For centuries, Christians have debated the “real presence” of the Lord Jesus in the Supper. Too often it is not noted that the alternative position is necessarily a belief in His real absence. This of course is silly, and so it should cause us to reflect. All orthodox Christians believe in the real presence—the debate concerns the nature of the presence.
And by using the word debate, we must not show approval of the acrimony, hostility, and sometimes even bloodshed that has accompanied this debate throughout history. Never forget that this is a dinner table discussion, a debate among sons and daughters of God, seated around the same Table—and it should be conducted accordingly.
Memorialists believe that the Lord is present here, but no more present than in any other activity conducted in faith. In other words, there is no grace available here that is not available elsewhere.
And some have come to believe in what might be called the local presence. In other words, they believe that the only way the Lord could be really present is if He is locally present in the Cup and on the Table, and that, of course, starts to tangle us up in physics and metaphysics.
We believe in the spiritual presence of Christ in the Supper, and remember that by spiritual we do not mean ethereal or immaterial. Following Calvin, who was following Scripture, spiritual means “by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Another way of putting this is that we believe in the covenantal presence of Jesus Christ in this assigned ritual.
Taken up into the heavenlies in Christ, we do as we were instructed. As we do this, in faith, we are knit together with Jesus Christ—the resurrected Lord who is no longer dead—and we are being made bone of His bones, flesh of His flesh.
So come, and welcome, to Jesus Christ.
Once you say, “by spiritual we do not mean ethereal or immaterial”, I do not see how you can credibly avoid questions of “physics and metaphysics”.
I thought this was helpful:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/standingonmyhead/what-do-we-mean-by-the-real-presence
I am not sure what Doug means here. I understand he would not believe, as we do, that our Lord is substantially present in the sacred elements. But if our Lord is not ethereally or immaterially present, then I am not sure how Doug’s communion operates as a sacrament. When Jesus is in our midst as we unite in prayer, isn’t that an immaterial presence? These are deep waters, Sherlock!
Thanks! That is a fantastic, and very pertinent, article.
It also further confirms my impression that Nicholas Ridley was the real brains behind the English Reformation – not Thomas Cranmer as is popularly believed.
But Cranmer had the gorgeous prose style. I can forgive him anything for giving us the Book of Common Prayer!
The creation of The Book of Common Prayer in 1548 was actually the work of a commission composed of both conservatives and reformers. It is generally acknowledged that Cranmer and Ridley were among the reformers who worked on what was, in large part, simply a translation of the Sarum Rite (a version of the Roman Rite in use in Southern England since the Norman Conquest). Cranmer, as Archbishop of Canterbury, got top billing as author – but it is not clear how much of the translation was his, or Ridley’s, or that of the conservative bishops. It is likely that… Read more »
That is very interesting. Were the 39 Articles written by the same people at the same time? I remember thinking that they had a definite Calvinist flavor in the section on predestination. Did the catechism have the same authorship?
The 39 Articles were issued during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. They were a revision of the earlier, and even more Calvinist-flavored, “42 Articles agreed on by the Bishoppes, and other learned menne in the Synode of London in the yere of our Lord Godde MDLII”. Authorship is generally attributed to Cranmer – though others (particularly Ridley) undoubtedly had a hand in it too. 1552 was the high point of English Calvinism. England’s enemies were fighting each other abroad; conservative opponents were mostly in jail; the peasants who had revolted against all the changes that were being imposed had… Read more »
The Holy Spirit is of course ethereal (heavenly) and divinely immaterial. Calvin affirmed believers’ participation in the resurrected body of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. He said it was a mystery he believed, but could not explain.
I didn’t find this article helpful. All it pushed for is to keep using the word, ‘transubstantiation’!
Look, we don’t comprehend it! We don’t comprehend the Trinity, either.
I do applaud continual attempts to increase our understanding, but we are like 5yr olds discussing black holes.
Callaghan wrote: Once you say, “by spiritual we do not mean ethereal or immaterial”, I do not see how you can credibly avoid questions of “physics and metaphysics”. The goal is not to avoid questions, but to avoid the tangle. We avoid the tangle by clarifying that spiritual describes the source and nature of the object or motivation, not whether it is expressed materially or immaterially. In contrast to the spiritual, there is the fleshly, brutish and soulish (psuchikos) motivation. The same person can be either spiritual or fleshly, without shifting in and out of material existence. Christ was incarnated… Read more »
If I understand you correctly, you are saying that motivation is more important than definition. That’s a statement I could possibly agree with. However, just because A is more important than B does not mean that B can be ignored. Two examples might help: When your mother cooks you a meal, the fact that she does so out of love is more important than the details of what she actually prepares. Regardless, undercooked meat can lead to very unpleasant consequences, so you cannot altogether ignore the details of the food. In a marriage, the mutual love and commitment of the… Read more »
Indeed, one might criticise the Roman Catholic position for being too materialist and reductionist. ;-)
If the Colloquy at Marburg couldn’t settle exactly what is meant by “Hoc est corpum meum,” I don’t think we’ll resolve it here. But this Catholic finds it a complete head-scratcher that those Protestants who accuse us of taking Scripture non-literally reject the very idea that our Lord might have meant exactly what He said!
We all agree he meant what He said, but there’s still plenty of room for interpretation in there — after all, the church is called His body too. We face this issue in other places too; when Scripture says that husband and wife become “one flesh”, that doesn’t inhibit the husband from leaving his wife at home to go to the office. My chief objection to transubstantiation as a doctrine is its need to haul in Aristotelian baggage about substances etc.
Uh, if “not…immaterial,” then, material? ????? Hmm?
And, re memorialists, surely to say Christ isn’t more present at the table than elsewhere doesn’t prove the grace of the table ain’t unique thereto? He may not (or may) be extra present when a glass of water is shared, but a glass of water is a particular kind of blessing, not the same as fried chicken. Not insisting on plain memorialism, but I don’t think this objection holds water.
I don’t think he’s denying it’s immaterial; I think he’s saying the primary meaning of spiritual isn’t “immaterial.” When we hear “spiritual” we tend to think “not material,” but spiritual doesn’t mean precisely that, though in fact the meaning does include that.
The words of Christ are plain and simple “this IS my body” that to deny their meaning is to reject His Word. In the Greek the word “is” is unnecessary but this is how Christ’s Word is recorded for emphasis. “This is IS (really is) my body”. It is not for us to understand how this is done but only to believe it. What Calvin and “memorialists” have done is change an act of God- His coming to us with His body and blood to bestow grace and forgiveness- to an act of “memory” and “obedience” of the participants and… Read more »
How do you think the disciples would have taken His meaning at that time? Then later after His resurrection?
I think they probably thought it was metaphorical to begin with, but literal when Jesus repeated it. Otherwise I don’t understand why the disciples would have said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?”
I see two problems with taking it as literal:
If taken literally it would have been cannibalism – strictly forbidden.
Literally, bread and wine are not flesh and blood.
So either way it has to be taken as metaphor or analogy.
How could it have been literal (in the physical sense) when He was sitting right there? His body is an actual human body, so it cannot have been both the body sitting there and the bread they were eating at the same time; human bodies don’t do that.
Human bodies also don’t walk into locked rooms without opening the door; nor do they disappear before your eyes after breaking bread; nor can they leave the earth by ascending into the sky unaided; human bodies don’t do that.
Resurrected bodies do those things. See 1 Cor.15
“There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another.”
“It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.”
“It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.”
“Never forget that this is a dinner table discussion, a debate among sons and daughters of God, seated around the same Table—and it should be conducted accordingly.”
The Catholic Church forbids most Protestants from the “same Table”. And your comment shows us why that is so: Transubstantiation; the worship of a physical object. Simple idolatry.
Can you simply acknowledge that Catholic and Protestant understandings of our Lord’s words are very different, and that you believe one is correct and the other mistaken, without tossing accusations of idolatry into the mix? I doubt that you could provide a coherent summary of what I as a Catholic believe about our Lord’s presence in the sacrament, or why I behave reverently when I take communion. Heaven knows, I have been to some Protestant communion services where I certainly did not understand what was in the minds and souls of the participants. I look back on the Clown Communion… Read more »
Hi Jilly, I cannot know what any person believes about the Eucharist, whether Catholic or Protestant. And you are right to behave reverently when you take communion. But, since the Catholic Church has defined the doctrine of Transubstantiation centuries ago, as an infallible teaching of your church, I can respond to that “official” statement. I remember a Catholic apologist stating some years ago that if the Eucharist is not God, then it is an idol. That was Tim Staples ( I hope I’m quoting him correctly). But it makes sense to me. And the “50,000” Protestant churches mostly do not… Read more »
What a kind and gracious answer! We Catholics can be a little bit over-reactive when we hear the word “idol”! I don’t know Tim Staples’ work, but I sometimes think that short explanations of religious belief are open to so much misinterpretation, and require so much qualification, that they would be better off not made. Nuns always replied, “It’s a sacred mystery,” and depending on how much irritation you detected in their manner, it was wise to let it go. I would much rather argue how many angels dance on the head of a pin, or is it true that… Read more »
Jesus said a lot of things that taken at face value would require miracles akin to the transubstantiation miracle. Hebrew and Aramaic are languages that enjoy a lot of figures of speech to shock people and get points across and bring people ritualistically into great truths. So you can’t get by with saying certain words are plain and simple, especially since Jesus is in the middle of a Jewish ceremony replete with symbolism. When he said “This is my body”, He’s pointing the ritual to Himself and no longer the Passover/Exodus event. Christ is our Passover. It’s a huge stretch… Read more »
Hello. Long time reader, first time commenter. Would it be correct to say that Doug believes the elements are not the body and blood yet the true body and blood are spiritually consumed by the faithful while eating and drinking the elements? As a Lutheran I also do not believe in the local presence of Christ in the Cup and on the Table because local implies He is in the sanctuary in the same manner as anybody else. What I do believe is that in a supernatural manner the true body and blood are given to people in the forms… Read more »