The breaking of bread among the first Christians differed quite noticeably from the forms of it that we know today. In those days it included a fraternal meal, which today is found in Christian gatherings only rarely, if at all...
The breaking of bread among the first Christians differed quite noticeably from the forms of it that we know today. In those days it included a fraternal meal, which today is found in Christian gatherings only rarely, if at all. Among the first Christians, as one can see, the custom of Jewish ritual meals was still preserved, similar, for example, to the Sabbath meal or the Passover seder, which began with prayer and the blessing of bread and wine and then smoothly flowed into the joyful feast without which no Jewish holiday is imaginable. And, as one can see, some of the newly converted, who only recently had been Gentiles, did not look very deeply into the meaning of the breaking of bread as the sacred gathering of the Church. For them it was simply a cheerful gathering of fellow believers, while the reality of the risen Christ, present in this gathering and sanctifying it by His presence, was apparently more of an abstraction for them.
Of course they understood for whose sake they had gathered, but one can think that they perceived this more as a symbol or allegory than as a genuine reality. Perhaps they thought that the Savior's words, spoken by Him at the Last Supper, meant not the kind of remembrance that makes the eternal present, but the kind that calls to mind something that once existed in the past but no longer exists now.
And after remembering the Teacher and blessing His memory, they began to celebrate with a sense of duty fulfilled. They most likely did not think at all that the risen Christ was still quite truly sitting with them at the same table, that the Church is not an organization created by Him but His spiritual body, His own continuation in our world, which is being transfigured but is not yet transfigured.
And therefore, according to the apostle's word, they became ill and died. Of course, the sacred meal was not killing them, as some commentators have sometimes interpreted Paul's words. What was killing them first of all was their separation from the Church as the body of Christ, from that source of life beside which they were standing but from which they were not drinking. Of course, God does not abandon anyone, even those who do not believe in Him very much. Everyone who lives is alive by His power.
But after baptism God brings the newly converted person to a new source, which must become the foundation of his whole further life. The previous way of spiritual life, and of life in general, is no longer for him. And if the newly converted person neglects this new source, whether consciously or simply through frivolity, irreversible degradation can occur both in his spiritual life and in his life as a whole. The kind from which one can become ill and die.
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11:18 In the church - In the public assembly. I hear there are schisms among you; and I partly believe it - That is, I believe it of some of you. It is plain that by schisms is not meant any separation from the church, but uncharitable divisions in it; for the Corinthians continued to be one church; and, notwithstanding all their strife and contention, there was no separation of any one party from the rest, with regard to external communion. And it is in the same sense that the word is used, Co1 1:10; Co1 12:25; which are the only places in the New Testament, beside this, where church schisms are mentioned. Therefore, the indulging any temper contrary to this tender care of each other is the true scriptural schism. This is, therefore, a quite different thing from that orderly separation from corrupt churches which later ages have stigmatized as schisms; and have made a pretence for the vilest cruelties, oppressions, and murders, that have troubled the Christian world. Both heresies and schisms are here mentioned in very near the same sense; unless by schisms be meant, rather, those inward animosities which occasion heresies; that is, outward divisions or parties: so that whilst one said, "I am of Paul," another, "I am of Apollos," this implied both schism and heresy. So wonderfully have later ages distorted the words heresy and schism from their scriptural meaning. Heresy is not, in all the Bible, taken for "an error in fundamentals," or in anything else; nor schism, for any separation made from the outward communion of others. Therefore, both heresy and schism, in the modern sense of the words, are sins that the scripture knows nothing of; but were invented merely to deprive mankind of the benefit of private judgment, and liberty of conscience.
11:19 There must be heresies - Divisions. Among you - In the ordinary course of things; and God permits them, that it may appear who among you are, and who are not, upright of heart.
11:20 Therefore - That is, in consequence of those schisms.It is not eating the Lord's supper - That solemn memorial of his death; but quite another thing.
11:21 For in eating what ye call the Lord's supper, instead of all partaking of one bread, each person brings his own supper, and eats it without staying for the rest. And hereby the poor, who cannot provide for themselves, have nothing; while the rich eat and drink to the full just as the heathens use to do at the feasts on their sacrifices.
11:22 Have ye not houses to eat and drink your common meals in? or do ye despise the church of God - Of which the poor are both the larger and the better part. Do ye act thus in designed contempt of them?
11:23 I received - By an immediate revelation.
11:24 This is my body, which is broken for you - That is, this broken bread is the sign of my body, which is even now to be pierced and wounded for your iniquities. Take then, and eat of, this bread, in an humble, thankful, obediential remembrance of my dying love; of the extremity of my sufferings on your behalf, of the blessings I have thereby procured for you, and of the obligations to love and duty which I have by all this laid upon you.
11:25 After supper - Therefore ye ought not to confound this with a common meal. Do this in remembrance of me - The ancient sacrifices were in remembrance of sin: this sacrifice, once offered, is still represented in remembrance of the remission of sins.
11:26 Ye show forth the Lord's death - Ye proclaim, as it were, and openly avow it to God, and to all the world. Till he come - In glory.
11:27 Whosoever shall eat this bread unworthily - That is, in an unworthy, irreverent manner; without regarding either Him that appointed it, or the design of its appointment.Shall be guilty of profaning that which represents the body and blood of the Lord.
11:28 But let a man examine himself - Whether he know the nature and the design of the institution, and whether it be his own desire and purpose throughly to comply therewith.
11:29 For he that eateth and drinketh so unworthily as those Corinthians did, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself - Temporal judgments of various kinds, Co1 11:30.Not distinguishing the sacred tokens of the Lord's body - From his common food.
11:30 For this cause - Which they had not observed. Many sleep - In death.
11:31 If we would judge ourselves - As to our knowledge, and the design with which we approach the Lord's table. We should not be thus judged - That is, punished by God.
11:32 When we are thus judged, it is with this merciful design, that we may not be finally condemned with the world.
11:33 The rest - The other circumstances relating to the Lord's supper.