In 1 Corinthians 10:1-13, Paul is not so subtly explicit in his warning to the Corinthians about their behavior and the temptations they were facing.
First, he identifies the ancient Israelites using them as a type for Christians, using the not so subtle imagery of the Israelites engaging in types of the Sacraments of Baptism (being baptized into Moses with the cloud and the sea) and Holy Eucharist (spiritual food and spiritual drink). Then he warns the Corinthians not to engage in things like idolatry, whoring, tempting Christ, grumbling, and so on just like they did and faced disastrous consequences from God (twenty three thousand fell, they were destroyed by snakes, they were destroyed by the one who makes women shriek from the loss of their men and children).
Notice, this passage is immediately after when Paul was talking about competing like an athlete against his own body so he wouldn't be found unproven or disqualified. After saying these things about competing against his body, this is then a further explanation of his reasoning, and he is essentially saying be careful not to treat your union with Christ unseriously or callously like the ancient Israelites treated Yahweh and everything they had been inducted into with contempt. Disastrous consequences will follow. It is the same thing he said in Romans where he said that if God did not spare the natural branches, he may not spare you being a grafted branch either.
A Christian treating Jesus Christ with contempt, treating Him like a joke, knowing who He is, what He's done, and knowing his or her union with Him is blaspheming the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit within them. It is the same as the man at the wedding feast who wasn't wearing the wedding clothes, and will evoke the same response from God. It is the same warning as Hebrews 10:26-31, "It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the Living God."
Paul tells the Corinthians, "A temptation hasn't gotten you except what is human; and God is trustworthy who won't let you be tempted beyond what you're capable of but will make together with the temptation also the way out with being able to bear up under it."
That way out is always submission to Christ within you, and asking and trusting Him to act and speak through you just as He asked and trusted the Father to act and speak through Him. All the temptations which we face are things which trigger the malfunctioning human survival responses of fear, aggression, feeding, and sexual drive to react to things to which we are attached or things to which we are averse. Every human being descended from Adam experiences these responses regardless of what triggers them and God has already made the way out through joining you with Jesus Christ through Baptism into His death, burial, and resurrection. Ask Him, remain in Him, and turn over all control to Him and trust Him in that moment, every moment.
Paul's argument in 1 Corinthians 10:14-22 with being careful concerning eating what's sacrificed to idols is worth taking note of, though it may not sit well with the anti-Sacramental branch of Christian theology. Paul's argument is that eating from temple sacrifices, any temple sacrifices, is communing with the sacrifice and what it was sacrificed to. This is actually a common understanding all the way around the Mediterranean Sea at the time. A sacrificed was validated by eating it, and the rite wasn't considered complete or legitimized until you ate it.
Paul argues that the cup and the bread of the Holy Eucharist or Holy Communion is communion with the body and blood of Jesus Christ and communing with His body and blood is no different than those who eat what's sacrificed in a temple. He continues this line of thinking in 11:23-30. As far as Paul is concerned, the bread and the wine in the cup are one and the same sacrifice as Jesus Christ on the cross, His broken body and shed blood. His real presence. And sharing in the bread and wine is communing with Jesus Christ on the cross, validating and legitimizing His sacrifice. Otherwise, his argument involving communing with sacrifices would be pretty empty.
In 1 Corinthians 11:23-34 Paul writes:
"Because I got from the Lord what I also handed over to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night in which He was handed over He got a loaf of bread, and having given thanks He broke it and said, 'This thing is MY body which is for you (people); do this thing for My memory.' In the same way also the cup with the dining saying, 'This cup is the fresh contract with My blood; do this, as many times as you would drink it, for My memory.' Because as many times as you would eat this loaf of bread and drink the cup you announce the death of the Lord until which (time) He should come.
“So as whoever should eat the loaf of bread or drink the cup of the Lord undeservingly, he will be culpable for the body and the blood of the Lord. Yet let a human being examine himself and thus let him eat from the loaf of bread and drink from the cup; because the person eating and drinking eats and drinks judgment for himself not setting apart the body. Because of this many among you are ill and sick and enough sleep the sleep of death. Yet if we have set ourselves apart, we would not be judged; yet being judged by the Lord we are schooled, so that we would not be condemned together with the world. So as, my brothers, coming together for the eating, wait on one another. If someone is hungry, let him eat at home, so that you don't come together for judgment. Yet the rest of the things I will draw up as I would come."
Paul's argument here in chapters 10 and 11 of 1 Corinthians are the strongest argument possible for his belief that there was no difference between the bread and the wine and Christ on the cross. By eating the bread and drinking the cup, you hold communion with His sacrificed body and blood. Were these just symbols or representations, Paul's argument would fall apart regarding eating both the things sacrificed to idols and the bread and cup of the Lord's supper, there should be no cause for the severity of his warning, and there would be no reason behind the Corinthians' illnesses and fatalities. Just this last part alone should give anyone pause about treating the bread and the wine like any other common meal.
Paul then points out the serious implications of eating both what is sacrificed to demi-gods in 10:18-22 (or demons, the word can be translated either way) and eating and drinking the body and blood of Jesus Christ (presumably for those who still believe the idols or what's sacrificed to them means anything). Referencing what he just said in the beginning of chapter 10 where he used the Israelite's flippancy and not taking God seriously and the disastrous consequences of it to warn about taking Jesus Christ seriously and the consequences of not doing so, he says, "Or are we provoking the Lord to jealousy? We aren't stronger than Him, are we?"
Eating the idol sacrifices wasn't a big deal to Paul personally or to others in the Corinthian church, but to some of them it was tantamount to mocking Christ's sacrifice or treating it flippantly, and this was concerned Paul. Perhaps not for Paul, but for some of the Greek Christians in particular, it was approaching blasphemy of the Spirit of Christ and this was what Paul was warning against. Not being flippant with Jesus Christ.
In this entire passage, Paul is continuing with the expectation of treating the bread and the cup like Christ on the cross, the victim of the sacrifice the eating of which validates the sacrifice. He began this reasoning in the previous chapter and his train of thought and line of logic hasn't changed at all. His warning about eating the bread and drinking the cup "undeservingly" or "unworthily" is a warning about consuming the sacrificial victim disrespectfully and hearkens back to his warning about God's judgment on Israel when they treated Him contemptuously. Ignorance is forgivable and can be disciplined, but knowing what it is and treating it like it was nothing is pushing blasphemy of the Spirit of Christ. Just like Israel was disciplined for treating God with contempt, so also many of the Corinthian Christians became ill, sick, and some even died because they were disrespecting the bread and the cup, the real presence of the sacrificial victim, Christ on the cross.
Another point of interest in 1 Corinthians 10 are the pains which Paul takes to not trigger someone else's conscience, that is, their sense of "good/evil" or "right/wrong." Pertaining back to my last post, the conscience is this malfunctioning survival response which then declares what we attach to "good" and what we are averse to "evil" and did not occur among the human population until the incident in Genesis 3. Judging something or someone, deciding whether they are good or evil, is, fundamentally, the decision of whether you are attached or averse to some aspect of that thing or person, whether it pleases or displeases you or whether you agree with it or disagree with it, and it becomes complicated when it pleases you but you disagree with it, or it displeases you but you agree with it. This is where cognitive dissonance occurs and mental illness can follow if it is not reconciled.
It is my belief that Paul understood these things well enough to avoid judgment of others and especially the unbelieving as much as possible, even as Jesus taught, "Don't judge so you won't be judged," and to take great pains to not trigger the other person's conscience and so initiate their malfunctioning or "sin" response.
"Everything is permitted, but not everything brings it together or is a benefit. Everything is permitted, but not everything is constructive. Don't let anyone look for his own thing, but for the thing of the other person." Interestingly, "the other person" in v. 24 is "heteros" in Greek, meaning "another of a different kind" as opposed to "allos" meaning "another of the same kind." It's the same word he uses to describe the unbelieving host who serves idol sacrifices in v. 29. Paul isn't just concerned with the weak brethren, but also with the consciences of the unbelieving pagans as well for whom the sacrificed meat would definitely mean something, and who knew the implications of eating it.
He reiterates his driving philosophy regarding these things which he himself practices and follows, "Whether then you eat or you drink or anything you do, do everything for God's glory. Become harmless to both Judeans and Greeks and the congregation of God, just like I also appease everything for everyone, not looking for my own benefit but the benefit of the many, so that they would be delivered."
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