The Second Helvetic Confession
CHAPTER XXI
Of the Holy Supper of the Lord
THE SUPPER OF THE LORD. The Supper of the Lord (which is
called the Lord’s Table, and the Eucharist, that is, a Thanksgiving), is,
therefore, usually called a supper, because it was instituted by Christ at this
last supper, and still represents it, and because in it the faithful are
spiritually fed and given drink.
THE AUTHOR AND CONSECRATOR OF THE SUPPER. For the author
of the Supper of the Lord is not an angel or any man, but the Son of God
himself, our Lord Jesus Christ, who first consecrated it to his Church. And the
same consecration or blessing still remains among all those who celebrate no
other but that very Supper which the Lord instituted, and at which they repeat
the words of the Lord’s Supper, and in all things look to the one Christ by a
true faith, from whose hands they receive, as it were, what they receive through
the ministry of the ministers of the Church.
A MEMORIAL OF GOD’S BENEFITS. By this sacred rite the Lord
wishes to keep in fresh remembrance that greatest benefit which he showed to
mortal men, namely, that by having given his body and shed his blood he has
pardoned all our sins, and redeemed us from eternal death and the power of the
devil, and now feeds us with his flesh, and gives us his blood to drink, which,
being received spiritually by true faith, nourish us to eternal life. And this
so great a benefit is renewed as often as the Lord’s Supper is celebrated. For
the Lord said: “Do this in remembrance of me.” This holy Supper also
seals to us that the very body of Christ was truly given for us, and his blood
shed for the remission of our sins, lest our faith should in any way waver.
THE SIGN AND THING SIGNIFIED. And this is visibly
represented by this sacrament outwardly through the ministers, and, as it were,
presented to out eyes to be seen, which is invisibly wrought by the Holy Spirit
inwardly in the soul. Bread is outwardly offered by the minister, and the words
of the Lord are heard: “Take, eat; this is my body”; and, “Take
and divide among you. Drink of it, all of you; this is my blood.”
Therefore the faithful receive what is given by the ministers of the Lord, and
they eat the bread of the Lord and drink of the Lord’s cup. At the same time by
the work of Christ through the Holy Spirit they also inwardly receive the flesh
and blood of the Lord, and are thereby nourished unto life eternal. For the
flesh and blood of Christ is the true food and drink unto life eternal; and
Christ himself, since he was given for us and is our Savior, is the principal
thing in the Supper, and we do not permit anything else to be substituted in his
place.
But in order to understand better and more clearly how the
flesh and blood of Christ are the food and drink of the faithful, and are
received by the faithful unto eternal life, we would add these few things.
There is more than one kind of eating. There is corporeal eating whereby food
is taken into the mouth, is chewed with the teeth, and swallowed into the
stomach. In times past the Capernaites thought that the flesh of the Lord
should be eaten in this way, but they are refuted by him in John, ch. 6. For as
the flesh of Christ cannot be eaten corporeally without infamy and savagery, so
it is not food for the stomach. All men are forced to admit this. We therefore
disapprove of that canon in the Pope’s decrees, Ego Berengarius (De
Consecrat., Dist. 2). For neither did godly antiquity believe, nor do we
believe, that the body of Christ is to be eaten corporeally and essentially with
a bodily mouth.
SPIRITUAL EATING OF THE LORD. There is also a spiritual
eating of Christ’s body; not such that we think that thereby the food itself is
to be changed into spirit, but whereby the body and blood of the Lord, while
remaining in their own essence and property, are spiritually communicated to us,
certainly not in a corporeal but in a spiritual way, by the Holy Spirit, who
applies and bestows upon us these things which have been prepared for us by the
sacrifice of the Lord’s body and blood for us, namely, the remission of sins,
deliverance, and eternal life; so that Christ lives in us and we live in him,
and he causes us to receive him by true faith to this end that he may become for
us such spiritual food and drink, that is, our life.
CHRIST AS OUR FOOD SUSTAINS US IN LIFE. For even as bodily
food and drink not only refresh and strengthen our bodies, but also keeps them
alive, so the flesh of Christ delivered for us, and his blood shed for us, not
only refresh and strengthen our souls, but also preserve them alive, not in so
far as they are corporeally eaten and drunken, but in so far as they are
communicated unto us spiritually by the Spirit of God, as the Lord said: “The
bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh (John 6:51), and
“the flesh” (namely what is eaten bodily) “is of no avail; it is
the spirit that gives life” (v. 63). And: “The words that I have
spoken to you are spirit and life.”
CHRIST RECEIVED BY FAITH. And as we must by eating receive
food into our bodies in order that it may work in us, and prove its efficacy in
us — since it profits us nothing when it remains outside us — so it is
necessary that we receive Christ by faith, that he may become ours, and he may
live in us and we in him. For he says: “I am the bread of life; he who
comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst”
(John 6:35); and also, “He who eats me will live because of me…he abides
in me, I in him” (vs. 57, 56).
SPIRITUAL FOOD. From all this it is clear that by
spiritual food we do not mean some imaginary food I know not what but the very
body of the Lord given to us, which nevertheless is received by the faithful not
corporeally, but spiritually by faith. In this matter we follow the teaching of
the Savior himself, Christ the Lord, according to John, ch. 6.
EATING NECESSARY FOR SALVATION. And this eating of the
flesh and drinking of the blood of the Lord is so necessary for salvation that
without it no man can be saved. But this spiritual eating and drinking also
occurs apart from the Supper of the Lord, and as often and wherever a man
believes in Christ. To which that sentence of St. Augustine’s perhaps applies:
“Why do you provide for your teeth and your stomach? Believe, and you have
eaten.”
SACRAMENTAL EATING OF THE LORD. Besides the higher
spiritual eating there is also a sacramental eating of the body of the Lord by
which not only spiritually and internally the believer truly participates in the
true body and blood of the Lord, but also, by coming to the Table of the Lord,
outwardly receives the visible sacrament of the body and blood of the Lord. To
be sure, when the believer believed, he first received the life-giving food, and
still enjoys it. But therefore, when he now received the sacrament, he does not
received nothing. For he progresses in continuing to communicate in the body
and blood of the Lord, and so his faith is kindle and grows more and more, and
is refreshed by spiritual food. For while we live, faith is continually
increased. And he who outwardly receives the sacrament by true faith, not only
receives the sign, but also, as we said, enjoys the thing itself. Moreover, he
obeys the Lord’s institution and commandment, and with a joyful mind gives
thanks for his redemption and that of all mankind, and makes a faithful memorial
to the Lord’s death, and gives a witness before the Church, of whose body he is
a member. Assurance is also given to those who receive the sacrament that the
body of the Lord was given and his blood shed, not only for men in general, but
particularly for every faithful communicant, to whom it is food and drink unto
eternal life.
UNBELIEVERS TAKE THE SACRAMENT TO THEIR JUDGMENT. But he
who comes to this sacred Table of the Lord without faith, communicates only in
the sacrament and does not receive the substance of the sacrament whence comes
life and salvation; and such men unworthily eat of the Lord’s Table. Whoever
eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be
guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, and eats and drinks judgment upon
himself (I Cor. 11:26-29). For when they do not approach with true faith, they
dishonor the death of Christ, and therefore eat and drink condemnation to
themselves.
THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST IN THE SUPPER. We do not,
therefore, so join the body of the Lord and his blood with the bread and wine as
to say that the bread itself is the body of Christ except in a sacramental way;
or that the body of Christ is hidden corporeally under the bread, so that it
ought to be worshipped under the form of bread; or yet that whoever receives the
sign, receives also the thing itself. The body of Christ is in heaven at the
right hand of the Father; and therefore our hearts are to be lifted up on high,
and not to be fixed on the bread, neither is the Lord to be worshipped in the
bread. Yet the Lord is not absent from his Church when she celebrates the
Supper. The sun, which is absent from us in the heavens, is notwithstanding
effectually present among us. How much more is the Sun of Righteousness,
Christ, although in his body he is absent from us in heaven, present with us,
not corporeally, but spiritually, by his vivfying operation, and as he himself
explained at his Last Supper that he world be present with us (John, chs. 14;
15; and 16). Whence it follows that we do not have the Supper without Christ,
and yet at the same time have an unbloody and mystical Supper, as it was
universally called by antiquity.
OTHER PURPOSES OF THE LORD’S SUPPERS. Moreover, we are
admonished in the celebration of the Supper of the Lord to be mindful of whose
body we have become members, and that, therefore, we may be of one mind with all
the brethren, live a holy life, and not pollute ourselves with wickedness and
strange religions; but, perservering in the true faith to the end of our life,
strive to excel in holiness of life.
PREPARATION FOR THE SUPPER. It is therefore fitting that
when we would come to the Supper, we first examine ourselves according to the
commandment of the apostle, especially as to the kind of faith we have, whether
we believe that Christ has come to save sinners and to call them to repentance,
and whether each man believes that he is in the number of those who have been
delivered by Christ and saved; and whether he is determined to change his wicked
life, to lead a holy life, and with the Lord’s help to persevere in the true
religion and in harmony with the brethren, and to give due thanks to God for
his deliverance.
THE OBSERVANCE OF THE SUPPER WITH BOTH BREAD AND WINE. We
think that rite, manner, or form of the Supper to be the most simple and
excellent which comes nearest to the first institution of the Lord and to the
apostles’ doctrine. It consists in proclaiming the Word of God, in godly
prayers, in the action of the Lord himself, and its repetition, in the eating of
the Lord’s body and drinking of this blood; in a fitting remembrance of the
Lord’s death, and a faithful thanksgiving; and in a holy fellowship in the union
of the body of the Church.
We therefore disapprove of those who have taken from the
faithful one species of the sacrament, namely, the Lord’s cup. For these
seriously offend against the institution of the Lord who says: “Drink ye
all of this”; which he did not so expressly say of the bread.
We are not now discussing we what kind of mass once existed
among the fathers, whether it is to be tolerated or not. But this we say
freely that the mass which is now used throughout the Roman Church has been
abolished in our churches for many and very good reasons which, for brevity’s
sake, we do not now enumerate in detail. We certainly could not approve of
making a wholesome action into a vain spectacle and a means of giving merit, and
of celebrating it for a price. Nor could we approve of saying that in it the
priest is said to effect the very body of the Lord, and really to offer it for
the remission of the sins of the living and the dead, and in addition, for the
honor, veneration and remembrance of the saints in heaven, etc.
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