Transubstantiation, Consubstantiation, and Oversimplification

I heard a sermon Sunday on the Lord’s Supper that reinforced one of the points Shaun Groves made when he taught on the same subject recently in IKON.

Shaun was talking about the differing views of what happens while taking the Lord’s Supper and how different groups explain it. The three main categories he mentioned are as follows:
Catholics – Transubstantiation
Lutherans – Consubstantiation
Baptists – Oversimplification

The church I was at was Baptist, and so, not surprisingly, the pastor’s approach was to oversimplify the ordinance, basically claiming that it was nothing more than remembrance. (For those interested, he cited Huldrych Zwingli’s interpretation as the one he believes in.)

When I was checking my e-mail yesterday, I noticed I still had one of John Piper’s sermons in my inbox waiting to be read (they are sent out each week by e-mail), and the title was “Why and How We Celebrate the Lord’s Supper”.

Here is an excerpt I found interesting:

Where does this idea of “partaking of Christ’s body and blood . . . spiritually . . . by faith” come from? The closest text to support this is in the previous chapter: 1 Corinthians 10:16-18. As I read it, ask, “What does ‘participation’ mean?”

The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ (koinōnia estin tou haimatos tou Christou)? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ (ouchi koinōnia tou sōmatos tou Christou estin)? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Consider the people of Israel: are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar (koinōnia tou thusiastēriou)?

Here is something much deeper than remembering. Here are believers—those who trust and treasure Jesus Christ—and Paul says that they are participating in the body and blood of Christ. Literally, they are experiencing a sharing (koinōnia) in his body and blood. They are experiencing a partnership in his death.

And what does this participation/sharing/partnership mean? I think verse 18 gives us the clue because it uses a similar word, but compares it to what happens in the Jewish sacrifices: “Consider the people of Israel: are not those who eat the sacrifices participants [a form of the same word] in the altar?” What does sharer/participant/partner in the altar mean? It means that they are sharing in or benefiting from what happened on the altar. They are enjoying, for example, forgiveness and restored fellowship with God.

So I take verse 16 and 17 to mean that when believers eat the bread and drink the cup physically we do another kind of eating and drinking spiritually. We eat and drink—that is, we take into our lives—what happened on the cross. By faith—by trusting in all that God is for us in Jesus—we nourish ourselves with the benefits that Jesus obtained for us when he bled and died on the cross.

If you are interested in songs written about Communion, check out Andrew Peterson’s “Flesh and Blood” that he co-wrote with Ben Shive. I recently transcribed it for Andrew, and you can find the sheet music on his website at the bottom of this page.