A.B. Simpson’s Doctrine of the Real Presence

A.B. Simpson emphatically taught the Real Presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. It is uncertain if he was influenced by the Mercersburg Theology of Nevin and Schaff, who decisively repristinated the authentic Reformation doctrine of the Eucharist in America in the 19th Century, but it is certain that the authentic understanding of the classically Reformed and eminently Scriptural doctrine of the Lord’s Supper was heartily affirmed by Simpson. For not a bare, empty sign and symbol of an absent Christ, in the Eucharist one receives “a direct personal touch of God” (A.B. Simpson, The Significance of the Lord’s Supper, p. 9). The present study, then, will look at Simpson’s teaching on the Lord’s Supper as given in his short work, The Significance of the Lord’s Supper (abbreviated SLS), and in his commentary on 1 Corinthians (from Chapter 8, on “The Ordinances of the Church,” from The Christ in the Bible Commentary, Book 3; abbreviated Ordinances).

To begin, it is worth noting that he used several terms and descriptions to speak of the Lord’s Supper, including calling it “a commemoration” (SLS, pp. 9, 11), “a testimony to the Truth” (SLS, p. 10), “a communication” (SLS, p. 11), “a fellowship with Him and with one another” (SLS, p. 15), “the communion service” (SLS, p. 15, cf. Ordinances, p. 211), “a service of worship,” (p. 17), “the Eucharist” (p. 17, cf. Ordinances, p. 211), “a service of consecration” (SLS, p. 17), “the Sacrament” (SLS, p. 17, cf. Ordinances, p. 211), “the Lord’s table” (SLS, p. 18), “ordinance” (Ordinances, p. 212), and “holy ordinance” (Ordinances, p. 208). He also speaks of it as covenantal, and as a covenant renewal (Ordinances, p. 212). In speaking about the Lord’s Supper as a communication, Simpson also affirms that the Eucharist is “a channel of grace” (SLS, p. 11), “a real means of grace” (SLS, p. 12), “a means of grace and channel of impartation from Him” (Ordinances, p. 211). It is also a “sacred ordinance,” a “holy ordinance,” a “symbolical ordinance,” a “spiritual service,” and a “sacred rite” (Ordinances, pp. 207, 208).

In speaking about the Lord’s Supper as a commemoration, Simpson states: 

“It is a public holding up of the Lord Jesus Christ, not so much His Church, His work or His Gospel as His Person, His Presence, Himself as the Heart and Head of all true life and work.” (SLS, p. 9)

Notice that the central focus of our Eucharistic commemoration of Christ is actually His personal presence. It is His Person that is front and center. Commemoration, therefore, is not an idea that can be used reductively as if it were a matter of mere memory, of merely remembering something that happened long ago, or someone who is in a far away land. Memory is certainly involved, but a remembering that is also a re-membering, a bond of living connection, more like the renewal of a wedding vow than a reminiscence of glory days long gone. Moreover, beyond being a commemoration:

“It is a channel of grace. There is a partaking of something actual, real and helpful, for “the bread which we break is it not the communion of the body of Christ? The cup, is it not the blood Christ?” Thus we not only commemorate a service and set forth a truth, but we take a life, we receive a communicated strength, health and blessing, and we feed upon something real, tangible, satisfying and soul saving.” (SLS, pp. 11, 12)

The foregoing is far from any kind of reductionism, for there is an actual partaking of Christ, for the bread and wine are “a channel of grace.” This stands in opposition to the false, Romanist doctrine of transubstantiation.

Referring to “the battle ground of the reformed churches of centuries ago” (SLS, p. 12), Simpson rightly points out that the bread and wine as elements do not undergo any change of substance. They remain bread and wine, which is precisely the divine genius of the Sacrament, that these humble elements are able to be used by God to direct and impart grace to those who faithfully receive. And this is not unlike the incarnate Son of God, who through His humble human nature communicated His Personal Presence as God, all the while maintaining both natures unconfused, the human and the divine. 

Just as a pattern of ink on a collection of pages can be a Bible, words that when put together are the very Word of God, all the while remaining humble pages patterned with ink, so the bread and wine are set apart as a word which conveys a holy reality far beyond their humble elements, the very Word of God, all the while remaining just what they are: bread and wine. For what is communicated is “the life and presence of the Lord Jesus Christ” (SLS, p. 12). Thus Simpson exhorts:

“Don’t let it therefore be merely a service of memorial, or a setting forth of truth. Don’t be satisfied unless you get something, unless you meet Him and receive from Him that which faith can feed upon and by which your soul can be nourished and your body quickened, strengthened and healed.” (SLS, p. 12)

And what a wonderful benefit we receive when we receive Jesus in communion:

“He gives to us His own very life in this blessed communion, to our spirit new life, to our mind new clearness of illumination, so that we can grasp, understand and realise the truth and realities of the hidden life, and to our body His own new life.” (SLS, p. 14)

From Christ’s life received come all that is connected with Christ, and so in the Eucharist we receive Christ and all His benefits. This is not his “literal body” (pp. 12-14), for His literal body is sitting this very moment at the right hand of the Father. Thus we receive the presence and energy of His physical Body much as the Sun, though in heaven, is yet made immediately present to us when it imparts its light and its heat. Thus there is in this 

“blessed communion service… an impartation of all that the body of Christ stands for, life strength, health, fulness of supply for every need of spirit, soul, and body.” (SLS, p. 15)

And how can this be? Simpson answers:

“It is also a fellowship, a fellowship with Him and with one another. Therefore we call it the communion service. There is a Person here. We are not commemorating one who is in the Grave, but Jesus Christ who is alive today.” (SLS, p. 15)

Thus it is vital that we discern the Lord’s Body, for:

“The Lord’s table should not simply be a church service, or an ecclesiastical sermon. It should be a vail that just conceals and yet reveals the person of Jesus Himself, and Christ should be the one object to see and hear, and the one answer that your heart seeks for all its needs. To discern the Lord’s body is to recognize Him as meeting you for fellowship with Him and for a pledge of your allegiance personally to Him.” (SLS, p. 19)

Through holy communion we “enter His presence” (SLS, p. 23), not His absence, for our God is not an absent God, and He uses His own chosen means to convey the reality of who He is. That is why in the Sacrament one can “expect Him to manifest Himself, believe that He is there, recognize Him overshadowing you” (SLS, p. 23).

Moving on to Simpson’s commentary on 1 Corinthians, we see that he affirms that the elements of bread and wine: 

“are purely symbolic of higher spiritual things and the earthly and physical are only meant to be a steppingstone to the spiritual and divine.” (Ordinances, p. 208)

In other words, the bread and wine remain bread and wine. Also called emblems (Ordinances, p. 210), they function as symbols which convey the reality which they symbolize. 

“What an alphabet of truth stands out in vivid characters of light and love from this memorial table with its elemental signs and suggestive words of redeeming love!” (Ordinances, p. 211)

Thus the elements of bread and wine are steppingstones to Christ, a present Christ with which the elements in themselves are never confused. And so in them: “We are to meet with Him, and recognize Him in His personal presence” (Ordinances, p. 209).

As he discussed in The Significance of the Lord’s Supper, Simpson remains consistent in his commentary on 1 Corinthians. But here he is perhaps even more bold, for he affirms that in communion the human heart seeks: 

“to find something true after which it is feeling. That something is the real presence and the physical presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper.” (Ordinances, p. 211)

Here Simpson declares according to the plain meaning of Scripture that, although the elements of bread and wine remain bread and wine, the heart rightly seeks and finds the real and the physical presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. That is why it can be called not only communion but communication. We cannot commune with Christ’s Body apart from the Christ whose Body it is! Again, this is not the local presence of Christ’s human Body, which remains in heaven, but its life, its power, its energy, its touch, as said above in the analogy of the sun being made present by its rays. 

To conclude, although we did not touch on all that Simpson had to say on the subject, it is clear he taught the Real Presence of Christ in the holy Eucharist. This shows his profound continuity with the faith of the Reformation, whether of Anglican, Lutheran, Calvinian, or Zwinglian. What is more, this places his teaching squarely within the historic, Apostolic faith, for all that he has said of the Eucharist is eminently Scriptural and even Patristic. It is thus hoped that Simpson’s teaching will become more widely known, especially among the faithful in the Christian and Missionary Alliance churches which God so mightily used Simpson to found. For in this way Christ's presence can be more clearly felt, known, and touched.

-The Reformed Ninja