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Luke 22:14–20
“[Jesus] took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me’” (v. 19).
After Peter and John prepared the Passover (Luke 22:7–13), Jesus and the Twelve gathered to eat it (v. 14). During the meal, Jesus instituted the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
Before instituting the sacrament, our Savior remarked that He had been “earnestly” desiring to celebrate the Passover with His disciples and that He would not be feasting again until the coming of the kingdom of God (vv. 15–18). One commentator notes that Jesus’ desire and upcoming abstention from the Passover signaled that something momentous was about to happen. As our Lord prepared to enter His passion, a radical change was coming—a new era in the history of salvation with the establishment of the new covenant church. Until this new era is fully consummated, it is fitting for Jesus to abstain from the fullness of feasting even as He left for us a meal to remember His death on our behalf. At the marriage supper of the Lamb on the last day, He will eat the feast again (Rev. 19:6–9).
In giving the Lord’s Supper, Jesus said that the bread is His body and the wine is His blood (Luke 22:19–20). What does this mean? Most theological traditions argue that Christ is really present in the Lord’s Supper, but they understand the real presence of Jesus in the sacrament differently. Roman Catholics and Lutherans, for example, hold that Christ is bodily present in the sacrament. Roman Catholics believe that the bread and wine become the actual body and blood of Christ without losing the appearance of the bread and wine. Lutherans hold that our Lord’s body is somehow present in, with, and under the bread and the wine.
There is no empirical evidence, however, that the elements are anything other than bread and wine. Further, the Roman Catholic and Lutheran positions require Christ’s human body to be present in multiple places at once. This seems to compromise the integrity of Christ’s human nature because physical bodies can be present in only one place at a time. Therefore, the Reformed have held to the real spiritual presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. According to His human nature, He remains in heaven, body and soul. Yet Jesus is a divine person with a divine nature, so He is spiritually present everywhere by virtue of that nature. Nevertheless, because the human and divine natures are perfectly united in the one divine person of Jesus, we commune with the human nature as well in the sacrament.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
The presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper is a great mystery, but John Calvin may help us better understand what happens in the sacrament. He writes that “the analogy or resemblance between bread and flesh . . . teaches us, that our souls feed on Christ’s own flesh in precisely the same manner as bread imparts vigor to our bodies. The flesh of Christ, therefore, is spiritual nourishment, because it gives life to us. . . . It gives life, because the Holy Spirit pours into us the life which dwells in it.”
for further stury
- Ezra 6:19–22
- Psalm 104:14–15
- John 6:22–59
- 1 Corinthians 10:16
the bible in a year
- Jeremiah 44–45
- Hebrews 3:1–4:13