The Lord's Supper - Part 1

I recently started to understand that though the battles which led to the Reformation were about salvation by grace vs. Salvation by sacramentalism, the roots of the issue went back a bit further. There would be no debate on the issue of faith over works had Pasaschius Radbertus not proposed the theory of transubstantiation in the 9th century.

Radbertus attempted to explain how Christians could partake of the "flesh and blood" of Christ in the Eucharist by appealing to rather literal and metaphysical explanations. In stating that the bread and cup are actually physically transformed into the body and blood of Christ, he set in motion an unfortunate chain of events. The Roman church officially adopted transubstantiation as a doctrine in the 12th century. As this became a central tenet of the church, certain side effects were felt.

The role of the priest was inevitably elevated as he presided over a real and miraculous sacrifice. Masses were said in the absence of laypeople on behalf of others living or dead as this sacrifice was increasingly seen as powerful to remit sin. Since Christ was physically present in the bread, his body and blood were both taken to be present in the bread, so laypeople were no longer offered the cup in communion. The meaning of the Lord's supper became increasingly mysterious, fearsome, beyond the reach of the laypeople and effective in the forgiveness of sins. This effect of elevating the priesthood and making the mass a mysterious miracle was exacerbated by the fact that the mass was said in Latin at a time when the people no longer understood Latin. It was inevitable that many would see participating in the mass as a direct means of salvation. Hus and Wycliff recognized the change in understanding of the Lord's Supper long before Luther came on the scene.

It is odd, however, that such a literal, physical view of the sacrament of Holy Communion came to be applied only to this sacrament. Jesus said, it is argued, "this is my body". He said, "unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you". So, it was reasoned, and still is in Roman Catholic circles, the bread and cup literally become the body and blood and we truly eat his flesh and blood.



But no one teaches that because Jesus said "you must be born of water and the spirit" that we are literally born all over again. Paul taught that in baptism we are buried with Christ, yet no one understands that to mean that we are literally buried, that in baptism we physically die and are resurrected with Christ.

Sacraments had traditionally been understood to be physical signs that represent a spiritual reality. It can more accurately be said that we are not literally buried with Christ in baptism, but we are truly buried with him in baptism. We are not literally "born again" as Jesus explained to Nicodemus, but that does not mean we are not truly born from above.

It cannot be ignored that Paul taught in 1 Corinthians 10 that in eating the bread and drinking the cup we are "participants" in the once for all sacrifice of Christ and in the next chapter that to eat and drink unworthily is to sin against his body and blood. But can it not be said that we can be truly participants in his body and blood without literally eating his flesh and blood? When Jesus tells his disciples in John 6, in explanation of his words "you must eat my flesh and drink my blood" that "it is the Spirit that gives life and the flesh counts for nothing", it seems apparent that Jesus meant what he said, but not in a literal, physical sense.

This appears to be the explanation of many of the church fathers, which will be the subject of future posts. There is no doubt that virtually all the fathers of the church held a view of the Lord's Supper that went well beyond mere memorialism, as is practiced in most evangelical circles. There is really no question that a "real presence" was believed from the beginning of the history of the church. When we eat and drink, we truly "participate" in the once for all sacrifice of Christ. But it does not follow that a literal, physical transformation of the elements is a necessary understanding of how that is possible.

Controversy surrounding Radbertus' explanation of the Eucharist erupted as soon as he proposed it. The side effects of his views and the implied salvation by this "work" of the priesthood sparked the reformation.

Unfortunately, most evangelicals know next to nothing about Radbertus and the significant shift in views on the Lord's Supper and salvation itself which his views led to. They know even less about the early church and its views on the Lord's Supper. Zwingli's subsequent rejection of all the trappings of medieval Catholicism became the norm for most Evangelicals. Most evangelicals are completely unaware that Zwingli's views would be almost totally foreign to believers in the early church.

But if we go back to the early church, maybe we can find understanding that mitigates both the extreme of hyper literalism on one side and bare memorialism on the other.