A Short Introduction to the Reformed View of the Lord's Supper
A helpful tweet-thread by Presbyterian Matthew Pearson
Hello everybody! I’ve been thinking about what I want to do with my Substack that wouldn’t be completely redundant with the work I do on my YouTube channel, and I think it would be helpful for me to make note of helpful summaries and explanations I run into from lay-theologians, pastors, and scholars from different traditions whose work I run into online. After all, there is no sense in re-inventing the wheel when someone has done so already… or, in this case, I guess there’s no sense trying to provide an explanation of the mechanics of the wheel when someone else has written such an explanation already.
To that end, I read a helpful and concise introductory explanation of the Reformed View of the Lord’s Supper (or, at least, one of the most widespread forms of it) by Presbyterian co-host of the YouTube channel “The Irenic Protestants” Matthew Pearson on Twitter a little while back, and I thought it might be helpful to jot it down on my Substack for future reference. So, I asked Matthew for his permission to share it here and he graciously allowed me to do so.1
Here is the original Twitter thread: https://x.com/_matthewpearson/status/1726621169330327740?s=20
And, without further ado, here is Matthew’s explanation…
I will attempt to explain this in a distinctly Reformed manner but also in such a way that others who affirm real presence (RC’s, EO’s, Lutherans, etc) may sympathize with certain points. Here’s a thread:
Traditional Christian theology begins by assuming that human beings are composed of both body and soul (Gen 2:7; Eccl 12:7; Luke 23:43; Matt 10:28). Just as our bodies hunger and thirst for food, so too do our souls thirst after God for nourishment (Psalm 42:1-2).
While our bodies one day die, our souls continue on experiencing spiritual life through beholding the face of God (1 John 3:2), or spiritual death through enduring everlasting torment (Mark 9:47b-48).
God ultimately is the giver of life (Psalm 36:8-9) and thus is the desire of our souls. Jesus says of himself that he is the bread of life (John 6:35). How do we receive this bread of life? Through eating Christ’s flesh and drinking his blood (John 6:54).
Christ says that his flesh is true food and his blood is true drink (John 6:55). Is this eating of flesh and blood gross and carnal, as if one were to physically eat a particular body part of Jesus with their teeth? No, as Christ later says it is the Spirit which gives life and the flesh is no help at all (John 6:63).
It is ultimately through faith that we partake of Christ and all his benefits (John 6:47). But faith apprehends these benefits in multiple ways, one of which being the Lord’s Supper, in which our Lord Jesus took bread and wine and declared them to be his body and the new covenant in his blood (Luke 22:19-20).
The apostle Paul speaks of how the cup is a participation on the blood of Christ and the bread is a participation in the body of Christ (1 Cor. 10:16). In the Lord’s Supper we thus participate in the life giving flesh and blood of Christ and apprehend these benefits by faith.
Going back to John 6:63 in which Jesus says the Spirit gives life rather than flesh, this eating then must be something more. We cannot say that our bodies will be nourished by the physical flesh of Jesus or that they receive life, as ultimately we still die. This feeding then must be a spiritual feeding in which our souls derive life from the flesh of God.
In feeding on the flesh and blood of Christ, our souls receive divine life by virtue of the hypostatic union, in which the flesh of Christ, to quote Calvin, “transfuses into us the life flowing forth from the Godhead into itself.”
Not only this, but our bodies are also prepared for resurrection. In receiving Christ’s body our own bodies are rebuked and prepared to be made like Christ’s body at the resurrection. We claim for ourselves immortal bodies free from sin and capable of resurrection.
The manner in which our souls feed on the flesh of Christ (which is made life giving by its union with the divine nature which, rather than destroying the flesh of Christ, perfects it) is through the operation of the Holy Spirit, who facilitates our union with Christ (Romans 8:9).
The exact way in which our souls spiritually feed on the physical flesh and blood of Christ through the operation of the Spirit is ultimately a mystery of the faith, something which ought not be subjected to scrupulous reason but rather to be taken on the basis of faith.
So, what then does it mean to feast on Christ and his benefits? It means to receive spiritual life through the divinized flesh and blood of Christ which prepares our bodies for resurrection and nourishes our soul with sanctifying grace in order strengthen our union with Christ.
To conclude, this thread has a lot of proof texts, many of which operate under an exegetical framework which accepts a traditional Christian metaphysical framework. We can dispute and argue about these all day, but the point of this thread was to elucidate what we mean when we say that in the Lord’s Supper we feed on Christ and his benefits. It’s more than just flowery language, it really does mean something to us regardless of if you disagree with the exegesis.
Admittedly though, Dr. Nemes does have a point: many Reformed who try to explain the Lord’s Supper do an incredibly poor job at explaining their terms and often speak very vaguely. His concern about language is valid and this is something I hope we can do better.
Some of my recommended reads on the topic:
"A Clear and Simple Treatise on the Lord's Supper" by Theodore Beza
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https://a.co/d/gpF7hXL
"The Oxford Treatise and Disputation On the Eucharist" by Peter Martyr Vermigli
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https://a.co/d/huJvW4L
"Short Treatise on the Lord's Supper" by John Calvin
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https://heidelblog.net/2016/05/calvin-short-treatise-on-the-lords-supper-1541/
- https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/calvin/Short%20Treatise%20on%20the%20Lord's%20Su%20-%20John%20Calvin.pdf
"The Mystical Presence: A Vindication of the Reformed or Calvinistic Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist" by John Williamson Nevin
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https://a.co/d/fKbreZl
And a great devotional read:
"The Lord's Supper (Puritan Paperbacks)" by Thomas Watson
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https://a.co/d/4nSS2ll
Thank you to Matthew for letting me share that, and thank you to those of you who took the time to read this article — hopefully it proved helpful to y’all!
May the Lord bless you and keep you all in His good graces.
Here is Matthew’s response to me allowing me to share this thread: https://x.com/_matthewpearson/status/1744052742606217715?s=20