The Lord’s Supper: Is it More Than Just Symbolic?

The Lord’s Supper: more than just symbolic?

When we ask if the Lord’s Supper is more than just symbolic, we are asking if the bread and cup become something more than just symbols as we take communion.  The following serve as two examples of them becoming more than just symbols. . .  (1) When celebrating Mass, Catholics believe the bread and wine actually become the flesh and blood of Jesus.  This is transubstantiation, a transformation of the composition (substance) of the bread and wine.  (2) Consubstantiation, a Lutheran concept, which other denominations accept as well (with some variations), holds that, during communion, “the body and blood of Christ and the bread and wine coexist in union with each other” (Wayne Jackson).  So, the symbolic component in these two ways of observing the Lord’s Supper either diminishes or is null altogether.

So how should we look at the “elements” Jesus presented at “the Lord’s Supper”?

It’s time to get down to the nitty-gritty.

Is the Lord’s Supper more than just symbolic?

To answer this question, let us begin by considering the original, historical setting of the Lord’s Supper and try imagining what it was like to be there and witness what the disciples saw and heard.  Only, for this post, I’m going to reverse the order in which Jesus presented the elements to His disciples.

“This is My blood”

Jesus said to them, “This is My blood” (Matt. 26:28).  There was no physical evidence the disciples could see, that blood had been taken from His body and placed in a cup.  There was no alarm or surprise at His presence on their part.  He reclined at the table with them, as He normally did, with no apparent physical changes.  He was Himself, whole in body and in spirit.  Should it surprise us that He reserved the blood in His veins for His suffering and death?  After all, the lesson He gave at that Passover meal was about His blood being poured out for the forgiveness of sins the following day.  How could such blood be in the cup before that was a reality?

And, to help us understand this, Jesus said plainly that wine was in the cup they were drinking from.  For straightaway, after He presented the cup and said, “All of you drink from it; for this is My blood of the new covenant shed for many for the remission of sins,” He said, “But I say to you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it with you, new, in the kingdom of My Father” (Matt. 26:29; Mark 14:25; Luke 22:18).

“This is My body”

Nor was Jesus holding a piece of His body when He broke the bread and said, “This is My body.”  It was plain to see, He was reclining there, in His body, and no part of it was missing.  The disciples understood the symbolic nature of the things He said, though, at the time, their understanding of His death was still limited.

The Lord’s Supper: a memorial

We are looking for an answer to the question. . .  Is the Lord’s Supper more than just symbolic?

Perhaps we can confirm the correct 🙂 answer by asking another question.

Does Jesus shed His blood and die every time you and I take communion?  The New Testament says He died once (Rom. 6:10; Heb. 9:25-28; I Pet. 3:18).  His death is not to be repeated over and over again, in any sense (whether through transubstantiation or consubstantiation).  This would put Him to an open shame (Heb. 6:6) each time we observe the Lord’s Supper.  Besides.  As often as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we do it in His memory (I Cor. 11:24,25).  We “remember,” or declare (I Cor. 11:26), His death.  We don’t re-crucify Him each time we take communion.  The “remembrance” for His disciples was future.  Something they would do after He shed His blood and died.  So the “blood” represented in the cup He held, He had not yet shed.

It is very simple. . .

If the broken body and shed blood of Jesus are present when we take communion, the Lord’s Supper cannot be a memorial, but is an actual sacrifice.

Practicing cannibalism

Because of the passages in the Gospels and I Corinthians 11 that describe the Lord’s Supper, and I Corinthians 10:14-18 and John 6:48-58, outsiders thought early Christians were practicing cannibalism.  That’s how unbelievers who had no spiritual understanding saw it (John 6:52; compare John 2:20, 3:4, and 4:11,15,33).  So, if we take this same literal, physical approach to the bread and cup (the body and blood of Jesus), are we also lacking spiritual understanding (see John 6:63)?

As we consider that question, it is instructive to notice that Paul felt the need to insert in I Corinthians 10:14-18, the words, “As to wise men I am speaking; you yourselves judge what I am saying” (verse 15).  That means it’s a good idea not to be quick to draw conclusions.  Discernment is required.  It is not as simple or obvious as it may appear.  The “obvious” pathways we are inclined to follow may not lead to a correct understanding of what Paul is saying.  This is not about physical food and drink.  Instead, there is a spiritual reality, a spiritual significance that infinitely outshines the “elements” themselves, which we are preoccupied with.  We’ve got our eyes on decoys when we should be looking for mallards.

The Lord’s Supper and eternal life

We do not have eternal life because we eat physical bread or drink from a physical cup (John 6:53-58).  Eternal life is spiritual in nature, though no less real than what we experience here.  Perhaps more real.  Eternal life is the eternal realisation of the spiritual oneness and fellowship we share intimately with Christ while on earth.  And that is at the heart of the meaning of the fellowship of the blood and body of Christ (I Cor. 10:16; see Phil. 3:10).  We don’t acquire this “fellowship,” or spiritual communion, with Him because we swallow bread and wine, though that would make it much simpler.  Physical objects or substances are incapable of giving us a boost into spiritual realities like this.  And that is precisely where “religion” goes wrong.

“My body,” the church

It is important, in light of this, to see how Christ’s “body” is also closely identified with the church (I Cor. 10:17; 11:20-22, 27-30; 12:12; Eph. 1:22,23; Col. 1:24).  We are “flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone” (notice Luke 24:39).  Some Greek MSS use these very words, when speaking of Christ and the church in verse 30 of Ephesians 5:25-32, which are in Genesis 2:21-23, and show Christ giving life to the church through His broken body, as God also gave life through Adam to Eve.  So, we find that we share a profound, mystic union with Christ (Col. 1:24-27), which, according to Paul, is “a great mystery,” more incredible than the physical union a man and woman have in marriage (Eph. 5:30-32).

The Lord’s Supper: the bread and cup, and outward religious forms

Unfortunately, it is often true, with outward religious forms in public worship, that, when we focus on physical objects we believe somehow become something they are not, they inadvertently draw the eyes of our heart away from the spiritual realities they represent.  It is so easy to grow accustomed to outward forms of worship, thinking the Spirit also works in this mechanical way.  But these “perpetual” practices tend to produce spiritual ignorance and apathy, and cause many who go through the robotic motions to totally miss the spiritual reality behind them, leading souls, eternally, down a path that does not lead to life, but is actually a means of deceiving them.

The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world

When Earth began spinning around the sun, and Eden saw the first light of day, before man ever gazed at ocean waves or woods and fields filled with life, in the determinate council of God, the Lamb was slain.  In Revelation, He is heralded as “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (13:8).  God providentially predetermined that, at an appointed time, the Romans would plant a cross on Golgotha, bearing His Son.  Therefore, a “wooden shadow” fell across the span of epochs before A.D. and reached all the way back to the foundation of the world.  So, you could say, the earth waited in anticipation of this event from the beginning: when “God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1).  Thus, when the Lamb appeared, and the time came, He said, “Truly, the Son of man goes [to His death] as [heaven has] determined” (Luke 22:22).

Accordingly, the author of Hebrews wrote. . .

“Now, once, in the consummation of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself” (Heb. 9:26-28).

Therefore, Jesus asks us to

“Do this [partake of the Lord’s Supper] in remembrance of Me.”

© James Unruh 2025 and beyond