Of the Lord’s Supper<\/p>\n
Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements, in this sacrament,\u00a0do then also, inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporeally but spiritually, receive and feed upon, Christ crucified, and all benefits of His death: the body and blood of Christ being then, not corporeally or carnally, in, with, or under the bread and wine; yet, as really, but spiritually, present to the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves are to their outward senses.<\/em><\/p>\n Concerning the Lord’s Supper, it is easy to say too much or too little. \u00a0To say the bread and the wine are only signs or symbols is to say too little. \u00a0The Lord’s Supper is a sacrament, i.e., it is both<\/em> a sign and a seal. As a sign it points to our Lord’s gracious, propitiatory sacrifice. \u00a0As a seal, it also somehow participates in, validates, conveys to us the reality of the grace to which it points. \u00a0And yet to say the Lord’s Supper is some kind of magical meal that assures us of eternal salvation irrespective of our faith is to say too much.<\/p>\n To say the elements are “merely bread and wine” is to say too little.\u00a0\u00a0The unanimous testimony, belief, and doctrine of the entire Christian church for the first fifteen hundred years was that those who receive the bread and wine really receive Christ’s true body and blood, the same body that died on the cross and the same blood that was shed for our salvation.\u00a0But to say the presence of Christ in the Eucharist is a crass physical presence like that taught by some eleventh-century theologians who insisted that if “you bit the the bread you have bitten the body of Christ” is to say (way) too much.<\/p>\n I do not disparage the Lutheran phrase, “in, with or under”, recognizing that it is\u00a0an imprecise way to profess our belief that, in some manner, Christ is present. \u00a0Objectively present, not merely subjectively “present to the faith of believers”. This objectively-real presence is the reason for the Apostle Paul’s admonition: “Whoever eats this bread or drinks\u00a0this\u00a0cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 11:27)<\/p>\n And yet (lest I say too much), the Lord’s body and blood are not present in the same way as the elements themselves, occupying space and bounded by it. \u00a0Rather, the body and blood are present supernaturally. \u00a0The Formula of Concord speaks of “the incomprehensible, spiritual mode of presence according to which He neither occupies nor yields space but passes through everything created as He wills … He employed this mode of presence when He left the closed grave and came through closed doors, in the bread and wine in the Supper .”<\/p>\n This is certainly a great mystery. \u00a0“And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness.” (1 Timothy 3:16) \u00a0The bread and the wine remain bread and wine, but they also become the body and blood of our Lord and Savior. \u00a0It defies explanation, in a way\u00a0paradigmatic of the Incarnation itself.<\/p>\n “For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Savior, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.” Justin Martyr<\/p>\n “The Eucharist is the self-same body of our Savior Jesus Christ which suffered for our sins and which the Father in his goodness afterwards raised up again.” \u00a0Ignatius of Antioch<\/p>\n I do not believe in transubstantiation, as formulated by Thomas Aquinas, for it “overthroweth the nature of a sacrament”. Nevertheless, I do like his poem, Pange Lingua:<\/em><\/p>\n Word made flesh, the bread He taketh, Fides quarens intellectum <\/em>(Latin: faith seeking understanding) was Anselm’s motto.\u00a0It is mine too.\u00a0 If I have said too much concerning the Lord’s Supper, or too little, Lord forgive me, teach me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Of the Lord’s Supper Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements, in this sacrament,\u00a0do then also, inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporeally but spiritually, receive and feed upon, Christ crucified, and all benefits of His death: the body and blood of Christ being then, not corporeally or carnally, in, … <\/p>\n
\nBy His word His flesh to be;
\nWine His sacred blood He maketh,
\nThough the senses fail to see;
\nFaith alone the true heart waketh
\nTo behold the mystery.<\/p>\n