John Calvin Commentary 1 Corinthians 10:16

"The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a communion of the body of Christ?" — 1 Corinthians 10:16 (ASV)

The cup of blessing. While the sacred Supper of Christ has two elements—bread and wine—he begins with the second. He calls it the cup of blessing, as having been set apart for a mystical benediction. For I do not agree with those who understand blessing to mean thanksgiving, and interpret the verb to bless as meaning to give thanks. I acknowledge, indeed, that it is sometimes employed in this sense, but never in the construction that Paul has used here, for the idea of Erasmus, about supplying a preposition, is exceedingly forced. On the other hand, the meaning that I adopt is easy and has no intricacy.

To bless the cup, then, is to set it apart for this purpose: that it may be for us an emblem of the blood of Christ. This is done by the word of promise when believers meet together according to Christ’s appointment to celebrate the remembrance of His death in this Sacrament.

The consecration, however, which the Papists use, is a kind of sorcery derived from heathens, which has nothing in common with the pure rite observed by Christians.

Everything, it is true, that we eat is sanctified by the word of God, as Paul himself elsewhere bears witness (1 Timothy 4:5); but that blessing is for a different purpose—that our use of the gifts of God may be pure and may tend to the glory of their Author and to our advantage.

On the other hand, the design of the mystical blessing in the Supper is that the wine may no longer be a common beverage but set apart for the spiritual nourishment of the soul, while it is an emblem of the blood of Christ.

Paul says that the cup which has been blessed in this manner is κοινωνία—the communion of the blood of the Lord. It is asked, in what sense? Let contention be avoided, and there will be no obscurity. It is true that believers are united together by Christ’s blood, so as to become one body. It is also true that a unity of this kind is properly called κοινωνία (communion). I make the same acknowledgment regarding the bread. Further, I observe what Paul immediately adds, as it were, by way of explanation—that we all become one body, because we are together partakers of the same bread. But from where, I ask you, comes that κοινωνία (communion) between us, if not from this: that we are united to Christ in such a way that

we are flesh of His flesh, and bone of His bones?
(Ephesians 5:30).

For we must first of all be incorporated (so to speak) into Christ, so that we may be united to each other. In addition to this, Paul is not disputing at present merely about a mutual fellowship among people, but about the spiritual union between Christ and believers, with the aim of drawing from this the conclusion that it is an intolerable sacrilege for them to be polluted by fellowship with idols. From the connection of the passage, therefore, we may conclude that κοινωνία, the communion of the blood, is that connection which we have with the blood of Christ, when He engrafts all of us together into His body, that He may live in us, and we in Him.

Now, when the cup is called a participation, the expression, I acknowledge, is figurative—provided that the truth conveyed in the figure is not taken away, or, in other words, provided that the reality itself is also present, and that the soul has as truly communion in the blood as we drink wine with the mouth.

But Papists could not say this, that the cup of blessing is a participation in the blood of Christ, for the Supper that they observe is mutilated and torn—if indeed we can give the name of the Supper to that strange ceremony which is a patchwork of various human contrivances and scarcely retains the slightest vestige of our Lord’s institution.

But, supposing that everything else were as it ought to be, this one thing is contrary to the right use of the Supper: withholding the cup from all the people, which is half of the Sacrament.

The bread which we break. From this it appears that it was the custom of the ancient Church to break one loaf and distribute to each one a piece, so that their union to the one body of Christ might be more clearly presented to all believers. And that this custom was long maintained appears from the testimony of those who flourished in the three centuries that followed the age of the Apostles. From this arose the superstition that no one dared to touch the bread with his hand, but each one had it put into his mouth by the priest.