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Q. 46. What is the Lord’s Supper?

The Lord’s Supper is sharing a meal of bread and wine as a sign of redemption by Christ’s body and blood, and of the Church’s unity in him.

To those who receive it rightly and with faith, the bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Christ, and the cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ, yet only after a spiritual and heavenly manner.

Genesis 14:18, “And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.)”

Matthew 26:26–29, “Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body.’ And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 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.'”

John 6:52–58, “The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ So Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.'”

Acts 2:42, “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”

Acts 20:7, “On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight.”

1 Corinthians 5:7–8, “Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”

1 Corinthians 10:3–4, “And all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.”

1 Corinthians 10:16–17, “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.”

1 Corinthians 11:17–32, “But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. 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. For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, ‘This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. 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. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.”

39 Articles of Religion, Article 28
Westminster Shorter Catechism, Questions 96–97
Augsburg Confession, Article 10
Belgic Confession, Chapter 35
Geneva Catechism, Questions 340–361

Lord’s Supper. The Lord’s Supper is commonly called communion (from the Greek word koinōnia, translated as “participation” in 1 Corinthians 10:16). It is more traditionally called the Eucharist (from eucharisteō, which means to “give thanks,” as in Luke 22:17, 19). “The first word used … gives the ordinance a name: it is a thankful and glorying commemoration, or the Eucharist” (William Burt Pope, Compendium, vol. 3, 326).

Bread and wine. Bread and wine bear a visible resemblance to flesh and blood. The Lord’s Supper must be administered with bread and wine (the fruit of the vine—not necessarily alcoholic), since those are the elements which Christ ordained for sacramental use. When wine cannot be obtained, bread alone is sufficient to observe the feast.

Redemption by Christ’s death … partaking. “Our Savior Jesus Christ has ordained and instituted the sacrament of the Holy Supper … to testify to us that just as truly as we take and hold the sacrament in our hands and eat and drink it with our mouths, by which our life is then sustained, so truly we receive into our souls, for our spiritual life, the true body and true blood of Christ, our only Savior. We receive these by faith, which is the hand and mouth of our souls” (Belgic Confession 35). “This banquet is a spiritual table at which Christ communicates himself to us with all his benefits. At that table he makes us enjoy himself as much as the merits of his suffering and death, as he nourishes, strengthens, and comforts our poor, desolate souls by the eating of his flesh, and relieves and renews them by the drinking of his blood” (Belgic Confession 35). “As our bodies are strengthened by bread and wine, so are our souls by these tokens of the body and blood of Christ. This is the food of our souls: This gives strength to perform our duty, and leads us on to perfection” (Wesley, Sermon 101, “The Duty of Constant Communion”).

The Church’s unity. “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Corinthians 10:17). “It is this communion which makes us all one. We being many are yet, as it were, but different parts of one and the same broken bread, which we receive to unite us in one body” (Wesley, Notes on the Bible, 1 Corinthians 10:17).