Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 Corinthians · About this commentary
The Table and the Altar
1 Corinthians 10:18-22
18 Consider Israel according to the flesh. Don’t those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar? · WEB
Idols are nothing, but something is present at their altars — and no one can eat at two tables that claim exclusive loyalty.
Consider Israel according to the flesh. Don't those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar? 1 Corinthians 10:18.
A third table is produced. Under the law, the worshiper's portion of a sacrifice was eaten, and eating it was participation in the altar Leviticus 7:15 Deuteronomy 12:18. The principle is therefore not a Christian novelty: in Israel, in Corinth, and at the Lord's supper alike, eating a sacrifice associates the eater with the altar it came from.
What am I saying then? That a thing sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? 1 Corinthians 10:19.
He anticipates the objection and refuses to contradict himself. The concession of chapter eight stands — no idol is anything 1 Corinthians 8:4. Whatever he is about to say does not restore reality to the images.
But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I don't desire that you would have fellowship with demons 1 Corinthians 10:20.
And the distinction is exact: the idol is nothing, and the worship is not therefore addressed to nothing. Something receives it. The law had said as much of Israel's own lapses — sacrificing to demons rather than to God Deuteronomy 32:17 Psalms 106:37 — and the letter takes it over without elaboration. Nothing here builds a system out of it; the practical conclusion is the only thing developed.
You can't both drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You can't both partake of the table of the Lord and of the table of demons 1 Corinthians 10:21.
The impossibility is stated twice, and it is not a rule but a description. The Corinthians evidently thought they were doing both comfortably, with their theology intact. What Paul denies is that the two participations can coexist — not because the meat is dangerous, but because a table is a claim, and these two claims are exclusive. The Lord's supper is a covenant meal 1 Corinthians 11:25, and covenant loyalty by its nature cannot be shared.
Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? 1 Corinthians 10:22.
Two questions close the argument, and both come from the same song of Moses that supplied the demons Deuteronomy 32:16 Deuteronomy 32:21. Jealousy is the right word for a God who has bound himself to a people exclusively, and the second question is aimed at the confidence of the strong: whatever they thought their knowledge protected them from, it does not make them able to sustain the collision. The generation in the desert had tested exactly this and was overthrown 1 Corinthians 10:5.
held with reason What this mark means