Ways Christians See It

What happens at the Lord's Supper?

1 Corinthians 11:23-29, John 6:51-58, Luke 22:19-20

Jesus took bread, said this is my body, and told his followers to keep doing it. Christians have been doing it ever since, and arguing about what he meant almost as long.

The Reformation-era disagreement was fierce enough to divide reformers from each other, not only from Rome. Luther and Zwingli met at Marburg in 1529, agreed on fourteen points, and parted over this one.

1 Corinthians 11:23-29, John 6:51-58, Luke 22:19-20

²³For I received from the Lord that which also I delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed took bread. ²⁴When he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "Take, eat. This is my body, which is broken for you. Do this in memory of me." ²⁵In the same way he also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink, in memory of me." ²⁶For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

World English Bible, public domain. Read the whole chapter →

Where everyone agrees

Every position holds that Christ commanded this meal, that it proclaims his death until he comes, that it is for those who belong to him, and that it is a means of rather than an empty ritual. All agree it is not a fresh sacrifice of Christ, who died once for all, though they describe its relation to that one sacrifice differently.

Transubstantiation

The bread and wine truly become the body and blood of Christ, while continuing to look, taste, and behave like bread and wine.

What it claims

What Christ said is what is meant. Using categories from Aristotle, the substance, meaning what a thing most truly is, becomes his body and blood, while the accidents, the appearances available to the senses, remain. The change is real, not figurative, and the presence does not depend on the faith of the recipient.

Who holds it

The Church, defined at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 and reaffirmed at Trent. Eastern Orthodoxy holds an equally but generally declines the philosophical term, preferring to call it a mystery.

The texts it stands on

Luke 22:19-20 This is my body, which is given for you, spoken plainly and without qualification.
John 6:53-56 Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you don't have life in yourselves. The crowd took it literally and left, and he did not call them back.
1 Corinthians 11:27-29 Guilty of the body and the blood, and not discerning the body, which imply more than a memory.

Strongest case

It takes the words of institution in their most direct sense, it matches how the church spoke for most of its history, and it explains why Paul treats unworthy reception as so grave.

Hardest question

Critics argue it depends on a philosophy of substance that the biblical writers did not share, and that Jesus used this is language elsewhere plainly figuratively, calling himself a door and a vine.

Holding the map

One reliable sign of a careless argument here is the word just. Nobody in this list believes the supper is just a symbol; Zwingli himself did not. And nobody believes the church re-crucifies Christ, which is a charge Catholics have been answering for five centuries.

This is a place where practice matters as much as theory. A tradition that reserves the elements and genuflects before them is saying something; so is one that uses plates of broken crackers passed down a row. Watching what a church does with the leftovers will tell you what it believes faster than reading its confession.

Questions that press on this one

None of these stands on its own. What you conclude here narrows what you can say there.

Who should be baptized, and what does it do?

Sacramental logic runs the same way through both, which is why the traditions line up in the same order.

Are images of Christ permitted?

Both turn on whether physical things can carry spiritual reality, and the same traditions tend to say yes or no to both.

EKLI serves Christians across traditions. On questions where churches differ we explain how each one sees it and leave the deciding to you.

All 27 questions →