Lord's Supper in Reformed theology

In Reformed theology, the Lord's Supper or Eucharist is a sacrament that spiritually nourishes Christians and strengthens their union with Christ. The outward or physical action of the sacrament is eating bread and drinking wine. Reformed confessions, which are official statements of the beliefs of Reformed churches, teach that Christ's body and blood are really present in the sacrament, but that this presence is communicated in a spiritual manner rather than by his body being physically eaten. The Reformed doctrine of real presence is sometimes called mystical real presence or spiritual real presence.

Early Reformed theologians such as John Calvin and Huldrych Zwingli rejected the medieval belief in transubstantiation, that the bread and wine of the Eucharist change into Christ's body and blood, but taught that Christ's person, including his body and blood, are presented to Christians who partake of it in faith. They also disagree with Martin Luther and the Lutheran tradition which taught that Christ's body is physically eaten with the mouth in the sacrament. Later Reformed orthodox theologians continued to teach views similar to that of Calvin and Zwingli. In the modern period, Karl Barth espoused a symbolic view that the sacrament only communicates God's promises rather than functioning to actually confer these promises. Other Reformed theologians continued to teach the traditional view.

From the beginning of Christianity through the tenth century, Christian theologians saw the Eucharist as the church's participation in Christ's sacrifice. Christ was believed to be present in the Eucharist, but there were differences over the way in which this occurred. The School of Antioch in the Eastern Roman Empire, along with Hilary of Poitiers and Ambrose in the Western Roman Empire, taught a realist, metabolic, or somatic view, where the elements of the Eucharist were believed to be changed into Christ's body and blood. The influential fourth-century Western theologian Augustine of Hippo, on the other hand, held that Christ is really present in the elements of the Eucharist, but not in a bodily manner, because his body remains in heaven. Augustine believed the Eucharist is a spiritual eating which allows Christians to become part of Christ's body. Western theologians in the three centuries following Augustine did not elaborate on the way Christ is present in the Eucharist, but emphasized the transforming power of the sacrament.

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