Grace Received from Lord's Supper?

[Contarini]

:Like, I know what I should believe, but it doesn’t seem like the middle ground, this Reformed view is Biblical. It seems like it’s either the Baptistic or Catholic view, either or.
I’m not going to try to defend the Lord’s Supper as a memorial feast.:

Fine, but I’m genuinely puzzled as to how you could possibly think that the “middle ground” position is less Biblical than the purely memorial position. Scripture seems to me to teach pretty clearly that when believers receive the bread and wine they are receiving the Body and Blood of Christ. I don’t think a fair interpretation of Scripture can evade this point, on which Calvinists (in the genuine sense, not the broader Reformed who have often chosen to follow Zwingli), Lutherans, Catholics, and Orthodox all agree.

Zwingli’s pet example of Jesus’ statements “I am the bread of life” or “I am the vine” or “I am the door” reinforce my position, IMHO. When Jesus says “I am the bread of life” he means something like “I do for you what bread does; I feed you spiritually as bread feeds you physically.” The grammar of “this is my body” is the reverse, however. “This is my body” is not equivalent to “I am the bread of life,” but rather, if we follow the parallel, must mean something like “this bread that I am now giving you does for you what my body does.” In other words, whether or not the bread and wine are metaphysically or physically transformed, they are functionally transformed so that they are means by which Christ does for us what only His Body and Blood can do. I don’t understand how one could not see this position as Biblical.

Sorry if I’m belaboring the point, but I just don’t get this “either/or” claim of yours.

In Christ,

Edwin

 

[Reformed_Rob]

Contarini,

I’m the one belabouring the point, perhaps to no avail. There’s lots I’m not aware of, and probably the Reformed view is perfectly reasonable. I was just asking because none of the verses the Catechism quotes are decisive on it.

Some Reformed guys don’t even think that John 6 is referring to the Lord’s Supper, they just say that feeding on Him is believing on Him.

 

[RobbyS]

Contarini:

Rob,

Let me try to defend the classical Reformed view as briefly as I can. (My own position is that this is barely adequate–I much prefer the Lutheran or Orthodox view, or even full-blown transubstantiation–but I think Calvin and the WCF do maintain the essentials, as the pure memorialists do not.)

1 Cor. 10 clearly states that the bread and Cup are a communion in Christ’s Body and Blood. This strongly implies that receiving the bread and wine entails receiving the Body and Blood. At the same time, however, John 6 ties eating and drinking Christ’s Body and Blood to faith. Put those two texts together, and it would appear that those who believe eat and drink Christ’s Body and Blood in a particular and significant way when they receive the bread and wine of the Eucharist.

The words of institution lead to a similar conclusion. Assuming for the moment that they are not completely literal, they clearly state that what Jesus is offering his disciples is His Body and Blood. If the bread and wine are not literally transformed, then clearly the gift of Body and Blood is linked to the reception of bread and wine in some other way. Again, given that we know already from John 6 (and from the NT generally) that we are united to Christ by faith, a reasonable interpretation of the words of institution is that as our bodies receive the bread and wine, our souls receive the Body and Blood of Christ by faith (which is clearly the only way we can ever receive any spiritual benefit from Christ).

I’m not sure on what basis you regard the memorial view as more Biblical than the position I’ve just laid out, which I take to be essentially that of Calvin and of the major Reformed Confessions (though there are differences of nuance among them). Remember that a Reformed hermeneutic (as set forth at the beginning of the WCF) does not require that everything be set forth explicitly in Scripture but rather allows for “necessary reasons.” Just such necessary reasons, it seems to me, can be used to argue for this genuine “via media” between bodily presence and memorialism. I think the arguments for this “spiritual presence” view against memorialism are pretty solid, and I’d be interested in hearing your arguments to the contrary. (I do not think that the arguments for this view against the Lutheran or Catholic position are as strong, but I think it is a possibly legitimate alternative to those more robust views of the Real Presence. But we don’t need to argue that point here.) I simply don’t see a Biblical basis for memorialism. “The bread which we break is a communion in the Body of Christ” rules out that option quite thoroughly, it seems to me.

I’d recommend reading Calvin’s discussion of this in Institutes 4.17. Also John Nevin’s 19th-century Mystical Presence.

In Christ,

Edwin

I was surprised when I read what Calvin said in “The Institutes” that he came so close to the Catholic view. As for me given that we are talking aboout The Risen Lord that any “spiritual presence” would be the same as his actual presence.