United With Christ, United As One Church - Adriel Yeo

Ever since my baptism in 2010, I have been partaking in Holy Communion without knowing much about its significance. I recall learning about it during my baptism class but it had no lasting impression or rather I did not give it much thought. Based on the little that I could remember before reading up on this, Calvin rejected the claim that Jesus was physically present during communion as well as the claim that communion was purely symbolic without any further meaning or value. Now as to what that meant, I had no idea. 



One of the sessions that we had to sit through during the STEP was on John Calvins’ sacramental theology. As mentioned above, Calvin did not hold to the idea that Christ was physically present due to his bodily ascension. In his book Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin says “Flesh must therefore be flesh; spirit, spirit -- each thing in the state and condition wherein God created it. But such is the condition of flesh that it must subsist in one definite place, with its own size and form.”

At the same time, to make the claim that communion carried no true significance apart from it being symbolic was to simplify this sacrament. Personally, I myself struggled with this issue. If communion had no spiritual purpose, did it matter how I approach the Lords’ table? My natural conclusion was that surely it mattered in terms of preparing my heart and mind. 

Deep within me I did find something mystifying about Holy Communion that I could not quite comprehend. During Rev Tan’s lesson on this topic, I was doing my own reading up and I came across this term called the pneumatic (from the greek word for spirit) presence of Christ. Basically, it was the view that Jesus’ body and blood was really present but through the spirit and not physically. In that sense, “I [Calvin] say then, that in the mystery of the Supper, by the symbols of bread and wine, Christ, his body and blood, are truly exhibited to us, that in them he fulfilled all obedience, in order to procure righteousness for us—first that we might become one body with him; and, secondly, that being made partakers of his substance, we might feel the result of this fact in the participation of all his blessings.”


Now of course, this still left me with questions as to how a person can be any more in Christ than he already is through the Holy Spirit. As I reflect on this, analogies do come to my mind but I recognize that it is difficult to come up with a perfect analogy that explains this mystical thing that happens during communion. However, I think communion not only unites us to Christ, it also unites us as an entire church. I just came back from meeting with one of my mentors and he was sharing with me that when he goes to a church in a foreign country, he may not understand the sermon but when it comes to communion there is this mutual understanding among everyone regardless of language because at this point, everyone is one in mind.

This coming Sunday, I will be partaking in Holy Communion. While I most certainly do not fully comprehend the spiritual significance, yet with this slight clarity of mind regarding this topic, I look forward to preparing my heart and mind before partaking the bread and wine. However, what I do know is that regardless of race or whatever language barriers that we may have, when we come to the Lord’s table, our eyes are all set on the same direction - that is the person of Jesus Christ.

Adriel Yeo