R.C. Sproul on the Lord's Supper
Real but spiritual presence, received by faith
"The debate is how he is present, whether he is present physically or spiritually. But when the Calvinists speak of spiritual presence, they don't mean just as in the minds or the memories of the people or symbolically by the signs that are used, but they mean by his divine nature he really is there... we come to enter into real communion with the presence of Christ."
THE POSITION
The classic Reformed "real spiritual presence" position, laid out against the other three historic views — transubstantiation, the Lutheran in/with/under formula, and Zwinglian bare memorialism. Christ is really present and communicated by his divine nature and the Spirit, not merely remembered symbolically, but not bodily present either — grounded in Chalcedonian christology against the Lutheran doctrine of the ubiquity of Christ's human body.
8 OTHERS HOLD THIS
ABOUT THIS FIGURE
Founder of Ligonier Ministries and teaching elder in the PCA. Chaired the drafting committee for the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy; best known for The Holiness of God and for popularizing Reformed theology — the five solas and TULIP — for a lay audience.
Cite this page
"R.C. Sproul on the Lord's Supper", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/sproul/lords-supper (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/sproul/lords-supper).