The Presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper

The presence of Christ, in relation to the Lord’s Supper, continues to be a heated debate amongst theologians, and rightly so, because the covenant of grace, as seen in 1 Corinthians 11:23-25, in part, is administered through the administration of the sacrament of the Lord’s supper.  It is therefore crucial to understand the degree to which Christ is present in relation to the Lord’s Supper.   On one hand, most traditions seem to agree that there is a monumental mystery in regards to Christ’s presence in the elements due to man’s finiteness.  But on the other hand, when the different traditions try to unravel the mystery, they part their different ways accusing one another of rationalizing, using ambiguous words, and down right heresy.  But when one studies the different ideas and traditional beliefs, while maintaining Biblical integrity, I believe John Calvin’s view holds firm in it’s standing. It is important, first, to look at Luke 22:19-20 which states, “And when He [Christ] had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”  And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood”.  The passage, “This is My body…This is My blood”, undoubtedly conveys Christ is present in the elements given at the supper.  The question is what kind of presence.  Do the bread and wine transform into the actual body and blood of Christ (transubstantiation), are Christ’s body and blood in, with, and under the elements (consubstantiation), or are the bread and wine just a representation of His body and blood (Zwinglian view)?  Perhaps there is a middle ground between the three.  With this in mind, regarding Christ’s presence in the Lord’s Supper, I contend that, the body and blood of Christ remain seated at the right hand of God, yet, spiritually, by faith, are truly present to believers as we partake of the sacraments through the mysterious working of the Holy Spirit. 

The first thing we need to understand is that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh.  Jesus Christ is fully God and, yes, fully man.  Philippians 2:6-8 says this: “…who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in human likeness of men.  And being found in appearance as a man,…”.  John 1:14, emphasizing the same point, exclaims: “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt amongst us,…”.  Because Christ is human, His ministry on earth is filled with examples stemming from His human nature.  He was susceptible to temptation, as seen in Luke 4:1-13, which is common to every man.  Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane just before he was arrested, because He is the God man, the God in the flesh.  Refer to Mark 14:32-39.  Even in Christ, human nature was a delicate thing, forcing Him to deeply rely upon His Father’s strength.  Therefore, in His body, human nature, He has limitations common to every man.  Christ, in bodily form, just like man, cannot be omnipresent. 

The Scriptures profess that Jesus has been resurrected (Acts 1:9) and John Calvin, interpreting Acts 3:21 states that Christ’s body “is contained in heaven (where it was once for all received) until Christ return in judgment [Acts 3:21]“.  Mark 16:19 says, “…He [Christ] was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God” and, Colossians 3:1 states, “If then you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God”.  Christ, in bodily form, is seated at the right hand of God.  Therefore, since Christ is seated at the right hand of God, we cannot, not even for sacramental usage,  bring Christ’s body and blood back down to earth and subject it to descension from heaven.  Christ is no longer in a state of humiliation, but in a state of exaltation, having ascended and risen to the heavenlies.  “A Eucharistic doctrine that brings Christ from his throne is, in effect, a throwback to the Old Covenant,” claims Leithart.  Acts 3:21 states it clearly that Christ will return only at “the period of restoration” and albeit for us to claim that His body is back down on earth when that is quite contrary to Scripture.  The body and blood of Christ, after His ascension, will remain seated at the right hand of God until the day of judgment.  Since that is the case, we can confidently say the bread and wine offered during Holy Communion are not Christ’s physical body as it is retained in heaven until the return of Christ and, because Christ, in bodily form, cannot be omnipresent.  

On the other hand, it must be noted, that it is the Lord inviting us to His table to receive His body and blood.  “This is my body…This is My blood” Luke 22:19-20 and Mark 14:22-24 exclaim.  With that said, we must wrestle with the words of Luke as stated in the introduction.  If taken literally, we would be calling Christ’s body and blood to descension into the bread and wine themselves.  Making the bread and wine Jesus’ physical body.  This is unacceptable considering Christ is sitting at the right hand of God.  During the upper room discourse, the words of Christ are not to be taken literally as the words of the institution are to be interpreted according to sacramental usage “whereby the sign is given the name of the thing signified.  To give a literal meaning to the words, “this is my body”, we hold to be contrary to the analogy of faith, and we at the same time maintain that it is remote from the common usage of scripture where sacraments are spoken of”.  

The historical context of Luke 22: 19-20 also proves my point further.  Did the disciples believe, when Christ uttered the words, “This is my body…This is my blood”, that the bread and wine were actually Christ’s body and blood?  Did they think when chewing on the bread and drinking the wine they were actually eating the flesh of Christ and drinking the actual blood of Christ?  I think not!  Jesus, in bodily form, was standing immediately in front of them.  Imagine how Peter, the disciple who was unwilling to allow Jesus to wash his feet in John 13:5-8 with the emphatic statement, “…Never will you wash my feet!”, would respond to Christ if he understood Jesus’ words literally.  To take the words of Christ literally in this context will lead one to a doctrine that presents a false understanding of Christ’s presence in the supper.  Once again, Christ’s body remains fixed at the right hand of God not to be physically called down into the elements themselves. 

Therefore, Christ’s language is to be taken figuratively.  At this point someone may argue that there are no grounds to interpret this particular passage of Scripture figuratively.  On the contrary.  There are many passages in Scripture, when Jesus speaks, that require a figurative translation.  For example, Zwingli states, “…in Luke 8 Christ says:  “The seed is the Word of God.”  The sense here is necessarily a non-literal one, namely, that the seed of which he has been speaking signifies the Word of God”.  John Calvin explains it like this referring to 1 Corinthians 11:24: 

“That we may elicit the true meaning, we must hold that the expression is figurative; for, assuredly, to deny this is exceedingly dishonest.  Why then is the term body applied to the bread?  All, I think, will allow that it is for the same reason that John calls the Holy Spirit a dove. (John 1:32)…Now the reason why the Spirit was so called was this-that he had appeared in the form of a dove.  Hence the name of the Spirit is transferred to the visible sign.  Why should we not maintain that there is here a similar instance of metonymy, and that the term body is applied to the bread, as being the sign and symbol of it?”.

On the other hand, when Christ says, “This is My body…This is My blood” He is not a liar is he?  Not at all!  We are in fact receiving His body and blood.  When Christ utters those words, the thing signified is applied to the sign as a symbol of it, through which the reality is presented to us, not as a mere representation.  For if it were a mere representation, the bread and wine would only be administered as a representation of the body and blood of Christ, thereby removing Christ’s presence and the administration of grace in the supper.  “Hence the bread is Christ’s body, because it assuredly testifies, that the body which it represents is held forth to us, or because the Lord, by holding out to us that symbol, gives us at the same time his own body…”.  With that in mind, we truly become partakers of Christ’s body in the sense that “the reality is here conjoined with the sign”.  The reality of Christ’s body is present in the supper.  Our souls are spiritually nourished by the bread and wine.  With all that said, Christ must be present, although, not in bodily form in the administered sacraments, through some middle ground between physicality and complete absence, namely, representation.

How then is His presence communicated?  Simply put, it is communicated through the working of the Holy Spirit.  Gerrish explains it in the following way: “…We must speak of an “event” in which Christ is redemptively present; and faith, Spirit, and Word are the essential factors of this event”.  Christ is actively present among all of these three entities, faith, Spirit, and word.  Only true faith holds Christ as it’s object, but Christ is communicated to us through the Spirit who “confers the gift of faith upon us…through the word or the gospel”.  So then how is Christ communicated to us in the Lord’s supper?  Through the Holy Spirit.  “…Through the secret virtue of His Holy Spirit, which can not merely bring together, but join in one, things that are separated by distance of place, and far remote”.  The Holy Spirit is the one who transmits Christ’s body and blood to the beloved.  “…The Spirit is the “bond of connection”.  Christ does not descend from heaven into the sacraments, rather we raise up, or ascend, through the Holy Spirit to Christ.  Calvin, in his commentary on Luke says, “…our minds must not be fixed on the earth, but must ascend upwards to the heavenly glory in which he dwells”. 

It is not to surprising when we consider Romans 8:9 which says, “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.  But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him”. 2 Corinthians 5:17 exclaims, “Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come”.  What makes a man in Christ a new creature?  It is the Holy Spirit.  Isn’t this how Christ communicates to us?  Isn’t this how we are made one with the death and resurrection of Christ?  Isn’t this how we are reckoned righteous and holy, namely, through the Holy Spirit?  Galatians 2:20 exclaims, “I have been crucified with Christ; and 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 delivered Himself up for me.”  How are we crucified with Christ and how does Christ live in us?  It is through the Holy Spirit alone.  Leithart, speaking of Calvin, exclaims, “[He] insisted that Christ’s body and blood are offered and received in the sacrament through the Spirit.  It is not “merely” the Spirit who is present, nor simply the virtue of Christ’s death, but Christ himself”. 

How exactly does this happen?  I do not contend to know exactly.  It is a mystery that is far beyond my mind to grasp.  And this is where we must rest, knowing that God is omnipotent and omniscient, and we are not.  There are many mysteries that require us to exercise our faith.  John Calvin, responding to the mystery himself, exclaims:

“Even though it seems unbelievable that Christ’s flesh, separated from us by such a great distance, penetrates to us, so that it becomes our food, let us remember how far the secret power of the Holy Spirit towers above all our senses, and how foolish it is to wish to measure his immeasurableness by our measure.  What, then, our mind does not comprehend, let faith conceive: that the Spirit truly unites things separated in space.”

God has left it as a mystery and I am content to live with it as such.  We are to live by faith not by sight and, it seems to me, that this is a good place to start.

Not too many evangelical Christians today will argue against the fact that Jesus Christ is fully man and, at the same time, fully God.  Nor will too many argue against the fact that Jesus has been resurrected.  Some might argue with the notion of the figurative usage of the Luke 22:19-20 passage.  But, as we have examined, when taken in light of the historical context of the upper room discourse, it is highly unlikely that the words were meant in their literal form.  Not to mention, once again, that we cannot bring Christ’s body into earthly elements, as this would be claiming that Jesus has descended from the heavenlies.  Therefore, the words are to be taken figuratively, and it is through the Holy Spirit, ascending us up, that we receive the body and blood of Christ.  This is where the soul is spiritually nourished, by participating in the Lord’s supper.  The Holy Spirit, mysteriously working, presents the body and blood of Christ to believers, in faith.  It is only through a correct understanding of Jesus Christ’s presence in the supper that one’s faith will be strengthened and soul will be spiritually nourished. ~CT