speak as to wise men; judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? (1 Cor. 10:15-16)
In our text, Paul states that he is addressing the wise. He does not speak to those who react to others; his message is for those who submit to the teaching of the Word.
We learn here that the Lord's Supper is a means of blessing; it is very clearly a means of grace. Paul identifies the cup as a cup of blessing. This means that when a believer comes to the Lord's Supper, and partakes of it in a worthy manner, he is blessed by God in the coming. This is a blessing the communicant would not have received if he had not partaken. Paul says here that there is blessing associated with this cup, and in the next chapter of 1 Corinthians, Paul makes it very clear that abuse of the Supper brings God's curse (1 Cor. 11:27-32). Christians in sin are warned away from participation in the Supper; those who disregard the warning are guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. Such promises and threatenings enable us to see that this is not just some empty religious ceremony.
But the blessing of this ordinance has historically been distorted in two ways. One is the error of the sacerdotalist, who magnifies what happens to the bread and wine to the point of idolatrous superstition. The other is the error of the memorialist, who reacts to the idolatry, and minimizes or denies the reality of the blessing.
The former teaching is that the sacraments perform their function ex opere operato that is, they work blindly and mechanically, quite apart from faith and obedience on the part of the recipient. So some believers, when they have seen this sort of idolatry, have reacted by saying that the Supper is nothing more than a mere memorial. Now it is important that evangelical Christians reject all forms of priestcraft, but we must do so without being reactionary. Biblical rejection of false teaching is not the same thing as mindless reaction to false teaching.
An idolater will say that the observance of the Supper is everything. A reactionary will say, in contrast, that it is nothing. But in order to maintain his position, the reactionary must do just as much violence to the biblical data as does the idolater.
The teaching of this passage cannot be reconciled with either extreme. There is true blessing here, and it is the result of covenantal identification. This is a blessing that is poured out on the believer by a sovereign God in a providential response to the believer's obedience. The blessing does not come through the elements, like water through a garden hose. But it does come on account of a worthy and faithful use of the elements. In the Old Testament, the Levites who ate at the altar were partakers of the altar (v. 18). When they ate the sacrifices, they were consequently covenantally identified with the God of Israel. God did not magically transform the meat. Nevertheless, the Levites were blessed when they faithfully kept the sacrificial ordinances God had commanded them to keep.
This sort of covenantal participation is not limited to the godly. Something similar happened to the idolaters of Corinth. They were partakers at a demonic table but no sacramental miracle was occuring there either. By eating at an idolatrous feast, those worshipers were covenantally identifed with the demons behind their idols (vv. 20-21).
So we must see that the elements are not a channel of blessing. There is no magic in the Supper. No mystical substance flows to the believer through the elements. We must remember that in the previous verse (v. 14), Paul warns the Corinthians to avoid idolatry. As the sacerdotalist error makes plain, one of the ways this warning has been neglected in the history of the church has been through the sin of looking at the bread and wine as though they contained the blessing.
There is no magic in the Supper. No mystical substance flows to the believer through the elements.
But for evangelicals, the opposite error has been far more common. The Supper is considered as nothing more than a memorial. Now this is partially correct; it is a memorial, but of what? What is it that we gather to remember? The obvious response appears to be that we gather to remember the Lord's death. And it is here that the rampant sentimentalism about the Lord's death has obscured the point of the memorial. It is very common for Christians to think of His death as an act of love for individual sinners, and nothing more. It is almost never seen as a covenantal act, establishing a covenantal people.
But how did Christ think of His death? In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, `This cup is the new covenant in my blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me' (1 Cor. 11:25). When Christ laid down His life, He did so in order to establish the new covenant with His people. So those who gather to remember His death, but who neglect the covenantal aspect, are missing the entire point. When we gather at the Supper, we do so in order to demonstrate our continued understanding of, and faithfulness to, the new covenant. So participation in the Supper is an act of covenantal allegiance. As such, the backslidden Christian should come with trembling, and confession had better be on his lips before the bread and wine is. The one who has been walking faithfully under the covenant should also come with trembling, and in utter humility look for the undeserved blessing. . . . open your mouth wide, and I will fill it (Ps. 81:10).
