Ver. 16.-The communion of souls in Christ. These words are uttered in illustration of an important practical principle, which St. Pan! is urging as sufficient to guide the Corinthians safely through many of the difficulties of the Uhristian life. Explain the question, which threatened to break up the unity and peace of the Church at Corinth, whether" a Christian man was justified in eating meat which bad been offered in sacrifice to idols." Show under what circumstances of social life this question arose, and the different ways in which persons of different temperament were disposed to treat it. St. Paul in no way encourages superstitious notions, but he pleads that consideration for others :md Christian charity will readily decide our conduct in every case that may arise. Having had to refer to the heathen feasts, be is led to think of the one Christian feast. He says that is a sealing of the union of all who love the Lord Jesus Christ; it is a joint partaking as it were of the redemption, and so a community of sentiment and feeling and life which involves that each member shall be concerned for the highest well-being of the others, and willing to put his own preferences aside if they stand in the way of his brother's good. We have two subjects here brought before us,- (1) The reality of the communion of souls in Christ; and (2) the value of a symbolical feast which will assert that communion. I. THE REALITY OF THE COMMUNION OF SOULS IN CHRIST. The word "communion ff is often applied to the intercourse of friendship, the fellowship of two kiuclrcd souls between whom there is a recognized community of sentiment and feeling. The word is applied to our privilege of access to God; we are said to have communion with God, with his Son Jesus Christ, and with the Holy Ghost. But the term would be more precisely applied to that feeling of mutual interest which two persons have in each other because of their common interest in some object, or common love to some third person. We may not even be personally known to each other, but if we are both interested in the same thing, and working for the same ends, we have "communion "with one another. Illustrate that this is the basis on which societies and associations of men 11re formed. 'l'hose who have the same love to the Lord Jesus Christ feel that they am bound to one another; they gather themselves into Churches that they may have "com- munion" with each other. Christianity demands love to a Person. 1t sets forth one Person, the One who is worthy to receive the devotion of every soul. Usually, indeed, if two love one person, there rises a deadly jealousy and hatrcu between them, but that only springs from the fact that both cannot possess the object of their affection in the same sense; but even here on earth there arc many cases in which two may love the same person, and find their common love brings them nearer to each other. You may fall into conversation with a fellow-traveller, and may find that you both know and lovo some third person, and at once all strangeness passes, and you converse together as do long-known friends. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ can be as much to one believer as to another. He can be all to each one, and so there need be no jealousy, but mutual lovo for Christ may make it easy for us to love each other. But our text significantly calls our communion the "communion of the blood and body of Christ ; "and this we must try to understand. In the story of the heathen gods there is generally some one incident which is regarded as specially characteristic of each one, and from which he may even take his name or fashion his symbol. Something of the same kind may bo observeu in Scripture and modem biographies. There is some event of the lifo which is regarded .i.bove all others as revealing the roan. Thus we have in tho Bible, Jacob tho sup- 360 THE FIRST EPISTLE '1'0 THE CORINTHIANS. [ea. x. 1-33.
planter, Moses the meek, impulsive Peter, etc., the qualifyin"' terms recallin"' some characteristic incident. In the reference of the text to the "body and blood of Christ" we have something of the 5S;ID~ kind. Everything in the life of Jesus is of suprem~ concern to us, but the Chnst1an heart has always regarded the "body-breaking and blood-shedding" as the characteristic incident, the one so peculiarly sionificant as revealing the person, the spirit, and the mission of the Lord Jesus. '!'bat°" body and blood" reveal to us these things-duty, love, self-sacrifice, 'l'his trinity expresses the very essence of Christ's religion. And "communion in the body and the blood" is the fellowship of those in whom the essential spirit of Christianity is found; who are toned and ruled by duty, out of their sonship to God; by love, because the "love of Christ is shed abroad in their hearts;" by self-sacrifice, because the spirit of their Master has become theirs. 'l'hose who have thus "communion in the body and the blood" can enter into the meaning and power of that "cup of blessin"' which we bless" and of that" bread which we break." b '