The Real Presence - What Is It? # 6

The Real Presence+ - What Is It? # 6

But there is nothing in the simple narrative, or in the verses which follow it, which shows that the disciples thought their Master's body and blood were really present in the bread and wine which they received. There is not a word in the epistles to show that after our Lord's ascension into heaven, that the Christians believed that His body and blood were present in an ordinance celebrated on earth; or that the bread in the Lord's Supper, after consecration, was not truly and literally bread, and the wine truly and literally wine.

Some people, I am aware, suppose that such texts as "This is My body," and "This is My blood," are proofs that Christ's body and blood, in some mysterious manner, are locally present in the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper, after their consecration. But a man must be easily satisfied if such texts content him. The quotation of a single isolated phrase is a mode of arguing which would establish Arianism or Socinianism.

The context of those famous expressions shows clearly that those who heard the words used, and wee accustomed to our Lord's mode of speaking, understood them to mean "This represents My body," and "This represents My blood." The comparison of other places proves that there is nothing unfair in this interpretation. It is certain that the words "is" and "are" frequently mean "represent" in Scripture. The disciples, no doubt, remembered their Master saying such things as "The field" is the world, the good seed are the children of the kingdom" (Matt. 13:38). Paul, in writing on the Sacrament, confirms this interpretation by expressly calling the consecrated bread, "bread", and not the body of Christ, no less than three times (1 Cor. 11:26-28).

Some people, again, regard the sixth chapter of John, where our Lord speaks of "eating His flesh and drinking His blood," as a proof that there is a literal presence of Christ in the bread and wine at the Lord's Supper. But there is an utter absence of conclusive proof that this chapter refers to the Lord's Supper at all! The Lord's Supper had not been instituted, and did not exist, until at least a year after these words were spoken. Enough to say, that the great majority of Protestant commentators altogether deny that the chapter refers to the Lord's Supper, and that even some Romish commentators on this point agree with them. The eating and drinking here spoken of are the eating and drinking of faith - and not a bodily action.

Some people fancy that Paul's words to the Corinthians, "The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?" (1 Cor. 10:16), are enough to prove a bodily presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper. But unfortunately for their argument, Paul does NOT say, "The bread is the body," but the "communion of the body." And the obvious sense of the words is this: "The bread that a worthy communicant eats in the Lord's Supper is a means whereby his soul holds communion with the body of Christ." Nor do I believe that more than this can be got out of the words. Above all, there remains the unanswerable argument, that if our Lord was actually holding His own body in His hands, when He said of the bread, "This is My body", His body must have been a different body to that of ordinary men. Of course if His body was not a body like ours, His real and proper "humanity" is at an end. At this rate the blessed and comfortable doctrine of Christ's entire sympathy with His people, arising from the fact that He is really and truly man, would be completely overthrown and fall to the ground.

Finally, if the body with which our blessed Lord ascended up into heaven can be in heaven, and on earth, and on ten thousand communion tables at one and the same time - it cannot be a real human body at all. Yet that he did ascend with a real human body, although a glorified body, is one of the prime articles of the Christian faith, and one that we ought never to let go! Once admit that a body can be present in two places at once, and you cannot prove that it is a body at all. Once admit that Christ's body can be present at God's right hand and on the communion table at the same moment, and it cannot be the body which was born of the Virgin Mary and crucified upon the Cross. From such a conclusion we may well draw back with horror and dismay!

Let us take heed, lest under confused notions of some inexplicable presence of Christ's body and blood under the form of bread and wine, we find ourselves unawares heretics about Christ's human nature. Next to the doctrine that Christ is not God - but only man, there is nothing more dangerous than the doctrine that Christ is not man - but only God. If we would not fall into that pit, we must hold firmly that there can be no literal presence of Christ's body in the Lord's Supper; because His body is in heaven, and not on earth, though as God He is everywhere. Let us now go one step further, and bring our whole subject to a conclusion.

~J. C. Ryle~

(continued with # 7)