What exactly happens in Communion? Don’t ask me. Christian believers have never succeeded in agreeing on precisely what happens at the Lord’s Table. But that’s OK. The mystery is too big to fully analyze or explain. What you really need to know is that when you come to the Lord’s Table in faith, you come to Jesus himself. When you receive the Lord’s Supper in faith, you receive Christ himself.

That’s what our church confesses. It does so because that’s what the Bible teaches: “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16). Even so, many in our churches balk at embracing it. That’s surely partly because our fallen hearts are prone to doubt and distrust God’s gracious person and promises and power. But could it also be partly because we haven’t been adequately instructed?

Not an Object Lesson

Somehow—in reaction against Roman Catholicism—the teaching that the Lord’s Supper is essentially a God-ordained object lesson began to spread. In this view, Christ instituted Communion to remind us of what he did for us; it basically serves as a devotional tool by which we can remember Christ’s sacrifice and stir ourselves to gratitude and rededication. This view became the majority report among nondenominational Protestants. But it also influenced many who regard themselves as Presbyterian and Reformed—including pastors and theologians. (We generally blame Huldrych Zwingli for this view, but many Zwingli scholars insist that Zwingli’s view has been misconstrued. I don’t know about that. What I do know is that whatever its origin, this “memorialist” view did spread widely, it did become associated with Zwingli, and it did diminish practical expectations of our Lord at his Supper, even among those whose standards teach differently.)

But it’s not what our Presbyterian and Reformed confessions teach. They do reject the notion that Christ is locally present in the elements of the Lord’s Supper. But at the same time, they insist that Christ is really and truly present in the Lord’s Supper, albeit spiritually present. Note well, however: When they say Christ’s presence is “spiritual,” they don’t mean that it’s not real. They don’t mean that it’s just in our minds. They mean that the whole Christ is really and truly present in the Lord’s Supper by means of the supernatural working of the Holy Spirit.

The Westminster Confession of Faith, for instance, insists that the Roman Catholic dogma of transubstantiation—that, through a priest’s blessing, God turns the substance of the bread and wine into the substance of the body and blood of Christ—is unbiblical, not only obscuring the true meaning of the Lord’s Supper but also giving rise to superstitions and errors. Even so, the Confession goes on to insist that the Bible does teach that when you take the Lord’s Supper in faith, you don’t just eat bread and drink wine with your physical mouth—you at the same time receive Christ himself and all the benefits of his death with your spiritual “mouth,” which is faith. This happens by the supernatural working of the Holy Spirit. It’s not because Christ’s body and blood are somehow located in the bread and wine. It’s because by the Holy Spirit and through faith, Christ’s body and blood really are just as present to your soul as the bread and wine are to your body (see Westminster Confession of Faith 29.6–7).

An Awe-Inspiring Fact

John Calvin affirmed that this mystery of Christ’s presence in Communion is simply too big for our minds to fully analyze or explain. He said,

I here embrace without controversy the truth of God in which I may safely rest. He declares his flesh the food of my soul, his blood its drink (John 6:53 ff.). I offer my soul to him to be fed with such food. In his Sacred Supper, he bids me take, eat, and drink his body and blood under the symbols of bread and wine. I do not doubt that he himself truly presents them, and that I receive them.

He then admitted,

Now, if anyone should ask me how this takes place, I shall not be ashamed to confess that it is a secret too lofty for either my mind to comprehend or my words to declare. And, to speak more plainly, I rather experience than understand it. (Institutes of the Christian Religion, 4.17.32)

Instead of trying to shrink the Lord’s Supper down to something we can fully analyze and explain, we’d do better to simply embrace this awe-inspiring fact: When we take the Lord’s Supper in faith, we actually do receive Christ and all the blessings of forgiveness, life, and salvation that he’s merited for us.

Word and Sacrament

But we do that just by hearing the gospel and trusting Christ, don’t we? Yes, praise God, we do! But because of his great love for us, God—who is rich in mercy and shows compassion to those who fear him, who knows our frame and remembers that we are dust (Ps. 103:13, 14; Eph. 2:4)—gives us even more than that. He reinforces his words by also reaching out to us through the physical elements of bread and wine. Think of it this way: when loving parents comfort their little children, do they limit themselves just to using words? No, they seal their words with tangible hugs and kisses to better convey the reality their words express. That’s what the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper are—God sealing his gospel promises with tangible signs to better convey the reality they express. Scottish Presbyterian Robert Bruce (1554–1631) put it this way: “The Word leads us to Christ by the ear; the Sacraments lead us to Christ by the eye” (The Mystery of the Lord’s Supper, 39). “Eye” here alludes to all our senses—especially sight, smell, touch, taste. The sacraments not only make the Word visible; they also make it tangible. When we, through faith, take Communion, we receive Christ himself! Bruce went on to say that it’s not that we can receive a better Christ by receiving in faith the Lord’s Supper in addition to the preached Word, but it is that—by God’s gracious design—we can receive Christ better.

Hallelujah! Does that encourage you? Could it change what you expect from our Lord at his supper? Does it call you to repent of practical unbelief with its low expectations of our great God? Could it change how you approach the Lord’s table? Does it challenge you to cultivate living faith with its high expectations of our great God?

The author is a retired OP minister. New Horizons, March 2025.