Few areas of theology caused as much controversy at the time of the Protestant Reformation as that of the way in which Christ is present in the Lord’s Supper. Briefly consider the parameters of this debate and the Reformational answer.
On one end of the spectrum, were the Anabaptists (and supposedly Zwingli shared their view, though historians still debate Zwingli’s view). The Anabaptist conception is essentially the modern baptistic understanding: Christ is in no way present in the sacrament and therefore the Supper is a mere remebrance of Christ’s suffering. In this view, the Supper is something like a memorial for a departed friend. The only presence of Christ in the Supper is subjective (in the mind of the worshipper). This view is an historical novelty and cannot account for the biblical language about the Eucharist. The biblical data points to something more going on when we come to the table. The Eucharistic is symbolic, to be sure, but not a mere symbol.
On the other end of the spectrum was the Roman Catholic view, known as transubstantiation. Rome had heavily imbibed an Aristotelian metaphysic, separating the accidents (or attributes) and substance of a thing. Thus, in the Supper, the elements retained the accidents of bread and wine, but the substance was transformed into the physical body and blood of our Lord. This doctrine may be rejected immediately as an abomination, since it seems to make the Lord’s Supper a resacrificing of Christ (though many Romanists would deny this), contrary to Heb. 9:28, and since it is built on an attempted synthesis with pagan philosophy that is foreign to the context of Jesus and the apostles.
Transubstatiation was not the view of the early church. It could not have been, as it relies on the Aristotelian categories of substance and accidents, and Aristotle was not commonly known in the West until the revival of Aristotelian philosophy in the medieval period. The term “transubstantiation” first appears in 11th century, in the writings of Hildebert of Tours. There were debates over the nature of Christ’s real presence in the Supper at the time (see James Jordan’s article “Christ in His Supper” for an account), showing there was no uniformly agreed upon doctrine up to that point in church history. Everyone agreed the Supper was more than a symbol, but the way in which Christ was present was debatable (in ways that foreshadowed later Reformational debates). Aquinas used Aristotelian categories to explicate the real presence of Christ in the Supper and the Council of Trent later codified his doctrine.
The early Reformers, particularly Luther and Calvin (whose views we will come to momentarily), made strong arguments against transubstatiation, which I will not repeat here. But note that the NT itself does not use Aristotelian categories to explicate the Supper and continually refers to what we eat as bread: “The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?…we all partake of the one bread…For as often as you eat this bread…Whoever, therefore, eats the bread…Let a man examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread…” (1 Corinthians 10:16-17, 11:26-28). The bread is a participation in the body of Christ which means something more than a mere subjective remembrance is going on — but according to Paul’s own language, it remains bread. There is no conversion of the element into something else.
The Lutheran view, called consubstantiation, taught that Christ’s flesh and blood are present in, with, and under the elements — in other words, the flesh and blood of Christ somehow occupy the same space as the bread and wine. (As proof, Lutherans pointed to John 20:19 where Christ apparently passed through a wall. As Christ entered the room, his body and the wall must have occupied the same space.) In the Lutheran view the elements are bread, but also body, and wine, but also blood. Hence, Lutherans would say we really partake of Christ with our mouths. Yet Lutherans rejected the Capernaitic heresy, which taught that our teeth actually tore apart his flesh. Its hard to see how this is a consistent position: if Christ is physically present in the bread, how do we not tear his flesh with our teeth when we bite into the bread? The solution, given in the Formula of Concord, is that we partake of Christ supernaturally.
Lutherans were careful to distinguish their view from the Calvinistic view. Calvin similarly often went to great lengths to distance himself from the Lutheran view. However, he insisted on the real, objective presence of Christ in the Supper and both Lutherans and Calvinists insisted on faith if one was to partake worthily. Calvin wrote, “[It] is not an empty or unmeaning sign which is held out to us, but those who receive this promise by faith are actually made partakers of his flesh and blood. For in vain would the Lord command his people to eat bread, declaring that it is his body, if the effect were not truly added to the figure. Nor must it be supposed that we dispute this point [with the Lutherans, I assume, since he had just previously referred to their doctrine], whether it is in reality, or only by signification, that Christ presents himself to be enjoyed by us in the Lord’s Supper; for, though we perceive in it nothing but bread, yet he does not disappoint or mock us, when he undertakes to nourish our souls by his flesh. The true eating of the flesh of Christ, therefore, is not only pointed out by the sign, but is likewise exhibited in reality…our souls feed on Christ’s own flesh in precisely the same manner as bread imparts vigour to our bodies. The flesh of Christ, therefore is spiritual nourishment, because it gives life to us. Now it gives life, because the Holy Spirit pours into us the life which dwells in it” (Comm. on Mt. 26:26).
Calvin’s view became known as “receptionism,” as opposed to “consecrationism.” The elements of the Supper are not converted into something other than what they are at some point of consecration. Rather, Christ is present through his Spirit to give his body and blood to us as we eat and drink. Bread and wine do not become body and blood; rather Christ gives his body and blood to us through the bread and win. This is why Calvinists have never been superstitious about the leftover elements of the Supper.
Further, Calvin argued that while Christ’s body remains in heaven, the Spirit lifts us up to Christ’s heavenly presence in worship. “Lift your hearts up to the Lord! We lift them up to the Lord.” Christians worship in the heavenly sanctuary, where Christ is seated at the Father’s right hand. Rather than Christ descending to meet with us at his table, as in Luther’s view, by the work of the Sprit, we mystically ascend to be with Christ in the heavenlies. The bread and wine are Spiritual food and drink precisely because Christ is present as we partake by the working of his Spirit.
Both Calvinists and Lutherans wrestled with the mystery of the real presence, coming to different answers. I must confess I find Calvin’s view superior and closer to the biblical truth, because it does not compromise with the Eutychian or Nestorian Christological errors* and it quite properly emphasizes the sacramental role of the Holy Spirit in the Supper. The Holy Spirit acts not as a replacement or substitute for Jesus, but to make Him present to us in his undivided deity and humanity. However, neither side can claim (or would want to claim) to have fully solved the enigmas of Christ’s presence in the Supper. The Lutherans claim we partake of Christ “supernaturally”; Calvin and the WCF used the term “spiritual” to describe our communion with Christ. (I would prefer “Spiritual” with a capital S to emphasize it is the work of the Holy Spirit.) At best, the way in which Christ is present in the sacrament has been hemmed in, not pin-pointed. Certain errors can be excluded and certain truths affirmed — the Supper is more than a mere symbol, but the substance of the elements remain unchanged, as Christ is truly present by His Spirit to give himself to us as we eat the bread and drink the wine. Christ is really giving himself to us at the table but the mechanics of it remain mysterious.
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*The Calvinistic doctrine of Christ’s presence in the sacramental feast must be carefully circumscribed to avoid the heresies of Eutychianism and Nestorianism. Eutychius had been the leader of one of the parties represented at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D. He taught that Christ was neither fully human nor divine, but a mixture of both. Christ possessed only one nature, his humanity being divinized. The Lutheran view of consubstantiation appears to have a trace of Eutychianism in it, since it requires the virtual omnipresence of Christ’s humanity. Rather than teaching God’s people are raptured up into Christ’s presence by the Holy Spirit in sacramental worship, as Calvin taught, Lutherans claimed Christ descended to dwell in the elements. Thus Christ’s body must be capable of being in more than one place at a time. But human bodies — even glorified bodies — face limitations of space and time that divinity does not; in other words, even though resurrected bodies have properties we cannot fathom, they remain bodies. Calvinists have always seen this problem of the ubiquity of Christ’s human body as the Achilles’ heel of the Lutheran position (see Calvin’s Institutes, 4.17.30-31).
At the same time however, Calvinists must beware of the Nestorian error. Nestorius, the leader of another theological party represented at Chalcedon, was accused of separating the two natures of Christ in such a way that they were two distinct personalities/persons. The Reformed are in danger of Nestorianism because sometimes they give the impression only the divinity of Christ is present in the sacrament, to the exclusion of his humanity.
Chalcedon affirmed the orthodox position, condemning both Euthychianism and Nestorianism, by teaching that Christ is both truly God and truly man, having two natures in one person, “without mixture, without change, without separation, without division.” An orthodox doctrine of Christ’s presence in the Supper must be based upon an orthodox understanding of the incarnation. Eucharistology must be based on Christology. The best defense of the classical Reformed view is John Williamson Nevin’s The Mystical Presence and his lengthy response to Charles Hodge published in the Mercersberg Review. Anyone interested in these questions must read and study Nevin’s writings.
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