1 Corinthians 11:27-28

Scripture: 1 Cor. 11:27 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.

1 Cor. 11:28 Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

Teaching: Speaking on the topic of the Lord’s Supper, also known as communion, Paul gives a specific instruction here in these verses — to approach it rightly. Paul has just admonished the Corinthians for turning the observance of the Lord’s Supper into a drunken feast while also denying the poor the same meal in verses 17-22 and given instruction on what it commemorates in verses 23-26. Now, Paul says that when they are to observe this meal, they must not do so in an “unworthy manner…[as that would make them] guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord.” Rather, in verse 28, Paul instructs each person to “examine himself” and then partake of the bread and cup. What does that mean? 

Some take this as a requirement for confession of sin before receiving the body and blood of Christ. For some, that is a requirement that one confess verbally to a priest. For others, it is more in the sense that one come into agreement (what the word for confess, homologeo, really means), with God that you are a sinner in need of saving. Now, that is part of coming to faith in Christ, believing that He died for our sins, but that is not what Paul is saying here. The word Paul uses in verse 28 for “examine” is dokimazo, which does not have “confess” in its lexical range, but rather means “to test, examine, scrutinize to see whether a thing is genuine or not.” In this, Paul means for each person to examine his own heart to see if they are approaching this sacrament with a right heart, not lightly nor overly burdened by sin. As Paul said in verses 23-26, the Lord’s Supper both reflects the price paid for our sin and proclaims the hope and joy of our Savior’s return. It is inherently both sobering and joyful, not merely one or the other.

Thus, he is not setting up a condition of confession for receiving the Lord’s Supper, calling us to focus only our our own sins as a precondition for receiving a reminder of God’s freely given grace. In the full context of these verses, Paul is calling the Corinthians to approach this observance with a right heart. Thus, being guilty of “the body and blood of the Lord” in verse 27 is not some new special sin that we must pay for (as Christ has paid for all sin once and for all), but rather a way of describing someone who partakes in the Lord’s Supper without recognizing the full gravity and grace of its remembrance. Put simply, we should be keeping the right attitude and heart posture towards this observance, not turning it into something Jesus did not desire it to be. 

Takeaway: It can be a slippery slope when we start put preconditions on receiving salvation, or requiring certain actions before we can participate in worship of Christ. That begins to creep into the works-based salvation territory. Salvation is a free gift that none of us is worthy of, but yet in God’s great love, He gave it anyway. He calls us to faith and repentance, not ongoing penance or contrition. The gospel does not heap more shame upon us. In the Lord’s Supper, we remember the cost of that salvation and also the hope of the future return of Christ in His Kingdom. To approach that with flippancy is wrong, but so is approaching it with some kind of contrived contrition (as can happen when confession is required). Paul eschews both of these approaches, and merely commands a right attitude, one that is honoring and glorifying to the Lord, rooted in faith. As we will see in the next verses, there can be severe consequences for churches who persist in disobedience to the Lord as it pertains to the Lord’s Supper.