Clearly, Scripture teaches that Christ was present at the institution of the Lord’s supper. Most Christian scholars also believe in the presence of Christ in the celebration of the sacrament of the Lord’s supper. The question is “What is the relation of the sign and the thing being signified?” or “What is the nature of the presence of Christ in the Lords supper?” The sacramental union refers to the relation between the elements of the sacrament (the “sign”) and the thing being signified.
There has been a difference of opinion among theologians throughout church history regarding the presence of Jesus Christ in the sacrament of the Lord’s supper. Jesus instituted this sacrament during the last Passover in the so-called “upper room” on the night before Christ’s crucifixion.
The issue regarding the presence of Christ in the Lord’s supper is manifested generally by four different views.
The Roman Catholics hold to the physical presence of the body and blood of the human Jesus through their doctrine of transubstantiation. They believe that the elements, the bread and wine, substantially change into the body and blood of Christ, while the elements continue to look and taste like bread and wine after the change. The properties of the elements remain the same though their substance is changed.
Roman Catholics attempt to support their view with Christ’s statement at the institution “this is my body” (Luke 22:19; Matt. 26:26; Mark 14:22) as well as John 6:50-51. But these passages do not support a literal and physical understanding as is made clear, I think, in John 6:63. Jesus is speaking figuratively and these verses demand a spiritual interpretation. There are other Scriptural rebuttals to the Roman Catholic view as well as other objections based on the violation of human senses which is beyond the scope of this post.
The Lutherans rejected the doctrine of transubstantiation and substituted their doctrine of the real physical presence of the whole person of Jesus, body and blood, in, under, and with the elements. This physical presence view, like that of the Roman Catholics, lacks Scriptural support for some of the same reasons mentioned earlier. And both “physical presence” views require the omnipresence of Jesus’ human nature, body and blood, when the word of God makes it clear that human bodies are local and cannot be in multiple places at once. The resurrected body of Jesus is located in heaven.
Some denominations believe that there is no real presence, physical or otherwise, of the body and blood of Christ but that the sacrament is a mere commemoration of what Christ did for believers. They believe Christ is present spiritually through His divine nature by the communicant’s faith. This view seems to have been held by Zwingli. But this still misses the mark because just as Jesus was present at the institution of the Lord’s supper, He is really present, body and blood, in the sacrament. But how?
The fourth view is that held by Reformed Protestants. Under this view, though there is no physical presence of the body and blood of Christ, yet there is a real presence in the sacrament of the Lord’s supper. The Real Presence of Christ in the Lord’s supper has been described by Berkhof this way:
[T]he body and blood of Christ, though absent and locally present only in heaven, communicate a life-giving influence to the believer when he is in the act of receiving the elements. That influence, though real, is not physical but spiritual and mystical, is mediated by the Holy Spirit, and is conditioned on the act of faith by which the communicant symbolically receives the body and blood of Christ.[1]
Christ has two natures, human and divine. One is everywhere at once (the divine nature) and one is only locally present (the human nature). However, these two natures have a hypostatic union which makes the two natures inseparable but not combined or mixed or confused or converted. Thus the two natures cannot be separated but are distinguishable, and neither loses its substance or attributes by this union. His two natures are without change, without confusion, without division, and without separation. Jesus is thus one person with two distinct and inseparable natures.
It is because of this intimate connection between the human and divine nature, and by the real presence of the divine nature that through the instrumentality of the Holy Spirit there is a real presence of the body and blood of Jesus in the Lord’s supper. As Dr. A.A. Hodge has written, “the virtues and effects of the sacrifice of the body of the Redeemer on the cross are made present and are actually conveyed in the sacrament to the worthy receiver by the power of the Holy Ghost, who uses the sacrament as His instrument according to His sovereign will.”
[1] Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (The Banner of Truth Trust, 2021), 683 (emphasis added).
