"The Lord's Supper" -- A New Episode of the Blessed Hope Podcast! (1 Corinthians 11:17-34)

Episode Synopsis:

One of the saddest indicators of human sinfulness is found in the last half of 1 Corinthians 11. The sacrament of Christian unity (the Lord’s Supper) had instead become the occasion for further division in the Corinthian church. Paul laments that in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper the rich were exploiting the poor, the body of Christ was not properly being discerned, and the Supper was being celebrated in such an improper way that what was being done was not the Lord’s Supper and was actually doing more harm than good.

In this section of Paul’s Corinthian letter we find a description of how Christians in the apostolic age were to celebrate the Supper in Christian worship. Paul explains the words of institution given by Jesus just twenty years previously– “this is my body,” “this is my blood.” The Lords Supper is the new covenant fulfillment of the Passover meal centering upon eating the bread and drinking the wine wherein the signs (the bread and wine) are taken as though they were the thing signified, (Christ’s body and blood). And through faith what has been promised by Jesus, is actually received by his people.

Paul rebukes the Corinthians for the fiasco which the celebration of the Lord’s Supper had become, and he offers a number of common sense practical ways in which the Supper ought to be celebrated. Each member was to partake, they were to discern the body of Christ, and the service was to be conducted in an orderly manner when the church assembled on the Lord’s Day.

Show Notes:

Recent and Future episodes of the Blessed Hope Podcast deal with controversial subjects, such as the Lord’s Supper, spiritual gifts (including speaking in tongues) and the question of whether or not spiritual gifts are still operative in the church. I hope you’ll find these helpful. I enjoyed putting them together. Given the subject matter, these episodes will be a tad longer than usual.

The material covered in 1 Corinthians 11:17-34, deals with the Lord’s Supper and is best covered in one episode—the reason for the episode’s longer than usual running time. I did divide the episode into two halves to make it easier for commuters.

Here are the quotes from the Catholic Catechism, Martin Luther, and Ulrich Zwingli on the Supper.

• “We carry out this command of the Lord by celebrating the memorial of his sacrifice. In so doing, we offer to the Father what he has himself given us: the gifts of his creation, bread and wine which, by the power of the Holy Spirit and by the words of Christ, have become the body and blood of Christ. Christ is thus really and mysteriously made present.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1995) sec. 1357.

• Luther writes, “Even if nothing but bread and wine were present in the Supper, and yet I tried, simply for my own satisfaction, to express the thought that Christ's body is in the bread, I still could not say anything in a more certain, simpler, and clearer way than, `Take, eat, this is my body.’ For if the text read, `Take, eat, in the bread is my body,’ or, `With the bread is my body,’ or, `Under the bread is my body,’ it would immediately begin to rain, hail, and snow a storm of fanatics crying, `You see! do you hear that? Christ does not say, `This bread is my body,’ but, `in the bread, or with the bread, or under the bread is my body!’ And they would cry, `Oh, how gladly would we believe if he had said, 'This is my body'; this would have been distinct and clear. But he actually says, 'In the bread, with the bread, under the bread', so it does not follow that his body is present.’ Thus a thousand evasions and glosses would have been devised over the words `in, with, and under,’ no doubt with greater plausibility and less chance of stopping it than now.” See Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 37: Word and Sacrament III, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald and Helmut T. Lehmann (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 306.

• Ulrich Zwingli, “On the Lord Supper,” in Zwingli and Bullinger, Library of Christian Classics (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1953), 188. Zwingli put the matter this way: “A sacrament is the sign of a holy thing. When I say `the sacrament of the Lord’s body,’ I am simply referring to that bread which is the symbol of the body of Christ who was put to death for our sakes. But the real body of Christ is the body which is seated at the right hand of God, and the sacrament of his body is the bread, and the sacrament of his blood is the wine, of which we partake with thanksgiving. Now the sign and the thing signified cannot be one and the same. Therefore the sacrament of the body of Christ cannot be that body itself.”

Links:

Warfield on The Lord’s Supper

Guy Prentiss Waters: 3 Important Questions for the Church About the Lord’s Supper

Calvin on The Proper Practice of the Lord’s Supper

Calvin’s Short Treatise on the Lord’s Supper

Series Bibliography:

Kim Riddlebarger, First Corinthians --Lectio Continua (RHB, 2024).

F. F. Bruce, Paul: The Apostle of the Heart Set Free. A bit dated but still remains the best biographical study of Paul

Douglas J. Moo, A Theology of Paul and His Letters (2021). A helpful big picture survey of Paul’s theology and epistles.

Thomas R. Schreiner, 1 Corinthians : An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (2018). A good and modern commentary on 1 Corinthians. If you buy one commentary, this ought to be it.

Charles Hodge, I & II Corinthians, reprint ed (Banner, or the volume on 1 Corinthians published by Crossway. This has long been the Reformed standard commentary on 1 Corinthians. Theologically solid, but badly dated.

Gordon Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NICNT (1987). Good material, especially on background and context, but charismatic in its orientation.

Roy E. Ciampa and Brian S. Rosner, The First Letter to the Corinthians, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, (2010). A good academic commentary, although there are several solid ones from which to choose.

Music:

(Shutterstock): Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op 92m, second movement, Allegretto (A minor)