Divine Participation: A Theology of the Lord's Supper [Research Sample]

This essay will examine the doctrine and practice of the Lord’s Supper. First, five disparate views on the Lord’s Supper will be explained. Second, an overview of sacramental theology will be given. Third, a brief exegesis of two gospels passages will be examined. Fourth, an analysis of Paul’s explanation of the Lord’s Supper will be shown. Fifth, several suggestions about how the Lord’s Supper is faithfully practiced will be offered. This paper will seek to demonstrate how the Lord’s Supper is an expression of salvation itself—our union with Christ—which is (1) God’s gift to us, and (2) a reality of our participation in the divine Father-Son relationship by means of the Holy Spirit.

I. Five Views on the Lord's Supper

With the Lord’s Supper—as with many complicated topics—it is easier to understand what it is by studying what it is not. This leads us to an articulation of five competing views: one from the Roman Catholic Church, one from the Eastern Orthodox Church, and three from the Protestant tradition. My goal in this comparison is not to stir up controversy, leading to dissension, but to offer what I consider to be the best conclusion and the most faithful practice of a topic often minimized by Protestants at large. First we turn to the Roman Catholic understanding of the Lord’s Supper.

A. Roman Catholic View (Transubstantiation)

In 1982 the World Council of Churches pronounced the collective view of the Eucharist in Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry (Faith & Order Paper No. 111, the “Lima Text”), commonly called BEM. The Eucharist, explains BEM, is “the sacrament of the gift [of salvation] which God makes to us in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. Every Christian receives this gift […] through communion in the body and blood of Christ.”[1] It further describes that the Eucharist—though one act—consists of (1) thanksgiving to the Father, (2) anamnesis (memorial) of Christ, (3) invocation of the Spirit, (4) communion of the faithful, and (5) a meal of the Kingdom.[2] Renowned Catholic theologian Ludwig Ott explains, “The Eucharist […] is a sacrifice insofar as in it Christ is offered as a sacrificial gift to God. […] It has the nature of a sacrifice in that it is offered up, and it has the nature of a sacrament in that it is received.”[3] The key point to be made about the Roman Catholic View: the blood and wine are literally changed from one substance to another (trans-substance-d), namely into the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. At every Eucharistic celebration, Christ is re-sacrificed again for the remission of sins, and, by partaking in the act of the Eucharist, believers are made part of the body of Christ. This point proves problematic, considering the remark in Hebrews 10:10 that the offering of Jesus’s body happened “once and for all.” The act of Christ’s sacrificial death is complete, finished, done. The wrath of God has been appeased. And, “where there is forgiveness of [sins], there is no longer an offering of sin.”[4] Furthermore, as with the whole sacramental theology of Roman Catholicism, believers cannot be sure of their salvation, for indeed, how many times must one partake of the Eucharist to be truly and fully joined to Christ? As we will see, Calvin criticized the Roman Catholic View not because it was claiming too much—but actually that it was claiming too little. Christ is truly and actually present, said Calvin, by the power of the Holy Spirit through the means of bread and wine, not in the bread and wine. To put it another way, “Christ’s real presence in the Supper is guaranteed by the Spirit, not by meta-physics!”[5] We will return to this point in our discussion of the Reformed/Calvinist View.

B. Eastern Orthodox View

We acknowledge from the start that the Eastern Orthodox View mimics the Roman Catholic View in many ways—to the point that some scholars do not even bother to separate the two.[6] For this reason, our discussion of this view will be short. Eastern Orthodox theology articulates many of the same concepts as Roman Catholic teaching, albeit with different word choices. For example, of the Eucharist: “We become part of the Mystical Body of Christ by our communion of the Holy Eucharist. […] Only by […] being in communion with the very essence of Christ through the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist can one attain salvation unto eternal life.”[7] Here, however, is where the views begin to diverge. “Primarily and fundamentally,” explains Bishop Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia, “Holy Tradition is the Eucharist. It is in the Eucharist that all the various expressions of the Tradition find their source and their Sitz im Leben. Here is the life-giving fountain from which everything else springs.”[8] To understand Bishop Ware’s point, we must turn our attention to the meaning of Tradition in Eastern Orthodox theology. A key distinctive of Eastern Orthodox theology is that of loyalty to the past—that is, living continuity with the ancient church. This can be summarized as Tradition; it consists of the Bible, the Orthodox Creed, the decrees of the seven ecumenical councils, the writings of the church fathers, the canons, the service books, the holy icons, the church government, worship, and the art that Eastern Orthodoxy has expressed throughout history.[9] It is significant to note that not all elements of Tradition are seen as holding equal weight; in fact, the Bible, the Orthodox Creed, and the decrees of the seven ecumenical councils are paramount in Eastern Orthodoxy. Every other element is subsequent to the three aforementioned elements. Further, Tradition is seen as “a living experience of the Holy Spirit in the present.”[10] As such, Tradition may, for example, alter the music or lyrics of worship songs—as long as the alterations do not contradict the other elements of Tradition.[11] Aforementioned, this view posits the Eucharist as the central element of—or, more precisely, the source of—Tradition. Much more could be said here, but this will suffice. I reject the Eastern Orthodox View due to the same arguments leveled against the Roman Catholic View.

C. Zwinglian/Baptist View (Memorial)

The Zwinglian/Baptist View enjoys predominant acceptance among most Protestant congregations. Moore explains that in the Zwinglian/Baptist View, the act of the Lord’s Supper is simply a reminder to us of Christ’s once-and-done sacrificial death, “a proclamation of the finished redemption of Christ and the promise of the kingdom to come.”[12] Support for this view is found in the correspondence between the Passover celebration (in Exodus 12) and the first Lord’s Supper (in Matthew 26): the Passover was a celebratory memorial of the Lord bringing the Israelites out of Egypt, so the Lord’s Supper, in the same way, must be a celebratory memorial of the Lord’s work through Christ’s atoning life and coming Kingdom. In practice, then, the Lord’s Supper, is a time for each believer to call to mind unconfessed sin, to ask for forgiveness, to recall the historical act of Jesus’s crucifixion that took place at Calvary and paid the penalty for sin, and—more rare, but practiced if understood correctly—to look with anticipation at the coming messianic banquet.[13] We must note that the Zwinglian/Baptist View relies heavily (if not entirely) upon cognitive processes, namely the recall of past events, as the primary meaning of the ritual. As is probably clear, I find this explanation wholly unsatisfactory. In the Zwinglian/Baptist View, the sacrament is a mere abstraction. The only sense in which Christ is present at the Supper is in the minds of His people. Harry Blamires, in his book bemoaning the lack of a collective “Christian Mind,” proposed six marks of the Christian mind, the last of which is the sacramental cast, positing that while the Christian mind must ground experiences and interactions within the framework of deep theological truth, deep theological truth is understood through experiences and interactions.[14] The Christian mind is marked by its sacramental cast, for its faith is rooted in real-world people and places and things—sacramental realities granted to humanity by God Himself. In reaction to the sacramentalism of the Roman Catholic Church, many Protestants have abandoned sacramental thinking altogether. More will be said in the section on sacramental theology below. The point to be made here is that the rituals of our faith—and salvation itself—are so much more than cognitive processes or mere abstractions. We conclude with Calvin’s response to this view:

For there are some who define the eating of Christ’s flesh and the drinking of his blood as, in one word, nothing but to believe in Christ. But it seems to me that Christ meant to teach something more definite, and more elevated, in that noble discourse in which he commends to us the eating of his flesh [John 6:26ff.]. It is that we are quickened by the true partaking of him; and he has therefore designated this partaking by the words “eating” and “drinking,” in order that no one should think that the life we receive from him is received by mere knowledge.[15]

D. Lutheran View (Consubstantiation)

Stemming from his rejection of the Roman Catholic Church on the matter of justification by faith, Luther also rejected transubstantiation as the correct understanding of the Lord’s Supper. Additionally, he refused the memorial and spiritualizing views of the other Reformers. Instead, argued Luther, (1) Christ’s body and blood are received by mouth and not just by faith, (2) not just believers but also unbelievers actually receive Christ’s body and blood, and (3) views opposing this view ought to be rejected.[16] In Luther’s view, the Creator becomes one with His creation by taking on its form in the sacraments; thus, in the Lord’s Supper, Christ is really in, with, and under the bread—that is, Christ is physically and locally present in but not as the bread.[17] Again and again, Luther emphasized Christ’s words: “This is my body.”[18] The problem with Luther’s view is that if Christ is truly present with His people in faith, then how is He present differently in the Supper? Luther wants to create another kind of category for Christ’s presence in the Supper, a category that, frankly, has no scriptural or theological support.[19]

E. Reformed/Calvinist View (Real Presence)

As is obvious by now, I have kept for last the explanation of my own position. Calvin retained that we really and truly receive Jesus Christ in the Lord’s Supper, but he refused to accept transubstantiation or consubstantiation as the inner working of the sacrament. Instead, Calvin proposed what is probably his most significant contribution to the topic of the Lord’s Supper: his emphasis on the Holy Spirit’s work of bringing us into Christ’s presence through the sacrament:

Even though it seems unbelievable that Christ’s flesh, separated from us by such 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.[20]

Vander Zee explains that here Calvin is “drawing on his deep acquaintance with the Eastern Fathers. Their doctrine of perichoresis, or the co-inherence of the trinitarian persons emphasizes that the Holy Spirit links them to each other and to us.”[21] Two things are significant here: (1) according to the doctrine of perichoresis, believers, through union with Christ, participate in the divine Father-Son relationship by means of the Spirit—demonstrated in the Lord’s Supper; and (2) we note that Calvin did not mean that Christ is spiritually present (in some ethereal, mystical way only), but rather that Christ is Spiritually present, that is, present by means of the Holy Spirit Himself. Since Calvin understood the Lord’s Supper and salvation itself to be union with Christ, the matter of how is the same in both cases: in the proclamation of the gospel, through faith, and by the power of the Holy Spirit.[22] Thus, Christ gives himself to us through the Spirit in these creaturely acts; and so, he alone constitutes God’s sacramental grace through the Spirit in our midst. Christ mediates himself to his people in the Spirit through Word and Sacrament. The church does not add to Christ’s finished work but lives in view of it, bearing witness […] through these participatory symbols.[23]

To summarize, the Lord’s Supper is a demonstration of our union with Christ, a demonstration of our participation in the divine Father-Son relationship, wrought by the Holy Spirit.

II. An Overview of Sacramental Theology

Before we turn to the exegesis of several key New Testament passages, we pause to make several remarks about the nature of sacraments. As I have already alluded to—it is worth reiterating for the sake of clarity—our sacramental theology stems from our ecclesiology, and our ecclesiology stems from our soteriology. Thus, simply, our understanding of the sacraments comes from our understanding of salvation. What is salvation? Is it a set of carefully organized thoughts about myself and God, thoughts that somehow pardon me from the judgment of God and grant me His grace? If so, then a memorial-only view of the sacraments would follow quite naturally. But this cannot be. A salvation that consists only of intangible thoughts cannot address tangible realities—like the resurrection of our physical bodies, for example. So salvation must be something tangible. Salvation must be, in essence, union with Christ, union with the tangible body of our Savior. Again, Calvin helps us here:

First, we must understand that as long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value to us. Therefore, to share in what he has received from the Father, he had to become ours and to dwell within us, […] for, as I have said, all that he possesses is nothing to us until we grow into one body with him.[24]

Salvation is the tangible reality of our union with the tangible body of the Savior. The phrase body of Christ is not a fancy metaphor for how the unity of believers looks; it describes the essence of what salvation is. If the concept of body were to be understood only as a metaphor, why did Paul say “body of Christ”? Clearly Paul must have a deeper ontological reality in mind.[25]

What does this mean for our ecclesiology? Believers are the very body of Christ, those joined to Him by means of the Spirit. Renowned theologian T. F. Torrance says it beautifully:

Through union with Jesus Christ the church shares in his life and in all that he has done for mankind. Through his birth its members have a new birth and are made members of the new humanity. Through his obedient life and death their sins are forgiven and they are clothed with a new righteousness. Through his resurrection and triumph over the powers of darkness they are freed from the dominion of evil and are made one body with him. […] Thus the church finds its life and being not in itself but in Jesus Christ alone, for not only is he the head of the church but he includes the church within his own fullness.[26]

In Christ, that designation Paul gave to the recipients of his epistles, is not merely a sentimental platitude but a profound soteriological, ecclesiological designation.[27] To put it simply, when we look at salvation and at the church, we are really looking at the same thing: union with Christ. From this basis—union with Christ as our definition of salvation and of the church—we are equipped to examine the nature of the sacraments.

We have gone this far without defining the term sacrament, a matter that must be attended to. Peter Lombard, reflecting on Augustine’s definition of a sacrament being a visible sign of an invisible reality, wrote, “Something can properly be called a sacrament if it is a sign of the grace of God and a form of invisible grace, so that it bears its image and exists as its cause.”[28] Calvin, too, expanded on Augustine’s definition: a sacrament is “an outward sign by which the Lord seals to our consciences the promises of his good will toward us in order to sustain the weakness of our faith; and we, in turn, attest our piety toward him in the presence of the Lord and of his angels before men.”[29] To summarize, sacraments are both signs and seals; as signs they point beyond themselves (from water, bread, and wine to Christ and our union with Him), and as seals they articulate God’s pledge to us (that we are indeed saved through our union with Christ by means of His Spirit).[30] But why does this even matter? “The form is not the content,” wrote Torrance, “[but] it is the form in which the content is communicated to us, so that apart from the specific form commanded and to which the promise has been attached we cannot conceive or receive the reality.”[31] And, even more devastating, “Wherever the outward sign or form is neglected or repudiated the inner content inevitably goes with it.”[32] What Torrance means is that if the sacraments—the signs and seals of God’s grace to us—are neglected, then we deprive ourselves of experiencing God’s grace to its fullness in the way He intends. It should go without saying, then, that a robust sacramental theology is not of peripheral but paramount importance.

Johnson notes that for Calvin, “the Lord’s Supper is not something other than the gospel.”[33] Indeed, the sacraments are sacraments of the gospel, sacraments of Christ Himself.[34] This is a particularly important concept to grasp: sacraments are not our declaration to God, but rather His declaration to us that we really are saved, that we really are nourished as those joined to Christ by His Spirit. To understand this, we consider the other sacrament that the Lord instituted, baptism. Vander Zee explains that, rightly understood, “baptism is not a sign and seal of human decision. […] The focus of baptism is on God. Baptism is a sign and seal of what God is doing and has done in Christ and to the baptized individual, not a sign of that individual’s faith.”[35] Thus, baptism is the sacrament of initiation into the body of Christ; the Lord’s Supper is the sacrament of Christ’s provisional, ongoing nourishment of His body.

Simply, God gave us the sacraments because we are human beings—beings with minds, yes, but also with emotions and senses, imaginations and affections. As I have written elsewhere,

Much of Western Christendom has been infiltrated by Platonic dualism, by the notion that mind (soul) is good but body is bad. Plato claimed that the mind is to be esteemed while the body is to be overcome. This is the propaganda of classical philosophy, not the doctrine of classic orthodoxy. The truth is that body and soul are inseparable, and God has redeemed both.[36] We are not embodied souls but en-souled bodies. God does not value that which is immaterial over that which is material. If this is true, then we must learn to value the physical again.[37]

To put it a different way, we do not have bodies: we are bodies.[38] God, of course, made us this way and granted His grace to us accordingly. The point to be made here is that sacraments address our bodies in ways that cannot be reduced to propositional statements in the mind. Sacraments convey grace to us in ways that address the whole of our being—mind, emotions, senses, imagination, affections. Taking just one of these as an example, it is no coincidence that the Lord’s Supper makes use of all five senses: sight, taste, smell, hearing, and touch. We will give James Smith the final word here:

Being a disciple of Jesus is […] a matter of being the kind of person who loves rightly—who loves God and neighbor and is oriented to the world by the primacy of that love. We are made to be such people by our immersion in the material practices of Christian worship—through affective impact, over time, of sights and smells in water and wine.[39]

Now that we have articulated the urgency of a robust sacramental theology, we turn to a brief exegesis of several key passages, finding in the Scriptures what we have been talking about all along.

III. Exegesis of Gospel Narrative

A. Matthew 26:26-29

As we turn to an exegesis of Matthew, we must keep in mind the original audience: Jews in the first century. In his gospel account, Matthew selected events from the life of Jesus in order to demonstrate His identity and role as the Messianic King and the nature of the kingdom program.[40] This passage, coming between the pronouncement of Judas’s betrayal and the prediction of Peter’s denial of Jesus, falls in the wider section of the Passion Week. Already Jesus has ridden the donkey into Jerusalem, among the waving palm branches and king-ascribing chants of the people in the Triumphal Entry (21:1-10). Now, on the first day of the Passover Festival, Jesus and His disciples gather to eat the traditional meal. Continuing the Jewish tradition from Old Testament times, the son would ask the father a series of questions, to which the father would give a series of responses at the time of the second of four cups of wine (called Passover haggadah).[41] It was at this time in the meal that Jesus pronounced the significance of the bread and wine, “in a context of redemptive sacrifice, though in a way quite different from what the father would normally be expected to say at Passover.”[42] Jesus explains that the broken bread and the cup are linked to the coming reality of Jesus’s broken body and spilled blood respectively. Here Jesus draws explicit connection between His own imminent death and the remission of sins promised in the New Covenant in Jeremiah 31-32 and Ezekiel 34 and 36.[43]

At this point the reader should recall the Zwinglian/Baptist View of the Supper, particularly the argument that since the Passover is a memorial (only), the Lord’s Supper is also a memorial (only). What are we to make of the fact that Jesus initiated the Supper amid the Passover meal? Are these events performing precisely the same function—memorial? First, we acknowledge clear and intended parallels between the two events: Jesus is the Lamb without defect, calling to mind the sacrificial lamb of the Old Testament ritual sacrifice.[44] Nevertheless, the two events are not identical in function, because we are talking about the colossal difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. Thus, to put it provocatively, “the difference between Passover and the Lord’s Supper is […] as different as circumcision and baptism.”[45] The Passover was only a shadow of another thing to come, namely Jesus’s crucifixion and the Lord’s Supper.

The disciples are included in this group called the many, that is, those who would benefit from the forgiveness of their sins by Jesus’s (shed) blood. France notes that Jesus did not say for you, but rather for many, deliberately extending “the benefits more widely than to the immediately present disciple group.”[46] So what is happening here, in the first Lord’s Supper—and, by extension, every subsequent practice of it? Nothing less than the overlapping of two times, two kingdoms, two ages, two eras. Matthew, whose focus is on Jesus as Messianic King, shows how the Supper is a taste—quite literally—of the Messianic Kingdom. Although the Jews rejected their Messianic King, the Messianic Kingdom is present and yet still coming.[47] Now, during the interim period between the Messiah’s first and second advent, in the Lord’s Supper, “the Church is given to taste and experience already the powers of the age to come; it is essentially a prelude to the new creation.”[48] With this in mind, the connection between the Passover and the Lord’s Supper becomes clear:

Jesus implies that his death is in some sense for [the disciples’] benefit. Just as eating the Passover lamb identified the participant with the redemption from Egypt, eating the bread and drinking the wine convey the benefits of Jesus’ redemptive death to those who share his table.[49]

Now that we have examined Matthew’s record of the first Lord’s Supper, we turn to a peculiar passage in John’s gospel.

B. John 6:53-54

Much ink has been spent on the controversy surrounding the meaning of this passage. Our goal is not to rehash the full debate here. We simply summarize that many interpreters want to read it with explicitly sacramental and Eucharistic overtones. However, as Michaels has shown, that does not lend itself well to the original context of Jesus’s Capernaum ministry.[50] In the preceding context, Jesus has been talking about Himself—the Son of Man—as the bread of life, and the Jews present are confused beyond belief. Rather than clarify what He means, however, Jesus uses symbolic language, alluding to (1) the Jews in His present context as the grumbling and strife-ridden Israelites with Moses, and (2) to Himself as fulfillment of the manna during the Israelite exodus from Egypt.[51] We must not be tempted to think that just because the sacramental language is not explicit here, many of the realities that we described above are absent from this passage. Says Vander Zee, “Even if Jesus is not directly talking about the Eucharist here, John’s first-century readers could hardly have read it without applying it to their experience of the Eucharist,”[52] so we acknowledge an early acceptance of a sacramental understanding within early church tradition. And even if this passage does not speak directly of the Eucharist, “it does expose the true meaning of the Lord’s supper as clearly as any passage in Scripture.”[53] How can Carson claim this? Quite simply, for the reason stated above: The sacraments are sacraments of the gospel, sacraments of Christ Himself. Köstenberger remarks that the following context (6:56) adds the result of a believer’s partaking of Jesus’s body and blood: mutual indwelling. Thus, believers’ union with Christ finds its source in Christ’s union with the Father (6:57).[54] The point of this discourse, then, is to “parabolically set out what it means to receive Jesus Christ by faith.”[55] So again we find that we actually never left our discussion of union with Christ. We recall Calvin’s words that Christ “designated this partaking [of Himself] by the words ‘eating’ and ‘drinking,’ in order that no one should think that the life we receive from him is received by mere knowledge.”[56] In sum, John spells out this profound reality of union by recording Jesus’s vivid words, the necessity to φάγητε (“eat”) His flesh and πίητε (“drink”) His blood.

Now that we have examined two significant passages from the gospels, we turn to Paul’s discourse on the Lord’s Supper, found in his first letter to the Corinthians.

IV. Exegesis of Pauline Epistles

A. 1 Corinthians 10:14-22

Again, we must keep the context of 1 Corinthians in mind as we interpret this passage in the tenth chapter. Paul wrote to the church in Corinth to correct a number of false practices taking place in their midst by their members. The section of interest to us is verses sixteen and seventeen: “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for all of us share that one bread.” At the outset, we must realize that Paul’s goal here is not to give a comprehensive description of the inner workings of the Lord’s Supper, but rather on the church members’ attendance of pagan meals; thus, the Lord’s Supper in this passage serves as Paul’s way of arguing against the continuation of their attendance of pagan meals. So we can learn much about the Lord’s Supper with this passage, but since “his focus is only on what is genuinely similar between the two meals, one cannot learn everything [about the Lord’s Supper] here.”[57] One “cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons,” explains verse twenty-one. There must be something happening, then, in the pagan meal that is incompatible with the Lord’s Supper. What could this be? Consensus seems to agree that two different things are taking place in the meal.

The key word of these verses is κοινωνία (“sharing”), more thoroughly translated as a “sign of fellowship or proof of brotherly unity.”[58] Bruce says what Paul has in mind is that “in the Eucharist the communicants partake jointly of the life of Christ.”[59] Certainly the sense that believers practice the Lord’s Supper as an act of fellowship together is present here. But another aspect surfaces as well—one with equal if not even greater significance. Fee remarks that there is a distinctively religious dimension to the ritual of the meal, namely the worship of deity, who was considered to be present in some way at the feast.[60] This was the understanding of the pagans about their own feast—but how much more true of the Christian meal! Indeed, the “early church understood [Christ] to be present by the Spirit in their gatherings (cf. 5:3-5).”[61] Skipping down a few lines in the lexicon, we find that κοινωνία here can also be rightly translated as “participation in the blood [body] of Christ,” in which case—with the genitive—it can mean “the common possession or enjoyment of something.”[62] What is being possessed or enjoyed? Nothing less than fellowship, union, with the deity, who acted as host of the meal. Finally, we note that they were to eat from “one loaf” (10:17), which symbolized their union with one another and with Christ. In sum,

While their “fellowship” was with one another, its basis and focus were in Christ, his death and resurrection; they were thus together in his presence, where as host at his table he shared anew with them the benefits of the atonement. It is this unique relationship between believers and with their Lord, celebrated at this meal, that makes impossible similar associations with other “believers” at the tables of demons.[63]

With these considerations in mind, we turn to the next chapter of the same epistle.

B. 1 Corinthians 11:17-34

At last we come to the premier New Testament teaching on the Lord’s Supper. We will deal with the passage in three sections (1) 11:17-22, (2) 11:23-26, and (3) 11:27-34.

11:17-22 describes the sociological problem that has incurred Paul’s anger. Although we cannot be sure exactly what the particulars of the problem included, we do know that the Corinthian believers’ practice of the Lord’s Supper was at present a picture of division—not of the union it is intended to illustrate. In all likelihood, the social classes between believers were causing rifts, with the wealthy eating lavish meals (preceding and influencing the practice of the Lord’s Supper), while the poor went hungry. “By carrying over into these meals a number of ‘privileged status’ aspects of both private and religious meals, the rich were in effect destroying the church as one body in Christ,” and, consequently, the “net result was to destroy the gospel itself.”[64] Paul had had enough of their distorted, unfaithful practice of the Lord’s Supper, so he utilizes harsh language to expose the seriousness of their error.

11:23-26, the passage quoted before basically every partaking of the Eucharist, explains what Paul “received from the Lord and now passes on” to the Corinthians. Paul uses similar language in 15:3, where he says, “I passed on to you as most important what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He raised on the third day according to the Scriptures…” I am of the persuasion that in employing nearly identical language in both places, Paul has salvation in mind in both: union with Christ, as expressed in the Lord’s Supper. Here Paul quotes Matthew 26 (also recorded in the parallel gospel accounts), which we examined above. What we have not given much attention to, however, is the meaning of remembrance. I acknowledge from the start that cognitive recall of a past historical event is a legitimate aspect of what is happening here—but it is so much more than that. The concept of ἀνάμνησις (“remembrance”), drawing from the rich context of the celebratory Passover feast, is “the identification by the participant of these past events with their present involvement in those events that happened long before.”[65] To put it another way, what is happening in remembrance is a “re-member-ing” of the participant to the whole, in this case to Christ Himself and to the family of God. The participant celebrates the salvific acts of God—starting at creation and spanning the whole of history up to the present time. What the participant declares, then, is a faith-driven orienting of himself under the salvific acts of God in the past and the belief of His salvific acts in the future.[66] Vander Zee offers a marvelously fitting example: He explains that after his first wife died, his second wife Jeanne did not share the same family history, family memories, family customs, and family closeness that Leonard and his children (from his first wife) had with one another.

At first [Jeanne] sometimes felt dis-membered, or un-membered. Through these shared memories and little rituals of Christmas and birthdays that accompanied them, she was re-membered. She became part of the family. And through this sharing we were all re-membering each other in the formation of a somewhat new ongoing family unit.[67]

Here is the true sense of remembrance: the celebratory participation in and joining to a greater whole—in our case, participation in union with the body of Christ, participation in the divine Father-Son relationship carried out by the Holy Spirit. In short, a re-membering of persons together as the very body of Christ.

11:27-34 returns to the sociological problem that was described in 11:17-22. Using somber rhetoric, Paul calls the Corinthian believers to carefully consider their guilt before the Lord. We note that this body, against whom the individual ought to be careful not to sin, is none other than the body of Christ, the fellow believers in Jesus and Christ Himself.[68] Paul’s answer to the Corinthians’ unfaithful practice of the Lord’s Supper is (1) a right understanding of the Supper (which he gave in 11:23-26), but even more importantly, (2) a corrected practice of the Supper that is not divisive, not based on social class distinctions, and not judgment-incurring. This restores the practice of the Supper as a physical illustration of the believers’ union with Christ and with one another.

Now that we have examined several of the most significant passages about the Lord’s Supper, we enter the final stage of our journey: several suggestions for the faithful practice of the Lord’s Supper in our present context.

V. Practice of the Lord's Supper

First, why the Lord’s Supper should be practiced? To put it bluntly, Christ commanded us to, so—since His words are authoritative for life and practice—no further explanation is required. We do reiterate, nevertheless, that the Lord’s Supper is a participatory act by which we declare our union with Christ—both His atoning death that brought us life and His immanent return for us, His people. The Lord gave us His Supper because we are human, physical beings whom God has addressed in physical ways by a physical salvation.

Second, what relationship does the Lord’s Supper have to the proclamation of the Word of God, the Scriptures? The Word and sacrament(s) ought never be separated. In the Middle Ages, the table (representing the Supper) was elevated above the pulpit (representing the proclamation of the Word); in most Protestant churches today, the pulpit has been elevated above the table. The goal of this paper is not to advocate a return to the practice of the Middle Ages—re-elevating the table above the pulpit—but instead to affirm that neither act is to be elevated above the other. Calvin wrote, “We ought always to provide that no meeting of the Church is held without the word, prayer, the dispensation of the Supper, and alms.”[69] The Word and Supper are always held and practiced together. Our lives are structured by the rhythmic pattern of calling and responding. So, too, our worship is structured by the rhythmic pattern of calling and responding, of listening and answering. The proclamation of the Word is where believers hear the call, while the Eucharist is where believers respond. “The call and response structure,” says Benson, “is basic to human existence.”[70] Yet again we see God’s grace coming to us in a form that addresses our humanness in a holistic way. The Lord’s Supper functions as the culmination, the crux of each worship gathering, the participatory response of believers to the proclamation of the Word.

Third, what considerations should we give the admittance of bread in the practice of the Lord’s Supper? I—acknowledging modern complications like dietary restrictions and the logistical complexity of large church worship services—advocate the use of one single loaf as the most faithful practice of the Supper. As we saw in 1 Corinthians 10:17, the matter of one loaf is not mere semantics: the Supper is an expression of the gospel, of the one body of Christ, so the ritual ought to illustrate that ontological reality as closely as possible.[71]

Fourth, how often should the Supper be practiced? Is the Supper equivalent to the Passover, and thus should be practiced only once a year? We have seen that although there are similarities between the Passover and the Supper, the two are as different as the Old Covenant and New Covenant, as different as circumcision and baptism, respectively.[72] Svigel explains that from the earliest expressions of the New Testament church, each congregation observed the Supper in the context of the worship gathering every Sunday.[73] But won’t the weekly observance of the Supper make the ritual mundane and commonplace? On the contrary, rightly understood and practiced, the Lord’s Supper is a participatory expression of the gospel, a sign and seal of God’s grace to us, a declaration from God to us that we really are saved, and a provisional nourishment from Christ to His body. To practice the Supper less than weekly is to deprive ourselves of experiencing God’s grace to its fullness in the way He intends.

Fifth, is the “Love Feast” (Jude 1:12; 2 Pet 2:13) equivalent to the Lord’s Supper? To put it quite simply, no. In the New Testament context, the “Love Feast” was a benevolent offering for the poor—not the same as the Lord’s Supper (or, incidentally, a modern potluck).[74]

Sixth, is the Lord’s Supper any breaking of bread, any meal shared by believers? Again, the answer is no. Since the Lord gave clear and unique meaning in the institution of the Lord’s Supper, it should not be understood as just any meal that believers share.[75] The Lord’s Supper is practiced by the whole local church in the context of a weekly worship gathering.

Thus, as we have seen:

The Lord’s Supper is God’s assurance to us that we really belong to Christ in the fullness of his saving person; that we really do share in the One who in flesh and blood is our justification, sanctification, and redemption. All that he is for us he is in us as well. Christ […] gives himself to us in the gospel, and continues to nourish us with himself in the Supper of that gospel.[76]

By the Supper we are granted a taste of the Kingdom on earth. By the Supper we are re-membered in Christ. By the Supper we are nourished by Christ.

In conclusion, this essay has examined the doctrine and practice of the Lord’s Supper. First, five disparate views on the Lord’s Supper were explained. Second, an overview of sacramental theology was given. Third, a brief exegesis of two gospels passages was examined. Fourth, an analysis of Paul’s explanation of the Lord’s Supper was shown. Fifth, several suggestions about how the Lord’s Supper is faithfully practiced were offered. This paper has demonstrated how the Lord’s Supper is an expression of salvation itself—our union with Christ—which is (1) God’s gift to us, and (2) a reality of our participation in the divine Father-Son relationship by means of the Holy Spirit.

Bibliography

Bailey, Mark L. “The Gospels.” Unpublished class notes for BE 105. Dallas Theological Seminary. Fall Semester, 2015.

Baima, Thomas A. “Roman Catholic View: Christ’s True, Real, and Substantial Presence.” In Understanding Four Views on the Lord’s Supper, edited by Paul E. Engle and John H. Armstrong, 119-136. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007.

Barbieri, Louis A., Jr. “Matthew.” In The Bible Knowledge Commentary, edited by John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck, 13-94. Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1983.

Bauer, Walter. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Revised and edited by Frederick W. Danker. 3rd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.

Benson, Bruce Ellis. Liturgy as a Way of Life: Embodying the Arts in Christian Worship. In The Church and Postmodern Culture, edited by James K. A. Smith. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013.

Blamires, Harry. The Christian Mind: How Should a Christian Think? Vancouver, BC: Regent College Publishing, 1963.

Bruce, F. F. 1 and 2 Corinthians. In New Century Bible Commentary, edited by Ronald E. Clements and Matthew Black, vol. 7. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1971.

Calvin, John. The Institutes of the Christian Religion. Edited by John T. McNiell, translated and indexed by Ford Lewis Battles. Louisville, KY: Westminster Press, 1960.

Carson, D. A. The Gospel According to John. In The Pillar New Testament Commentary, edited by D. A. Carson and Craig Blomberg, vol. 4. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1990.

Fee, Gordon D. The First Epistle to the Corinthians. In The New International Commentary on the New Testament, edited by Gordon D. Fee, vol. 7, rev. ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1987.

France, R. T. The Gospel of Matthew. In The New International Commentary on the New Testament, edited by Gordon D. Fee, vol. 1. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2007.

Harper, Brad and Paul Louis Metzger. Exploring Ecclesiology: An Evangelical and Ecumenical Introduction. Grand Rapids, MI: BrazosPress, 2009.

Johnson, Marcus P. One with Christ: An Evangelical Theology of Salvation. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013.

–––––. “Systematic Theology II.” Unpublished class notes for TH 3340. Moody Bible Institute, Fall Semester, 2012.

Jones, Barry D. Dwell: Life with God for the World. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2014.

Köstenberger, Andreas J. John. In Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, edited by Robert Yarbrough and Robert H. Stein, vol. 4. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004.

Lombard, Peter. “Peter Lombard on a Definition of a Sacrament.” In A Christian Theology Reader. Edited by Alister E. McGrath, 299. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishing Inc., 1995.

Michaels, J. Ramsey. The Gospel of John. In The New International Commentary on the New Testament, edited by Gordon D. Fee, vol. 4. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2010.

A Monk of St. Tikhon’s Monastery. These Truths We Hold: The Holy Orthodox Church, Her Life and Teachings. South Canaan, PA: St. Tikhon’s Seminary, 1986.

Moore, Russel D. “Baptist View: Christ’s Presence as Memorial.” In Understanding Four Views on the Lord’s Supper, edited by Paul E. Engle and John H. Armstrong, 29-44. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007.

Ott, Ludwig, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma. Edited by James Canon Bastible, 4th ed. Rockford, IL: Tan, 1960.

Scaer, David P. “Lutheran View: Finding the Right Word.” In Understanding Four Views on the Lord’s Supper, edited by Paul E. Engle and John H. Armstrong, 87-101. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007.

Smith, James K. A. Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009.

Snyder, Matthew. “On Priesthood & A Theology of Culture.” Unpublished paper for ST 103. Dallas Theological Seminary. Summer Semester, 2014.

Svigel, Michael J. “Should We Celebrate the Lord’s Supper Every Sunday in Church?” RetroChristianity, April 20, 2012. Accessed June 6, 2014. http://www.retrochristianity.org/2012/04/20/should-we-celebrate-the-lords-supper-every-sunday-in-church/

Torrance, Thomas F. Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009.

–––––. Conflict and Agreement in the Church. Vol. II: The Ministry and the Sacraments of the Gospel. London: Lutterworth Press, 1960.

Vander Zee, Leonard J. Christ, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004.

Ware, Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia. “Communion and Intercommunion.” In Primary Readings on the Eucharist, edited by Thomas J. Fisch, 185-208. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2004.

World Council of Churches. Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry: Faith & Order Paper No. 111. Lima, Peru: Faith and Order Commission of the World Council, 1982.

Endnotes

[1] World Council of Churches, Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry: Faith & Order Paper No. 111 (Lima, Peru: Faith and Order Commission of the World Council, 1982), 12.

[2] Ibid., 12-13.

[3] Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, ed. James Canon Bastible, 4th ed. (Rockford, IL: Tan, 1960), 402.

[4] Heb 10:18.

[5] Marcus P. Johnson, “Systematic Theology II,” unpublished class notes for TH 3340 (Moody Bible Institute, Fall Semester 2012), 75.

[6] C.f., for example, Thomas A. Baima, “Roman Catholic View: Christ’s True, Real, and Substantial Presence,” in Understanding Four Views on the Lord’s Supper, ed. Paul E. Engle and John H. Armstrong (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007), 119.

[7] A Monk of St. Tikhon’s Monastery, These Truths We Hold: The Holy Orthodox Church, Her Life and Teachings (South Canaan, PA: St. Tikhon’s Seminary, 1986), 303, italics original.

[8] Bishop Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia, “Communion and Intercommunion,” in Primary Readings on the Eucharist, ed. Thomas J. Fisch (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2004), 187.

[9] Monk, These Truths We Hold, 224; C.f. also Bishop Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia, The Orthodox Church (London: Penguin, 1993), 204.

[10] Ibid., 225.

[11] Tradition in Eastern Orthodoxy is to be seen as a dynamic, existential entity rather than a bland, rigid adherence to the practices and doctrines of the past. In support of Tradition, Eastern Orthodox theology cites verses like John 16:13, where Jesus promised His disciples, “When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth.”

[12] Russel D. Moore, “Baptist View: Christ’s Presence as Memorial,” in Understanding Four Views on the Lord’s Supper, ed. Paul E. Engle and John H. Armstrong (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007), 35.

[13] Ibid., 33.

[14] Harry Blamires, The Christian Mind: How Should a Christian Think? (Vancouver, BC: Regent College Publishing, 1963), 173-88.

[15] John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNiell, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Louisville, KY: Westminster Press, 1960), 4.17.5.

[16] David P. Scaer, “Lutheran View: Finding the Right Word,” in Understanding Four Views on the Lord’s Supper, ed. Paul E. Engle and John H. Armstrong (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007), 89.

[17] Ibid., 92.

[18] 1 Cor 11:24, emphasis mine. C.f. also Ibid., 100.

[19] Johnson, “Systematic Theology II”, 76.

[20] Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 4.17.10.

[21] Leonard Vander Zee, Christ, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 200.

[22] Marcus P. Johnson, One With Christ: An Evangelical Theology of Salvation (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013), 237.

[23] Brad Harper and Paul Louis Metzger, Exploring Ecclesiology: An Evangelical and Ecumenical Introduction (Grand Rapids, MI: BrazosPress, 2009), 142.

[24] Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.1.1.

[25] C.f. 1 Cor 12:27.

[26] Thomas F. Torrance, Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009), 361.

[27] C.f. Rom 1:6; 1 Cor 1:2; Eph 1:1; Phil 1:1; Col 1:2; 1 Thess 1:1; 2 Thess 1:1; etc.

[28] Peter Lombard, “Peter Lombard on a Definition of a Sacrament,” in A Christian Theology Reader, ed. Alister E. McGrath (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishing Inc., 1995), 299.

[29] Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 4.14.1.

[30] Vander Zee, Christ, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper, 30.

[31] Thomas F. Torrance, Conflict and Agreement in the Church, vol. II: The Ministry and the Sacraments of the Gospel (London, Lutterworth Press, 1960), 141, emphasis mine.

[32] Ibid., 141.

[33] Johnson, One with Christ, 234, emphasis original.

[34] Vander Zee, Christ, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper, 45.

[35] Vander Zee, Christ, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper, 123, emphasis original.

[36] To clarify, body and soul cannot be separated without death ensuing.

[37] Matthew Snyder, “On Priesthood & A Theology of Culture,” unpublished paper for ST 103 (Dallas Theological Seminary, Summer Semester, 2014),16.

[38] C.f. Barry D. Jones, Dwell: Life with God for the World (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2014), 16.

[39] James K. A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009), 33, emphasis original.

[40] C.f. Mark L. Bailey, “The Gospels,” unpublished class notes for BE 105 (Dallas Theological Seminary, Fall Semester, 2015), 3.

[41] R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, ed. Gordon D. Fee, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2007), 987.

[42] Ibid., 987.

[43] Louis A. Barbieri, Jr., “Matthew,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary, ed. John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1983), 83.

[44] C.f. Exodus 12.

[45] Michael J. Svigel, “Should We Celebrate the Lord’s Supper Every Sunday in Church?”, RetroChristianity, August 20, 2012, accessed June 6, 2015, http://www.retrochristianity.org/2012/04/20/should-we-celebrate-the-lords-supper-every-sunday-in-church/.

[46] France, The Gospel of Matthew, 988.

[47] C.f. Matt 13, especially vv. 41.

[48] Torrance, Conflict and Agreement in the Church, 139.

[49] France, The Gospel of Matthew, 992.

[50] J. Ramsey Michaels, The Gospel of John, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, ed. Gordon D. Fee, vol. 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2010), 396.

[51] Andreas J. Köstenberger, John, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, ed. Robert Yarbrough and Robert H. Stein, vol. 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 215-16.

[52] Vander Zee, Christ, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper, 195.

[53] D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary, ed. D. A. Carson and Craig Blomberg, vol. 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1990), 298.

[54] Köstenberger, John, 216.

[55] Carson, The Gospel According to John, 297.

[56] Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 4.17.5.

[57] Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, ed. Gordon D. Fee, vol. 7, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1987), 465, emphasis original.

[58] BDAG, 553.

[59] F. F. Bruce, 1 and 2 Corinthians, New Century Bible Commentary, ed. Ronald E. Clements and Matthew Black, vol. 7 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1971), 94-5, emphasis mine.

[60] Fee, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 466.

[61] Fee, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 467.

[62] BDAG, 553.

[63] Fee, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 467, emphasis original.

[64] Fee, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 534.

[65] Vander Zee, Christ, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, 210.

[66] This makes sense of the proclamation of the Lord’s death until He comes (11:26). It is not simply an aligning of oneself under the gruesome, atoning, sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross in the past—but also a declaration of His imminent return for His people in the future in the eschaton. Both of these are salvific acts of God, salvific acts we declare in our praise to Him.

[67] Vander Zee, Christ, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, 211.

[68] Fee, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 564. C.f. also Bruce, 1 and 2 Corinthians, 115.

[69] Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 4.17.44.

[70] Bruce Ellis Benson, Liturgy as a Way of Life: Embodying the Arts in Christian Worship, The Church and Postmodern Culture, ed. James K. A. Smith (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013), 34.

[71] A similar point should be made about baptism: it is the physical expression of the passing from death to new resurrection life; thus, it is most faithfully practiced by total immersion in water (as opposed to sprinkling, for example), but that is another paper.

[72] C.f. Footnote 45.

[73] Svigel, “Should We Celebrate the Lord’s Supper Every Sunday”. C.f. Acts 20:7.

[74] Ibid.

[75] C.f. Matt 26:26-29; 1 Cor 11:23-26.

[76] Johnson, One with Christ, 240, emphasis original.