As the Apostle Paul wrote: “23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
27 So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.”
Some have told me that Paul’s referring to sinning against the body of Christ as in the church body, but that doesn’t wash, because the church body has never been referred to as ‘the body and blood of the Lord.’
So I’m just going to be assuming that Paul said what he meant and meant what he said.
Well, I feel that Paul truly meant what he said, but it is not clear to me that your understanding or interpretation of what Paul's purpose was in bringing the passage verses 27 through 32 as related to participation of the communal breaking of bread.
My inclination is that your doctrine says the bread and grape juice constitute, at least in the spirit realm, the sin offering that Jesus effectually and effectively presented to The Holy God. But if that is your contention, you need to stop right there, for in the pre-Incarnation practices, the priesthood could not eat the sin offerings. They were totally and wholly consumed by The LORD, burned up as in smelting fire. So the bread and juice consumed by the New Testament priest is of the materials symbolic of the Old Testament peace offering, reminiscent that the forsaking of the sins by both God and man had already taken place. And this occurred only once, when Jesus died for us and was raised for our justification.
You say the emblems are the atonement, they are Jesus. That is, to me, an unacceptable explanation of the Remembrance
So, what is the meaning of the passage under consideration?
First, the overall purpose of this first canonical letter to the Corinthian assembly was to invoke corrective church discipline, citing the cases, their condition, and the methods of correction. The core of the scripture in view is unworthiness to partake of the symbols of peace with God and solidarity in the assembly. It is in that context one interprets the passage.
Secondly, the cause of unworthiness (1 Cor 5:1, 1 Jn 2:4) is that of unconfessed sinfulness (1 Cor 5:2, 1 Jn 1:6,8,10), with the resultant chastening of God The Father either looming or in process, for not only the unworthy individual, but also for the assembly and its members (1 Cor 5:3-5,11-13; Heb 12:6-8; Joshua 7:1), some of whom are likely (even though passively) complicit.
The Breaking of The Bread observation is not so much about the individual (for each is, moment by moment--not just once a week--accountable to The Father): it is primarily about The Local Body, its holiness (1 Pet 1:14-16), its unity (Jn. 17), and its testimony to the world (1 Cor. 5:13, 11:26).
I believe it is just for this purpose that Joshua 7 was written (1 Cor. 10:11, Rom. 15:4) to warn us that forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, without church discipline preceding the kononia of the Remembrance, the whole assembly suffers. In contrast when the conditions of assembly are met, with the old leaven having been purged, that the Body of Christ may as often (often=the first day of the week) as it gathers for the Memorial, to be cleansed, to regroup, and to take out the Gospel of the Cross to the lost and dying world of desperately sinning humans. If any one does partake unworthily, all will suffer, just as Achan brought down God's judgment and chastening to death of all the People of God for his sins and sinfulness.
Jesus and His Doctrines, the Logos, are in the Bible, not in the tokens of God's reconciliation and peace to us, the bread and blood of the cluster.