I believe that what Paul is saying is that if you don't believe the Gospel, then you shouldn't be partaking of the Lord's Supper.
Paul tells you what is really happening when one eats the bread and drinks the cup. He doesn't say that you are eating the body and drinking the blood, but:
"For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come."
You are showing the Lord's death until he comes. You are proclaiming half of the Gospel -- the death half. The other half of the Gospel is the resurrection half.
Furthermore, if he is in the bread that you are eating, then he has already come. So what's to show ??? He's clearly not in the bread otherwise Paul could not and would not have written this.
But he does say you are eating the body and blood of the Lord. Verse 27 says whoever eats and drinks unworthily “will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord”. And go to verse 29...”For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves.”
On the second coming argument, you make an interesting point, but one doesn’t exclude the other. Surely you’ve noticed in the Gospel this “tension” about the Second Coming that academics and liberals love to point out. That the Christian community believed Christ was coming soon—within “this generation”? That “tension” is largely an academic fiction IMHO, and results directly from academics not recognizing that Christ was believed in the earliest days to be coming at the end of the world *and* was held to be coming at evey divine liturgy. This is somewhat speculative on my part, but I think recognizing the Eucharistic sensibilities of the early Christians largely solves the “problem” of the Second Coming that all the academics love to rave about. There was no problem at all. Christ did come in the form of the Eucharist within that very generation, and he will come Himself without the sacramental veil at the end of time. I believe both comings are touched on by Paul in 1 Cor 11:26.
To the best of my knowledge, all scholars (Catholic and Protestant) are in agreement that Paul wrote his the First Epistle to the Corinthians somewhere between 53 and 57 AD, BEFORE any of the Gospels had been written. Protestants seem to operate under the assumption that all Christians have always had a Bible handy at all times, this did not happen until at least the Sixteenth Century.
Furthermore, if he is in the bread that you are eating, then he has already come. So what's to show ??? He's clearly not in the bread otherwise Paul could not and would not have written this.
Paul clearly did say this, he called it the Body of the Lord.
Again I will ask, how can the Body of Life be greater than Manna from Heaven if it is nothing more than a wafer while Manna provided actual nourishment?
You are showing the Lord's death until he comes. You are proclaiming half of the Gospel -- the death half. The other half of the Gospel is the resurrection half.
Maybe this is why the RC's seem to have so much trouble understanding The Gospel. If they did the sacramental system would fall apart and the dependence on those with "magic fingers" would disappear.
Gal.2:20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.