Reflections on 1 Corinthians 11:29
“He that eats and drinks carelessly is eating and drinking a condemnation of himself, for he is blind to the presence of the Body.” (1 Corinthians 11:29, Phillips)
“For any who partake of the Lord’s table without a heart open to internalize Christ—which we symbolize by eating and drinking the bread and wine—diagnose themselves as terminal.” (The Remedy)
For many of us, this verse once hung over the communion table like a threat: take the bread the wrong way, and God will condemn you. But listen to where the translators point. Without discerning the body. Not recognizing the Lord’s body for what it is. Without seeing that the body is there. Blind to the presence. The danger is not in the bread. It is in what we fail to see.
There is no magic in the bread made and offered for this service, or in the wine, the grape juice. This must be a natural law: we bring the result on ourselves by what we take in or refuse, not by anything the bread or cup can do to us. The supper is a symbol, so to understand it we have to put the symbols into real life and real time and see what they look like. The whole service is about the intent of the heart. Christ is not a petty personality just waiting for a soul who comes unprepared so He can condemn it. No, it is we who condemn ourselves, by our refusal to open the heart to Christ.
A refusal to trust in Christ is not something we do in a moment; that refusal appears in small choices we make throughout the day and throughout our life. We choose not to spend time with Him; we choose to do the easy thing, not to put ourselves out for someone else’s sake. How can we internalize the mind of Christ if we do not know who He is? All those little choices we make add up to who we are, and when it is all added up, we have lost interest in Christ and in spiritual things; we no longer feel the need, or the want, for a Savior. How can we trust, or even know, someone we never spend time with? It is our daily walk with Christ that prepares us to partake of His Supper.
What It Means to Partake
The bread represents His body; the wine, His blood, and the blood is the life (Leviticus 17:11). So when we eat and drink, we are saying we take His life into ours. How do we partake of Christ? By taking into our hearts and minds the truth of who He is, and allowing the mind of Christ to be in us.
This is a daily work of growing. Choice by choice, we decide to be a blessing to others. We notice the small things that can bless someone else, and we do them naturally, without really thinking about it. We do it because that is who we are, not something we put on so others will see us and approve. To partake of Christ, His body and His life, is to live His life, naturally.
How Can We Eat Unworthily?
So how is it that someone partakes of the life of Christ while failing to see who Christ is, failing to acknowledge Christ as the Remedy He became for all of humanity? This is what Paul means by not discerning the body: eating at His table while blind to who is really there. How can you actually eat the bread and drink the cup unworthily?
Because you do not know Christ. The god you worship is not Christ. You believe the lies told about Him, and a lie believed will destroy the one who believes it.
The one who believes that God demanded Christ’s death on the cross so He could satisfy His need for vengeance fails to understand even the first thing about God, Christ and the Holy Spirit. God the Father did not need His Son to convince Him to love and forgive us (John 16:26–27). He was in Christ, drawing this lost, sin-sick world back to Himself (2 Corinthians 5:19). When you believe the lie that God must be appeased by the blood of His own Son, you are believing a lie that hides God from you.
The Door Only We Can Close
You cannot hide from Him. He knows your heart; your mind is an open book to Him. By trying to hide your faults from God, you refuse to allow Him access to your heart and mind, so He can heal the sickness you were born with.
Without the life, the true life, of Christ taken into your heart and mind, you will not be healed. Your heart and mind will not be able to appreciate, or even want, the spiritual things: the things that bring life, healing and joy, the full and complete life, the ability to grow up into a mature citizen of the family of God.
Believing any lie will cause you to close the door on your own prison cell, locking yourself, mind, heart and soul, away from the only One who has the ability to make you free and whole, able to live for eternity in the very presence of God.
The condemnation we bring on ourselves by taking in lies instead of truth is a choice we make when we close our hearts and minds to truth. Come to His table with your eyes open. He is there.
