Do Christians Eat Christ's Flesh & Drink His Blood?

I quote here from an article by Keith Mathison, from the Renewing Your Mind website. Brother Mathison has written extensively on matters of Reformed theology. The original essay can be found at http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/calvins-doctrine-lords-supper/​

"Calvin followed Augustine in defining a sacrament as “a visible sign of a sacred thing” or as a “visible word” of God. The sacraments, according to Calvin, are inseparably attached to the Word. The sacraments seal the promises found in the Word. In regard to the Lord’s Supper, more specifically, it is given to seal the promise that those who partake of the bread and wine in faith truly partake of the body and blood of Christ. Calvin explains this in terms of the believer’s mystical union with Christ. Just as baptism is connected with the believer’s initiation into union with Christ, the Lord’s Supper strengthens the believer’s ongoing union with Christ."

To more clearly understand, you need to know that Calvin rejected the teaching that the ordinances are only symbols. Calvin instead taught that there is a mystical but real connection between the signs (baptism, the bread, the cup) and the things signified (Jesus). 

By preaching that we eat and drink Jesus in the Communion, Calvin committed the same serious, fundamental error as German Reformer Martin Luther: they both attributed God's unique attributes to Jesus' human nature.

The classical Christian doctrine of the two natures of Christ (called the "hypostatic union") is that the two natures are inseparably united in Jesus Christ, but they do not combine into a third thing, and the core attributes do not jump back and forth from one to the other. The human attributes do not transfer to the divine nature. The divine attributes do not transfer to the human nature. Both natures stay all of what they are, at all times. Christ is just as human now as He was when He was conceived in the virgin's womb.

What Calvin and Luther both erroneously do is take the divine attribute called "illocality" (the Lord's ability, as Spirit, to be in more than one place at one time, see 1 Kings 8:27, Psalm 139:7-10), and apply it to Jesus' body.

Luther applied this idea crudely. Luther said that Jesus' actual body and blood were present in the bread and the wine, because God is omnipresent and can be everywhere. 

Calvin was  slightly more subtle than Luther in a way. Calvin inserted a go-between -- he added the extra element of the Holy Spirit. Calvin said that Jesus' actual body and blood are mystically in the bread and the wine, by means of the Holy Spirit.

This was a meaningless distinction, reverse-engineered to support a predetermined conclusion, as was Calvin's habit. But it was a serious error. Calvin's explanation turns Jesus Christ into a non-human.

This is because flesh and blood has to be physical, and has to be limited to one place at one time, to be human. Only God can be in more than one place at a time. Not even angels can do that. 

In addition, the Bible is crystal-clear that we receive Jesus Christ in His entirety, when we believe. It's impossible to receive little doses of Jesus Christ through the communion, since you already have all of Him there is to have. There ain't no more of Him up there for you to get.

Reformed-Presbyterian leaders love to make fun of the "crude literality" of a 1,000 year Millennium. Then they take Paul's words about "sharing in Christ's body and blood" (1st Corinthians 10:16) with the same wooden crudity.

1st Corinthians 10:16 is a symbolic sharing in Christ's body and blood. The Greek word "sharing" there is koinonia. We fellowship with each other and with the Lord in a distinct way by taking the elements. But you aren't eating Christ by taking communion, any more than you are eating a demon by participating in a pagan worship service (1 Cor. 10:20). 

If Calvin was right, and the bread and wine are Jesus' actual body and blood, mystically, then Christians are Jesus' physical body, mystically, according to 1st Cor. 10:17. But we know that isn't true, either.

Believers are not Jesus' physical body. Believers don't eat demons. For the same reasons, we don't eat Jesus' body or drink His blood in the Communion. Not even if we throw in a cool word like "mystical". No one has ever eaten Jesus' flesh or drunken his blood. Not even John Calvin!