11:20
The wish to prove you are right, or superior to others, has no place at the Lord’s Supper. We have all sinned, and all are utterly reliant on the atoning blood of Jesus. The Lord’s Supper is a celebration and declaration of that fact. It does nothing to exalt human beings. Now there are, or have been, great debates over the Lord’s Supper. The Roman Catholic church did, and still does, believe in transubstantiation. This means that the bread and wine literally becomes the flesh and blood of Jesus. This is a heretical view. Consubstantiation was a view favoured by Luther. This view says that the bread and wine remain as bread and wine, but the body and blood of Jesus are present as well. Both views seem to be a load of nonsense to me. Zwingli said that the bread and wine are symbolic. Something akin to this is probably the dominant view among evangelicals. While transubstantiation and consubstantiation have their errors, we should note that they take the Lord’s Supper and the cross seriously and be careful that we do not take it seriously enough.
The Corinthians were not actually eating the Lord’s Supper. This shows that saying the “right words” and doing the “right actions” does not make something right.
11:21
So what were they doing wrong? The Corinthians were not focused on Christ at all, but on themselves. They were exalting themselves, not Christ. Does the Lord’s Supper benefit us? Of course it does, for we are reminded that even though we are sinners, we are forgiven sinners. Christ has died for our sins. The Corinthians were treating it almost as a private dinner party!
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