Summary

There are three main aspects to the Eucharist. Real presence, unity, and sacrifice. To make this as simple as possible, there are two groups of Christians on the issue of real presence. Christians who are Supernaturalists and Christians who are not. Let’s call them Anti-Supernaturalists. The Supernaturalists includes basically all Christians up until the Reformation, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Lutherans, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Reformed, Methodists, and even Zwinglians. The Anti-Supernaturalists include modern Evangelicals, Baptists, Charismatics, Pentecostals, non-denominationalists, and Bible church Christians. The Christians in the Supernaturalist group are correct. The Christians in the Anti-Supernaturalist group are wrong.

Cards on the Table

I could write extensively on the Eucharist, but will try not to be long winded. I’m not going to give an exhaustive defense of what I believe, but will attempt to orient the discussion around my agreements and disagreements with Rome and the East. This topic will take several installments to cover everything, even briefly. Since this is such a contentious issue, and such a misunderstood issue, I think it’s fitting to spend a bit more time on it.

I will say right up front that I am in more agreement with Rome and the East, especially the East, and their teachings on the Eucharist, than I am in disagreement with them. I will also say that their doctrine of Real Presence wouldn’t keep me out of their churches. I reject the popular, modern, Evangelical view of the Eucharist. Sometimes called the Zwinglian view. But the popular, modern, Evangelical view is not the same as Zwingli’s view. So, it isn’t really fair to Zwingli to give them that term. So, I will call it the mere memorialist view. I reject the mere memorialist view of most charismatics, baptists, non-denominationals, evangelicals, and side more with the original Evangelicals, the Lutherans, and hold something closer to their view.

That is, I reject the belief that the Eucharist is merely a symbol and that the only thing happening in communion is that we think about the crucifixion. I affirm that it is a symbol and we do think about the crucifixion, but it is not merely this. It is more than this. The bread and wine during communion, after the prayers and thanksgiving of the pastor, are truly the body and blood of Christ, and Christ truly feeds us with His body and blood in the rite of communion. The Lord’s Supper is a means of grace to the faithful. Similar to how a sermon is a means of grace to the faithful. In some respects, the Eucharist is like a ritualized sermon. But how the bread and wine are Christ’s body and blood is a mystery to me. That’s the strength of traditions like the East. They just say it’s true and it’s a mystery. They don’t seek to explain it like Rome does.

This brief, positive affirmation, of what I believe regarding communion is grossly insufficient to describe everything I believe is going on during communion, but it gives you an idea of where I land. While there are variations and nuances of what is called Real Presence in the Eucharist, there is a general agreement among the Supernaturalist crowd that something spiritual and supernatural is going on. The early fathers, the medieval fathers, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans, Presbyterians, the Reformed, Methodists, and even Zwinglians all view the Eucharist as having some kind of real presence of Christ involved.

In short, this is what most Christians throughout all of the Church’s history have believed, and this comes from the teachings of Jesus, Paul, and the rest of Scripture. To change the traditional consensus of the Church on this issue requires a strong biblical case, and the modern evangelical/baptistic view of the Eucharist simply does not adequately make their case, in my view.

The demystification project of modernism paired with our Revivalistic traditions have diminished the sacraments into obscurity and basically non-existence, especially the Lord’s Supper. Most Christians who go to Bible churches or non-denominational types of churches have to work really hard to make the Bible conform to their man made traditions of evacuating the miraculous and supernatural from communion. This is largely fueled by an understandable, but largely irrational fear of anything they associate with what they perceive to be Roman Catholic.

But the reality is that historically, and biblically, real presence is just a traditional Christian doctrine. I don’t have a horse in the denominational race. I don’t have an axe to grind when it comes to tribal rivalries. I don’t care if a belief is Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or Protestant. I care about what’s true. But I do want to highlight that the doctrine of Real Presence is a Protestant doctrine. It is part of our Evangelical heritage, going back to the Lutherans, and finding various other kinds of Real Presence affirmations in the Reformed and Methodist traditions. Really nobody in the Magisterial Reformation denied the Real Presence. Your average Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox Christian doesn’t know this either. They think they just monopolize the doctrine. And they don’t. Furthermore, only 30% of Roman Catholics believe in Real Presence anyhow, according to a recent Pew Research poll.

I specifically align myself with Lutherans because their views are the closest to my own, but not identical. Lutherans acknowledge a real presence which specifies belief in that presence being located in the elements themselves, while the rest of the Protestant tradition generally only acknowledges some kind of spiritual presence only. So, I’m more with the Lutherans here. Additionally, traditional, confessional Lutherans, have a healthier balance of word and sacrament than Rome, the East, or Anglo-Catholics. So, I’m more in line with the Lutherans on this, too.

However, I do have a great deal in common with Rome and the East regarding the Eucharist, that I probably won’t touch on much. This is an issue that draws a lot of Evangelicals to those churches, because I think there is a lot of truth in what they teach regarding it. And popular evangelicalism is mostly wrong on this issue. It would be impossible for me to explain all the things I have in common with Rome and the East, so let me outline the broad areas of agreement and disagreement.

Agreements

1) Real Presence – Christ’s body and blood is truly given to us in communion.

2) Unity – The Lord’s Supper unites all its partakers into union with Christ. The consequences of this are innumerable.

3) Sacrifice – The Eucharist is a sacrifice, or at the very least may be thought of this way, and has traditionally always been thought of this way. Worship is inescapably sacrificial. The Eucharist is a sacrifice of thanksgiving. This does not mean that Christ is re-sacrificed. Nobody, including Rome, is currently saying that Christ is re-sacrificed in the rite of communion.

But the way I affirm these things leads to my disagreements with Rome and the East.

Disagreements

1) Transubstantiation should not be a dogma that anathematizes Christians who disagree. This departs from Rome.

2) Christians may believe in transubstantiation, but I believe it is not without some minor problems. This also departs from Rome.

3) The Eucharist may be validly celebrated by any group of baptized Christians. A priest in Apostolic Succession is not necessary. This departs from Rome, the East, and Anglo-Catholics.

4) Discerning the body in the Eucharist has more to do with social aspects of the church, and less to do with the metaphysical aspects of the elements. This departs from Rome, the East, Anglo-Catholics, and some Protestants, like Lutherans who practice closed communion.

Jesus and Real Presence

So, now that my cards on the table, let’s reverse engineer this by turning to Scripture and looking at what Christ taught regarding the Eucharist, what Paul taught about the Eucharist, and then turn to the history of Mother Church, and look at what she has taught her children regarding the Eucharist. We will focus on real presence first, then sacrifice, then unity, and maybe a few more aspects. And as we go I will mark my departures from Rome and the East. This episode will be focused on real presence.

The term Eucharist comes from the Greek and it means thanksgiving. That Jesus took bread, and gave thanks for it. Or blessed it. Blessing and giving thanks are often interchangeable in Jewish custom. We see both terms used in the Gospels. And we see this term being used very early in the history of the Church by Justin Martyr. Some traditions call it The Lord’s Supper or Communion. All of these are good and true names for it.

Jesus instituted the meal before His sacrifice during the time of Passover. Some scholars, like Dom Gregory Dix, have pointed out that it wasn’t exactly on Passover, but that it was a chaburah meal, which is a fellowship meal among Jewish friends. I find no reason to not believe both are in view with the Last Supper.

In John 6, Jesus tells us, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world. The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?” Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.” (vv. 51-58)

Jesus is telling us plainly here that His flesh and blood give eternal life and they must be consumed. It very naturally connects to the bread and wine of communion. But there are many Evangelicals who go to great lengths to make this passage *not* about the Lord’s Supper. Many will say it’s about Jesus’ words, and about faith. And I would agree. It is about faith. It is about Jesus’ words. And it’s also about the Eucharist. It’s about all of these things. These things are all tied up with each other. You can’t separate them into discrete parts. Like faith and works, or the spirit and the body. You can’t separate them without them being dead. They all are linked together. And we can find early fathers who also thought this passage was about Christ’s words, just as we can find early fathers who thought it was about the Eucharist. The reason for this is because it’s about both. We have a tendency to think in terms of one thing at the exclusion of the other. But Christian truth, the mysteries of God revealed to us, are often affirmations of multiple things at the same time, rather than affirmation of one thing to the exclusion of something else. How can Isaac be the promised child and also offered up in sacrifice? Abraham affirmed both, leading him to affirm something supernatural, that God would bring Isaac back from the dead. The Eucharist is similar. Multiple things going on here, and we have to affirm all of them, and this leads us to affirming the supernatural.

So, in John 6, Jesus is affirming the giving of his flesh and blood to those who will live forever, for the life of the world. He is emphatic. Saying, “most assuredly,” and affirming the converse. If you don’t eat His flesh and blood, you have no life in you. But eating flesh and blood is prohibited in the Torah, and so this would have been particularly scandalous to the Jews, on top of the revulsion of cannibalism generally.

But when we read the synoptic accounts of the Last Supper, we find the answer to the Jews’ question, how can this Man give us His flesh to eat?

Matthew 26: 26-27: And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.” Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” Jesus gives his disciples bread and wine and plainly says it is his body and blood. This is repeated in Mark 14 and Luke 22. Jesus says eat my flesh and drink my blood and live forever in John 6. Then in the Upper Room, Jesus blesses bread and wine and explicitly says it is his flesh and his blood. How is John 6 not about the Lord’s Supper?

Furthermore, Jesus’ discourse on eating his flesh and drinking his blood in John 6 is preceded by the miraculous feeding of the 5,000, which we are told was also at the time of Passover. Another connection to the Eucharist, since Jesus instituted the rite as a kind of New Covenant Passover meal. The miraculous feeding of the 5,000 is associated with fish and his walking on the sea, which symbolize his rule over the Gentiles, as fish and the sea are regularly associated with and symbolic of the Gentiles and the nations. Another connection to the Eucharist, because of its anticipation of unity among Jews and Gentiles, that Jesus is making one loaf out of Jews and Gentiles. In the miraculous feeding of the 5,000, His disciples are instrumental in distributing this miraculous food. It is a picture of Jesus delegating His ministry to the disciples, to under-shepherds who will feed his flock with Word and Sacrament. Jesus’ interactions with the disciples on the road to Emmaus also has miraculous food involved. “Now it came to pass, as He sat at the table with them, that He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight.” (Luke 22:30) The same formula of taking bread, blessing it, breaking it, and giving it to disciples in the Upper Room is repeated here. The same formula happens with the feeding of the 5,000, except we are told that the disciples then take that food and give it to the people. “Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people.” (Matthew 14:19) These things are all connected to the Lord’s Supper and everything the Lord’s Supper entails: faith, hope, love, sacrifice, thanksgiving, the remission of sins, the shedding of blood for many, the blood of the new covenant, the making into one body, one loaf, out of Jews and Gentiles, and to Jesus Christ himself, the Word made flesh.

Paul and Real Presence

Now, the mere memorialist, will say Jesus was just using metaphor. I’m not really interested in this objection too much and I don’t want to park here for long, because I think it’s just so evident that this objection is grounded in knee-jerk over-reactive traditions, rather than a natural reading of the Bible. Yes, there are metaphors elsewhere in the Bible. And we have to look at the context, and the history of interpretation, to make an informed decision as to whether Jesus was being purely metaphorical here. But He wasn’t being purely metaphorical as evident from all of the supernatural connections mentioned above. In addition to the numerous supernatural connections between the Eucharist and the supernatural in the Gospels, the Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians doesn’t treat the Eucharist as a mere metaphor. When we read the Apostle teaching on the Lord’s Supper He doesn’t sound like a Baptist. He doesn’t sound like a Bible Church pastor. Paul says,

“Whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep. (1 Corinthians 11:27-34)

Paul says those who partake of the Eucharist in an unworthy manner are guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. And that some of the Corinthians were sick and dying because of this. I’ve heard some ask the question, “When was the last time a mere symbol killed anyone?” This doesn’t really speak to the metaphysical particularities of the elements, but it does speak to the rite having supernatural consequences. He refers to the Eucharist as bread and wine, but he also refers to it as body and blood. He uses them interchangeably, which is why I don’t believe Transubstantiation is the best way to describe what’s happening. We will get into this later.

In the previous chapter, Paul says,

“The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?” (1 Corinthians 10:15)

These rhetorical questions are meant to be affirmatives. He is saying, “The cup of blessing, the wine, which we bless is the blood of Christ. The bread we break is the body of Christ. We have communion with the body and blood of Christ. Not the cup of blessing which we bless is it not merely a symbol of Christ’s blood and nothing more? The bread we break is it not a helpful aid to remind us of Jesus’ death? No, he says it is communion of the body and the blood.

Alright, so let’s pause for moment here. There is a reasonable Scriptural case to be made that something supernatural is going on at the Lord’s Supper. And the arguments which make the bread and wine mere symbolism, and nothing else, is understandable as a reactionary position to Roman abuse, but ultimately a deficient theology. It appears they do not have the backing of Scripture behind them. They have an upward battle to fight. They are at a major disadvantage because a Real Presence view speaks the way Jesus and Paul does, while a mere memorialist view does not. The mere memorialist is like someone becoming a radical cessationist because of the goofy abuses they saw at a Pentecostal church. It doesn’t mean the gifts aren’t true. It just means you’ve never seen them exercised well. And so they cling to a reactionary theology, rather than a biblical theology. It’s similar here. Our American Christianity is a tradition with a strong over-reaction against Romanism. There were real abuses, but abuse doesn’t mean Real Presence is not true. I see no reason to evacuate the supernatural and miraculous here. In fact, it seems quite the opposite.

The Fathers and Real Presence

Furthermore, we have the Fathers of the Church all speaking of the Lord’s Supper in ways that affirm the Real Presence of Christ, and in ways that affirm the symbolic nature. They speak of it in both ways, which I would also affirm. But no one, as far as I know, besides rank heretics, like the Gnostics, denied Christ’s body and blood in the Eucharist.

Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, and traditionally believed to be a disciple of John, on the Eucharist: Speaking of heretics, he says, “They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again.” (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 7, c. 110 AD)

Ignatius writing to the Ephesians: “…obey the bishop and the presbytery with an undivided mind, breaking one and the same bread, which is the medicine of immortality, and the antidote to prevent us from dying, but that we should live for ever in Jesus Christ.” (Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians, Ch. 20)

Justin Martyr on the Eucharist: “And this food is called among us the Eucharist, of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, 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. For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, This do in remembrance of Me, Luke 22:19 this is My body; and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, This is My blood; and gave it to them alone. Which the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of Mithras, commanding the same thing to be done. For, that bread and a cup of water are placed with certain incantations in the mystic rites of one who is being initiated, you either know or can learn.” (First Apology, 66, c. 155 AD)

Irenaeus on the Eucharist: “For as the bread, which is produced from the earth, when it receives the invocation of God, is no longer common bread, but the Eucharist, consisting of two realities, earthly and heavenly; so also our bodies, when they receive the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, having the hope of the resurrection to eternity.” (Against Heresies, 4.18.5, c. 180 AD)

Irenaeus on the Eucharist: “But vain in every respect are they who despise the entire dispensation of God, and disallow the salvation of the flesh, and treat with contempt its regeneration, maintaining that it is not capable of incorruption. But if this indeed do not attain salvation, then neither did the Lord redeem us with His blood, nor is the cup of the Eucharist the communion of His blood, nor the bread which we break the communion of His body. 1 Corinthians 10:16 For blood can only come from veins and flesh, and whatsoever else makes up the substance of man, such as the Word of God was actually made. By His own blood he redeemed us, as also His apostle declares, In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the remission of sins. Colossians 1:14 And as we are His members, we are also nourished by means of the creation (and He Himself grants the creation to us, for He causes His sun to rise, and sends rain when He wills Matthew 5:45). He has acknowledged the cup (which is a part of the creation) as His own blood, from which He bedews our blood; and the bread (also a part of the creation) He has established as His own body, from which He gives increase to our bodies.

When, therefore, the mingled cup and the manufactured bread receives the Word of God, and the Eucharist of the blood and the body of Christ is made, from which things the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can they affirm that the flesh is incapable of receiving the gift of God, which is life eternal, which [flesh] is nourished from the body and blood of the Lord, and is a member of Him?— even as the blessed Paul declares in his Epistle to the Ephesians, that we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. Ephesians 5:30 He does not speak these words of some spiritual and invisible man, for a spirit has not bones nor flesh; Luke 24:39 but [he refers to] that dispensation [by which the Lord became] an actual man, consisting of flesh, and nerves, and bones — that [flesh] which is nourished by the cup which is His blood, and receives increase from the bread which is His body. And just as a cutting from the vine planted in the ground fructifies in its season, or as a grain of wheat falling into the earth and becoming decomposed, rises with manifold increase by the Spirit of God, who contains all things, and then, through the wisdom of God, serves for the use of men, and having received the Word of God, becomes the Eucharist, which is the body and blood of Christ; so also our bodies, being nourished by it, and deposited in the earth, and suffering decomposition there, shall rise at their appointed time, the Word of God granting them resurrection to the glory of God, even the Father, who freely gives to this mortal immortality, and to this corruptible incorruption, 1 Corinthians 15:53 because the strength of God is made perfect in weakness, 2 Corinthians 12:3 in order that we may never become puffed up, as if we had life from ourselves, and exalted against God, our minds becoming ungrateful; but learning by experience that we possess eternal duration from the excelling power of this Being, not from our own nature, we may neither undervalue that glory which surrounds God as He is, nor be ignorant of our own nature, but that we may know what God can effect, and what benefits man receives, and thus never wander from the true comprehension of things as they are, that is, both with regard to God and with regard to man.” (Against Heresies, 5.2.2-3)

Conclusion

Real presence is true, but that doesn’t mean you can live like the devil and still inherit eternal life as long as you take communion. Grace is true and extended when sin occurs, but this doesn’t mean that we live like the devil because where sin abounds, grace much more abounds. Justin Martyr rightly says that they withheld the Eucharist from those who did not live as Christ enjoined men to live. Rome and the East let all kinds of notorious sinners take communion, and don’t emphasize living a holy life enough, and don’t emphasize the ministry of preaching the word enough. But that doesn’t mean that Real Presence is not true.

Also, I will get more into this in a later segment, but those who don’t believe in Real Presence, but still obey the command to “Do this” still literally partake of the Lord’s body and blood. That they deny this does not make it so. The objective reality is that they eat the flesh and blood of Christ by faith just as much as Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox. What you believe subjectively about the Eucharist does not change what is objectively happening. And if you are eating and drinking the Eucharist and living a sinful, rebellious life, you are eating and drinking curses and possibly damnation on yourself.

There is so much more that could be said about all of this. I’ll stop it here for now for the sake of time. I think I will dedicate the next installment to a continuing brief survey of the Fathers on the real presence aspect. There are two other aspects that we need to discuss, both in the Apostolic and Post-Apostolic tradition: Unity and sacrifice. Those will likely be episodes of their own.

If you want to read more on the topic, I would recommend Keith Mathison’s Given For You Recovering Calvin’s Doctrine of The Lord’s Supper. I’d also recommend Brant Pitre’s Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist. Pitre is a Roman Catholic, but it’s still a great read. Alexander Schmemann’s For The Life of the World is really good. Schmemann is Eastern Orthodox, but this book is pretty good sacramental theology.