Christianity's thorniest mystery is trying to define 'is.'
1 Corinthians 11:23-26 (NIV)
23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
Listen to passage & devotional:
Belgic Confession of Faith, Article 35: The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper (Part 2)
Now it is certain
that Jesus Christ did not prescribe
his sacraments for us in vain,
since he works in us all he represents
by these holy signs,
although the manner in which he does it
goes beyond our understanding
and is incomprehensible to us,
just as the operation of God’s Spirit
is hidden and incomprehensible.
Yet we do not go wrong when we say
that what is eaten is Christ’s own natural body
and what is drunk is his own blood—
but the manner in which we eat it
is not by the mouth but by the Spirit,
through faith.
In that way Jesus Christ remains always seated
at the right hand of God the Father
in heaven—
but he never refrains on that account
to communicate himself to us
through faith.
This banquet is a spiritual table
at which Christ communicates himself to us
with all his benefits.
At that table he makes us enjoy himself
as much as the merits of his suffering and death,
as he nourishes, strengthens, and comforts
our poor, desolate souls
by the eating of his flesh,
and relieves and renews them
by the drinking of his blood.
Moreover,
though the sacraments and thing signified are joined together,
not all receive both of them.
The wicked person certainly takes the sacrament,
to his condemnation,
but does not receive the truth of the sacrament,
just as Judas and Simon the Sorcerer both indeed
received the sacrament,
but not Christ,
who was signified by it.
He is communicated only to believers.
Finally,
with humility and reverence
we receive the holy sacrament
in the gathering of God’s people,
as we engage together,
with thanksgiving,
in a holy remembrance
of the death of Christ our Savior,
and as we thus confess
our faith and Christian religion.
Therefore no one should come to this table
without examining himself carefully,
lest “by eating this bread
and drinking this cup
he eat and drink to his own judgment.”
In short,
by the use of this holy sacrament
we are moved to a fervent love
of God and our neighbors.
Therefore we reject
as desecrations of the sacraments
all the muddled ideas and damnable inventions
that men have added and mixed in with them.
And we say that we should be content with the procedure
that Christ and the apostles have taught us
and speak of these things
as they have spoken of them.
Summary
We're going to be coming back to this chapter often this week as we work to understand the mysterious reality of this ongoing sacrament that Jesus ordained for us. Once again, our hapless Corinthian predecessors created the need for Paul to correct them, and we benefit from it because now we have these written instructions.
Of course all of Paul's writing is inspired by the Holy Spirit - although we hear Paul's voice come through the words, we can honestly say that they are God's Words. But Paul wants to emphasize the authority of his words here, reminding us that he received these words directly from the Lord and now passes them on to us.
Paul goes on to repeat the gospel accounts of Jesus in the upper room with His disciples on the night He was arrested, quoting Jesus' words verbatim: This is my body, which is for you; Do this in remembrance of me. In this eloquently simple statement, Jesus tells us what we're being given to eat, who it's for (us!), and instructions to remember Him by continually doing this.
This passage also demonstrates why we consider communion as an aspect of what we call the ordinary means of grace (the tools with which God most often conveys saving grace upon us). Paul writes that whenever we eat and drink this, we're proclaiming the Lord's death until He comes. In other words, although preaching is the most ordinary of the ordinary means of grace, coming to the Lord's Table is just as much a proclamation as preaching!
Dig Deeper
Want to start a fight between two solid Christians who agree on nearly every other aspect of Biblical doctrine? Ask them what the little word is means in Jesus' communion formula and then get out of the way! Does it mean that the physical bread & wine somehow are Christ's physical body, or does Jesus simply use the word is in a metaphorical sense?
Each major branch of Christianity answers this question differently:
Roman Catholics understand that the elements transubstantiate. There "takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood" (CCC 1376).
Martin Luther famously pounded the table and shouted out Christ's words "This IS my body" as the early reformers tried to sort things out. Lutherans reject the idea that the elements physically change substance, but still advocate that Christ's physical body is in, under and around the bread and wine. They don't like the term consubstantiation, but it's how the rest of us describe their understanding (Book of Concord).
The later Reformers had differing approaches to this mystery. Zwingli understood the 'is' completely metaphorically and focused on the memorial aspect of the Supper, but Calvin wasn't ready to let go of the literal presence. He emphasizes that Christ's presence is real and substantial, though apprehended through faith by the work of the Holy Spirit (Institutes IV.17.10-12, 19, 32-33).
It's Calvin's view that's reflected in our Confession: Yet we do not go wrong when we say that what is eaten is Christ’s own natural body and what is drunk is his own blood— but the manner in which we eat it is not by the mouth but by the Spirit, through faith.
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, who gave His Son not just to forgive our sins, but to nourish our faith through His presence in our lives;
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray for the wisdom and insight to understand the mystery of Christ's presence in the elements as clearly as you can;
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:
Read the New Testament in a year! Today: 1 Thessalonians 5
