The Outrage of Idolatry
1 Corinthians 10:15‑22
First Corinthians 10:14 to 22, going through the book of 1 Corinthians has been a tremendous blessing to me. We have covered so many very practical and basic truths that I feel that are going to be in demand through the years of this church because of our tape ministry. I just would encourage you folks to really be sensitive to what God is saying to us in this book because it is so very vital to the church and the life of the believer within the church.
Now we're looking at chapter 10 verses 14 to 22 under the subject, "The truth about idolatry." The subject of idolatry has arisen in 1 Corinthians because of the fact that some of the Corinthian Christians in the name of Christian liberty, in the name of their so‑called freedom in Christ were attending idolatrous activities. They had decided that an idol is nothing, and they are right, an idol isn't anything. The idol certainly isn't the God they think it is. And that God really isn't too concerned about those forms of ritual that people carry on and that isn't really what it appears to be. And so consequently it's kind of insignificant and it wouldn't hurt if the Christians kind of got involved.
They first of all had asked the question about meat offered to idols. Is it wrong to eat meat offered to idols? In their society a lot of offerings were made continuously to the literally hundreds of gods that were around and they had decided that since the idol wasn't anything and that God wasn't too concerned about what we eat that it wasn't a problem. And if it wasn't a problem to eat idol meats, they figured it certainly wouldn't be a problem to go to idol festivals. And so, some of the Corinthian believers were beginning to get back into the swing of things socially, economically, politically and culturally in attending idol feasts, that is feasts that were built around the worship of an idol.
And Paul writes to that very issue here in 1 Corinthians. And his word to them in verse 14 is very clear. "Wherefore my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry." In the name of Christian liberty, don't pursue idolatry. It's one thing, perhaps, to eat a piece of meat that you bought in a butcher shop, meat that had once...at one point might have been offered to an idol, it's one thing to go to somebody's house for dinner and eat something that they give you that may have personally and privately been dedicated to an idol, but it's something else to push that to the point where you're attending idol festivals, idol celebrations, pagan feasts and so forth. And that then becomes the theme of what he is saying in 14 to 22, why a believer should avoid the idolatry of the world...if you will.
Now as a basis of his argument, to make his point here, he uses the Lord's supper. Jack mentioned that this coming Wednesday night we'll be sharing in the Lord's table. This is a very vital aspect of the life of the community of believers. This is very very important. This is something that should not be missed, should not be avoided, should not be neglected because it is a very important thing. And we're going to see in the next several weeks just how important the Lord's table is. In fact, it's rather the theme from chapter 10:14 through chapter 11. He covers a lot of ground about the Lord's table. And we're going to get into much detail as we go along.
Just remember, to begin with, that the night before our Lord was crucified, in Matthew chapter 26‑‑we also have it in other portions‑‑we find Him instituting this celebration. Matthew 26 verse 26, "And as they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed it and broke it and gave it the disciples and said, Take, eat, this is My body. And He took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them saying, Drink ye all of it, for this is My blood of the New Testament, or blood of the new covenant which is shed for many for the forgiveness of sin. And I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom."
Here is the institution of the Lord's table. The Lord is having the Passover meal with His disciples. Somewhere in the midst of the Passover meal, perhaps at the point of the third cup of the Passover, He translates it into His supper. And it becomes rather than a memorial of the exodus from Egypt, a memorial of the death of Christ, a memorial of the life of Christ given for men. And that becomes the institution of the Lord's table something which is basic to the church throughout all of its history. In fact, in the beginning days of the church, the birth of the church occurred on the day of Pentecost, in Acts chapter 2 verse 41, "They that gladly received His word were baptized, the same day were added three thousand souls and they continued steadfastly in." And here you have the four features of the life of the church. The apostles' doctrine, that's teaching and fellowship, that refers to ministering to one another, and in breaking of bread, that's communion, and prayers. Those four things and one of the four, the breaking of bread. Verse 46 says they did it from house to house daily.
In the early years of the church then, this vital ceremony, this vital celebration was a daily act on the part of believers. I am sure they did it many times a day. And it continues throughout the history of the church to be a vital point of union between the church and the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now this service, go back to 1 Corinthians, this service becomes the basis of Paul's entire argument in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 when he argues that a believer should avoid idolatry. He argues that it should be avoided because of the meaning of the communion...the meaning of the Lord's table. And it is a very interesting argument. It is not an easy argument to understand, you have to dig into it and that's precisely what we're going to do this morning.
Let's look at it. Verse 14 gives us the word "idolatry." Now last time we spent some time talking about that. Paul is saying to the Corinthian Christians, your liberty is running you to the unnecessary danger of idolatry. In the name of liberty, you've gone so far as to expose yourself to idol worship. That's dangerous and you will fall into sin. Verse 12, you think you stand and when you do, you're in danger of falling. So, he says, there's only one response to idolatry, run from it. Present tense, present imperative, continually flee from idolatry, continually be running away from it.
Now what is idolatry? Well last time we spent the whole time talking about that so we don't want to do that again. But let's just define it very briefly by way of a summary. I'll just summarize with six basic things. Idolatry is slandering God's character. Idolatry is slandering God's character. That is, idolatry is assuming God to be something other than He is. It's an erroneous or an unworthy thought about God. That's idolatry. Anything that is less than true about God, anything that is more than true about God, anything that is false about God is idolatry. When you doubt God, that's idolatry. When you disbelieve God, that's idolatry. When you're not sure God can come through and solve your problem, that's idolatry because you have manufactured a God who can't be trusted. And that is the not the true God because the true God can be trusted. Idolatry is to think anything less or more or other about God than what is true.
Secondly, idolatry is not only slandering God's character but worshiping the true God in the wrong way. And we saw this last time as well, how that Israel made a golden calf which was to be a representative of Jehovah God. They worshiped the true God in the wrong way. And we talked about the fact that it's easy to worship the true God particularly in forms and rituals and routines and so forth and that's the wrong way because Jesus said you are to worship God in spirit and in truth, John 4:24.
Thirdly, idolatry is not only slandering God's character, not only worshiping the true God in the wrong way but it is worshiping other things than God...worshiping other things than God such as images, angels, devils or dead men. And we went into all of those.
Then again, idolatry is also having, according to Ezekiel 14, any idol in the heart. Anything that you set up as the God you bow down to is idolatry...money, fame, prestige, whatever. And we also said that idolatry is covetousness and idolatry is lust...worshiping the God of materialism in the case of covetousness, worshiping the God of desire in the case of lust.
So, what is idolatry? Slandering God's character, worshiping the true God in the wrong way, worshiping images, angels, devils or dead men, having any idol in your heart, covetousness and lust. And there's only one response to all of it and that's to run. So Paul says here, "Flee from idolatry." Now here's why in verse 15, "I'm speaking to intelligent people so you judge what I say." Now you listen to this argument and see if it isn't conclusive. You're intelligent, now you figure it out. Now Paul says I'm going to give you three reasons to run from idolatry. And you have them on that outline in your bulletin there along with all those other inserts. That outline will give you what we're going to talk about today. There are three reasons to run from idolatry.
One, it is inconsistent. Two, it is demonic. Three, it is offensive to the Lord. It is inconsistent, it is demonic, it is offensive to the Lord. Let's look first of all at point one.
Flee from idolatry because it is inconsistent. Verse 16, it is inconsistent, "The cup of blessing which we bless, it is not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?" Now, we'll stop there for a minute, I want to just mention some things about this verse that are going to make it make sense. A simple thought really is in Paul's mind. Now here it comes. The thought is this, when a Christian goes to the Lord's table, which incidentally he does regularly, that's the assumption that Paul makes, because that is so vital in the life of the Christian. It is continually focusing on the issue of the union of a believer with his Lord and a believer with every body else. It is absolutely vital that a believer do this. The Apostle doesn't even entertain the thought that a Christian wouldn't do this. It's just too vital to be ignored.
Now you say, "Well, I can't come on Wednesday night when you do it." Fine, you can do it in your home or you can do it sometime someplace, it's a vital thing to be done. And Paul doesn't even assume that someone wouldn't do it, not in those days of the church when it was done so regularly.
And Paul's thought is this, when you take the cup and when you take the bread, you are communing with Christ in a very real way, in a very genuine way. That feast, that celebration involves you in a participation with Christ. And it involves you, according to verse 17, in a participation with everybody else who is with you in it. And that's his point. He is saying religious feasts, religious celebrations involve the worshiper with all other worshipers and the one being worshiped. And he's saying that's precisely why a Christian can't go to an idol feast because an idol feast means he is involved with the worshipers and the one being worshiped whether he likes it or not. And how can a Christian involve himself at the Lord's table, turn right around and involve himself at an idol feast when they constitute real communion? Now that's his point and now we'll look at these verses in particular and show you how he gets to that place.
Let's look, first of all, at 16, the cup of blessing. What is a cup of blessing? Well it was the name given to the third cup in the Passover feast. There were a series of cups that were consumed in the Passover feast and this is the third one. And it is very possible, we don't know for sure, but it is possible that this may have been the cup with which our Lord instituted communion in the upper room that night before His death, when He turned the Passover into communion, it may have been at the point of the third cup which was the cup called the cup of blessing. But what it basically means is the cup which God has blessed, or the cup which Christ has blessed. And you remember that at that last supper, that night Jesus took the cup and He what? He blessed it...He blessed it. In other words, it was just a cup. We don't know what kind of cup, it was just a whatever kind of cup. But all of a sudden it became something very sacred, didn't it? It stopped being something mundane and became something very sacred because Jesus Christ set it apart from mundane use to something very special, He blessed it. He set it apart.
And so, the cup of blessing, that is the communion cup that he's talking about, the cup which Jesus blessed in Matthew 26, I just read it to you, which we bless. The cup of blessing which Jesus bless, we also bless, don't we? Before we take the cup or cups when we partake, we bless, we thank God, we set them apart to a sacred use. The cup was thus set apart to sacred use by Christ and so it is with us.
So, the cup of blessing which we bless is simply the communion cup. Now you say, "We don't have one cup, we have a whole bunch." Well, that's all right. It could be the cups which we bless. We don't have one cup for obvious reasons...it would be a very, very large cup...so we don't do that. But the cup is nevertheless the symbol of the cup that Jesus blessed and we thank God for it. Incidentally, the word "bless", there are several words. One of the words, eucharisteo from which you get the eucharist means to give thanks. It is to thank God for that cup. And so, the cup of blessing that is the one the Lord blessed and set apart is the one that we bless and thank God for.
Now what is it? What is this cup? Verse 16 again, "Is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?" Now when you drink the cup at the Lord's table, listen to this, you are communing with the blood of Christ. Now we have to understand something because this is very very misunderstood. What does this mean? What does it mean to commune? It's more than a symbol. We say, "Well, this is a symbol of His blood." Well, listen to this, the cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the symbol of the blood of Christ? Is that what it says? No. It's more than the symbol, it is the communion, it is‑‑if you will in the Greek‑‑ participation, or it is the sharing. It's an actual involvement that's taking place when we take that cup. There is a spiritual reality going on there, far more than just a symbol.
For example, if you see a picture of somebody you love who has died, it isn't just a picture. As soon as you look at the picture, the whole of that person is actualized in your mind, right? All of a sudden everything about that person is alive to you. I look at pictures of people that have gone on and I have instant memories. My mind is flooded with reality. They are actualized. And communion is the same thing. To partake of the elements actualizes Christ's death, it makes it vivid, it makes it real, it intensifies my sensitivities to the reality of Christ dying for me, see. It isn't just a symbol. It is a symbol that is activated by the Spirit of God to make Christ's death a living reality to me. That's the idea of communion.
Now I want you to notice that we are communing with the blood of Christ. Now I want to make a point here that we could spend a lot of time on but we're not going to, just to make a couple of statements. There is an English word that you ought to have in your vocabulary because you may find need to use it, or at least to understand it. It is the word "metonym." You know what a synonym is? You know what an antonym is? You know what a homonym is? You say no...well, those are all...those are all terms to describe various kinds of words. And so is the term metonym. A metonym is a different word that is used for something because it has an actual relationship. It is a different word used for something because it has an actual relationship.
Let me see if I can give you an illustration. You say, "The other day I was reading MacArthur." Now you mean something by that and we understand you probably were reading one of my books. There is no writing on me. You didn't come up and say, "May I please read your right arm?" There is no writing on me. Or, you might say, "I was reading Shakespeare." You were not reading Shakespeare, you would find that a literal impossibility. Shakespeare is not available to be read. You meant you are reading his writings. That's a metonym, a word substituting for another word because of an actual relationship.
Now watch, the term "the blood of Christ" is a metonym that is substituted for another term "death." It is the blood of Christ that simply is a metonym for the death of Christ. But it is used because the Hebrews used such a metonym to speak of violent death. Whenever you talk about the blood of somebody being poured out, to the Hebrew that meant violent death. And when you commune with the blood of Christ, it doesn't mean the literal blood of Christ, that is a metonym for His death. You commune with His death.
Now let me say something that might shake some of you up but I'll try to qualify it. There is nothing in the actual blood that is efficacious for sin. Did you get that? The Bible does not teach that the blood of Christ itself has any efficacy for taking away sin...not at all. The actual blood of Christ isn't the issue. The issue is that His poured out blood was symbolic of His violent death, the death was the thing that paid the price, right? The wages of sin is...what? Death. He died for us. It is His death that is the issue. The Hebrews spoke of it as His outpoured blood because that was something that expressed violent death. And they believed, for example, in the Old Testament it said the life of the flesh is in the blood. And so the pouring out of blood was the significance of death. And so when it says here we are communing with the blood of Christ, it does not mean the literal blood of Christ is efficacious, it does not mean the literal blood of Christ is involved, it means we enter into a genuine vital participation in His death. But it is not the blood. The blood is only the symbol of the poured out life.
So, taking the cup which Jesus blessed and in turn blessing it, setting it apart for sacred use and then participating in it is an act of communion with the death of Christ. Now let's go a step further. Verse 16, the bread, or literally the loaf to correspond more with cup, the loaf which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? Now our Lord said of the bread that last night, "This is My body given for you." Now body, now I want to say something, too, that may be new to you, body in Hebrew thought refers to the totality of earthy life, earthiness, humanness. For example, the word for "earth" is adamah, the word for "man" is adam, it's a form of adamah because man was taken from the dirt. He is earthy. And God took the dirt and formed a body, adam from adamah. And that is the point that connects man to the ground, to the earth, to earthiness. We are humans and that is the significance of the body. When a Hebrew thought of the body, he thought of earthiness, he thought of man's connection to the ground, to his humanness.
Now note, when we commune with the bread, it is the body of Christ. This is not primarily a reference to the cross. Stick with me on it. It is not primarily a reference to the cross. By the bread we remember and commune with our Lord's incarnation, His human life, His humanness. We remember that which makes Him a sympathetic high priest as well as a bleeding, dying Savior. The communion then relates us to the living Christ who came and suffered and thought it not something to hold onto to be equal with God but found Himself in the fashion of a man, humbled Himself and so forth and He did it in order that He might become a sympathetic high priest in all points tempted like as...what? We are. The bread reminds us of His life. The bread reminds us of His body, reminds us of His humanness. God gave Himself to us as a human being in order that He might suffer what we suffer, in order that He might hurt where we hurt, in order that He might be tempted where we're tempted, in order that He might succor us in order that He might be our faithful sympathetic and great high priest. And so the breaking of the loaf does not refer to the cross primarily, although that was part of His human suffering and certainly is included, the breaking of the loaf simply a symbol of His humanness.
And the breaking of it has no symbolic connection to the cross. People say, "The Lord's body was broken on the cross." It was not broken. The Bible makes a specific point of that. In John 19:36 it says, "And not a bone of Him was broken that the Scripture might be fulfilled." The only reason that Jesus took the loaf and broke it was to give everybody a piece of the same loaf. Do you see? We are all partakers of one bread who is Christ and it has to be broken to be passed out to us. The symbolism is only that in distribution, not in death. His body was never broken.
So, what do we have then? Let me summarize this thought. Hang on. The breaking refers only to the distribution of the one loaf. It relates to the fact that all believers share in that one life. We not only commune, beloved, we not only commune with Christ's death, we commune with His life. Paul said in Philippians 3:10, "I want to know Him, the power of His resurrection," that's related to His death, "and the fellowship of His...what?...suffering," that's related to His life. Being made conformable to His death. Paul says I want to be able to suffer for Him. I want to be able to have the humanity of Jesus, as it were, relived in me. I want to bear the marks of Jesus in this body. I want to fill up in my body the sufferings that are meant for Jesus Christ. I want to commune with His humanness. I want to commune with His suffering. I want to be persecuted for righteousness sake as He was persecuted for righteousness sake. I want to be able to go to Him and find in Him a sympathetic high priest who knows everything that I suffer because He suffered it Himself.
So, when you come to the table of the Lord, beloved, the bread represents the humanity of Jesus. It represents His humiliation. It represents His humanness, His human suffering as a man for us...something we definitely commune in, something we definitely relate to as He is our sympathetic high priest and we carry our cares to Him knowing He's been there and He knows.
And the cup represents His violent death for the forgiveness of sin. Something we also commune with. We also are actualized into being identified in His death for sin.
So, we are literally communing with Him in that cup. Now I want you to see something. When we take those things, they're not just symbols. There is an actual communion that occurs. Let me show you what I mean. There is confusion about that and there are different views of how that works. The word koinonia, their communion in verse 16 is the word to participate. The verb means to share or to partake of or to participate or to be a partner in. The noun koinonia means participation, partnership, fellowship, communion. As a Christian, we literally participate in Christ. First Corinthians 1:9 says we participate with the Son. Second Corinthians 13, we participate with the Spirit. Philippians 2:1, we participate in the ministry. Second Corinthians 8:4, we participate in the gospel. Philippians 3, we participate in suffering. We are fellowshipping all the time with Christ, sharing Him, His Spirit, His ministry, His gospel, His sufferings. And when we come to the table we participate in His death, we are sharing the benefits of His death, that's what it means. We are sharing in the meaning of His death, the purpose of it, the point of it.
So, it's more than just remembering. It's sharing, fellowshipping, participating, partaking, communing. It's like that picture I mentioned. You come to that and you look at the cup and you look at the bread and they aren't just a cup and bread, they aren't even just symbols. All of a sudden Christ is alive. All of a sudden you are sensitized. And the reality of Christ is actualized in your mind and you see His cross and you see your union with Him and you see His body and you see it given on your behalf. And you see the fact that He lived and He suffered and He's a sympathetic high priest. All of that is actualized.
It's like reading the Bible. You can spend your day just Christ is with you, where two or three are gathered, if you may have been with Christians, He was there actively. But He's there anyway in your life. And all day long you kind of go along and He's there and He's there, but you really aren't aware of it. And then in the evening you sit down and you open the Bible and you begin to read and what happens? Hebrews 4:12 says the Word of God is what? Alive. And all of a sudden you pick up the pages and things begin to come alive and Christ becomes real to you and He's actualized and your mind is sensitized. And in intense kind of way...and in an intense kind of way Christ becomes very real and your consciousness is made aware of the fact that He's...where He's been there all the time but you weren't really sensitized to that.
Or maybe you came home and you had been busy with the things of the world and you got down and you sat in a chair and you began to pray and you talked to the Lord and all of a sudden the Lord who had been there all the time became very very real to you. And you were very very aware.
Or maybe all day yesterday you were out piddling in your garden or hauling your kids from one place to the next, or fooling around doing what you normally do on Saturday and it was a pretty swirly deal and you came to the end of the day and you plopped your head in the pillow, woke up this morning. Bang! You arrived at Grace Church and Christ hadn't been anywhere but with you all day yesterday but it wasn't until this morning that you were sensitized to His reality. Because worship does that. It actualizes Christ.
Well, that is exactly what the communion does. It is not just a symbol but it is to see a symbol and have your mind sensitized to an actuality that He's alive and He's there and He lived for you and He carried His cares through this world that He might carry yours later. And He died on the cross for your sins that you might not have to bear the penalty. And all of the things about Christ that are always true all the time become sensitively brought to your mind in the communion. That's the meaning.
Oh, I think the Roman Catholic Church has a different meaning to it. They look at this verse and they say that the cup becomes the actual blood of Christ. And the Catholic Mass teaches that the priest is able to turn that wine into actual blood so that a person drinks the blood of Christ, turn that bread into actual flesh so that a person consumes the flesh of Christ. So you're literally drinking the blood and eating the flesh of Christ in a literal way. And that, they say, is how you receive Christ. You receive Christ by drinking His blood and eating His flesh in the Mass. And that's why week after week after week they always re‑crucify Christ and re‑distribute His blood and His flesh in order that people might receive Christ. They think...essentially theologically they're saying, "For by grace are you saved through the mouth." That's essentially what they're saying. And that they say can be a believer or an unbeliever, either one who can partake of Christ. And that's why the Catholic Church has the Mass because that's how you receive Christ. That's called transubstantiation. That's the meaning of the changing of the elements into the actual...they call it transubstantiation.
Well, Martin Luther didn't like that very well so he came up with another idea, consubstantiation. And what he said is you can't really do that, and that wouldn't be hard to prove. I mean, it would be very easy to prove that that didn't turn into the actual blood and body of Christ. Martin Luther backed off a little bit and his statement was that the actual blood and body are there in, under, around and with the elements. So that when you partake of the elements in consubstantiation view, you are actually taking the wine and the bread but around it sort of spiritually speaking comes the actual presence. Now that's confusing to me, too. I don't know how you would defend that.
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