The Remedy for Divided Gatherings – Pt.2

As a matter of fact, we purpose
to do so next Lord’s Day. But we have been drawing near
slowly and deliberately, preparing ourselves by focusing or really
better refocusing our attention by means of this familiar passage. As we said a few weeks ago, these
are words that are sweetly familiar to us since we read portions
of First Corinthians 11 each time we celebrate the Lord’s
table. But we wanted to move beyond just a familiarity in
our understanding of those words. We wanted to become more familiar
in our preparation for this time of communion. We wanted to better
understand this passage. If the words read for the communion
table were familiar to most of us, we may not have been as familiar
with the backdrop of this passage. Paul’s reason for citing these
words in the first place. His address to his church in
Corinth began with a rebuke for the sinful manner in which the
people were conducting themselves. And this during the church’s
most special observance, the Lord’s table. So that when Paul
does recite those well-known words of verses 23 through 26,
there is a measure of gravity, sadness that he has to do so
at all. These words were reduced to a
reminder of something that the Corinthians should already have
had in their heart. And that they didn’t is very
clear. But this loving shepherd, this
apostle Paul, he will not forsake his church. Even in the face
of such shameful behavior, They must not only be rebuked, but
challenged and corrected. That’s what Paul’s in the midst
of doing here in verses 27 through 32. He’s presenting a remedy
for the Corinthians divided gatherings. Would you please follow along
as I read beginning in verse 27 will course down through verse
32 this morning. Therefore, whoever eats the bread
or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner shall be
guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But a man must examine
himself, and in so doing, he is to eat of the bread and drink
of the cup. For he who eats and drinks eats
and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body
rightly. For this reason, many among you
are weak and sick and a number sleep. But if we judged ourselves
rightly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are
disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along
with the world. Paul began his correction of
the Corinthians with a straightforward warning in verse 27, a warning
about partaking the elements of the Lord’s table unworthily. And we saw that this had nothing
to do with their personal value or worth. Instead, it had everything
to do with the manner or the mindset with which they were
approaching or partaking of the Lord’s table. They were partaking
unworthily. and to partake of the bread or
the cup flippantly, or as Paul simply says, in an unworthy manner,
makes them guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord, which
the communion bread and wine represent. But there is an answer,
a key to this pitfall, and Paul spells it out in verse 28, we
saw it last Lord’s Day, that if we are going to partake in
a worthy manner, we must first examine ourselves before the
Lord. And having urged this, Paul provides
the reason, the support, if you will, in verses 29 through 32. These are the verses in focus
this morning. And so I would zero back in,
if you would, on verse 29 and 30. For he who eats and drinks,
eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body
rightly. Paul has already spoken of his
warning of partaking unworthily and provided his solution to
partaking unworthily. examining ourselves, now he wants
to really draw our attention to the penalty for partaking
unworthily. Paul is still focused on the
subject of the Lord’s Supper, which he reduces here to the
two words eat and drink. But make no mistake, Paul is
not talking about the general subject of eating and drinking
even here. He drew our attention to the
celebration of communion in verse 27, whoever eats the bread or
drinks of the cup of the Lord, the elements of the Lord’s table,
he sustains that image in verse 28, eat of the bread and drink
of the cup And so here in verse 29, even though he shortens those
words simply to eats and drinks, he’s undoubtedly still speaking
of the Lord’s table. Glance back though, if you would,
to verse 28. Where Paul’s admonition there
to God’s people was for self-examination. A man must examine himself if
he or she is to partake of the bread and of the cup of the Lord
in a manner worthy of that special ordinance. There must be self-examination. Now here in verse 29, Paul is
just fortifying his exhortation of verse 28, and he does so with
an unassailable reason for self-examination. Would you glance at verse 29?
For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself
if he does not judge the body rightly. We’ve all read this
verse before. perhaps in fear, perhaps in wonderment,
curiosity, perhaps in uncertainty. But I want us to ponder this
verse for a moment this morning. I want you to meditate on it.
He eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body
rightly. The judgment spoken of in that
sentence is conditional. It’s not an absolute. It’s not
a sure thing. But it is possible. The simple
act of eating and drinking at the Lord’s table can, it may
possibly, It just might, Paul says, elicit God’s judgment. Judgment. That is one of the
most feared words in all the Bible, isn’t it? And Paul says
that merely by partaking of the elements of the Lord’s table,
he who eats and drinks calls down divine judgment upon himself. The elements of the Lord’s table,
simple bread and wine, those elements are not poison, but
for some they become as such if we are reckless or if we’re
cavalier in our use of them. Such a man, Paul says, who eats
and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself. And this, Paul adds,
because he simply does not judge the body rightly. And so we have
to discover or perhaps be reminded what that means. What is it to
judge the body rightly? But before we take another step,
we should pause to note that Paul uses several different words
that for the most part, all end up being translated by the same
English word in this passage, judge or judgment. And so please
allow me to point these out. Look first at verse 29. He who
eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment, the Greek word is krima,
to himself. If he does not judge, the Greek
word is diakrino, if he does not judge the body rightly. Skipping down into verse 31. But if we judged, again, our
word diakrino, we would not be judged. A third word, crino. And then finally in verse 32,
two more uses of these words. When we are judged, crino, we
are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned. Cata, crino. And so there is
clearly a play on words that Paul is using here. He’s lavishing
this passage with this idea of judgment. And so there’s at least
these three different but related Greek words that are all translated
as judgment or judge or judged. And that fourth related word
translated there in verse 32 as condemned, And as you might imagine, there
are some subtle differences in meaning in these Greek words,
and those differences have a big implication on our understanding
of this passage. And we’ll consider each of them
in context, but let’s first look at the first two occurrences
in verse 29, that a person eats and drinks judgment to himself
or herself, who does not judge the body rightly. And for our
purposes this morning, I want to start with the second one.
Let’s start with the second one there at the end of verse 29. If he does not judge the body
rightly, that’s the conditional clause. And I have to point out
that this word rightly is not an independent word in the Greek
text. It’s woven into the meaning of
the word diacrino, to judge. And it’s translated as such here
in our, well, at least in the new American standard. Such judging
of ourselves involves rendering a decision after a thorough examination. to examine thoroughly so as to
discern, to distinguish, and that accurately. The whole purpose
in this kind of estimation is accuracy, correctness. Am I really ready to partake
of the Lord’s table? We want to carefully and accurately
evaluate our lives with the Spirit’s guidance, by means of prayer,
so that we can confess any discoveries to the Lord, praying also for
God’s transforming grace, so that we don’t have to circle
back and confess the same thing next Lord’s Day. And this gives
us a keen insight into what it means to judge the body rightly. Or, if you want to take it the
other way, what does it mean, what does it look like to judge
the body wrongly? This idea of judging the body
hearkens back to Paul’s admonition in verse 28, to examine oneself. Paul hereby equates this examining
oneself with judging the body. They are one and the same thing.
To examine oneself is to judge the body. Clear enough. Last
week we considered what it was to examine oneself. We saw that
it was a purifying or a proving examination. that we are to examine
and verify our readiness for this ordinance. And in doing
so, we humbly and prayerfully ask the indwelling Spirit of
Christ to reveal faulty mindsets, sin, unconfessed sin, really
anything in attitude or action that is unbecoming of celebrating
Christ’s table. We ask the Holy Spirit to make
us ready. So in verse 28, Paul exhorts
that we are to examine ourselves, but this is not a casual examination. As we noted above, it is to be
a thorough examination. We are to judge the body rightly,
thoroughly. This examination cannot than
be a casual or careless glance at our hearts and lives, done
just briefly and flippantly before we come to the Lord’s table.
Too often that’s the case. There’s a right way and a wrong
way to prepare for the Lord’s table. One way of judging ourselves
wrongly would be to do just like the Corinthians seem to be doing.
just to avoid self-examination entirely. That’s why Paul has
to try to restore this preparatory activity in verse 28. Another
way of judging or examining ourselves wrongly would be to do so in
a half-hearted or casual manner, to look, only to look away at
what we see when we do look. This is to take the attitude
or the approach that we know it’s bad. We know our heart is
sick. We know that we’ve sinned. But
we really don’t want to see what the spirit might reveal. And
so we go about our so-called examination in such a hasty or
shallow way that not much is discovered. Even less is confessed. Nothing is repented of. There’s
still another way to judge ourselves wrongly. That would be to ignore
outright the things that the Spirit does bring to mind during
our self-examination. And there are numerous related
versions of that. downplaying those things that
the spirit, well, it’s really not that, well, there was context
to that sinful outburst, or excusing the things that the spirit brings
to mind. And so judging the body rightly
or thoroughly is a serious, sobering, and humbling process. We come
to the Lord to be taken apart to be examined every corner of
our hearts. And we have to implore the Holy
Spirit of God to search our hearts and lives, to wait patiently
on Him, and to yield ourselves to that which He reveals. Not
to put up a fight, not to argue, not to excuse, but to acknowledge
before a holy God, you know what God, you’re right. That was sin. We respond in confession, acknowledging
the sinfulness of these things that the Spirit has brought to
mind. We acknowledge that Jesus died too for these sins. And we appeal for a fresh supply
of grace to overcome these things. We judge the body rightly. We judge the body thoroughly.
Well, this brings us back, if you will, to the middle of verse
29, to that other word translated as judge or judgment. To judge
the body wrongly is to invoke or to eat and drink judgment
to oneself. And I have to tell you right
away, if you’re reading a King James here, the translation of
this word is far too strong for the context. That translation
says that such a person eateth and drinketh damnation to himself. That translation definitively
states that this is referring to eternal judgment, eternal
damnation. That English word damnation is
used exclusively to refer to final judgment. That cannot possibly
be the case here. If you’re a Christian and you’ve
had a bad day at the Lord’s table, God is not going to commit you
to eternal perdition. If that were the case, then Paul’s
address here to the Corinthians is pointless. Why is he even
talking to them? They’ve already been consigned
to hell. God is a merciful God. Even in
the face of the outright abuse of the Lord’s table, Paul stands
here graciously correcting his beloved church. So we need to consider this word,
judgment. It’s the Greek word crema. And
in all three places in which it’s used in this particular
section, it does speak of God’s act of judging. Here in verse
29, he eats and drinks judgment to himself. Verse 31, we would
not be judged. Verse 32, when we are judged,
those all speak of God’s judicial act, God’s evaluation rendering
a decision or a judgment. But this word does not here refer
to God’s final judgment. Rather, these are temporal judgments,
as we’ll see definitively in a moment. Temporal judgments
that are all designed to seize a person’s attention. We might
call it chastisement by the Lord. Paul has in mind this temporal
punishment, this chastisement, not eternal damnation. We’ll see more as Paul elaborates
that more momentarily, but it does involve God stepping in
to render a judicial decision if we fail in our own judgment,
in our own examination of ourselves. In short, either we judge, that
is examine ourselves carefully or God will. Would you glance again at verse
30? Let’s start in verse 29. I’ll take it in full. For he
who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if
he does not judge the body rightly. For this reason, many among you
are weak and sick and a number sleep. And now Paul becomes even
more explicit with his warning of consequence. It isn’t just
a matter of us eating and drinking some kind of general judgment
upon ourselves. No, here in verse 30, he explains
that weakness and sickness and even death are the results of
failing to judge the body rightly. Now, I know. even battling cold
symptoms myself. I know that addressing us with
a third of our church, I know what this is going to do. It’s
immediately puts questions in your mind of, you know, what
about me? And it is all sickness directly
tied to the Lord’s table. The last time that I celebrated
the Lord’s table, Well, let’s be patient. These phenomena,
this outbreak of this mysterious illness and even death in Corinth
may have even been a question on which the Corinthians themselves
were wrestling. They must have noticed it, but
they had not yet made a sure connection of the two things.
Otherwise, Paul would not have had cause to instruct them here. Paul tells them, in their case,
there is a direct connection with serious consequences between
our careless approach to the Lord’s table and our physical
well-being. But this experience is one that
every child of God knows. It’s a common and relatable event
to feel hardship, physical hardship in the midst of ignoring our
sin. We either confess it and rid
ourselves of it, or that sin begins to take a toll on our
physical body. Studies have shown that stress,
stress so often related to some sinful episode or event or lifestyle,
sin and stress begins to take a toll on the physical body. The psalmist knew this. Psalm
6-2, be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am pining away. Heal me,
O Lord, for my bones are dismayed. Psalm 31-10, my life is spent
with sorrow, my years with sighing, my strength has failed because
of my iniquity, and my body has wasted away. Psalm 32 three,
when I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my
groaning all day long. God knows well how to train his
children. And chastisement such as physical
suffering is too effective a tool to set aside. God uses it plentifully. earlier in this same epistle,
back in chapter five. Would you flip back to chapter
five, just briefly? First Corinthians chapter five, and just glide down to verse
five. Paul is dealing here with a horrible
case of sin, and he’s already begun to effect a plan with the
unrepentant young adulterer. Look at verse five. I have decided
to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh.
This is like the ultimate church discipline. What would that have looked like?
Would this have been a debilitating disease? We don’t know. Did that mean that Satan was
going to inflict some kind of severe bodily injury? We don’t
know. You can imagine that Satan has
every imaginable weapon available to him. But note Paul’s purpose
for this very severe sentence, delivering one to Satan for the
destruction of his flesh. It was so that his spirit may
be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. This was a believer. For
all intents and purposes, this is a Christian man who is sinning
greatly, and Paul pleads the Lord to take him out. Back to 1 Corinthians 11. Well,
this sad news was every bit as alarming to the Corinthians as
it is to us. Weakness, sickness, death. And not only alarming, but it
was a statement that prompted many questions just like it does
for us. Look at the terminology that
Paul uses, weak, sick, and sleep. And it’s very difficult to draw
a real significant distinction between the two words, weak and
sick. They’re practically synonymous.
Here, the weakness, a general reference to the effects of illness,
It’s that which is brought on by sickness. You’re sick and
it makes you weak. And the more general word for
sickness, the second one, is described as protracted debilitation. So you’ve been sick for a long
time, some disease that you’ve contracted, that surely would
produce weakness. Sickness here is not a mere common
cold. But even with a common cold,
we get a glimpse of what sickness does, don’t we? Even with a common cold, we’re
slowed down. Depending on the severity, we’re
wiped out, bedridden, laid low. We just hunker down under the
sheets. I’ve often said that that’s one of the benefits of
a cold, is it makes you slow down for a couple of days, doesn’t
it? So this is a sickness, a sickness of severe enough sort that it
saps one’s energy and zest. It sneaks up upon us, takes control,
and diminishes our ability to do life. So Paul likely meant for these
two words to be blended together as one, weak and sick, sick and
weak. The final curse is surely the
worst, although it doesn’t sound so bad. Many among you are weak and sick
and a number sleep. On the face of it, that doesn’t
sound half bad, does it? Nice long Sunday afternoon nap. Even if you’re sick, that’s usually
the best thing for you, isn’t it? Sleep. But this is no ordinary
sleep. This sleep is the sleep of death.
Sleep is a euphemism for death in the scriptures. And as bad
as that sounds, we have to grasp this chastisement in context. This kind of sleep in the New
Testament only happens to believers. It happened to Lazarus. When
Jesus initially used this euphemism of sleep, the disciples understood
it as a literal nap. Would you turn to John chapter
11 for a moment? John chapter 11 and zip down
to verse 11. Jesus mentions this sleep and
his disciples are befuddled. He, that is Jesus, said to them,
our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go so that I may
awaken him out of sleep. The disciples totally misunderstood
Christ’s use of this euphemism. The disciples then said to him,
Lord, if he’s fallen asleep, he will recover. Now Jesus had
spoken of his death. But they thought he was speaking
of literal sleep. So Jesus said then plainly, to
them plainly, Lazarus is dead. So this sleep of death happened
to Lazarus, and it happened to Stephen as well. Just rest there in John for a
moment. I’ll get you back to First Corinthians.
But think of Stephen in Acts chapter seven. Stephen preached
his one sermon, right? One sermon, it was that good,
and then he was attacked, stoned, and the final verse of that chapter
records of him then falling on his knees, he cried out with
a loud voice, Lord, do not hold this sin against them. Having
said this, he fell asleep. Stephen died. Lazarus died, Stephen
died. Paul uses the same euphemism
later in 1 Corinthians 15. In his epic discussion of the
resurrection, there Paul assures his readers that we will not
all sleep, but we will all be changed. We’re
not all going to face physical death, but we will all be changed,
transformed. Not everyone is going to die
prior to the Lord’s return, but some will, some will sleep, they
will die, just like Stephen, just like Lazarus, back, if you
would, to 1 Corinthians 11. So what Paul is pointing to here
in 1 Corinthians 11 is the untimely death of some of those believers
who abused the Lord’s table. They partook of the elements
of communion unworthily Verse 27, they did not examine themselves. Verse 28, they did not judge
the body rightly. Verse 29, this is a sleep that
impacts by the way, their physical bodies only. Their eternal souls
go immediately into the presence of the Lord. And as good as that
sounds, it is a severe chastisement by the Lord. I want you to just
pause and think about this. You’re doing whatever it is you’re
doing that is so utterly displeasing to the Lord. You refuse to confess
it. And that after his great long
suffering toward you, he finally makes the decision to take you
out. And in an instant, you’re immediately
transported into the presence of God. As good as that sounds,
most of us don’t want to go to heaven like that. From sinning
to glory? This is always a question that
produces a lot of discussion. But if Ananias and Sapphira were
truly saved, think of it. We know that believers sometimes
tell great big lies like Ananias and Sapphira did. This is exactly
what it would have been like for them. They went from lying
to the church to standing in God’s holy presence immediately. It’s just not the way you want
to go. God literally takes them out
before they can do any further damage to their own witness,
to the local body, to the cause of the gospel. That’s right,
in the worst case scenario, those who had abused the Lord’s table
were chastised with physical death. God took them out. And
Paul indicates that this was no isolated episode. This was
an outbreak. He says, a number sleep. And he doesn’t provide that number,
citing exactly how many cases there were. But the number of
those who had died was significant enough that he didn’t even have
to provide it. They knew. That’s what happened
to all these people. There were enough people in the
Corinthian church that had died suddenly. that it was a question
looming over the entire church. It must have been a considerable
quantity enough to capture the attention of the entire body
of believers. And this would have been a stunning,
shocking revelation to the Corinthian church. Now, what do we make of all this?
What do we do with all this weakness, sickness, death, especially in
the midst of an outbreak of colds and flu and RSV and all the rest? maybe even the dreaded COVID
itself is here again, is the sickness of every believer, every
time, an indication of divine judgment. And we have to be immediately
cautious of drawing such a conclusion. Remember John’s gospel, John
chapter 9, the account of the healing of the man born blind,
Remember how that whole thing started? Jesus’ own followers came to
him and asked a question, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents
that he would be born blind? That was their presumption. And
that was a commonly held perspective. Sin brings judgment by way of
physical suffering. So if there’s physical suffering,
just like with Job, then there must be sin. The Pharisees believed
that. Jesus’ own disciples were wrestling
with it. There was another occasion, Luke
13, when Jesus brought up what must have been some kind of a
national disaster. The tower of Siloam fell and
killed a bunch of people. Remember this? And Jesus presses the question
of his listeners. Do you suppose that those 18
people were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem?
Do you think that God just zeroed in and took out the worst 18
people in the country? His point is that we don’t always
know. God tends to bless obedience and he tends to judge disobedience. But that’s the conundrum of the
book of Job. God is sovereign, we don’t always
know, and we’re not God. It’s God’s business, not ours. When people are sick, they’re
sick. Love them, care for them, bring them soup, pray for them,
but don’t judge them. What do you do if you’re weak
or sick? And I would say this, that just as a cold is an indication
that you need to slow down, that cold is a free opportunity to
check your heart, to pause in prayer and examine your heart
for any unconfessed sin. And I’ll tell you this much,
if it’s the sleep of death, you won’t have to ask any questions.
You’ll know your status with the Lord right away. The bottom
line is that these physical maladies are brought up by a spiritual
condition. The chastisement was a physical weakness, sickness,
death. The chastisement was also temporal,
not eternal. These physical maladies were
intended by God to impact these believers spiritually, These
are designed by God as warnings of our current and degrading
condition. God would not stand to gain by
weakening his children spiritually, but by sending us so many thorns
in the flesh, he shakes us out of our stupor and draws us away
from more certain trouble. So again, this weakness, sickness,
death, It’s God’s judgment upon the
errant sinner. It’s not eternal judgment. And
it is unnecessary. That’s what Paul says. God does not have to exercise
this kind of judgment. We don’t have to endure this
kind of chastisement. There’s another means of correction
other than the judgment of God. And Paul has told us about this
means twice already. Examine yourself. Judge yourself
rightly. Paul urges the same thing again
in verse 31. By God’s grace, we’ll take that
up in closing, in preparation for the Lord’s table next Lord’s
day. We have a merciful God. He’s
not the big meanie in the sky. He’s not just looking to do us
irreparable harm. He’s looking to bring about in
us Christ-likeness. He’s looking to sanctify us,
to make us pure and holy. And He does so by means of His
grace. But He certainly utilizes the
very reason that He instituted the Lord’s Supper was to draw
us deeper and closer into that sanctifying relationship. What a merciful God we serve.
Would you humble yourself before Him?