Outline:
A. Excursus: The Origins of the Term “Real Presence.”
2. Explication.
3. Appendix: Francis Turretin on the “Real (Spiritual) Presence.”
4. Appendix: Archibald Alexander Hodge on the “Real (Spiritual) Presence.”
5. Appendix: Michael Horton on the “Real (Spiritual) Presence.”
1. The Question Stated. Return to Outline.
Phrases such as “the bread is the body of the Lord,” and “the wine is His blood,” or “the consecrated elements of bread and wine become the flesh and blood of Christ,” are nearly ubiquitous amongst historical writers. However the question at hand is not “is the bread His flesh” and “is the wine His blood?” For no Christian doubts that this is true. But rather the question to be considered is “in what way is the bread His flesh and the wine His blood? And in what way do believers subsequently feed upon Christ in the Lord’s supper? Carnally/corporeally? Or spiritually?” In the following articles I have endeavored to show that the Church has historically understood the bread to be His body and the wine to be His blood in a spiritual or mystical manner, not a carnal or corporeal one. (This is the view which is espoused by virtually all of the historical Protestant confessions. Click here for primary source documentation.)
A further clarification: Christ’s presence in the supper is spiritual, however it does not follow that it is therefore subjective. Rome’s apologists have often attempted to create an antithetical pairing between a “spiritual” presence (which they term subjective) and a “carnal/corporeal” presence (which they term objective). However to phrase the question in such a way is blatantly fallacious (the informal fallacy being committed here is known as the argumentum falsum dilemma or the “false dilemma argument”). Objectivity/reality is most certainly not predicated upon carnality/corporeality. (I have included quotations from Francis Turretin, Archibald Hodge and Michael Horton for further clarification; see the three appendices at the end of this article.) G. B. Caird notes that:
The fallacy in this objection lies in the assumption that symbols are invariably substitutes for the reality they signify, bearing the same relation to it as a still-life painting to real fruit and fish, whetting but not satisfying the appetite. But many symbols, such as a kiss, a handshake and the presentation of a latchkey, are a means, or even the means, of conveying what they represent. The most natural way of taking the copula in the eucharistic saying, therefore, is ‘represents’, with the understanding that Jesus intended the gift of bread to convey the reality it symbolised. (G. B. Caird, The Language and Imagery of the Bible, [London: Duckworth, 1980], pp. 101-102.)
John Calvin succinctly sums up the issue with these words:
But greatly mistaken are those who conceive no presence of flesh in the Supper unless it lies in the bread. For thus they leave nothing to the secret working of the Spirit, which unites Christ himself to us. To them Christ does not seem present unless he comes down to us. As though, if he should lift us to himself, we should not just as much enjoy his presence! The question is therefore only of the manner, for they place Christ in the bread, while we do not think it lawful for us to drag him from heaven. Let our readers decide which one is more correct. Only away with that calumny that Christ is removed from his Supper unless he lies hidden under the covering of bread! For since this mystery is heavenly, there is no need to draw Christ to earth that he may be joined to us. (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 4.17.31; trans. The Library of Christian Classics: Volume XXI: Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion: In Two Volumes (Vol. XXI: Books III.xx to IV.xx), ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, [Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960], p. 1403.)
Compare with G. W. Bromiley:
…spiritual does not mean that it is isolated from the world of true reality. It means that it is of the Holy Spirit. (G. W. Bromiley, The Unity and Disunity of the Church, [Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1958], p. 50.)
See further David Dickson:
…the body of Christ in this sacrament, is spiritually eaten by believers, and his blood is spiritually drunken. …a spiritual presence, is a true and real presence, because it comes and flows from true and real causes, namely, from faith, and the Holy Spirit… (David Dickson, Truth’s Victory Over Error: Or, the True Principles of the Christian Religion, Stated and Vindicated, [Glasgow: John Bryce, 1772], p. 272.)
For additional clarification see Michael Horton quoted in section 5 (Appendix) below.
Note: Click here for more on the various views of the Lord’s supper.
A. Excursus: The Origins of the Term “Real Presence.” Return to Outline.
It is noteworthy that the term “real presence” was first coined by individuals who rejected the medieval doctrine of transubstantiation. The colocation appears in the fourteenth-century, first being utilized by John of Paris and then by John Wycliffe (cf. Darwell Stone, A History of the Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist: In Two Volumes: Vol. I, [London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1909], pp. 361ff.). The phrase entered into the common vernacular in the nineteenth-century, being popularized by the writings of the Anglican theologian and historian Edward Bouverie Pusey (Idem, Vol. II, pp. 534ff.). Pusey writes:
On this combined teaching of our Articles, Catechism and Liturgy, we believe the doctrine of our Church to be, that in the Communion, there is a true, real, actual, though Spiritual, (or rather the more real, because Spiritual) Communication of the Body and Blood of Christ to the believer through the Holy Elements; that there is a true, real, spiritual, Presence of Christ at the Holy Supper; more real than if we could, with Thomas, feel Him with our hands, or thrust our hands into His side; that this is bestowed upon faith, and received by faith, as is every other Spiritual gift, but that our faith is but a receiver of God’s real, mysterious, precious, Gift; that faith opens our eyes to see what is really there, and our hearts to receive it; but that It is there independently of our faith. (Edward Bouverie Pusey, A Letter to the Right Rev. Father in God, Richard, Lord Bishop of Oxford, on the Tendency to Romanism Imputed to Doctrines Held of Old, as Now, in the English Church, [Oxford: J. H. Parker, 1839], p. 128.)
2. Explication. Return to Outline.
James Ussher:
…the question betwixt our adversaries and us being, not whether Christ’s body be turned into bread, but whether bread be turned into Christ’s body, the words in St John, if they be pressed literally, serve more strongly to prove the former than the latter.
(James Ussher, Archbishop Usher’s Answer to a Jesuit: With Other Tracts on Popery, [Cambridge: Pitt Press, 1835], “An Answer to a Challenge Made by a Jesuit in Ireland,” Ch. 3: Of The Real Presence, p. 42.)
Michael F. Bird:
The early church probably arrived at this conclusion of a “real presence” by reading Jesus’ words of institution (Matt 26:26–29) in light of the Johannine eucharistic discourse (John 6:26–65). The question is: What kind of presence is found in the Eucharist, and by what instrument is that presence communicated to us?
(Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction, [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013], p. 790.)
Tony Lane:
Is the bread Christ’s body? Clearly it is, because Jesus said so – but what does that mean? It is not true in a crudely literal way – Jesus does not ask us to engage in cannibalism. But many statements are deeply true without being literally true. (Tony Lane, Exploring Christian Doctrine: A Guide to What Christians Believe, [Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2014], p. 257.)
Johannes Wollebius:
It is one thing to say that Christ is present in the bread, and quite another to say that he is present in the holy supper. Christ is present by his deity and his Spirit. He is present by his body and blood in sacramental presence…
(Johannes Wollebius, Compendium Theologiae Christianae, 1.24.1.14; trans. A Library of Protestant Thought: Reformed Dogmatics: J. Wollebius, G. Voetius, F. Turretin, trans. & ed., John W. Beardslee, [New York: Oxford University Press, 1965], p. 134.)
John Breckinridge:
The question between us is not, whether Christ be present in this sacrament; but how he is present. Evangelical Protestants all allow, as their standards clearly evince, that Christ is spiritually present; and the truth of Christ’s words recorded above, they undoubtedly believe. But they utterly deny that the bread and wine are by the consecration of a priest changed into the very, the real body and blood “bones and sinews” of Christ, so that the bread and wine no longer remain; but under their appearance is contained that same Christ who was born of the Virgin, together, with his soul and divinity. This we deny to be meant in the words of the institution.
(John Breckinridge, “Controversy No. 30: Is the Protestant Religion the Religion of Christ? [Philadelphia, August 22, 1833. To the Rev. John Hughes];” In: John Hughes, John Breckinridge, Controversy Between the Rev. John Hughes, of the Roman Catholic Church, and the Rev. John Breckinridge, of the Presbyterian Church, Relative to the Existing Differences in the Roman Catholic and Protestant Religions, [Philadelphia: Joseph Whetham, 1833], pp. 242-243.)
Herman Bavinck:
The Christian church almost unanimously upheld the teaching of this mystical union as the import of the Lord’s Supper. Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic, Lutheran as well as Reformed believers are agreed in affirming that in the Lord’s Supper there occurs an objective and real communication of the person and benefits of Christ to everyone who believes. But among themselves they diverge widely over the manner in which this communication takes place. The first three groups cited above are not satisfied unless the body and blood of Christ are also physically and locally present in the signs and received and consumed orally. The Reformed, however, teach that, while Christ is truly and essentially communicated to believers, this occurs in a spiritual manner, and this in such a way that he can be received and enjoyed only by the mouth of faith.
(Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Volume Four: Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend, [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008], §. 544, p. 568.)
Edward Arthur Litton:
The term ‘real presence’ which, by the way, does not occur in our formularies, is ambiguous and misleading. If Christ is present at all, or in any sense, His presence must be a real one, and not a mere phantom of the imagination. But reality may be predicated of spirit as well as of body, and which form of existence is to be here understood the mere epithet ‘real’ does not determine…
(Edward Arthur Litton, Introduction to Dogmatic Theology: New Edition, ed. Philip E. Hughes, [London: James Clarke & Co., Ltd., 1960], §. 96, p. 481.)
R. C. Sproul:
The sixteenth century witnessed a massive debate concerning the meaning and function of the sacrament. The magisterial Reformers were by no means in monolithic agreement on serious issues regarding the Lord’s Supper. Yet as divided as they were on some issues, the Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists were solidly in agreement on two vital issues—that the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is a means of grace and that Christ was really and truly present in the sacrament. All three affirmed that the believer is actually nurtured by the risen body and blood of Christ.
Since the sixteenth century there has been a gradual but steady erosion of the Reformed view of the sacrament so that in the present era the doctrine of the real presence is decidedly a minority report.
From the earliest times of Christian history there has been a close link between the church’s understanding of the nature of the sacrament and her attention to it. Its use tends to follow its perceived significance. When the sacrament is reduced to the level of a “naked sign” or “nude symbol,” its importance and its practice all but disappear from the life of the church.
I am convinced that where the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is taken lightly the people of God are sorely impoverished. Without both Word and sacrament we face a spiritual famine.
(R. C. Sproul, “Forward” In: Keith A. Mathison, Given For You: Reclaiming Calvin’s Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, [Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2002], p. x.)
3. Appendix: Francis Turretin on the “Real (Spiritual) Presence.” Return to Outline.
Francis Turretin:
XXVI. It is one thing to eat Christ’s body; another to eat it orally and corporeally. The former denotes the object of manducation and the latter the mode. We say the former, but not the latter. Nor are these two to be confounded here—“spirit” and “spiritually.” What is eaten spiritually, still does not become a spirit, as the body which is eaten, ought not at once to be eaten corporeally. Therefore it must not be thought that, a spiritual conjunction being established, the true and most intimate union with Christ is taken away; otherwise there could be no union of Christ with his church, nor of believers among themselves and with blessed spirits (although most distantly separated as to locality).
XXVII. If Christ’s body is truly present to us, it does not follow that he is corporeally present to us on earth. Nor if he is truly received by us, must he be received by us orally and corporeally. The truth of presence differs from the mode of reception. He is indeed corporeally in heaven with respect to the existence of his body, but he is nonetheless present to our minds through faith with his spiritual presence. Therefore Christ’s body is truly present corporeally in heaven and truly spiritually present in our souls or to our faith, by which we receive him. And it is an improper inference, if spiritually then not truly; for nothing is done more truly than what is done by the Spirit.
XXVIII. The spiritual manducation of Christ does not belong only to the efficacy and virtue of the body and blood of Christ and his benefits, but also to its substance. (1) The Scriptures testify that believers are joined to Christ himself (Jn. 17:22; Gal. 2:20; 1 Cor. 6:17; Eph. 3:17). (2) We are said to eat the flesh of Christ and to drink his blood, which is contradistinguished from his benefits, as also Christ distinguishes in the same place (Jn. 6:63). (3) Christ is inseparable from his benefits. The believers under the Old Testament are rightly said to have been made partakers of Christ himself and so of his body and blood, which were present to their faith. Hence they are said to have drunk of the rock, which was Christ (1 Cor. 10:4). And Christ is the same yesterday and today (Heb. 13:8), even as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8).
XXIX. Hence it appears that we are falsely charged with denying the presence of Christ’s body and blood because it is improperly proceeded from the negation of one species to the negation of the genus; from the negation of corporeal presence to the negation of any presence at all. For although Christ’s body is not locally present in the Supper, it does not cease to be truly present to the mind, through the mediation of faith, in the word as much as in the sacraments.
(Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology: Volume Three, trans. George Musgrave Giger, ed. James T. Dennison Jr., [Phillipsburg: P & R Publishing, 1997], 19.28.26-29, pp. 517-518.)
4. Appendix: Archibald Alexander Hodge on the “Real (Spiritual) Presence.” Return to Outline.
Archibald Alexander Hodge:
The gross perversions of the Romanists and Ritualists, who have made it altogether a question of the local presence of Christ’s flesh and blood, have occasioned much confusion of thought and many prejudices on the subject Nevertheless, as a matter of fact, every believer knows that Christ is present in the sacrament—that he has, as a matter of fact, experienced his presence. If he 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. The Holy Ghost doubtless is coactive in that presence and in all Christ’s mediatorial work, but this leads into depths beyond our possible understanding. 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.
When Christ promises to his disciples, “Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world-age,” and, “Where two or three are met together in my name, there am I in the midst of them,” he means of course that he, the God-man Mediator they loved, trusted and obeyed, would be with them. His humanity is just as essential as his divinity, otherwise his incarnation would not have been a necessity. His sympathy, his love, his special helpful tenderness, are human. He is able to be our perfect High Priest, “being touched with the feeling of our infirmities,” because he “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15).
But what do we mean by “presence”? It is a great mistake to confuse the idea of “presence” with that of nearness in space. This may be a condition of presence or it may not, but it is never “presence” itself. If you walk abroad at noonday in the tropics, the most overwhelmingly present thing to you in the universe is the intolerable sun, although it is ninety-three millions of miles distant. If another person is only one foot distant, but separated from you by a wall which cuts off all light and sound, he is as absent as if in the centre of a distant star. But if the same person, a hundred feet from you in an audience-room, sees you face to face and hears every vibration of your voice, he is as truly present as if he touched you at every point. When Whitefield’s preaching was fully heard and its power felt across the Delaware River, he was present really and truly wherever his voice was heard and his matchless eloquence felt. “Presence,” therefore, is not a question of space: it is a relation. Personal presence is such a relation of persons that they are conscious of each other as immediate objects of perception and sources of influence. We know nothing as to the ultimate nature of the union of our souls and bodies, yet we no less are certain of the fact. We know nothing as to the ultimate nature of either sight or hearing, whereby we make our mutual presence felt in social intercourse, yet we are absolutely certain of the facts. So we need not speculate how it is that Christ, the whole God-man, body, soul and divinity, is present in the sacrament, but we are absolutely certain of the fact. He has promised it. We have hundreds of times experienced it. We can neither see his face nor hear his voice with our bodily senses; nevertheless, when we exercise faith, he, the whole Christ, speaks to us, and we hear him; we speak to him, and he hears us; he takes all we give him, he gives us and we receive all of himself. This is real, because he is present. And this is not confined to the sacrament. He makes manifest to our faith the reality of his presence with us, and communicates the same grace to us on many other occasions. But here and now and thus is his appointed rendezvous. Whatever may be our fortune under other conditions and at other times, here and now and in this breaking of bread we have a personal appointment to meet our Lord. And he never disappoints those who thus seek him with faith and love.
(Archibald Alexander Hodge, Popular Lectures on Theological Themes, [Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1887], Lecture XVII: The Lord’s Supper, pp. 408-410.)
5. Appendix: Michael Horton on the “Real (Spiritual) Presence.” Return to Outline.
Michael Horton:
Typical of Reformed confessions, the Westminster Larger Catechism points out that the mode, not the substance, was spiritual. Furthermore, it is crucial to bear in mind that “spiritual” here refers to a person—the Holy Spirit—and not to a merely intellectual or imaginary mode of feeding. Christ is not spiritually present as opposed to being bodily present in the sacrament, but gives himself as our food and drink by the agency of the Spirit. …Because of the agency of the Spirit, who unites us to Christ in the first place, there can be a real communication of Christ’s person and work to the church (pace Zwingli), yet without bringing Christ down to an earthly altar (pace Rome and Luther). It is not simply Christ’s divinity but also the Spirit who makes Christ’s reign universally present, so that even Christ’s true and natural body and blood can be communicated to believers. …Reformed orthodoxy reiterated the patristic view that the sacrament consists of earthly signs and heavenly realities, without separation or confusion. The rival positions forced one either to locate Christ’s true presence in (or as) the elements or deny such presence altogether. Yet in the Reformed view, a sacrament encompasses the earthly signs and the heavenly reality.
(Michael S. Horton, People and Place: A Covenant Ecclesiology, [Louisville & London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008], pp. 128, 129, 131.)
Cf. Michael Horton:
A sacrament is not only the signs, but the reality signified that is joined to them. Therefore, the Reformed argued, the whole Christ may be said to be present and to offer himself in the sacrament without being enclosed in the elements.
(Michael Horton, The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way, [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011], p. 815.)
καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν πρὸ πάντων καὶ τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκεν ~ Soli Deo Gloria
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