The Real Presence - What Is It? # 5

The Real Presence - What Is It? # 5

Some people fancy that Paul's words to the Corinthians, "The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?" (1 Cor. 10:16), are enough to prove a bodily presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper. But unfortunately for their argument, Paul does not say, "The bread is the body," but the "communion of the body."  And the obvious sense of the words is this: "The bread that a worthy communicant eats in the Lord's Supper is a mean whereby his soul holds communion with the body of Christ." Nor do I believe that more than this can e go out of the words. Above all, there remains the unanswerable argument, that if our Lord was actually holding His own body in His hands, when He said of the bread, "This is My body," His body must have been a different body to that of ordinary men. Of course if His body was not a body like ours, His real and proper "humanity" is at an end. At this rate the blessed and comfortable doctrine of Christ's entire sympathy with His people arising from the fact that He is really and truly man, would be completely overthrown and fall to the ground.

Finally, if the body with which our blessed Lord ascended up into heaven can be in heaven, and on earth, and on ten thousand communion tables at one and the same time - it cannot be a real human body at all. Yet that He did ascend with a real human body, although a glorified body, is one of the prime articles of the Christian faith, and one that we ought never to let go! Once admit that a body can be present at God's right hand and on the communion table at the same moment, and it cannot be the body which was born of the Virgin Mary and crucified upon the Cross. From such a conclusion we may well draw back with horror and dismay!

Well says the Prayer book of the Church of England: "The sacramental bread and wine remain still in their very natural substances, and therefore may not be adored (for that is idolatry, to be abhorred by all faithful Christians); and the natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ are in heaven, and not here; it being against the truth of Christ's natural body to be at one time in more places than one." This is sound speech that cannot be condemned. Well would it be for the Church of England if all Churchmen would read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest what the Prayer book teaches about Christ's presence in the Lord's Supper. If we love our souls and desire their prosperity, let us be very jealous over our doctrine about the Lord's Supper. Let us stand fast on the simple teaching of Scripture, and let no one drive us from it, under the pretense of increased reverence for the ordinance of Christ.

Let us take heed, lest under confused and mystical notions of some inexplicable presence of Christ's body and blood under the form of bread and wine, we find ourselves unawares heretics about Christ's human nature. Next to the doctrine that Christ is not God - but only man, there is nothing more dangerous than the doctrine that Christ is not man - but only God. If we would not fall into that pit, we must hold firmly that there can be no literal presence of Christ's body in the Lord's Supper, because His body is in heaven, and not on earth, though as God He is everywhere. Let us now go one step further, and bring our whole subject to a conclusion.

(d) There will be a real bodily presence of Christ when He COMES AGAIN the second time to judge the world. This is a point about which the Bible speaks so plainly, that there is no room left for dispute or doubt. There can be no mistake  about the meaning of these words. Visibly and bodily our Lord left the world, and visibly and bodily He will return in the day which is emphatically called the day of "His appearing" (1 Peter 1:7). The world is not yet done with Christ. Myriads talk and think of Him as of One who did His work in the world and passed on to His own place, like some statesman or philosopher, leaving nothing but His memory behind Him. The world will be fearfully undeceived one day. That same Jesus who came centuries ago in lowliness and poverty, to be despised and crucified - shall come again one day in power and glory, to raise the dead and change the living, and to reward every man according to his works.

The wicked shall see that Saviour whom they despised - but too late, and shall call on the rocks to fall on them and hide them from the face of the Lamb! The godly shall see the Saviour whom they have believed - that the half of His goodness had not been known! They shall find that sight is far better than faith, and that in Christ's actual presence is fullness of joy!

I now leave the whole subject with a parting word of APPLICATION, and commend it to serious attention. 

1. What do we know of Christ for ourselves? We call ourselves Christians. But what do we know of Christ experimentally, as our own personal Saviour, Priest, Friend, Healer, Comforter, Pardoner, and the confidence of our souls?

2. Let us not rest until we feel Christ "present" in our own hearts, and know what it is to be one with Christ and Christ in us. This is real religion. To live in the habit of looking backward to Christ on the Cross, upward to Christ at God's right hand, and forward to Christ coming again - this is the only Christianity which gives comfort in life, and good hope in death. Let us remember this.

3. Let us keep continually before our minds, the second advent of Christ. and that real "presence" which is yet to come. Let our lions be girded, and our lamps burning, and ourselves like men daily waiting for their Master's return. Then, and then only, shall we have all the desires of our souls satisfied. Until then the less we expect from this world the better! Let our daily cry be: "Amen!Come Lord Jesus!"

~J. C. Ryle~

(The End)