When/ how did Zwingliist symbolism/ memorialism enter mainstream evangelicalism?

I suspect that it happened right around the time of the English reformation and the time Emporer Charles invaded the German states. When the English reformation first started the future church leaders were sent to the Lutheran seminaries to train but when Emporer Charles invaded Germany they began going else where including Switzerland where Zwingli taught.

 

My Understanding is that it was during the Charles Finney Revivals and the 19th century Revivalism that deemphasized Baptism and the Lord's Supper.

You are correct Matt, the London Baptist Confession of 1689 was non-memorialist and it seems most Baptists as well as other Protestants held either Calvin's view of the Supper (Christ Spritual present) or Luther's view (Christ is literaly present in the elements). Even the Anabaptists did not hold the type of memorialism taught today.

 

I completely forgot about the Rationalist movement that came about in the 19th Century. It is possible that some may have started memorializing the Lord's Supper because it did not make rational sense to teach and believe the presence of Christ's body and blood.

 

Imo, it is a shame that scriptural teaching about the Lord's Supper is ignored and it is taught that the Lord's Supper is only a symbol.

Paul said that it is the fellowship with the body and blood of Christ.

 

I suspect it became common after Darby and the Plymouth Brethern invented Dispensationalism, middle 1800's.

 

Hey Billwald

Start a thread on dispensationalism. I would like to address your "invented" remark.

Lloyd

 

This ought to be good.

 

I can, yes they are. Christ does tend to say exactly what he means particularly when he speaks this plainly. If he says they are there then by God (literally) they are there.

 

Good answer.

 

When Paul said "Do this in remembrance of me," he was teaching memorialism. Therefore, it dates back to at least the late 60s (depending your dating of 1 Corinthians). Christ certainly appears taught memorialism in Matt 26. It is always hard to be precise with church history for so many reasons, including imcomplete history, incomplete knowledge of history, and plain old bias.

 

1. By the words that he uses. There is no hint in the NT of anything other than memoralism, or symbolism. Never, in any passage, is there said to be any spiritual grace communicated in the elements. In fact, never in teh NT is spiritual grace communicated by anything physical at all. Spiritual grace is always spiritual in nature.

2. Chemnitz says that church that practice memorialism are out of order. But he offers no evidence that I can see. He assumes his conclusion and then says everyone else is wrong. I don't find that an argument worthy of debate.

3. The Greek word in question is not really the issue. In your two examples, you still have not really passed memorialism, and you have not demonstrated an affinity for the particular point at hand, namely communion. IN what way is communion similar to DDay or the English Civil War? I can't think of many, with the exception that they are both past.

The point of communion is worship, to pause and reflect on Christ's death, and its meaning. The elements are not efficacious for anything. They are pictures.

 

Paul specifically states that the cup is the communion of (or "participation in") the Blood of Christ and the bread is the communion of (or "participation in") the Body of Christ (1 Cor 10:16)--the Body that He gave for the Life of the world. Yeah, the elements are pictures but not merely so. They effect by God's grace a real communion of (or participation in) the Real Body and Blood of Christ. Such is the unanimous faith of the Church for her first 1500 years and is still the faith of the majority of the world's Christians.

 

I don't think anyone including Roman Catholicism denies the Lord's Supper is a memorial THOUGH certaintly not a Funeral service memorial.

I remember the story of a pastor when serving the Lord's Supper reminding his congregation "This IS NOT THE BODY AND BLOOD OF JESUS" But he did not realizing He was correcting Jesus who said the opposite. It is the Body and Blood of Jesus BUT in what way?

I find the view of John Calvin and Thomas Cranmer to be most consistent with Scripture. It is a memorial but the Apostle Paul reminds us,
"1 Cor. 10:16-17
The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? [17] For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread."


at the same time it is a real communion with the body and blood of Christ SPIRITUALLY. There is no transformation of the elements but as,
The 1689 London Baptist Confession
" Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements in this ordinance, do them also inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally, but spiritually receive, and feed upon Christ crucified, and all the benefits of His death; the body and blood of Christ being then not corporally or carnally, but spiritually present to the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves are to their outward senses."


In other words a Spiritual Communion with Jesus Christ takes place when one receives Holy Communion by FAITH.



The Church of England's The Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, Article XXVIII Of the Lord's Supper

"The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another; but rather it is a Sacrament of our Redemption by Christ's death: insomuch that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith, receive the same, the Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ; and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Blood of Christ.

Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of Bread and Wine) in the Supper of the Lord, cannot be proved by Holy Writ; but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions.

The Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten, in the Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper, is Faith. The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped."


I think the Baptist Confession of 1689 as well as the Anglican Confession give the balanced Biblical view. It is a memorial and a Communion with Christ and fits Paul's words in 1 Cor. 10.

I find the Zwingliam Memorialist view to have dimminished the Supper's importance in Baptist circles and to be the extreme opposite error of the Roman Catholic Transubstantiation view which makes the supper into something almost magical. While I appreciate Luther's View...I find his argument that Christ is In, Around and Under the Elements to lack Biblical merit. John Calvin and the Anglican Reformers however seem to have found that Biblical balance.