1 Cor 11 is about discipline and order in the church. Their drunken behavior and lack of concern for others dishonored both Jesus and the Church.
Paul wasn’t saying the bread and wine became the flesh and blood of Jesus, because we are to do it “in remembrance” of Jesus. We are not partaking of the sacrifice of Jesus, for it is not an eternal ongoing sacrifice, as Hebrews points out quite emphatically - and you don’t “remember” something you are doing.
If a football player picks up a game ball he won years ago and remembers, he is NOT playing the game still. He is remembering, as Paul tells the Corinthians to do.
But in their disregard for others, they fail to discern that the church is the body of Christ, and the individuals are the members of one body. It is a recurring theme in 1 Corinthians.
“For I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, 2and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3and all ate the same spiritual food, 4and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. 5Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.” - 1 Cor 10, ref Ex 17: “6 Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel.”
Was that water the blood of Christ, or any part of Christ’s body? Of course not, but it was a unifying physical representation of God’s provision for them. They were united together in God’s presence, but the rock was not actually Jesus Christ himself.
Paul goes on in chapter 10 to remind them that the sacrifice of thanksgiving (eucharist) identifies them with and unites them in obedience to Jesus, just as pagans are united to what they worship:
“15I speak as to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. 16 The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? 17Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. 18Consider the people of Israel: are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar? 19What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? 20No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. 21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. 22 Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?” - 1 Cor 10
I doubt idol sacrifices are transubstantiated into the flesh of demons, or demon blood. But to partake is to identify with the demons, to join their cause and show submission to them. As Paul says, “That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? 20No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God.”
The offering is not transubstantiated, but it unites the partakers with their ‘god’.
Chapter 10 finishes with a call to unity:
” 31So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. 32 Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, 33just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved.”
Chapter 11 continues with concern for proper behavior in the church, covering (forgive the pun) women and then the Lord’s Supper.
Chapter 12 continues on with the unity of the body in spiritual gifts. Chapter after chapter describes our unity as one body, and how we identify ourselves as part of that body.
With the example of pagan sacrifices just about a paragraph earlier, Paul says, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord.
Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.”
I fail to see how anyone reading this in context would conclude that Paul, for one verse, turns the spiritual uniting of man with God (the parting of the Red Sea, the rock at Horeb, partaking in a common sacrifice and using spiritual gifts to uplift all) into transubstantiation.
“But I don’t see how that advances your case; don’t you see how such behaviour would profane the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, even more than it would profane a sort of “vague, general presence” of Christ in His Church?”
Yet the examples that precede it are examples of a spiritual unifying of the Jews during the exodus, pagans in their sacrifices, and us in remembering the Lord’s death. I fail to see why all the others refer to spiritual connections, while this one sentence suddenly pops out of the text and discusses transubstantiation.
Context. When you have a question about scripture, start by reading the chapters before and after.
“Also: no comments on the quotes from the Early Church? I’ve yet to hear an explanation of why you prefer Luther’s explanation to theirs...”
As Cardinal Newman pointed out, the early church fathers were all over on ‘real presence’, and do NOT support transubstantiation. I see no reason to repeat what I already cited.
Verse 4. And did all drink the same spiritual drink. The idea here is essentially the same as in the previous verse, that they had been highly favoured of God, and enjoyed tokens of the Divine care and guardianship. That was manifested in the miraculous supply of water in the desert, thus showing that they were under the Divine protection, and were objects of the Divine favour. There can be no doubt that by “spiritual drink” here the apostle refers to the water that was made to gush from the rock that was smitten by Moses, Exodus 17:6; Numbers 20:11. Why this is called “spiritual” has been a subject on which there has been much difference of opinion. It cannot be because there was anything peculiar in the nature of the water, for it was evidently real water, fitted to allay their thirst. There is no evidence, as many have supposed, that there was a reference in this to the drink used in the Lord’s Supper. But it must mean that it was bestowed in a miraculous and supernatural manner; and the word “spiritual” must be used in the sense of supernatural, or that which is immediately given by God. Spiritual blessings thus stand opposed to natural and temporal blessings, and the former denote those which are immediately given by God as an evidence of the Divine favour. That the Jews used the word “spiritual” in this manner is evident from the writings of the Rabbins. Thus they called the manna “spiritual food,” (Yade Mose in Shemor Rabba, fol. 109, 3 ;) and their sacrifices they called “spiritual bread,” (Tzeror Hammor, fol. 93,2.)—Gill. The drink therefore, here referred to, was that bestowed in a supernatural manner, and as a proof of the Divine favour.
For they drank of that spiritual Rock. Of the waters which flowed from that rock. The Rock here is called “spiritual,” not from anything peculiar in the nature of the rock, but because it was the source to them of supernatural mercies, and became thus the emblem and demonstration of the Divine favour, and of spiritual mercies, conferred upon them by God.
http://www.studylight.org/com/bnn/view.cgi?book=1co&chapter=010
Another commentary:
Those, therefore, who treated the symbols of his body and blood with profaneness and contempt were united in spirit with those who put him to death. They evinced the same feelings towards the Lord Jesus that his murderers did. They treated him with scorn, profaneness, and derision; and showed that with the same spirit they would have joined in the act of murdering the Son of God. They would evince their hostility to the Saviour himself as far as they could do, by showing contempt for the memorials of his body and blood. The apostle does by no means, however, as I understand him, mean to say that any of the Corinthians had been thus guilty of his body and blood. He does not charge on them this murderous-intention. But he states what is the fair and obvious construction which is to be put on a wanton disrespect for the Lord’s Supper. And the design is to guard them, and all others, against this sin. There can be no doubt that those who celebrate his death in mockery and derision are held guilty of his body and blood. They show that they have the spirit of his murderers; they evince it in the most awful way possible; and they who would thus join in a profane celebration of the Lord’s Supper would have joined in the cry, “Crucify him, crucify him.” For it is a most fearful and solemn act to trifle with sacred things; and especially to hold up to derision and scorn, the bitter sorrows by which the Son of God accomplished the redemption of the world.
http://www.studylight.org/com/bnn/view.cgi?book=1co&chapter=011
This interpretation is consistent with the idea, expressed several times before, that we identify and become one with others by our acts - and we can identify with the Lord’s body, or with his slayers. If we do the latter, is there any reason to doubt that God will judge us?