Katechismus

Question 78-79

1. THE THINGS SIGNIFIED IN THE SACRAMENT. It is one of the characteristics of a sacrament that it represents one or more spiritual truths by means of sensible and outward signs. The outward sign in the case of the Lord's Supper includes not only the visible elements employed, but also the breaking of the bread and the pouring of the wine, the appropriation of bread and wine by eating and drinking, and the partaking of them in communion with others. The following points should be mentioned here:

a. It is a symbolical representation of the Lord's death, I Cor. 11:26. The central fact of redemption, prefigured in the sacrifices of the Old Testament, is clearly set forth by means of the significant symbols of the New Testament sacrament. The words of the institution, "broken for you" and "shed for many", point to the fact that the death of Christ is a sacrificial one, for the benefit, and even in the place, of His people.

b. It also symbolizes the believer's participation in the crucified Christ. In the celebration of the Lord's Supper the participants not merely look at the symbols, but receive them and feed upon them. Figuratively speaking, they "eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood," John 6:53, that is, they symbolically appropriate the benefits secured by the sacrificial death of Christ.

c. It represents, not only the death of Christ as the object of faith, and the act of faith which unites the believer to Christ, but also the effect of this act as giving life, strength, and joy, to the soul. This is implied in the emblems used. Just as bread and wine nourish and invigorate the bodily life of man, so Christ sustains and quickens the life of the soul. Believers are regularly represented in Scripture as having their life, and strength, and happiness, in Christ.

d. Finally, the sacrament also symbolizes the union of believers with one another. As members of the mystical body of Jesus Christ, constituting a spiritual unity, they eat of the same bread and drink of the same wine, I Cor. 10:17; 12:13. Receiving the elements, the one from the other, they exercise intimate communion with one another.

2. THE THINGS SEALED IN THE LORD'S SUPPER. The Lord's Supper is not only a sign but also a seal. This is lost sight of by a good many in our day, who have a very superficial view of this sacrament, and regard it merely as a memorial of Christ and as a badge of Christian profession. These two aspects of the sacrament, namely, as a sign and as a seal, are not independent of each other. The sacrament as a sign, or, to put it differently, the sacrament with all that it signifies, constitutes a seal. The seal is attached to the things signified, and is a pledge of the covenanted grace of God revealed in the sacrament. The Heidelberg Catechism says that Christ intends "by these visible signs and pledges to assure us that we are as really partakers of His true body and blood, through the working of the Holy Spirit, as we receive by the mouth of the body these holy tokens in remembrance of Him; and that all His sufferings and obedience are as certainly ours as if we ourselves had in our own persons suffered and made satisfaction to God for our sins." The following points come into consideration here:

a. It seals to the participant the great love of Christ, revealed in the fact that He surrendered Himself to a shameful and bitter death for them. This does not merely mean that it testifies to the reality of that sacrificial self-surrender, but that it assures the believing participant of the Lord's Supper that he personally was the object of that incomparable love.

b. Moreover, it pledges the believing partaker of the sacrament, not only the love and grace of Christ in now offering Himself to them as their Redeemer in all the fullness of His redemptive work; but gives him the personal assurance that all the promises of the covenant and all the riches of the gospel offer are his by a divine donation, so that he has a personal claim on them.

c. Again, it not only ratifies to the believing participant the rich promises of the gospel, but it assures him that the blessings of salvation are his in actual possession. As surely as the body is nourished and refreshed by bread and wine, so surely is the soul that receives Christ's body and blood through faith even now in possession of eternal life, and so surely will he receive it ever more abundantly.

d. Finally, the Lord's Supper is a reciprocal seal. It is a badge of profession on the part of those who partake of the sacrament. Whenever they eat the bread and drink the wine, they profess their faith in Christ as their Saviour and their allegiance to Him as their King, and they solemnly pledge a life of obedience to His divine commandments.

Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology

At the same time that it looks back to the historical reality of Christ's Passion, the Lord's Supper looks forward to the coming of the eschatological kingdom. Jesus specifically linked the Lord's Supper with the eschatological perspective of the kingdom of God when he informed his disciples that he would not eat the Passover again with them "until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God" (Luke 22:16), and then, after taking the cup, he gave thanks and said: "I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes" (22:18). Paul's assertion that "whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes" (1 Cor. 11:26) also gives to the Lord's Supper an eschatological orientation. The Lord's Supper is given to the church on its pilgrimage through the world and is intended to enkindle the eschatological hope that then, in the Eschaton, the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the places of the sea. The "worthy" communicant also anticipates that glorious time in the Eschaton, at the return of Christ, when the church as the perfected Bride of Christ will sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven at the "wedding supper of the Lamb" (Rev. 19:9) and drink anew with Christ of the fruit of the vine in his Father's kingdom (Matt. 26:29; Mark 14:25; Luke 22:18). Robert Reymond, New Systematic Theology

In all sacraments, when the names or properties of the thing signified are attributed to the signs, it does not signify the corporal presence of the things in the signs, but a correspondence between the signs and things signified, and a sealing of the things by their signs, and a union of these two things in their lawful use. In this supper, now, Christ attributes the names of the things signified (his body and blood) to the signs (bread and wine). Hence, we must not understand these words as expressing any corporal presence.

The nature of all sacraments requires that the signs be taken corporally, while the things signified must be understood spiritually; and that the things which are visible are not the things signified, being only the signs and pledges of them. ...the sacraments have been instituted for this end, that they may, as it were, effectually show to our external senses what the word promises, and the Holy Spirit works in our hearts, that they may be visible testimonies, and pledges of the promise of grace exhibited and applied. It is for this reason that Augustin says: “A sacrament is a visible word.” Again, “It is a visible form, or sign of an invisible grace.” ...Again, there must be an analogy between the sign and the thing signified; for unless the sacraments (says Augustin,) have some correspondence with the things of which they are sacraments, they would be no sacraments. ...Augustin, inquiring how the bread is the body of Christ, and the wine his blood, says: “These, brethren, are called sacraments; because one thing is seen in them, and another is understood. That which is seen has a material form; that which is understood a spiritual benefit.”

Ursinus, Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism

Transubstantiation & Consubstantiation

Transubstantiation - "Substance" here means what something is in itself. (For more on the philosophical concept, see Substance theory.) A hat's shape is not the hat itself, nor is its color the hat, nor is its size, nor its softness to the touch, nor anything else about it perceptible to the senses. The hat itself (the "substance") has the shape, the color, the size, the softness and the other appearances, but is distinct from them. Whereas the appearances, which are referred to by the philosophical term accidents are perceptible to the senses, the substance is not.

When at his Last Supper Jesus said: "This is my body", what he held in his hands had all the appearances of bread. However, the Catholic Church believes that the underlying reality was changed in accordance with what Jesus said, that the "substance" of the bread was converted to that of his body. In other words, it actually was his body, while all the appearances open to the senses or to scientific investigation were still those of bread, exactly as before. The Church believes that the same change of the substance of the bread and of the wine occurs at every celebration of the Eucharist,

The bread is changed in the Eucharist into Jesus' body, but, because Jesus, risen from the dead, is living, not only his body is present, but Jesus as a whole, body and blood, soul and divinity. The same holds for the wine changed into his blood.

The Catholic Church accordingly believes that through transubstantiation Christ is really, truly and substantially present under the remaining appearances of bread and wine, and that the transformation remains as long as the appearances remain.

Consubstantiation is a philosophical theory that, like the competing theory of transubstantiation, attempts to describe the nature of the Christian Eucharist in concrete metaphysical terms. It holds that during the sacrament the fundamental "substance" of the body and blood of Christ are present alongside the substance of the bread and wine, which remain present. Transubstantiation differs from consubstantiation in that it postulates that through consecration, according to some, that one set of substances (bread and wine) is exchanged for another (the Body and Blood of Christ) or, according to others, that the reality of the bread and wine become the reality of the body and blood of Christ. The substance of the bread and wine do not remain, but their accidents (superficial properties like appearance and taste) remain.

Consubstantiation is commonly—though erroneously—associated with the teachings of Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon. Lutheran teachings reject any attempt to explain philosophically the means by which Christ is present in the Eucharist. Luther did teach that the body and blood of Christ are present "in, with, and under the forms" of bread and wine, and present-day Lutherans hold to this statement while disagreeing about its exact meaning. Some Lutherans do use the term "consubstantiation" to refer to this belief, but the theology intended is not the same as the philosophical theory described above. Luther illustrated his belief about the Eucharist "by the analogy of the iron put into the fire whereby both fire and iron are united in the red-hot iron and yet each continues unchanged," a concept which he called "sacramental union." Wikipedia articles

// posted by sundoulos @ 6:07 PM