Some Conclusions on the Nature of the Lord’s Supper

Well I’ve nearly finished Babylonian Captivity, and I’ve been immensely encouraged by Luther’s work. I don’t think I agree with Luther on every point, and as of now, would probably be more comfortable in associating myself with Calvin and His undertanding of the sacraments set forth in the Institutes. In an attempt to think through some of these issues a bit more, I re-visited a previous article I posted on the sacraments, and also re-read Horton’s chapter on the sacraments in God of Promise. Here are some of the conclusions which are beginning to emerge in my study of the Lord’s Supper.

“The question is, in what sense is the Lord’s Supper a means of grace, and in what sense is Jesus Christ present within this divinely instituted covenant meal? The great reformer John Calvin rejected Luther’s consubstantiation, Zwingli’s pietistic memorialism and Rome’s heretical transubstantiation. He opted for a more balanced and bliblical view, affirming the presence of Jesus within the covenant meal while denying the lumping together of the sign and the thing signified.

‘Thus Calvin refuses the false dilemma of either annihilating the sign by the signified (Rome) , confusing them (Luther) , or separating them (Zwingli).’ -Horton

Calvin taught that Christ is ascended bodily in heaven, and therefore not to be identified as the elements of bread and wine. Yet in a mysterious working of the Holy Spirit:

‘believers nevertheless receive this same Christ born of Mary and crucified for our sins, but in heaven where he is seated at the Father’s right hand…The Lord’s Supper, therefore, is an irreducible mystery. The Spirit, as Christ promised, takes that which belongs to Christ and gives it to us. He makes us one with Christ, to feed on him as one person. It is the Spirit who not only cries out in our hearts, ‘Abba, Father!’ but who effects our communion even now with the ascended Lord. Therefore, what we receive in the supper is not only confirmation of our own share in the sacrifice once offered, but a real sharing in the one offered.’-Horton

As the preaching of the gospel, from the Scriptures, through verbal proclamation, is a divine means of grace, so partaking in the Lord’s Supper, with the covenant community, through visual elements is also a divine means of grace. Preaching uses words, the Supper uses visual elements. Both are used by God to confer sanctifying grace upon those whom God has called into the divine blessings of the covenant. In the Lord’s Supper we feed upon Jesus and receive the efficacious confirmation of the oath sworn to Adam and his descendents in the covenant of grace. Whats important to note is that God is the one who is acting and initating. Like the covenant of grace which is a unilateral royal grant freely made with believers and their children, so the Lord’s Supper, through the working of the Spirit uniting us to Christ and each other, is a confirmation of the covenant of grace and an efficacious means of grace given for our sanctification.”

As I re-read some of my previous conclusions, I noted a few particular things.

1) The Reformed view of the Lord’s Supper avoids equating or confusing the sign with the thing signified. At the same time, a rich understanding of the Lord’s Supper is maintained which neither compromises (Lutheranism in my mind) or runs to extremes (Zwingli and the Baptist’s.)

2) The Reformed understanding of the Lord’s Supper avoids defining grace as a material or corporeal substance contained within the elements. Instead, Calvin saw the signs as divinely appointed means used by the Holy Spirit to raise our minds and affections to Jesus Christ as He is glorifed and risen in heaven.

3) The Reformed view places the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper within its redemptive-historical context of the covenant. Therefore, we cannot understand this particular sacrament apart from an understanding of the covenant of grace. This particular sacrament, like baptism, is a sign and a seal of God’s covenant blessings.

4) The Reformed view properly undertands the link between orthodox Christology and our theology of the Lord’s Supper. For instance, both Lutheranism and Roman Catholocism fail to apply Chalcedon’s conclusions to their understanding of this sacrament. Christ, in his physical and human nature, cannot be omnipresent. Therefore, whatever Christ’s presence within the Lord’s Supper might be, it cannot be exclusively physical.

So while I love Luther, and have enjoyed his work greatly, I cannot come to terms with his particular understanding of the Lord’s Supper. I’ve made the same conclusion with regards to Lutheran baptism, but I’ll save that post for another day. I’ll close this post with one of my favorite quotes by A.A. Hodge which speaks to this issue. Hodge affirms the real presence of Christ, yet does so in a distinctively Calvinistic way:

“If he [Christ] is not present really and truly, then the sacrament can have no interest or real value to us. It does not do to say that this presence is only spiritual, because that phrase is ambiguous. If it means that the presence of Christ is not something objective to us, but simply a mental apprehension or idea of him subjectively present to our consciousness, then the phrase is false. Christ as an objective fact is as really present and active in the sacrament as are the bread and wine, or the minister or our fellow communicants by our side. If it means that Christ is present only as he is represented by the Holy Ghost, it is not wholly true, because Christ is one person and the Holy Ghost another, and it is Christ who is personally present…It does not do to say that the divinity of Christ is present while his humanity is absent, because it is the entire indivisible divine-human Person of Christ which is present.”
-A.A. Hodge

Revelation 20:4-6, John 5:24-29, and The Two Ressurections

In one of my classes today, Revelation 20 was discussed, and the amillenial understanding of the two ressurections was questioned by my professor. According to this particular professor, the amillenialist is inconsistent in his interpretation of Revelation 20 due to his failure to take literally the two ressurections mentioned in this passage. What warrant does the amillenialist have for his belief that the first ressurection is spiritual in nature, while the second ressurection mentioned is physical? A number of reasons could be cited but I want to name just one. It is my contention that Revelation 20:4-6 cannot be understood apart from John 5:24-29, and that John 5:24-29 provides the didactic lens through which we can rightly understand the nature of the two ressurections. Here are the texts:

John 5:24-29
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.

Rev. 20:4-6
And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and [I saw] the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received [his] mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This [is] the first resurrection.
Blessed and holy [is] he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years

First, it should be obvious that a proper use of the analogy of faith compels us to interpret difficult passages of Scripture through the lenses of the clear and unambiguous statements of others. This is not to say that one passage of Scripture is inferior to the other. It’s only to say, in this case, that a profoundly apocalyptic text like Revelation 20 shouldn’t be interpreted apart from the larger redemptive-historical context that other passages of Scripture provide. Quickly, Jesus here distinguishes between two ressurections. One is explicitly spiritual “He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life”, while the other is explictly physical “the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.” Note also that Jesus does not distinguish between two physical ressurections and two distinct escatalogical judgements. The final physical ressurection is a unanimous event in which both the good and the evil are judged. This contradicts the dispensationalists claim that the bema seat of Christ and the Great White Throne Judgement are two separate events. Jesus taught one single judgement at the end of the age, not two distinct judgements separated by a period of a thousand years. So we have in this beautiful passage an explicit warrant for believing in the spiritual and physical ressurection of believers. This is not intended to be a comprehensive overview of these systems, nor a detailed analysis of these two eschatalogical interpretations. I’m simply affirming the fact that the Scripture elsewhere distinguishes between two distinct types of ressurection, and this reality enables the amillenialist to interpret Revelation 20 in this particular way.

Aaron Orendorf, whose article on these two passages has helped me immensley, makes this comment regarding John 5:

The new, spiritual life Jesus imparts to believers at their conversion is just as real a resurrection as the new, physical life He will impart to them at the final resurrection. Far from overstating the case, both John and Paul alike consistently apply the imagery of resurrection to both the experience and effects of regeneration (Jn. 6:63; 1 Jn. 3:14; Rom. 4:17, 6:1-
8, 8:11; Eph. 2:1-10; Col. 2:12). Moreover, in the followings verses, Jesus unpacks what this resurrecting power means for both the present and future age. In each instance, equally radical language is employed to describe both the resurrection to come and the resurrection that is now.

So we see that the Apostle John, who wrote both the gospel of John and the book of Revelation, clearly distinguishes between two distinct kinds of ressurection: spiritual and physical. The spiritual ressurection is closely linked with regeneration and new life in Christ. The phyical ressurection is exlusively discussed within the context of the one final judgement at the end of the age. The burden of proof lies upon the dispensationalist to prove that Christ and the apostles believed in two physical ressurections, because the perspicuity of the Scriptures on this point is overwhelming.