John Calvin Commentary 1 Corinthians 11:27

"Wherefore whosoever shall eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord." — 1 Corinthians 11:27 (ASV)

Therefore he who shall eat this bread unworthily. If the Lord requires gratitude from us in receiving this sacrament — if He desires us to acknowledge His grace with the heart and proclaim it with the mouth — that man who has insulted Him rather than honored Him will not go unpunished, for the Lord will not allow His commandment to be despised. Now, if we are to understand the meaning of this declaration, we must know what it is to eat unworthily. Some restrict it to the Corinthians and the abuse that had crept in among them, but I believe that Paul here, according to his usual manner, moved from the particular case to a general statement, or from one instance to an entire class. There was one fault that prevailed among the Corinthians. He takes this as an occasion to speak of every kind of faulty administration or reception of the Supper. “God,” he says, “will not allow this sacrament to be profaned without punishing it severely.”

To eat unworthily, then, is to pervert the pure and right use of it by our abuse of it. Therefore, there are various degrees of this unworthiness, so to speak; and some offend more grievously, others less so. Some fornicator, perhaps, or perjurer, or drunkard, or cheat (1 Corinthians 5:11), intrudes himself without repentance. As such outright contempt is a sign of blatant insult against Christ, there can be no doubt that such a person, whoever he is, receives the Supper to his own destruction. Another, perhaps, will come forward, who is not addicted to any open or flagrant vice, but at the same time not so prepared in heart as he ought to have been. As this carelessness or negligence is a sign of irreverence, it is also deserving of punishment from God. Since, then, there are various degrees of unworthy participation, the Lord punishes some more lightly, while on others He inflicts severer punishment.

Now this passage gave rise to a question, which some later debated with too much intensity — whether the unworthy really partake of the Lord’s body? For some were led, by the heat of controversy, so far as to say that it was received indiscriminately by the good and the bad; and many today stubbornly and very loudly maintain that in the first Supper Peter received no more than Judas. Indeed, I am reluctant to dispute keenly with anyone on this point, which is (in my opinion) not an essential one; but since others allow themselves, without reason, to pronounce with a magisterial air whatever seems good to them, and to hurl thunderbolts at everyone who mutters anything to the contrary, we will be excused if we calmly present reasons in support of what we consider to be true.

I hold it, then, as a settled point, and will not allow myself to be driven from it, that Christ cannot be separated from His Spirit. Therefore, I maintain that His body is not received as dead, or even inactive, separated from the grace and power of His Spirit. I shall not occupy much time in proving this statement.

Now, in what way could the man who is altogether destitute of a living faith and repentance, having nothing of the Spirit of Christ, receive Christ Himself? Indeed, since he is entirely under the influence of Satan and sin, how will he be capable of receiving Christ? While, therefore, I acknowledge that there are some who receive Christ truly in the Supper, and yet at the same time unworthily, as is the case with many weak persons, I still do not admit that those who bring with them a mere historical faith, without a lively conviction of repentance and faith, receive anything but the sign.

For I cannot endure to maim Christ, and I shudder at the absurdity of affirming that He gives Himself to be eaten by the wicked in a lifeless state, so to speak. Nor does Augustine mean anything else when he says that the wicked receive Christ merely in the sacrament, which he expresses more clearly elsewhere when he says that the other Apostles ate the bread — the Lord; but Judas only the bread of the Lord.

But here it is objected that the efficacy of the sacraments does not depend on the worthiness of men, and that nothing is taken away from the promises of God, or falls to the ground, through the wickedness of men. This I acknowledge, and accordingly I add in express terms that Christ’s body is presented to the wicked no less than to the good, and this is enough as far as the efficacy of the sacrament and the faithfulness of God are concerned. For God does not represent the body of His Son to the wicked in a deceptive manner there, but presents it in reality; nor is the bread a mere sign to them, but a faithful pledge. As to their rejection of it, that does not impair or alter anything regarding the nature of the sacrament.

It remains for us to reply to Paul's statement in this passage. “Paul represents the unworthy as guilty, because they do not discern the Lord’s body; it follows that they receive His body.” I deny the inference. For though they reject it, yet because they profane it and treat it with dishonor when it is presented to them, they are deservedly held guilty; for they, so to speak, cast it on the ground and trample it under their feet. Is such sacrilege trivial? Thus I see no difficulty in Paul’s words, provided you keep in view what God presents and offers to the wicked — not what they receive.