3. The cause of all, not discerning the Lord's body.
damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.—1 COR.
11:27, 29.
AFTER the apostle had laid down the platform of the institution, he makes his inferences suited to the case and miscarriage of the Corinthians. Since this ordinance was appointed by Christ as a memorial of him, and in the celebration of it 'we shew the Lord's death;' an unbecoming frame and carriage in so great a mystery, is a reflection upon the authority of it, contrary to the ends of it, and a contracting the guilt of the body and blood of Christ. As if he should have said,* While you Corinthians come together in a rude manner to this ordinance, as if it were a common and profane feast, the abuse and contempt redounds upon the body and blood of Christ represented by those elements. Calvin thinks the apostle makes a digression from the particular Corinthian case to an universal one, not only comprehending under unworthy receiving the abuses crept into that church, but all other miscarriages which might in the future rise up in that or any other church whatsoever; and indeed it is as a general case to be considered in our days, since the particular case of the Corinthians hath not its parallel.
He considers 1. The sin, (1.) in its nature, eating and drinking unworthily.
(2.) In its aggravation, a guilt of the body and blood of Christ.
2. The danger, ver. 29, eating and drinking damnation to himself.
3. The cause of all, not discerning the Lord's body.
Whosoever eats and drinks unworthily. Whosoever approacheth without a consideration of the dignity of that which is represented by those elements,† and the ends of their appointment, regarding it as a common thing of no great value, and brings not those dispositions of faith and repentance, doth not reflect upon the elements themselves, but vilifies that which they represent; and offends not so much
against the exterior signs, as violates the reverence due to the body and blood of Christ; and is so far from gathering the blessed fruit of this ordinance, that he returns with the mark of the murderer of Christ upon him; for he contemns the condition of the covenant, and consequently the blood of the covenant. The argument whereby he urgeth it, is the relation it hath to Christ. It is the bread and cup of the Lord. Though it be bread and wine, yet it is a sacred thing; it is the bread and wine of the Lord, instituted by him for his glory and our salvation. He doth not say, Whosoever eats the body of the Lord, or drinks the blood of the Lord unworthily, but this bread, this cup.
The apostle was not so witless as to have termed them bread and cup, had the doctrine of transubstantiation been known in his days. His argument had run stronger: it is but bread and wine in appearance, it is changed into the real body and blood of Christ; and therefore your unworthy carriage is immediately and not relatively a violation of his person. But the apostle acknowledgeth it to be bread and wine;* but to distinguish it from bread of an ordinary use, calls it, 'the bread of the Lord.'
Unworthily. A worthy carriage respects either persons or things; persons, when our demeanour is suitable to the dignity of the person we converse with; or things, when we manage a business we undertake with a decorum and becomingness, according to the nature of it; as we say a man did this or that very handsomely. He that doth not observe a decorum and decency in a converse with a person or management of a business, doth it unworthily, awkwardly, rustically, or slovenly. So the word worthy is used: Luke 3:8, 'Bring forth fruits worthy of repentance,' i.e. suitable to the repentance you profess. And Eph. 4:1, 'Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called,' i.e. let your conversation answer your calling, and be suitable to the dignity of it. It is not any precedent act meritorious of the vocation, but a worthy carriage after it, suitable to the dignity of the calling. The apostle doth not say, Whatsoever unworthy person eats and drinks of this cup, &c., for then he had excluded every man, himself too. For who is worthy enough for these things? as the apostle speaks in another case, 'Who is sufficient for these things?'
The apostle requires not here a meritoriousness. Merit belongs to Christ dying, worthiness to the believer receiving. He speaks not of the worthiness of the person, but a worthiness of the action. A man may want a worthiness of person to be employed in a prince's service, yet not want a worthiness of parts which fit him, being engaged in it, to manage his employ for his own and his prince's honour. Or if a poor man be called to a prince's table,* he is, because of his poverty and distance, unworthy to sit with him; yet being invited he may come; but if he behaves himself uncivilly and indecently, he makes himself guilty of a contempt of the royal majesty, in whose presence he is. Unworthily here notes the want of an evangelical frame and disposition of heart.
Guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. He offers wrong to Christ.
The Jews were guilty of his blood, when they crucified him; apostates are guilty of his blood, when they deny him, Heb. 10:29. An unworthy receiver doth such an injury to Christ, that God will account him in the rank of the Jews that crucified him, and charge him with no less a crime than the guilt of the blood of his Son.
He eats and drinks damnation. Κρῖμα, judgment, which differs from κατάκριμα. † He eats judgment or punishment, which is double, either eternal or temporary. Final unbelievers eat it to their eternal condemnation; those that have faith, and are negligent in due preparations, eat it to their temporary correction. It is the effect for the cause. An unbeliever doth not properly eat his condemnation; for condemnation is not naturally or sacramentally in the bread and wine, but he eats that which will be the cause of his condemnation,‡ because not considering the glorious use these elements are destined to, he doth not consider how great and glorious a thing the body of the Lord is, which they represent; and so violates, in those signs, the honour due to his majesty. Not but that this is of itself, and in regard of the institution, wholesome and quickening, but by the evil disposition of the receiver, and the abuse of the ordinance, that which was ordained to life brings death; as the foulness of the stomach makes wholesome food turn to venom in the body.
Therefore the apostle adds, 'He eats damnation to himself.' There is no such thing in the institution. The fault is wholly in himself, not in the ordinance. He abuseth that which would be useful to him, if he brought worthy dispositions with him. As our first parents ate their death in eating the forbidden fruit, when the fruit itself was not of a venomous nature, but by transgressing the command of God, they rendered themselves obnoxious to the death God had threatened. So we say of a man, that he hath swallowed his death, when he hath eaten something which makes way for the entrance of death; not only when it is poisonous in its own nature, but when it is unsuitable to the temper and state of the patient. So he that eats unworthily, makes himself obnoxious to the judgment of God, either to be tormented by his scorpions hereafter, or awakened by his scourges here.
Not discerning the Lord's body, Διακρίνων. To discern a thing or person is to separate it from other things or persons,* and give it its due rank and order, which is either, (1.) in effect, when a man is endowed with qualities which elevate him above others. As the apostle saith, God makes us to differ, Τίς γάρ σε διακρίνει; 1 Cor. 4:7, i.e. he puts a difference between us and others, giving us graces more advantageous than unto them. (2.) In opinion and esteem, when we value one thing more than another; so, Acts 15:9, God is said to 'put no difference between the Jews and Gentiles,' οὐδεν διέκρινε, i.e. he hath treated them indifferently. So not to discern the Lord's body is not to esteem and honour it as he ought, not to give it its due rank; to entertain it not as a singular and divine, but a common and ordinary thing. When men disesteem Christ, they count his blood as common blood, Heb. 10:20. What is there translated unholy, is in the Greek, κοινὸν; so after the apostle had discoursed of the two elements, as representing the two parts of the sacrifice offered upon the cross, his body broken, his blood poured out for a propitiation for sin, not to discern it, is to have no higher opinion of the body of the Son of God, the wonder of God's wisdom and goodness, than of a common thing, and a matter of no value.
Or not discerning the Lord's body, is when our sense sticks upon the outward elements, and our spirits rise not up to view the merits and propitiation of Christ through the veil of the bread and wine, as if the elements were the things only we were to feast upon. It is a spiritual feast, and therefore we discern not the Lord's body when we have not spiritual meditations of the dignity of Christ, the atonement he made, God's wisdom, justice, and mercy in the design of his death.
As Christ doth not put us off with empty signs, so he would not have us rest upon empty signs, but acknowledge his body and blood represented in them, for those ends for which the one was broken, and the other shed. The papists, to prop up their doctrine of transubstantiation, draw an argument for it from this place. The body of Christ is in the sacrament in its proper substance, otherwise a man could not be guilty of his body and blood.† For no man could justly be condemned for not discerning the Lord's body from other meat, if that which he receives were not truly the body of the Lord, but another meat; and the unworthy receiving of the naked sign cannot make a man guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But this is no argument.* Christ is wronged in that which hath a relation to him, as well as immediately in his own person. The rejecting the apostles, the messengers of Christ, is a rejecting Christ who sent them: Luke 10:16, 'He that despiseth you, despiseth me;' and he that despiseth the commands of God delivered by man, 'despiseth not man, but God,' 1 Thes. 4:8. Was our Saviour therefore substantially present in the persons of the apostles? Were they not separated from his body, when he sent them to other parts, and gave them this as an encouragement? How could he be with them, and absent from them in his body? When he chargeth Saul with persecuting him, because he 'breathed out slaughter against his disciples,' Acts 9:4, was the body of Christ therefore substantially in his disciples? He that hath received the knowledge of the truth, and apostatiseth from it, 'treads under foot the Son of God.' Is the person of Christ under the feet of these contemners! To tumble a king's robe in the dirt, to counterfeit his seal, tread upon his crown, daub his picture, break down his arms in despite, offer violence to his ambassador, is reckoned as a violation of the person and authority of a prince; yet neither the