Reformed theologians seem to have no doubt that the Lord’s Supper is nourishing to the souls of those who partake. The confessions teach plainly that Christ’s body and blood provide a kind of “soul food” for believers, building them up in their faith as they await Christ’s return.¹ But they are far more quiet regarding the significance of the Lord’s Supper for the bodies of believers. Given the massive threat posed by the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Supper at the time of the Reformation—that the bread and wine actually feed believers with the literal, transubstantiated body and blood of Christ—it makes sense that the Reformed would place an emphasis on the soul’s benefit from the Supper rather than the body’s. But reserving the blessings of this sacrament to only one of humanity’s constituent elements misses the full scope of its gracious potential. A Reformed understanding of the Supper contains all the ingredients to create a soothing balm for believers’ aching bodies; the ingredients simply need to be identified and combined.

Assuming a Reformed understanding of the Lord’s Supper, this article will explore the implications of this doctrine for the physical bodies of those who partake. I will argue that the Supper is an immense source of hope and strength—particularly for those with chronic pain or other bodily ailments—in that it provides fellowship with Christ in his human nature and a foretaste of the heavenly feast to come. I will take each of these in turn in order to fully explore the Supper’s “medicinal” value for the embodied Christian life.

Fellowship with the Risen Christ 

First, in the Lord’s Supper, the Holy Spirit unites partakers with the risen Christ in his human nature, not just his divine nature. Those who receive the elements by faith enjoy real fellowship with the second person of the Trinity such that there is a union between his body and their bodies, even as they exist in different places. This idea of fellowship with Christ’s body comes directly from 1 Corinthians 10:16–17, where Paul speaks of the κοινωνία that believers have with the body and blood of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. According to Paul, eating the bread and drinking the wine at the Lord’s Table involves a participation in the actual human nature of Christ. If this sounds unlikely or illogical, we can reference the apostle’s earlier comments in chapter 6 to gain clarity. Here, Paul likens believers’ union with Christ’s body to union with a prostitute in order to explain (provocatively) the depth of our physical connection to him (v. 15). Because our bodies belong to Christ, the apostle teaches, it is only fitting that they enjoy regular communion with him, the kind that believers enjoy when they partake of the Supper.

In addition to 1 Corinthians, the Gospel of John is illuminative for the type of fellowship a believer enjoys with Christ during the Lord’s Supper.² In John 6:35 and 38, after feeding the five thousand with literal bread, Jesus declares himself to be the Bread of Life for those who will feed on him. Given that this language is metaphorical and perhaps puzzling, Jesus clarifies exactly what he means in verse 51: “And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” (emphasis added). Christ’s very body, then, provides life for his people, and the Supper is an occasion for this provision. While this is the dominant Reformed understanding of this passage, Ulrich Zwingli interpreted Christ’s words differently, seeing “flesh” as a reference to Christ’s redemptive work on the cross.³ In other words, believers receive life only through the atonement, and the Supper merely reminds them of this. By interpreting John 6 in this way, Zwingli denies

Christ as the substance of the sacrament and robs partakers of their real, spiritual union with Christ’s body. Such union is key to the encouragement that I am claiming the Supper provides for our physical bodies.

To be clear, I am not claiming that union with Christ is only to be found in the Supper. All who are regenerate have been united to Christ’s divine and human natures by the Holy Spirit, even apart from their participation in this sacrament. But the Reformed have said that partaking of the Supper serves to nourish and strengthen our existing union with Christ. Calvin saw union with Christ, effected by the Holy Spirit, as the foundation for our communion with Christ in the Supper,⁴ and according to Heidelberg Catechism 9, to partake of the body and blood of Christ is, in part, “to become more and more united to His sacred body by the Holy Ghost” (emphasis added). In other words, part of the Spirit’s role in the Supper is to cultivate deeper fellowship between the body of the believer and the body of their Savior. Herman Bavinck also sees the Supper as a means toward richer fellowship with Christ. He explains that in the sacrament, believers become “ever more intimately united in soul and body with the whole Christ, both in his divine and human natures.”⁵ The analogy of marriage is helpful in explaining what he and other Reformed theologians mean. In the same way that regular quality time strengthens the union between a husband and wife (though they are still legally married without it), so also our participation in the Lord’s Supper nourishes our relationship with our Savior and thus the union of our bodies to his body.⁶

Thus far, I have established that the Lord’s Table provides real fellowship with the human nature of Christ and shown that this fellowship deepens as one partakes of the elements. But how is this an encouragement to those who suffer from bodily ailments? What has the embodied Christ done on behalf of his people, and what benefits has this secured for them? I will now examine these questions in order to make the connection clearer.

First, believers are united to Christ in his life. Because his divine and human natures were hypostatically united in the incarnation, Christ lived a truly human life. He assumed a real physical body, one that developed over time (Luke 2:40) and experienced the full range of human emotions and conditions, including hunger, thirst, sorrow, and exhaustion (Matt 4:2; John 19:28; 11:35; 4:6, respectively). Beyond those mentioned in the Gospels, Jesus undoubtedly endured a whole host of human experiences, including the discomfort of puberty, the frustration of a stubbed toe, and the throb of a headache after a long day. In other words, whatever a normal human body undergoes in a sin-cursed world, Christ’s body has undergone as well.

This provides incredible comfort for those who approach the Lord’s Table. As they hold the bread in their hands, they remember not only the humble death of Christ but also the humble life of Christ, during which he experienced the same aches and pains of everyday life that they experience. Even the youngest of communicants can trust that their Savior knows what it is like to inhabit an adolescent body, one that changes in odd ways and makes constant demands that must be met. Reflecting on their union with Christ in his life, those who partake of the Lord’s Supper are encouraged that their Savior took on the very same flesh that they have and thus sympathizes perfectly with the daily frustrations that come with having a body.

In addition to his life, believers are also united to Christ in his death and burial. Christ endured a ghastly amount of physical pain in the events leading up to his crucifixion, having been flogged by the Roman soldiers and pierced by a crown of thorns, rendering him too weak to carry his own cross to Golgotha (Matt 27:26–33). The crucifixion itself, of course, was excruciatingly painful, involving the nailing of limbs to a wooden crossbeam with giant metal pegs. According to a medical analysis, the ultimate cause of Christ’s death on the cross was likely asphyxiation, an inability to breathe due to the immense stress on his upper extremities from being fixed to an upright object.⁷ On top of this, Jesus likely endured significant shock and cardiovascular trauma,⁸ each factor making his death even more torturous. Christ’s anticipation of this physical pain surely contributed to the distress he felt in the garden,⁹ and the actualization of that pain was part of his cry of dereliction: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt 27:46). Having endured the full weight of his Father’s eschatological wrath, Christ’s true human body was placed in a cold tomb, still bearing the wounds of his hellish execution.

For those who come to the Lord’s Table bearing their own physical weaknesses and wounds, dwelling on the suffering of Christ in his crucifixion offers profound comfort. As they see the bread broken and the cup poured out, they remember that their Savior has endured bodily suffering to an even higher degree than they have, and they find comfort knowing that there is no amount of physical pain that he cannot understand. Recognizing this profound reality, John Owen regularly encouraged his congregation to dwell on the bodily sufferings of Christ as part of their preparation for coming to the Table, a practice “which I am afraid we do not do enough,” he remarks in a sermon.¹⁰ For those who suffer from bodily ailments, no matter how agonizing their suffering might feel—on both a physical and emotional level—their Savior sympathizes with them completely and grieves with them on behalf of it.

But Christ did not endure physical pain just for the sake of enduring it; his death actually accomplished something. In his sinless life and atoning death, our Savior reversed the curse that the first Adam introduced into the world and secured all the benefits of salvation for the elect. Kelly Kapic puts it this way: “Jesus’ story ends not with him as an eternal victim but as the eternal Lord who conquers sin and suffering in order to promise hope and renewal.”¹¹ In other words, in his bloody crucifixion, Christ did not simply “take a stand” with believers only to be overcome by the power of sin and death, but rather through his death he permanently removed the grip of the sin, death, and the devil on them. Even as his real, physical body laid in the tomb—united to his elect—Christ had fully drained the cup of God’s wrath against sin, leaving none to be poured out on his people.

Thus, having reflected on Christ’s physical suffering on the cross, those who partake of the Supper can go on to reflect on the manifold blessings that such suffering secured for them—not only their justification, adoption, and sanctification but especially their glorification and the promise of a resurrected body in heaven. They can be confident that their current body, which fails them in so many ways, will be made new when Christ comes again. And as they look forward to that glorified body, they can take further comfort in the fact that their present sufferings—even those they feel in their body—are mysteriously caught up into the suffering of Christ (1 Pet 4:13). Each of these many blessings comes from a believer’s union with Christ in his death, a union that is nourished and deepened as they partake of the sacrament.

Finally, believers are not only united to Christ in his life, death, and burial but also in his resurrection and ascension. While Christ’s atonement purchased all of the redemptive blessings that belong to the elect, his resurrection guarantees that these blessings will be applied to the elect. Paul applies this concept to glorification in 1 Corinthians 15, describing Christ’s resurrection as a kind of “firstfruit” of a greater harvest to come. As an exclamation point to the resurrection, Christ’s ascension guarantees that real human bodies can enter the presence of the living God. Heidelberg Catechism 49 remarks on this reality, encouraging believers that “we have our flesh in heaven as a sure pledge that He, as the head, will also take up to Himself, us, His members.” Fulfilling the eschatological task that the first Adam did not, Christ received the eschatological reward due his work, and his bodily presence in the heavenly places secures the same for those who believe in him.

To those who come to the Lord’s Table, the promise of a glorified body in God’s presence is profoundly encouraging, and I will say more about this in the next installment. But for now, it is enough to point out that the Lord’s Supper reminds partakers not only of Christ’s humiliation but also of his exaltation. As surely as they hold the bread in their hand, Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father, and as surely as Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father, those who partake by faith will be welcomed into the Father’s presence as well. Their union with Christ in his resurrection and ascension assures them of this, a union that is fortified in their partaking of the elements of the Supper.

In this first part, I have explored the implications of our union with Christ’s body—in his life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension—for our physical bodies. In the next part, I will consider one of the most astounding functions of the sacrament: transporting its guests, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to the age to come.

Notes

1. See Belgic Confession 35 (“comforting our poor comfortless souls by the eating of his flesh”) and Heidelberg Catechism 79 (“true food and drink for our souls to eternal life”). The Westminster Standards do not use “soul” or “body” in their explanations of the Supper, but their focus is certainly on its spiritual benefits.
2. Of course, Christ is not explicitly talking about His Supper in this passage, but there are obvious implications for our understanding of it.
3. Ulrich Zwingli, “On the Lord’s Supper,” in Zwingli and Bullinger: Selected Translations with Introductions and Notes, ed. Geoffrey William Bromiley (Westminster Press, 1953), 199.
4. John Calvin, “Summary of Doctrine Concerning the Ministry of the Word and the Sacraments,” in Calvin: Theological Treatises, ed. John Baillie, John T. McNeill, Henry P. Van Dusen, trans. J. K. S. Reid (Westminster Press, 1977), 175.
5. Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Baker Academic, 2008), 4:578.
6. See also Ephesians 5:25–33, where Paul connects Christ’s love for the church with a husband’s care for his wife.
7. Gary Habermas, Jonathan Kopel, and Benjamin C. F. Shaw, “Medical Views on the Death by Crucifixion of Jesus Christ,” Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings 34, no. 6 (2021): 752, https://doi.org/10.1080/08998280.2021.1951096.
8. Habermas, Kopel, and Shaw, “Medical Views,” 752.
9. Sweat . . . like great drops of blood falling” (Luke 22:44).
10. John Owen, “Discourse 13,” in John Owen on the Lord’s Supper, ed. Jon D. Payne (Banner of Truth Trust, 2004), 194.
11. Kelly Kapic, Embodied Hope (InterVarsity Press, 2017), 97.

©Kendall Moore. All Rights Reserved.

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Post authored by:

• Kendall Moore

  

  Kendall Moore is a student at Westminster Seminary California pursuing MAs in Biblical Studies and Theological Studies. She and her husband Noah live in Escondido and attend New Life Presbyterian Church.

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