CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 2
BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL, AND HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS
Introduction
In the previous chapter I explained that the lack of a kingdom-minded unity in the
congregation of First Presbyterian Church could be traced, at least in part, to a deficient
understanding of what the Lord’s Table is and what it means to Christ's church. The
purpose of this chapter is not to give a full and complete discourse on the Table itself, but
rather to explain how a more comprehensive knowledge of how and why God gave us his
Table can lead us to unity in the kingdom of God as it is manifested on earth. My
intention is to elucidate how unity can be achieved by a universal clarity of eucharistic
theology, but the many facets of the Lord’s Table will be overviews at best.1 Rather, what
I will do here is describe how and why I arrived at the conclusions I reached. To do this I
will first lay a biblical and theological foundation of sacramental theology based on the
ramifications of the fall that were reversed in the incarnation, and expand this theological
foundation to apply more specifically to the Lord’s Table as it is accounted in Luke 22
and described in 1 Corinthians 10 and 11. Throughout this exposition of eucharistic
biblical theology I will explain how the facets of the Table ought to lead necessarily to
unity among the people of God. Once that is accomplished, I will then allow the light of
this scriptural and theological backing to shine on the various interpretations of the
1 For a more complete knowledge of what I taught, see Appendix 2.

Eucharist as they developed over the major portions of church history, leading to the
present situation at FPC. It is my hope that throughout this process it will become clear
how central the Table of the Lord is, not only in the lives of each individual, but in the
life of the visible body of Christ on earth.
Biblical and Theological Foundations
Unity is probably at the same time the most desired and most elusive of all states
of being among affiliated persons. Indeed it seems the more we fight to achieve it the
more elusive it becomes. Some yearn for a kind of “kinship” with others, but fear the
term “unity” because it calls to mind something of a Marxist state where there are no real
individuals, only parts of the whole. They fear a lack of freedom and a loss of identity.
This mentality would rather be termed “uniformity.” There is a difference between the
two concepts. Uniformity is sameness or homogeneity, but the unity to which I refer has
more to do with a oneness of mind and purpose than an absence of diversity. Unity can
actually be achieved with great diversity among individuals. In fact, in God’s kingdom
there is and must be great diversity because we are called the “body of Christ” (1 Cor
12:27, English Standard Version), and bodies are composed of individual cells that make
up whole systems of organs that work together to serve the body so that it may function
properly. We as individuals are those cells that serve the body of Christ. Moreover, Jesus
himself is our head (Eph 5:23). The human head contains the brain that causes all bodily
functions to work correctly. If the individual cells are in concord with the organs, the
organs in concord with the systems, and the systems in concord with the head then all
will work together to serve a functioning, healthy body. If the cells begin revolting and
going their own way, or if they themselves are sick, the body ceases to be healthy. Even

so in the body of Christ, the church—we find our unity, our identity, and our purpose in
our head, Jesus Christ.
I use this analogy of the human body not just because the apostle Paul uses it, but
also because it points to the entire concept of the Lord’s Table. The body needs food—it
needs sustenance to survive and thrive. Jesus himself acknowledges this need at the
miracle of the feeding of the four thousand, which is a foreshadowing of the eternal food
that he will provide us.
Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion on the crowd
because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And I
am unwilling to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way (Mt 15:32,
italics mine).
Moreover, Jesus Christ, the “bread of heaven” (Jn 6:32), has given himself to the church
for her sustenance. We must not forget that Jesus, as the incarnate son of God, was a
body on earth and is a body in heaven. As such he is the embodiment of true harmony
within himself as God and man, seamless and inseparable. To grasp these basic beliefs is
to get at the heart of why we were created as beings that hunger in the first place.
The Bible begins with the creation of man and woman as hungry beings.
And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the
face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for
food” (Gen 1:29).
In the Genesis account of creation, God is presented clearly as a benevolent creator who
forms humankind with the need and desire for sustaining food. God then gives humanity
all they need to live out the purpose for which they were created: to dwell in communion
with their creator. More specifically, what God gave humankind in terms of food was
meant to remind them that all of life subsists on God’s benevolence. As Alexander
Schmemann states,

All that exists is God’s gift to man, and it all exists to make God known to man, to
make man’s life communion with God. It is divine love made food, made life for
man.2
Furthermore, though man had this communion with his creator, it was still not good “that
[he] should be alone” (Gen 2:18), so God made for him, from his very substance, a
woman, a companion with whom he would become “one flesh” (Gen 2:24). Thus man,
woman, and God would live and flourish together in perfect communion.
We learn from Genesis that behind all hunger is a realization that we hunger for
God, for God’s gracious and loving benevolence, which he gives that he may be made
known and that we may bless him for it. Indeed, all of creation hungers and all things
subsist by consumption, but only humans out of all of creation were created to bless God
for the food he gives, to offer the food back to God that God may then make of it that for
which it was intended: to sustain and give life in communion with the Creator, who is life
itself. Before the fall, then, Adam is presented to us as the eucharistic high priest of all
creation. Schmemann says, “He stands in the center of the world and unifies it in his act
of blessing God, of both receiving the world from God and offering it to God.”3
Understanding this concept is essential so as to grasp the significance that the fall came
about through an improper hunger and a tragic consumption.
But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that
when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing
good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that
it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise,
she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with
her, and he ate (Gen 3:4-6).
2 Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy
(Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1963), 14.
3 Ibid., 14.

God had given the man and woman everything they needed to subsist in their blissful
union with God and each other, but they took what God had not given them in a desire to
be more than they were. They realized immediately after they ate, of course, that what
they were deceived into thinking of as “more” (being like God) was actually much less
(being essentially subhuman). Through an evil communion (they were, after all, together)
they became conscious of what evil really was and that they were now tainted with its
touch. Adam was thus defrocked as the high priest of creation. He lost the perfect
communion with his creator and became the great pariah against whom creation itself
rebels (Gen 3:17-19).
Ever since the fall, humanity has both longed for and resisted that perfect spiritual
union with their creator and each other that had at one time been theirs in paradise. The
flesh wars with the spirit; secular wars with sacred; nature wars with humanity. The
fabric of creation, which had once been a seamless harmony of matter and spirit,
suddenly ripped and all we had left was an illusion that there is a difference between that
which is sacred or spiritual and that which is secular or physical. This notion of a division
between flesh and spirit, that spirit is good and flesh or matter is evil, is a Gnostic
teaching. Truly the commencement of a Gnostic worldview happened the minute Adam
ate of the fruit. Having grasped at something for himself the act literally unmade him and
resulted in that ultimate division of spirit and flesh, death itself, which, as Thomas
Howard elucidates, “yields in the place of the noble creature called man two pitiable
horrors, a corpse and a ghost.”4
4 Thomas Howard, Evangelical Is Not Enough: Worship of God in Liturgy and
Sacrament (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1984), 31.

By communing with the Devil in an unholy meal, which God did not give, Adam
cut himself off from communion with the very source of life, resulting in death. The only
remedy was for God to undo the fall by giving back to humanity a holy meal
reconnecting man to that life source, resulting in life eternal. This holy meal is none other
than the Christian Paschal feast, the Eucharist, which, in the words of St. Ignatius, is
The medicine of immortality, and the antidote to prevent us from dying, but
[which causes] that we should live for ever in Jesus Christ.5
In other words, the only way to reunite humanity with God was for God to unite himself
with humanity and draw people into a communion with his life-giving body. God’s
remedy was to become holy flesh.
In the incarnation, the effects of the fall were reversed. Spirit and life once again
united with flesh and matter in perfect integrity. God began knitting the fabric of creation
back together and used it literally to mediate his presence on this earth through his Son.
The incarnation, then, is the fundamental principle upon which all sacramental theology
rests, and in particular becomes the very means of recovering the unity that was lost by a
meal through a new meal. In other words, the means of the fall has become the means of
salvation. Jesus Christ, as the second Adam (1 Cor 15:45), has become the high priest of
a new creation, offering himself to the Father that he may make of his Son food for his
people. Now his people may be restored into complete fellowship with God and one
another. As we are reunited with our Creator through his Son, we become more and more
what we were created originally to be. As Thomas Howard says so poetically,
5 Alexander Roberts, D.D. & James Donaldson, LL.D., ed., The Writings of the Fathers
Down to A.D. 325: Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1 (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2004),
58.

Once more we stand in our true Adam-like dignity because of the Second Adam
and may begin to learn anew the solemn office for which we were created,
namely, to bless God and to lead the whole Creation in that blessing.6
In other words, because of the Second Adam’s eucharistic sacrifice, in which he is both
offerer and offering, the baptized may, through our participation in that sacrifice, also
become one with him in his priestly oblation by consuming his sacrificial flesh and
blood, thus undoing what Adam did and becoming once more eucharistic priests of
creation in emulation of our eternal high priest (Heb 4:14).
We find the model of God’s plan of redemption in two meals, the first of which is
a shadow of the second: the Passover and the Eucharist. Both meals come together at
what is known as “the Last Supper.” It is to Luke’s account of that supper that I turn now.
Luke 22:7-23
Luke begins his narrative of the final supper that Jesus will share with his
disciples before his sacrificial death on the cross by stating a specific time: “Then came
the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed” (Lk
22:7). We know, then, that it was at the time and in the context of the Passover that Jesus
instituted his “new covenant.” Exactly what the Passover is must be explained, but in
order to understand the Passover aright it must be put into its proper context as a
specifically Jewish meal.
We can easily see in the life of Jesus that meals were highly important to the
Jewish people. It could even be said, along with Leonard Vander Zee, that in Jewish
6 Howard, Evangelical, 33.

culture “who you ate with was as important as what you ate and how you ate.”7 The
people with whom you share a meal are the people with whom you are associated. “To
eat with sinners was to accept them as friends and companions (Mk 2:15-16).”8 Identity,
in fact, was found in the context of a meal. I will be returning to this concept of attaining
identity through meal ritual later.
There is a traditional ritual pattern that Jews follow at their formal meals. Paul F.
Bradshaw accounts this custom succinctly:
At the beginning of the meal, the head of the household, acting on behalf of the
gathering, took bread into his hands, said a short blessing, broke the bread, and
shared it with all present; and at the end of the meal, he again took a cup of wine
into his hands, said a longer form of blessing or thanksgiving over it, and shared it
with all those around the table.9
The blessings that the “head of the household” (traditionally the father) said were referred
to by the Jews as the berakoth. A berakah was actually more than a blessing or
thanksgiving as we understand the terms in English. It was a proclamation of the
miraculous works of God, often reciting them one after another, from all the blessings of
God’s creation, to his preservation, to his mighty saving deeds. The berakoth were seen
as the only appropriate responses to the creator God in whom all things subsist by his
gracious provision, but who also took the initiative to reveal himself to his people
through his word and by his deeds. As Edward Foley understands it, the term berakah
7 Leonard J. Vander Zee, Christ, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper: Recovering the
Sacraments for Evangelical Worship (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 141.
8 Vander Zee, Christ,141.
9 Paul F. Bradshaw, Early Christian Worship: A Basic Introduction to Ideas and
Practice, Second Edition (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2010), 44.

can be seen more as an attitude than a prayer, “a posture of gratitude in the face of God’s
unbounded generosity that bursts forth in blessing and praise.”10
Seen in this light, the Jewish meal berakoth, as spoken by the head of the
household, became a form by which God’s people could, in priestly fashion, offer the
gifts of creation back to God that he might bless them and restore them to their original
goodness for his people. The meal, then, became a holy and sacred thing, a time of
enjoyment and fellowship with one another in the blessing of Almighty God.
Moreover, the berakoth were said over specific items in the meal, namely, the
bread and the wine. In offering up these specific elements—the grain ground into bread
and the grapes crushed into wine—the Jews were acknowledging a fundamental
cooperation with God in their stewardship of his creation. What God had given in the
grain and grapes, humans had fashioned into bread for sustenance and wine for
enjoyment, thus fulfilling the mandate given to Adam to subdue the earth and use seed
and fruit for food (Gen 1:28, 29). From the berakoth, to the meal itself, to the fellowship
around the table, then, as Louis Bouyer sums up, “all things [are] brought together and in
a certain sense absorbed in a pure doxology.”11
In Luke 22 we find Jesus following the traditional ritual of the Jewish meal
berakoth. In verse 19, “acting on behalf of the gathering,”12 he takes bread and gives
thanks before dividing it. After the disciples had eaten, he “likewise” takes the cup,
10 Edward Foley, From Age to Age: How Christians Have Celebrated the Eucharist
(Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2008), 32.
11 Louis Bouyer, Eucharist: Theology and Spirituality of the Eucharistic Prayer (Notre
Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968), 88.
12 Bradshaw, Early, 44.

presumably meaning that he also gave thanks (as he did over the cup before they had
eaten in verse 17) before they drank from it. Furthermore, often in the Gospels, when an
account of a meal is given, we find Jesus saying a “blessing” or giving “thanks” before
partaking of the meal (Mt 14:19; 15:36; Mk 6:41; Lk 9:16; 24:30; Jn 6:11). In such wise,
Jesus is presented as both head of the “household of God” (1 Tim 3:15) as well as priest,
fulfilling his role as the second Adam, the new and perfect high priest of creation.
Again, in verse 15, Luke points out the context in which this important meal
occurs: “And he said to them, ‘I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you
before I suffer’” (v.15). This verse is the second reference to the Passover, which
emphasizes its importance in light of the last supper. As significant as the Jews regarded
their communal meals, the significance is only escalated with respect to the Passover,
which was the holiest of all meals in their year.
The Passover is the central act and principal ritual in the Jewish life. It was
instituted by God for the purpose of commemorating his mighty deeds to free his people
from the Egyptian yoke of slavery. The people were to observe the Passover as a means
of remembering who they were as God’s chosen people and how he revealed himself to
them through miracles, deliverance, and his given word. In a very real sense, all Jewish
meals are symbolic of this one meal, and this one meal is the fulfillment of all other
meals.
Exodus 12 recounts the original Passover event, when the Angel of Death killed
all the firstborn of Egypt, but “passed over” the houses with lamb’s blood sprinkled on
the door posts. In addition to that, however, the same chapter also lays out what Brant

Pitre calls “the liturgy—the sacrificial ritual—that was to be carried out”13 by the
Hebrews on this night and on this same night in all the years to come. First, they were to
choose an unblemished lamb from among their flock. They were then to sacrifice this
lamb, emptying it of its life-giving blood. Then the blood of their slain lamb was to be
collected and spread on the doorposts of their houses. Finally, they were to roast and eat
the lamb.
The parallels with the New Testament’s account of Jesus Christ as the “Lamb of
God” (Jn 1:29, 36) are prevalent. Jesus is God’s “unblemished lamb,” that is, perfectly
sinless, righteous and holy. He was slain that his blood might be sprinkled upon the
“doorposts” of our souls, which is symbolized and effected through the sacrament of
baptism. Yet we, just as the Jews, are also required to eat the lamb. This final step often
gets overlooked or underemphasized in evangelical circles. The spilled blood was not
enough. As Pitre points out, “The Passover was not completed by the death of the victim,
but by a ‘communion’ of sorts—by eating the flesh of the sacrifice that had been killed
on your behalf.”14 Paul says in 1 Corinthians, “For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been
sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival” (5:7-8a). One can only assume the
“festival” (or as other translations call it, “the feast”) is the meal of the “Christian
Passover,” as it came to be called in the early church. St. Augustine unequivocally
13 Brant Pitre, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist: Unlocking the Secrets of the
Last Supper (New York: Doubleday, 2011), 50.
14 Ibid., 56.

combines the two meals when he says, “This is our annual festival, our Paschal feast . . .
as fulfilled for the people of the New Law by the sacrifice of our savior.”15
If, as Pitre declares, the Passover meal was a “communion,” then once again we
are back to this idea of a meal as a communal ritual. What must be remembered first of
all is that the Hebrew people were the children of Israel by virtue of circumcision, which
was a covenantal sign God gave to Abraham, a brand of sorts to remind them that they
were God’s chosen people and he was their God (though the significance goes much
deeper than that). Only the children of Israel were told to prepare for the Lord’s Passover
because of their special status as the people of God, and anyone wishing to participate in
this sacred ritual in the future had to first be circumcised (Ex 12:43-49). So the sacrificed
lamb that they ate together became for them a family ritual in which only the circumcised,
those who were objectively part of the community, could participate. Moreover, it united
them through its saving significance. As each member of the family ate they became
participants in the salvation the Hebrews experienced in Egypt by actively participating
in and enacting the same events, thus fulfilling God’s command to keep the Passover as a
“memorial,” as a “feast to the LORD” “throughout [their] generations” (Ex 12:14). As
Vander Zee explains of the Jewish meal,
When the head of the family says the blessing over the bread and breaks off a
piece and hands it to each person at the table, it means that one “is made a
recipient of the blessing by this eating.” The same is true of the cup of blessing.
Drinking from it mediates a share in the blessing that has been spoken.16
15 John D. Witvliet, Worship Seeking Understanding: Windows Into Christian Practice
(Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 287.
16 Vander Zee, Christ, 146.

Just as each person partaking is made a recipient of the blessing, so are they also made
recipients of the salvation experienced in Egypt.
What united the people to each other and to their God, however, was much more
than a saving meal ritual. It was a covenant. Twelve chapters later, in Exodus 24, we find
the extension of God’s covenant with Abraham made with Abraham’s descendents, the
freed slaves of Egypt, the children of Israel. Covenants in biblical times were solemn
agreements that bound parties to each other in permanent defined relationships. Typically
these agreements had a list of claims, promises, and obligations on both sides. Included
with this list would be another list of repercussions to be enacted on the one that broke
the covenant agreement. Often, once the covenant was agreed to, there would be a sign,
such as a blood sacrifice or a physical scar, which served to ratify or “seal” the covenant
between the parties. Ratification could also be achieved by sharing a meal, which
sometimes even involved drinking the blood of the sacrificed animal and eating its
flesh.17 This whole process defined in no uncertain terms the relationship between each
party and their respective obligations so there would be no misunderstandings or vague
uncertainties. Covenants were essentially extensions of kinship by oath and sacrifice.
God made a covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15, promising that Abraham
would have many descendents; they would be God’s people and he would be their God.
The sign of this covenant was circumcision. In Exodus 24 the multitude of Abraham’s
descendents are made into a family of God as the blood of the sacrificed oxen was thrown
on the altar (representing God) and on the people, uniting them in the same blood. This
covenant made a provision for their sin to be covered in blood sacrifice, but they were
17 Robert E. Webber, ed., The Biblical Foundations of Christian Worship, Vol. 1 of The
Complete Library of Christian Worship (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1994), 56-57.

obligated to “sin no more” by observing and obeying God’s law. Just as they were all
saved by blood on the night of the Passover, they now all share the same blood that
covers their sins.
Even more significant is that, just like the Passover, the sign of this covenant was
more than spilled blood—it was also a meal. After the blood had been thrown on the
people, the elders of Israel, who were representatives of the entire people, went up and
partook of a covenant meal hosted by the Lord God himself on Mount Sinai. “They
beheld God, and ate and drank” (v. 11). The significance of the Passover became, then,
not only a remembrance of God’s mighty salvation of the people, but of his covenant
with them as well. The meal was an enacted covenantal communion with God and with
his people.
All of this comes together in Luke 22. As we have seen, the setting is the time of
the Passover. Jesus has spoken the berakoth over the bread and wine. But then he does
something completely unexpected and much more significant than what the disciples had
ever seen done in a Passover meal:
And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them,
saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for
you is the new covenant in my blood” (vv. 19-20).
First, it should be noted that in no New Testament account of the last supper is a lamb
ever mentioned. I believe the reason for this is that the true “Lamb” was present with
them in the person of Jesus himself, before he was sacrificed. He relocates the
significance of eating the lamb to the eating of the bread, and yet he calls it “my body,
which is given for you” (v.19). My thought is that this relocation is because Jesus, as the
“Lamb of God,” is both perpetually sacrificed and perpetually resurrected. He is the

eternal “Lamb of God,” slain from the foundation of the world (Rev 13:8; cf. Heb 4:3).
As John’s vision in Revelation 5 makes clear, the Lamb is standing before the throne of
God “as though it had been slain” (v. 6). Heaven is where he is located, which means he
is not ubiquitous even as earthly lambs are not ubiquitous. Bread, on the other hand, can
be considered to have ubiquitous qualities on earth.
When Jesus calls the bread his body given and the wine his blood poured out, he
is speaking in terms of Passover sacrifice. He is actually echoing the words of God in
Exodus 12 to keep the feast as a “memorial” (v. 14). Just as the Israelites were to keep the
Passover as a memorial feast, so the disciples were to “do this in memory” of Jesus.
Moreover, the bread given and the wine poured out as his blood, as Vander Zee reveals,
“point to the two parts of the [Passover] sacrifice, body and blood, that are separated
from each other at the point of the ritual slaying.”18 Max Thurian completes the picture:
In the blood sacrifice of the Old Testament, the separation of the body and the
blood of the victim was an important evocative sign. And so, when, at the Lord’s
Supper, Christ spoke of his body and of his blood, the disciples saw before their
eyes, under the signs of the bread and of the wine, the evocation of a sacrifice. As
they celebrated the Passover meal, it was quite naturally the sacrifice of the Lamb
which came to their minds: Jesus became for them the Passover Lamb, about to
be sacrificed to inaugurate the New Covenant.19
Indeed, when Jesus said that the cup that was “poured out” was the “new
covenant” in his blood it was the first time in the Gospels he had ever even used the word
“covenant.” Yet, recalling that the Passover was also a commemoration of that covenant
meal on the mountain in Exodus 24, Jesus, with these words is presenting himself not
only as the sacrificial victim, but also as the ratification of the new covenant. In addition
19 Max Thurian, The Mystery of the Eucharist: An Ecumenical Approach (Grand Rapids:
William B. Eerdmans, 1981), 53.

to his blood protecting us from God’s wrath, it also unites us in a “new covenant.”20
Israel could not fulfill its covenantal obligations, but Jesus, God’s anointed, did fulfill
them and also became the pure and holy sacrificial blood that is thrown on his people as a
propitiatory sacrifice (Rom 3:25; 1 Jn 2:2; 4:10), thus sealing the new covenant in his
blood, making of us a family of God by virtue of the holy blood of Jesus rather than the
powerless blood of an animal. Now, by following Jesus’ command to “do this,” that is, to
eat and drink in his memory, we become participants in his sacrificial death, even as
Israel became participants in God’s saving action in Egypt and the subsequent covenant
through the Passover meal. Furthermore, in our eating and drinking the body and blood of
our Lord, the effects of the fall are being reversed within us as we become “one flesh”
and one blood with Jesus, our bridegroom (Rev 18:23), as he unites us with our fellow
baptized brothers and sisters in his blood.
It is interesting to me that immediately following the meal of the new covenant in
the upper room, there is an account of division among the first partakers of Christ's body
and blood. Luke 22:24-29 presents a “dispute” that “arose among [the disciples], as to
which of them was to be regarded as the greatest.” Jesus presents himself as the new
sacrificial lamb that was to be eaten and whose blood was to unite them, and yet they
seem to misunderstand that the power of the new covenant is that it sets about
establishing God’s kingdom through sacrificial love. “Let the greatest among you become
as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves” (v. 26), Jesus says. “But I am among
you as the one who serves” (v. 27). Simply eating the bread and drinking the wine is not a
guarantee that there will be no divisions among God’s people. Yet, if we are truly
20 Jesus thus fulfills the only prophecy that speaks specifically of a “new covenant” in the
Old Testament: Jeremiah 31:31-33.

participating in Christ's sacrifice through the ritual meal, it does necessarily mean that we
are to sacrificially love and serve each other even as he did, not sparing his own life.
In summary, and for the purposes of my project, Luke’s account of the last supper
Jesus shared with his disciples gathers the notions of the Jewish meal ritual, the Passover,
and the old covenant and converges them in Christ's institution of the new covenant in his
blood. I have shown that by eating the blessed bread and drinking the blessed wine, the
participants become partakers of that blessing. Even more so in the Passover, the
participants become partakers of the salvation the Jews experienced in Egypt and become
galvanized as the community of the covenant God made with them. The Lord’s Supper,
as Jesus instituted it, takes all of these notions and carries them into the new covenant
with added meaning. Now, as we partake of the consecrated bread and wine we become
participants in that consecration and partakers of the salvation given us through the cross
of Christ. We, as the people covered in the holy blood of the new covenant, are then
galvanized, united as the family of God, the bride of Christ. These ideas get at the heart
of what unity truly is: becoming one flesh with Christ as his body through his body.
These are the thoughts I wanted to convey in my course and the reasons why I entitled it
“The Sacrament of Unity.”
The question that arises in light of Luke’s account is: how did the early church
view and observe the sacred actions of the Lord’s Supper? In other words, did they
follow Jesus’ example to serve one another, and were they united visibly in the blood of
Jesus? The apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians answers these questions and gives
an even grander scope of the Lord’s Table.
1 Corinthians 10:16-18 & 11:23-30

The church in Corinth was fraught with division, which is one of the chief reasons
for Paul’s epistle. They were divided over many things, from loyalty to who baptized
whom, to who had the more important spiritual gifts and how they should use them. Most
especially, they were divided between the rich and the poor, which manifested itself
predominantly during the Lord’s Supper.21 Paul’s task was to set about trying to restore
the unity that the body of Christ ought to exhibit. Apart from attempting to resolve
specific divisions, we learn from him that unity in the body of Christ is to be found at his
Table.
The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?
The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? 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 (1 Cor 10:16-18)?
The Greek word translated here as “participation” is koinonia.22 The idea is one of
fellowship, of sharing, of unity, and it is from this word that we get our word
Communion, which is probably the most popular word Christians use when refering to
the Table. Paul is saying that by drinking from the “cup of blessing” (a reference to the
cup of wine following the Passover meal) we are communing literally in Christ’s blood.
Likewise, by eating the broken bread, we are communing literally in his body. Through
our participation in the meal, we are uniting ourselves to Christ and each other through
his body and blood. The analogy is taken from the very bread itself, which previously had
been many grains of wheat that were made into one loaf of bread. We, who were many,
22 James F. White, The Sacraments in Protestant Practice and Faith (Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 1999), 107.

are now one “unleavened” loaf (cf. 1 Cor 5:7). In addition, Paul uses Israel as an example
of unity by participation. As they ate of the sacrifices they became “participants in the
altar” (v. 18), cleansing them of sin and uniting them to their God. Even so are we united
to the father in the sacrifice of his Son on Calvary as we participate in the sacrificial meal
of his body and blood. Paul seems to be indicating that in Communion there is power to
unite the people of God into a community, into a family, the family of God.
In the very next chapter Paul continues his thoughts regarding Communion by
giving an account of the last supper that had been given to him by the Lord himself
(11:23). He recounts that Jesus gave thanks, broke the bread and said, “This is my body
which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me” (v. 24). After supper he took the cup
and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood” (v. 25). Paul uses phrases which are
very close to the same Greek phrases as Luke employs.23 The two Greek words Luke and
Paul have in common that I want to focus on are eucharisteo and anamnesis, which are
rendered in English as “give thanks” and “remembrance” respectively.
All the Gospels refer to Jesus “giving thanks” or “blessing” the bread, referring to
the ancient meaning and importance of berakah. But only Luke and Paul use the specific
term eucharisteo—to “give thanks” (as opposed to eulogeo—to “bless”—in the other
Gospels)—and it is from this term that we get our word “Eucharist.”24 The concept of
eucharisteo is an extension of the berakah attitude and prayer form into the Greek-
speaking world. When the Jews said the berakoth at their meals they were blessing God
for his creation and provision, as well as his mighty saving deeds of deliverance,
23 Luke Timothy Johnson, Sacra Pagina Series, Volume III: The Gospel of Luke
(Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1991), 337-338.
24 Ibid., 338.

particularly in Egypt. As this idea was continued in the Christian church, the prayers over
the bread and wine blessed God for these same gifts, but continued on in rapturous
thanksgiving for their symbolization of the ultimate gift of Jesus Christ. They were not
simply saved from physical oppression—they were saved from eternal perdition. How
much greater is this salvation than that of Egypt! Moreover, even as the Israelites ate their
covenant meal in the presence of God on the mountain, so do the Christians eat the new
covenant meal in the very real presence of the risen Christ, whose body and blood they
are consuming. Fundamentally, then, the Eucharist is a celebration of Christ's victory
over sin and death. This victory is made ours through participation in the broken bread
and poured cup. As Paul said, we “celebrate the festival” (1 Cor 5:8, italics mine).
The second word that I want to emphasize is anamnesis, which is much more than
a word. It is a deep and rich Hebraic concept that is more than mere intellectual
memory—it is a making present through ritual action. It is a mystery.
Fundamentally, the Passover meal recalls the deliverance of the Hebrews from
their enslavement in Egypt, which prepared the way for the covenant at Mt. Sinai. In
partaking of this meal annually, the Jews recall through the berakoth God’s faithfulness
to them and his miraculous saving deeds that led to their freedom. The meal became a
living sign of the covenant that God established with them, itself being sealed in a meal.
Thus, as Robert Webber makes clear,
the source, the summit, the very substance of Jewish spirituality is grounded in
the exodus event. What is behind the Passover seder is a concern to experience
the redemption, to enter into a relationship with the Redeemer, and to serve the
Redeemer by keeping his commandments.25
25 Robert Webber, Ancient-Future Time: Forming Spirituality Through the Christian
Year (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2004), 25.

This “experiencing” of God’s redemption for themselves meant that, in celebrating the
Passover year after year, the acts of remembrance were not just about past deeds or a
nostalgic look at their ancestors at a time when God made himself known in a mighty
way. Rather the ritual acts, prescribed by God himself in Exodus 12, invited the
community to make the experience of deliverance their own,26 which is why Rabbi
Gamaliel is reported to have said,
In every generation a man must so regard himself as if he came forth himself out
of Egypt, for it is written, “And you shall tell your son on that day saying, ‘it is
because of that which the Lord did for me when I came forth from Egypt.’”27
In this understanding, those who engage in the Passover meal are not spectators, but are
participants, making the deliverance from Egypt and the subsequent Sinai covenant their
own. So, according to Maxwell Johnson, the Old Testament “cultic memorial is one of
the ways in which Israel remembered, making present the past saving events as a means
of encountering in every generation the saving work of God.”28
“Making present” is exactly what anamnesis means. It is more than total recall,
more than commemoration or memorializing. In the context of the Passover and the
Lord’s Supper, it means that “in the Eucharist the life-giving events of Christ’s death and
resurrection escape the restrictions of time and become what the early church called
26 Foley, From Age, 32.
27 Quoted in Robert Louis Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2003), 35. Italics mine.
28 Maxwell E. Johnson, ed., Between Memory and Hope: Readings on the Liturgical Year
(Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 2000), 13.

mysteries, ritual actions by which Christ’s saving work is represented under the veil of
the consecrated bread and wine.”29
The mystery of the Lord’s Supper, therefore, is not that we are taking a nostalgic
time-traveling trip to the past, nor are we mimicking an event as in a drama. There was
one crucifixion and one resurrection, and we can neither repeat them nor return to them.
That is not to say, however, that they do not make their way to us or that these historical
events have no bearing or power in the present. As Johnson makes clear, “They created
and manifested and remain the bearers of a new and permanent quality of existence called
salvation, initiating a permanent dialectic of call and response between God and his
people.”30 The reality of these events is ever present, “an efficacious sign of God’s
eternal saving activity.”31 They become contemporaneous because Christ Jesus now
holds all time in unity, and through the Holy Spirit brings all things to our remembrance
(Jn 14:26). So our “Paschal feast” presents this “new and permanent existence” in
anamnesis as a continual sign of the present reality of lives lived in his presence.
In order to apply the idea of anamnesis to my theme of unity I have to go back to
the Jewish understanding of meals as the context in which identity is to be found.
Because the Passover meal was also a commemoration and participation in the covenant,
the ritual act of eating this meal served to unify the Jewish community so they not only
remembered a specific event, they also remembered who they were as the covenant
people of God. They became that same community of former slaves that were
29 Johnson, ed., Between, 35.
30 Ibid., 13.
31 Ibid., 13.

miraculously saved by their loving God, and they found their identity through the context
of the meal.
The same is true of the Lord’s Supper. Those who eat and drink together the body
and blood of Christ in his remembrance reconstitute themselves as the body of Christ. In
the words of Paul Galbreath, they “re-member” themselves as the people of God.32 By
this he means they reestablish themselves as members of a specific and unique
community.
The Pauline language of remembrance prompts an active form of remembering. In
this sense, to re-member is to bring back or reassemble. When you do this (share
your food), then you are about the business of re-membering the presence of
Christ. Or, as theologian Don Saliers instructs those gathering at the table: Do this
for the re-membering of me. Equally significant, this language underscores the
church’s act of reconstituting or reconfiguring itself as the body of Christ as it
gathers at the table to eat bread and drink wine.33
We do not remember who we are by starting with ourselves. We remember who we are
when we remember Christ, especially in the way that he told us to remember him: “do
this.” We remember by doing, by actively participating, not merely by introspective
thinking. Laurence Stookey states:
For most twentieth-century Christians, remembering is a solitary experience
involving mental recall. But for ancient Jews and early Christians (the first of
whom were all Jews), remembrance was a corporate act in which the event
remembered was experienced anew through ritual repetition. To remember was to
do something, not to think about something.34
The divisions in Corinth came about because the people forgot who they were by
forgetting how to remember.
32 Paul Galbreath, Leading from the Table (Herndon: The Alban Institute, 2008), 40.
33 Ibid., 40.
34 Laurence Hull Stookey, Eucharist: Christ's Feast With the Church (Nashville:

Earlier in chapter 11, Paul goes so far to say that when the people come together
to partake of the Lord’s Supper it is not the Lord’s Supper that they eat:
When you come together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat. For in eating,
each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk.
What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church
of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I
commend you in this? No, I will not (1 Cor 11:20-22).
This passage will have more bearing later, but it is readily apparent that the division at
the Lord’s Table was considered by Paul to be the highest form of disgrace. They were
not acting as one body in the partaking of Christ's body, they were defiling Christ's body
by their divisions. The “re-membering” became “dis-membering,” as each looked to his
or her own interests.
Therefore, applying these concepts to my project, when Christians come to the
Table of the Lord, they come to celebrate and “re-member” themselves as the people of
the new covenant even as they remember and celebrate the one who instituted it, and
whose sacrifice sealed it. By our “doing” in “memory” of Jesus, we are recalling the
sacrifice of Calvary, making it present with us, the unified members of Christ's broken,
but risen body.
Very briefly I also want to point out the future aspect of Communion because our
hope-filled expectations point to the meal’s ultimate fulfillment. In addition to anamnesis
the Greeks had a parallel word that pointed in the opposite direction, but also implied a
“making present:” prolepsis. Just as anamnesis is the drawing near of memory, prolepsis
is the bringing of God’s future into the present. Christ’s resurrection has anticipated our
resurrection on the last day, and through the Holy Spirit we have a foretaste of that day
here and now (Rom 8:9-11). Just as we were crucified with Christ, we are also raised

with him. “We suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Rm
8:17). We are impelled toward a more glorious future that is already ours in Christ, for
though the world has not yet reached its end, in Christ our end has already arrived. Jesus
Christ is “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor 15:20), and we who
“groan inwardly as we wait eagerly” for “the redemption of our bodies” have “the
firstfruits of the Spirit” (Rm 8:23). Paul presents the Spirit as the power that draws us into
the new age, which strains against the present, causing the inward groaning and longing
for completion. Therefore, according to Jeremy Begbie, “to know Christ by means of the
Spirit outpoured is to know the ‘first fruits’ of the life to come.”35 The Lord’s Supper
itself can be thought of as a partaking of the life-giving fruit as represented in the tree of
life in both Eden and heaven (Rev 2:7).
In Communion, then, there is anamnesis, but there is also an often understated
prolepsis. Jesus himself established this when he declared,
I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink
it new with you in my Father’s kingdom (Mat 26:29).
Very similarly, in Luke 22 he says:
I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you
I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God (Lk 22:15-16).
The specific event that Jesus alludes to is known as “the marriage supper of the Lamb”
(Rev 19:9; cf. Lk 14:15), which is presented in Revelation as the great triumphant feast
when the bride of Christ, his church, is ultimately united with her bridegroom that they
may be “one flesh” (Gen 2:24), perfectly joined with our creator and redeemer.
35 Jeremy S. Begbie, Theology, Music and Time (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2000), 109.

Here, then, is an anticipation that is carried into every celebration of the Eucharist.
We eat and drink now, but we await eagerly the day when we will eat and drink with our
Lord in full fellowship! More than that, we are in his presence as we celebrate now
(though he is not partaking with us—he is the partaken of), even as we are with him in
the eschaton. The commemoration is not just of the past, but of the future, as well. In the
context of 1 Corinthians, Paul also indicates this coming together of time when he says,
“you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Cor 11:26). We look back (“the Lord’s
death”) even as we look forward (“until he comes”) with our feet firmly planted in the
present (“proclaim”).There is great expectation of the parousia (another Greek term that
conveys the “presence” or official “arrival” of Christ in his second coming) in the ritual
acts of Communion, and again it is the Holy Spirit that empowers not only our
anamnesis, but our prolepsis as well. As Gerald Borchert sums up so nicely,
The church’s worship celebration of the Lord’s Supper is both a covenant
reminder of [Christ’s] death and a proclamation of his victory (cf. 1 Cor 11:24-
26). It is not merely a worship service of “remembrance.” It is also a worship
service that proclaims victory and the expectation of Christ’s return.36
In application of my project, this “making present” of past and future presents a
new perspective on the Table as it relates to time. We who live two millennia after
Christ's initial institution are no worse off for not having been present with the disciples.
Moreover, every Christian that has lived since that time has also been incorporated into
the body of Christ through the celebration of the Eucharist. Those who gather at the Table
now are not only unified with those present, but with all those who have ever been
present. In addition, when we consider that through the Eucharist we are also making
36 Gerald L. Borchert, Worship in the New Testament: Divine Mystery and Human
Response (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2008), 30.

present the great messianic banquet at which all the faithful who have ever lived will be
in attendance, the notion of the “communion of saints” takes on an even grander
connotation. The body of Christ is all Christians, not just those living on earth. At the
Table, we are one with all Christians who have ever lived and who ever will live.
I come now to the final set of verses I will be discussing before venturing into the
age of the church. 1 Corinthians 11:27-30 have perhaps caused more anxiety among
Christians gathered around the Table than any other set of verses in the entire Bible. It is
of primary importance, however, to remember the entire context of the epistle and Paul’s
principal reason for writing it: division.
Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy
manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person
examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone
who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on
himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died (1 Cor
11:27-30).
The “unworthy manner” of eating and drinking refers directly to the Corinthians’
practice of eating in factions, getting drunk, and allowing others to go hungry as
described in verses 20-22, displaying a divided house, resulting in a sick body. They were
not, in other words, discerning the body of Christ among themselves. Paul uses “body”
language in 10:17, when he says, “We who are many are one body, for we all partake of
the one bread” (italics mine). It seems, then, that Paul is not necessarily referring to their
lack of perceiving the presence of Christ in the bread, but rather their lack of perceiving
the presence of Christ in each other, which is what ought to unite them. They did not see
that by doing what Christ commanded they were actually participating in his body, and
by not doing what he said they were bringing judgment on themselves. Vander Zee takes
it even further:

The two bodies, the body of Christ given for them on the cross and in the bread,
and the body of Christ created by fellowship in him, cannot be separated. Their
attempt to make such a separation was the real desecration of the meal. The
community-making power of the Lord’s Supper was so real for Paul that
carelessly disregarding it brought illness and death into the fellowship.37
Our identity as the body of Christ is caught up inseparably with the meaning of the Table.
The individual’s examination of himself, therefore, is not for the purpose of being
sufficiently sorry for his sins until he feels worthy of partaking of Christ's gift (is anyone
ever worthy?). Repentance is, of course, necessary—the Jews were to obey the law in
addition to observing Passover. But the primary purpose of his self-examination is to
determine whether he himself is truly a part of the body of Christ. Through introspective,
prayerful examination he is compelled to “discern the body” around himself and assure
himself that, as Gordon Smith says, his “manner of observation is worthy of the meaning
of the event.”38
Leonard Vander Zee says succinctly, “The Lord’s Supper not only gathers a
community, it creates a community.”39 The purpose of my project is to make this concept
clear. The communion of the body and blood of the Lord establishes a community that
shares in his sacrifice, just as in the Passover sacrifice “the blessing and sharing of the
bread and cup makes each person at the table a participant in them.”40 As I have
attempted to expound, the Lord’s Supper was never meant to be a solitary and
individualistic event. Rather, the Communion, the participation in the body and blood of
38 Gordon T. Smith, A Holy Meal: The Lord’s Supper in the Life of the Church (Grand
Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 53.
40 Ibid., 157.

Christ identifies, sustains and nurtures the church as a community under the new
covenant, one loaf, one body, with one head. The great desire of our Lord is for this unity
to be perfect and complete, as can be seen in his priestly prayer in John 17. So the
question arises: has the Lord through the Eucharist achieved this unity throughout the age
of the church, or has the church been more like the church of Corinth? I will be
answering this question in the next section.
Historical Foundations
When one is discussing history it is often customary to begin with facts. History is
composed of facts, of historical events and persons. What is assumed is that through the
relaying of historical facts the zeitgeist or “spirit of the age” will make itself manifest and
become clear to the listener (or reader). Such is not always the case, however, which may
have less to do with the facts themselves and more about the historian who chose what
facts to disclose. If the historian were a pagan, for instance, then his view of history is
that it is flowing farther and farther away from some “golden age” when gods walked the
earth. His fact relaying would therefore be considerably pessimistic in tone. Or, if the
historian were thoroughly postmodern in his worldview, then his view of history would
be that it is essentially meaningless and irrelevant to those living in the present. His fact-
relaying would, then, most likely be ad hoc. On the other hand, if the historian were a
present-day Protestant, his view of history may in fact be a combination of the former
two. To him we are being carried farther and farther away from the “glory days” when
Jesus Christ walked the earth, and the age of the church has always been rife with
divisions and splits over meaningless doctrine, yet we still look to the hope of eternal life.

Suddenly, the present has no real meaning because Jesus is in heaven and therefore
intangible here on earth.41
What I want to make clear before I relay historical facts is that I take none of
these views. Time, first and foremost, is a creation out of the mind of God and as such is
necessarily good, not evil. It is true that when death entered into time it seemed to strip
time of all meaning because everything was then bounded by nonexistence on either side
of life on earth, but the greatest truth of all is that God entered into time and gave it
meaning. Eternity turned into time: the incarnation is the true, Christian understanding of
history. The Eucharist is the extension of the incarnation throughout the age of the
church, and it is from this constant, tangible presence of Christ that we find meaning and
unity, despite what the facts of history may or may not convey.
The Early Church (A.D. 30-100)
As can be seen from Luke’s Gospel and Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians, the
Lord’s Supper is the fulfillment of the Passover. Due to this understanding it had a
specifically Jewish flavor to its proceedings. The notion of sacrifice tied to the Passover
was passed on into the Lord’s Supper, not merely in terms of the meal itself as a means
by which to participate in and remember Christ's sacrifice, but also as a realization that
the entire summation of the life of Jesus was sacrificial as he gave of himself in all
situations. The kenosis of the Son of God continued into sacrificial death for his people.
This awareness found its full and proper expression in the berakoth, which were
transcribed with ease into eucharistic liturgies. Some of these early prayers of blessing
41 David Meconi, S.J., “A Christian View of History,” Christian History (March-April,
2000). www.us.catholic.net/rcc/Periodicals/Faith/00MarApr/history.html (accessed June 11,
2012). Meconi provides the three historical perspectives given above.

are still extant, such as the one found in the Didache (probably written in the first
century), which emphasizes the importance of unity around the Table:
Even as this broken bread was scattered over the hills, and was gathered together
and became one, so let Thy Church be gathered from the ends of the earth into
Thy Kingdom … Thou, Master almighty, didst create all things for Thy name’s
sake; Thou gavest food and drink to men for enjoyment, that they might give
thanks to Thee; but to us Thou didst give spiritual food and drink and life eternal
through Thy Servant.42
Included with the Jewish notions of sacrifice and berakah was a conspicuously
Jewish understanding of covenant. The Old Testament continuously refers the Israelites
back to the covenant God made with them on Mount Sinai, and the Passover meal was
the central ritual commemorating this covenant. Yet, as underscored above, this
commemoration was for the purpose of experiencing the deliverance from Egypt as
though they themselves were present when it happened. The same was true for
Christians, as Edward Foley makes clear:
The emerging Christian community interpreted Jesus’ last meal and his death
through the lens of this ancient memorial meal … Like their Jewish forebears, the
followers of Jesus entered a ritual meal that invited them to collectively shape a
living memory. They created this dynamic remembrance so that the new
covenant, sealed in the passing over of Jesus from death to life, would be
proclaimed in their lives.43
Most importantly, the Christian understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ was
that loving him necessarily meant loving their neighbor. This understanding was not lost
on Judaism, though it often gets overlooked. As necessary as they were, the outward acts
of sacrifice and obedience to God’s law were always meant to be symbols for and
reflections of the inner workings of the Hebrew heart. As Andrew Hill expounds,
42 Alexander Roberts, D.D. & James Donaldson, LL.D., ed., The Writings of the Fathers
Down to A.D. 325: Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7 (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2004),
380.

The performance of these external acts served the dual purpose of symbolically
demonstrating the internal and spiritual dimensions of consecration to the
religious community and reinforcing the willful choice of the individual choosing
to consecrate himself to God.44
Personal piety and love of neighbor was expected and essential to old covenant living
even as it is under the new covenant. Out of this heart of love for God came obedience to
his law and keeping his covenant. “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and
be no longer stubborn,” says the Lord in Deuteronomy 10:6, referring to the original
outward sign of God’s covenant with Abraham. Old Testament religion is not merely a
works-righteousness or outward-focused belief. Apart from the response of faith in the
hearts and souls of the worshipers, the external acts of obedience meant nothing. Purity of
heart and life are crucial to right worship of God. According to David Peterson, “The Old
Testament makes it clear that faith, gratitude and obedience are the essential requirements
for acceptable worship.”45
“Faith, gratitude and obedience” was exactly how the early Christians understood
life under the new covenant, particularly as it was expressed at the Lord’s Table. Their
faith told them that their Lord would meet them at his Table and they obediently ran to
encounter him there together, their hearts overflowing with gratitude. This visible
depiction can be seen in the book of Acts:
And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the
breaking of bread and the prayers … And all who believed were together and had
all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and
distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the
temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with
44 Andrew E. Hill, Enter His Courts With Praise! Old Testament Worship for the New
Testament Church (Star Song Publishing Group, 1993), 17.
45 David Peterson, Engaging With God: A Biblical Theology of Worship (Downers
Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 62.

glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people (Acts
2:42, 44-46).
The phrase “breaking of bread” is almost universally thought to be referencing the Lord’s
Supper, which means that receiving “their food with glad and generous hearts” speaks to
a specifically berakah approach to the meal. Throughout the entire book of Acts it
becomes clear that when Christians met for worship, they met to “break bread” together
in addition to the hearing of the word. The two folds of word and sacrament were
indivisible.46
These early Christians also “had all things in common” and were selling their
things and giving the proceeds to the needy. It would seem that all was well with the
world and disputes were a thing of the past. Lest we think that this was a magical time
without any differences of opinion, however, it should be made clear that quarrels did not
disappear simply because they celebrated the Lord’s Supper daily. Reconciliation was
essential to this way of living and forgiveness was a way of life for those who truly
followed the teachings of Jesus Christ, as can be seen in the prayer he taught them (Mt
6:9-13). His table ministry was an act of continual hospitality and forgiveness and should
never be thought of as separate from his last supper. Love and reconciliation, unity and
honesty, are requirements for participation in his sacrifice, as Paul makes clear in 1
Corinthians. Edward Foley elucidates:
This paradox of unity and openness was not always easy for Jesus’ followers,
whose common meals sometimes mirrored their division rather than their love for
each other. When division erupted, a shared table in the name and memory of
Jesus provided common ground for reconciliation.47
46 Oscar Cullmann, Early Christian Worship (Lima: Wyndam Hall Press, 1953), 28.

As the young church took her first steps into the outer world without the direct
guidance of her founding fathers, her perspective and understanding of her fundamental
food grew with her as she sought to better comprehend its significance in her life. Though
it always remained a mystery, it became a concept around which to build an entire
theology. Anselm of Canterbury once defined theology as “faith seeking understanding,”
explaining that understanding does not replace faith, but rather requires it.48 The various
ways the church sought to understand and explain the Eucharist through the centuries
were never intended to be logical proofs of what happened in the elements. They were
rather “explanations of faith.” As we enter the next eras of the church, I will preface by
saying that I deem it unfortunate, to say the least, that these faith explanations tended to
detract from the unity the Table is supposed to engender, but it is a far greater shame that
the violence that erupted as a result of these explanations (which I will not document)
demonstrated a complete disregard for Jesus Christ and his gospel. Yet it was necessary
for the church to grow and learn about her faith. Doctrine must develop. After all, Jesus
promised that the Holy Spirit would guide the church into all truth (Jn 16:13). As Stookey
says wisely,
Had the church not sought to understand its faith in terms of the intellectual
concepts of its day, it would have sacrificed integrity. And no matter how alien
the ancient systems seem to our kind of “scientific” thinking, they were in fact the
accepted scientific systems of earlier eras.49
Having said that, I turn now to the Era of Mystery.
The Era of Mystery (A.D. 100-500)
48 Ibid., 229.
49 Stookey, Eucharist, 50.

It seems clear from 1 Corinthians 11 that the Lord’s Supper was thought of as an
entire meal, with the bread and wine being set apart and consecrated as the body and
blood of Christ. Though it was still thought of in terms of a “Christian Passover” meal, by
the middle of the second century the Table was reduced to only bread and wine in most
places. It should be emphasized, however, that the people would not disperse without
having celebrated the Lord’s Supper. It was the goal of every gathering, for it was there
that Christ sat at Table with his own.
While Christianity was considered something of a step-child of Judaism, its
spread into the Greek-speaking world often left it without a heavy Judaic influence. The
paganism of the regions outside of Judea would not abide Jewish custom. One influence
that pervaded everywhere, however, was Platonic philosophy. Early Christian thinkers,
including Paul, were taught Plato’s concept of the distinction between the world of the
senses and the “higher” world of true “ideas” or forms. This philosophy provided a
framework for understanding how the eucharistic elements could be Christ's body and
blood when their senses perceived them to be just bread and wine. The people were, thus,
able to, in the words of Foley, “negotiate a plausible and accessible relationship between
the physical and spiritual world,” and to affirm “the importance of an interior or spiritual
disposition.”50 They were simply content to call the entire meal ritual a mysterion, a
mystery that could not be explained, but that was real nonetheless.51
The early Christians seemed more than content to use realistic language regarding
the body and blood of Christ in the elements, even as Jesus himself did in John 6. Even
51 Ibid., 74. This term appears twenty-seven times in the New Testament alone, while the
word sacramentum does not appear until Terullian (c. 160-c. 225).

though the Didache speaks of the elements as gifts of “spiritual food and drink” (see
above), Justin Martyr (A.D. c. 110-165), in his First Apology says,
For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like
manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God,
had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that
the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood
and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of Jesus that was
made flesh.52
Yet even when the early church fathers speak of the elements as being “signs” or “types,”
they must be understood within their own context, as Paul Bradshaw makes clear:
In the ancient world a sign or symbol was not thought of as being something quite
different from the reality which it represented, but on the contrary was understood
as participating in some way in that reality itself. Moreover, the same writers who
use “symbolic” language also usually have no hesitation in using more “realistic”
language on occasion.53
In terms of unity, the remnants of a berakah spirituality can still be detected
among the people in the first few centuries. There does seem to be a shift from the
concept of “blessing” God to that of “thanking” him. According to Foley, “In the
centuries to come this [shift] will contribute to an approach to blessing that is
predominantly intercessory, more focused on asking God to make something holy rather
than a grateful admission of the implicit holiness of all God’s creation.”54
Nevertheless, in Justin Martyr’s First Apology one still gets the sense of a close-
knit community gathered around the Table. He mentions the single assembly “in one
place of all who live in town or country,” and he attaches singular importance to the
52 Roberts & Donaldson, ed., Volume 7, 185.
53 Paul F. Bradshaw, Eucharistic Origins (London: Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge, 2004), 58.

assent of the people in the “Amen” that closes the eucharistic prayer.55 The inclusion of
the absent members in the act of communion is also of great significance.
In the next era the church will have grown into an established institution that will
last for a millenium. Heresy will play an important role in establishing a growing
understanding of who God is, particularly in the way he meets us at his Table.
The Era of Institution (A.D. 500-1500)
As is often the case in history, the negative ends up becoming the catalyst for the
positive. This historical maxim is no less true for Christianity, for it was often due to a
reaction against heresy that Christian doctrine emerged. For instance, eucharistic
theology at the end of the previous era developed as a result of a throwback against Arian
and Pelagian heresies.
Arianism taught the supremacy of God the Father and the subordination of the
Son and Spirit. In other words, only God the Father was God—the Son, or Logos, was
created by Him. The decisions and resulting creed of the Council of Nicea (A.D. 325)
were a response to Arius. Pelagianism, on the other hand, emphasized the human freedom
to will and to act over against God’s free grace. Pelagius believed that Christianity was in
danger of taking God’s grace for granted and preached a doctrine of works-
righteousness—people were to stop blaming their failings on their flesh, morally reform
themselves, and “work out [their] salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12).56
55 Roberts & Donaldson, ed., Volume 7, 185-186.
56 Chas S. Clifton, Encyclopedia of Heresies and Heretics (New York: Barnes & Noble,
1992), 110-111.

As the church grew and became the established and dominant religion of the
Roman empire, the hierarchical order was enabled to more easily stamp out the flame of
heresy and impose biblical doctrine. What happened as a result of suppressing Arian and
Pelagian heresies was that in the early Middle Ages an emphasis was placed on the
divinity of Christ over his humanity, and on the sinfulness of people over their
redemption. In the Eucharist people began to witness a miracle occuring in the bread and
wine. The Holy Spirit transformed into Christ's substance the substance of the bread and
wine, without changing their form. The people, having observed this miracle in the priest
holding up the host as the Spirit descended upon it, realized their own sinful nature and
unworthiness to partake of so holy a gift, and therefore abstained from communing. In
fact, it became so rare for people to partake of the Eucharist that it was mandated by the
church that everyone was required to commune at least once a year, on Easter Sunday.
In addition, the church began to move from the stage of asserting that the bread
and wine became the body and blood of Christ, to when or how such a thing takes place.57
While the earlier era emphasized Plato’s philosophy, this era emphasized the philosophy
of Aristotle, particularly his understanding of matter to be composed of “substance”
(essence) and “accidents” (characteristics). Through the teaching and influence of St.
Thomas Aquinas (A.D. 1225-1274), the eucharistic elements began to be understood as
“essentially” Christ (the substance of his entire human and divine being) under the
“accidents” (form) of bread and wine (what our senses perceive them to be). The
resulting doctrine became known as transubstantiation—the substance of the elements is

wholly transformed into Christ (body, blood, soul, and divinity) even while retaining
their previous form of bread and wine.
For my purposes with respect to my project, the problem was not so much the
doctrine of transubstantiation itself as it was the preoccupation with it. Even much earlier
bishops like Ambrose (A.D. c. 330-397) and John Chrysostom (A.D. c. 347-407), while
concerned about communicants displaying unruly behavior in the midst of the
assembly,58 preached against infrequent Communion. Their desire, like the apostle
Paul’s, was to impress upon the people the solemnity and holiness of the event, that they
may turn from their wicked ways and be what they were as members of the body. Yet
what was happening in later eras was that by concentrating so much attention on the
“how” and “when” of Christ in the elements, theologians forgot about his presence in the
body itself. As Foley articulates,
some during this period increasingly focused on the localization of Christ's
presence in the bread and wine. This emphasis on Christ's presence under the
eucharistic species virtually ignored other modes of Christ's presence, especially
his presence in the assembly.59
In other words, by concentrating so exclusively on discerning the body in the bread, they
largely forgot about discerning the body in the people. The Eucharist “was more a sacred
drama to be watched in awe from a distance than the communal rehearsal of the
baptismal call to become what we eat.”60 Unity in the body, while not necessarily lost,
was being usurped by theology, the very opposite of lex orandi, lex credendi (“the rule of
58 Bradshaw, Early Christian Worship, 70.

prayer [establishes] the rule of belief”). Christ as subject of worship was supplanted by
Christ as object, as Foley continues,
Earlier Christ had been considered the central actor in the eucharistic action and
the one who led the assembly in offering this prayer. Over the centuries, however,
Christ eventually became the object of prayer and worship, and he was replaced
by the priest who assumed the role of the central actor in the Mass.61
Much is made today of the medieval church’s understanding of sacramental
theology, as well as its abuses of power. Yet, as I mentioned above, the church was
required to attempt to understand her own liturgical theology or it would have lost her
intellectual integrity. The problem that resulted, however, was that, by so emphasizing
the “how” and the “when” of the Eucharist, the intellectuals became preoccupied with
what Stookey calls “time,” “space,” and “manner:”
In addressing these philosophical systems, the church invited unfortunate
consequences. Among these were preoccupations with time (When precisely in
the liturgy does the moment of transformation occur?), space (How do you make
room for the new substance in the bread and wine, and how does this affect
Christ’s risen body in heaven, if at all?), and manner (What words and ritual acts
must be used if the necessary change is to take place?).62
It is precisely these preoccupations that gave rise to the need for reform and the
consequences of the Protestant Reformation.
The Era of Reform (1500-1750)
Martin Luther’s hammering of his 95 Theses on the church door in Wittenberg,
Germany is somewhat symbolic of hammering a chisel into a block of ice: the ice cracks
61 Ibid., 234.
62Stookey, Eucharist, 50. Italics mine.

and then shatters. There is no doubt that church reform was essential for her own
survival, but what ended up happening was that, like the ice pellets from the shattered ice
block, the church was split into pieces, and the concept of one visible “catholic,” unified
church was lost among the fragments. In terms of eucharistic theology, the main
interpretations have consolidated themselves into three Protestant camps, each named for
their main proponent: Martin Luther (1483-1546), Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531), and John
Calvin (1509-1564).
Martin Luther taught what came to be known as “consubstantiation,” which
means “with substance.” This doctrine is one step removed from the Roman Catholic
doctrine of transubstantiation, teaching that Christ's body and blood are contained “in,
with, and under” the elements themselves, which are not transformed. In espousing this
doctrine (which was actually not new), Luther was trying to align himself with the
historical interpretation of John 6, while still maintaining that the elements themselves do
not lose their substance, or are not absorbed into Christ's substance. Just as the
incarnation meant that Jesus was completely God and completely man, so are the
elements completely bread and wine, and yet completely Christ.
Ulrich Zwingli was the most radical of the three Reformers and taught that
nothing happened to the elements whatsoever. When Christ said, “This is my body,” he
meant, “This represents my body.” Zwingli completely stripped the eucharistic act of any
supernatural activity such that it became what he believed Christ intended for it to be: a
memorial (but emphatically not in the anamnesis sense). Therefore, what Christians do in
the supper is a “bare memorial” of the upper room and Christ's death, which has no
spiritual efficacy outside of our obedience to Christ by observing the meal. As such, the

Lord’s Supper is an “ordinance” of Christ, not a sacrament. Zwingli did not rule out the
Holy Spirit’s action in the lives of the believers through their partaking, but he argued
that his grace and power was not to be found in or through the elements themselves. The
Lord’s Supper, just as his belief about baptism asserted, was an expression of Christians’
faith in Jesus Christ, not a means of his grace.
John Calvin, having the advantage of a later birth, was able to forge a path
between that of Luther and Zwingli. He believed that the eating of the meal was not
simply a sign of our common faith in Jesus, as Zwingli taught, but was also a sign given
by God of a real and true communion in the body and blood of Jesus, as Luther espoused.
His explanation of how this happens, however, was different from Luther’s. Calvin’s
doctrine of the ascension was central to his doctrine of the Eucharist. He believed that
once Jesus ascended into heaven he stayed there, sitting “at the right hand of the father,”
and would not descend again until he returned at the consumation of all things. As such it
is not Christ that descends to the elements, but we who ascend to Christ by our partaking
of the elements through the power of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, Christians receive
Christ's body and blood through the bread and wine, but his body and blood are not
contained within the bread and wine. The grace the faithful receive remains objectively
real, but is not identified in the elements. In other words, the symbol and the reality are
distinguished from each other, but not separated. In that the bread and wine were
necessary for a communion in the body and blood of Christ, they were objective means of
grace, modeling our salvation by grace through faith. In that they were not literally
Christ's body and blood, but were rather what I call “vehicular symbols,” they still
remained bread and wine, albeit with a new “sacramental” nature.

It is quite obvious that in none of the factious explanations of eucharistic theology
above was the idea of unity ever mentioned. The Reformers were largely concerned with
removing themselves from Roman Catholic doctrine. Because of the desire to uproot
themselves from Rome, much of the nuances among the facets of eucharistic theology
were overlooked in their theological writings. This is not to say they were ignored,
however. Calvin, for instance, taught that our incorporation into Christ in heaven through
the meal established us as his body on earth. Yet because of the revolutionary spirit of the
time, much of the Reformer’s teachings on unity as it is related to the Table was
disregarded. Eventually, despite all the Reformers’ desires for frequent celebration of the
Table, the frequency of the meal was reduced, in some instances, to only a few times a
year. It is my belief that this reduction in the Table’s importance, in part, had to do with
the doctrines themselves, which led to almost an indifferent attitude among the people. In
my opinion, the Reformers fell into a similar trap that Rome had fallen into with respect
to a liturgical understanding of the Table of the Lord. As can be readily discerned from
the respective documented accounts of the Reformers’ liturgies, the “work of the people”
was enslaved to the doctrines of the Reformers. Lex credendi was establishing lex orandi,
thus suppressing the work of the Spirit in the midst of the assembly. Without
emphasizing the Table’s supernatural power to establish a covenant community, an
identity in Christ, its significance became negligent in the lives of the people. Sadly,
these consequences can still be seen today.
Martin Luther was, therefore, a conservative reformer, Ulrich Zwingli a radical
reformer, and John Calvin was able to take more of a middle road. Yet with the rise of
rationalism in the 18th century, coupled with a 19th century revivalism that accentuated

personal faith and experiential conversion over the sacraments, it was a form of
Zwinglianism that won the day.
The Modern Era (1750-1980)
With the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, there arose among the
European populace a secularism that has extended into the present. Notions of the
“supernatural” became more and more out of vogue as the cultures began melding and
progressing toward the Industrial Revolution. It became much easier to believe in
Zwingli’s concept of a bare memorial than the Roman, Lutheran, or even Calvinist
doctrines that still held to the Eucharist as a supernatural event (though in very different
ways). James F. White summarizes the age succinctly:
The belief that material objects and actions had any supernatural power of
themselves was repugnant to religion based on reason alone. Immanuel Kant, the
leading Protestant philosopher of this period, found any attempt to speak of means
of grace in the sacraments a dangerous illusion. There might be moral values in
baptism and the Eucharist, but to conceive of either as a “means of grace—this is
religious illusion which can do naught but work counter to the spirit of religion.”
Faith in miracles, mysteries, and sacramental means of grace is simply a fanatical
deceit.63
In light of the history of Christianity, one wonders what Immanuel Kant believed “the
spirit of religion” to be. Nevertheless, to strip Communion of the supernatural encounter
with Christ is also to strip it of communal meaning. Due to the emphasis on “moral
values” in the sacraments, they became more individualized as personal experiences.
With respect to the Eucharist, these individual experiences had little to do with Paul’s
notion of “discerning the body.”
63 James F. White, The Sacraments in Protestant Practice and Faith (Nashville:

By the early nineteenth century the European populace, weary from
intellectualism and scientism, was spiritually starved and craved an emotional experience
that gave them the sense that they were more than just a collection of evolved cells.
Individualism and humanism, begun initially during the Renaissance, were easily carried
into the Romantic era, and personal experience, “religious” or otherwise, became the
central focus of many church-goers. The revivalism begun with John and Charles Wesley
in the Anglican church extended into twentieth-century America. What did not survive,
however, was the Wesleys’ high regard for the sacraments, even among many
Methodists. The Lutherans, the Reformed, and the Baptists by and large “towed the line,”
as it were, throughout the twentieth century, often retaining their Reformational roots
with respect to eucharistic doctrine.
Probably the single-most influential liturgical phenomenon of the Modern Era
was the Second Vatican Council of the Roman Catholic Church in 1962. Many church-
related issues were addressed within the Council, but first and foremost among these
issues was the need for liturgical renewal and reform. From this primary goal sprang the
first document of the Council: The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. To this day the
far-reaching effects of this document are still being felt among churches and parishes in
both Catholic and Protestant worlds. The basic goal of the constitution was to revive
Christian spirituality by bringing the faithful to the source of life itself as contained
within the mystery of the Eucharist, which is itself found within the mystery of the
liturgy.64 To accomplish this goal many liturgical reforms were necessary. Chief among
these reforms were enhanced catechetical instruction of the people, especially on the
64 German Martinez, Webber, ed., Twenty Centuries of Christian Worship, Volume 2 of
The Complete Library of Christian Worship (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), 108.

Mass, and the setting of the liturgy within a properly translated vernacular. The concern
was to return leitourgia to its original meaning: “the work of the people.” As these
reforms were implemented within the Roman Catholic Church, Protestant traditions took
note and followed the Catholic lead, giving rise to the widespread liturgical reforms of
the Postmodern Era.
The Postmodern Era (1980-Present)
It is difficult to assess the present with any accuracy because of the lack of a
historical perspective. There does seem, however, to be a growing interest in the
sacraments in yet another pendulum swing toward a popular desire to experience the
holy. Edward Foley says even that,
One of the hallmarks of the twentieth-century liturgical movement has been a
renewed belief in the centrality of the assembly in public worship … Liturgy is an
action that requires the use of perceivable symbols to bring about its hoped-for
meaning. The evoluation of eucharistic vessels and of the material gifts of bread
and wine that they hold attests to the church’s growing awareness of the
importance of symbols.65
What I believe Foley is indicating is that by refocusing attention on worship, on liturgy
itself, Christians are rediscovering the meaning and importance of sacramental theology,
which springs directly from the context of “the work of the people.” If this surmisal is
true, then we are witnessing the swing of the pendulum from theology as the basis for
worship back to worship as the basis for theology. We are recovering lex orandi, lex
credendi. Perhaps, even in a slow and methodical way, the actions of the Lord’s Supper
may in fact lead to the unity that we all so desire, beginning in our own congregations
and spreading through the world. I do believe that, though the denominational lines

remain, there is a growing appreciation for the importance of the Eucharist and a desire to
comprehend its full and rich meaning, its multi-dimensional aspects, and its communal
experience as an encounter with Jesus Christ. In addition, there is something of a
“historic renaissance” occurring. Archaeological and documental discoveries are
bringing about a greater understanding for how early Christianity understood and
practiced the Eucharist. Perhaps we are beginning to rediscover ourselves.
Throughout the long history of the Eucharist so much of the focus has been on
“time,” “space,” and “manner,” as Stookey observed so insightfully. But in so doing,
essentially the church removed the Eucharist from the liturgy, took it out of its context as
the central event in the people’s work. The secondary theology of the Eucharist usurped
the primary theology of the liturgy and warped the communion of God and humanity into
a spectacle to behold rather than in which to participate and experience. Eucharistic unity
was thus eliminated as even a possibility. As the years progressed, however, and
historical event became historical perspective, much of this travesty was realized and
biblical and theological remedies were sought. In many contexts today, theologians,
pastors, and laypeople are beginning to recognize that worship must be restored to the
people and that unity among believers and between God and his people can be achieved
through the means God has given in the sacraments, especially at his Table.
Conclusion
Unity is possible because unity is a man, or rather a God-man. Christ, who is
infinite, took on finitude, thus fulfilling time and history, and he took on matter, thus
filling and giving meaning to all of creation. At his Table, where he meets us and feeds

us, we find the extension of his incarnation. Each passing day does not take us further
from God and the time when Christ walked the earth. Rather, each day stands as a
perpetual invitation to enter more fully into his immanence that we may become
transcendent in him.66 Time cannot diminish Christ's presence in the world because he is
the “God with us,” and he has promised to be with us until the end of the age. This
incarnate God is present in the Sacrament of Unity. He is Emmanuel in the Eucharist.
May we burst forth in our berakoth as we “lift up the cup of salvation” (Ps 116:13) find
our identity in him at his Table, serve and love our brothers and sisters even as he taught
us to, be nourished by his body and blood, and “re-member” who we are as we remember
him at his Table. Today is the day of salvation. Today is the day for Communion.
Now that my biblical, theological, and historical foundations have been
expounded, I must consider how to apply them to my personal context at First
Presbyterian Church. Chapter 3, then, will detail the process of implementation and
explain what I did to convey these foundational principles to those who volunteered to
attend the course I developed.
66 For a greater exposition of this thought, see St. Augustine’s Sermon 119.

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