Cornerstone Curriculum, Official Certification Edition

LESSON 1 | THEOLOGY OF THE CHURCH: THE CHURCH AT WORSHIP / 281

b. John 16.7

Although most Pentecostal traditions are Memorialist, the Pentecostal scholar Gordon Fee defends a similar view to Calvin’s when he says: “Indeed, one would not be far wrong to see the Spirit’s presence at the Table as Paul’s way of understanding the real presence. The analogy of Israel’s having had ‘Spiritual food,’ and ‘Spiritual drink’ in 1 Corinthians 10.3-4 at least allows as much.”

~ Gordon Fee. Paul, the Spirit and the People of God. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1996. p. 154.

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4. The Memorialist view believes that the bread and wine only symbolize the body and the blood of Christ and help us to remember what he had done for us.

C hr i s t i an M i n i s t ry

a. Unlike the first three views which all see the Lord’s table as a sacrament, the Memorialist view sees the Lord’s table as an ordinance.

The Lord’s Supper has no regenerative power, it possesses no sanctifying grace. There is nothing magical or mystical about its nature. It is a symbol of the relation of the believer to Christ, who alone does the sanctifying. The outward tokens devised by Christ himself are the symbols of the atoning power and forgiving love of his great sacrifice, which was once and for all efficacious.

~ Williams Stevens. “The Lord’s Supper.” Readings in Christian Theology. Millard Erickson, ed. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1973.

b. Luke 22.19

c. 1 Cor. 11.23-24