Have you experienced what baptism pictures, i.e., the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ for your salvation? Are you experiencing what the Lord’s Supper symbolizes i.e., confessed sins and fellowship with the Lord? When Christ commanded the church to observe two ordinances He gave us pictures of two important Christian realities. Baptism pictures union with Christ and the Lord’s Supper pictures communion with Christ. Just as the believing sinner is united to Christ in salvation once, so the believer is baptized once. Because fellowship or communion with Christ is repeated by the Christian so does the believer repeat the ordinance of Communion or the Lord’s Supper.
The Lord’s Supper is a picture or symbol like the Passover. The Lord’s Supper is called different names in the New Testament: It is the “Lord’s Table” (1 Cor. 10:21), “the Lord’s Supper” (1 Cor.11:20), the Eucharist (1 Cor. 11:24a), the Memorial (1 Cor.11:24b). It is not called a sacrament nor Mass.
Four Different Views on the Lord’s Supper
Here is a definition of sacramentalism: “The doctrine that observance of the sacraments is necessary for salvation and that such participation can confer grace.” This doctrine contradicts the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
Roman Catholic view: Transubstantiation
The Roman Catholic view of transubstantiation is the sacramental view that the elements of the Lord’s Supper are miraculously transformed into the literal body and blood of Christ by the priest’s consecration which is sacerdotalism. At the moment the priest says, “This is my body” the element becomes the literal body and blood of Christ according to Catholicism. For centuries, the RCC did not allow laypeople to drink from the cup, for fear that the blood of Christ would be spilled but Vatican II (1962-1965) changed this (Grudem, Systematic Theology, page 991).
Here is the statement in the Council of Trent on Transubstantiation (click to open):
CHAPTER IV TRANSUBSTANTIATION
But since Christ, our Redeemer declared that to be truly His own body which He offered under the form of bread, it has, therefore, always been a firm belief in the Church of God, and this holy council now declares it anew, that by the consecration of the bread and wine a change is brought about of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of His blood. This change the holy Catholic Church properly and appropriately calls transubstantiation (Thirteenth Session of the Council of Trent, Session XIII - The third under the Supreme Pontiff, Julius III, celebrated on the eleventh day of October 1551).
The Roman Catholic view of transubstantiation, in part, is based on Christ’s words in Mt. 26:26, “Take eat this is my body.” The R.C.C. Bible, the Douay Version in its footnote on Mt. 26:26 says, “Neither does He say in this, or with this is my body, but absolutely, this is my body, which plainly implies transubstantiation.” Another passage used by RCC is John 6:53. RCC theologian Ludwig Ott summarizes the argument of the RCC. “The necessity of accepting a literal interpretation in this case is evident: (a) From the nature of the words used. One specially notes the realistic expressions alethes brosis = true, real food (v.55); alethes posis = true, real drink v.55); [from] trogein = to gnaw, to chew, to eat (v.54 et seq.). (b) From the difficulties created by a figurative interpretation. In the language of the Bible to eat a person’s flesh and drink His blood in the metaphorical sense means to persecute Him in a bloody fashion, to destroy Him (cf. Ps. 26, 2; Isa. 9:20; 49:26; Mic. 3:3)” (Geisler, page 152).
The following arguments refute RCC view of transubstantiation. The copula “is” (Greek estiv) used in Mt. 26:26 or some form is used figuratively frequently by Christ. Other examples of “is” used metaphorically by Christ are John 10: 9 “I am the door” and John 15:1 “I am the vine.” Jesus did not become a literal door hanging on hinges. Also, the Bible uses in a figurative sense the process of eating as in Psalm 34:8, “O taste and see that the LORD is good.” So, Christ is in keeping with this figurative use of language when He said, “Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” In other words, you must receive me into your life to be a believer. There are many other passages that use the same metaphors of eating as illustrations of spiritual realities: Rev. 10:10 and 1 Pet. 2:2. The Greek word sarx translated “flesh” as in John 6:53 has a broad semantic range that includes figurative such as spiritual, nonphysical fallen nature (Roman 7:18).
Physically, Christ cannot be present in Heaven and at the same time present at Lord’s Suppers being celebrated on earth all over the world. While the divine nature of Christ is omnipresent (Col. 1:27) the human nature is not (1 Tim. 2:5). The co-mingling of the two natures of Christ is a heresy called Eutychiansim or monophysitism which was condemned by the council of Chalcedon in 451: “Lord Jesus Christ…. truly God and truly man…. recognized in two natures, without confusion…. The distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union.”
Jews were forbidden to drink literal blood in Lev. 17:10 and therefore for the fruit of the vine to become the literal blood of Christ would be a violation of Lev. 17:10 as well as an act of cannibalism.
The RCC views the Mass as a sacrifice of Christ. “The term sacrifice is found as early as Pope Gregory the Great (r. 590-604), who held that in every mass Christ was sacrificed afresh” (Geisler, page 160). This contradicts the sufficiency of Christ’s death and the perfect tense used to describe Christ’s shed blood in 1 Cor. 15:4; Rev. 5:6 and Heb. 10:12.
The RCC claims that something miraculous happens at the Mass for the elements to convert into the literal flesh and blood of Christ. But nothing miraculous transpires at the Mass regarding the elements. The wafer still tastes like and has the texture of a wafer, and the vine's fruit does not taste like human blood.
RCC takes koinonia in 1 Cor. 10:16 to mean physical participation because koinonia can mean physical and material participation as in Phil. 1:5; 4:1; 4-15. In 1 Cor.10:16 “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion [Gk. koinonia a fellowship or participation] of the blood of Christ?” The context demands that koinonia in Phil. 1:5; 4:15-16 means material participation with Paul’s ministry and the context in 1 Cor. 11:16-17 demands a spiritual fellowship or participation.
The R.C. Bible, the Douay Version in its footnote on Mt.26:26 says, “Take eat….” “Neither does He say in this, or with this is my body, but absolutely, this is my body, which plainly implies transubstantiation.” If the bread and blood were literally Christ’s body and blood then there must have been two bodies of Christ present at the time.
Lutheran View: Consubstantiation:
The true body and blood of Christ are “in, with, and under the bread and cup” because Christ is omnipresent and He is in the bread and cup when partaken. This view teaches pantheism, that Christ is everything not just everywhere. This is not the communion of attributes but a mixing of attributes. The mixing of attributes makes the humanity of Christ omnipresent just like his deity. Physically, Jesus is on the right hand of the majesty on high (Hebrews 1:3.
Zwingli’s view: The Memorial View
Zwingli’s view: “A sacrament is the sign of a holy thing. When I say ‘the sacrament of the Lord’s body’, I am simply referring to that bread which is the symbol of the body of Christ who was put to death for our sakes .… But the real body of Christ is the body which is seated at the right hand of God, and the sacrament of his body is the bread, and the sacrament of his blood is the wine, of which we partake with thanksgiving. Now the sign and the thing signified cannot be one and the same. Therefore the sacrament of the body of Christ cannot be that body itself” Zwingli. “On the Lord Supper”, LCC 24: 188.).
Calvin’s view: The Spiritual Presence of Christ:
John Hammett notes that Calvin, who as a second-generation reformer, followed Luther and Zwingli took “a mediating position. With Luther, he affirms Christ’s presence in the Lord’s Supper, but with Zwingli, he denies that it can be a physical presence since Christ’s body ascended into heaven” (John Hammett, 280).
Calvin spoke of participating in the Lord’s Supper as spiritual eating: “As bread nourishes, sustains, and protects our bodily life, so the body of Christ is the only food to invigorate and keep alive the soul” (John Calvin, “Chapter 17, Of the Lord’s Supper, and the Benefits Conferred by it” in The Institutes of the Christian Religion, paragraph three). Christ’s presence is in the believer (Col 1:27) and in the local church (Rev 2:1) not just when the Lord’s Supper is being observed. Zwingli’s view is therefore closer to the biblical view.
In Part Two, I will discuss The Meaning of the Lord’s Supper, and Participants in the Lord’s Supper.