See also: Real Presence
📖 Biblical Definition
The real presence debate concerns how Christ is present to His people in the Lord’s Supper, and four principal answers have divided the church. Rome teaches transubstantiation: that at the priest’s consecration the whole substance of the bread and wine is changed into the substance of Christ’s body and blood, the outward appearances alone remaining. Lutheranism teaches a sacramental union, popularly called consubstantiation: that Christ’s true body and blood are present in, with, and under the bread and wine, by virtue of His word and the ubiquity of His glorified body. The Reformed, following Calvin, confess a true but spiritual presence: that the believer, by the working of the Holy Spirit and through the instrument of faith, truly partakes of the whole Christ—not by His body descending into the elements, but by the Spirit lifting the believer’s heart to feed on Christ in heaven. The Zwinglian or memorialist view, at the far end, holds the Supper to be chiefly a remembrance and a sign of profession, with the presence located in the believing remembrance rather than in any objective communication. The Reformed position guards both truths the others sunder: the Supper is no empty memorial, for Christ is truly received; yet His presence is real and spiritual, not carnal and local, received by faith and not by the teeth.
📜 Webster 1828 Definition
Webster 1828 defines REAL PRESENCE under TRANSUBSTANTIATION and the EUCHARIST as the doctrine that the body and blood of Christ are actually present in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
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TRANSUBSTANTIATION, n. — In the Romish church, the conversion or change of the substance of the bread and wine in the eucharist into the body and blood of Christ; a change supposed to take place by the consecration of the elements.
REAL, a. — Actually being or existing; not fictitious or imaginary. Hence the “real presence” denotes the actual, as opposed to merely figurative, presence of Christ in the Supper, variously explained among the churches.
📖 Key Scripture
1 Corinthians 10:16 — "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?"
John 6:63 — "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life."
Matthew 26:26-28 — "And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body."
1 Corinthians 11:24 — "And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me."
⚠️ Modern Corruption
Two errors flank the Reformed confession: Rome’s transubstantiation makes the presence carnal and turns the Supper into a re-sacrifice, while bare memorialism empties the sacrament of any real communication of Christ at all.
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On the one side stands the Romish corruption: transubstantiation, by which the bread is said to cease being bread and to become the very body of Christ under the mere appearance of bread, so that the consecrated host is adored, reserved, and offered as a propitiatory sacrifice in the Mass. This carnalizes the presence, contradicts the plain witness of the senses and of John 6 (where Christ Himself directs us from the flesh to the Spirit), and turns the Supper into a repeated immolation that obscures the once-for-all sacrifice of Calvary. The Reformers rejected it as both bad metaphysics and worse theology.
On the other side lies the bare-memorialist reduction, which, fleeing Rome, empties the Supper of any real communication of Christ and leaves only a man-centered remembrance—a ceremony we perform to stir our own recollection, in which Christ does nothing and gives nothing. This is as far from the apostle’s “communion of the body of Christ” as Rome’s carnal presence. The Reformed confession holds the center: in the Supper the believer, by the Spirit and through faith, truly feeds upon the whole Christ for the nourishment of his soul. The presence is real but spiritual, the communion genuine but not carnal—neither the idolatry of the host nor the emptiness of mere memory.
🔗 Greek & Hebrew Roots
The debate turns on the force of Christ’s “this is (esti) my body” and the apostle’s word koinōnia (communion, participation) in 1 Corinthians 10:16.
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['Greek', 'G2842', 'koinōnia', 'communion, participation (in the body and blood)']
['Greek', 'G1510', 'esti', 'is (this is my body—the disputed copula)']
['Greek', 'G364', 'anamnēsis', 'remembrance (this do in remembrance of me)']
['Greek', 'G2127', 'eulogeō', 'to bless (the cup of blessing which we bless)']
Usage
"The Reformed real presence is true but spiritual—Christ received by faith through the Spirit, not by the teeth."
"Transubstantiation carnalizes the presence and turns the Supper into a re-sacrifice; bare memorialism empties it entirely."
"Calvin taught that in the Supper the Spirit lifts the believer to feed on Christ in heaven, neither dragging Christ into the bread nor leaving the table empty."