(Note: The following post was adapted from a paper I wrote for a Theology class. As such, much of its descriptions of different theological viewpoints are painted with very broad strokes. Still, I tried to keep them as accurate as possible)
If you stopped random evangelicals on the street and asked them what the differences are between Protestants and Roman Catholics, the top three responses would likely be the Pope, the adoration of Mary, and the Lord’s Supper. The average evangelical layperson may not know very much about Roman Catholic dogma, but he is likely to know that they believe in transubstantiation (even if he isn’t familiar with that term). What the average layperson is not likely to know is that the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper was also the single most divisive doctrine within the various camps of Protestantism as well, sharply dividing Lutherans from their Reformed counterparts. Today in the West, there are basically four major views of the Lord’s Supper, three of which are held by different Protestant evangelical groups; Lutheran, Reformed and Baptist/Pentecostal. In this series of posts, I will briefly outline the four positions, and then offer my critical analysis. For the sake of space, I will leave out questions of how often the sacrament should be administered, who should administer it, who can partake, whether or not other elements can be substituted for bread and wine, etc. I will instead focus on what I believe is the primary issue, namely the presence of Christ. Where is Christ present? How is He present? How is the sacrament efficacious? With these questions in mind, let us now explore the first view.
Memorialist
The Memorialist view, first articulated by the Swiss reformer Ulrich Zwingli, says that Christ is not locally present in or with the elements themselves in any sense, physical or spiritual. Rather, the elements are signs that point us to the spiritual reality they are meant to signify. Memorialists focus on Christ’s command to “do this in remembrance” of Him. Thus the Lord’s Supper points us back, to remind us of Christ’s ultimate sacrifice on our behalf. But it also points us forward, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:26 that as often as the Lord’s Supper is celebrated Christians “proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” This aspect of proclamation also highlights what is going on in the present. Believers are being uplifted and strengthened in their faith, in much the same way as they would be by the preaching of the Word.
Memorialists argue that Christ’s words of institution in the Gospels, “this is my body” and “this is my blood” are symbolic or metaphorical. This is especially true of Christ’s words in John 6:53-54, where he seems to explicitly teach that believers must actually eat his flesh and drink his blood to have eternal life. Russel D. Moore responds to the Catholic reading of these verses by pointing out that there is an ongoing theme in John’s gospel of Jesus teaching metaphorically, but being taken literally by his hearers and thus misunderstood by them. In John 2, for example, Jesus teaches that He will destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, and his hearers do not understand becaue they assume he means the literal temple in Jerusalem. In John 3, Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be born again in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and Nicodemus is confused because he takes Christ’s metaphor literally. In John 4, when Jesus speaks of living water, the Samaritan woman takes him literally and misunderstands what he is trying to teach. And more examples abound.
Memorialists also ground their position in a continuity between the Passover feast and the Lord’s Supper. Just as the Passover feast was meant as a celebration and remembrance of things past and a proclamation and hope of things to come, so is the Lord’s Supper. More importantly, there was nothing spiritually efficacious about eating the Passover meal, and neither is there with the Lord’s Supper.
