Strange New Teaching

Keith A. Mathison writes:

"Of all the various concepts of the Lord's Supper that exist today, symbolic memorialism is the only view that is in complete and total discontinuity with the teaching of the historic Christian church. When we look at the doctrine of the Lord's Supper from the first centuries of the church onward, it becomes abundantly clear that although Christ's presence in the Supper was explained in different ways, there was no disagreement over the fact of that presence. The doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the sacrament was not denied by Luther or Calvin during the sixteenth-century Reformation. In fact, Luther argued that the universal testimony of the historic church proved the validity of this doctrine:

This article moreover, has been clearly believed and held from the beginning of the Christian Church to this hour - a testimony of the entire holy Christian Church, which, if we had nothing besides, should be sufficient for us. For it is dangerous and terrible to hear or believe anything against the united testimony, faith, and doctrine, of the entire holy Christian Church, as this hath been held now 1,500 years, from the beginning, unanimously in all the world. Whoso now doubteth thereon, it is even the same as though he believed in no Christian Church, and he condemeth thus not only the entire holy Christian Church as damnable heresy, but also Christ himself and all the apostles and prophets, who have established and powerfully attested this article where we say, "I believe in a holy Christian Church", Christ namely, Matthew 28:20: "Lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the world"; and Paul, 1 Timothy 3:15: "The Church of God, which is the pillar and ground of the truth."

Cited in Philip Schaff, The Principle of Protestantism, ed., Thompson & Bricker, 116-7

"Luther, the great exponent of sola Scriptura, was not a slave to the traditions of men. But he recognized an important point. He realized that when the Holy Spirit bore witness to the truth of a doctrine across all boundaries (geographical, chronological, ecclesiastical, etc.), a denial of that doctrine was essentially a denial of the perspicuity of Scripture. He and Calvin disagreed with each other concerning the exact mode of Christ's presence, but they agreed with the historic Christian church on the fact of that presence. Proponents of symbolic memorialism have adopted a doctrine that is a novelty in the history of the Christian church and an implicit denial of the perspicuity of Scripture."

Given for You pp266-7

Later Mathison continues:

The doctrine of symbolic memorialism is the dominant position within modern evangelicalism, but it is a historical novelty within the Christian church. Turning the historic doctrine of the Supper on its head, proponents of this view advocate a doctrine of the real absence of Christ from the Supper. Rather than being an objective means of grace, the sacrament is said to be a subjective act of mental recollection. Instead of being something that God gives to us, the sacrament becomes something that we give to God.

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