1 Corinthians 11:28

But let a man examine himself— St. Paul, as we have observed, tells the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 11:20 that to eat it after the manner they did, was not to eat the Lord's supper. He tells them also, 1 Corinthians 11:29 that to eat it without a due and direct imitating regard had to the Lord's body, (for so he calls the sacramental bread and wine, as our Saviour did in theinstitution) by separating the bread and wine from the common use of eating and drinking for hunger and thirst, was to eat unworthily. To remedy these disorders herein, he sets before them Christ's own institution of this sacrament, that in it they might see the manner and end of its institution, and by that every one might examinehisowncomportmentherein,whetheritwereconformableto that institution, and suited to that end. In the account that he gives of Christ's institution, we may observe, he particularly remarks to them, that this eating and drinking was no part of common eating and drinking for hunger and thirst; but was instituted in a very solemn manner, after they had supped, and for another end, viz. to represent Christ's body and blood, and to be eaten and drunk in remembrance of him; or as St. Paul expounds it, to shew forth his death. Another thing which they might observe in the institution was, that this was done by all who were present, united together in one company, at the same time. All which put together, shews us what the examination here proposed is. For the design of the Apostle being to reform what he found fault with in their celebrating the Lord's supper, it is by that alone that we must understand the directions he gives them about it, if we would suppose that he talked pertinently to this captious people, whom he was very desirous to reduce from the irregularities they were running into in this matter, as well as several others. And if the account of Christ's institution be not in order to their examiningtheir carriage by it, and adjusting it to it, to what purpose is it here? The examination therefore proposed was no other but an examination of their manner of eating the Lord's supper by Christ's institution, to see how their behaviour herein comported with the institution, and the end for which it was instituted. Which further appears to be so by the punishments annexed to their miscarriages herein, which were infirmities, sickness, and temporal death, with which God chastened them, that they might not be condemned with the unbelieving world, 1 Corinthians 11:30. For if the unworthiness here spoken of, were either unbelief, or any of those sins which are usually made the matter of examination, it is to be presumed the Apostle would not wholly have passed them over in silence: this at least is certain, that the punishment of these sins is infinitely greater than that which God here inflicts on unworthy receivers, whether they who are guilty of them received the sacrament or not. The words Και ουτως, as to the letter, are rightly translated and so; but that translation leaves generally a wrong sense of the place in the mind of an English reader. For, in ordinary speaking, these words, let a man examine himself, and so let him eat, are understood to import the same with these, let a man examine himself, and then let him eat; as if they signified no more, but that examination should precede, and eating follow; which I take to be quite different from the meaning of the Apostle here, whose sense the whole design of the context shews to be this: I here set before you the institution of Christ; by that let a man examine his carriage; και ουτως, and according to that let him eat; let him conform the manner of his eating to that.