page_title: Lord's Supper in Reformed theology
section_title: Reformation
hierarchical_section_title: Lord's Supper in Reformed theology / History / Reformation
caption_attribution_description: English: Reverse of a coin depicting a hand holding up a heart. The obverse bears an image of John Calvin.
context_page_description: In Reformed theology, the Lord's Supper or Eucharist is a sacrament that spiritually nourishes Christians and strengthens their union with Christ. The outward or physical action of the sacrament is eating bread and drinking wine. Reformed confessions, which are official statements of the beliefs of Reformed churches, teach that Christ's body and blood are really present in the sacrament, but that this presence is communicated in a spiritual manner rather than by his body being physically eaten. The Reformed doctrine of real presence is sometimes called mystical real presence or spiritual real presence.
  Early Reformed theologians such as John Calvin and Huldrych Zwingli rejected the medieval belief in transubstantiation, that the bread and wine of the Eucharist change into Christ's body and blood, but taught that Christ's person, including his body and blood, are presented to Christians who partake of it in faith. They also disagree with Martin Luther and the Lutheran tradition which taught that Christ's body is physically eaten with the mouth in the sacrament. Later Reformed orthodox theologians continued to teach views similar to that of Calvin and Zwingli.
context_section_description: Martin Luther, leading figure of the Protestant Reformation and leader of the Protestant movement which would be called Lutheranism, rejected the doctrine of transubstantiation, but continued to hold that Christ is bodily present "under the bread and wine". Luther insisted that Christ's words during the institution of the sacrament, "this is my body", be taken literally. He believed that anyone who ate and drank during the Eucharist (often called the "Lord's Supper" by Protestants) physically ate Christ's body and drank his blood, regardless of their faith.
  Huldrych Zwingli, the first theologian in the Reformed tradition, also rejected the view of transubstantiation, but he disagreed with Luther by holding that Christ's body is not physically present in the Eucharist. He held that Christ's whole person (body and spirit) is presented to believers in the Eucharist, but that this does not occur by Christ's body being eaten with the mouth. This view has been labeled "mystical real presence", meaning that those who partake have a direct experience of God's presence, or "spiritual real presence" because Christ's presence is by his spirit. Zwingli also did not believe that the sacrament actually confers the grace which is offered in the sacrament, but that the outer signs of bread and wine testify to that grace and awaken the memory of Christ's death.
  John Calvin, a very influential early Reformed theologian, believed the Lord's Supper fed Christians with the spiritual food of union with Christ. He believed that in the Supper Christians feed on Christ's flesh, which he saw as an inexplicable miracle. Calvin taught that the Supper confirms the promises communicated to Christians in the preaching of the Gospel. He also saw its purpose as provoking praise for God and love for other people. He believed it necessary for Christians to partake of Christ's humanity in the Supper as well as his Spirit, and that the bread and wine really present, rather than simply symbolize or represent, Christ's body and blood. Calvin spoke of the communication involved in the Lord's Supper as spiritual, meaning that it originates in the Holy Spirit. Calvin's teaching on the Lord's Supper was followed by many others in the Reformed tradition, including Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr Vermigli. Calvin, like Zwingli and against Luther, did not believe that Christ is bodily present in the elements of the Eucharist. He taught that Christ remains in heaven and that we commune with him in the Lord's Supper by being raised up to him rather than him descending to us. Calvin believed the elements of the Supper to be used by God as instruments in communicating the promises which they represent, a view called symbolic instrumentalism.
  Heinrich Bullinger, Zwingli's successor, went beyond Zwingli by teaching that there is a union between the sacrament of the Supper and the grace symbolized in them. Bullinger's view was not identical to Calvin's, because he did not see sacraments as instrumental in communicating grace. Bullinger's view has been called "symbolic parallelism", because the inward feeding on Christ occurs at the same time as the outward eating of bread and wine, but is not caused by it in any way.
  The Reformed confessions of faith, official statements of the beliefs of Reformed churches, followed the view that Christ is really present in the Supper. They either took Calvin's view that the signs of bread and wine are instrumental in communicating grace, or Bullinger's symbolic parallelism. Some of the German-language Reformed confessions seem hesitant to make the sacrament a means of grace, but they all maintain that there is a union between the outward signs of the sacrament and the inward grace signified. Reformed orthodox theologians also continued to insist on Christ's real presence in the Supper, while denying against Lutherans that his body is locally present.
caption: This seventeenth-century medal commemorating John Calvin depicts a hand holding a heart to heaven. Calvin believed Christians were lifted up to heaven by the Holy Spirit in the Lord's Supper.
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