You Can’t Have It Both Ways — Part One

One of the ways that we might describe the tenth chapter of 1 Corinthians is as a threefold warning issued by Paul, the warning relating to the dangers of freedom. The dangers of freedom. We probably don’t immediately associate danger with freedom, but in actual fact, there are dangers that attach to freedom. Every mother and father, I presume, who takes the car keys on that first fateful evening and says to their son or their daughter, “You are now free to drive my car. You passed your test this afternoon. Have a good time”—there are dangers in that freedom.

There are many dangers that attach to spiritual freedom, and Paul addresses three. Last time, we dealt with the danger of presumptuousness—the kind of person who says, “I can do what I want, because I’m free.” Next Lord’s Day, God willing, we will deal, in the final section, with the danger of legalism, which is so often the reaction to genuine Christian freedom. And this morning, in verses 14–22, we’re going to deal with the danger of compromise.

If we have any difficulty understanding the language of these verses here that we have just read, we should certainly be in no doubt as to the application. It seems perfectly clear that Paul is pulling no punches. He makes it very obvious to all who read: you cannot be a guest at “the Lord’s table” and a guest at “the table of demons.”

Now, just exactly what all of that means is what we are going to spend our time discovering this morning. But if we miss everything else, we need to realize that there is a great gulf set between what it means to be meaningfully participating in the Lord’s Table and what it means to be involved in other tables that are certainly not the Lord’s.

Some of his readers were obviously taking their Christian freedom in questionable matters a wee bit too far. In other words, the real issue of Christian freedom is always where it relates to questionable things: “Do you think it’s okay to do this? Do you think it’s all right to do that?” And in relationship to that whole issue, some of them were pushing the limits. And so Paul needs to address the matter with them.

It’s a clear word of warning to all in every age, all of us who are tempted to try and straddle the fence. And I speak to you as one who in my teenage years thought myself fairly expert at straddling the fence, for I had a posture for Sundays and I had a posture for Monday through Saturdays. And I was actually walking down a dangerous road—the road that some of you, perhaps, are walking this morning. And it can’t and it mustn’t be done.

The flavor of Paul’s instruction is akin to the words of James in James 3, where he says to his readers, “Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be.”[1] If you’re sitting at the table of cursers all week and then at the Table of the Lord on the weekend, something’s wrong—especially if you or I are participating in the cursing. Would we curse and then praise? Would we be involved in demons and then with Christ?

Now, you’ll notice that the opening word of verse 14 ties the preceding section with what now follows: “Therefore,” he says, “my dear friends”—in light of what? Well, in light of verse 13 and beyond. He’s just given this great word of encouragement with which we ended last time: that “there is no temptation that has taken you but such that is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.”[2]

We just sang in the hymn that “temptations lose their pow’r when thou art [near].”[3] I’m not sure I believe that. I’ll have to think it out. I haven’t found that the presence of Christ diminishes the reality of temptation, but it changes the way in which I am able to respond to temptation. At least, that’s what the Bible says, and since we want the Bible to be the thing and not hymnbooks, we’re going to go with the Bible rather than the hymnbook, I presume.

“God is faithful; he [won’t] let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. … When you[’re] tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” So maybe that’s the sense, in which case, we ought to let the hymn writer off. That’s okay. I shouldn’t allow myself to pontificate in this way.

Anyway, the fact of the matter is that verse 13 is a kind of encouraging, comforting, cozy verse. In reading the encouragement of verse 13, surely we are all struck by verse 14. We might have expected him to proceed in some other way—you know, “God will help you. You’re okay. The temptation will be all right. You’ll be able to come through it. Therefore, why don’t you sit back, relax, and enjoy yourself?”

It’s not what he says: “Therefore, my dear friends”—“in light of this,” he says—“flee from idolatry.” The encouragement of verse 13 is then matched by the exhortation of verse 14. Verse 13 tells us what God has done to help us; verse 14, what God has said to us. And what he says to us is real easy: “Flee!” or “Run!” or “Scram!” or “Split!” or “Just get out of here!” That’s what it says. “Therefore,” he says, “my dear friends, I want you to run.”

Isn’t it nice he calls them “dear friends”? A motley crew like this, and he calls them his “dear friends”? People who were judging him, criticizing him, fighting one another, arguing about who baptized them and who baptized the next person—immature people who had their heads full of spiritual gifts and their hearts full of emptiness—and he calls them his “dear friends”? Must’ve been a nice guy.

“Therefore, my dear friends,” he says, “I want you to run.” His advice is clear. It’s concise. Once before in this letter he’s used the same expression. I wonder, do you remember it? First Corinthians 6:18, the exact same word: “Flee.” “Flee,” this time, “from sexual immorality.” That’s back in 6:18. Now he says, “Flee from idolatry.” We need be in no doubt that idolatry and sexual immorality are always interwoven. It was certainly true in Corinth.

And his emphasis is obvious: there need be no leisurely contemplation of sin. When it comes to sin, the issue is not “How close can I get?” but “How far can I run?” Some of the things that we want to sit down and have prayer meetings about, I want to tell you—and this isn’t heresy—you don’t need to have a prayer meeting about it. You don’t need to have a prayer meeting about whether you should be involved in immorality. The Bible just says flee. We don’t need to have a discussion group about whether we should be involved in idolatry. The Bible just says flee.

The promise of God’s help in the face of temptation does not give us the license to fool around with sin.

The problem that most of us have with the Bible is not the parts of the Bible we don’t understand; it’s the parts of the Bible that we do understand, that are perfectly straightforward, as is this this morning: “Run away from it.”

The promise of God’s help in the face of temptation does not give us the license to fool around with sin. The issue of idolatry has been from the very beginning. God makes man in his own image; man falls into sin; man tries to repay the compliment to God. And from that point on in Genesis 3, man makes God in his own image. And the history of humanity is expressed in idolatrous practices in every generation that has ever arisen.

“And so,” says Paul, “you’re going to have to deal with this.” And Corinth was full of it. Idolatry is worshipping something or someone other than the true and living God. While it obviously includes bowing down to images or burning incense at sacrificial altars, the Bible also makes it clear that it is equally idolatrous to have false gods in terms of ideas, sports, philosophy, habits, possessions, occupations.

That’s very important, because if we think of ourselves this morning, and we listen to this, and we look at this Corinthian context, we say to ourselves, “‘Table of demons’? I’ve never been there. Uh-uh. No, no, I’ve never worshipped at a false idol.” You watch TV? You live in a consumer society? Ever bought anything? Ever bought the philosophy of the age? Ever based your life on that?

The first two commandments in the Bible have to do with the issue of idolatry, because they affect the very character of God. And while this may not be immediately apparent to us this morning, at issue in our culture at this point in time, the real issues have to do with the fact that man refuses to acknowledge God as he truly is.

Deuteronomy chapter 4 in the Old Testament, and verse 15, the word of God comes to the people of God concerning how he had spoken to them out of the mountain and given them the Ten Commandments. Deuteronomy 4:15, God speaks; he says, “You saw no form of any kind the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire.” (“You didn’t see anything of God then.”) “Therefore watch yourselves very carefully.” Why?

So that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman, or like any animal on earth or any bird that flies in the air, or like any creature that moves along the ground or any fish in the waters below. And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars—all the heavenly array—do not be enticed [in] bowing down to them and worshiping things the Lord your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven.[4]

You’d almost think he knew what was going to happen, wouldn’t you? Of course he did! And we may go into civilizations across the whole world, and we’d find exactly taking place what God says mustn’t take place. In the current New Age milieu in which we now live, with the emphasis on Mother Nature and Mother Earth and these stores in the malls that have little quotes from Charles Darwin as you go in—The Nature Company and all of this jazz—it is absolutely counter to a biblical view of the created order and leads into the kind of worship at the “table of demons” that is referred to here in 1 Corinthians 10. We may be naive to it, we may be oblivious to it, but people who come from Hindu cultures know exactly what’s going on, because they have lived in that kind of background and they understand what’s taking place. So when you think these issues out this morning, think as expansively as you can.

In Job, still in the Old Testament—the book before Psalms—and in chapter 31, listen to the words of Job:

If I have put my trust in gold
 or said to pure gold, “You are my security,”
if I have rejoiced over my great wealth,
 the fortune my hands had gained,
if I have regarded the sun in its radiance
 or the moon moving in splendor,
so that my heart was secretly enticed
 and my hand offered them a kiss of homage,
then these also would be sins to be judged,
 for I would have been unfaithful to God on high.[5]

He said, “I’m going around the world with idols in my pockets, idols in Society Bank, idols in my vacation: ‘I have to get to that place. It matters more to me than I can tell you.’ Careful! Careful! If I look up into the beauty of the creation,” he says, “and pay a kiss of homage, then I am guilty of violating” what is being referred to here.

And in Galatians chapter 5, when Paul addresses the issues of the flesh and he says, “Here are the kind of things that characterize life that is displeasing to God our Father,” one of the issues, as you would imagine, that is represented there is the whole issue of idolatry. Galatians 5:19: “The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft.” Hold that in your mind: “idolatry and witchcraft.” ’Cause the two things, in every culture, are always interwoven—and in ours this morning. Okay?

Now, so Paul says, “I want you to run.” We’ve got that part. There then follows a pattern—at least, a pattern that I think is here—where he says, “Think,” then he has question number one, question number two, and explanation. See if you can follow this along with me. He actually repeats this pattern, then, again.

Called to Think

First of all, “Think.” Verse 15: “I speak to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say.” If preaching over people’s heads is bad, not preaching to their heads at all is even worse. The worst kind of preaching is the kind of preaching that doesn’t make you think. It may make you feel good, but it doesn’t make you think. And when you drive home in your car, you say to yourself, “What in the world was that?” Because you never once engaged your minds.

And the way that our wills are changed and our hearts are stirred is as a result of our minds being fueled. And so Paul is able to say, “In light of what I’m saying, I want you to really think this out.” The word that he uses he may use somewhat ironically: the word “judge,” krinate. Because you will recall from earlier chapters that the Corinthians, if they were good at something, they were good at judging. Oh, they could judge Paul, they could judge Cephas, they could judge Apollos, they could judge each other.[6] When it came to judging, they had it down. And so maybe Paul is somewhat ironically saying, “Hey, you know what? That ability that you have at judging? Why don’t you put it to some good use for once in a while and see whether what I am actually saying is absolutely true?”

Loved ones, this is a good and necessary emphasis in our day and always. Have your Bibles open and judge for yourselves—you’re sensible people—what I say. And you’ll never know unless you listen, and you’ll never understand unless you think, and you’ll never think unless you plan to think. And the way in which you walk into the instruction of the Word of God largely determines the way in which you will walk out.

Participation in the Blood

Question number one, then: he says, “Is the cup of blessing”—or “the cup of thanksgiving”—“not a very sharing in the blood of Christ?”

The way that our wills are changed and our hearts are stirred is by our minds being fueled.

He’s building up, you see, a case here that he’s going to apply in a moment or two. And his first question is: “When we drink the cup of thanksgiving”—which came out of the Hebraistic celebrations prior to the Lord’s Supper and which then became the Lord’s Supper on that final evening when Jesus was with his disciples—he says, “When we drink the cup of thanksgiving, that,” he says, “is it not—think it out—a participation in the blood of Christ?”

Now, the key word here—you’ll find it comes four or five times in English—is the word “participation.” It’s a very important emphasis that he’s bringing. And he wants to make it perfectly clear that when the Corinthians share in Communion, they are dealing with something that is beyond mere words and actions. And that is true of us this morning. We are not going through a ceremony here. Nobody can, and nobody will. We either eat the benefits of the Lord’s Supper to ourselves or we eat condemnation to ourselves. That is why Paul says, “Don’t you realize that it is possible for you to eat and drink judgment to yourselves?”[7]

Now, when people just see the Lord’s Table as something that you do—it doesn’t matter to which church you go or when you share it or whatever is involved; it is something almost “out there” and removed—then no one’s going to be able to understand that language. “How could I possibly eat and drink judgment to myself? After all, this is just a thing that you do. It is a word. It is an action. It is a symbol. It is external.”

“Uh-uh,” says Paul. “No, it’s not. It is a participation.” Something spiritual happens in Communion—that in meeting with Christ in this way, as he appointed, and at this time, as he ordained, men and women either eat and drink judgment to themselves, or they eat and drink the blessings and benefits of the shed blood of Jesus Christ. But it is impossible to have a neutral reaction.

Now, when we understand that, then this Table heightens in its significance. And so it must. “Is [it] not … a participation?” he says. So when we take the cup and we drink it, we’re thinking about the words we’ve already sung. We’re thinking about the fact that we have participated in the blood of Christ, because Christ’s blood has been shed so that my sins might be forgiven.

I heard it on the radio this morning: “My sin oh, the bliss of [that] glorious thought! My sin, not in part, but the whole, is nailed to [his] cross, and I bear it no more.”[8] That’s what I’m saying when the cup comes round. That is the participation. The unbeliever has no such participation: “That’s just a cup. That’s just something that you do.” That’s judgment to yourself.

The participation is not only vertical with God, but it’s horizontal with each other. ’Cause this is what it means to be part of the body of Christ. This is where we express our union and our communion, isn’t it? Because the person in front of you or behind you or next to you or beside you may be radically different from you on every other level. They may actually have a different native tongue. They may live in a very different kind of house. They may have had a radically different education. They may have a different approach to multiple things in life. But the participation that is involved is “a participation in the blood of Christ,” which is equally shed for all who are sinners.

And the ground is level at the foot of the cross. There ain’t no big sinners and wee sinners, just sinners. And it is on the basis on our understanding of that that we marvel at the participation in this.

That’s question number one.

Participation in the Body

Question number two is the same question expressed in relationship to the bread: he says, “And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?”

Now, Paul’s statement here seems to be expressive of an actual procedure that was taking place—a procedure which was graphic and meaningful and profoundly moving. In fact, so stirred with it was I that I asked for a loaf of bread to be put down here this morning. (Might as well grab it now.) Because the symbol and imagery of Communion is of a loaf. There’s a wholeness about this. And when you break it, it is obvious. And when you eat from the same section, you participate.

You see, when biblical theology quit and superstition took its place, then it became impossible for the man and the woman in the pew to touch the bread. That’s why a Roman Catholic priest places it in the mouth of the participant: because theology left, and superstition came. But the Body is expressed in a loaf, which at the first celebration they shared, they passed, they touched, they enjoyed, they understood. That’s his second question.

So it is impossible, you see, to eat this bread with reality this morning unless we have first tasted of the Bread of Life, Jesus himself. “I am the bread of life,” says Jesus. “He who believes in me will never hunger, and he who trusts in me will never thirst.”[9]

What does that mean? It means to come and acknowledge that I am a sinner, that Christ is my Savior, and I want to feed on Christ—in reality, spiritually, truly. Then when I come to the Lord’s Table and we break bread, then there is significance to it, because we are participating, again, vertically and horizontally. With Christ: “I thank you, Lord Jesus, that as I take this bread into my lips today, I can remember the day and time in my life when I was redeemed from my own sinful, foolish self.” If you can’t say that, then you shouldn’t take Communion. Taking Communion’s not about what church you were baptized in. Taking Communion is not about an external ceremony. Taking Communion is a serious, serious, serious business. “Is the cup not a participation in his blood? Is the bread not a participation in his body?” The hymn writer says, “We taste thee, O thou living bread, and long to feast upon thee still.”[10]

His explanation, then, in verse 17: “Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.” Simple. It is necessary for us to be incorporated into Christ in order to be united to one another. Paul in all of this section is not talking about human interrelatedness. He is talking about spiritual union.

Now, that is only the first section of this passage. He is using this to build to a conclusion, which has to do with demons. The demons will have to wait.

But let us be clear about this this morning. Those of us who are agnostic should not feel any coercion in these moments to take and eat something to ourselves that, frankly, we don’t believe in, we don’t understand, and we don’t want. Good! There is far more courage involved in that than the power of peer group pressure, whereby you may eat and drink the very judgment of God upon your life.

And for those of us who are in Christ this morning who’ve been getting a little bit arrogant and who’ve been thinking that we’re really very special and have been wondering whether other people really deserve to be in our company, let’s be reminded that we who are many are one body in Christ; that God loves us as a mother loves her children; that we’ve nothing to boast about; that even at our best, we’re not that great; and that on the day that we stand before God in his judgment, the issues then will not be the issues which we now make important. The issues then will be the same as the issues of 1 Corinthians 10: either I participate—by faith, in reality—or I stand on the outside looking in.

[1] James 3:10 (NIV 1984).

[2] 1 Corinthians 10:13 (paraphrased).

[3] Annie S. Hawks, “I Need Thee Every Hour” (1871).

[4] Deuteronomy 4:15–19 (NIV 1984).

[5] Job 31:24–28 (NIV 1984).

[6] See 1 Corinthians 1:11–12.

[7] 1 Corinthians 11:27–32 (paraphrased).

[8] Horatio Gates Spafford, “It Is Well” (1873).

[9] John 6:35 (paraphrased).

[10] Bernard of Clairvaux, trans. Ray Palmer, “Jesu, Thou Joy of Loving Hearts” (1160, 1858).