1 Corinthians 11:23

1 Corinthians 11:23. For I received of [1] the Lord the Lord Jesus, as the next clause shows. that which also I delivered unto you, how that the Lord Jesus in the night in which he was betrayed took bread: and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, [2] This is my body, which is given [3] for you: this do in remembrance of me. Language could not make it more clear than it is here, that the memorial design of this institution is the primary one.

[1] That this communication was a direct one is denied by Meyer and others; because the preposition used would in that case have been different (not ἀ πό but παρά). But not only is the preposition here used employed in good classical Greek, where no such restriction of its sense is implied, but in New Testament Greek this preposition is beyond doubt employed to express direct communication, as in 1 John 2:27, “But the anointing which ye received of Him,” etc. Besides, the emphatic “I” (ιγώ) clearly implies that the revelation came direct from Christ to the apostle himself; and that such direct communications by the Lord Jesus from His unseen glory to our apostle were no strange thing, we know for certain from Acts 8:9-10; Acts 22:17-21, xxiii 11.

[2] The evidence against the genuineness of the two introductory words of the received text “Take, eat” is overwhelming. They have doubtless crept in from Matthew 26:26.

[3] There is something perplexing about what word or whether any word at all was used here by the apostle. The received text has “broken” (κλώμενον), but not on very good aut hority. For the word “given” there is no authority, and the four oldest MSS, have no word at all reading simply, “which is for you.” But it is difficult to believe that the apostle so wrote; and when it is observed that wherever the first and second Gospel s differ from the third in their account of the Lord's Supper, there it will be seen that Luke and our apostle agree, we cannot but think that the apostle did use the word “given” (διδόμενον). since his constant companion uses it (Luke 22:19); and knowing, as Luke doubtless did, that the apostle had his account of it from the Lord Himself, and probably repeated it in the same form whenever he for the first tune “broke bread” with any company of disciples, we venture to insert the word “given,” though in italics, in place of either “broken” or no word at all.