Spiritual presence

Sharing in Christ by the Spirit

Paul describes the Supper this way:

Is not the cup of blessing that we bless a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?

1 Corinthians 10:16

‘Participation’, koinōnia (κοινωνία), is a real sharing. The Reformed take from this that the Supper is more than calling Christ to mind: it is sharing in him. Yet Christ ascended bodily, and "Heaven must take Him in until the time comes for the restoration of all things" (Acts 3:21). How can we on earth share in his body in heaven? The Reformed find the answer in the Holy Spirit, who dwells both in Christ and in us and truly joins what space divides. So Calvin urged believers not to drag Christ down into the bread but to lift up their hearts to him in heaven Calvin, Institutes 4.17, as Paul says: "strive for the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God" (Colossians 3:1).

When the crowd stumbled at Jesus' words about eating his flesh, he said, "The Spirit gives life; the flesh profits nothing" (John 6:63). Augustine explains that Jesus "tells them now, that He should ascend to heaven whole and entire" Augustine, and elsewhere he urges: "Let us not eat Christ’s flesh only in the Sacrament, for that do many wicked men, but let us eat to spiritual participation" Augustine.

How the church confessed it

Calvin taught in his Short Treatise on the Holy Supper (1541) that believers truly partake of Christ's body and blood through the Holy Spirit Calvin, Short Treatise on the Holy Supper, and in 1549 he and Bullinger of Zurich reached a common statement on the sacraments The Consensus Tigurinus. The Heidelberg Catechism teaches that to eat Christ's body is not only to believe in his sufferings and so receive forgiveness, but also to be united more and more to his body by the Holy Spirit, who dwells both in Christ and in us Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 76. The Westminster Confession puts it exactly:

the body and blood of Christ being then not corporally 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.

Westminster Confession 29.7

The Thirty-Nine Articles teach that the body of Christ is given, taken and eaten in the Supper "only after an heavenly and spiritual manner", and that "the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith" Thirty-Nine Articles, art. 28. Reformed Baptists who hold the Second London Confession confess the same spiritual feeding Second London Confession, ch. 30.

Where the traditions differ

Spiritual presence stands between other views. The Reformed reject transubstantiation, and the Lutheran teaching that Christ's body is present in, with and under the bread (consubstantiation): a sign must remain a sign to bear witness to what it signifies, and Christ's body, a true human body, is in heaven. Lutherans answer that this view does not give the words "this is My body" (Matthew 26:26) their full weight, and that even the unworthy receive Christ's body.

On the other side, the Reformed confess more than memorialism: the Supper is not only remembering a Christ who is far away but sharing in a Christ who feeds us now by his Spirit. Memorialists reply that communion with Christ is not bound to the Supper but is enjoyed by faith at all times. These differences have long run among evangelicals too. See the lesson The Supper: Christ's spiritual presence.