The especial sins which drew from the Spirit the portion in which this is found, were these defiling the supper of the Lord, by making it a place of riotous eating and drinking, and neglect of brotherly love thereat. And both of these sins had their cure in the meaning of the supper, if rightly understood. Death, the Lord's death, the death of the Son of God, was God's estimate of man's way of choosing to please himself. In the supper, this too was presented as being the subject of mutual delight to God and the church; to God, because therein was the expression of His own grace and truth, and of the inestimable value of His Son; to the church, because therein she found that by which alone she could rejoice in the holy justice of God, as being, through grace, for herself, though most strongly against her sins. And how, while so exercised in such delights, could so filthy a mean of self-pleasing be indulged? Impossible. Ere the body could be given to such scenes, the soul must needs have lost its fresh savor of the very truth of the supper. And, on the other hand, if the truth presented in the supper met man's passion in their very root and source of self-pleasing, how distinctly does the way in which that truth is presented correct the attendant sin of neglect of brotherly love. He died for the church collectively; and no man can know his own fellowship in the blessing, without having at the same time strongly brought to his mind those who are thus bound up in one bundle of life with Himself; and this most especially at the supper, where the many brethren are always assembled together in celebration.
These seem to have been the two sins at Corinth. But it is blessed to see how the Bible is a book of principles, and how, therefore, the failure in one instance brings in from the Spirit a correction to ten thousand others. Had man been looking at the case, he would have satisfied himself by setting the failure in practice to rights. Not so the Spirit; in doing this, he will so do it as to give the church a principle to guide her, not only in a case exactly similar, but also in others, in which, though the form of the evil may be different, the principle of it is the same; and therefore, he goes on (ver. 27), " Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord." Here is the universal rule, as it were, of which the former is but one instance-eating this bread, and drinking this cup of the Lord unworthily. And then He first blessedly defines the church's mode of escape, " Let each examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup;" and, secondly, guards what he has said, lest any (as so many have) should suppose that even this sin could unchristianize them. It is not so; if judged, they are chastened, that they may not be condemned with the world. If they fail, He fails not, and though it may be by chastening and discipline, yet will He keep His own in spiritual separation from the evil of the world, the ways of which, as well as its character, tend to judgment.
I would only further notice the expression, "Ye do shot; the Lord's death till he come" (ver. 26), as proving (like chap. 10:16, 17, &c.) the supper as the rallying point of the saints upon earth.