St. Augustine, it would seem, charted the course for the Western Church in its long and often convoluted circuit through sacramental theology with the statement: "The Word comes to the element; and so there is a sacrament, that is, a sort of visible word." The sacrament, then, has two aspects: the physical object(s) - the sign (signum) - and the invisible reality (res) that is thereby signified and proclaimed. However, these two aspects of the sacrament, and the nature of their relationship, would become the source of much confusion and contention. The Reformers, on the one hand, would later appeal to this definition, emphasizing the centrality of the Word in the church's worship, with the celebration of the sacraments functioning as the visible proclamation of the gospel (cf. 1Co.11:26). The medieval Catholic church, on the other hand, emphasized the elevation, and apparent transformation of the element itself through the Word (i.e., the priest's prayer and words of institution).
In an attempt to clarify Augustine, and to alleviate apparent tensions in some of the church fathers, the medieval scholastics introduced what Lutheran scholar Robert Jensen has termed "the middle reality." A tertium quid. Namely, the sacrament is at once both the sign and the thing signified. And it is this ontological identification of signum et res, we are told, that constitutes the symbol(s) as sacramentum.
The ambiguity evident in many of the early fathers is that they appear in places to affirm a symbolic/spiritual view of the sacrament (or were they merely speaking phenomenologically of the elements?), and then, on other occasions, to advance a realistic/mystical view (or were they speaking merely figuratively, and pressing such language into service against the docetic denials of gnosticsm?). In the scholastic understanding, it is argued, the tension is resolved in the identification of the sacramental sign with the reality it symbolizes.
However, the question linguists might ask us is whether this solution brings true clarity to the church's self-understanding and exegesis of Scripture, or is simply the ecclesiastical sanctioning of further confusion. In other words, is this conflation of the signifier and the signified a reification of our language - a simple case of mistaking the finger for the moon? Lunatic transdigitation through linguistic prestidigitation?
Whatever the case, that the signum et res synthesis represents a new development from Augustine's thought seems evident from his meditations on hermeneutics. In his classic "On Christian Doctrine," Augustine writes:
Just as I began, when I was writing about things, by warning that no one should consider them except as they are, without reference to what they signify beyond themselves, now when I am discussing signs I wish it understood that no one should consider them for what they are but rather for their value as signs which signify something else. A sign is a thing which causes us to think of something beyond the impression the thing itself makes upon the senses." (Book II, 1)
In other words, to confuse the sign with what is signified by it is a category mistake of language. He goes on to identify the elements of the Lord's Supper as signs, which make an impression upon our sense of taste (Book II, 3), among other things.
That Augustine took Jesus' language about his own flesh and blood figuratively is apparent later on in Book III:
‘Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man,’ says Christ, ‘and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.’ This seems to enjoin a crime or a vice; it is therefore a figure [of speech], enjoining that we should have a share in the sufferings of our Lord, and that we should retain a sweet and profitable memory of the fact that His flesh was wounded and crucified for us." (Book III, 16).
But what about the so-called words of institution, when Jesus says, "This is my body" (in Latin, hoc est corpus meum)? Is this figurative language or literal? With the bread and cup in hand (a hand, we might note, which was neither yet "broken" nor glorified), it seems self-evident that Jesus' language was intended to be understood figuratively (cf. 2Sam.23:16-17). It was not uncommon for our Lord to speak this way. That some might read this literally, however, would not surprise us; such confusion over Jesus' 'bready metaphors' had happened before (e.g., Mt.16:6-11; Jn.6:27ff.). Martin Luther's vehement protests notwithstanding ("Hoc est corpus meum! Est! Est! Est!"), I think Zwingli, after pointing out that there were innumerable passages of Scripture in which "is" means "signifies," had the most sensible interpretation of Scripture,
In the words "This is my body" the word "this" means the bread, and the word "body" means the body which was put to death for us. Therefore the word "is" cannot be taken literally, for the bread is not the body.
Whatever the meaning of "is" is here, it is apparent that we have all become obsessed with the elements themselves, rather than what they (by all accounts) signify: the body and blood of Jesus. Of course, to make the elements themselves the res of the sacrament literally, and so the object of faith, is tantamount to idolatry. Jesus' whole point in John 6 is that we don't need literal bread, whether from the bread basket at the common table, or the wafer at the Lord's Table. What we need is spirit and life - eternal life, secured by the broken flesh and spilled blood of Christ in his crucifixion, and communicated to us through the spiritual subsistence of His resurrected embodiment (1Co.15:45). This is the bread of life which leaves us eternally satisfied: Christ Himself, in the fullness of His glorious Person and work!
As Athanasius wrote:
For here also He has used both terms of Himself, flesh and spirit; and He distinguished the spirit from what is of the flesh in order that they might believe not only in what was visible in Him, but in what was invisible, and so understand that what He says is not fleshy, but spiritual. For how many would the body suffice as food, for it to become meat even for the whole world? But this is why He mentioned the ascending of the Son of Man into heaven; namely, to draw them off from their corporeal idea, and that from thenceforth they might understand that the aforesaid flesh was heavenly from above, and spiritual meat, to be given at His hands. For ‘what I have said unto you,’ says He, ‘is spirit and life;’ as much as to say, ‘what is manifested, and to be given for the salvation of the world, is the flesh which I wear. But this, and the blood from it, shall be given to you spiritually at my hands as meat, so as to be imparted spiritually in each one, and to become for all a preservative to resurrection of life eternal.”
How do we receive this bread of life? Jesus answered, "He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty." Or, as Augustine famously put it, "Why preparest thou the teeth and the belly? Believe, and thou hast eaten!"
Do we receive this grace at the Lord's Table? I would hope so! There's an old joke about us baptists. It is said that we affirm Christ's presence everywhere except the Lord's Supper! As with most jokes, it's funny because it's true. But certainly Jesus communicates His presence to us - He gives Himself to us - as we celebrate communion together. But not because we consumed a wafer and sipped some juice. Grace isn't some mystical gas or liquid, transferred through ceremonial food and drink (see Heb.9:10; 13:9). What is grace but the life and power of Christ communicated to us through our union with Him by faith? The Reformers rightly (if at times inconsistently) insisted that faith was critical for the efficacy of the sacrament, contra Rome's sacerdotal doctrine of ex opero operato. The sacraments, as I understand them, are the liturgical enactment of faith, and are significant precisely in their symbolic function of visibly representing - and dramatically reenacting - the essentially invisible effect of faith: namely, union with Christ in his death and resurrection. Union with Christ through faith is the essence of sacramental worship, with Christ himself as the res of the signum, the transcendent, yet ever-present reality, to which the simple bread and cup point, and which we receive through faith.
This Sunday we will be celebrating communion at our church. And my prayer is that the sign will do its work efficaciously: namely, point us unambiguously to Jesus Christ - in all of the glorious fullness of His Person and perfection of His saving work - to hear and see the gospel preached afresh, and so feed our faith, our hope and our joy in Him!
