The Apostle Paul had a very functional view of the Lord’s Supper. Linked, as it was at that time, with ‘the love feast’, he demanded that they ‘discern the Lord’s body’. That is, that (i) they saw what Christ’s body was given for, namely forgiveness related to love, and (ii) that they saw the body of Christ, its members and their needs, and shared mutually in meeting those needs. All partook of one food and drink – the body and blood of Christ which was ‘the one bread’, ‘the one cup’. That made them the one cup and the one bread. It was significant for their unity as the people of God, the body of Christ.

In all then, we see the grace of the sacraments was simply the grace of forgiveness, God’s love. The sacraments demonstrate the corporate nature of the people of God, initiated by grace into grace, and daily living in the grace of the Cross and the Resurrection. Baptism and the Supper unite to bring this grace (i) by the enactment of each sacrament, and (ii) by that dynamic remembrance which stimulates the people of God. Another way of saying this is that the grace of God is powerfully set forth and emphasised by the sacraments because every day the community needs the love of God in forgiveness, justification and sanctification, all of which flow from the atonement, i.e. from the one act of Christ’s Cross and Resurrection.

The sacraments are a participation, a communion of persons, a partaking in the transfigured humanity of the incarnate Son of God (Gal 3:27; Matt 28:19; Rom 6:3; 1 Cor 10:2; Eph 4:24; 1 Cor 10:16ff.; 11:24, 27ff.). What this portrays to us is that the life of the people of God must not be reduced to spiritualism or mysticism. If the sacraments were merely spiritual mysticism then they would be simply another aspect of worship. To partake of the sacraments is not to watch a religious drama, or to meditate upon emblems as one would a picture. Water washes those baptised, food is consumed at the table of the Lord.

The whole life of faith is a life lived in Christ (e.g. Gal 2:20; Col 3:3; John 14:23). Christ’s is a vicarious humanity so that ‘for us’ and ‘on our behalf’ are key emphases of the New Testament. Christ, in solidarity with us, is circumcised and baptised as our representative. In our place Jesus obeys, and as our Head Jesus dies for our sins and is raised. It is not that we merely share in Christ’s personality. Christ came to redeem – for this purpose he was incarnate. The energetic, crucial and tragic action is found in Christ’s work, drawing all sinners into the judgement of his cross where both the holiness of God and the conscience of humankind is satisfied. Justification is realised in the risen Lord Jesus – but we have this work, this personhood, this power, and this grace bestowed – re-presented – upon us in the sacraments. In this action, Christ is the Chief Actor.

With the coming of the Word in the presence of the Holy Spirit, in the solemn moment of truth the Gospel is crystallised, and we are clinched in our relationship with Christ in his action conveyed in baptism (1 Cor 12:12-13; Acts 22:16; 1 Cor 6:11). It is the continuity of our life in Christ which is reinforced, and highlighted to us in Holy Communion. For here, in a sacramental way, the life of Christ is conveyed into the life of the worshipper and the worshipping community through the bread and wine.

… the bread and the wine of the Eucharist are not merely emblems of the sacrifice that was once offered for the sins of the world; they are the vehicle by means of which the virtue of that sacrifice is appropriated by the participant.[1]

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[1] Peter T. Forsyth, The Church and the Sacraments (London: Independent Press, 1947), 162.

2. Freedom

In the Supper, there is an ‘uplifting’ of our own humanity, a freely given participation in the life of God.

This in turn transforms the whole conception of the analogical relation in the sacramental participation. Not only is it one which has Christological content, but it is an active analogy, the kind by which we are conducted upward to spiritual things, and are more and more raised up to share in the life of God. This is an elevation or exaltation into fellowship with the divine life through the amazing condescension of the Son who has been pleased to unite Himself with us in our poverty and unrighteousness, that through redemption, justification, sanctification, eternal life, and all the other benefits that reside in Christ we may be endowed with divine riches, even with the life and love that overflow in Christ from God Himself.[1]

The reality is that in Jesus Christ, God shares his own freedom with us, creating a human community called the Church whose spirit is none other than the same Holy Spirit of the Triune God. As God ceaselessly pours himself out on his people, freedom happens. This freedom is enacted in Baptism and celebrated at the Supper. In the words of Robert Jensen, ‘The practice of my freedom is that I am opened to the possibility by utterly various and unpredictable gifts which the Spirit gives other members of the church. Freedom is being able to drink from one cup with the rich and the poor, the healthy and the alarmingly diseased. Freedom is having to forgive and be forgiven.’[2]

In the Supper we ‘celebrate’ this freedom through divine service as an act of thanksgiving for God’s rendering of free service to us through Christ.[3] This eucharist is properly that of the Son to the Father into which we are uplifted as we fellowship with Christ in the Spirit through the communion (koinonia) of the meal. cf. John 16:32‑33; 17:24.
Thus the Sacrament is an action in which we receive Christ and feed upon His Body and Blood by faith, giving thanks for what He has done in the whole course of His obedience, but it is also an action in which we set forth the bread and wine and plead the merits of Christ, taking shelter in His sole and sufficient Mediation and advocacy on our behalf, and lift up our hearts in praise and thanksgiving for His triumphant resurrection and for His ascension, in which we cling to the royal intercessions of the ascended Lord who is set down on the throne of God Almighty … It is our entering within the veil through Christ, who ever lives to make intercession for us and our consecration before the face of the Father.[4]
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[1] Torrance, Conflict, 145.
[2] Robert W. Jenson, On Thinking the Human: Resolutions of Difficult Notions (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2003), 44.
[3] Barth, CD IV/2, 702.
[4] Torrance, Conflict , 147f.

3.4 The Lord’s Supper as faithfulness and freedom; as upholding and uplifting[1]

1. Faithfulness: ‘where two or three are gathered in my name, there I will be with them.’ (Matt 18:20)

There is an ‘upholding’ of those who bear the name of Christ, a faithful act on the part of Christ, binding himself to our time and place. We are affirmed and ‘named’ even in our inability to believe. Christ comes to us through the act of receiving the elements, we do not ‘ascend’ to Christ through the elements. Thus, to ‘discern the body’ (1 Cor 11), is to perceive the presence of Christ in each other. The issue of the presence of an ‘unbeliever’ at the Lord’s table is not dealt with by Paul in 1 Cor 11. His emphasis is on the ‘unworthy’ partaking, not an ‘unworthy person.’

John Wesley considered the Supper to be a ‘converting ordinance,’ where non-Christians would come to know Christ.

One of the salient features of the Methodist Revival was the fact that the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper came to be regarded not simply as a confirming, but as a converting ordinance … the Lord’s Supper can mark the beginning of the Christian life. It would be possible to give a lengthy list of early Methodists who were, like Susannah Wesley, the mother of John and Charles, converted at the Lord’s Supper. It was the actual experience of the Lord’s Supper as a converting ordinance that led the Wesley’s so insistently to contend for its use by men and women before conversion. They took this stand against the Moravians who would have denied the Sacrament to all except those who had received full assurance of faith.[2]

Others argue that the Supper should not be viewed in this ‘evangelistic’ way. So Otto Weber writes:

The Meal is not a means of mission; it has never been that. The totality within which and in which Christ through the Holy Spirit gives himself to us is a mystery. But in this it is important that the proprium of the Supper in comparison with baptism, which is also physical, is that it deals with us in our supra‑individual (and not just trans‑subjective) existence as the Community.[3]

It reminds/speaks the Gospel to the Christian community. At the same time, Weber says further:
The New Testament has no trace of the idea of ‘partaking on the part of unworthy people.’ There is also no reason to interrogate the participants at the Supper about their ‘worthiness’ or ‘unworthiness’ or to investigate it. This is all the more remarkable since otherwise there is definitely the practice of ‘ecclesiastical discipline.’ What we do find in Scripture is the term ‘unworthy’ (anexios) in 1 Corinthians 11:27. There is the ‘partaking’ which is itself ‘unworthy’ (manducatio indigna), but there is no trace of the idea of ‘partaking by those who are unworthy’ (manducatio indignorum) … The question of the ‘partaking by the unbeliever,’ or as it is put in the Wittenberg Concord, the ‘partaking by the unworthy’ (manducatio indignorum), is not raised by the New Testament. It is a question which arises in the practice and teaching of the Church.[4]
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[1] See Barth, CD IV/2, 702ff.
[2] John C. Bowmer, The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper in Early Methodism (Westminster: Dacre Press, 1951), 106‑7; Also John R. Parris, John Wesley’s Doctrine of the Sacraments (London: Epworth Press, 1963), 68ff.
[3] Weber, Foundations, 636.
[4] Weber, Foundations, 645.

3.3 Jesus Christ as the objective reality of the Lord’s Supper.

1. The mode of sacramental relation reflects the mode of hypostatic union between humanity and deity in Christ

Christ as the objective union of human and divine in his own person is also the objective presence of God to humans and humans to God. All forms and theories with regard to this ‘presence’ are relative to this objective ‘presence’ of God in Christ. Again, we must say that the mysterion is located in the Incarnate One, not in the mechanical or supernatural relation between physical element and spiritual grace.

2. Transubstantiation?

The medieval doctrine of transubstantiation was confirmed in 1215 as official dogma. This formulation of the relation of Christ to the elements takes the is, ‘this is my body’, with the strictest literalism. Philosophically, this miracle was explained by Thomas Aquinas on the basis of the Aristotelian distinction between the accidents of a thing (its perceptible characteristics, such as taste, texture), and the essence or substance of a thing (the true reality of a thing). Thus, in the miracle of transubstantiation, when the prayer of the Priest invokes the presence of Christ into the elements, the substance of bread is transformed into the substance of flesh, while the accidental qualities of bread remain. Thus Christ is assumed to be actually present as real substance in the bread and wine, leading to the adoration of the elements as well as a propitiatory immolation of Christ in a ‘sacrifice’.[1]

The Reformers agreed on the rejection of this notion of ‘real presence’ and sacrifice based on the doctrine of transubstantiation, with Luther holding that Christ is truly present ‘under and with the elements,’ in such a way that the humanity of Christ becomes capable of omnipresence wherever the Lord’s Supper is held due to the doctrine of the ubiquity (i.e. omnipresence) of the human nature of Jesus. This is explained in Lutheran theology by the concept of communicatio idiomatum – where the properties belonging to one of the natures of Christ is fully incorporated into the other. Some have termed this Lutheran view, ‘consubstantiation.’ Luther wrote, ‘What is the sacrament of the Altar? It is the true Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, under the bread and wine, given unto us Christians to eat and to drink, as it was instituted by Christ Himself.’[2]

Calvin, on the other hand, while denying ‘real presence’ in terms of substance, spoke in terms of a ‘spiritual’ presence of Christ in the form of the assembled company of believers who receive the elements:

… he has, through the hand of his only-begotten Son, given to his church another sacrament, that is, a spiritual banquet, wherein Christ attests himself to be the life-giving bread, upon which our souls feed unto true and blessed immortality … (B)read and wine … represent for us the invisible food that we receive from the flesh and blood of Christ. For as in baptism, God, regenerating us, engrafts us into the society of his church and makes us his own by adoption, so we have said, that he discharges the function of a provident householder in continually supplying to us the food to sustain and preserve us in that life into which he has begotten us by his Word. Now Christ is the only food of our soul, and therefore our Heavenly Father invites us to Christ, that, refreshed by partaking of him, we may repeatedly gather strength until we shall have reached heavenly immortality.[3]

The view of Zwingli tended to be more of a memorial supper focussing on the historical event of Christ’s death and resurrection, with his presence ‘in the Spirit,’ so that the sacramental elements themselves were totally symbolic, possessing no qualities of ‘presence.’ So, ‘The presence of Christ’ in the Lord’s Supper is understood by Zwingli in an ‘idealistic’ fashion, so to speak, by Luther in a tangible‑‘objective’ fashion, by Melanchton in an actual fashion, and by Calvin in a ‘spiritual fashion.’[4]

Karl Barth adds an important warning: ‘From the standpoint of the community itself, of the company assembled round the table of the Lord, what takes place will always be highly problematical. Yet’, he goes on, ‘in spite of this it is a fellowship of the Lord’s Supper, united by Him both with Him and also, because with Him, in itself; communio sanctorum as a fellowship of the sure and certain hope of eternal life.’[5]

3. The eschatological union between creature and Creator grounds the Church both in a history as well as in a future

The Lord’s Supper reaches back into the event of Christ’s death – ‘On the night on which he was betrayed.’ It also reaches forward into the future – ‘Until he comes’ (1 Cor 11:23, 26). ‘Through the Eucharist the Church becomes, so to speak, the great arch that spans history, supported by only two pillars, the Cross which stands on this side of time, and the coming of Christ in power which stands at the end of history.’[6]

David Watson suggests that the Lord’s Supper causes the Christian to look in four directions:

i. to look back by remembering God’s mercy when he delivered his people from bondage; and to the Cross, the great event of deliverance from sin;
ii. to look in by purifying oneself from everything evil;
iii. to look around by including one’s entire household as well as the stranger;iv. to look forward by anticipating the coming of Christ and the completion of the Messianic age.[7]

[1] Cf. G. Bromiley, ‘Transubstantiation’, in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (ed. W. A. Elwell; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991), 1108. Also Berkouwer, Sacraments, 219ff.
[2] Martin Luther, ‘Small Catechism, Book of Concord’, in Joseph Stump, An Explanation of Luther’s Small Catechism (Whitefish: Kessinger, 2004), 21.
[3] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, IV.17.1. (ed. J. T. McNeill; trans. F. L. Battles; Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1977), 2:1360f.
[4] Weber, Foundations, 632.
[5] Barth, CD IV/2, 704.
[6] Torrance, Conflict, 171.
[7] David Watson, I Believe in the Church (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1999), 237‑241.

3.2 The apostolic recognition of this event as foundational for their new life in the mystery of the Kingdom.

After the resurrection and ascension the disciples understood why, again and again, Jesus had gathered the lost sheep of the House of Israel, the cultically unclean and those debarred from the temple liturgy of sacrifice, and although it scandalized the priests He deliberately broke down the barriers erected by the cultus, and enacted in their midst a sign of the Messianic Meal, when many would come from the east and the west and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven. That eschatological meal was not an eating and drinking between holy priests and people, but the marriage-supper of the Lamb, who because he had come to bear their sin, gathered the poor and the outcast, the weary and the heavy laden, the publicans and sinners, and fed them with the bread of life and gave them living water to drink. The disciples remembered also the parables of the prodigal son and his feasting in the father’s house, of the bridegroom and the wedding feast, and the final judgment which would discover those who had given or not given food to the hungry and drink to the thirsty, and they understood their bearing upon the Lord’s Supper as the great eschatological meal of the Kingdom of God through which that very Kingdom is realized here and now, as far as may be in the conditions of this passing world. The disciples recalled, too, those Galilean meals of fellowship with Jesus, the miraculous feeding of the multitudes by the Great Shepherd of the sheep, and the equally wonderful words He spoke about manna and water, about His flesh and blood, and the life-giving Spirit, and they knew that what had been parable and sign and miracle then had at last materialized in the Easter breaking of bread.[1]

The resurrection qualifies the Last Supper, and transforms it into an eschatological representation of Christ; his presence continues to be with them, yet it is a ‘presence in absence.’ Thus, we have to distinguish, in a doctrine of the ‘real presence’ of Christ in the elements of the Lord’s Supper, between the eschatological parousia and the final parousia in judgement and new creation. It is the same Jesus who is present through re‑presentation, and yet this presence is veiled so as to create a space between the Word of forgiveness and the final power of healing for the Church to reach out and bind the lost into this fellowship.

Certainly bread and wine are signs, in contrast to some kind of self-effectual power inherently present in them They refer to ‘something’ else. They remain what they are – it is senseless to speculate about whether their ‘substance’ is transformed. But, on the other hand, they are certainly not random ‘signs,’ ‘deposits,’ and ‘gifts (or ‘elements’), but derive their intention from the event of the history of Jesus with his disciples, from the breaking of bread and the Last Supper. They are elect signs, destined for their meaning. What gives them their validity is neither our faith, nor their symbolic power, nor any salvific effectuality which inheres in them intrinsically, but solely the intended historical act of Jesus. There is no ‘something’ which could be found which would guarantee their ‘efficaciousness’. But he is present in them. He has determined that they will be the ‘elements’ of the Supper which he conducts with his disciples, ‘until he comes’ … He has determined himself to give his own a share in himself in that they receive these ‘elements’ within the context of the Meal. In the Meal, that is, in the giving and taking of bread and wine, he desires to be present among his own – and ‘to take them into the victory of his lordship by the power of the Holy Spirit.’[2]

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[1] Torrance, Conflict, 169.

[2] Otto Weber, Foundations of Dogmatics, Volume Two (trans. D. L. Guder; Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1983), 627, italics mine.

§ 3 The Lord’s Supper as an Event within Covenant/Salvation History

3.1 The inauguration of the new ‘covenant’ in the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

The antecedents of the Lord’s Supper can be located in the history of redemption as portrayed through Israel:

i. the Passover meal (Passover Haggadah) with its commemoration of the exodus from Egypt, with its meal of unleavened bread;

ii. the assimilation of the covenant meal (Kiddush) at Mt. Sinai which took account of the mighty events of Israel’s redemption to the Passover, with the addition of the rite of sanctification using a cup of wine (Exod 24:11);

iii. the rite of thanksgiving (Chaburah meal), or blessing, along with the breaking of bread at the start of the meal along with the cup of wine at the end.[1]

Jesus seems self‑consciously to draw these elements together in his own identification with the messianic implications of these rites.

Jesus must have followed the Jewish custom of passing round a cup of wine in token of thanksgiving to God; but before that was done, a piece of bread and a cup of wine were set aside for the Messiah in case He should suddenly come to His own in the midst of the feast. Then at the end of the meal, fully charged with pascal and covenantal significance, Jesus took the bread and wine set aside for the Messiah, and said, ‘This is my body broken for you. This is my blood which is shed for you.’ By breaking the bread and giving it to the disciples, by passing round the cup, He associated them with His sacrifice, giving their existence in relation to Himself a new form in the Kingdom of God, indeed constituting them as the Church concorporate with Himself.[2]

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[1] Cf. Torrance, Conflict, 134‑5.

[2] Torrance, Conflict, 170.