Matthew 26:26-30

THE INSTITUTION OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. This feast of love, designed to bind the hearts of Christians to their Lord and to each other, has, like the person of our Lord Himself, been made the occasion of controversies, alike unrefreshing and fruitless. The blessing of the holy communion does not depend upon the critical interpretation of the Gospel accounts, important as this may be in its place, but upon childlike faith, which receives it. The passages to be compared constantly are: Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:19-20; 1 Corinthians 11:23-29. Our Lord on this occasion founded a permanent ordinance in the Christian Church; a sacrament, pointing to His death in the past, to His life in the present, to His coming in the future; of which it is a Christian duty to partake, and a sin to partake unworthily; it being a communion of believers as members of the same body of Christ (1 Corinthians 10:16-17). The main point respects the meaning of the words:

‘This is my body' (Matthew 26:26). ‘This' in the original is neuter, ‘bread ‘is masculine. ‘This ‘does not mean ‘this bread,' but ‘bread in this service.'

‘Is,' may not have been expressed in the Aramaic language used by our Lord. The relation between the words ‘this' and ‘my body,' cannot be determined by this verb alone. The four leading views may, however, be classed under two senses given to ‘is: ‘

(1) Literal.

(a) Romanist view.

(b) Lutheran.

(2) Figurative.

(a) Zwinglian.

(b) Calvinistic.

(1) Literal interpretation.

(a) Romanist view (called transubstantiation): This is (really and essentially) my body. This (and nothing else) involves the changing of the substance of bread into the real flesh of our Lord, the form only remaining. This view does not give a literal sense, but implies: This becomes (not is) my body. As applied to the cup, it is not at all literal. According to Luke and Paul, in giving the cup, our Lord said not, this wine, but ‘this cup is the new testament in my blood.' This view interprets these words: This wine (our Lord said; ‘this cup') becomes my blood (our Lord said ‘the new testament in my blood ‘). No literal sense of the whole is possible. This view has led to great abuses: It makes of this Sacrament a sacrifice; it makes it efficacious, whatever be the character or state of the partaker; its tendencies have been to exalt the clergy at the expense of the people, to exalt the Sacrament at the expense of the word of God, to exalt forms at the expense of morality.

(b) The Lutheran view (commonly called consubstantiation). This declares that the body of Christ is present in, with, and under the bread. It seeks to avoid the errors of the Roman doctrine, and yet preserve a literal sense, by interpreting our Lord's words: ‘This is (in a certain sense and partially, but not exclusively) my body.' Of course this is not literal, and involves the figure of synecdoche, the additional philosophical difficulty of two substances occupying the same space at the same time, and the ubiquity of Christ's body.

(2) The figurative or symbolical sense. ‘This signifies my body.' This view implies that the bread and wine remain bread and wine in substance as well as form. Comp. 1 Corinthians 11:26-28, where the bread which is eaten is spoken of as ‘bread' three times.

(a) The Zwinglian view: The Lord's Supper is a memorial service, and nothing more. The objection to this view is that it does not exhaust the phrase as a figure. When Christ says, ‘I am the vine,' ‘I am the door,' etc., the lower object used as a figure, has attached to it a higher spiritual sense. In the Lord's Supper the lower object is made a continued sign, emblem, symbol of the greatest spiritual truth. The consequences of this bald view are shown in the lower estimate of the Sacrament, even as a memorial service, which it has almost invariably produced.

(b) The Calvinistic view. This maintains the spiritual or dynamic presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper over against the literal interpretations, and His real presence over against the Zwinglian view.

Both the figurative views agree, that here where bread is the sign, it is signified: that Christ's body was broken for us (1 Corinthians 11:24); that it was given for us (Luke 22:19); further that as bread is the usual means of nourishing natural life, so Christ nourishes our spiritual life (John 6); the Calvinistic view emphasizes the fact that we, as partakers of the same bread, signify our membership in the same mystical body of Christ (1 Corinthians 10:17). In the Passover the sin-offering was consumed, not on the altar, but as food by the household of the offerer. So in the Lord's Supper the bread was not only an emblem of this flesh as ‘wounded for the sins of men,' but also ‘as administered for their spiritual nourishment and growth in grace' (J. Add. Alexander). The Lord's Supper is therefore a feast of the living union of believers with Christ, and a communion of believers with each other. It signifies, and also seals, such union and communion, becoming to the believing heart a means of grace, and to the unworthy partaker a means of condemnation (1 Corinthians 11:27-30). By this is not meant that it conveys, in and of itself, grace and condemnation, any more than in the case of preaching, prayer, the reading of the Scriptures, singing Psalms. The language and feelings of Christians, when engaged in the solemn service, assume as much as this.

Practically all may agree, save those who hold that the Lord's Supper is a sacrifice. This opinion is contrary to the cardinal truth of the gospel, as is manifest not only from a comparison with those passages of the New Testament which speak of the sacrifice of Christ as offered ‘once for all,' but from the injurious effects of the doctrine, as displayed in the corruptions of the Romish Church.