The Question of the Lord’s Supper has occupied the minds of Christians since the early church. Questions like: “Does it really become the body and blood of Jesus?” “Is it only symbolic?” “Is it something in between a symbol and the body and blood of Christ?” “How should we celebrate the Lord’s Supper?” And even if none of you have asked those questions, you may have asked, “Why do we celebrate it once a week (like we do in my church)?” or, “At what age should Children participate in the Eucharist?” These are questions I’ve wrestled with myself.
The questions seem simple enough, but once you get down to it, they are rather theological and complicated. I’m not going to answer all the questions, and I’m certainly not able to offer satisfying answers for everyone because the church is diverse. Of course, I would love everyone to understand the Lord’s Supper the way I do, but that isn’t my purpose here, and even so, I’m still learning. But one thing I am sure, the Lord’s Supper is a divine encounter, and we ought to take it as seriously, as the Christian Church has always done up until some of the more contemporary expressions of Christianity (I’m generalizing here).
The Eucharist in the Church Fathers
Here is just a sampling from many of the early Church Fathers:
Irenaeus says, “If the Lord (Jesus) were from other than the Father, how could he rightly take bread, which is of the same creation as our own, and confess it to be his body and affirm that the mixture in the cup is his blood?” (Against Heresies 4:33–32 [A.D. 189]).
Ignatius of Antioch writes, “They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in his goodness, raised up again.” (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2–7:1 [A.D. 110]).
Justin Martyr proclaims, “For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus” (First Apology 66 [A.D. 151]).
Augustine once preached, “What you see is the bread and the chalice; that is what your own eyes report to you. But what your faith obliges you to accept is that the bread is the body of Christ and the chalice is the blood of Christ” (Sermons 272 [A.D. 411]).
It’s not surprising then that at least two Church Fathers had to address the ancient Roman misunderstanding and accusation that Christians are cannibals.
The theology of the Lord’s Supper was later developed in the Middle Ages by the theologian, Thomas Aquinas who was influenced by the Greek Philosopher, Aristotle. He developed the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper called transubstantiation. The Catholic Church still teaches this. The Reformers pushed against this doctrine, and you have several other views from there.
Martin Luther taught consubstantiation, meaning that “the body of Christ is present ‘in, with (con), and under’ the substance of bread.”[1] And the same for the blood of Christ and the wine. In other words, “this is my body” and “this is my blood” are to be taken quite literally. Jesus Christ is said to be truly and completely present in the Eucharist.[2]
Ulrich Zwingli, the Swiss reformer opposed both the Catholic and Luther’s views and took a very different approach. He emphasized the memorial aspect of the Lord’s supper, and took Jesus’s words, “This is my body” as symbolic.
John Calvin attempted to reconcile Luther’s and Zwingli’s views by arguing for the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Lord’s Supper. That is, Jesus Christ is truly present in the Lord’s Supper. And while bread and wine are symbols, they are not empty.
This is of course an oversimplification of the various views.
Many contemporary churches today take the Lord’s Supper as merely symbolic, and its celebration becomes obligatory. The idea of the bread and wine being symbolic is a recent development. Others distance themselves from tradition and ritual and rarely celebrate it at all, and if or when they do it’s often flippant and irreverent (I’m generalizing again).
The good news is some influential ministers in contemporary churches like Gavin Ortlund and Francis Chan have revisited the Lord’s Supper and are coming out saying that there is something profound happening when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper. The bread and wine are far more than mere symbols—this is exciting!
Biblical Context
Okay, so what does the Bible say about it? The Lord’s Supper is instituted in the first three Gospels, Matthew 26:26–28; Mark 14:22–24; and Luke 22:19–20, and we read about it in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 11:23-26). Ephesians 5:25–32 and Hebrews 13:10 also echo eucharistic themes. But what about the Gospel of John? Almost all evangelical Christians tell us that John omits the Lord’s Supper altogether. I beg to differ. Although we don’t have the institution of the Eucharist in John’s Gospel, as we do in the other Gospels, John creatively weaves the themes of the Lord’s Supper at several points in his Gospel. It’s more theological than the other Gospels when it comes to the Lord’s Supper. So, what are these themes, you might ask?
John structures his Gospel around seven miraculous signs. I don’t think it is incidental that two of the seven signs are Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding at Cana (John 2:1–12) and multiplying five loaves of bread when feeding the five thousand (John 6:1–14). If these are miraculous signs, one begins to wonder whether there isn’t something miraculous about the Lord’s Supper, or at the very least, the Lord’s Supper becomes a divine encounter with our Lord.
The next day after Jesus multiplies the bread, Jesus gives a lengthy discourse about being the Bread of Life, and that his flesh is real food and his blood is real drink (John 6:25–71).
And if you still don’t believe that John 6 has anything to do with the Lord’s Supper, consider the five following parallels in John’s Gospel and the institution of the Lord’s Supper in the other Gospels:
1. All four gospels situate their respective accounts of the Eucharist during the time of the Jewish Passover (John 6:4 vis-à-vis Matthew 26:2; 18–19; Luke 22:15)
2. The New Covenant is implied by comparing the Bread of Life and the Bread of Heaven to the manna that Moses and the ancient Israelites ate in the wilderness (John 6:32–33; 48–50). Matthew 26:28; Mark 14:24; and Luke 22:20 all reference the New Covenant.
3. Jesus identifies his body as bread that is to be eaten in all four Gospels (e.g. John 6:51, 53–56 vis-à-vis Matthew 26:26; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19).
4. Jesus does not identify his blood as wine in John 6. However, he does say that his blood is real drink and that unless you drink the blood of the Son of Man, you will have no life (John 6:53–56). Similarly, Jesus also instructs his followers in the other Gospels to drink the wine which is his blood (Matthew 26:27–29; Mark 14:24–25; and Luke 22:18, 20).
5. Jesus predicts his betrayer in all four eucharistic accounts, including in John 6 (John 6:64 vis-à-vis Matthew 26:20–25; Mark 14:18–21; Luke 22:21–23).
I mentioned the manna that Moses and the ancient Israelites ate while they were in the wilderness. The Israelites had just escaped Egypt and were wandering in the wilderness where food was scant. They grumbled against Moses and Aaron. And the Lord tells Moses that he will rain down bread from heaven for them. In the morning there was dew around the camp and once that had dried up, there were thin flakes like frost on the ground. And so, they asked one another, מָן הוּא which is where we get the word manna from, meaning “What is it?” Moses responds, “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat.” (Exodus 16:1–15). It looked like white coriander seed and tasted like wafers made with honey (Exodus 16:31). While there is a strong symbolic connection between manna and the wafers used in Holy Communion, it’s interesting that their physical appearance looks similar—though that is probably coincidental.
It is in this context that Jesus comes along proclaiming, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.” (John 6:51).
Feeding on Christ
From John 6:26 Jesus points to the previous day when he multiplied the loaves of bread and then reminds us of the manna that the Israelites ate in the Wilderness. And while manna was said to come from heaven because it mysteriously appeared on the ground, Jesus refers to himself as the living bread, that is, this bread is alive, and that this bread truly did come from heaven. Not only is this bread alive it is immortal and gives life to the entire world. If you eat of it, Jesus tells us that you will live forever, talking of eternal life in him.
Not surprisingly, the Jews began to argue among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” (John 6:52). To put it in real-time, imagine I stood up and said, “Come everyone, take out your knives and forks, today you are going to eat me.” You would run away, wouldn’t you? Well, that’s exactly what many people did. John writes, “On hearing it, many of his disciples said, ‘This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?’” and from that “time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.” (John 6:60, 66). If eating Jesus’s flesh and drinking his blood was symbolic only, one wonders why Jesus did not stop them and say before they left, “Wait, you’ve misunderstood, I’m using picture language.” Instead, he lets them walk out on him.
This is a hard teaching, and while it was never a problem for the early Christians, many Christians today struggle to accept it and therefore make it more agreeable by arguing for a figure of speech. But it seems to me that Jesus is quite serious and intentional in his words in John 6:53–58,
… Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.
Celebrating the Lord’s Supper as a Divine Encounter
Not everyone would agree with me, but I like to think of the Lord’s Supper as Jesus offering himself to us as a kind of incarnation, where Jesus comes to us in body, blood, and soul in the elements of bread and wine in a way that is most tangible and intimate, so that we may encounter with him.
Whenever the children from the Sunday school come up for communion, my wife Catherine explains to them what it means, and they pray together and confess their sins. Some time ago, when one of my sons came up, he asked at the top of his voice, as any child might, “Is this the blood of Jesus?” Do children understand what is going on at the Lord’s Supper? Sometimes in their innocence, they understand more than we do and have more faith than you and I. After all, the mysteries of God are so deep, that none of us have a full understanding of any of them. And yet Jesus calls us to himself to encounter him, just like he called the little children to himself, so that he may “place his hands on them and pray for them.” We never want to be like those who hindered the children from coming to Jesus and encountering him. (Matthew 19:13-15).
We encounter Jesus by feeding on him, the true bread of heaven. Jesus Christ offered his body on the cross, and now he offers it to us in the Lord’s Supper, it truly embodies his presence, because it unites in itself his sacrificial death and resurrection so that we may encounter the crucified and risen Christ! Once you begin to understand the Lord’s Supper as such a divine encounter with Jesus, why would you not want to celebrate it every week?
The Lord’s Supper shows us that Jesus’s substitutionary death is a new covenant extension of the Old Testament Passover, the temple’s rituals and sacrifices, and the miraculous provision of manna feeding the ancient Israelites. It’s not our blood, but Jesus’s blood that is poured out for the forgiveness of our sins. The Eucharist ties all of Scripture together in a single event, stretching back into the Old Testament and yet anticipating a future kingdom, a future hope, a hope in Christ Jesus. It moves from the wedding in Cana and anticipates the Marriage Supper of the Lamb in the consummated kingdom (Revelation 19:9).
[1] Allison, Gregg. 2011. Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine. Grand Rapids: Zondervon. Page 649.
[2] Ibid.
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