10:16. The chalice of benediction which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? And the bread which we break, is it not the partaking of the body of the Lord?
Which we bless… Here the apostle puts them in mind of their partaking of the body and blood of Christ in the sacred mysteries, and becoming thereby one mystical body with Christ. From whence he infers, ver. 21, that they who are made partakers with Christ, by the eucharistic sacrifice and sacrament, must not be made partakers with devils by eating of the meats sacrificed to them.
10:17. For we, being many, are one bread, one body: all that partake of one bread.
One bread… or, as it may be rendered, agreeably both to the Latin and Greek, because the bread is one, all we, being many, are one body, who partake of that one bread. For it is by our communicating with Christ, and with one another, in this blessed sacrament, that we are formed into one mystical body; and made, as it were, one bread, compounded of many grains of corn, closely united together.
10:18. Behold Israel according to the flesh. Are not they that eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?
10:19. What then? Do I say that what is offered in sacrifice to idols is any thing? Or that the idol is any thing?
10:20. But the things which the heathens sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and not to God. And I would not that you should be made partakers with devils.
10:21. You cannot drink the chalice of the Lord and the chalice of devils: you cannot be partakers of the table of the Lord and of the table of devils.
10:22. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? All things are lawful for me: but all things are not expedient.
10:23. All things are lawful for me: but all things do not edify.