Theology of the Church, Mentor's Guide, MG03

/ 5 7

T H E O L O G Y O F T H E C H U R C H

In this sacrament Christ is present not bodily but spiritually. . . . His people receive him not with the mouth, but by faith; they do not receive his flesh and blood as material particles, but his body as broken and his blood as shed. The union thus signified . . . [is] a spiritual and mystical union due to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The [effectiveness] of this sacrament as a means of grace is not in the signs nor in the service, nor in the minister, nor in the word, but in the attending influence of the Holy Ghost.

~ Charles Hodge. Systematic Theology . Abridged edition. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992. pp. 496-498.

a. Col. 3.1

b. John 16.7

2

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.

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.

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.