A recording of a debate about Jesus’ presence in the elements of the Lord’s Supper has inspired a new round of discussion around the theology behind this essential Christian practice.
Last month, during a question-and-answer session at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, evangelical pastors Cliffe and Stuart Knechtle heard from a student who challenged their views on Communion.
Harvard student Mihret Melaku, a deacon in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, opposed a purely symbolic or spiritual interpretation, saying he believes the Eucharist is “efficacious for salvation” and that the bread and wine are “actually [Christ’s] body and his blood.”
Stuart Knechtle cautioned against considering a particular view of the Supper as a requirement for salvation. He conceded that most of the church fathers understood Christ’s body to be physically present in Communion but pushed back on the idea that this was the universal view of the early church.
Multiple clips of the exchange took off on YouTube, and several Christian commentators and influencers, including from the Oriental Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, praised the deacon for his stance.
The many views across Christianity on the Lord’s Supper can be broadly divided into three categories: real physical presence, which insists that Christ’s body is actually present in the bread and wine; real spiritual presence, which contends that the Son is spiritually but not physically present in the meal; and memorialism, which views the elements as primarily symbolic, taken in remembrance.
Disagreements around the Lord’s Supper caused one of the earliest inter-Protestant debates, when Reformers Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli were unable to agree on the theology of the Eucharist during a meeting in 1529. Today, there remains a wide range of views, even among evangelical Protestants.
CT reached out to theologians from different streams of American evangelicalism and asked them to explain their convictions about Communion. Their responses are presented from the most symbolic to most sacramental.
Tom J. Nettles, senior professor of historical theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
My view of the Lord’s Supper closely aligns with the view defended by Ulrich Zwingli. The confessional position of Southern Baptists states, “The Lord’s Supper is a symbolic act of obedience” to “memorialize the death of the Redeemer and anticipate His second coming.” Jesus did not assert that the bread substantially was his body and flesh (Matt. 26:26–30; Luke 22:19–20). Similarly, neither “I am the true vine” (John 15:1, NKJV throughout) nor “I am the door of the sheep” (10:7) refers to substantial identification.
Neither transubstantiation, nor consubstantiation, nor spiritual presence catches the gravity of Jesus’ words. Jesus drew his disciples’ minds to the reality of his incarnation and soon-to-be-effected death. That he said, “This is My body which is given for you” (Luke 22:19), showed the necessity of his full humanity for the work of redemption. … When Jesus said, “It is finished,” the sacrifice was complete, never to be repeated because it is perpetually effective. Now he sits as our advocate (1 John 2:1–2) and as our propitiation (4:10). Remember this when you partake of the Supper.
Ron Walborn, executive director of urban initiatives for Asbury Seminary
The Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA) holds a clear, nonsacramental view of the Lord’s Supper, rooted in evangelical theology. The CMA believes the Lord’s Supper is an ordinance (a practice commanded by Christ) rather than a sacrament that conveys saving grace. It is a symbolic act of obedience and remembrance, not a means of imparting salvation.
The Lord’s Supper is a commemoration of Jesus Christ’s death on the cross, his broken body, and his shed blood. It points believers back to the sacrifice of Christ and forward to his promised return. Alliance churches will often join a healing ministry time with the Lord’s Supper, as we believe healing is provided in the atoning work of Christ.
While Communion is spiritually meaningful and provides a time for reflection, self-examination, and worship, the CMA does not view the bread and cup as literally becoming the body and blood of Christ (i.e., no transubstantiation or consubstantiation). In practice, the CMA emphasizes remembrance, proclamation, healing, and anticipationduring Communion, encouraging participants to reflect on Christ’s work, proclaim his death, and look forward to his return.
John Mark Hicks, theology professor at Lipscomb University
Table is the dominant metaphor among Churches of Christ. We practice it weekly. Given our Presbyterian roots, both Zwinglian (memorialist) and Calvinian (spiritual presence) perspectives are present. At the Table, we remember. At the same time, God communes with us, and we commune with each other.
While I affirm an authentic spiritual nourishment of the body and blood of Christ through the Spirit’s work (like Calvin), I also emphasize a Table presence where the living Christ is made known in the breaking of the bread (like Eastern Orthodoxy). The Table becomes an epiphany, revelation, or experience of the risen Lord.
At the Table, we give thanks for the gifts of the body and blood, eat with King Jesus as he hosts his Table, and celebrate the hope of the Resurrection in the coming kingdom. I highlight both the reverent nature of the Table as holy space and its festive nature, a joyous and hopeful celebration of the work of God in Christ. It is an eschatological moment when we already participate in the messianic banquet though it is not yet fully actualized.
Chris E. W. Green, professor of public theology at Southeastern University
The Lord’s Supper is an encounter with the living Christ through the Spirit. In the celebration of Holy Communion, Jesus is truly present through the Spirit. The faithful not only remember but also actively receive his presence and power as they obey his command: Do this … While acknowledging that no single statement can capture all perspectives within this broad tradition, those in the diverse Pentecostal family affirm that the Supper is far more than a mere memorial—it is, in the words of early fathers of the movement, “a direct personal touch of God” and “the present tense of Calvary.”
Thanks to the Spirit and the saints’ love for Jesus, the Table becomes a place where the Lord is tangibly present, offering renewal and healing for soul and body. This encounter remains unbound by religious structures or theological formulations, reflecting the Pentecostal emphasis on the Spirit’s freedom to move. The focus is not on defining how Christ is present in the elements but on who is present (the risen Christ) and why—to feed, heal, and transform the people of God. As the Wesleyan hymn affirms, “Receiving the bread, / On Jesus we feed: / It doth not appear, / His manner of working; / But Jesus is here!”
Darian Lockett (Presbyterian Church in America), professor of New Testament at Biola University
Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are sacraments instituted by Jesus Christ. As a means of grace, the sacraments sign and seal the benefits of Christ to believers through faith. The sign nature of the sacrament points to the reality, the substance of Christ. Therefore, there is a spiritual relation or sacramental union between the sign (water in baptism, wine and bread in the Supper) and the thing signified (Christ). In the sacraments, Christ is really and spiritually present, strengthening believers and extending the benefits of his death and resurrection. However, the sacraments are not made effective by any power in themselves or the piety of the one administering the sacrament, but rather by Christ through the work of the Spirit.
The sacraments depend on the presence of the Word of God, but the Word does not depend on the presence of the sacraments. Word and sacrament are similar in that they both have God as their author, have Christ as their subject, and are appropriated by faith. However, they are different in that whereas the Word begets and strengthens faith, the sacraments only strengthen faith (they cannot produce faith). And whereas the Word goes out to all who might listen, the sacraments are administered only to those in covenant relationship with God.
Don Collett, professor of Old Testament at Trinity Anglican Seminary
In keeping with the catholic tradition of the church, Anglicans regard the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist as a means of grace in God’s economy of salvation. … Baptism inaugurates us into the scripturally ordered world of the church, bringing about a union with Christ by which faith in him is nurtured and confirmed. The sacrament of the Eucharist is given to those who have owned their baptism through the confirmation and confession of faith in Christ’s gospel.
The celebration of the Eucharist not only signifies but also mediates the real and actual presence of Christ’s risen body and blood—a sacramental union effected by the Spirit and Christ’s words of institution, spoken by the ministers of Christ’s gospel (Matt. 26:26–28; 1 Cor. 11:23–26).
In this sacramental union, the bread and the wine are not fused with Christ’s body and blood (as is the case in some forms of transubstantiation) but united with it, making possible the church’s communion with his risen body and blood while preserving the distinctive integrities of Christ, the bread, and the wine.
A. Andrew Das (Evangelical Lutheran Synod), Niebuhr distinguished chair and professor of religious studies at Elmhurst University
Paul warns the Corinthian Christians that they face judgment if they do not recognize the body while eating the bread and drinking the cup (1 Cor. 11:29). He then explains that this is why many of them are sick and ill and many have fallen asleep (died).
The physical consequences of an improper reception of the bread and the wine eliminates a symbolic understanding. Even the unbeliever (“whoever” in v. 27) faces judgment for an unworthy reception, contrary to a Calvinistic limitation of the real presence’s reception to believers.
Martin Luther stressed to Ulrich Zwingli that the “is” in “This is My body” and “This is My blood” means just that (Matt. 26:26–28). The bread and the wine are also Christ’s body and blood in the sacramental celebration. Just after Jesus’ express requirement to eat his body and drink his blood leads the Jews to question his apparent advocacy of cannibalism, he responds in John 6:55: “My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink” (CSB). The first Christians confessed that realistic understanding of Christ’s body and blood in and with the bread and the wine. … The Lord’s Supper thus brings the worthy recipient genuine forgiveness of sins, as Jesus said in Matthew 26:28.
