The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

with the body and blood of Christ (Abendm. 127 seq.), consequently is
such before the eating and drinking. But if bread (wine) be the subject, the
literal meaning has to be abandoned. To this we are necessitated by the
proposition, 'This cup is the New Covenant in My blood,' inasmuch as it is
impossible that a chalice of wine can itself be the covenant relation
between God and man established by Christ in His death. The only
exposition, therefore, is: This cup is a sign of the new covenant in My
blood. The supposition that body and blood stand, by metonomy, for sign
of body, sign of blood (OEcolamnpadius, Calvin) is untenable. No such
metonomy can be shown. The proposition is like countless others, in
which the predicate is figurative. Thus we say of a statue, This is Blucher;
of a serpent with his tail in his mouth: This is eternity. The supposition of a
symbol is justified by the manifest symbolical character of the whole
transaction. The bread which is broken is the body which is broken
(klomenon) for us; the wine which is poured out of a large vessel into the
chalice is the blood which is shed for us (ekchunomenon). That the
breaking of the bread has a special significance is shown by the
designation of the bread which we break (1 Cor. x. 16), parallel with the
cup which we bless. So, also, in Baptism, the submergence beneath the
water is a symbolical act (p. 615). Had it been the glorified body which
Jesus, at the Institution, offered in the bread, it might be imagined that
somehow, though still in a mysterious and obscure manner, there was an
impartation of it. But the body which was to be put to death, which stood
before the disciples, could not be the object of the participation.
"To this point the exposition of Zwingli is justified. But that it is
impossible to stop here Calvin acknowledged, yet failed, because he rested
the lever of his sacramental theory on hypotheses destitute of Scriptural
support. In the words 'This do in remembrance of Me,’ our Lord
commanded that this Supper should be celebrated from that time on in
commemoration of Him; and it has been so done to this day. As often as it
is celebrated Jesus dispenses, by the hand of the ministrant, bread and
wine, as signs of His body and blood,