What is the Significance of the Communion Bread/Wafer?

Oscarr: "We know that the bread stands for the broken body of Christ on the cross. If we are made whole in our spirit because of the shed blood, then there must be another function of the communion bread."

The bread represents Christ's body in 2 senses: His body on the cross and the Church as His corporate Body. Thus, in 1 Corinthians 10:16-17 Paul makes it clear that the "one bread" (= one loaf) broken into many pieces and shared also represents the many pieces of the corporate Body of Christ:

"The bread that we break--is it not a sharing of the Body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one Body. for we all partake of the one bread."

This need for an authentic unity and harmony within Christ's Body is ignored by Corinthian "factions" that allow the poor ("those who have nothing") to "go hungry" and horde wine to the point of drunkenness and thus prevent a legitimate "Lord's Supper (11:17-22)."

So the bread symbolism cannot be valid for us, unless we prove not by our words and beliefs, but by our harmonious attitudes and actions that we discern the bread as Christ's corporate Body:

"For all who eat and drink without discerning the Body, eat and drink judgment against themselves (11:19)."

When we eat, failing to act in discernment of the mediation of Christ's presence through His corporate Body, we "eat judgment" which can take the form of physical weakness, sickness. and even death (so 11:20).

All of this means that, for better or for worse, spiritual forces are at work in the act of eating the bread and the wine.
So we must never demean its significance as a merely symbolic act. To refute this interpretation, Jesus insists Holy Communion is the source of real spiritual nourishment ("My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink)" and is a means by which participants can "abide in Me and I in them (John 6:55-56)." In my view, as long as this experiential understanding of Communion is embraced, it does not matter whether we express this as the doctrine of "real presence," transubstantiation, etc.

While the scriptural understanding of the Sacrament of the Altar certainly does include the representational facets you describe, that is only a partial understanding.

As for your supposition that partaking of the body and blood of Our Lord somehow facilitates physical healing because the failure to properly observe Communion as described by St Paul in 1 Corinthians is linked to sickness, I believe you are making a connection not supported in scripture. It may be a rational step, but it is not explicitly stated as such in scripture. This idea exceeds scripture.

It may or may not be true, but there is no scriptural support for it, at least where you are looking for it.

Tangible said:

While the scriptural understanding of the Sacrament of the Altar certainly does include the representational facets you describe, that is only a partial understanding.

As for your supposition that partaking of the body and blood of Our Lord somehow facilitates physical healing because the failure to properly observe Communion as described by St Paul in 1 Corinthians is linked to sickness, I believe you are making a connection not supported in scripture. It may be a rational step, but it is not explicitly stated as such in scripture. This idea exceeds scripture.

It may or may not be true, but there is no scriptural support for it, at least where you are looking for it.

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I can attest the the healing power of the Eucharist; a few years ago I was gravely ill, and was facing the prospect of thoracic surgery and an uncertain outcome. My Pastor visited me in the hospital, heard my confession, celebrated the Eucharist at my bedside, and prayed the prayer of commendation of the dying. Within hours, to all of my doctor's dismay (and my own) I was beginning to feel better. While my recovery took three months, it was achieved without surgery, and a three month regimen of antibiotics, was discontinued after only one week. My doctors were dumb-founded, and were at a loss to explain it.

There is truly healing, both body and soul in the Holy Sacrament.

Praise God!

The original meaning is in Passover. The bread was the afikomen and the wine is the third cup (of redemption) (see the Messianic Jewish Haggadah's (e.g. Passover Seder Dinner - Messianic Haggadah) for Passover, for the Scriptures and their understanding. Both Greek and Latin originals use the neuter pronoun to say "THIS is my body/blood", while the words bread, wine, cup, blood, etc. are all masculine or feminine. This forces the event itself to be both the bread and the wine. Look at the Didache's (ch. 9-10 ~The Didache~) treatment for the Eucharist. The bread and wine unite us as one and make us bread served to a hungry world. Taking it, is your pledge to other Christians that you are part of the process, and Christ's pledge that as long as earth lasts, there will be constant increase in salvation and Promised Land for us, as we get closer to Him, and that He will guide us through incredible journeys to do impossible things. . As you help other Christians become stronger in Christ (bread) and more joyfully flowing in anointing (wine) (See Ps. 104:15) , they do the same for you, and the life is the DNA of Christ (from David), as the Didache says, given to Christ as per the promise, and David of course means "passion". This life is afikomen surrounded originally by two other pieces, past and present, hidden for the celebration, and then found and purchased if necessary) that stands for our ability to make the choice of the future of how God's presence will be on the earth.

Healing is part of the Christian life. The Eucharist draws together the disparate pieces of the Body of Christ, and so puts into motion the world changing ability that creates healing.

I saved a video from Passover 2 years ago, and you can see these concepts arise naturally, when a Christian only version is done. http://kenbehrens.com/Passover15.flv and the haggadah (program) http://kenbehrens.com/Passover.pdf

so if you are going to communion you have to literally imagine your drinking the blood of christ, and eating his broken body to wash away sins and increase salvation?

Braydeno said:

so if you are going to communion you have to literally imagine your drinking the blood of christ, and eating his broken body to wash away sins and increase salvation?

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No, not "imagine"; but realize and know that you are eating and drinking His very body and blood. Not doing so is failing to discern the body and blood of Christ, and as Scripture admonishes, this is a great sin.

oh, ok

MarkRohfrietsch said:

I can attest the the healing power of the Eucharist; a few years ago I was gravely ill, and was facing the prospect of thoracic surgery and an uncertain outcome. My Pastor visited me in the hospital, heard my confession, celebrated the Eucharist at my bedside, and prayed the prayer of commendation of the dying. Within hours, to all of my doctor's dismay (and my own) I was beginning to feel better. While my recovery took three months, it was achieved without surgery, and a three month regimen of antibiotics, was discontinued after only one week. My doctors were dumb-founded, and were at a loss to explain it.

There is truly healing, both body and soul in the Holy Sacrament.

Praise God!

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It certainly seems that God acted to heal you in your sickness. My earlier statement was not meant to say that healing cannot be associated with the Sacraments, but simply that scripture does not offer a command, a promise, and an example for such healing.

Oscarr said:

It would be interesting to hear about anyone who has partaken of the communion bread in faith that because of Christ's broken body they can be healed, and a miracle of healing has taken place, even from a terminal disease.

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1 Cor 11
27So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. 28Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. 29For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves.

John 6
53Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them

Tangible said:

While the scriptural understanding of the Sacrament of the Altar certainly does include the representational facets you describe, that is only a partial understanding.

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What's missing is the mystical dimension to the sacrament. Memorialism is based on a modernist view of the relationships between signs and their meaning, one that would have been incomprehensible to biblical writers.

Braydeno said:

so if you are going to communion you have to literally imagine your drinking the blood of christ, and eating his broken body to wash away sins and increase salvation?

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No, but that's what the Sacrament gives you. To deny it is to be missing out on the grace of the sacrament.

Hoc eat corpus meum.
A famous quote to be sure...

Matthew 26:26
Ἐσθιόντων δὲ αὐτῶν, λαβὼν ὁ Ἰησοῦς τὸν ἄρτον, καὶ εὐχαριστήσας ἔκλασεν καὶ ἐδίδου τοῖς μαθηταῖς, καὶ εἶπεν, Λάβετε, φάγετε· τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου.

Can somebody read this for me? I'm not good enough with Koine to do it right.

Certainly an interesting discussion, BTW.

FireDragon76 said:

What's missing is the mystical dimension to the sacrament. Memorialism is based on a modernist view of the relationships between signs and their meaning, one that would have been incomprehensible to biblical writers.

No, but that's what the Sacrament gives you. To deny it is to be missing out on the grace of the sacrament.

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Thus speaks the sacerdotalist. I find it odd that virtually no sacerdotalists that I am aware of actually believe in the efficacy of sacraments. I have yet to see any performing baptisms for sinners in the hospital wards or feeding the poor with the sacrament of communion in order to give them grace. If sacraments in and of themselves do, indeed, impart God's grace, then it is only reasonable that the most loving thing any clergman could do is to administer these sacraments to as many people as humanly possible.

Sacerdotalist? Harsh.

bbbbbbb said:

Thus speaks the sacerdotalist. I find it odd that virtually no sacerdotalists that I am aware of actually believe in the efficacy of sacraments. I have yet to see any performing baptisms for sinners in the hospital wards or feeding the poor with the sacrament of communion in order to give them grace.

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Genuinely sacramental Protestants are not common in the US. There are also ethical guidelines that chaplains must abide by. So there are reasons you've never heard of it happening. Baptisms do happen in hospitals, though, when requested. And bringing Communion to the hospitalized is not rare.

The sacrament of Holy Communion is not common food, and its grace doesn't operate apart from faith.

We are sacramentalists, not sacerdotalists. Sacerdotalism is a different animal altogether. A pastor in the Lutheran church is ontologically no different than any of the laity, it is not some kind of magic in his hands that is the power behind the sacraments: it is Jesus own words.

FireDragon76 said:

Genuinely sacramental Protestants are not common in the US. There are also ethical guidelines that chaplains must abide by. So there are reasons you've never heard of it happening. Baptisms do happen in hospitals, though, when requested. And bringing Communion to the hospitalized is not rare.

The sacrament of Holy Communion is not common food, and its grace doesn't operate apart from faith.

We are sacramentalists, not sacerdotalists. Sacerdotalism is a different animal altogether. A pastor in the Lutheran church is ontologically no different than any of the laity, it is not some kind of magic in his hands that is the power behind the sacraments: it is Jesus own words.

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Now you introduce a human element apart from divine grace - faith. Is faith a necessity for the grace of sacraments to be effective or are the sacraments effective in and of the themselves apart from any human element?

bbbbbbb said:

Now you introduce a human element apart from divine grace - faith. Is faith a necessity for the grace of sacraments to be effective or are the sacraments effective in and of the themselves apart from any human element?

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Faith is not a human element. It is a supernatural gift of the Holy Spirit.

FireDragon76 said:

Faith is not a human element. It is a supernatural gift of the Holy Spirit.

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Okay, so does everyone have faith and, if not, who does and who does not and how can you tell?

bbbbbbb said:

Okay, so does everyone have faith and, if not, who does and who does not and how can you tell?

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I'm late to the party, and this is already a month old, however:

- No, not everyone has faith.
- The one whom God has given faith has faith.
- No one can say Jesus Christ is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.

Trust in Jesus is not human beings taking some already existent power and ability residing in them and, by their own strength, turning to Jesus and doing X, Y, and Z. Trust in Jesus is given to us by God by the power of the Spirit who works through Word and Sacrament to create faith in us. Which is why St. Paul says, "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ" (Romans 10:17), and it's why he calls faith a gift in Ephesians 2:8, "For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of your own doing, it is the gift of God." So faith comes from God, as a gift, by grace, through the Word. That Word is preached in the preaching of the Gospel, that Word is also found connected to and with the water of Holy Baptism and bread and wine in the Holy Eucharist--that is what makes Baptism Baptism and the Eucharist the Eucharist; without that Word it isn't Baptism, it's just water; without that Word it isn't the Eucharist, it's just bread and wine. Water can do nothing, the words of human beings can do nothing, bread and wine can do nothing; but the Word of God is efficacious and does all that God sets out to do, "My word be that goes out from my mouth shall not return to Me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it." (Isaiah 55:11)

When we preach the Gospel, we are preaching God's word, it is the word of the Gospel itself, the word of God's promise and grace of the crucified and risen Jesus and all which He has done delivered to us, efficaciously, because it is God's word, not our word. When the Sacraments are administered, it is not just water being applied upon a body washing away dirt, it is "the pledge of a new conscience toward God through the resurrection of Jesus" (1 Peter 3:21), and the bread and wine is not just bread and wine, it is the body and blood of Jesus because He Himself said, "This is My body" and "This is My blood" and it is written, "Is not the cup of blessing which we bless participation in the blood of Christ?" and "Is not the bread which we break participation in the body of Christ?" (1 Corinthians 10:16)

It is not just the words of men, it is not just empty rhetoric, it is not just water, it is not just bread and wine; it is the very Word of God, the precious Gospel, God Himself working and speaking and doing to take us, make us His, and bring us into His own gracious life in Himself on Christ's account and the power of the Spirit. It is God who gives us faith, it is God who justifies us, it is God who gives us the Holy Spirit, it is God who adopts us and makes us children and heirs, it is God who forgives us of all our sins, it is God who says that on account of all these things we should with boldness, confidence, and hope look forward to the resurrection of the dead and life of the age to come. God has done, God has promised, therefore God alone is glorified.

-CryptoLutheran