The Lord's Supper Explained: The Historic Anglican View of the Sacrament

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By Robin G. Jordan

The two most widely-used catechisms in the Elizabethan and Jacobean Churches, Heidelberg Catechism and Alexander Nowell’s Larger Catechism, would make a significant contribution to the shape of historic Anglicanism, particular to its doctrine of the sacraments. Like the European Reformed Churches, the Church of England recognized only two sacraments--Baptism and the Lord's Supper.

In An Homily Wherein Is Declared That Common Prayer and Sacraments Ought to Be Ministered in a Tongue That Is Understood of the Hearers is set out in more detail the position of the Reformed Church of England on what the 1571 Articles of Religion refer to as “those five commonly called sacraments.”

And although there are retained by the order of the Church of England, besides these two, certain other Rites and Ceremonies about the institution of Ministers in the Church, Matrimony, Confirmation of the children, by examining them of their knowledge in the articles of the faith, and joining thereto the prayers of the Church for them, and likewise for the visitation of the sick: yet no man ought to take these for Sacraments, in such signification and meaning, as the Sacrament of Baptism. and the Lord's Supper are: but either for godly states of life, necessary in Christ's Church, and therefore worthy to be set forth by public action and solemnity by the ministry of the Church, or else judged to be such ordinances, as may make for the instruction, comfort, and edification of Christ's Church.

Nowhere does the homily suggest that these "other Rites and Ceremonies" are a means of grace.

In regard to the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper the Heidelberg Catechism and Alexander Nowell’s Catechism agree on most points. The two catechisms take the position that the Lord’s Supper is not a sacrifice but a remembrance of Christ’s sacrifice. The meal points to what Christ did for us on the cross. They both share the position of the 1552 Declaration on Kneeling.

Lest yet the same kneeling might be thought or taken otherwise, we do declare that it is not meant thereby, that any adoration is done, or ought to be done, either unto the Sacramental bread or wine there bodily received, or unto any real and essential presence there being of Christ's natural flesh and blood. For as concerning the Sacramental bread and wine, they remain still in their very natural substances, and therefore may not be adored, for that were Idolatry to be abhorred of all faithful Christians. And as concerning the natural body and blood of our Savior Christ, they are in heaven and not here. For it is against the truth of Christ’s true natural body, to be in more places then in one, at one time.

The two catechisms teach that Christ is not substantively present in the consecrated elements of bread and wine. The elements undergo no change at the time of consecration. They retain their natural substance. Like the 1552 Declaration on Kneeling they reject Luther’s appeal to ubiquity.

The two catechisms share the position of the 1552 Communion of the Sick and the 1571 Articles of Religion on how the believer feeds on Christ. This feeding is a spiritual operation. The means by which it is accomplished is faith.

The Heidelberg Catechism states:

75. Q. How does the Lord's Supper signify and seal to you that you share in Christ's one sacrifice on the cross and in all His gifts?

A. In this way: Christ has commanded me and all believers to eat of this broken bread and drink of this cup in remembrance of Him. With this command He gave these promises:[1] First, as surely as I see with my eyes the bread of the Lord broken for me and the cup given to me, so surely was His body offered for me and His blood poured out for me on the cross. Second, as surely as I receive from the hand of the minister and taste with my mouth the bread and the cup of the Lord as sure signs of Christ's body and blood, so surely does He Himself nourish and refresh my soul to everlasting life with His crucified body and shed blood.

[1] Matt. 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-24; Luke 22:19, 20; I Cor. 11:23-25.

76. Q. What does it mean to eat the crucified body of Christ and to drink His shed blood?

A. First, to accept with a believing heart all the suffering and the death of Christ, and so receive forgiveness of sins and life eternal.[1] Second, to be united more and more to His sacred body through the Holy Spirit, who lives both in Christ and in us.[2] Therefore, although Christ is in heaven[3] and we are on earth, yet we are flesh of His flesh and bone of His bones,[4] and we forever live and are governed by one Spirit, as the members of our body are by one soul.[5]

[1] John 6:35, 40, 50-54. [2] John 6:55, 56; I Cor. 12:13. [3] Acts 1:9-11; 3:21; I Cor. 11:26; Col. 3:1. [4] I Cor. 6:15, 17; Eph. 5:29, 30; I John 4:13. [5] John 6:56-58; 15:1-6; Eph. 4:15, 16; I John 3:24.

Nowell’s Catechism states:

M. Sith we be in the earth, and Christ's body in heaven, how can that be that thou sayest?

S. We must lift our souls and hearts from earth, and raise them up by faith to heaven, where Christ is.

M. Sayest thou then the mean to receive the body and blood of Christ standeth upon faith?

S. Yea. For when ' we believe that Christ died deliver us from death, and that he rose again to procure us life, we are partakers of the redemption purchased by his death, and of his life, and all other his good things; and with the same conjoining wherewith the head and the members are knit together, he coupleth us to himself by secret and marvelous virtue of his Spirit, even so that we be members of his body, and be of his flesh and bones, and do grow into one body with him.

Nowell’s Catechism further states

M. Go on

S. In both the sacraments the substances of the outward things are not changed; but the word of God and heavenly grace coming to them, there is such efficacy, that as by baptism we are once "regenerate in Christ, and are first, as it were, joined and grafted into his body; so when we rightly receive the Lord's Supper, with the very divine nourishment of his body and blood, most full of health and immortality, given to us by the work of the Holy Ghost, and received of us by faith, as the mouth of our soul, we are continually fed and sustained to eternal life, growing together in them both into one body with Christ.

In regards to the sacrament of baptism Nowell is not teaching what is commonly called "baptismal regeneration". It is a view that a number of the Reformers shared, including John Calvin. In his article, “Calvin and Baptism: Baptismal Regeneration or the Duplex Loquendi Modus?” James J. Cassidy explains this view.

…Calvin's view might be summed up by the term "baptismal efficacy". In other words: for Calvin, baptism is a means of grace. According to the Reformers there were three means of grace in the church: Word, sacrament, and prayer. And these three means become effectual in a qualified sense. And that qualified sense is this: they are efficacious only in the lives of the elect when they are received by faith and in the power of the Holy Spirit.

He further explains:

In other words, for Calvin there is no automatic ex opere operato connection between the means of grace and the person receiving them. Grace is not communicated automatically, in a mechanical fashion, to the person receiving its means. This is not what it means to say the sacraments are "effectual". Instead, the term "means of grace" denotes the earthly and human way through which the Holy Spirit ordinarily communicates grace to the believer.

This is what the 1571 Articles of Religion means when they refer to the sacraments as “effectual signs” and baptism as an “instrument” by which those who receive the sacrament “in the right manner” receive its benefits. The Heidelberg Catechism is more precise in its explanation of how the believer eats and drinks the body and blood of Christ.

In Your Confirmation: A Christian Handbook For Adults (1969), pp. 135-136, John Stott takes a similar view.

Jesus did more than take and break bread, and take and pour wine, saying “this is my body, this is my blood”; he also gave the elements to the apostles, saying “take, eat and drink”. Thus they were not only spectators of the drama (watching and listening), but participants in it (eating and drinking). Just so today the Lord’s Supper is more than a “commemoration”, by which we recall an event of the past; it is a “communion”, by which we share in its present benefits. This was the apostle Paul’s emphasis when he wrote: “Is not Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Corinthians 10:16).

From this it is clear beyond dispute that in some sense at Communion we are meant to “participate” in Christ’s body and blood. But two questions now confront us. First, in what do we actually participate? Secondly, how do we participate in it?

First, in what according to God’s purpose do we participate at the Lord's Supper? The answer must be “the body and blood of Christ”. But what does this mean? It means the death of Jesus Christ, together with the benefits which he obtained for us by his death. It is important to be clear about this because some people teach that “the body and blood of Christ” mean his life, not his death. Since our body is the instrument of our personality, they argue, and since our blood is the carrier of life-giving oxygen, therefore Christ's body and blood together symbolize his living personality, and it is this that we receive at Communion. But this is not what Jesus himself said. He spoke of his body not as it lived in Palestine but as it was to be “given” on the cross, and of his blood not as it flowed in his veins while he lived but as it was to be “shed” in his sacrificial death. Thus “the body and blood of Christ” is a figure of speech for the benefits of his death, not for the power of his life.

Secondly, how do we participate in Christ's body and blood? The Catholic answer to this question is that the “inner reality” of the bread and wine is changed into the body and blood of Christ (traditionally called “transubstantiation”), so that to eat and drink the elements is ipso facto to partake of Christ. Lutheran churches teach “consubstantiation”, which is somewhat similar. The Anglican Articles reject this, however. Article 28 declares both that transubstantiation cannot be proved from Scripture, and that it overthrows the nature of a sacrament by confusing the sign with the thing signified. Article 29 says that those who lack a living faith, even though they receive the sacrament, “yet in no wise are they partakers of Christ”. If, then, it is not by eating and drinking that we receive Christ, how is it? It is by faith, of which eating and drinking are a vivid picture. For just as by eating the bread and drinking the wine we take them into our bodies and assimilate them, so by faith we feed on Christ crucified in our hearts and make him our own. Thus, to return to Article 28, it states that those who “rightly, worthily and with faith” receive the sacrament also partake of Christ’s body and blood, and that “the means whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith”. Similarly, the famous sixteenth century Anglican theologian Richard Hooker wrote: “The real presence of Christ’s most blessed body and blood is not to be sought for in the sacrament, but in the worthy receiver of the sacrament”.

As we saw in an earlier chapter, the sacraments have been given to us in order to stimulate our faith. In fact, they are means of grace mainly because they are means to faith. And the Lord’s Supper is a means to faith because it sets forth in dramatic visual symbolism the good news that Christ died for our sins in order that we might be forgiven. Hugh Latimer, the great preacher of the English Reformation, explained this symbolism during his trial in Oxford, before going to the stake:

“There is a change in the bread and wine, and such a change as no power but the omnipotency of God can make, in that that which before was bread should now have the dignity to exhibit Christ's body. And yet the bread is still bread, and the wine is still wine. For the change is not in the nature but the dignity.”

This is sometimes called “transignification”, in distinction to “transubstantiation”, for the change which is in mind is one of significance, not of substance. As the officiant offers the bread and wine to our bodies, so Christ offers his body and blood to our souls. Our faith looks beyond the symbols to the reality they represent, and even as we take the bread and wine, and feed on them in our mouths by eating and drinking, so we feed on Christ crucified in our hearts by faith. The parallel is so striking, and the corresponding words of administration are so personal, that the moment of reception becomes to many communicants a direct faith-encounter with Jesus Christ. This was so, for example, in the case of John Wesley’s mother, Susanna, just over a year following her son’s conversion. As the cup was given to her she heard the minister saying “the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee”, and at that moment “the words struck through my heart, and I knew God for Christ’s sake had forgiven me all my sins”.

Like The Homily for Worthy Receiving and Reverend Esteeming the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, the Heidelberg Catechism and Nowell’s’ Catechism view this spiritual operation as the work of the Holy Spirit:

But (as the Scripture saith) the Table of the Lord, the Bread and Cup of the Lord, the memory of Christ, the Annunciation of his death, yea the Communion of the Body and Blood of the Lord, in a marvelous incorporation, which by the operation of the holy Ghost (the very bond of our connection with Christ) is through faith wrought in the souls of the faithful, whereby not only their souls live to eternal life, but they surely trust to win their bodies a resurrection to immortality (1 Corinthians 10.16-17).

The Heidelberg Catechism and Nowell’s Catechism share the position of the 1571 Articles of Religion that the wicked and those who lack a vital faith receive no benefit from sharing the Lord’s Supper. Rather they bring condemnation upon themselves by taking the sacrament lightly.

With the Articles of Religion, The Book of Common Prayer, and the Homilies these two catechisms would shape the Elizabethan and Jacobean Churches’ understanding of the Lord’s Supper. This understanding comprises what has been described as a “central church” understanding of the sacrament. It recognizes the true and spiritual presence of Christ in the sharing of the meal but does not localize Christ’s presence in the bread and wine. Rather Christ is present to the hearts of those who believe in him and trust in his suffering and death for their salvation. It is the understanding of the Lord’s Supper embodied in the Articles of Religion and The Book of Common Prayer. The only change that it recognizes in the bread and wine is a change of dignity. For this reason Anglicans who subscribe to this view treat the consecrated elements with reverence—in a manner that befits the signs and tokens of our Lord’s offering of himself once for all time for our sins.