The Real Presence - What Is It? # 4

The Real Presence - What Is It? # 4

(b) There is a real bodily presence of Jesus Christ in HEAVEN at the right hand of God. This is a deep and mysterious subject, beyond question. What God the Father is, and where He dwells, what the nature of His dwelling place who is a Spirit - these are high things which we have no comprehension to take in. But where the Bible speaks plainly - it is our duty and our wisdom to believe. When our Lord rose again from the dead, He rose with a real human body - a body which could not be in two places at once - a body of which the angels said, "He is not here - but is risen" (Luke 24:6). In that body, having finished His redeeming work on earth. He ascended visibly into heaven. He took His body with Him, and did not leave it behind, like Elijah's mantle. It was not laid in the grave at last, and did not become dust and ashes in some Syrian village, like the bodies of saints and martyrs. That same body after the resurrection glorified undoubtedly - but still real and material - was taken up into heaven, and is there at this very moment.

To use the inspired words of the Acts, "While they beheld, He was taken up; and a cloud received Him out of their sight" (Acts 1:9). To use the words of Luke's Gospel, "While He blessed them, He was parted from them, and carried up into heaven" (Luke 24:51). The fourth article of the Church of England states the whole matter fully and accurately: "Christ did truly rise again from death, and took again His body, with flesh, bones, and all things appertaining to the perfection of man's nature wherewith He ascended into heaven, and there sits, until He return to judge all men at the last day". And thus, to come round to the point with which we started - there is in heaven a real bodily presence of Jesus Christ.

The doctrine before us is singularly rich in comfort and consolation to all true Christians. That Divine Saviour in heaven, on whom the Gospel tells us to cast the burden of our sinful souls, is not a Being who is Spirit only - but a Being who is man - as well as God. He is One who has taken up to heaven a body
like our own; and in that body sits at the right hand of God, to be our Priest and our Advocate, our Representative and our Friend. He can be touches with the feeling of our infirmities, because He has suffered Himself in the body being tempted. He knows by experience all that the body is liable to - from pain, and weariness, and hunger, and thirst, and work; and has taken to heaven that very body which endured the contradiction of sinners and was nailed to a tree!

(c) There is NO real bodily presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper, or in the consecrated elements of bread and wine. This is a point which it is peculiarly painful to discuss, because it has long divided Christians into two parties, and defiled a very solemn subject with sharp controversy. Nevertheless, it is one which cannot possibly be avoided in handling the question we are considering. Moreover, it is a point of vast importance, and demands very plain speaking.

Those amiable and well-meaning people who imagine that it signifies little, what opinion people hold about Christ's presence in the Lord's Supper - that it is a matter of indifference and that it all comes to the same thing at last - are totally and entirely mistaken. They have yet to learn that an unscriptural view of the subject may land them at length in a very dangerous heresy. Let us search and see.

My reason for saying that there is no bodily presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper, or in the consecrated bread and wine, is simply this: there is no such presence taught anywhere in Holy Scripture. It is a presence that can never be honestly and fairly gotten out of the Bible. Let the three accounts of the Lord's Supper, in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and the one given by Paul to the Corinthians, be weighed and examined impartially, and I have no doubt as to the result. They teach that the Lord Jesus, in the same night that He was betrayed, took bread, and gave it to His disciples, saying, 'Take and eat it; this is My Body;" and also took the cup of wine, and gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you. For this is My blood."

But there is nothing in the simple narrative, or in the verses which follow it, which shows that the disciples thought their Master's body and blood were really present in the bread and wine which they received. There is not a word in the epistles to show that after our Lord's ascension into heaven, that the Christians believed that His body and blood were present in an ordinance celebrated on earth; or that the bread in the Lord's Supper, after consecration, was not truly and literally bread, and the wine truly and literally wine.

Some people I am aware, suppose that such texts as "This is My body," and "This is My blood," are proofs that Christ's body and blood, in some mysterious manner, are locally present in the bread and wine at the Lord's Supper, and their consecration. But a man must be easily satisfied if such texts content him. The quotation of a single isolated phrase is a mode of arguing which would establish Arianism or Socinianism.

The context of these famous expressions shows clearly that those who heard the words used, and were accustomed to our Lord's mode of speaking, understood them to mean "This represents My body," and "This represents my blood." The comparison of other places proves that there is nothing unfair in this interpretation. It is certain that the words "is" and "are" frequently mean represent in Scripture. 

Some people, again, regard the sixth chapter of John, where our Lord speaks of "eating His flesh and drinking His blood," as a proof that there is literal bodily presence of Christ in the bread and wine at the Lord's Supper. But there is an utter absence of conclusive proof that this chapter refers to the Lord's Supper at all! The Lord's Supper had not been instituted, and did not exist, until  at least a year after these words were spoken. Enough to say, that the great majority of Protestant commentators altogether deny that the chapter refers to the Lord's Supper, and that even some Romish commentators on this point agree with them. The eat and drinking here spoken of are the eating and drinking of FAITH - and not a bodily action.

~J. C. Ryle~

(continued with # 5)