LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2001, Page 361

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THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS 361

denied the shameful, paradoxical, salvific death of Christ which the
Supper declares and the benefits of that death offered in the Sup-
per.” In response to their sinful disunity, Paul taught them about
the Eucharist, the congregation’s sacrament of unity.

Apostolic Exhortation and Warning: Discerning the Body

In | Cor. 11:27 Paul drew a solemn conclusion (“Therefore.”
@ote): unworthy eating and drinking mean profanation of, sinning
against, the sacramental presence of Christ’s body and blood.*! In
this context the unworthiness of their eating and drinking consisted
especially in “the loveless and inconsiderate behavior of the
Corinthians at the love-feasts and Supper.”**

The corrective? Each member of the congregation should ex-
amine or test himself or herself, and after that self-examination
each should eat and drink properly. For, as Paul shockingly ex-
plained, sacramental participation brings God’s judgment as long
as** the communicants do not “discern the body.” That the
Corinthians have not been “discerning the body” is clear from what
follows. They have been eating and drinking judgment, resulting
in physical sickness and death among their members (I Cor.
11:30). These Christians, whom Paul names as “my brothers”
(11:33), were being judged by the Lord, although even in that judg-
ment God’s purpose to save was at work. As they were being
judged they were being trained or disciplined by God so that they
might not be condemned along with the world (11:32). God was
dealing here in judgment with His people, but still He desired their
salvation.

The crucial phrase. much controverted, is “discerning the
body.” To what does “the body” (10 o@ua) refer? The answer to
this question is of primary importance, and it requires a careful and
thorough answer.

The primary question is one of reference: to what does “the
body” (t6 o@pa) refer in | Cor. 11:29? In the first place, “the
body” in this passage refers to the body of Christ that is truly and
sacramentally present and is being received orally by all who were
communing in Corinth. The following four factors support this tra-
ditional conclusion.

First, the only other use of “the body” in the immediate context
refers to Christ’s sacramental presence: “This is my body (todt0
OV EOTLV TO GMa), which is on your behalf” (11:24). Moreover,
in this immediate context Paul had an opportunity to refer to the
church as “the body,” and did not do so. Rather, he wrote, “For
when you come together in church... .” (€v exkAnota, 11:18).

Second, while the overt sin in Corinth involved a breakdown of
congregational fellowship and sin on the horizontal plane, Paul was
not content to deal merely on that level. Rather, the reason why
(yap, 11:23) he refused to praise them (11:22) flows from the real-
ities that are the Supper of the Lord. Their real and primary prob-
lem was this: because they were eating and drinking the Supper in
an unworthy manner, they were guilty of sinning against the body
and the blood of the Lord. The structure of Paul’s thought demands
the conclusion that at the most important level their failure to “dis-
cern” involved the Eucharist itself."

Third, the rhetorical structure of 1 1:27~29 is significant, espe-
cially in relation to 11:30-32. Verse 29 coheres logically as part of
the smaller subunit of verses 27-29,** which together serve as the
referent of “this” (“On account of this,” 51 todto) in verse 30.°°
When Paul writes in 11:30, “on account of this,” “this” refers to
11:27-29. These three verses then, as a unit, are the ground on
which the conclusion of | 1:30—32 is based.

The relationship of verses 27-29 to one another may be de-
scribed as follows:

(27) Situation stated: the problem in Corinth

“Whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord un-

worthily is guilty of sinning against the body and the blood of

the Lord.”

(28) Contrast: the exhortation that will undo the problem of
verse 27

“But (5€) let a person examine himself and thus jet him eat from
the bread and let him drink from the cup.”

(29) The ground or reason why the exhortation in verse 28
should be heeded

“For (yap) the one who eats and drinks eats and drinks a judg-
ment against himself if he does not discern the body.”

The sub-unit consisting of 1!:27~-29 is entirely concerned with
bread and wine and with body and blood. It deals with unworthy
eating and drinking. The most natural direction to look for help in
determining the referent of “the body” in verse 29 is back to verses
27 and 28.°7 When one looks in that direction, the use of 10 o@ua in
the phrase “discerning the body” refers to the eucharistic presence
of Christ's body.

Fourth, in the places in | Corinthians where the noun “body”
does refer directly and unambiguously to the church as the body of
Christ, there are always explicit textual markers that indicate that
reference. Especially when Paul is shifting quickly from a eu-
charistic reference of “the body” to an ecclesial one, he provides
explicit indications of that move, as in | Cor. 10:16-17.%

The question arises, however: if “the body” in verse 29 is a ref-
erence to the eucharistic presence of Christ’s true body, why does
the apostle not say “discerning the body and the blood”? Some
think that the singular use of “the body” forces the conclusion that
Paul is not referring here to the sacramental presence of Christ but
only to the church as the body of Christ. This understanding does
not necessarily follow, however, and against it the following factors
can be raised.

First, a natural explanation for the shortened reference to “the
body” is that the phrase functions as a synecdoche in which the
whole of something is referred to by a part of the whole.”

Second, some wish to find great significance in the shortened
expression “the body.” Yet these same interpreters do not find sim-
ilar significance in the other discernable “shortenings” in the im-
mediate context. But two other discernable abbreviations are pre-
sent and are reflected in the manuscript tradition.“’ If one
“shortening” (“the body” in 11:29) has great significance, then why
are the other two “shortenings” not significant (“the bread” in
11:27, and “the one who eats and drinks” in 11:29)? The manu-
script tradition’s repeated attempts to clarify Paul’s meaning show
that this is a passage in which Paul is arguing succinctly and
tightly. And we do know that the apostle fully anticipated the op-
portunity to flesh out his own meaning at a time not too far in the
future: “But the remaining things { will set in order when I come”
(11:34).

The strongest case, then, can be made for a eucharistic refer-
ence of “the body” at 11:29. The Corinthian Christians have not
been “discerning the eucharistic presence of Christ’s body and
blood.” Having argued this, however. is that all that we might say?
Is it possible that “discerning the body” also and at the same time
involves a “subtle allusion” to the church which gathers around the
Sacrament?"! Several contextual factors support this conclusion as
well, and even if “the body” (t0 o@ya) in 11:29 does not directly
refer to the congregation gathered, it certainly does imply or in-
volve it.

In the first place it has already been observed that | Cor.
11:27-29 is a tightly knit unit. The verses that follow, 11:30-32,
have the same character. Noteworthy is the way the apostle uses
words of the “judge” (kptv-) stem: “judgment” (kpipa, 11:29. 34);
“to discern” (StaKpivetv, 11:29, 31): “to judge” (kpivery, 11:31,
32); “to condemn” (Kataxkpivety, 11:32). In such a context it is not
at all unlikely that Paul may be accomplishing more than one thing
at one time through careful and subtle use of language.

Second, there is a parallelism between 11:29 and [ 1:31. As
noted above, | 1:27—29 is a discrete sub-unit of Paul’s argument,

2001 Convention Workbook