacrament a homeopathic quantum which would convey the full power of a union with his being. So the sacramental elements came to be subject to a special veneration because of their numinous power. The idea has been persistent, even when Christians do not agree on the definition of the relationship between the elements and Christ, since they are united in the conviction that the connection is real and special (note, for example, the treatment by Robertson and Plummer, 248–249).

Unity in the church is likely to remain out of reach as long as there is no consensus in this matter. The taboo view of the elements demands sacred officials to handle them, and the salvation of the recipient is in jeopardy if they are improperly received. This, then, involves discipline. So what should be the very sign and seal of the unity of the church becomes a perpetual cause of its disruption.

Thus the problem in the Corinthian church regarding the Lord’s Supper is a critical one for the church in all ages. If (as it would appear) the mistake of the Corinthians was a gentile misinterpretation of essentially Jewish language and the controversies of the later church have been founded on a faulty translation of the first-generation Christian ideas rooted in Jewish social and religious experience, then Paul’s explanation of the Lord’s Supper furnishes no justification for the complicated eucharistic theologies that were developed.

Divisions existing at the Supper

Traditional interpretations of 1 Corinthians 11 have been wrong in many particulars because they have not been read with the Jewish practice of the common meal in view. Paul’s instruction begins with his chagrin, not that the Corinthians are profaning a holy rite, but that they are fragmenting a holy society. In the first four chapters of the epistle he demonstrated how seriously he regards schisms. With apparent resignation he accepts the inevitability of factions as a means of testing, but in no way does he approve the division that results from their practice in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.

What is happening, he says, is that their assembling together is not to eat the Lord’s Supper but to eat their own. The accepted practice was to bring separate meals to the common place, but they were starting to eat before others arrived so that there was no common supper and no sharing. Since some of the members were very poor, they did not have enough to eat and were hungry after supper while the prosperous were sated, some beyond propriety. It is not the vicious quality of gluttony and drunkenness that occupies Paul’s attention at this point but the selfish indifference of each person or family to the needs and situation of the deprived and poor. There is no indication that he is concerned because they have not introduced the meal by a suitable liturgy. They have rushed into the meal upon private impulse and have drunk their own supplies of wine to the point of intoxication; and while Paul introduces the regulatory role of tradition in the next section, his introductory remonstrance has to do with the church’s indifference to the communal significance of what they are doing. Those with vigorous appetites and the means to satisfy them without the discipline of restraint imposed by the community setting should anticipate their incontinence by eating and drinking somewhat before they come to church.

To dine alone at church means to decline to join with the church in this great expression of common, Christian, social life; and it therefore manifests contempt for the whole assembly. Some members would be unable to come to the meeting place early because as slaves they could not leave their masters’ houses, and the free members who refuse to wait for them really shame them because their late arrival keeps them from full participation in the common life of the church. Paul recoils from this drastic abuse: they despise the church by making impossible a communal meal of the whole church. This is the situation which prompts him to cite the traditional origin of the supper practice.

The received tradition of the institution of the Supper

The tradition, which Paul received from the Lord, is recalled to show that the present abuses result from failing to continue the Master’s practice. The essential agreement with the Synoptic records is evidence that the apostle’s claim to dominical continuity is well founded, but it does not prejudice the interpretation of the tradition. Jesus gave thanks, then broke bread, and said, “This is my body for you.” All the church should be together to participate in the thanksgiving and to receive the bread which is broken for the whole company. Since every Jewish meal began by breaking bread, the whole meal is designated by the breaking of the bread. The thanksgiving is meant for the whole meal which followed. Thus the bread as such has no greater importance than it has as the first part of the meal to be distributed. It may be suggested initially, therefore, that identification of Christ with the food at the supper should probably not be confined to the bread if any such identification is to be made. This brings into question at the outset whether the passage can be interpreted to mean that the eating of the bread at the supper is actually a receiving of the body of Christ.

Jesus’ words, This is my body for you, have been exhaustively analyzed from earliest times. The greatest stress has been laid on the verb is with a great amount of attention also upon body. It has been disputed whether is should be interpreted “is like,” “represents,” “symbolizes,” “stands for,” “conveys,” or “means the same as”; and many theologians have insisted that it means “is identical with,” “is the same thing as,” or “has the same substance as.” It is remarkable that little attention has been given to the referent of this (Conzelmann, for example, does not discuss it). It has been almost unanimously agreed that this refers to bread; so the sentence is understood to read, “This bread is my body.” It is not surprising, therefore, that discriminate the body in vs. 29 came to refer to recognizing that the bread is not mere bread but is in some sense the presence and actual body of Christ; and this supports the liturgical and ecclesiastical regulations that developed about this understanding.

The neuter demonstrative this occurs also in the second part of the quotation: you are doing this for my remembrance. Because of the structure of the clauses this can hardly be construed by a single word or phrase of identity. It is curious, however, that it should occur twice where it is not precisely clear what the referent is in either case; so the sense of both clauses must carefully fit together. The word for do (poiein) is very common in both the Greek Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament it translates two words (’āśāh and ’ābad) that are often used with various words for feast or meal (Gen 26:30; Exod 12:47, 48, 13:5, 23:16, 34:22; Deut 16:13; 2 Kings 23:21; Job 1:4; Dan 5:1; etc.); and in the New Testament it is used in similar contexts (Mark 6:21; Luke 14:12, 16; John 12:2; etc.). In the few instances in which the verb is used with “bread” in the Old Testament it has to do with baking or preparing. The sense here, then, may be connected with a meal or feast. The eating of meals as memorial observances was common among the Jews: Passover and Purim are examples enough. So this may be referred to the observance of the supper, and the action of the distribution of bread was the beginning of this meal as it was of common Jewish meals. The meal is participated in by all the assembled company as an appropriate recollection of Jesus Christ.

The reference of this to the eating of the meal together is grammatically possible, but the neuter gender cannot be used conversely to “prove” the reference. A common explanation for the neuter is that although this refers to bread, which is masculine, it has been assimilated to body, which is neuter. (The possibility that bread may be referred to by a neuter demonstrative because it is an object seems tenuous.) There is no clear case, however, elsewhere in Paul’s writings in which he uses touto to refer to a masculine noun outside the immediate clause; he regularly uses touto to refer to a clause, phrase, implied idea, or, of course, a neuter noun. (Two instructive uses are in Rom 13:11, where touto does refer to a masculine noun but is in close apposition, and Phil 1:22, where touto refers to an infinitive phrase and is not assimilated to the masculine noun in the predicate. On the other hand, the uses of hautē in 1 Cor 9:3 and 2 Cor 1:12 suggest assimilation; but the usages of touto are too independent to validate a comparison.) This usual general reference of touto suggests that in both instances in 11:24 it has to do with the circumstance just described, that is, the dedication of the meal, which in turn draws the disciples together into a table fellowship. This somehow is for you the body of Christ, and it is effective for his remembrance. Since the festival celebration includes action and idea, the notion is excluded that any particle of food is the body of Christ. (If Paul had wanted to convey that idea, his regular usage would have been to write, “This bread is my body”; cf. this bread in vs. 26, where reference to the body is pointedly missing.)

It is not possible to come to any helpful conclusion about the nature of the meal from the use of the word deipnos for “supper.” The word usually referred to a late afternoon meal (whence the appropriateness of the English “supper”). In the Bible it is never used to mean merely an act of eating: it refers to a meal, and its appropriateness for a festal meal is ambiguous. The more common way of speaking of a meal in the New Testament is by the expression “eat bread” (or “break bread”), metonymy for a whole meal (Matt 15:2; Mark 3:20; Luke 14:1; Acts 2:46; 2 Cor 3:8; 2 Thess 3:12; etc.).

Paul, then, is not concentrating on the thought of bread as distinct from the rest of the meal; but bread is discriminated from the cup that is to be drunk. In the Jewish meal the cup had a special significance because it was received with a thanksgiving separate from that offered with the bread that instituted the meal. The latter was thanksgiving for the whole meal; the thanksgiving over the cup, coming at the end of the meal, tied the whole together.

The corporate significance of the meal has already been introduced at 10:16 (cf. supra, pp. 250–253). The term “body” was applicable to the Passover societies that were formed for the festival; the group joining in the meal became a new kind of entity with such a close binding connection that all of the persons are members of each other (an idea which Paul develops in 12:12–26). This idea grips his mind, for he elsewhere calls the church the body of Christ (Rom 12:5; 1 Cor 12:13, 27; Eph 1:22–23, 4:4, 12, 16; Col 1:18, 2:17, 3:15). He thought of the body of Christ as present, active, and purified for his manifestation to the world after he was no longer present in the flesh. The body in which he is now present is the body of believers. Paul regularly refers to the physical, historical existence of Jesus Christ on earth by the term “flesh” (sarx; cf. Rom 1:3, 9:5; 2 Cor 5:16; Col 1:22; etc. The only possible exception is Rom 7:4, and the intent there is possibly a double meaning.) Body, then, in this passage may be understood to refer to the church, here recognized in its chief act of common worship, the Lord’s Supper.

Paul’s regular contrast to “flesh” is “blood” (1 Cor 15:50; Gal 1:16; etc.). It is significant, then, that here the contrast is between body and cup. (In this respect Paul makes a customary Greek distinction: “blood” corresponds to “flesh,” which is living tissue, whereas “body” means the entire organism.) The cup indicates the means by which believers accept the new covenant that is inaugurated by the death of Christ. Blood in this context represents Christ’s death (cf. Rom 3:25; Col 1:20; etc.; this is in keeping with the Old Testament idea in Lev 17:11, 14). So the cup refers to the sacrificial destiny of Christ, which brought about a new covenant (cf. cup-words attributed to Jesus: Matt 20:22; Mark 14:36; John 18:11), and one who drinks the cup receives the destiny made possible by the new covenant. Thus the passage indicates that the Supper of the Lord constitutes a body of believers who receive the meal as his followers and who receive the cup as indication of conscious participation in the benefits of the new covenant.

It is not difficult to see how Paul’s summary statement in vs. 26 contributed to the cultic-sacramental understanding of the bread and wine: as often as easily becomes a rite. The conditional sentences of vss. 24 and 26 are parallel, however; and if the word in 25 refers to the context of the meal, so should 26. The action for Christ’s remembrance is extended to announcing the death of the Lord until he comes, thus specifying the meaning of the cup and placing the remembrance in the ongoing worship and life of the church. The Passover setting is not to the fore at this point, but Paul is rather emphasizing how each common meal is to become a recollection and proclamation of the gospel.

Judgment from unworthy participation in the Supper

The traditional words of institution are recited as supporting evidence for Paul’s reaction against the behavior of the Corinthians at their common suppers. Verse 27, then, resumes the main discussion (So); and the eating and drinking in an unworthy manner refer to the mistreatment of persons present and not to misinterpretation in liturgical procedures. The indictment concerns injuring the body of Christ by breaking up the unity of the partnership (cf. 10:16–17); and the specific instance is the insult against the poor (11:21–22), which is in fact directed against the church. The erring persons do not accept the new covenant (vs. 25), which was brought about by the death (blood) of Christ; and thus the guilt is against the church and the Christ who died.

Accordingly, self-examination is enjoined in order to avert judgment that may be incurred by eating and drinking with an undiscriminating attitude. If the body means the people of the church celebrating the supper together, judgment comes because they do not discriminate the divine nature of this fellowship and are guilty of splitting it apart and mistreating its humbler members.

There is a parallel connection between vss. 29 and 31. There is no reason to differentiate the judgment in the two verses; so the objects of discrimination are evidently the same—the body and ourselves. Thus, the body of the Lord equals ourselves, in this context distinguished by the common participation in eating his supper. Failure to discriminate his body is the same as failure to discriminate ourselves, and this means failure to recognize that people together in the church constitute the very presence of Christ and are to be treated appropriately.

The identity of the church with the body of Christ leads Paul to attribute physical problems of the Christians to the violation of this body. This violation hampers and restricts the redemptive and healing nature of the fellowship wherein the poor are fed, the lonely are befriended, the sick are visited, the grieving are comforted, and sinners are forgiven. Such a redemptive fellowship can produce both spiritual and physical health while the breaking of the fellowship may cause the converse. So serious is this situation in Corinth that Paul posits a connection between it and the death rate there—a relationship that is difficult to interpret except in very general terms.

The judgment is of the nature of discipline, not of final condemnation. Condemnation has been removed by the death of Christ, but selfish and sinful perversion of the supper produces damaging results that may serve as corrective influence toward repentance. (Perhaps 5:5 is an extreme example.)

Summary instruction

The particular nature of the whole discussion and the emphasis upon the divisive propensity of the Corinthians is reiterated by the concluding sentences. To wait for one another is an evidence of discriminating the body, of recognizing that in the common partaking of the supper all the people are assembled as members of Christ’s body. Christians are not to allow their selfish appetites to endanger respect for the holy people who are participating in the new humanity. Other matters could await a personal visit from Paul; this matter is so urgent that it should be put in order at once.

As postscript it may be noted that failure to follow Paul’s principal concern in this passage and a false emphasis derived from misinterpretation of its details has produced in the history of the Christian church precisely the fault against which the apostle wrote to the Corinthians.

* Cf. The Common Catechism: A Book of Christian Faith (New York, 1975), in which “The Sacraments” are treated in Part Five, “Questions in Dispute between the Churches.”

William F. Orr and James Arthur Walther, I Corinthians: A New Translation, Introduction, with a Study of the Life of Paul, Notes, and Commentary, vol. 32, Anchor Yale Bible (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1976), 268–275.