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I. THE CUP OF BLESSING WHICH WE BLESS, i.e., over which we apostles or ministers speak the word for good. When we mortals say may it be good, we pray that it may be good: when God says, Be it good, the good becomes, it takes effect. Man blesses God in words, God blesses man in deeds; for He speaks and it is done, His benedictions are benefactions. In the Holy Supper of bread and wine what is offered by us to God of His own earthly gifts, with the prayer that He bless the offering into a heavenly good, that is given back to us by God in the new form and substance of the supernatural good itself. But the cup of blessing, i.e, the cup of the benediction — of the benediction which the Lord Himself pronounced in His own institution of the sacrament — this cup — is it not — communion? the means of communion, asks the apostle — in the blood — here St. Paul pauses a moment and then dictates to his amanuensis — of the Christ? This word communion denotes the .fellowship of persons with persons in one and the same object common to all and sometimes whole to each. By way of illustration: when the sun shines upon a band of haymakers in a field, these do not, properly speaking, partake of the sun; there is no true participation; we cannot say that a portion of ten beams is assigned to A, of twelve to B, of twenty to C, rather the undivided sun is common to all the labourers and whole to each of them; they all have fellowship or a common interest in one and the same sun. Even so within the hallowed sphere of the sacramental communion the Sun of Righteousness shines upon His own, equal to all and total to each. Communion is not the same thing with union, but rather proceeds from it, growing out of our mystical union with Christ's humanity; by this mystical union we were made members of His body, bred of His flesh and of His bones. This mystical union is founded in baptism and is strengthened and consolidated in the Eucharist by means of mystical communion. And as the union itself is twofold, for thereby we are "members of Christ," and "members one of another," so is the communion twofold, for thereby we have fellowship with the Incarnate Son and fellowship with one another. The cup of the Lord's blessing and the chalice of His benediction is it not in the consecrated wine thereof — the medium of fellowship, fellowship of the members both with the Head and with each other — fellowship in what? In a nature common to all. Of this fellowship the blood is the medium. Of this inward communion with Christ and with all who have been baptized into His Divine human nature, the Divine human blood is the life-giving medium. For in baptism we put on Christ — just as a graft by insertion puts on a tree, and as a graft after insertion drinks the sap of the tree ("has in common with the root the fatness of the good olive,") so in the Eucharist we drink the blood of Christ more truly than the graft drinks the sap of the tree in which it has been inserted.

II. THE BREAD WHICH WE BREAK after consecration or benediction, is it not the medium of our communion with Christ and with one another in the body of Christ? As the material bread, God's earthborn gift, we all do eat together with the outward man, so "the spiritual food of Christ's most precious body," we receive together and manducate with the inward man; for the natural bread after consecration is not only the symbol but also the vehicle (in effect) of Christ's body (in essence). How often in Scripture is the natural consecrated to be the medium of the supernatural! And there is always a congruity and meetness of correspondence between the outward sign and the inner thing signified. The material rock gushing with streams in the desert was a vehicle of a spiritual rock, even Christ in effect. The sacred animal breath which our blessed Lord before His ascension breathed on His disciples was not only the meet emblem but true vehicle also of Holy Spirit; for He blew on them, He breathed strong and steadfast upon them and said Take Holy Spirit, and they, the disciples, received their Master's sensible breath, and with it an instalment of His own God-man's Spirit.

III. FOR WE BEING MANY ARE ONE BREAD AND ONE BODY. A better rendering and one that connects the argument is because there is one bread, one body are we the assembled many. The sense is: Because the bread of many parts, into which it is broken, is yet one bread, one body are the many we. Many fractions, one bread; many members, one body. The bread which we break, is it not communion with Christ and with one another in relation to the body — of Christ? We the many are one body — Body and body? The body proper of Christ — and the many we one body corporate? Clearly St. Paul here makes an easy transition from the body proper of Christ to the body corporate, His Church. This is most remarkable as tending to show that he identifies the two bodies in essence or substance. In accord with this interpretation, no wonder many ancient fathers held that while in baptism we obtain incorporation into Christ, in the Eucharist we obtain concorporeity if not consanguinity with Him. But this concorporeity we receive by degrees and rudimentally. The consubstantiation is now laid in its foundations, to be consummated at the Parousia. The Church, says , is one body, not only generally and mystically, but properly and corporeally, because all members are really, i.e., Substantially, united to Christ. Every one of us mortals is a twofold man; one called by St. Paul outward, the other inward. Every one of us is double by double creation, constituted in the first Adam we are reconstituted in the second, the outward or material man asks for earthborn food, bread and wine, lest physical death supervene; the inward or spiritual man asks for heavenly food, the Divine body and blood, lest the higher life of the new creation should pine and fade and dwindle and perish in the silting brightness of the advancing Pareusia.

(Canon Evans.)

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KJV: The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?

WEB: The cup of blessing which we bless, isn't it a sharing of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, isn't it a sharing of the body of Christ?