Is Paul referring to transubstantiation in this passage? Or something else?

Paul writes, “He who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly” (1 Cor. 11:29). Roman Catholic theologians hold that Paul is referring to transubstantiation—where the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper become the literal body and blood of Jesus. After all, Paul calls these elements “the body” in this passage. Is this the case?

There are two ways of understanding this passage:

OPTION #1. Paul is referring to the Body of Christ (i.e. the Christian community)

Gordon Fee and Craig Blomberg hold to this view. It can be defended through several different arguments:

LEXICALLY, Paul uses the expression “the body” to refer to Christian community. Paul is the only NT author—besides the author of Hebrews—to refer to the church as the Body of Christ (cf. Heb. 13:3). Many examples could be cited where Paul refers to the Christian community as “the Body of Christ.”

CONTEXTUALLY, Paul refers to “the body” as referring to Christian community. The context is not just the Lord’s Supper, but their attitude toward fellow believers there (see comments on 1 Corinthians 11:27). Later, in verse 31, Paul uses similar language to refer to “judging ourselves rightly.” Of course, this would refer to the church—not to Jesus. Though this is not Garland’s view, he captures the essence of this perspective when he writes, “The ‘body’ to be discerned, then, is not just the piece of bread on the table but the body at the table.”

In the greater context, Paul refers to believers as the Body of Christ. Earlier in chapter 10, Paul writes, “Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body; for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Cor. 10:17). Later in chapter 12, Paul explains that believers are the Body of Christ. There he writes, “By one Spirit we were all baptized into one body” (1 Cor. 12:13) and “Now you are Christ’s body, and individually members of it” (1 Cor. 12:27).

GRAMMATICALLY, the language supports “the body” as referring to Christian community. If “the body” refers to Jesus’ literal body, there are several grammatical difficulties. For one, Paul does not have a genitive qualifier (i.e. “the body of the Lord”). Instead, he merely refers to “the body.” This stands in contrast to verse 27, where Paul adds “of the Lord” to refer to the bread and cup. Moreover, Paul makes no mention of the “cup.” If Paul was referring to the bread and wine, why doesn’t he mention the cup, wine, or blood of Christ, as he does earlier? Critics might rightly argue that these are arguments from silence, but given the context, these are conspicuous silences.

We favor this first option above. However, some commentators offer a second viable interpretation.

OPTION #2. Paul is referring to the literal Body of Jesus—though not in the bread and wine

David Garland and Alan Johnson hold to this view, and Leon Morris slightly favors it. Under this view, Paul is telling the Corinthians to recognize the uniqueness of Christ’s death that they are being called to remember through the Lord’s Supper. In other words, the practice of the Lord’s Supper is to get them to remember the broken “body” of Jesus. For example, Garland writes, “A proper understanding of what these elements represent should change the Corinthians’ attitude and behavior toward others. It reminds them of their dependence on Christ and their own interdependence and should cause them to share their own provisions with others at the meal who have little or nothing. Paul is arguing that when they recognize fully the meaning of the sacrifice of Christ, remembered in reenacting the Last Supper, they will act compassionately toward their brothers and sisters in Christ.” Likewise, Johnson writes, “While a number of modern interpreters (mostly but not exclusively evangelical) follow Bruce here (Fee, Witherington, Hays, Blomberg), I believe that the primary emphasis is on the Lord’s own physical body, not as mystically present in the bread but in the saving significance of his death and the consequent social behavior required of all who are identified with him (v. 24).”