QQ96-97. What is the Lord's Supper and what is required to the worthy receiving of it?

A (96). The Lord’s Supper is a Sacrament, wherein, by giving and receiving bread and wine, according to Christ’s appointment, his death is showed forth; and the worthy receivers are, not after a corporal and carnal manner, but by faith, made partakers of his body and blood, with all his benefits, to their spiritual nourishment and growth in grace.

A (97). It is required of them that would worthily partake of the Lord’s Supper, that they examine themselves, of their knowledge to discern the Lord’s body, of their faith to feed upon him, of their repentance, love, and new obedience; lest, coming unworthily, they eat and drink judgment to themselves.

Something that we did not get to touch on with baptism, but which applies to both sacraments, is that part of the nature of “better” promises in the New Covenant is shown forth in the nature of the signs. When baptism and the Lord’s Supper replaced circumcision and the Passover, one of the things that changed—seemingly on the surface—is that bloody signs gave way to those of purely cleansing and celebration. Of course those elements were there in the old, but the more difficult expending of blood was present until that perfect sacrifice of Christ came. But just as with baptism replacing circumcision, so with the Lord’s Supper and Passover. Of course the meal was instituted with the Passover celebration; and Paul said,

“Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor. 5:7).

How is Christ “our Passover lamb”? In Exodus 11 we read of the last plague on Egypt, 

“Thus says the LORD: ‘About midnight I will go out in the midst of Egypt, and every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the cattle … But not a dog shall growl against any of the people of Israel, either man or beast, that you may know that the LORD makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel” (11:4-5, 7).

Then as to the meal itself, He says, “Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household” (12:3), and so on with other provisions: 

“when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it … The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt. This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast” (vv. 6-7; 13-14).

The Nature of the Lord’s Supper

The words LORD’S SUPPER are scriptural words, from 1 Corinthians 11:20; whereas those who argued that the word EUCHARIST only should be used, Turretin says, did so on the grounds that “supper” comes from the tradition of the love feasts. But, he adds, as even “the Catechism of Trent retains the word and acknowledges that it was empoyed by the fathers.

‘The most ancient fathers,’ says it, having followed the authority of the apostles, sometimes called the holy Eucharist by the name of Supper also because it was instituted by Christ, the Lord, at the mystery of the Last Supper’ (Catechism of the Council of Trent [trans. J.A. McHugh, 1923], 215).”1

It is also rightly called “communion,” since another thing signified is the oneness of the body of Christ; and Paul twice uses the word in 1 Corinthians 10:16, that we render “participation,” but which in Greek is κοινωνία.

Just as we saw with baptism, so here, the Lord’s Supper, in order to be a SACRAMENT must meet those four criteria. And it does. It was (1) instituted by Christ through the Scriptures—“For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed” (1 Cor. 11:23). And of course the institution passages, in narrative form, come to us in the Synoptic Gospels (Mat. 26:26-29; Mk. 14:22-25; Lk. 22:14-23). It is (2) a sign of the gospel—“This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me … This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me” (1 Cor. 11:24, 25). It is (3) to be performed until Christ returns—“For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Cor. 11:26). And it is (4) for the whole church as a church. Just before that Paul twice says, “when you come together as a church” (1 Cor. 11:18, cf. 20); and earlier, “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (10:17). 

But how is it that HIS DEATH IS SHOWED FORTH and NOT AFTER A CORPORAL OR CARNAL MANNER, BUT BY FAITH, MADE PARTAKERS OF HIS BODY AND BLOOD? Not corporeal. Calvin described the Supper as “a spiritual feast, at which Christ testifies that he himself is living bread (John 6:51), on which our souls feed, for a true and blessed immortality.”2 Our minds naturally go to John 6 with these words. It is there that Jesus says, 

“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” (Jn. 6:53-56).

We will come to the Roman Catholic view shortly; but for anyone familar with it, it doesn’t take too much imagination to see how Rome would twist this passage out of context to support their view. But the substitution of bread for the Passover Lamb is significant in representing the Person of Christ and not just His work. While both the bread and the wine are made symbols of Christ’s body and blood sacrificed, the bread also reminds us of what comes down from heaven in the form of the manna. As that manna represented the word (Deut. 8:3), so the true Word took on flesh for the life of our soul (Jn. 6:33, 48-58). And notice the connection between the life in it, and the eternity in the life. The words of Jesus here are similar to those of John 10, 11, 15, and 17 about being given eternal life, a life that cannot die. So Calvin comments, “that this quickening is eternal; by it we are ceaselessly nourished, sustained and preserved in life.”3

It may be asked, Where is the Lord’s Supper actually commanded for all Christians? Insofar as the norms that Paul sets down in the churches, and especially those instituted by Christ himself, the instructions form an imperative for all Christians. For example, in 1 Corinthians 11:23—“For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you”—this can hardly be confined to the Corinthian church alone. It is also sometimes asked, Why couldn’t this be just a fellowship meal? The institution itself is bound up in the Passover which ties it symbolically to Christ’s sacrifice in 1 Corinthians 5:7, and Paul had already spoken of the Christians assembling in terms of things like discipline (5:4), and so here in 11:17, 18. So the context fits the regular assembly and not a rarer occasion, nor a more generic meal.

The very pastoral language of the Heidelberg Catechism (Q75) is instructive in terms of how the grace communicated in the sacrament is to be considered, even as one is partaking. It asks, “How does the Lord’s supper signify and seal to you that you share in Christ’s one sacrifice on the cross and in all his gifts?”

“Answer. In this way: Christ has commanded me and all believers to eat of this broken bread and drink of this cup in remembrance of him. With this command he gave these promises: First, as surely as I see with my eyes the bread of the Lord broken for me and the cup given to me, so surely was his body offered for me and his blood poured out for me on the cross. Second, as surely as I receive from the hand of the minister and taste with my mouth the bread and the cup of the Lord as sure signs of Christ’s body and blood, so surely does he himself nourish and refresh my soul to everlasting life with his crucified body and shed blood.”4

At this point, we must make distinctions between different historic views. Transubstantiation is the Roman Catholic doctrine which seeks to explain the change (trans) in substance from the emblems of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, which they believe occurs in the Eucharist. Technically the Lutheran view makes a distinction where they claim to reject transubstantiation. That is, they would at least deny the Roman Catholic notion that the elements become Christ's body and blood. This has led to the label “consubstantiation,” meaning something like Christ's body and blood being in some mysterious sense in or with or even “under” the elements. Though many Lutherans do not like that label either. The Reformed view was sketched out by Calvin; and it was a mediate position between Luther and Zwingli. The idea of the spiritual presence means that Christ, through the Holy Spirit nourishing our faith, is there with us and in the symbols, and therefore His work continually feeds us spiritually.5 Here “in” and “with” do not mean anything like the carnal manner of Transubstantiation or even Consubstantiation.

There are three main reasons that the Reformed have summarized against Rome’s doctrine of Transubstantiation and corresponding practice of the Eucharist: 

1. Christological error: that is, it is simply not true that Christ can be in the elements as he is in heaven, as the human nature cannot be ubiquitous.

2. Soteriological error: it suggests the re-sacrifice of Christ's body in each act, which further assumes the insufficiency of the one historical act and the participation of the sinners as contributing to the cause of his inherent righteousness.

3. Doxological error: it leads to adoration of the host (worship of the element as if it were the body of Christ)

More recent to our day the issue of paedo-communion has been debated in Presbyterian circles because of the Federal Vision. Both sides descend upon the 1 Corinthians 11 text to make their point—opponents pointing to the subject that we will take up shortly, that of self-examination, and advocates that the very sin Paul was rebuking was a division of the body into “haves” and “have-nots” with respect to eating the meal. The fact that it is a memorial meal—as was the Passover—is claimed by both sides. Ultimately, the circle of theologizing must expand to have in view what the debate is really about. It is one thing to use the sacraments to match the invisible church circle perfectly to the visible church circle, as the Baptists attempt to do; it is another to react against that by virtually denying the distinction between the invisible and visible church, such that whatever is visible is what is “objective,” as in the Federal Vision’s expression, “the objectivity of the covenant.”

Abuses of the Supper, like distortions of the gospel word, must be extended to something of a breaking point before one can say that the church is no longer a church, no longer bearing one of its three essential marks: Word, sacrament, and discipline.

Calvin wrote, 

“When we say that the pure ministry of the word and pure celebration of the sacraments is a fit pledge and earnest, so that we may safely recognize a church in every society in which both exist, our meaning is, that we are never to discard it so long as these remain, though it may otherwise teem with numerous faults. No, even in the administration of word and sacraments defects may creep in which ought not to alienate us from its communion … we are not on account of every minute difference to abandon a church, provided it retain sound and unimpaired that doctrine in which the safety of piety consists, and keep the use of the sacraments instituted by the Lord.”6

Worthy Partaking

The principle passage for “worthy partaking” (WCF) is found in 1 Corinthians 11: 

“Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world” (1 Cor. 11:27-32).

This is why the answer to Q97 says, LEST, COMING UNWORTHILY, THEY EAT AND DRINK JUDGMENT TO THEMSELVES. First, a few observations on the text itself so as to rule out what cannot be true. This cannot be teaching:

(1) that any lose salvation,

(2) that any are worthy in themselves,

(3) that all kinds of “judgment” or “discipline” are the same as with the condemning judgment that the world is subject to, as the last words make clear. 

To “discern the body” of Christ can mean two things, or both: most likely, the gospel significance, though some add that it looks to the context of the particular sin that the Corinthians were committing in the earlier part of Chapter 11, and against the further backdrop of Chapter 10 of them being “one bread” (v. 17) in Christ. So, in other words, this is referring to our failure to see that Christ being broken was to bring us all together. There may be more to it than that, but that is the immediate context in the Corinthian letter. Certainly another matter suggested in that same text is our regular sins. We need to examine ourselves in general, so as not to take the Supper lightly.

Many think self-examination is Puritanical, that it is nothing but morbid introspection. But Paul said, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!” (2 Cor. 13:5)

But if it is a sign of the gospel (that window and not a mirror, as I’ve been saying), then why does the answer to Question 97 add other elements of our self-examination? It says also OF THEIR FAITH TO FEED UPON HIM, OF THEIR REPENTANCE, LOVE, AND NEW OBEDIENCE.

Of the first part, Watson wrote, 

“We must come with believing hearts. Christ gave the sacrament to the Apostles principally as they were believers. Such as come faithless, go away fruitless.”7

To have faith here is specific to God’s grace shown through this act and these elements. It is to believe in the person of Christ to have this set before you. The Christ who is “the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8) was a table-setting Servant King even in the Old Testament: “Wisdom … has also set her table” (Prov. 9:2); and “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies” (Ps. 23:5); and so in the Parable of the Wedding Feast that points to the very same meal that Jesus spoke of as future in the Upper Room—“See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast” (Mat. 22:4). All of these are pictures of the goodness and generosity of Christ who, each Lord’s Day where the meal is present, is inviting us. 

As to repentance, we have already seen that this is a constant need from passages like 1 John 1:8-10 and Matthew 6:12, but there are other such prayers that are clearly meant for regular times of reflection, like the words of the Psalmist:

“Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (139:23-24)

And as to love, just consider the words in the text calling Christ our Passover Lamb. What does it say next? “Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Cor. 5:8). To participate truly and to have communion with the rest of the body is opposed to “malice” by Paul.

The end of self-examination is the gospel. Calvin writes of this,

“In seeking to prepare for eating worthily, men have often dreadfully harassed and tortured miserable consciences, and yet have in no degree attained the end … Therefore, lest we should rush over such a precipice, let us remember that this sacred feast is medicine to the sick, comfort to the sinner, and bounty to the poor; while to the healthy, the righteous, and the rich, if any such could be found, it would be of no value.”8

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1. Turretin, Institutes, III.19.21.3.

2.  Calvin, Institutes, IV.17.1.

3.  Calvin, Institutes, IV.17.5.

4.  cf. Calvin, Institutes, IV.17.3—Ursinus clearly was inspired by the similar, though more condensed, expression by the Genevan reformer.

5.  Calvin is explicit in this: “I am not satisfied with the view of those who, while acknowledging that we have some kind of communion with Christ, only make us partakers of the Spirit, omitting all mention of flesh and blood. As if it were said to no purpose at all, that his flesh is meat indeed, and his blood is drink indeed; that we have no life unless we eat that flesh and drink that blood; and so forth” (Institutes, IV.17.7).

6.  Calvin, Institutes, IV.1.12

7.  Watson, The Lord’s Supper, 51.

8.  Calvin, Institutes, IV.17.41, 42.