Communion meditation, September 25

1 Corinthians 6:15-17: Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? May it never be! Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a harlot is one flesh with her? For He says, The two will become one flesh. But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.

As we saw in the sermon text this morning, marriage is a one-flesh relationship, a man and a woman joined together as a single person, living a single life together. Each man is a new Adam, and each woman is a new Eve; every husband is also an image of the Last Adam, and every wife is an image of the Last Eve, the church. Unity in marriage is a created image of the unity that the church has with

Jesus Christ. Husband and wife form one flesh, and this points to the church who is “one spirit” with Christ.

These two realities – human marriage and the church’s marriage to Christ – are deeply intertwined. We might expect that Paul would teach that sexual impurity would damage the one-flesh relationship between a man and his wife. We might expect that Paul would urge husbands to avoid sexual immorality because it breaks the seventh commandment, or because of the damage it can do to a family. Instead, Paul says that a man who indulges sexual immorality has taken “the members of Christ” and “made them members of a harlot.” Sexual immorality is not merely a violation of the one-flesh relationship between husband and wife, but a violation of the one-spirit relationship of Christ and his bride.

Throughout Scripture, a shared meal is one of the main symbols of a one-flesh relationship. Both marriage and common meals have covenantal overtones. Sharing a meal establishes a covenant relationship, a relationship of “brotherhood,” so that two unrelated people become bone of bone and flesh of flesh. Sharing flesh in a meal established a union of flesh among the participants. At this table, we are joined with the flesh and blood of Christ, joined in one spirit with Him, because this is the marriage supper of the Lamb.

When we have become one spirit with our Husband at this table, our bodies belong to Him, and we are not to join the members of Christ to a harlot. When we participate in this table, we are pledging ourselves to sexual purity because at this table we are joined in one spirit with our divine husband.