“What makes a Baptist Church…Baptist?” These beliefs have historically identified baptists and distinguished them from other denominations:
- Bible as the only rule for faith and practice
- Regenerate and immersed church membership
- Autonomy of the local church
- Priesthood of the believer
- Soul liberty
- Immersion and the Lord’s supper are the only two ordinances
- Separation, both ecclesiastical and ethical
After the resurrection Jesus instructed his disciples to practice water baptism as the initiatory rite of disciple-making, and he assured them of his ongoing presence and authority “even to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20). Another ordinance instituted by Christ during his earthly ministry is what we call the Lord’s supper.
On the night he was betrayed to be crucified, Jesus and his disciples ate the Passover meal together. It was at the end of this meal that our Lord took two of the elements from the table and attached the symbolism of his approaching sacrificial death: bread to represent his body and a cup of wine to represent his blood. He told those who were present1 that they were to do this as a memorial after his crucifixion (Lk. 22:19), and that he would no longer eat and drink these things with them until the coming of his Father’s kingdom (Mk. 14:25).
This last statement especially is significant, because it indicates that the disciples were to repeat what Jesus had shown them that night until his second coming. The apostle Paul confirmed this when he taught the Corinthian church how to properly practice the supper, saying, “as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes” (1 Cor. 11:26). In other words, we are right to see the Lord’s supper as an ordinance like baptism, to be observed by all Christians.
We are right to see the Lord’s supper as an ongoing ordinance like baptism, to be observed by all Christians.
The language of 1 Cor. 11:25-26 reveals something about the nature of the ordinance. Twice Paul uses the adverb “as often as” to describe its practice. This gives a clear indication that the supper is to be repeated with some regularity from its inception on the night of Christ’s betrayal to his 2nd coming in glory. There is no mention of just how frequent this observation is to be, so there is some measure of freedom for autonomous congregations to decide, but if we do err, it seems best to be on the side of greater frequency rather than less.
Another point is that the Lord’s supper consists of both the bread and the cup. Simon Kistemaker observes that “He repeats the words as often as and links them to both the eating of the bread and the drinking of the cup. These two actions must always be equal elements of this sacrament.” During the Middle Ages the Roman Catholic Church began the practice of serving wine to priests only, while the lay people received bread. This practice continued well into the 20th century in many Catholic churches.
Another key point of distinction about the supper has to do with exactly how Jesus is present. Roman Catholics believe in what they call “the real presence” of Jesus in the bread and the cup, which Medieval theologians called transubstantiation. They believe that when the elements are blessed, God changes the substance of them from bread and wine into the actual body and blood of Jesus, while the outward appearance remains unchanged.
In the 16th century Martin Luther tried to correct this view of the supper by saying that the substance of the elements did not change when blessed, but rather that the presence of Jesus was joined to them. He would argue that the bread and wine coexist with the body and blood of Christ, a view which was called consubstantiation. So while Lutherans would say that the substance of the elements remains the same, they still contend that Christ’s body and blood are truly present whenever the supper is eaten.
The Reformed tradition also argues for the real presence of Christ in the Lord’s supper. These churches teach that when Jesus said the bread was his body, he was using the language of sacraments, so that a true union exists between the sign (bread or wine) and the thing signified (Jesus’ body and blood). Unlike the Lutheran view which holds that Christ’s physical body is brought down into the supper alongside the bread and the cup, Reformed churches hold that we enter heaven in the Spirit to feed on Jesus’ ascended body.
Calvinist theologian Kim Riddlebarger explains: “Christ can be in heaven and the believer can receive his true body and blood, because the same Holy Spirit ensures that those already in union with Christ receive his true body and blood when they take bread and wine in faith.” And he further states that, “when we eat the consecrated bread and drink the wine, through faith, the Holy Spirit ensures that we receive the true body and blood of Christ which is in heaven because we are in union with him.”2
“We eat bread and drink wine as a reminder, not as the literal or real thing.”
Peter Gentry
In contrast to all these views, Baptists believe that the Lord’s supper is intended as a memorial rather than a physical act through which one can receive grace, even if done in faith. There are several reasons for this. First, the most natural way to take Jesus’ words is as a metaphor. “This is my body” is like saying “The LORD is my shepherd.” No one thinks that David believed Yahweh was an actual shepherd or that he was a sheep, and we have no reason to think Jesus meant us to take his words differently.
Second, the Lord’s supper was instituted at the Passover, a memorial feast which was heavily symbolic. It would have taken a very clear explanation to demonstrate that the elements were anything other than symbols. And finally, Jesus said “Do this in remembrance of me” twice, emphasizing the supper’s memorial nature. Peter Gentry notes that “We eat bread and drink wine as a reminder, not as the literal or real thing.”3 We receive the gifts of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ and not by partaking of the bread and cup of the Lord’s supper.
The question which we still must address is whether there are more than these two ordinances. This will be the subject of our next installment.
1 Judas was dismissed from the meal immediately after receiving the dipped bread from Jesus according to John 13:30, which Matthew and Mark indicate took place prior to the first instance of the Lord’s supper.
2Riddlebarger explains in more detail the Reformed view here. https://www.wscal.edu/blog/basics-of-the-reformed-faith-the-lords-supper
3https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/baptist-faith-and-message-article-7b-the-lords-supper/
Please find below some teachings from early Church fathers on the Eucharist (I can provide more). You will see that none of them are teaching memorial only. In John 6 Jesus Christ asked us to eat His flesh and drink His blood for compelling reasons. Later, at the Lord’s Supper, Jesus Christ showed us how to obey His request to eat and drink of Him via blessed bread and wine that becomes His body and His blood. God made this straightforward to understand.
ST. IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH
“the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, the flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in His graciousness, raised from the dead.” (“Letter to the Smyrnaeans”, paragraph 6. circa 80-110 A.D.)
“I have no taste for the food that perishes nor for the pleasures of this life. I want the Bread of God which is the Flesh of Christ, who was the seed of David; and for drink I desire His Blood which is love that cannot be destroyed.” (“Letter to the Romans”, paragraph 7, circa 80-110 A.D.)
“Take care, then who belong to God and to Jesus Christ – they are with the bishop. And those who repent and come to the unity of the Church – they too shall be of God, and will be living according to Jesus Christ. Do not err, my brethren: if anyone follow a schismatic, he will not inherit the Kingdom of God. If any man walk about with strange doctrine, he cannot lie down with the passion. Take care, then, to use one Eucharist, so that whatever you do, you do according to God: for there is one Flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup in the union of His Blood; one altar, as there is one bishop with the presbytery and my fellow servants, the deacons.” (Epistle to the Philadelphians, 3:2-4:1, 110 A.D.)
ST. JUSTIN MARTYR
“This food we call the Eucharist, of which no one is allowed to partake except one who believes that the things we teach are true, and has received the washing for forgiveness of sins and for rebirth, and who lives as Christ handed down to us. For we do not receive these things as common bread or common drink; but as Jesus Christ our Savior being incarnate by God’s Word took flesh and blood for our salvation, so also we have been taught that the food consecrated by the Word of prayer which comes from him, from which our flesh and blood are nourished by transformation, is the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus.” (“First Apology”, Ch. 66, inter A.D. 148-155)
ST. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA
“The Word is everything to a child: both Father and Mother, both Instructor and Nurse. ‘Eat My Flesh,’ He says, ‘and drink My Blood.’ The Lord supplies us with these intimate nutrients. He delivers over His Flesh, and pours out His Blood; and nothing is lacking for the growth of His children. O incredible mystery!” (“The Instructor of the Children” [1,6,41,3] ante 202 A.D)
ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
Since then He Himself has declared and said of the Bread, (This is My Body), who shall dare to doubt any longer? And since He has affirmed and said, (This is My Blood), who shall ever hesitate, saying, that it is not His blood?” (“Catechetical Lectures [22 (Mystagogic 4), 1] c. 350 A.D)
ST. HILARY OF POITERS
“When we speak of the reality of Christ’s nature being in us, we would be speaking foolishly and impiously – had we not learned it from Him. For He Himself says: ‘My Flesh is truly Food, and My Blood is truly Drink. He that eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood will remain in Me and I in him.’ As to the reality of His Flesh and Blood, there is no room left for doubt, because now, both by the declaration of the Lord Himself and by our own faith, it is truly the Flesh and it is truly Blood. And These Elements bring it about, when taken and consumed, that we are in Christ and Christ is in us. Is this not true? Let those who deny that Jesus Christ is true God be free to find these things untrue. But He Himself is in us through the flesh and we are in Him, while that which we are with Him is in God.” (“The Trinity” [8,14] inter 356-359 A.D.)
ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA
“The bread is at first common bread; but when the mystery sanctifies it, it is called and actually becomes the Body of Christ.”(“Orations and Sermons” [Jaeger Vol 9, pp. 225-226] ca. 383 A.D.)
ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO
“You ought to know what you have received, what you are going to receive, and what you ought to receive daily. That Bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the Body of Christ. The chalice, or rather, what is in that chalice, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the Blood of Christ.” (“Sermons”, [227, 21] ca. 400A.D.)
MARCARIUS THE MAGNESIAN
“[Christ] took the bread and the cup, each in a similar fashion, and said: ‘This is My Body and this is My Blood.’ Not a figure of His body nor a figure of His blood, as some persons of petrified mind are wont to rhapsodize, but in truth the Body and the Blood of Christ, seeing that His body is from the earth, and the bread and wine are likewise from the earth.” (“Apocriticus” [3,23] ca. 400 A.D.)
ST. LEO I, THE GREAT
“When the Lord says: ‘Unless you shall have eaten the flesh of the Son of Man and shall have drunk His blood, you shall not have life in you,’ you ought to so communicate at the Sacred Table that you have no doubt whatever of the truth of the Body and the Blood of Christ. (“Sermons” [91,3] ante 461 A.D.)
God bless you
Chris,
You say, “In John 6 Jesus Christ asked us to eat His flesh and drink His blood for compelling reasons,” yet, aside from citations of several church fathers, you do not offer any.
Let’s look at John 6 instead of the opinions of the fathers, who, while historically of interest, are neither infallible nor authoritative. Jesus frames his teaching in terms of believing in contrast to eating and drinking. In response to the question about doing the works of God he said, “This is the work? of God—that you believe in the one he has sent” (v.29). He introduces the bread metaphor in v.35, again emphasizing believing in him rather than eating or drinking: “‘I am the bread of life,’ Jesus told them. ‘No one who comes to me will ever be hungry, and no one who believes in me will ever be thirsty again.'” In v.40 he reveals the Father’s will, “that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him will have eternal life.”
In v.47-51 Jesus actively contrasts the physical bread, which their Jewish ancestors ate in the wilderness, with himself as the living bread. Not only does living bread give life (all who ate manna died in the wilderness), but living bread is received by believing rather than eating. This is plain in that he starts the paragraph by saying, “Truly I tell you, anyone who believes has eternal life” (v.47).
All further statements about eating his flesh and drinking his blood must be interpreted through this rubric. This makes perfect sense of Jesus’ words in v.53-58: “Truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life in yourselves. The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood? has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day, because my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven; it is not like the manna your ancestors ate—and they died. The one who eats this bread will live forever.”
This is further confirmed when Jesus returns to the language of believing in place of the eating and drinking metaphors in v.64. And Peter demonstrates by his confession in v.68-69 that the rest of the twelve understood that Jesus was referring to believing rather than consuming bread and wine.
Since John nowhere mentions the Lord’s Supper, and the bread of life teaching occurred months prior to the night of his betrayal, it is anachronistic to read John 6 as having anything to do with the Supper. On this point the fathers and many throughout church history are simply incorrect, and it makes no difference how many opinions of theirs you cite. Eternal life comes by believing Jesus’ claims about himself, not by eating bread or drinking wine.