1 Corinthians 11:27, commentary and pictures

Whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily becomes guilty concerning the Lord's body and blood. Eating and drinking without discerning the Lord's body brings judgment and condemnation and damnation on the participant. The bread and the cup represent Christ's broken body given for the world and His spilled blood of the New Testament, given as a sacrifice for sin. The service keeps His love and sacrifice in mind, for He gave His life for the world, and it proclaims His death until He comes while recalling His humiliation, betrayal, suffering, and death.

Worthy partaking calls for a peaceful, grateful heart with spiritual attention to the whole history of Christ's suffering, including His agony in Gethsemane and the abuse He endured. A person cherishing pride, conflict, or rivalry for supremacy is not prepared to receive communion. Foot washing was appointed before communion to call disciples to humility and service and prepare them for fellowship with Christ. The order is washing of feet first and then the bread and the cup. Sharing in foot washing is not obligatory before communion, so one who only witnesses it is still welcome to partake of the bread and cup, including one who has just begun to keep the Sabbath.

The warning calls each person to examine himself and does not authorize others to judge who may come, except that open sin excludes the guilty. The ordinance is to be held apart with the disciples alone, apart from unbelievers and the wicked. Its shepherds must act carefully and understandingly to guard it from reproach. A Judas may for a time be present among the disciples, appearing to belong while eating and drinking to his own damnation. But God will quickly make such a one manifest and purge and remove him from among His people.