Gospel writers Matthew, Mark, and Luke, as well as, the Apostle Paul offer narratives of the last evening meal shared between Jesus and his disciples (Matt 26:17–25; Mark 14:12–21; Luke 22:7–13; 1 Cor. 11:23-26). Acknowledged as having originated in the context of the Jewish Passover celebration, the meal called by such interchangeable names as the “Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion, the Divine Liturgy, the Mass, the Great Offering,”[1] and “the breaking of bread.”[2] Likewise, the synoptic writers designate the meal as a Eucharist, from the Greek εá½Ï‡Î±ÏιστÎω for “giving thanks” (Matt 26:27; Mark 14:23; Luke 22:17, 19).
Since its earliest days, the Christian Church has observed the service of Holy Communion as a liturgical function commemorating Christ’s passion. Although diversified in practice and meaning within separate religious traditions, most Christian denominations concur that the principal manifestation of Christian fellowship is in the service of the Lord’s Supper. However, in the pluralistic brotherhood of denominational structures the traditional practices and theological significance of the Holy Communion are not consistent. In fact, the Lord’s Supper comprises one of the most serious and often hostile controversies in the history of the Church from which a diversity of considerations and procedures have flourished.
Notwithstanding the disagreements in denominational conventionalities and how cherished are another’s institutional traditions, the Church may more powerfully encounter the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper by reflecting on how other Christians understand and celebrate the rite. This paper considers the fundamental doctrines and forms of the Eucharist. Notably those of the Episcopal Church regarding the sacramental nature of the Eucharist, the doctrine of Real Presence, and the prerequisites of participation as distinguished from those of the Southern Baptist Convention “with which Episcopalians find themselves in sympathy, but not in full corporate union.”[3]
What Episcopalians and Baptists suppose about the Lord’s Supper is a sure measure of their understanding of the Gospel itself. For Episcopalians, Christology is embodied most fully in the Holy Eucharist.[4] It is in the Lord’s Supper that Christ avails himself as the “primordial sacrament of God and the Church.”[5] The liturgy of the Eucharist is “the principal act of Christian worship and pre-eminent among all the church’s sacramental rites by which Christ acts in and through the church.”[6]
The word sacrament stems from the Greek for mysterion (i.e., mystery). It means “the revelation of that which once was hidden and is used in many places to designate the revelation of God in Christ (e.g., Eph. 1:9; 3:3; 6:19; 1 Tim. 3:16).”[7] Sacraments are “holy signs and seals of the covenant of grace (Rom. 4:11, Gen. 17:7,10).”[8] Instruments by which the Church gathers more fully into the mystery of Christ (Col. 1:26; Eph. 3:4, 9; 6:19). The sacrament of Holy Communion is a liturgical experience instituted by God to humankind by which finite realities serve as means through which the divine communicates and through which the Church in kind responds.[9]
The Eucharist, however, is not just a sacramental action the Church performs as a response in which the faithful offer the fullness of their spiritual lives to the Lord. Instead, the Eucharist serves to call to mind of the partaker the unseen reality the bread and wine symbolize. They are effectual instruments by which we express our faith and relate anew to God through Christ[10] whose presence the sacrament represents.
While the gathered faithful obey Christ’s command to “do this in remembrance”[11] (Luke 22:19; 1 Cor. 11:24, 25) each time they celebrate the Eucharist, they do so not by means of an expressive commemoration. The Church celebrates the Last Supper not in remembrance of Christ’s sacrifice, but in anticipation of the resurrection.[12] Therefore, “sacraments ordained of Christ be not only badges or tokens of Christian men’s profession, but rather they be certain sure witnesses, and effectual signs of grace, and God’s good will towards us, by the which he doth work invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken, but also strengthen and confirm our Faith in him.”[13]
The Southern Baptist Convention, however, avoids any use of the word sacrament. That is “because of certain sacerdotal ideas the word has gathered to itself,”[14] and because of the word’s “connection with Roman and Anglican superstitions.”[15] Southern Baptists instead articulate the Lord’s Supper as an ordinance, a word found only in the Old Testament and, in Hebrew, denotes a claim. In the Greek, though, and perhaps more befitting of the Southern Baptist Convention’s understanding of the Lord’s Supper, the word ordinance means decree. The word ordinance points to the ordaining authority of Christ (Matt. 28:19; Luke 22:19; 1 Cor. 5:11; 11:24-25). It also denotes those traditions mandated by the Apostles and observed by the New Testament churches (1 Cor 10:14-22; 11:17-34; Acts 2:42, 46; 20:7, 11).[16]
As an ordinance, the Lord’s Supper functions as a ceremonial occasion. Southern Baptists regard the Lord’s Supper somewhat after the Zwinglian approach in that the value of the Lord’s Supper lies not in the bread and the wine. Instead, the “specificity of Jesus’ language points to a symbolic understanding of the Lord’s Supper.”[17] It is a symbolic celebration which focuses on the sacrifice Christ made on the cross and the fellowship of the community. The basis for a symbolic interpretation of the Lord’s Supper is the Convention’s hermeneutical understanding that Jesus spoke typologically of the bread and the fruit of the vine. Baptists surmise that just as adherents of Judaism are to memorialize the Passover event, Jesus’ command for his followers to receive the bread and wine in remembrance establishes the meal as a memorial.
The Lord’s Supper, Baptists maintain, is a “simple and solemn outward ordinance the church observes because the Lord commanded it, and it teaches important lessons lying at the heart of spiritual truths and Christian revelation[18] to all who may observe. The Lord’s Supper is “equal to that of a sermon.”[19] It “tells us of our Savior’s love and brings vividly before our minds the great central fact of our religion that Christ died for our sins.”[20] It is evangelistic in that, by looking on the event, persons “not belonging to Jesus can see and understand through the symbolic dramatization that, for humankind, Jesus gave his life.”[21] The Lord’s Supper is a human act, and a divinely appointed means of commemoration for strengthening the faith of believers and enlightening the lost. To reflect otherwise is an erroneous understanding of Scripture and a perversion of the Lord’s Supper.
The ordinance of the Lord’s Supper, though still significant to Southern Baptist practice and worship, is more representative of a fellowship meal barren of needless mystical infusions.[22] It is nothing more than a “symbolic act of obedience whereby members of the church, through partaking of the bread and the fruit of the vine, memorialize the death of the Redeemer and anticipate His second coming.”[23] That language is present in the Baptist Faith and Message, the name of the first comprehensive confession of faith adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention in 1925[24]. It is also rather similar to the language used in the Confession issued by the Convention in 1963, which states that “the Lord’s Supper, in which the members of the church, by the use of bread and wine, commemorate the dying love of Christ.[25]”
Foretelling his love, Jesus words of institution at the Last Supper—“this is my body” (Matt. 26:26; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19; 1 Cor. 11:24) and “this is my blood” (Matt. 26:28; Mark 14:24)—has led to much debate whether Christ is somehow present in the bread and wine and, if so, in what sense. Whether the Eucharistic elements become or embody the body and blood of Christ, or the sacrament serves only as a memorial of a past event,[26] nothing has divide Christendom more than the question of the real presence of Christ. The problem, it seems, is further complicated by the division among those who connect the presence in some unique way with the consecrated elements and those who deny any change in the material elements. The former accept while the latter reject the doctrine of the Real Presence.”[27]
Baptists understand and do not deny that Christ is spiritually present wherever two or three gather (Matt. 18:20). The Southern Baptist Convention, however, explicitly denies any presence of Christ, corporal or otherwise, in, with, or under the bread and wine. Southern Baptists are especially repulsed by any doctrine that upholds the bodily presence of Christ in the bread and the wine. It is, Baptist believe, a superstition offensive to both Scripture and common sense.
Nowhere, Baptists believe, is there any scriptural basis to show that the bread and the wine are anything other than ordinary bread and wine.[28] Christ’s words, “this is my body” (Matt. 26:26; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19; 1 Cor. 11:24) and “this is my blood” (Matt. 26:28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25), are understood figuratively.[29] Baptists think because Jesus explained the essence of the bread and the wine after the disciples received the elements[30], that it a clear sign the bread and wine do not transform into flesh and blood. If the disciples thought Jesus spoke in a literal sense about the bread and wine being his body and blood, then “their Jewish sensitivities would have compelled them to forsake him on the spot.”[31]
Although they call the bread and wine by the names of the things they represent, Baptists believe the elements remain unchanged bread and wine. That the ordinance has only a figurative bearing is, perhaps, best realized in the elements used to celebrate communion. Southern Baptists are not concerned that bread be unleavened, and since the Temperance Movement in the early 20th century, Baptist churches have served unfermented grape juice. “The color leads the mind to reflect on the blood shed by Christ,”[32] and, Baptists believe, alcohol impedes a person’s Christian witness and thus has no place at the Lord’s Supper.
The New Testament, however, does not indicate that, in the Lord’s Supper, the presence of Christ is limited to that of the body of the human nature. In fact, the Apostle Paul describes Christ’s resurrected body as a “spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:44). Therefore, one may affirm that Jesus “did not interpret eating bread in the Kingdom of God in any materialistic manner. The banquet itself was to Christ a spiritual communion.”[33] Therefore, any suggestions that Christians are eating and drinking the literal body and blood of Christ must be ruled out.
For Episcopalians, the purpose of the Eucharist is not to bring forth the real presence of Christ. Instead, the bread and wine’s transformation has for its aim the sanctification of the assembled faithful.[34] The Episcopal Church looks beyond the symbols and expresses their faith in the unseen reality that the bread and the wine signify.[35] The bread and the wine are neither ordinary nor the actual flesh and blood of Christ. Used as part of the sacrament, the bread and the wine have the virtue of Christ’s body and blood and mediate the presence of the total Christ. The bread and the wine connect the Church with the divine nature of Christ, as well as, the vehicle by which the total Christ imparts his presence to the total Church.
If this being the case, there is no reason to think the bread and wine should, somehow, not “need to be changed or transmuted to make way for, or give place to, the presence of Christ.”[36] The Church believes that based on his promises, God acts here and now to “transforms the gifts of bread and the wine.”[37] “The Eucharist is the means by which Christ unites us to his one offering of himself.[38] However, Christ’s presence in the bread and wine is just as much the presence of the crucified and risen one as much as it is the presence of the one yet to come.
Episcopalians, comprehend the Eucharist as an “expression of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ whose sacrifice once upon the cross was sufficient for all mankind.”[39] In any event, the bread and wine remain what they are, thus making it improbable that bread and wine capture and hold fast the presence of Christ. Though not changed in themselves, the Episcopal Church acknowledges that the consecrated elements are set apart by consecration for a new and most holy use and are, therefore, not the same as they were before. There is no basis then, why the Church should not “accept the statement that the bread and wine are changed to become the body of blood of Christ, if it be believed the terms body and blood denote, not material things such, but outward things as they are in relation to a spiritual activity which operates and expresses itself through them.”[40]
Therefore, it seems plausible to presume that it is the “believing response of the Church that effects the sacramental encounter with the risen Christ. For the bread and wine are not only symbols of Christ’s presence to the Church, but also serve as a symbol of the presence of the Church, believing and responsive to Christ, through which God intervenes.[41] It is in this context, which “presupposes not only God’s intervention but also the Church’s acceptance of and responding in faith to such intervention in faith, that the presence of Christ to his Church and of his Church to Christ takes place.”[42] Thus, “both the human and the divine elements belong to and are necessary for the full symbolic reality”[43] of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist in which “the symbolic meaning and actual effect join with no predominance of one or subordination of the other.”[44]
In the Eucharist there must be a real presence of the Lord different from that found in any other church sacrament, and that God takes the initiative is undeniable. Without the divine intervention, there is no sacramental encounter. God freely and sovereignly effects in the Eucharist the real presence of Christ’s offering of himself. The bread and the wine are conduits through which the Lord of the church is present and gives himself to his own.[45] He does so, however, not as an event in the physical world, but as an event in the order of grace, the actual incorporation of the Church into the life of Christ.[46] The life Christ offers to all, but can only be received by those who receive it with a living faith.[47] That, however, is not to say belief in the real presence implies in any way knowledge of how Christ is present in the eucharistic elements or that belief in the real presence implies that the consecrated elements cease to be bread and wine. “If Christ is present under each form, that is not to say He is present only there. The Presence of Christ in the Eucharist is not confined to the bread and wine,”[48] but is present in those assembled for worship. Given this kind of presence in the Eucharist, “the word real is redundant. There is no presence other than that of the self-impartation of the total Christ.”[49]
Nourished and regenerated, the Eucharist beckons members of the body of Christ to offer themselves as living and holy sacrifices (Rom. 12:1; I Peter 2:5). Just as Christ who lived and sacrificed himself for all and now gives himself in the eucharist[50], the Church, too, “presents to the Father as a sacrificial offering the life of the Lord.”[51] The Eucharist is a sacrifice because “it is the sacramental presence of the sacrifice of the cross, and the liturgical presentation of the Son’s sacrifice by the Church to the Father.”[52] The bread is his body, the wine his blood through which the Church “we plead his passion and death; his risen and ascended life.”[53] By His own gift we offer Him as a sacrifice to the Father, “the sacrifice of the living One who died and is alive for evermore.”[54]
As a sacrifice, the Eucharist is uniquely original. The offertory, the Church’s offering, is an act of presentation of a reality to God for the purpose of a blessing upon that reality. The Church presents the bread and the wine that they may be blessed. The Church presents itself that it may be sanctified. It is in this sense that the Eucharist is a sacrifice. It is a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving that itself cannot please God, which is why Christ makes up what is lacking in the poverty-stricken offering of the Church by substituting himself.[55] The Eucharist is, thus, the “liturgical presentation of the sacrifice of the Son by the Church to the Father.[56]
The sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is not about the Church doing something for God, but rather a “pure gift from God acting in and through Christ and the Church.”[57] The Southern Baptist Convention argues there is no Scriptural basis to support the idea that grace is conveyed by a person’s physical participation in the Lord’s Supper.[58] The bread and the wine do not add, but points to grace. Instead, Baptist affirm that saving grace is received only by trusting in Jesus Christ.
The Episcopal Church, however, teaches that the sacrament of Holy Communion is a means by which God impart grace to the believer. Since Christ instituted the Supper as a sign and seal of the covenant of grace for the benefit of his followers, then it must have been his intention that the Church should profit by its participation. That can be inferred from the symbolical eating and drinking.
The bread and the wine are “nothing but God’s efficacious word. The word in which God offers himself and liberates the Church to accept God’s self-communication.”[59] The grace received in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper “does not differ in kind from that which believers receive through the instrumentality of the Word.”[60] The sacrament “adds to the effectiveness of the Word, and therefore to the measure of the grace received. It is the grace of an ever closer fellowship with Christ, of spiritual nourishment and quickening, and of an ever-increasing assurance of salvation.”[61]
The bread and the wine teach that the perfect food is the body and blood of Christ (John 6:55). Just as good food and drink sustain physical life, so Jesus, the real spiritual food and drink, spiritually sustains His followers. His flesh and blood give eternal life to those who receive Him.[62] Therefore, “the reception of the divine Eucharist is the sacrament and sign of participation in Jesus himself.[63]
The central meaning of the Eucharist is “not to affirm a distinction between substance and accident, but to assure the faithful that the substance of the life of Christ, being divine and eternal love and distinct from all outward and perishable things, is through outward things communicated to the Church.”[64] The sacrament, however, does not cause grace in the sense that is otherwise unavailable. Rather, the Eucharist shapes and channels God’s grace so that the divine presence may be effective for the Church.[65] Where the sacrament causes grace, “it does no not through the rite itself, but through the faith and devotion of those who believe and are receiving the sacrament.”[66]
Most Christians understand the Lord’s Supper as a means, or at least an occasion, of spiritual growth. While there are a variety of conviction regarding the nature of and benefits conferred by the Lord’s Supper, there are few departures from the conditions for receiving communion. Mostly, both the Episcopal Church and the Southern Baptist Convention agree that a person does not partake of the Lord’s Supper out of obligation, but rather because eating of the bread and drinking of the wine contributes to spiritual growth.
It is the common faith of the Episcopal Church that “the whole structuring of the Church’s common life is an instrument of God’s saving action, as it signifies the abiding grace and power of the paschal mystery in the lives of those who believe.”[67] The Lord’s Supper is the outward expression of the life of the believer, nourished and sustained by the life of Christ. It cannot be received by persons who are “dead through…trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). The injunction that communicants examine themselves implies reserving the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper for those joined to Christ and his Church in baptism.
The Church’s “unity in Christ is nourished by the sharing of the Eucharist, not as an act of private piety, but as the celebration of that common identity which baptism has created.”[68] The bread and wine serve as “the gifts of God for the people of God.”[69] Therefore, because the Eucharist is the sacramental renewal of the Baptismal Covenant, then to receive the gift of the body and blood of Christ, to accept the invitation to the Christ’s Holy Table, one must be “members in good standing who have been confirmed by a Bishop of this Church or a Bishop of a Church in communion with this Church.”[70]
For churches in the Southern Baptist Convention, in order for a person to enjoy ceremonial privileges, they must have first met ceremonial qualifications. It makes little difference if a communicant fails to grasp the meaning of the words and rituals of the Lord’s Supper so long as a disposed recipient receives the elements.[71] The symbolism of the ordinance requires that new birth come before sustenance. Therefore, to partake of the Lord’s Supper, a person must have been born again. A person must have engaged in repentance toward God, made a public profession of faith in Jesus Christ, and admitted as a member of a local church.
Similar to the practice of the Episcopal Church, before receiving communion a communicant must have “underwent the divinely appointed ceremonial qualification of baptism by immersion.”[72] Southern Baptists, however, have excluded those persons who have been baptized by any other method other than immersion, which Baptists consider true New Testament baptisms. To depart from good order by allowing anyone other than a believer baptized by immersion to partake in the Lord’s Supper “strikes at the roots of Christianity and alters its whole method of dealing with men, and empties it in due time of all spiritual power.”[73]
Mostly, the point on which both the Episcopal Church and the Southern Baptist Convention seem to agree is that concerning who can partake of the Lord’s Supper. Since the ritual of communion is, by its connection with Jesus’ Last Supper, a communal meal, then those who partake of the bread and the wine should foremost be a member of the community. If the Lord’s Supper implies a spiritual connection between the communicant and the Lord, then it must follow that a personal relationship with God is a required to partake of his body and blood.
Despite the difference in beliefs and practices that keep the two denominations from experiencing full corporate union, the Episcopal Church and the Southern Baptist Convention recognize the Lord’s Supper as the self-offering of Christ externalized in human ritual. Episcopalians and Southern Baptists eat bread and drink from the fruit of the vine however frequently or infrequently so that their lives may be incorporated into the living reality made present through communion with Him who offers and is offered on their behalf. The action of Holy Communion service begins in the inward and external sphere of Christ sacrifice. Christ’s action then reaches its stage of externalization in His body the Church, which at a given place and time is offered through the bread and wine in memorial of His passion.[74]