The Eucharist Part One

KEVIN HARRIS: Bill, as part of your Systematic Philosophical Theology you're reviewing the ordinances of the church. Today we're going to look at the Eucharist, but first talk about this latest locus.

DR. CRAIG: This is part of the locus devoted to ecclesiology, which is the doctrine of the church. This will concern the nature of the church, its sacraments, and its organization. One of the most important of the sacraments is certainly the Eucharist or the Lord's Supper. So for the last several months I've been devoting intensive study to the doctrine of the  Eucharist.

KEVIN HARRIS: Dr. Gavin Ortlund is anecdotally becoming known for his emphasis on the Eucharist. He's a Baptist pastor. He's a scholar. He thinks that Protestants in particular need to recover or rethink the importance of the Eucharist. He's starting to become known for this. You know him – Gavin. You've been on his channel and know his folks as well.

DR. CRAIG: Yes, that's right. His father, Bud Ortlund, was one of my best friends in college, and so it's been a delight for me to get to know Gavin. And I want to say that I love Gavin Ortlund. I think he is a wonderful Christian, intelligent, pious, sincere, committed, and I'm a big fan. I say that because I'm going to be disagreeing with a number of things that he says today so I want to put that out on the table here. How appreciative I am of my friend, Gavin Ortlund.

KEVIN HARRIS: You bet. We have a few video clips that we're going to look at. Here's the first where he spells out what he calls the real presence view. Clip number one.

DR. ORTLAND: Real presence simply means that Christ's body and blood are really present in the consecrated wine and bread of the Eucharist or the Lord's Supper or communion, you can call it. In my tradition, the way I like to put it is that the one who participates worthily in the Lord's Supper, that is by faith, truly is feasting upon Christ and his benefits in the Gospel. This is more than a mere remembrance of Christ. Christ is active, giving himself to us in an intimate way in this sacrament. Lots of people are surprised to discover that as a Baptist – oh, as a Baptist! – you really believe in real presence? Yes. Actually, real presence is the historic Baptist view. Nobody knows this. It's amazing.

KEVIN HARRIS: So, his view goes beyond a mere remembering or memorial taking of the Eucharist. Bill?

DR. CRAIG: Yes. He defines the real presence to mean that Christ's body and blood are present in the consecrated elements of the bread and wine. But I'm afraid that's an inadequate definition of the doctrine of the real presence. In fact, his own Reformed view denies that. On Calvin's view, the body and blood of Christ are in no sense present in the elements. They are not located on the communion table or the altar. The body and blood of Christ are risen and ascended into heaven. So his own view denies real presence as he's defined it. Rather, the doctrine of the real presence means that we actually eat the physical body and drink the physical blood of the historical Jesus now risen and ascended into heaven. Now, that is not the same as what Gavin goes on to say about feasting upon Christ and his benefits – how Christ is active in giving himself to us in an intimate way. That's not what is meant by the real presence. Here I think it can be helpful to differentiate between what theologians have called the personal presence of Christ versus the real presence of Christ. The personal presence of Christ would be that Christ himself is personally present in the celebration of the Eucharist. In his divine nature, Christ is everywhere present, and no one would think to deny his personal presence in a very intimate way often. But that's not the real presence. The real presence is a very physical doctrine that the historical body of Jesus – his flesh and blood now risen and ascended into heaven – are eaten by us and drunk by us. That's what the real presence means. Now, similarly, when Paul in 1 Corinthians 11 talks about eating and drinking in an unworthy manner, to take communion worthily does not mean by faith, as Gavin said. Rather, scholars are agreed that the problem in Corinth arose because in the meetings of these house churches, communion and at that early stage was not just a wafer and a little cup of wine but it was a communal meal shared by everyone in the church. They would probably meet in the homes of one of the wealthier members of the church who would have the space to accommodate other people. The thinking is that what was going on in Corinth is that the wealthier members were bringing and eating their own food (which was very high-class good meals) whereas the people that Paul calls the have-nots – those who have nothing – were going hungry and being neglected. And so Paul says, "One person is drunk and another one's hungry at your communion feast." This is what Paul means when he says that they were doing it unworthily. They were discriminating against other members of the body of Christ and therefore denying the equal standing of all members of the community before Christ. So when it talks about eating and drinking “unworthily” that the problem in Corinth was occasioned by this class inequality and these social distinctions that were affecting the church. Now, as for his claim that Baptists have always believed in the real presence, I'm very skeptical of that. I just finished an excellent book by Baptist theologians Thomas Schreiner and Matthew Crawford, entitled The Lord's Supper, published in 2010. If Gavin is right, these Baptist theologians don't know their own tradition because they clearly do not believe that in the Eucharist we eat the physical body and drink the physical blood of Jesus. Therefore I suspect that maybe what Gavin is talking about is that Baptists have always believed in Christ's personal presence in the Lord's Supper. Of course Christ is present in the Lord's Supper, but that's not the same thing as the real presence.

KEVIN HARRIS: Gavin gets a little into scripture now. He gives three reasons for why what he calls real presence is the preferred view. So let's go to the first reason. Clip number two.

DR. ORTLAND: You don't find a full-blown theory of the Eucharist in the New Testament. But what you do find is language about and description of the Eucharist that seems to imply it has a sacredness and an orientation to Christ that goes beyond a mere remembrance. Of course, at the institution, Jesus uses these phrases “This is my body. This is my blood.” That's not determinative. The verb “to be”, “is” needs to be interpreted, but it at least raises the question what does that mean exactly? Then you find fascinating little details like people in the church in Corinth dying for partaking of the Lord's Supper unworthily. Now, you could account for that maybe on a memorialist model that denies real presence, but it at least raises the question, is there something more going on here? Then you get to passages like 1 Corinthians 10:16. “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?” A participation in Christ is not the same thing as a commemoration or remembrance of Christ. The word participation is the word koinōnia, sometimes translated “fellowship” as in Acts 2:42 or 2 Corinthians 6:14, “what fellowship has light with darkness.” This word “fellowship” really gets at the intimacy with Christ that is to be enjoyed in participation in the Eucharist. In the Reformed tradition, we talk about the Eucharist as one aspect of our union with Christ. There's this mystical, spiritual bond that believers have with Christ, and the Eucharist is sort of the pinnacle expression of this.

KEVIN HARRIS: Do you think there's anything in those verses that he related that leans more toward a real presence view?

DR. CRAIG: Not at all. I do not see in these passages any reason to interpret these in terms of the real presence. It's important to understand, again, that having what he calls a sacredness and orientation toward Christ that is more than remembrance does not imply eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Jesus. With respect to the words of institution where Jesus says, “This is my body. This cup is a new covenant in my blood,” at the Last Supper when Jesus celebrated that final Passover with his disciples, there is no way that these words were intended literally. Think about it. Jesus was sitting there bodily in front of them. None of the original disciples would have thought that they were drinking his blood and eating his flesh. It's important to understand in this connection that Passover was itself a highly symbolic meal in which the head of the household had the responsibility of interpreting the elements of the Passover meal, in particular the bread. And Jesus does exactly the same thing in this final Passover with the disciples. But now he interprets the bread and the wine to be symbols of his body and blood; that is to say, of his impending death. It would be, I think, silly to take these words literally. Jesus said many things like, "I am the vine,” “I am the door,” “I am the bread of life." Such language is obviously figurative in nature. So I think that the Swiss reformer Huldrych Zwingli was quite right that in saying “This is my body” what Jesus means is “This signifies my body.” It's only due to Martin Luther's stubborn intransigence about a literalistic interpretation of these words that enabled him to defend the real presence in his confrontation with Zwingli. When they met in Marburg in 1529, Luther wrote on the table the words from the Latin Vulgate Hoc est corpus meum – “this is my body.” Then he covered it with a sheet. During the dialogue, when Zwingli argued that this was figurative language, Luther finally tore away the cloth revealing the words, "This is my body," and he said, "This is what it says." It was just a stubborn insistence on this wooden literalism – that's all that Luther had to offer in defense of the real presence and that interpretation of that. Now with respect to the passage in 1 Corinthians where God's judgment was coming upon some of the Corinthians – they were sick and ill and some had died – God was judging the people in Corinth for taking the Lord's Supper unworthily because of those social divisions, those class distinctions that I mentioned, rather than sharing equitably in the elements of the meal. It had nothing to do with their failing to discern the real presence of Christ. What about this word “participation” – koinōnia? Koinōnia means “association” or “partnership.” It emphasizes the lateral dimension among the people. It's like participation in a race. You participate with others with the intention of running a race. And it's very similar with the Lord's Supper. The emphasis is on the koinōnia among the participants in the Lord's Supper and participating equally in taking the elements of the bread and the wine that symbolize the body and blood of Christ. The fact that this is not meant literally is, I think, decisively shown by Paul's analogies that he draws to the participation of Israel in the altar and pagans in demon worship. It is not that these persons are eating demons or eating the altar. Rather, they are participating in Jewish or pagan worship services, and Paul is saying, “I don't want you to be involved in demon worship.” So his analogies to Israel and the altar and pagan worship and demons – not being partners, not having koinōnia with these things – only makes sense on the, I think, symbolic interpretation, not the real presence. Now, Gavin confuses intimacy with Christ (which we certainly do have) with physically eating his body and drinking his blood. That is completely different from our mystical union with Christ, which is a sort of spiritual union that we have. Christ is our substitute and representative before God such that what happens to him happens to us. That is our union with Christ. Gavin is confusing our mystical union with Christ with our eating his physical body and drinking his physical blood. In fact, the Reformed churches have no coherent account to offer of the real presence in the Eucharist. The position of the Reformed theologians is that we consume Christ's physical body and blood spiritually. But what does that mean? What does it mean to consume the physical body and blood spiritually? Well, Calvin says that what he means is that by the power of the Holy Spirit we are in some mysterious way raised to heaven where Christ's physical body is and we consume him there. He has no explanation of how in the world this can take place. And Calvin admits this. He says and I quote, "Should anyone ask me as to the mode I am not ashamed to confess that is too high a mystery either for my mind to comprehend or my words to express. I rather feel than understand it." He feels it, but he doesn't understand it. I'm reminded in this connection of the philosopher Peter Van Inwagen, the eminent metaphysician. Van Inwagen is something of a terror to other metaphysicians for saying to them, “I don't understand your view.” Now, the lay person might think that when Van Inwagen says it, that's Van Inwagen's problem if he can't understand the other man's view. But the assumption is that if this brilliant and well-informed metaphysician is unable to understand your view then the strong suspicion arises that your view is actually unintelligible and therefore meaningless. Van Inwagen will frequently say that he thinks that certain positions, though they sound great, they sound really good, he says when you examine they turn out to be meaningless. I think that something of this nature is true with respect to the Reformed view of spiritually consuming the physical body and blood of Christ. I think it doesn't make sense. It is, in fact, just pious nonsense.

KEVIN HARRIS: While we're on the subject of Scripture, maybe you can say just a little bit about John 6 when Jesus said, "You must eat my flesh and drink my blood." A lot of the disciples at that point said, "We're out of here."

DR. CRAIG: Yes!

KEVIN HARRIS: And they left. Is it because it was so foreign to Jewish ears? Something like that? They weren't understanding what he was saying – “This is a hard saying. Who can hear?”

DR. CRAIG: Yes. It was deeply offensive to Jews to consume blood. That's prohibited in Leviticus and in the Old Testament – you cannot drink or consume the blood of the sacrifices that were offered in the tabernacle and the temple. This was anathema. And so it's no wonder that they were offended. But the question is whether or not to interpret this passage in John 6 in the bread of life discourse to have reference to eating the body and drinking the blood of Jesus in the Eucharist. Even if the language that John uses would have occasioned in the mind of his readers thoughts of the  Eucharist, it's not a Eucharistic context. And John says nothing to suggest that he meant this in a literal way. In fact, in John 6:64, after these people say, "This is a hard saying," and they leave Jesus, the disciples say, “They've left you, Lord.” And Jesus says to them, “The flesh profits nothing. It is the spirit that gives life. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” So Jesus is not talking there about literal consumption of his physical body and blood as advocates of the real presence will sometimes say.

KEVIN HARRIS: OK, let's stop right there, and we're going to pick it up next time right here on Reasonable Faith for part two. It's Reasonable Faith with Dr. William Lane Craig.^[1]