1 Corinthians 11:17-34 - Ordered Assembly

Introduction

Back in 2012, I was leading a small group study on Wednesday nights at a church in Louisville, TX. I was one of four pastors on staff at a church of about 600, and there was a pretty good group of church members attending my mid-week class. I was teaching through a combination of the Westminster Confession and the Second London Baptist Confession, and we had arrived at the subject of the Lord’s Supper.

That afternoon, I had decided that a great way to end our class that night would be to observe the Supper together as a group. So, I asked Cassie to run by the store to get some bread and juice, while I went up to the church to get the utensils we would need to distribute the Supper. When Cass arrived, she handed me a loaf of bread and a big jug of white grape juice… and I looked at her and said, “Babe! I can’t use that!” She looked back at me with confusion all over her face, and then it dawned on her… The juice needed to be red in order to symbolize the blood of Christ.

But Cassie wasn’t the one making the worst mistake that afternoon. If we had used white grape juice instead of red, then we would have merely adjusted an aspect of the form or style of the Lord’s Supper. I, on the other hand, was changing the essence of the Lord’s Supper. I was a pastor, wrongly leading a group of Christians in observing the the Lord’s Supper in a way that completely redefined it.

Cassie’s mistake was silly. It would have raised a few eyebrows for sure, but it broke no biblical command. My mistake, however, was blasphemous. I was calling something the Lord’s Supper that was not the Lord’s Supper.

Friends, today we are going to read and consider a passage that argues exactly this point – the Lord’s Supper is a church ordinance, which Christ intends for us to observe together as one assembly, thereby visualizing the unity of the body of Christ that meets together here. Therefore, any attempt to observe the Supper in some other way (other than one united assembly) is to redefine it and to speak a false word about what the Supper is and what the church is.

I know I’m still in the introduction, but I want to press a bit right at the outset on some ways that Christians practically run afoul of the biblical teaching we are going to encounter today. Some Christians have tried (like I described my own error) to observe the Supper together as a church small group, as a family, and some have done it as part of their wedding ceremony. But our text today is going to teach us about the importance of every church member participating in the Supper when we observe it together.

If any church member is unable to be present when we observe the Supper (sick, traveling, involved in some emergency, or imparted in some way), then that doesn’t redefine the Supper. But if a church member is unnecessarily absent (just tired, or busy, or apathetically detached), then that is a real problem.

So too, some of us have probably thought very little about observing the Lord’s Supper while visiting a Unitarian church, a Roman Catholic church, or an Eastern Orthodox church. But when we partake of the Lord’s Supper together as part of a local, visible body of professing Christians, we are saying in very clear terms that we are all believing the same gospel and following the same Jesus. And we ought to be careful not to make such statements lightly.

Brothers and sisters, I’m going to make an effort in my sermon today to describe and to argue for a positive definition of what the Lord’s Supper is and how the whole church ought to come together to observe the ordinance as one assembly. I believe this is exactly what Paul was doing in this part of his letter to the church of Corinth, and I also believe that we can make direct application to our practice today.

Why would we point to one group of Christians and say, “Those are Christians.”? But then point to another group of Christians and say, “That is a church.”? I think one of the main features of our answer ought to be the ordinance and practice of the Lord’s Supper.

May God help us to discern the body of Christ or to distinguish this local body of Christ from among all other people and groups in the world in our observance of the Lord’s Supper.

Please stand with me as I read 1 Corinthians 11:17-34.

Scripture Reading

1 Corinthians 11:17–34 (ESV)

17 But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. 18 For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, 19 for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.

20 When you come together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat. 21 For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. 22 What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not.

23 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. 30 That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. 31 But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. 32 But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

33 So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another— 34 if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home—so that when you come together it will not be for judgment.

About the other things I will give directions when I come.

Main Idea:

The Lord’s Supper is a church ordinance, which Christ intends for Christians to observe as one assembly, thereby visualizing the unity of Christ’s body.

Sermon

1. Assembling Disgracefully (v17-19)

Last Sunday, our text began with a commendation. The Apostle Paul told the Corinthians, “I commend you because you remember me… and maintain the traditions… as I delivered them to you” (1 Cor. 11:2). Though they had questions about gender distinctions and gender roles in the church, they seem to have been operating with the sort of ordered authority that Paul had instructed for them.

But today our passage begins with the opposite of a commendation – it’s a direct rebuke. Paul wrote, “But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse” (v17). The rebuke is hard and clear – when the Corinthian church came together or assembled on the Lord’s day, it was doing “more harm than good” (NIV).

Can you imagine?! What if I told you that some East Texas churches meeting together today are doing more harm than good (to themselves and others)? Would it ever be better to not go to a church meeting? Paul seems to think so!

Our passage today is all about “churching” together or “assembling” together or “coming together” as a church. The verb “come together” or “assemble” appears five times in our passage (v17, 18, 20, 33, 34), and the noun “church” or “assembly” shows up twice (v18, 22). But the passage is about more than Christians merely gathering in the same place at the same time… It’s about a rightly ordered Christian assembly… not just a collection of Christians.

It is possible for a church to assemble or gather or “come together” disgracefully, and that’s what Paul is getting at when he says that it’s “for the worse” (v17). “For” or “Because” (v18), Paul says, “when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you” (v18). But these “divisions” are a complete contradiction to what a church is.

Paul’s appeal throughout this whole letter was summarized way back in chapter 1, when Paul said, “I appeal to you, brothers, by the name [i.e., authority] of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment” (1 Cor. 1:10). The fundamental nature of what a church is… is a local, visible congregation or assembly or gathering of baptized believers… associated or connected or joined together… by a shared set of doctrine and a shared commitment to follow Jesus together.[i]

If then, a congregation disagrees about what they fundamentally believe or about who is numbered among their body, that is a contradiction in terms. That’s a fractured whole… that’s a broken unity… that’s a divided assembly.

It’s a problem that needs to be fixed in order for a church to be a church.

And not only was the Corinthian church a disgraceful contradiction (dividing the assembly), but they were also divided over some of the most selfish and petty stuff you can imagine. Paul (I think sarcastically) says, in v19, “there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine [or “approved” (KJV) or “have God’s approval” (NIV)] may be recognized” (v19).

Like we’ve already considered earlier in this letter, the Corinthians were arguing over who had the best pastoral pedigree [“I follow Paul,” “I follow Apollos,” “I follow Cephas” (1 Cor. 1:12)]. In the next chapter (ch. 12), we will discover that they were arguing over who had the best spiritual gifts. And right here in our text today, it seems that they were also dividing along socio-economic lines. Some church members had greater means, and they were leaving out or “going ahead” of those church members with less (v21).

Friends, I believe that nothing shapes us as Christians as much as our gathering together as a church. Churching together is essential to Christian growth and discipleship. God has designed it that way, and Christ has instituted the New Testament church for that very purpose and function.

But make no mistake. There are many activities and events and meetings today that claim the label “church,” but these do more harm than good to the gospel of Christ, to the reputation of Christians, and to the effort to make disciples.

There is a way to assemble disgracefully, and we ought to strive against it.

2. Inverting the Supper (v20-22)

It is no coincidence that the one thing Paul points out as that which makes the Corinthian church a disgraceful assembly is their blasphemous practice of the Lord’s Supper. The word “blaspheme” means to slander or to speak falsely about someone or something. And that’s exactly what the Corinthian church was doing when they came together to observe the Lord’s Supper.

Paul says, in v20, “When you come together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat” (v20). Now, Paul was not saying that they weren’t going through the motions. He was not saying that they weren’t eating bread and drinking wine. As a matter of fact, some of them were “eating” and drinking so much that they were getting “drunk” (v21)! They weren’t forgetting to observe the Supper.

No, Paul’s rebuke for them was about the way they were doing it. They were blaspheming Christ, “despising the church of God,” and “humiliating” some of their fellow church members (v22). And that’s why Paul says, “I will not… commend you in this” (v22). But what was the particular way they were observing the Supper that was provoking such a rebuke?

Well, Paul tells us right there in v20-21. He says that it’s “not the Lord’s supper that you eat” (v20). “For [or “because”] in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal” (v21). Here is the blasphemy… here is the inversion of the Lord’s Supper… They were turning the meaning of the ordinance upside down.

Paul alluded to the meaning of the Lord’s Supper back in chapter 10. In 1 Cor. 10:16-17, Paul said, “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.”

Some Christians have read that passage and concluded that churches must observe the Lord’s Supper from one loaf of bread (literally). I think that’s a great visual for the meaning of this verse! But I don’t think one literal loaf is necessary to fit the meaning of the text.

What is necessary is that the “many” Christians participating do so (in some meaningful sense) together, so that they are visibly and truly“one body” (1 Cor. 10:17). There may be a church big enough to need multiple loaves of bread, but there is no such thing as a local church that is not assembled in unity when they observe the Lord’s Supper together. It is definitional to the Supper that the many visually become one, symbolizing the unity of Christ’s body.

If “each one” enjoys “his own meal” (v21) – as Paul was rebuking them for doing in our passage – and there is no understanding or representation that we are all one “body” (v29) – united in Christ and with one another – then “it is not the Lord’s supper that [we] eat” (v20). We can call it that, but it is not.

This is why Christians have historically referred to baptism and the Lord’s Supper as “church ordinances.” Neither baptism nor the Lord’s Supper can be observed individually or privately. These ordinances are the Christ-ordained means by which the church of the Lord Jesus Christ becomes visible in the world.

Which ones among us are Christians? How do we know? Who says? Well, the Christians are those (1) who have heard the gospel of Christ, (2) who have believed it as good news, (3) who have turned away from their sin, and (4) who have publicly professed their faith… which is (according to the Bible) baptism.

And this public profession of faith is certainly personal, but it is not private. No one can baptize himself or herself. The act requires at least one other Christian. And the normal pattern of the New Testament is that those who do the baptizing are dunking the one being baptized for the purpose of affirming the baptizee as a new disciple of the Lord – “This one is one of Christ’s and one of us now!”[ii]

It has been said that baptism is where the one becomes many, since the individual believer in Christ is (through the experience of baptism) becoming visibly united with many other believers in Christ. And the reverse is what happens when we observe the Lord’s Supper together – the many become one.[iii] A bunch of Christians (in a sense) become a visible church or assembly when they observe the Lord’s Supper together. Many individuals become one visible body.

And that’s why it was so terrible that the Corinthian church was doing the Lord’s Supper the way they were. They were blaspheming. They were inverting the Supper. They were making this ordinance of Christ speak a false word, displaying a fractured and divided assembly.

But Christ is not divided, and Christ Himself will not passively endure the corruption or inversion of what He has instituted as the signs of the New Covenant.

3. A Covenantal Meal (v23-26)

These four verses in the middle of our passage this morning are something of an early Christian liturgy. A “liturgy” is simply the form or structure or order of a thing, and Christianity has often used formal liturgies to maintain continuity from one generation to the next. The most important stuff we do as a church is not that stuff that distinguishes us from all other churches in the world, but it is that stuff that we share in common with all other true churches of the past and present.

In our text today, the Apostle Paul writes that what he “delivered” to the church of Corinth was that which he had “received from the Lord” (v23). In other words, Paul pointed to Christ’s own institution of the Lord’s Supper as the origin of what he was instructing them to do when they gathered as a church.

When Jesus gathered His first disciples on the night He was betrayed, He transformed the old covenant Passover meal into a new meal of “remembrance” or “commemoration” (v24-25). No longer would the people of God in the world be visualized by their annual remembrance of God’s miraculous salvation through judgment in ancient Egypt (i.e., by eating the Passover); instead, the people of God in the world would forevermore become visible by their regular remembrance of God’s gracious salvation through judgment in the person and work of Christ!

Jesus is the true Passover Lamb, who died in the place of sinners, so that when God’s judgment falls upon the whole world, condemning all sinners to eternal death and wrath, those sinners who look to Christ and believe or trust in Him will be passed over… they will be spared… they will be saved!

And Jesus pointed to the means by which He would perform that task of becoming the Passover Lamb in the way that He “broke” “bread” as though it were His own “body” (v23-24). And Jesus also spoke of His own “blood” as being poured out in order to ratify the “new covenant” (v25), which is the covenant of God’s grace for sinners, rather than the condemnation we deserve.

Friends, this is why we understand that the Lord’s Supper is one of the two signs of the New Covenant. And it’s also why we understand that participation in the Lord’s Supper is only for those who actually believe the gospel which these elements of the bread and the cup represent. The two signs of the New Covenant (baptism and the Lord’s Supper) are authoritative indicators to everyone that the ones participating are partakers or participants in the New Covenant. These are they who are trusting in Christ as Savior, these are they who are publicly following Him as Lord, and these are they who are clinging to and proclaiming the glories of the trustworthy promises of God in Christ Jesus.

The only prerequisite for participating in the Lord’s Supper as a sign of the New Covenant is that you (individually) have been joinedor united to the many (the New Covenant people of God in Christ). Those who have heard the gospel, who believe in Christ, who are repentingof sin, and who have been publicly affirmed in their profession of faith through baptism are welcome at the Lord’s table. These are they who (though they are many) become one in the Lord’s Supper… visibly united to Christ and with one another.

It’s vitally important that we understand the covenantal nature of the Lord’s Supper (and especially the reality that this meal is a sign of the New Covenant) because (just like we considered a few weeks ago) the New Covenant comes along with both blessings and cursings… and that’s where our passage goes next.

4. An Ordered Assembly (v27-34)

We began today by pointing out that it is possible for a church to “come together… for the worse” (v17). But why is it “worse”? Well, it’s “worse” in the sense that the church is not “coming together” or “assembling” as it should. A “divided” assembly (v18) or a “factious” assembly (v19) gives false testimony about what it means to be a church of the Lord Jesus Christ. That certainly is a “coming together… for the worse” (v17).

But in these last several verses, the Apostle Paul argues that a church can “come together… for the worse” (v17) when at least some of its members “eat and drink judgment” on themselves (v29). In this section of our passage, Paul reaches back to the covenantal warning we talked about just a few Sundays ago in chapter 10. Remember that the warning there was not to “participate” in the “body” and “blood” of Christ and yet continue in sin (1 Cor. 10:16). If we do, Paul said, we will “provoke the Lord to jealousy” (1 Cor. 10:22), and we will suffer God’s judgment against us.

Our passage today also speaks of provoking the “judgment” (v29) of the “Lord” (v32), but the emphasis of our text is not on unrepentant sin in our lives. Rather, the emphasis here is on the unity of the body or “waiting for one another” when we “come together” (v33).

At least since the time of the Protestant Reformation (think 1500s and 1600s), Christians have commonly emphasized the need for personal repentance in order to observe the Lord’s Supper in a “worthy manner” (v27). The Book of Common Prayer (first published in England during the 1500s) speaks of “examining” oneself (v28) in terms of admitting and confessing sin. So too, it was common for Pilgrims and their descendants in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century New England to hold themselves back from observing the Lord’s Supper out of fear that God’s judgment would fall upon them because of some sin in their lives.

There is good reason to confess sin and to turn away from it, and there’s even good reason to take a sort of inventory or assessment of my own Christian walk as I approach the Lord’s table to observe the Supper. But if we honestly look at our text this morning, with an open mind to go where it leads (rather than imposing our assumptions upon it), I think we see here that Paul’s emphasis is not on examining the state of one’s soul… but on “discerning” or taking note of or distinguishing “the body” of Christ (v29).

Whatever Paul means by “Let a person examine himself” (v28), or by eating and drinking “without discerning the body” (v29), or by eating and drinking “in an unworthy manner” (v27)… his emphasis is notcentered on personal sins (like covetousness, or lust, or greed, or pride), but on the public sin of disregarding the essentially communal nature of the Supper itself.

Look with me at v33. That’s where Paul clearly states his summary imperative or command for this whole passage. He says, “So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another… so thatwhen you come together it will not be for judgment” (v33).

When the Corinthian church was coming together, it was “not for the better but for the worse” (v17). It was not for edification but “for judgment” (v34). But why? Well, there were plenty of foolish and ridiculous errors among the church of Corinth, but the one that Paul is harping on in this passage was the divisive way they were observing the Lord’s Supper.

Some church members were “getting drunk” by eating and drinking so much at the Lord’s Supper (v21). [On a side note: the small elements of the bread and the cup were often part of a much larger meal that churches enjoyed on the Lord’s day, but that’s a discussion for another time.] Some church members were being excluded altogether from the Supper (v21). The whole church was divided during the very ordinance which is precisely designed to visualize their unity!

Paul’s response to this blasphemous practice was to rebuke them. Paul called them to “examine” themselves (v28), to consider their individual relationship with other church members. He called them to “discern” the whole “body” (v29), to distinguish the body of Christ from non-Christians who may be in the room. And he called them to “judge” themselves “truly” (v31), to take care that only believers are participating in the Supper and that no church member is left behind.

In other words, Paul called them to an ordered assembly, rightly distinguished from the world, and truly reflecting the unitythey shared with one another in their common participation in this sign of the New Covenant.

To be numbered among those observing the Lord’s Supper, then, is to be numbered among those who can rest in and expect all the blessings of God in Christ Jesus for those who are partakers of the New Covenant. To be numbered among those who are not observing the Supper, is to be numbered among those who are invited to participate… but only on the basis of what the gospel requires… repentance and faith, publicly professed and affirmed through believer’s baptism.

When we observe the Lord’s Supper in this manner, we are gathering as a church for “the better” and not for “the worse” (v17). We are gathering as a church to “proclaim” the blessings of God upon one another (v26), and not His “judgments” (v29). We are making it clear that the gospel is true, that we believe it so (v26), and that those who do not believe it are in danger of suffering God’s condemnation along with the rest of the world (v33).

Endnotes

[i] For a more detailed definition of “church,” see our confession of faith here: https://fbcdiana.org/confession-of-faith [ii] For a thorough treatment of this topic, see this article: https://marcminter.com/2022/08/05/the-meaning-and-practice-of-baptism [iii] I am drawing on language here that I’ve read from Bobby Jamieson. An introduction to his writing on this topic can be viewed here: https://www.9marks.org/article/how-the-lords-supper-makes-a-local-church/

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