And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, "Take, eat; this is My body." 27 Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you. 28 "For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. 29 "But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom." 30 And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

RELATIONSHIP TO THE PASSOVER

Because the Lord's Supper was instituted during the Passover meal, some believe that the Lord's Supper is actually meant to replace the Passover. Indeed, there does seem to be a definite corollary in the significance and symbolism between the Passover sacrifice and meal and the Lord's Supper.

The sacrifice of the Passover lamb had special significance and symbolism. First of all, the sacrifice of the lamb taught the Israelite's that the shedding of blood was necessary for the remission of sins. The sacrifice also pointed forward to the once for all sacrifice that would be made to take away the sins of the world. Lastly, the Passover was a memorial to God's deliverance of his people from their enslavement to the Egyptians.

The Lord's Supper also had a sacrificial meaning as well as a memorial significance.

First of all, the Lord's Supper was meant to be a reminder of the complete sacrifice that Jesus made to deliver us from the bondage of sin. In addition, the Lord's Supper served as a memorial. Matthew 26:28 says,

"For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins."

In 1 Corinthians 5:7, Paul shows us the connection between the Passover and Jesus.

"Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us."

In the Old Testament, the sacrifice was often accompanied by a meal. The sacrificial meals were a testimony to the union of God and his people. The sacrifice of the Passover was also accompanied by the Passover meal. It was during this Passover meal that Jesus instituted the ordinance of the Lord's Supper.

During the early church, the Lord's Supper was often accompanied by an agape, or love-feast. Hence, it seems reasonable to surmise that the Lord's Supper was also a testimony to the communion that believers shared with their Lord Jesus.

THEOLOGICAL MEANING

While most Christians agree that the Lord's Supper is an ordinance that should be practiced regularly (for this is the Lord's command in 1 Corinthians 11:25-26), differences of opinion still exist as to the exact theological meaning of the Lord's Supper, as well as how often it should be practiced and by whom.

Some of the early church fathers, such as Origen, Basil and Gregory of Naziane, maintained that the Lord's Supper was merely symbolic or spiritual in nature. However, other church leaders, Cyril, Gregory of Nyssa, and Chrysostam to name a few, believed that the flesh and blood of Christ were somehow combined with the bread and wine.

Such was the beginning of the debate that has continued to this day. The question is this: Is the Lord's Supper merely a memorial ordinance to be observed, or is Christ actually present within the elements, dispensing grace to those who partake?

One of the great church leaders, Augustine, played a big role in restraining the modern day view of transubstantiation. While Augustine did speak of the bread and wine as the body and blood of Christ, he maintained the distinction between the symbol and that which was being symbolized.

Gradually, during the Middle Ages, Augustine's view of the Lord's Supper was transplanted by the modern day view of transubstantiation, which is held primarily by the Roman Catholic church.

The first deviation from Augustine's view of the Lord's Supper may have appeared as early as 818 AD with Paschasius Radbertus. Though Radbertus introduced the idea of transubstantiation, it was met with strong opposition from Rabanus Maurus and Ratramnus.

In the 11th century, a huge controversy broke out between Berenger of Tours and Lanfranc. Lanfranc said,

"the very body of Christ was truly held in the priest's hand, broken and chewed by the teeth of the faithful." (1)

This view was finally defined by Hildebert of Tours in 1134 and designated as the doctrine of transubstantiation. The doctrine of transubstantiation was formally adopted by the church at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215.

Many questions continued to remain, such as "What is the duration of the change in the elements? and What is the manner of Christ's presence in the elements?"

The final formation of the doctrine of transubstantiation was given by the Council of Trent.

TRANSUBSTANTIATION

The doctrine of transubstantiation states that the elements mystically transform themselves. The bread actually becomes the body of Christ while the wine becomes the actual blood of Christ. In the Roman Catholic doctrine, whoever partakes of the Eucharist (from the Greek work meaning thanksgiving), is actually partaking of Christ's body and blood. Since Christ's death was for the remission of sins, when one partakes of the body and blood, he is receiving a true sacrifice of meritorious grace for his sins. Wayne Grudem, in his book Systematic Theology, gives this description of the Roman Catholic view of The Lord's Supper:

"According to the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Christ. This happens at the moment the priest says, "This is my body" during the celebration of the mass. At the same time as the priest says this, the bread is raised up (elevated) and adored. This action of elevating the bread and pronouncing it to be Christ's body can only be performed by a priest.

When this happens, according to Roman Catholic teaching, grace is imparted to those present,… ,that is, "by work performed," but the amount of grace dispensed is in proportion to the subjective disposition of the recipient of grace. Moreover, every time the mass is celebrated, the sacrifice of Christ is repeated (in some sense), and the Catholic church is careful to affirm that this is a real sacrifice, even though it is not the same as the sacrifice that Christ paid on the cross." (2)

Because the Roman Catholic church believes that the wine actually becomes the blood of Christ, laity were prevented from partaking of the cup for centuries out of fear that the blood of Christ might be spilled.

All of the reformers rejected the doctrine of transubstantiation, though they did so in different degrees.

LUTHER'S VIEW: CONSUBSTANTIATION

Luther rejected the doctrine of transubstantiation in favor of consubstantiation. Consubstantiation denies that the elements actually change, but instead declares that Christ is present in, under, and with the elements so that Christ may be received sacramentally by those who partake. Grudem shares these illustrations of the Lutheran view of consubstantiation:

"The example sometimes given is to say that Christ's body is present in the bread as water is present in a sponge-the water is not the sponge, but is present "in, with, and under" a sponge, and is present wherever the sponge is present. Other examples given are that of magnetism in a magnet or a soul in a body."(3)

A passage that is often used to support this view of the Lord's Supper is 1 Corinthians 10:16,

"The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we beak, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?"

In order to justify his position, Luther taught that Christ was omnipresent in his physical body. When asked how that could be possible, Luther answered that it was possible in his resurrected physical body.

ZWINGLI'S VIEW: COMMEMORATIVE MEMORIAL

Zwingli disagreed with Luther's consubstantiation and gave a figurative interpretation to the words. Zwingli saw the sacrament as primarily an act of commemoration, "a memorial to His death with no supernatural change in the elements" (4), though he didn't deny that Christ is spiritually present.

CALVIN'S REFORMED VIEW: SYMBOLIC COMMEMORATION

Calvin maintained an intermediate position between Luther and Zwingli. Like Zwingli, Calvin denied the bodily presence of the Lord in the sacrament, but he insisted on the spiritual presence of the Lord in the Supper. Zondervan's Pictorial Bible Dictionary explains,

"The doctrine of symbolic commemoration, advanced by Calvin, asserts that the term body and blood are not to be taken literally, but only symbolically, and that the observance of the ordinance is a commemoration of the death of Christ in which Christ is spiritually present. The Lord's Supper is, therefore, a perpetual memorial and seal of the covenanted grace of God, to be observed as a means of consecration and renewal of obedience to the will of God." (5)

Some theologians have tried to lump Zwingli's view and Calvin's view into the same category. It does seem on the surface that the two reformers shared much the same view. Yet, there remains a fundamental difference between the two views. Berkhof, in his Systematic Theology, shares what he believes is the major difference between the two views:

"According to him [Calvin] the sacrament is connected not merely with the past work of Christ, with the Christ who died (as Zwingli seems to think), but also with the present spiritual work of Christ, with the Christ that is alive in glory. He believes that Christ, though not bodily and locally present in the Supper, is yet present and enjoyed in His entire person, both body and blood. He emphasizes the mystical communion of believers with the entire person of the Redeemer. His representation is not entirely clear, but he seems to mean that the body and blood of Christ, though absent and locally present only in heaven, communicate a life-giving influence to the believer when he is in the act of receiving the elements. That influence, though real, is not physical but spiritual and mystical, is mediated by the Holy Spirit, and is conditioned on the act of faith by which the communicant symbolically receives the body and blood of Christ." (6)

The main element lacking in Zwingli's view which Calvin's view retains, according to Berkhof, is the idea of the Lord's Supper as a seal to the believer.

"The Lord's Supper is not only a sign but also a seal. this is lost sight of by a good many in our day, who have a very superficial view of this sacrament, and regard it merely as a memorial of Christ and as a badge of Christian profession." (7)

Berkhof's position on the doctrine becomes clear when he suggests that Zwingli's view falls short in this area of the Lord's Supper as a seal.

"He [Zwingli] occasionally expresses himself to the intent that it is a mere sign of symbol, a commemoration of the Lord's death. And though he speaks of it in passing also as a seal or pledge, he certainly does not do justice to this idea." (8)

BRINGING IT HOME

When looking at the four different views of the theological meaning of the Lord's Supper, we notice that the Roman Catholic view of transubstantiation and Luther's view of consubstantiation both take a literal interpretation of the Lord's words, while Zwingli and Calvin interpret the words in a non-literal or figurative manner.

It appears that the doctrines of transubstantiation and consubstantiation are too mystical and ignore the plain meaning of Scripture. Grudem does a good job of explaining this in his Systematic Theology;

"In response to the Roman Catholic teaching on the Lord's Supper, it must be said that it first fails to recognize the symbolic character of Jesus' statements when he declared, "This is my body," or, "This is my blood." Jesus spoke in symbolic ways many times when speaking of himself. He said, for example, "I am the true vine" (John 15:1), or "I am the door; if any one enters by me, he will be saved" (John 10:9), or I am the bread which came down from heaven." In a similar way, when Jesus says, "This is my body," he means it in a symbolic way…None of the disciples present would have thought that the loaf of bread that Jesus held in his hand was actually his physical body, for they could see his body before their eyes. They would have naturally understood Jesus' statement in a symbolic way. Similarly, when Jesus said, "This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood" (Luke 22:20), he certainly did not mean that the cup was actually the new covenant, but that the cup represented the new covenant." (9)

Grudem goes on to say that the Roman Catholic view also fails to recognize "the finality and completeness of Christ's sacrifice once for all time for our sins." (10) Grudem then continues by pointing to the Biblical teaching of the book of Hebrews.

Much of the same argumentation could be made against Luther's view of consubstantiation, since his view utilizes the literal interpretation of the passages as well.

Calvin's view seems more Biblically sound, yet to some theologians, even he goes too far. Henry C Thiessen, in his Lectures in Systematic Theology, states,

"It is clear from this that Calvin held that those who partook by faith received all the blessings of salvation by the mere eating and drinking of the Lord's Supper." (11)

After quoting a section from the Westminster Confession, Thiessen continues,

"It may be questioned whether even this view does not go beyond the teaching of Scripture. The Biblical view seems to represent the Lord's Supper as a memorial to the death of Christ and as our participating in the benefits of that death; but not as an act by and in which we do these things. We would not rob this holy ordinance of any of its meaning, but seek to uphold its Scriptural significance to the full. Yet there is danger on this theory that the mere observance of the Supper may be regarded as conferring grace." (12)

It seems to me that the memorial view is the most sensible and Biblically sound. Lewis Sperry Chafer and John F. Walvoord, in their book Major Bible Themes, agree.

"The Scriptures seem to support the memorial view, and rather than the elements containing or symbolizing the presence of Christ, they are instead a recognition of His absence. As part of this, the Lord's Supper is to be observed 'till he come.'" (13)

OTHER ISSUES

Concerning the issue of who may participate, it is obvious from Scripture that the Lord's Supper is for believers who are experiencing fellowship with the Lord.

As to how often we should administer the Lord's Supper, we can only say that it should be done regularly. The example of the early church seems to suggest that they did it often, perhaps every time they met. Yet we cannot say that the church must administer the ordinance every single week.

CONCLUSION

The ordinance of the Lord's Supper is rich in theological and symbolic meaning. There seems to be some Biblical evidence that the Lord's Supper is a replacement for the Passover. However, this idea cannot be supported directly from Scripture; the meaning can only be inferred through the symbolism of the two events.

After examining the different views of the theological meaning of the Lord's Supper, it seems that the Zwinglian view and the Calvinist view hold the most weight with regard to the plain meaning of Scripture. Though these two views are similar and easily indistinguishable, Calvin does seem at times to allegorize the meaning of the text.

Therefore, it seems to me that the Zwinglian view makes the most sense. His view says that the Lord's Supper is a commemorative memorial whereby the participant is reminded of the redemption provided by the Lord Jesus Christ through his death on the cross.

ENDNOTES

1. L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1941), 645.
2. Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 991.
3. Ibid., 994.
4. Lewis Sperry Chafer & John F. Walvoord, Major Bible Themes (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974), 271.
5. Merril C. Tenney, The Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1966), 492.
6. L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1941), 653.
7. Ibid., 650-51.
8. Ibid., 653.
9. Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 992-93.
10. Ibid., 993.
11. Henry C. Thiessen, Lectures in Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971), 430.
12. Ibid., 431.
13. Lewis Sperry Chafer & John F. Walvoord, Major Bible Themes (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974), 271-72.