Covenantal Worship: Communion With Christ

The doctrine of the Lord’s Supper has generated sustained controversy throughout church history. Some accounts identify Christ’s presence with the physical elements, while others reduce the meal to an act of human remembrance. The Reformed doctrine avoids both errors. Christ’s body remains in heaven, yet by the Holy Spirit he is truly present to nourish those who receive the bread and wine with repentance and faith. The Supper is neither a repetition of Christ’s sacrifice nor a bare memorial of an absent Savior. It is a covenant meal of spiritual communion with the risen Lord.

Paul expresses this reality in 1 Corinthians 10:16: “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?” The term participation—traditionally rendered communion—denotes a genuine sharing in Christ and the benefits of his finished work. Paul explains that participation by comparing the Lord’s table both with Israel’s sacrificial meals and, negatively, with pagan feasts. A sacred meal establishes fellowship with the one whose table is shared. Christians must therefore flee idolatry because communion with Christ demands exclusive covenant loyalty.

The Lord’s Supper Is a Fellowship Meal

Table fellowship is a familiar expression of communion. Family and friends eat together not merely to obtain nourishment but to enjoy a shared life. The Lord’s Supper possesses this character at the highest covenantal level. It is a fellowship meal in which believers commune with Christ and, through him, with one another.

At its institution, Jesus declared, “This cup is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:28). The language joins the meal to his sacrificial death. Yet the Supper is not itself another sacrifice. It is participation in the benefits secured by the sacrifice accomplished once for all. The crucified and risen Christ welcomes his reconciled people to his table and nourishes them by faith.

The Supper also manifests 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 Cor. 10:17). Communion is therefore irreducibly corporate. Those who share one Christ at one table confess that they constitute one body and owe one another the love appropriate to that union.

The Old Covenant Offerings

Paul interprets the Supper through the sacrificial meals of Israel: “Consider the people of Israel: are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar?” (1 Cor. 10:18). The comparison requires attention to the offerings prescribed in Leviticus 1–7.

The burnt, grain, sin, and guilt offerings each possessed a distinct purpose. The burnt offering was wholly consumed upon the altar. Portions of some offerings belonged to the priests, but the ordinary worshiper did not eat from them. These sacrifices prefigured aspects of Christ’s atoning work, yet they did not ordinarily culminate in a meal shared by the worshiper in God’s presence.

The Peace or Fellowship Offering

The peace offering was distinctive. A portion was offered to God, a portion belonged to the priests, and the worshiper ate the remainder. Leviticus 7:15 directs that the flesh of the offering “shall be eaten,” while Deuteronomy 12:7 describes Israel eating “before the Lord your God.” The worshiper thus enjoyed a covenant meal in the divine presence.

The Hebrew concept of shalom clarifies the offering’s meaning. Peace is not merely the cessation of hostility. It includes wholeness, well-being, restored relationship, and covenant communion. Sacrifice addresses estrangement; the ensuing meal celebrates reconciliation. The peace offering therefore embodies a movement from atonement to fellowship.

The Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread

The Passover was a particular form of fellowship offering. Israel not only sacrificed the lamb but ate it as a household in the presence of God. The seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread extended the covenant meal, and the congregation—not merely the priests—participated.

This background explains why Jesus instituted the Supper at Passover. The Gospel narratives situate the meal during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and Jesus explicitly desired to eat the Passover with his disciples. The bread and cup interpret his approaching death as the fulfillment of Israel’s redemptive feast.

Fulfillment in Christ

The New Testament identifies Christ as the substance to which the Passover pointed: “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor. 5:7). At the final Passover, Jesus identified the cup with the blood of the covenant and the bread with his body given for his people. Passover blood finds its fulfillment in his atoning death, and the unleavened bread of the feast finds its fulfillment in the bread of the new covenant meal.

The Old Testament pattern is therefore preserved and transformed. There is still sacrifice followed by fellowship, but the sacrifice is no longer repeated. Christ “offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins” and “by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Heb. 10:12, 14). The church does not offer Christ anew. It receives the meal he instituted and celebrates the reconciliation his completed work has achieved.

The Lord’s Supper as the New Covenant Peace Offering

A Meal of Communion

The Supper corresponds most directly to the peace offering because it is a meal of participation in the benefits of sacrifice. Paul’s language is deliberately strong: the cup is communion in Christ’s blood, and the bread is communion in his body. Believers do not merely think about an event in the past. Through the signs appointed by Christ, the Spirit brings them into real fellowship with the Savior who died and rose for them.

This communion never compromises the finality of the cross. Precisely because the sacrifice is complete, the Supper is a feast rather than an offering for sin. It celebrates the results of Christ’s work and gives believers a sacramental participation in its benefits. The table proclaims that atonement has been accomplished and that the reconciled are welcomed into God’s presence.

Peace and Fellowship With God

Paul writes, “Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1). The Supper is the covenant table at which that peace is tasted. Those who were alienated have been reconciled; those who stood under judgment have been justified; those who were far off have been brought near.

The meal does not create peace for people who remain outside Christ. It presupposes justification by faith and seals its promise to believers. The communion enjoyed at the table is communion in the shalom of Christ’s finished work—the restored fellowship with the triune God that flows from his once-for-all sacrifice.

The Presence of Christ in the Supper

Avoiding Two Extremes

Accounts of Christ’s presence have often moved toward one of two extremes. Roman Catholic transubstantiation teaches that the substance of bread and wine becomes Christ’s body and blood. Lutheran teaching differs significantly from Rome, yet it likewise affirms a bodily presence of Christ in relation to the elements. On the opposite side, memorialism treats the meal principally as the believer’s recollection of Christ’s death.

The first approach confuses sacramental communion with a local, physical presence. Christ’s true human body is glorified and remains in heaven until his return. The second approach fails to account adequately for Paul’s language of participation. If the Supper were only a mental recollection, his comparison with Israel’s altar and pagan sacrificial meals would lose its force.

True Spiritual Communion

The Reformed doctrine affirms true communion while locating it in the work of the Holy Spirit. Christ is present by his Spirit and is received through faith. Spiritual presence is not an unreal or merely subjective presence. The Spirit genuinely unites believers to the risen Christ and nourishes them with the benefits of his body and blood.

This doctrine preserves the ascension. Christ’s body is not brought down from heaven or enclosed within the elements. Rather, believers are lifted by the Spirit into fellowship with the Lord who reigns in heaven. The teaching accords with Hebrews 12:22–24: the church has come to Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant. At the table, the church enjoys sacramental communion with the same heavenly Christ to whom it draws near in worship.

Paul’s warning against idolatry confirms the reality of this participation. Pagan sacrificial meals implicated their participants in fellowship with demons, even though the idols themselves were nothing (1 Cor. 10:19–21). It is therefore impossible to partake knowingly of the table of demons and the table of the Lord. The Lord’s jealousy claims the exclusive devotion of those whom he welcomes to communion with himself.

The Eschatological Orientation

The Supper looks backward to the cross, upward to the ascended Christ, and forward to his return. Paul states that believers proclaim the Lord’s death “until he comes” (1 Cor. 11:26). Jesus likewise promised that he would drink the fruit of the vine anew with his disciples in his Father’s kingdom (Matt. 26:29).

Every celebration is consequently a foretaste of the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:9). Present communion is real but incomplete. The church still walks by faith, struggles with sin, and awaits the bodily presence of Christ. The table anticipates the day when sacramental signs will yield to sight and the entire redeemed people will feast with the Lamb in the new creation.

This future orientation gives the meal its character of hope. It is provisional nourishment for a pilgrim people and an anticipation of glory. The church receives a pledge that the Savior who gave himself in the past and communes with his people in the present will return to perfect their fellowship with him.

Partaking in a Worthy Manner

Paul warns against eating the bread or drinking the cup “in an unworthy manner” (1 Cor. 11:27). The adverb concerns the manner of participation, not a claim that communicants have made themselves personally worthy. No sinner approaches the table on the basis of inherent righteousness.

The Corinthian abuse explains the warning. The congregation had treated the Supper as an ordinary meal, deepening social divisions, failing to wait for one another, and even becoming drunk. Such conduct contradicted the sacramental holiness of the meal and the unity of Christ’s body that it signifies. Worthy participation recognizes the meal as Christ’s ordinance and receives it with discerning faith.

Come in Faith

Communicants come as those already reconciled to God through Christ. The peace meal presupposes the sacrifice; it does not repeat or complete it. Believers therefore receive the Supper trusting that Christ’s once-for-all offering is sufficient and that God freely grants forgiveness and peace through him. The table belongs to baptized, professing believers because it seals the gospel to those who confess Christ.

Come in Hope

Communicants also look toward the heavenly banquet. Present fellowship may be weakened by distraction and sin, but the promise to which it points is certain. Christ will gather all his elect, raise them in glory, and bring them into unbroken communion at the marriage supper of the Lamb. The Supper trains the church to desire that consummation.

Come in Love

Finally, communicants come with love for Christ and a renewed desire to honor him. The unleavened bread recalls the summons to remove the old leaven of malice and corruption (1 Cor. 5:7–8). This does not require sinless perfection, but it does require repentance: believers renounce their former bondage and offer themselves anew to the Lord who bought them with a price.

Faith, hope, and love thus describe worthy participation. Faith rests in the completed sacrifice; hope anticipates the heavenly feast; love seeks consecrated obedience to the covenant Lord. Received in this manner, the Supper is a true fellowship meal in which the Spirit nourishes the church through communion with the risen Christ.