<p>10:17- see on 1 Cor. 11:29; &nbsp;1 Cor. 12:15.</p><p><em>Seeing that we, who are many, are one loaf, one body; for we are all partaking of the one loaf- </em>Just as Israel partook of &quot;the same&quot; food and water, &quot;which is Christ&quot;, so the many within the body of Christ partake of Him. This verse is not saying that participation in the breaking of bread service somehow magically makes us 'one' and therefore it should only be done with those with whom we are in theological agreement. The unity in view here is between the believers and the Lord Jesus. We the many are one with Him, with His body. We are partakers in or of Christ (Heb. 3:14). Paul has argued in 1 Cor. 6 that because believers are one with the body of Christ, they should not be one with religious prostitutes, even Christian ones. And here he will go on to reason that we cannot be one with the Lord Jesus and also with the gods represented by the idols. If we are partakers in Christ, the one loaf, then we cannot partake with idols (:21). Heb. 2:14 uses the same word to explain that the Lord Jesus partook in our human nature; and in response, we partake in Him by acts of identity such as baptism and the breaking of bread, and in a life lived in Him. Here we see the practical power of understanding the representative nature of His sacrifice and His genuine human nature; it is an invitation to both ritual and psychological identity with Him.</p><p>The bread represents the body of Christ; at the communion service we express our unity with all who are in Christ as well as with Him. To refuse to break bread with those who are in Christ is therefore to effectively count ourselves out of His body. This doctrine of the one body is as fundamental as there being one God, one baptism and one hope (Eph. 4:4-6). But Paul&rsquo;s argument here is that we cannot therefore bind ourselves in communion with idols if we are truly in the body of Christ. The boundaries he draws are between the believer and the world, not between believer and believer. As the whole community of Israel were treated as one body of believers, even though there was unbelief, doctrinal and moral error amongst them, so is the body of Christ (:18). One implication of this doctrine of the one body is that we cannot be part of any other body. And this was exactly relevant to the Corinthians, who were turning the breaking of bread service into part of an idol service; see on :21. If we are truly &ldquo;in Christ&rdquo;, our whole world will revolve around that; to be involved in any other system of thinking or worship is to provoke Him to jealousy.</p><p>To refuse to fellowship a brother is to effectively say that he is not within the Lord's body; for when we break bread, we show that we are one bread and one body (1 Cor. 10:16,17). It is simply not true that refusal to break bread with another is not passing judgment upon them; it most clearly is. And as we condemn, so we will be (Mt. 7:1). The purpose of the cross was to gather together in one all God's children (Jn. 11:52), that the love of the Father and Son might be realized between us (Jn. 17:26). If we support division, we are denying the essential aim of the Lord's sacrifice.</p><p>Surrounding Roman culture forbad women to drink wine with men, and only permitted them to do so in special cases if they drank different wine from a different cup. But Paul in conscious reference to this emphasizes the one cup shared by all believers, male and female, in memory of the unity and tearing down of barriers between people achieved by the Lord&rsquo;s death.</p><p>The bread represents the body of Christ; but it is hammered home time and again in the New Testament that the <em>believers</em> are the body of Christ. By partaking of Christ's body, we are sharing with each other. Paul drives home this point with an Old Testament allusion: &quot;Behold Israel after the flesh: are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?&quot; (1 Cor. 10:18). We are the living sacrifices, offered on the Christ altar (Rom. 12:1; Heb. 13:10). By being placed upon the altar, the sacrifice was counted as the altar. As Christ hung on the cross, all believers were counted as being in Him; Christ and the believers were, in this sense, indivisible on the cross. And they still are- hence the figure of us being the very <em>body</em>, the very <em>being</em>, of Christ. To personally share in fellowship with Him therefore <em>must</em> involve intense fellowship with other members of Christ's body. We must 'discern' the Lord's body (1 Cor. 11:29), and also&nbsp; judge (same word as 'discern') ourselves&quot; at the memorial meeting (1 Cor. 11:31). We discern the Lord's body, and thereby discern ourselves too- because we are part of His body. This further shows that our self-examination at the breaking of bread is both of Christ and also of ourselves (both individually <em>and</em> collectively, as the body of Christ?).</p>