1 Corinthians 11:30-32

“For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. 31. Now, if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. 32. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.”

The apostle had just spoken in a general way of the judgments which profane communion may bring down. He now appeals to the experience of the Corinthians themselves, who are at the moment visited with a sickness of which many have even died.

Διὰ τοῦτο, for this cause: “I am not using vain words when I speak thus to you” (1 Corinthians 11:29).

The word ἀσθενής, weak, rather denotes the sickness, and ἄῤῥωστος, infirm, the weakening which issues in decay, as if an invisible blow had suddenly blighted the forces of life.

Some, like Eichhorn, have taken the three terms sickly, infirm, and dead, in the spiritual sense. But the simultaneous use of the two words sickly and weak could not be easily explained morally; and instead of the verb κοιμᾶσθαι, which is never used in the New Testament, except in the sense of physical sleep or death, the apostle would rather have said νεκρὸς εἶναι (Rev 3:1). Besides, a purely spiritual fact would not have been of a nature to strike his readers sufficiently, and the more because the spiritual weakening had preceded the profanation of the Supper, and was the cause of it as much as the effect. Finally, as Stockmayer well says (La maladie et l'Evangile, p. 29): “It is not by spiritual decay that the Lord snatches us from a false position and preserves us from condemnation; it is by judgments suffered in the flesh.” Comp. 1 Corinthians 5:5; 1 Timothy 1:20. No doubt we must guard here against the faintest materialistic notion, as if the eating of the Supper itself, physically speaking, had produced the sickness, and as if the consecrated food had been changed into poison. It was a warning judgment, specially inflicted by God, such as He sends to awaken a man to salvation.

Vv. 31. And when does such a judgment overtake the Christian? When he has not voluntarily judged himself. God then comes to his help, awaking his sleeping vigilance by a stroke of His rod. This applies to Churches as well as to individuals.

The true reading is undoubtedly δέ and not γάρ. The δέ may indicate the logical progress of the argument (now then), or a contrast between the fact of the chastisement (1 Corinthians 11:30) and what would have happened if the Corinthians had behaved differently (but). The first connection is the more natural.

The verb διακρίνειν here signifies to discern, analyse, and so to appreciate; with the pronoun ἑαυτόν, himself; to discern one's own moral state by appreciating what within him pleases or displeases the Lord. By such a judgment, that of the Lord would be anticipated.

Vv. 32. This verse brings back the readers from the favourable supposition to the sad reality (δέ, but). Yet the present judgment, severe as it may be, is also an act of mercy on the Lord's part. It is not yet eternal condemnation; it is, on the contrary, a means of preventing it. Here we must distinguish with the apostle three degrees which he denotes by the analogous terms διακρίνεσθαι, to judge oneself (1 Corinthians 11:31), κρίνεσθαι, to be judged (1 Corinthians 11:32), and κατακρίνεσθαι, to be condemned (same verse). The believer ought constantly to judge himself; such is the normal state. If he fails in this task, God reminds him of it by judging him by some chastisement which He sends on him, he is judged; and if he does not profit by this means, nothing remains for him but to suffer in common with the world the final judgment from which God sought to preserve him, to be condemned.

The world denotes unconverted and lost humanity. These same three degrees may be found in Mark 9:47-50.

After this complete development of the subject, the apostle concludes, as he usually does, with some very simple words, in which he states the practical result of his whole previous argument.