THE FIRST EPISTLE OF PAUL THE APOSTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS - Chapter 11 - Verse 32

Verse 32. But when we are judged. This is added, evidently, to console those who had been afflicted on account of their improper manner of observing the Lord's Supper. The sense is, that though they were thus afflicted by God; though he had manifested his displeasure at the manner in which they had observed the ordinance, yet the Divine judgment in the case was not inexorable. They were not regarded by God as wholly strangers to piety, and would not be lost for ever. They should not be alarmed, therefore, as if there was no mercy for them; but they should rather regard their calamities as the chastening of the Lord on his own children, and as designed for their salvation.

We are chastened of the Lord. It is his act; and it is not vengeance and wrath; but it is to be regarded as the chastisement of a father's hand, in order that We should not be condemned with the wicked. We are under the discipline (paideuomeya) of the Lord; we are dealt with as children, and are corrected as by the hand of a father. Compare Heb 12:5-10; 2 Co 6:9. The design of God's correcting his children is, that they should be reclaimed, and not destroyed.

That we should not be condemned with the world. It is implied here,

(1.) that the world—those who were not Christians—would be condemned;

(2.) that Paul regarded the Corinthians, whom he addressed, and who had even been guilty of this improper manner of observing the Lord's Supper, and who had been punished for it, as true Christians; and,

(3.) that the purpose which God had in view in inflicting these judgments on them was, that they might be purified, and enlightened, and recovered from their errors, and saved. This is the design of God in the calamities and judgments which he brings on his own children. And so now, if he afflicts us, or leave us to darkness, or follows the communion with the tokens of his displeasure, it is that we may be recovered to a deeper sense of our need of him; to juster views of the ordinance; and to a more earnest wish to obtain his favour.

{b} "we are chastened" Ps 94:12,13; Heb 12:5-11