The Lord's Supper · Core Doctrine
The Lord's Supper
On the night before He died, at a Passover meal, Jesus picked up bread and said “this is My body” — and Christians have spent two thousand years asking what He meant by is. This page walks the meal from Egypt forward, sets the four accounts of that night side by side, takes up the one place in the New Testament where the Supper is corrected, and then lets the four great answers stand next to each other at equal strength, each spoken by the people who hold it.
THE ARTWORKFra Angelico painted this on the wall of a monk’s cell at San Marco, for one man to look at every day. Notice what he refused to paint: there is no long table, no dramatic pointing, no traitor caught in the act. The disciples are kneeling and receiving. He has painted the practice rather than the story — which is exactly the subject of this page.
It Starts in Egypt
— the meal He was eating already had a name, a date, and a lambJesus was keeping Passover. That meal was already about fourteen hundred years old: God gave it to a nation of slaves on the night He brought them out of Egypt — a lamb, blood on the door frame, a built-in moment where the children ask what it all means — and He commanded them to keep it every year, permanently. The Supper is not a new idea. It is an old table with a new host, and almost nothing about it makes sense apart from the night in Egypt.
When your children ask you, ‘What does this service mean to you?’ you are to reply, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the LORD, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when He struck down the Egyptians and spared our homes.’” Then the people bowed down and worshiped.the meal was built to be asked about; the questions are part of the instructions.
On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Where do You want us to prepare for You to eat the Passover?” He answered, “Go into the city to a certain man and tell him that the Teacher says, ‘My time is near. I will keep the Passover with My disciples at your house.’” So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them and prepared the Passover.the disciples say in their own words what they were doing that night: preparing the Passover.
The blood shall be to you for a token - It shall be the sign to the destroying angel, that the house on which he sees this blood sprinkled is under the protection of God, and that no person in it is to be injured. See Clarke on Exo 12:11 (note).
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832
Exo 12:13
Kill the passover - That is, the lamb, which was called the paschal or passover lamb. The animal that was to be sacrificed on this occasion got the name of the institution itself: thus the word covenant is often put for the sacrifice offered in making the covenant; so the rock was Christ, 1Co 10:4; bread and wine the body and blood of Christ, Mar 14:22, Mar 14:24. St. Paul copies the expression, 1Co 5:7: Christ our passover (that is, our paschal lamb) is sacrificed for us.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832
Exo 12:21
What was actually on that tableExodus 12 · the meal's own instructions
A lamb without blemish, one per household, roasted whole — not boiled, and no bone broken. Bitter herbs. Bread with no yeast in it, because there was no time to let anything rise. Blood struck on the two door posts and the lintel with a bunch of hyssop.
By the first century the meal had grown a settled shape around those elements, including cups of wine taken at set points and a spoken retelling of the Exodus. That is the meal Jesus interrupts in Matthew 26 — not a new ceremony He invented from nothing, but a familiar one whose meaning He reassigns while it is in progress.
The Night Itself
— four accounts of the same few minutes — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and PaulFour writers report what Jesus did with the bread and the cup. They agree on the bones of it, and each carries something the others do not. Reading them side by side is the plainest way to see what is actually being claimed — and to notice how short the sentences are. He did not explain Himself.
While they were eating, Jesus took bread, spoke a blessing and broke it, and gave it to the disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is My body.” Then He took the cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in My Father’s kingdom.”Matthew alone adds the reason: 'for the forgiveness of sins.'
While they were eating, Jesus took bread, spoke a blessing and broke it, and gave it to the disciples, saying, “Take it; this is My body.” Then He took the cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they all drank from it. He said to them, “This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly I tell you, I will no longer drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God.”the shortest account — and the closest to Matthew's.
When the hour had come, Jesus reclined at the table with His apostles. And He said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before My suffering. For I tell you that I will not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” After taking the cup, He gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you that I will not drink of the fruit of the vine from now on until the kingdom of God comes.” And He took the bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body, given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way, after supper He took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is poured out for you.Luke has a cup before the bread as well as after, and the command to repeat it.
For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night He was betrayed, took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way, after supper He took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.written down before any of the Gospels — and Paul alone adds 'until He comes.'
This is my body, which is broken for you - That is, this broken bread is the sign of my body, which is even now to be pierced and wounded for your iniquities.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, 1755
1 Cor 11:24
Paul twice records it (1Co 11:24 and here) as suiting his purpose. The old sacrifices brought sins continually to remembrance (Heb 10:1, 3). The Lord's Supper brings to remembrance Christ and His sacrifice once for all for the full and final remission of sins.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871
1 Cor 11:25
When the typical Passover was concluded, and He had partaken of the Lamb with His Apostles, He comes to the true paschal sacrament; that, as Melchisedech, Priest of the most high God, had done in foreshadowing Christ, offering bread and wine (Gen. 14:18.), He also should offer the present verity of His Body and Blood.
Jerome· Catena Aurea by Aquinas, 420
Matt 26:26
What only one account carriesthe differences, plainly listed
Only Matthewgives the purpose clause over the cup — poured out “for the forgiveness of sins.”
Only Luke and Paul carry the command to keep doing it: this do in remembrance of Me. Matthew and Mark simply report what happened.
Only Pauladds the deadline — “until He comes.” That single phrase turns a memorial into something forward-leaning: the church is not only looking back at a cross, it is waiting at a table.
Only Luke has a cup before the bread as well as after, which fits the several cups of the Passover meal rather than contradicting the other accounts.
Paul’s is the oldest written account — 1 Corinthians was written years before any of the four Gospels reached their final form, and he says he is handing on what he received.
What Went Wrong at Corinth
— the only place in the New Testament where the Supper is corrected — and it is not about metaphysicsThere is exactly one passage in the New Testament that tells a church it is doing the Supper wrong, and the problem is not what they believed about the bread. It is that the rich were eating in front of the poor. In Corinth the Supper was still attached to a real meal, and the people who could arrive early ate early, and well, and the workers and slaves who arrived late got what was left, which was nothing.
Paul’s verdict is blunt: whatever that gathering was, it was not the Lord’s Supper. The warning he attaches — the one that has made careful people afraid of the table ever since — is spoken directly into that situation.
In the following instructions I have no praise to offer, because your gatherings do more harm than good. First of all, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and in part I believe it. And indeed, there must be differences among you to show which of you are approved. Now then, when you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat. For as you eat, each of you goes ahead without sharing his meal. While one remains hungry, another gets drunk. Don’t you have your own homes in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What can I say to you? Shall I praise you for this? No, I will not!the charge: their meetings were doing more harm than good.
Therefore, 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. Each one must examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. Now if we judged ourselves properly, we would not come under judgment. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world.'unworthily', 'discerning the body', and the sober note about sickness and sleep.
Therefore - That is, in consequence of those schisms. It is not eating the Lord's supper - That solemn memorial of his death; but quite another thing.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, 1755
1 Cor 11:20
This was profaning a sacred institution, and corrupting a divine ordinance, to the last degree. What was appointed to feed the soul was employed to feed their lusts and passions.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710
1 Cor 11:21
Chrysostom, preaching on this passage in the fourth century, reads the warning of verse 27 as bearing directly on that failure rather than on a doctrine of the elements.
Thou hast partaken of such a Table and when thou oughtest to be more gentle than any and like the angels, none so cruel as thou art become. Thou hast tasted the Blood of the Lord, and not even thereupon dost thou acknowledge thy brother.
John Chrysostom· Homily on 1 Corinthians 27, 407
1 Cor 11:27
“Discerning the body” — what the phrase is pointing at1 Cor 11:29 · two readings, both old
Reading one: the body is the bread.To eat without discerning the body is to treat the consecrated bread as ordinary food — to come to it casually, without faith or reverence. This is the reading that runs through the sacramental traditions, and it is the plain sense if “the body” in verse 29 means what “My body” meant in verse 24.
Reading two: the body is the church. Paul has been arguing for four chapters that the congregation is one body (1 Cor 10:17; 12:12–27). On this reading, failing to discern the body is failing to see that the hungry man across the room belongs to Christ as much as you do — which is precisely the sin being corrected.
Many readers hold both at once, and the passage does not force a choice. What it does force is that self-examination comes before the bread, and that it is examination of yourself, not of the person beside you.
In your conscience, where no one is present except God who sees all, there judge yourself, examine your sins. When you reflect upon your whole life, bring your sins to the court of the mind. Correct your mistakes, and in this way, with a clean conscience, touch the sacred table and participate in the holy sacrifice.
John Chrysostom· On Fasting, Homily 6.5.22, 407
1 Cor 11:28
Such self-examination is necessary to a right attendance at this holy ordinance. Note, Those who, through weakness of understanding, cannot try themselves, are by no means fit to eat of this bread and drink of this cup; nor those who, upon a fair trial, have just ground to charge themselves with impenitency, unbelief, and alienation from the life of God.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710
1 Cor 11:28
The Hardest Words He Ever Said
— John 6 — spoken a year earlier, in a synagogue, and it emptied the roomA year or so before the Supper, in the synagogue at Capernaum, Jesus said something so difficult that most of the crowd following Him walked away and did not come back. He said He was bread; He said the bread was His flesh; and when people objected, He did not soften it — He said it again, harder.
John 6 is not about the Supper directly — no bread is broken, no cup is passed. But all four views reach back into this chapter, so it belongs here.
I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that anyone may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And this bread, which I will give for the life of the world, is My flesh.”the claim itself: bread, and then the turn — 'the bread that I will give is My flesh.'
So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is real food, and My blood is real drink. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood remains in Me, and I in him.the sentence that emptied the synagogue.
On hearing it, many of His disciples said, “This is a difficult teaching. Who can accept it?” Aware that His disciples were grumbling about this teaching, Jesus asked them, “Does this offend you? Then what will happen if you see the Son of Man ascend to where He was before? The Spirit gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.His own comment on what He had just said — and both sides of the debate lean on it.
Whoever eats the holy flesh of Christ has eternal life because his flesh has the Word which by nature is life.
Cyril of Alexandria· Commentary on the Gospel of John, Book 4, 444
John 6:54
Unless ye eat the flesh of the Son of man - Spiritually: unless ye draw continual virtue from him by faith. Eating his flesh is only another expression for believing.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, 1755
John 6:53
In these verses Jesus repeats what he had in substance said before. Except ye eat the flesh ... - He did not mean that this should be understood literally, for it was never done, and it is absurd to suppose that it was intended to be so understood. Nothing can possibly be more absurd than to suppose that when he instituted the Supper, and gave the bread and wine to his disciples, they literally ate his flesh and drank his blood. Who can believe this?
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
John 6:53
Augustine is claimed by both sides — and the honest answer is that he isTractates on John 26 · read it yourself
Readers who hold a real change in the bread quote Augustine on the Body and Blood genuinely given. Readers who hold a spiritual receiving quote him saying that the eating that matters happens in the heart, not with the teeth. Both are quoting the same man, sometimes the same sermon.
The page does not conscript him. He is printed here at length so you can see what he actually said and why four centuries of readers have found their own position in him.
"This is the bread which cometh down from heaven." Manna signified this bread; God's altar signified this bread. Those were sacraments. In the signs they were diverse; in the thing which was signified they were alike. … But this is what belongs to the virtue of the sacrament, not to the visible sacrament; he that eateth within, not without; who eateth in his heart, not who presses with his teeth.
Augustine of Hippo· Tractates on John 26, 430
John 6:50
But when does flesh receive the bread which He calls His flesh? The faithful know and receive the Body of Christ, if they labour to be the body of Christ. And they become the body of Christ, if they study to live by the Spirit of Christ: for that which lives by the Spirit of Christ, is the body of Christ. This bread the Apostle sets forth, where he says, We being many are one body. (1 Cor. 12:12) O sacrament of mercy, O sign of unity, O bond of love! Whoso wishes to live, let him draw nigh, believe, be incorporated, that he may be quickened.
Augustine of Hippo· Catena Aurea by Aquinas, 430
John 6:53-54
Four Views of One Table
— four columns, equal width, identical rows — each position stated at full strength, none rebuttedThis is the question that split the Western church, and argument has never settled it. Each answer below gets the same room, the same five rows, and its own best sentence, with no rebuttal appended — because a page cannot present a position honourably and knock it down in the same breath. A Catholic, a Lutheran, a Presbyterian and a Baptist should each read their own column and recognise it. Where this study’s sources hold no quotable text for a position, the column says so and names the works to read instead.
The bread becomes His body
Transubstantiation · the Roman Catholic Church
What the bread is
It is no longer bread. What the senses report — the look, the taste, the weight — stays exactly as it was, but the thing itself has been changed.
What happens
At the words of consecration the substance of the bread and wine becomes the body and blood of Christ, offered again as the one sacrifice of Calvary made present.
The verse it leans on hardest
While they were eating, Jesus took bread, spoke a blessing and broke it, and gave it to the disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is My body.”Matthew 26:26 — BSB
Who holds it
The Roman Catholic Church, with the Eastern churches teaching a real change in their own language. Paschasius Radbertus, whose On the Body and Blood of the Lord (ninth century) is the first full statement of it; Lanfranc of Canterbury, who defended it against Berengar of Tours; systematised by Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologiae (III, qq. 73–83); defined by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and again at Trent (1551).
In its own words
As then real flesh was created by the Holy Spirit without sexual union, so by the same Holy Spirit the substance of bread and wine are consecrated into the Body and Blood of Christ. And because this consecration is made by the Lord's word, it is added, He blessed.
Paschasius Radbertus· Catena Aurea by Aquinas, 865
Matt 26:26
His body is truly there, and so is the bread
Sacramental union · the Lutheran churches
What the bread is
It is still bread, and it is still wine. Nothing about them has been replaced.
What happens
Christ's body and blood are genuinely present in, with and under the bread and the wine — really given and really received, without the elements ceasing to be what they are.
The verse it leans on hardest
and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”1 Corinthians 11:24 — BSB
Who holds it
Martin Luther, in The Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1520) and at the Marburg Colloquy (1529), where he chalked hoc est corpus meum— “this is my body” — on the table and would not move from it. Confessed by the Lutheran churches in the Formula of Concord (1577).
In its own words
The public-domain commentary this page is built from carries nothing from Luther himself, so his position is stated here in plain prose rather than in his own words. The works are named above; they are where to go for his voice.
Truly received — by faith, through the Spirit
Spiritual presence · the Reformed and Presbyterian churches
What the bread is
It is bread, and it is more than a reminder. The believer really feeds on Christ, but not with the teeth.
What happens
The Spirit lifts the believer up to where Christ is, rather than bringing Christ down into the bread. What is received is Christ Himself, received by faith.
The verse it leans on hardest
Is not the cup of blessing that we bless a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?1 Corinthians 10:16 — BSB
Who holds it
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion IV.xvii — the fullest statement of it; confessed by the Reformed and Presbyterian churches in the Westminster Confession(chapter XXIX). Calvin has no row on these verses in this study’s sources, so the sentence beside this column is Jamieson, Fausset & Brown’s, stating the same position.
In its own words
"Is" in both cases in this verse is literal, not represents. He who with faith partakes of the cup and the bread, partakes really but spiritually of the blood and body of Christ (Eph 5:30, 32), and of the benefits of His sacrifice on the cross (compare 1Co 10:18). In contrast to this is to have "fellowship with devils" (1Co 10:20).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871
1 Cor 10:16
A remembrance and a proclamation
Memorial · the Baptist and free-church tradition
What the bread is
It is bread. Bread before the blessing, bread after it, and bread when the church eats it.
What happens
The church remembers a death that already happened and announces it publicly until He returns. The blessing is real; the change is in the people, not the loaf.
The verse it leans on hardest
For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.1 Corinthians 11:26 — BSB
Who holds it
Huldrych Zwingli, On the Lord’s Supper(1526), who has no row in this study’s sources and so is named here rather than quoted. Held across the Baptist, Anabaptist and much of the free-church and evangelical world; Albert Barnes states it below.
In its own words
Here it is expressly called “bread” - bread still - bread after the consecration. Before the Saviour instituted the ordinance he took “bread” - it was bread then: it was “bread” which he “blessed” and “broke;” and it was bread when it was given to them; and it was bread when Paul says here that they ate.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
1 Cor 11:26
What all four say together
Underneath a disagreement that split the Western church, the four columns agree on more than they dispute. Jesus said the words. He told His followers to keep doing it. What is eaten and drunk is tied to His death, not to an idea about His death. And the meal has an end date built into it — it runs until He comes back.
When the host is broken, when the blood is poured from the cup into the mouth of the faithful, what else is denoted but the offering of the Lord's Body on the cross, and the shedding of His Blood out of His side?
Lanfranc of Canterbury· Catena Aurea by Aquinas, 1089
Matt 26:26
If Melchisedech offered bread and wine, what means this mixing of water? Hear the reason. Moses struck the rock, and the rock gave forth abundance of water, but that rock was Christ. Also one of the soldiers with his spear pierced Christ's side, and out of His side flowed water and blood, the water to cleanse, the blood to redeem.
Ambrose of Milan· Catena Aurea by Aquinas — On the Sacraments V.1, 397
Matt 26:27
The cup of the Lord is not water only, or wine only, but the two are mixed; so the Lord's Body cannot be either flour only, or water only, but the two are combined.
Cyprian· Catena Aurea by Aquinas — Epistle 63, to Caecilius, 258
Matt 26:27
A fifth answer that is older than the argumentthe pre-scholastic reading
For roughly the first eight centuries the church did not have this fight, because nobody had yet asked the question in the form that produced it. The early writers speak of the Body and Blood as genuinely given and genuinely received, and simply do not specify the mechanism. The mystery is not a dodge in their writing; it is the point.
That reading is still held today — most consistently by the Eastern Orthodox churches, which affirm a real change and decline to define how. It is worth knowing that the four columns above are all, in different ways, attempts to answer a question the earliest Christians did not put.
One Loaf, One Body — Until He Comes
— what the table does to the people around itPaul’s own summary of the Supper is not about the elements at all. It is about what happens to the people: one loaf is broken and shared out, and the sharing is what makes the many into one. That is why the Corinthian failure was so serious — they had taken the sign of their unity and used it to display their division.
Is not the cup of blessing that we bless a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we who are many are one body; for we all partake of the one loaf.one loaf, many people, one body — the argument is from the bread to the church.
You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot partake in the table of the Lord and the table of demons too.the table has an edge to it: you cannot sit at this one and at another.
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.four things the first church devoted itself to — and the breaking of bread is one of them.
With one accord they continued to meet daily in the temple courts and to break bread from house to house, sharing their meals with gladness and sincerity of heart,in the earliest church this happened in houses, daily, with glad and sincere hearts.
The cup which we bless - By setting it apart to a sacred use, and solemnly invoking the blessing of God upon it. Is it not the communion of the blood of Christ - The means of our partaking of those invaluable benefits, which are the purchase of the blood of Christ.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, 1755
1 Cor 10:16
For it is this communion which makes us all one. We being many are yet, as it were, but different parts of one and the same broken bread, which we receive to unite us in one body.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, 1755
1 Cor 10:17
And then the last three words of Paul’s account, which are easy to read past: until He comes. The table has a horizon. Every time the church keeps it, it is announcing a death that already happened and waiting for a Person who has not yet arrived — which makes the Supper the one Christian practice built to expire.
Closing
Two thousand years of argument, and the thing itself has not changed: bread, a cup, and a sentence nobody has managed to exhaust. Whatever a Christian concludes about the how, the table keeps doing its plain work — sending people back to a death they did not die, and putting them in one room with people they did not choose.