page_title: Lord's Supper in Reformed theology
section_title: Christ's presence
hierarchical_section_title: Lord's Supper in Reformed theology / Christ's presence
caption_attribution_description: English: Oil on canvas, 85 x 127 cm Collection: Bradford Museums and Galleries
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: The Reformed confessions teach that Christ's true body and blood are really present in the Lord's Supper. Regarding what is received in the Supper, the Reformed tradition does not disagree with the position of Catholicism or Lutheranism. Reformed confessions teach that partakers of the Supper, in the words of the Belgic Confession, partake of "the proper and natural body and the proper blood of Christ". However, they deny the explanations for this eating and drinking made by Lutherans and Catholics. Against Catholics, Reformed confessions teach that the bread and wine of the Supper do not become the blood and body of Christ, as in the Catholic view of transubstantiation. Against Lutherans, Reformed confessions do not teach that partakers of the Supper physically eat Christ's body and drink his blood with their mouths (Latin: manducatio oralis). While Reformed confessions teach that in the Supper Christ is received in both his divine and human natures, the manner of eating is believed to be spiritual (manducatio spiritualis). The body and blood of Christ remain fleshly substance, but they are communicated to the partaker in a spiritual manner.
caption: A Scottish Sacrament, by Henry John Dobson
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