The Lord’s Supper: The Real Presence of Christ

I used to believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper (communion). I now believe the Lord is present, but not in a physical way, rather it is spiritual. Communion is spiritual food to nourish our souls.

I held to the Roman Catholic view that during consecration the bread and wine become the true Body and Blood of Christ. Further, in the mass, we participate in the once and for all sacrifice of Christ at Calvary. It is an unbloody sacrifice. Rome teaches that Christ’s presence in the sacrament of communion is to be explained in terms of the doctrine of transubstantiation. The doctrine of transubstantiation asserts that when the priest says the words of consecration, the substance of the bread and wine is transformed into the substance of the body and blood of Christ.

The accidens (that is, the incidental properties) of the bread and wine remain the same. Rome also teaches that the Eucharist is a propitiatory sacrifice; in fact, the same sacrifice Christ offered on the cross. The Eucharistic sacrifice is offered for the sins of the living and the dead.

The Reformers were united in their rejection of both aspects of Rome’s doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. They rejected transubstantiation, and they rejected the idea that the Lord’s Supper is a propitiatory sacrifice.

Lutherans adopted consubstantiation to explain the doctrine of communion. In this view, Christ is present in/with/under the bread and wine.

I now reject both the Roman Catholic and Lutheran views on the Lord’s Supper. I favor the view of John Calvin. For him the communion gifts are more than a mere symbol (Zwingli’s view), yet transubstantiation and consubstantiation are both false. The Lord’s Supper is spiritual food. Christ is present in a real way in the sacrament, just not in a carnal (physical) manner. The Holy Spirit mediates our participation in the Lord’s Supper. And through the Holy Spirit we have union with Christ.

JOHN 6:22–59

“Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him” (vv. 54–56).

The context of this passage shows us that to eat and drink Christ’s flesh and blood is not a carnal act but rather a spiritual act of trusting in Jesus. John 6:22–59 parallels the eating that leads to eternal life with belief, making the two things identical. The Lord’s Supper signs and seals this belief, showing that the One in whom we believe is both God and man, having a true human body. We need the humanity of Christ no less than we need His deity, and the physical elements of the supper impress this on our hearts and minds.

John Calvin comments, “There is no other way in which he can become ours, than by our faith being directed to his flesh.” The bread and wine of the supper are God’s seal that those who believe that the God-man suffered as a man and was raised from the dead will live forever. When we take the supper in faith, we are communing with Christ and marked as those who will inherit eternal life.”

The following comes from John Calvin’s Short Treatise on the Lord’s Supper. The importance of the real, spiritual presence of Christ in communion:

12. HOW THE BREAD IS CALLED THE BODY, AND THE WINE THE BLOOD OF CHRIST. We begin now to enter on the question so much debated, both anciently and at the present time — how we are to understand the words in which the bread is called the body of Christ, and the wine His blood. This may be disposed of without much difficulty; if we carefully observe the principle which I lately laid down, namely, that all the benefit which we should seek in the Supper is annihilated if Jesus Christ be not there given to us as the substance and foundation of all. That being fixed, we will confess, without doubt, that to deny that a true communication of Jesus Christ is presented to us in the Supper, is to render this holy sacrament frivolous and useless — an execrable blasphemy unfit to be listened to.

13. WHAT IS REQUISITE IN ORDER TO LIVE IN JESUS CHRIST. Moreover, if the reason for communicating with Jesus Christ is to have part and portion in all the graces which He purchased for us by His death, the required thing must be not only to be partakers of His Spirit, but also to participate in His humanity, in which He rendered all obedience to God His Father, in order to satisfy our debts, although, properly speaking, the one cannot be without the other; for when He gives Himself to us, it is in order that we may possess Him entirely. Hence, as it is said that His Spirit is our life, so He Himself, with His own lips, declares that His flesh is meat indeed, and His blood drink indeed (John 6:55). If these words are not to go for nothing, it follows that in order to have our life in Christ our souls must feed on His body and blood as their proper food. This, then, is expressly attested in the Supper, when of the bread it is said to us that we are to take it and eat it, and that it is His body, and of the cup that we are to drink it, and that it is His blood. This is expressly spoken of the body and blood, in order that we may learn to seek there the substance of our spiritual life.

14. HOW THE BREAD AND WINE ARE THE BODY OF JESUS CHRIST. Now, if it be asked whether the bread is the body of Christ and the wine His blood, we answer, that the bread and the wine are visible signs, which represent to us the body and blood, but that this name and title of body and blood is given to them because they are as it were instruments by which the Lord distributes them to us. This form and manner of speaking is very appropriate. For as the communion which we have with the body of Christ is a thing incomprehensible, not only to the eye but to our natural sense, it is there visibly demonstrated to us. Of this we have a striking example in an analogous case. Our Lord, wishing to give a visible appearance to His Spirit at the baptism of Christ, presented Him under the form of a dove. St. John the Baptist, narrating the fact, says, that he saw the Spirit of God descending. If we look more closely, we shall find that he saw nothing but the dove, in respect that the Holy Spirit is in His essence 2 invisible. Still, knowing that this vision was not an empty phantom, but a sure sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit, he doubts not to say that he saw it (John 1:32), because it was represented to him according to his capacity.

The Real, Spiritual Presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper From John Calvin, Tracts, Vol. II, trans. Henry Beveridge (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1849), 170-171, English updated and emphasis added.

My view on the Lord’s Supper now aligns most closely with Clavin’s! Let us be always reforming and aligning our views with God’s precious Word!