Lord's Supper

Perhaps the greatest distinction between a Reformed understanding of the Lord’s Supper and other Christian approaches revolves around the nature of the elements and whether Christ is actually present int eh bread and wine. The Catholic church has long held to the doctrine of transubstantiation, which states that the substance of the bread and wine are actually transformed into the substance of the body and blood of Christ. The accidents of the elements, though, the atoms of bread and wine, do not change. If one were to examine the elements under a microscope, they would appear to be bread and wine in every way. There is no way to discern the bread and wine has become the body and blood of Christ. At the same time, the transcendent nature of

He interpreted Christ’s words “This is my body” as allegorical. Zwingli believe Christ was implying that the meal was like Christ’s body and blood, much in the same way Christ claims he “is” a vine. Luther, on the other hand, preferred a literal reading and vehemently argued that “is” meant “literally is” in this case (Class lecture, Dec 8, 11). Luther believed Christ’s words meant that the body and blood of Christ were actually present in the elements. Nevertheless, Zwingli argued for a memorial meal on several grounds, including the fact Christ was still physically present prior to his crucifixion when he shared the Last Supper with his apostles. Zwingli reasoned Christ could not be both in the bread and in the hands breaking it. He also rejected the notion that Christians were cannibalistically eating the body and blood of Jesus, something which was so detestable both in the Bible and to most of humanity as a whole. Rather, Zwingli believed that Christ was spiritually and sacramentally present in the Lord’s Supper, but not present in some kind of physical way. The believer spiritually feed on Christ, and the sacrament served to grow their faith, but they did not partake of the body and blood of Christ, nor was Christ being

Nevin, in particular, emphasized the idea of the believer becoming more and more “inserted” into the person of Christ (RR. Vol. 2 p. 277). T.F. Torrence went even further with this and argued Christ was wholly present, in the “fulness of his deity and in the fulness of his humanity” (RR. Vol. 2. p283). Both Nevin and Torrence, however, were recovering the presence of Christ in the Lord’s supper, however. Many had begun to view, and perhaps still do, the meal as mostly memorial. Kevin and Torrence, however, wanted to reclaim the presence of God in the meal, rather than simply the