Whosoever shall eat … and drink … unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.
Eating and drinking unworthily
I. The sin consists in doing it--
1. Ignorantly.
2. Irreverently.
3. Uncharitably.
4. Sensually.
II. Its guilt includes--
1. A contempt of Christ’s sacrifice.
2. A denial of its efficacy; and by implication.
3. A repetition of His sufferings.
III. Its punishment.
1. Condemnation.
2. Temporal chastisement (1 Corinthians 11:30) corrective in its design (1 Corinthians 11:32).
IV. Its prevention is secured.
1. Not by neglect or abstinence.
2. But--
(1) By self-examination.
(2) Faithful and conscientious self-discipline (1 Corinthians 11:31). (J. Lyth, D.D.)
Worthy or unworthy
1. Verse 27 has operated as a hindrance to the approach of many of our best to the Lord’s table; but it is not so appalling as it looks. “Unworthily” must be understood relatively to human ignorance and imperfection; otherwise it would act as a bar to the approach of any. Were the right based upon righteousness there would be none but the Great Host at the table. The unworthy are they whose habitual temper is unchristlike, who, being unworthy, are content with their unworthiness. The qualified are those who wrestle with their bad spirit and tendencies, and who pant to be worthier men and the true children of God.
2. A sacrament is an outward sign of an inward experience. And this is the profanation--when he who gives the sign does not yearn for the thing signified.
3. The scruples that hold some back from the Lord’s table are--
I. As to the age at which a person should make public declaration of his discipleship. Now, the condition of time does not enter into the question at all. The spirit of life in man does not regulate its arrival by the chronometer. When the hour of conscious life in God and conscious fellowship with Him comes, then also comes the hour when you may give the sacred symbolic signs, and take your seat at the guest table of the Lord, no matter how young in years you may be. And, indeed, till the hour does come when you freely place yourself at the disposal of Christ’s influence, you have no right to claim a place at that board, no matter how many your years.
II. That their minds are unsettled by doubt. Well! the doubting temper is not the most blessed; but at the same time all doubts are not sins. It is not seldom by doubt that God leads us to faith. And as long as doubt does not spring from worldliness or levity; as long as it does not shake our faith in God, in Christ, and in conscience; as long as it drives us to the feet of God in prayer, and not away from them in pride; as long as we wish to believe the things we find it hard to believe, so long may doubt be a schoolmaster to bring us home to Christ. Doubt of dogma is no sin; indifference to Christ’s claims is; and the Lord has spread this table for the loving and the docile, not for the clear-headed system-maker and the scientific expert. The doubter who sits in the scorner’s chair, deriding, jeering, sneering, let him alone stay away! and let the reverent and lowly listening doubter come, and Christ, the Host, will not withhold His hand.
III. The consciousness of personal unworthiness of nature. But, if that table were only for the worthy, it were arrogance in any mortal man to appear. Christ invites not the righteous but the sinful to come. Indeed, it is in the feeling that we are unworthy that our only qualification lies. It is not that we be holy, but that we aspire to be holy; and in whomsoever there is this desire, no matter how poor and imperfect his actual attainments are in such, and not in the self-satisfied Pharisee, you find the true disciple who may take his place at the guest table of the Lord. (J. Forfar.)
Worthy and unworthy communicating
I. The sin, unworthy eating and drinking of the sacrament.
1. One may do an action worthily in a threefold respect.
(1) As “the labourer is worthy of his hire” (Luke 10:7). This exact worthiness may claim a reward due unto it, and the denier doth this worthy party wrong. Now no saint can receive with this worthiness, as appears by the humble confessions of Jacob (Genesis 32:10), Jn Baptist (Matthew 3:11). So communicants say, “We be not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under Thy table.”
(2) Though not in a perfect and exact proportion, yet in some fitness unto that which is required (Matthew 3:8; Colossians 1:10; Ephesians 4:1; Philippians 1:27)--i.e., let not your life shame your belief; let not your practice be inconsistent with your profession. And we must know that sins of infirmity, through God’s mercy, may subsist with this worthiness. In this acception to “eat worthily” is to eat so fitted and prepared as may bear some resemblance and agreement to the solemnity of the work we go about.
(3) The worthiness of acceptance, when God for Christ’s sake is pleased to take our actions in good worth. That is well spoken which is well taken; and that man is worthy who by God is accepted so to be (Revelation 3:4).
2. Two sorts of people, then, do eat and drink unworthily.
(1) The unregenerate who (Hebrews 6:1) have not as yet “laid the foundation of repentance from dead works and faith.” Without this foundation, the fair side-walls of a good nature, and the proud roof of all moral performances, will both totter and tumble to the ground.
(2) The regenerate, but guilty of some sins unrepented of, who eat unworthily till they have sued out a special pardon out of the court of heaven.
II. The sinfulness of the sin. “Shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.” As those that deface the stamp or abuse the seal of a king are traitors, so the unworthy receivers of these elements, which personate and represent Christ’s body, sin against the body of Christ itself. Christ’s person is out of the reach of your cruelty; as for His picture, it is with us in the sacraments; and unworthy receivers show to the shadow what they would do to the substance if it were in their power. Conclusion: Men generally hate Pilate and Judas, being more angry with them than David with the rich man that took away the poor man’s ewe lamb; whereas in some sense it may be said of many of us, “Thou art the man.” Yet, as for those which hitherto have not taken notice of the heinousness of this sin, let me say to them what St. Peter doth (Acts 3:17). And let us all pray with David (Psalms 51:14). (T. Fuller, D.D.)
Worthy and unworthy communicating
Perhaps no words in all the Bible have given so much distress as these, yet they need not have given any distress at all. The sufferers have created clouds in their own sky. I want to lift the cloud and to--
I. Recall the circumstances to which Paul addressed himself.
1. In connection with other abuses there arose a peculiar method of celebrating the Lord’s Supper. As it was originally instituted after a common meal with Christ and His disciples, people at Corinth said, “We must have a meal first.” In conducting that the rich brought their viands and their rich wines, the poor what they could; and this love feast became a revel. The rich man held up his viands and mocked the poor man, and the poor looked with hungry eyes upon the rich man’s banquet; and after they had been thus infuriated alike by passion and by drink, they proceeded to add to their intoxication by the very wine that was meant to symbolise the sacrificial blood. Now you see the exact purport of the apostle’s words. He says, “Have ye not houses to eat and drink in? etc. Take care, this is not for gluttons and drunkards. You do not come to it in a right spirit, you misconceive its meaning, and if you do not take it worthily you eat and drink damnation to your soul.”
2. Now there is no church in England in which this practice is indulged. Your mistake has been in applying the word “worthily” to yourself instead of to the Supper. You must take it in a manner worthy of it, quietly, reverently, self-distrustingly, casting yourself with your sin upon the heart of the Saviour. That is to take the Lord’s Supper worthily. How can I speak in terms strong enough against the rubbish about people making themselves fit to come to the Lord’s Supper? Shame on the Pharisaism that gets itself ready to come, and blessings on the penitence that comes all tears and yearnings and self-distress, and says, “Other refuge have I none, hangs my helpless soul on Thee.” Unfitness may arise from two opposite points: the man who thrusts forth a drunken hand to take this cup, and the man who takes it with a hand soaped and dried in the tub of his own morality. These two hands thrust a sharp cold arrow into the Lord’s heart. I will presently sit there and say, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.”
II. What is the true and proper idea, then, of the Lord’s Supper?
1. It is a memorial.
(1) Christ did not say, “This do because ye are angels amongst men,” but “This do in remembrance of Me.” Is He worth remembering? He took just what was going on, and made it sacred by His touch and blessing. He did not go to far countries and bring rich luxuries which only wealth could supply. He never said anything about morally trimming ourselves up for the purpose of being fit for it. All the fitness He requires is to feel our need of Him.
(2) Now, why should any of us go away from this sacred opportunity? Take the children away? Take the poor, broken-hearted sinner away? Take away the poor soul that loves Christ, but knows nothing about theological metaphysics? God forbid. Take away the man who thinks he is fit to sit here, the man who thinks he is conferring patronage upon the table.
(3) Then is this feast to be taken without any self-examination? I think not. There must be self-examination, but beware, if you please, of vivisection. A man may lacerate himself, and he will find noworthiness in his own nature. I examine myself to find whether I am really penitent.
2. Being an act of memorial it is an act of love. Make a ceremony of it, and all the pathos is gone, all the deep, holy significance evaporates.
3. It is also an act of happy prospects. It goes back to the past, and it sets forth the Lord’s death till He come.
III. Many endeavour to persuade us that the word “damnation” ought to be softened into condemnation. Let the word stand; only apply it properly. If we had been spending the last hour in eating and drinking, in gluttony and wine-bibbing, the word “damnation” would itself be too gentle a word to apply to our case. (J. Parker, D.D.)
Desecration of the Lord’s Supper
The man who tramples on the flag of his country, insults his country; and he who treats with indignity the representative of a sovereign, thereby offends the sovereign himself. In like manner, he who treats the symbols of Christ’s body and blood irreverently is guilty of irreverence towards Christ. (C. Hodge, D.D.)
The unworthy receiving of the Lord’s Supper
I. What unworthy receiving is.
1. Something negatively.
(1) Unworthy receiving is not proper only to a man in a natural state. The apostle chargeth here unworthy receiving, not only upon the professing, but the regenerate Corinthians.
(2) Unworthy receiving is not to be measured by our sensible joy or comfort after receiving. Two men that have perfect health, have not equal stomachs, nor equal appetites, and consequently not the same joy in their meals, yet both in health. We should more consider how graces are acted, than how comforts are dispensed. God’s dispensations are not equal to all; some have no tastes, others full draughts; so we may have more joy than strength, others more strength than joy. But--
2. Positively that is an unworthy receiving.
(1) When evil dispositions and beloved sins are not laid aside and for-saken.
(2) When, though beloved sins are discarded, yet there is not a due preparation suitable to the quality of the institution.
(3) It is an unworthy receiving when we rest only in the ordinance, expecting from the work done what we should expect only from Christ in it. When we content ourselves with Elijah’s mantle, without asking for the God of Elijah.
(4) When there is a garishness and looseness of spirit in the time of our attendance. Not discerning the Lord’s body, say some, not minding the Lord’s body, but letting the thoughts run at rovers, which should be fixed upon Christ’s dying.
II. The sinfulness of this. It is a contracting the guilt of the body and blood of the Lord. He that doth despite to the image or arms of a prince, would do the same to his person were it as much in his power.
1. It is an implicit approbation of the Jews’ act in crucifying Christ. If we are not affected with that state of Christ, we consent to, and approve of that act of His crucifiers; not positively, but privatively; not having that temper and affection of spirit which such an action doth call for from us. They were the authors of the first crime, and an unworthy receiver the abettor.
2. It exceeds the sin of the Jews in some circumstances, as well as that exceeded this in others. That was against His person, this against His propitiation.
3. In regard of the relation the ordinance hath to Christ. There is an analogy between the bread and the wine, and the body and blood of Christ. The nearer relation anything hath to God, the more heinous is the offence. It disparageth the whole covenant of grace. How base a disposition is it to sit down at the table of a man with an hostile mind against him, to slab the master of the feast at his own table while he is treating and entertaining us with dainties!
4. It is a great sin, as it is against the greatest testimony of His love.
III. The danger of this sin: he eats and drinks damnation to himself. That which is not melted by the sun grows into a greater hardness. Christ, as a sacrifice on the Cross, was pleasing to God; as the murdered Innocent a burden of guilt on the Jews: so as He is grateful food in the sacrament to a worthy receiver, He is the bane of an unworthy communicant, by reason of his unholiness.
IV. The use.
1. The manner of duties must be regarded as well as the matter. The matter of this ordinance is participated by both the worthy and the unworthy receiver: the manner makes the difference.
2. The holiness of an ordinance will not excuse a miscarriage in it. Some are nourished by this ordinance, others pollute themselves. The fruit is not according to the holiness of the ordinance, but the disposition of the receiver.
3. The sins of those that draw nearest to God are the blackest.
4. The ground of our mischief is always in ourselves. It is not from the emptiness of the ordinance, that is a full cistern; nor from the shortness of God’s grace, He is an overflowing fountain; but from want of those graces, or of exercising those graces which are the bucket to draw, and the mouth to drink.
5. We see here the base nature of sin. It changeth the brightest ordinances, makes the waters of the sanctuary bitter, turns food into poison, and a cup of salvation into one of damnation.
6. If an unworthy receiver be guilty of the body and blood of Christ, a worthy receiver hath a special interest; in the body and blood of Christ. He hath as much advantage thereby as the other hath guilt.
7. Should not all of us, that have at any time of our lives been partakers of this ordinance, reflect upon ourselves, yea the best of us?
8. How then should we take heed, whenever we approach to the Lord’s table, of any unworthy demeanour towards Him, whereby to contract such guilt, and incur such displeasure? (Bp. Hacket.)