How do Israel’s examples and shared tables qualify liberty?

Paul recalls that the fathers were all under the cloud and passed through the sea, baptized in Moses, eating the same spiritual food and drinking the same spiritual drink; the spiritual rock that followed them was Christ. The printed annotation explains baptism under Moses in figure, manna as a figure of the true bread from heaven, and the miraculous water and spiritual rock as a figure of Christ. Nevertheless, most displeased God and were overthrown in the desert.

These events are figures for the readers, warning against coveting evil, idolatry, fornication, tempting Christ and murmuring. Paul cites the people sitting to eat and drink and rising to play; this span does not name the golden calf or describe dancing. He gives twenty-three thousand fallen in one day, deaths by serpents and destruction by the destroyer, without identifying the destroyer as an angel here. These events were written for correction; the printed note explains the ends of the world as the last ages. Whoever thinks he stands should beware of falling.

Paul says to let no temptation take hold except what is human. God will not suffer temptation beyond ability but will make an issue with it, so that it can be borne. The printed note offers the alternative reading that no temptation has yet come except what is human or incident to man, and explains issue as a way to escape. This preserves the main exhortation and the alternative annotation; it does not turn ability to bear into a reported successful escape.

He commands flight from the service of idols and asks the wise readers to judge his argument. The blessed chalice is communion of Christ’s blood and the broken bread partaking of the Lord’s body. The printed annotation explains participation in the sacred mysteries and one mystical body with Christ, inferring that participants in the eucharistic sacrifice and sacrament must not become participants with devils through sacrificed meats. Many are one bread and one body because they partake of one bread. A second annotation gives an alternative rendering about the one bread and explains communion with Christ and each other as forming one mystical body, as it were one bread compounded of many closely united grains.

Israel according to the flesh supplies the altar comparison: eaters of sacrifices are partakers of the altar. Paul asks whether he says an idol or its sacrifice is anything, then says heathen sacrifices are to devils rather than God. He does not here describe an intrinsic chemical change in the meat. One cannot drink both chalices or share both tables. He asks whether they provoke the Lord to jealousy or are stronger than he, and distinguishes what is lawful from what is expedient or edifying.

No one should seek only his own advantage. Whatever is sold in the shambles may be eaten without questions for conscience, for the earth and its fullness are the Lord’s. If an unbeliever invites someone who is willing to go, anything served may be eaten without inquiry. If someone identifies it as sacrificed to idols, it should not be eaten for that person’s sake and conscience, which Paul specifies as the other’s. He asks why another conscience judges his liberty and why he is spoken against for what he receives with thanksgiving. These are conditional instructions, not an account of a particular dinner.

Eating, drinking and all other actions should be to God’s glory, without offence to Jews, Gentiles or the church of God. Paul describes pleasing all men in all things, seeking what profits many rather than himself, that they may be saved; no completed salvation of those people is reported.