Addendum
Confessional Lutherans interpret Jesus' words of institution of the Lord's Supper more literally than does the following exposition. Excellent introductions to the Lutheran theology of the Lord's Supper, with comparisons to Reformed theology, are provided by H. Sasse (This is My Body: Luther's Contention for the Real Presence in the Sacrament of the Altar, 1977, Openbook Publishers: Adelaide, South Australia) and by F. Pieper (Christian Dogmatics, Volume III, pp. 290-396, 1950, Concordia Publishing House). A more modern Lutheran (but ancient church) interpretion is presented by David P. Scaer in The Sermon on the Mount: The Church's First Statement of the Gospel, 2000, Concordia Publishing House. See also four views on the sacraments, or see the Book of Concord for the official Lutheran doctrine or the Westminster Confession of Faith XXVII-XXIX for the official Presbyterian doctrine, one of many broadly Reformed doctrines.
Invited by God to a meal that gives eternal nourishment
The Lord's Supper from a Calvinistic perspective
David R. Bickel
March 15, 2005
The problem
The main goal of the Christian is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. That is why we were created. We want to know him, to know his love, grace, mercy, righteousness, justice, power, and majesty. We want to respond joyfully to his gifts with thankful praise for who he is. We want to enjoy the foretaste of his Spirit and expectantly long for the fullness of fellowship with him in the age to come.
"The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." We cannot fulfill our purpose through human willpower alone, so we must pray that we will not fall into temptation, trusting God to do the impossible, to free a slave of sin, to give sight to the spiritually blind, to resurrect the spiritually dead. He gives us what we ask for since we pray in the name of his Son, who came to free the captives, heal the blind, raise the dead, and proclaim the good news of forgiveness. Indeed, he demonstrated the power of his Father's kingdom over Satan's when he cast out demons and healed the sick by his word, proving that he could forgive sins by his word. When we pray that our Father would forgive us and deliver us from the Evil One, we pray for him to do so through the word of his Son.
We pray that he would reveal himself to us through that word, and we not only read his word, but we also hear it from his representatives. Even then, we sometimes find ourselves doubting it or becoming bored with it. We know that the words of Jesus are the words of life, and yet they only seem to lead to a greater knowledge of facts, not to knowing him more deeply. What is missing?
The solution
To those who desired earthly bread more than his word, Jesus said, "Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you... This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent" (John 6:26-29). Instead of seeking things that pass away in this life, they were to believe in Jesus to obtain the food that lasts forever. Jesus then told them to eat that food:
I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh... Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. (John 6:51, 53-57)
They could not have understood him to refer to the Lord's Supper since it had not yet been instituted. Jesus first said that they must "labor" for food that gives eternal life by believing in him, and then he said that only those who eat his flesh and drink his blood have eternal life and will be resurrected on the day of judgement. The fellowship of believers with Jesus is so intimate that he described it as his being in them and as their eating his body and drinking his blood. In fact, he called himself "living bread" because those who ate and drank him had life from him as he had life from his living Father. In other words, just as Jesus lived because he had the life of God in him, those who believe live because they have the life of Jesus in them. The eternal life that believers have is the life that Jesus lives. There is no other eternal life since eternal life is defined as knowing Jesus and through knowing Jesus, knowing his Father (John 14:8-10; 17:3). Those who believe in Jesus through the word become one with him and his Father (John 17:20-21).
What was missing? The original readers of John's Gospel immediately made the connection between eating and drinking Jesus to the Lord's Supper since they were reminded that the holy bread was his body and that the holy wine was his blood every time they met as a church. By recording that message of Jesus, John taught them to share the life of the risen Lord, eating his body and drinking his blood in the Lord's Supper, not in any literal sense, but by having faith in his body given for them and in his blood shed for them, for the forgiveness of their sins. John taught them to take in the life of Jesus spiritually as they ate and drank the Lord's Supper physically, to realize that such close fellowship with him is eternal life. They could experience that deep knowledge of Jesus every time they met as a church, looking forward to its completion in their resurrection.
Like John, Luke and Matthew emphasized that the presence of Jesus is enjoyed in the his Supper, in anticipation of God's presence in the age to come. Jesus loved the disciples so much that he had a burning desire to eat his Last Supper with them, knowing that he would not do so again until it was fulfilled in God's kingdom (Luke 22:14-18). Since human language cannot adequately describe exactly what heaven is like, Jesus had portrayed it as a great feast shared by Jesus and sinners in the coming kingdom of God. So, according to Luke, Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper as a way for his disciples to have that meal with him in this age as they joyfully look forward to its completion in the age to come. Also at the Last Supper, Jesus promised his disciples that he would drink the wine again with his disciples in the kingdom of his Father, when that wine was made new (Matthew 26:29). In the day of the new heavens and new earth, he will again enjoy intimate fellowship with his disciples in the presence of his Father, the King. Until then, his disciples eat bread and drink wine with him in the Lord's Supper as a foretaste of the final Supper.
Since glorifying and enjoying God is the main purpose of the creation of mankind, the fact that he is glorified and enjoyed in the Lord's Supper is enough of a reason for believers to treasure it and make full use of it. As a sacrament, the Lord's Supper sustains and strengthens faith in the gospel, thereby maintaining eternal life through the nourishment of Christ's body and blood. Even so, the Lord's Supper has other eternal benefits that are often overlooked by those who only observe it as a duty:
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Partaking of the Lord's Supper proclaims the death of Christ until he comes (1 Cor 11:26). All who attend a church meeting, including unbelievers, need a clear a proclamation of the good news that Christ's death brings forgiveness. The Lord ordained that the gospel would be proclaimed by his Supper as well as by the word, and his methods cannot be improved by human wisdom.
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Believers receive supernatural assurance of their forgiveness through drinking the blood shed for them, and respond to God in grateful praise (1 Cor 10:16).
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Seeing and tasting the blood and body of Jesus give a tangible, powerful representation of his sacrifice, which movingly conveys the greatness of God's grace, wisdom, and righteousness. This vision of God results in both unreserved love for God and in Christ-like love for others.
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Meditating on the Lord's Supper brings longing for fellowship with him both in the Supper and in its fulfillment on the day of resurrection.
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There is no place for anxiety in those who are powerfully taught that he who spared not the body and blood of his Son, but gave them up for us, will also freely give us all things (Romans 8:32)! As seen above, Jesus told those worried about the cares of this life to instead seek to share his life (John 6:26-27; cf. Luke 12:22-34).
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Those who partake of the Lord's Supper worthily do so discerning the body of Christ, reconciled to other members of his body (1 Cor 11:17-34), which receives its nourishment from its Head (Col 2:19).
In spite of its many benefits, the Lord's Supper brings salvation only in the sense that it helps faith in the word of God, by which believers receive the life of Christ, so it does not impart eternal life in any way that the gospel does not (Gal 2:20). The Supper is no magic solution that ends all problems, and believers who regularly commune with Christ will still struggle with sin in this age, hungering and thirsting for righteousness. Even so, the bread and wine that they eat and drink remind them that they will certainly be filled since they are forgiven. The war against the defeated Accuser continues, but with the help of the wine given to sustain faith in Christ's blood and to testify to its worth, those who obey his commands will conquer by his blood and by their faith and testimony (1 John 5:4-5; Revelation 12:10-11).
More information from DawningRealm.org
The sacraments according to John Calvin
Other interpretations of the Lord's Supper
