timfost
Puritan Board Senior
I haven't thought about the physical breaking of bread in the Lord's Supper. I've been at churches that have physically broken it and others that had pre-cut portions. I was reading Ursinus's exposition on Heidelberg 77, which says:
1. Is there a general historic consensus on this, or do some understand the breaking part as a means of distribution and not of spiritual significance?
2. What is the practice of your church?
Thanks!
Christ then broke the bread not merely for the purpose of distributing it, but also to signify thereby, 1. The greatness of his sufferings, and the separation of his soul from his body. 2. The communion of many with his own body, and the bond of their union, and mutual love. “The bread which we break is it not the communion of the body of Christ; for we being many are one bread, and one body; for we are all partakers of that one bread.”(1 Cor. 10:16.) The breaking of the bread is, therefore, a necessary ceremony both on account of its signification, and for the confirmation of our faith, and is to be retained in the celebration of the Supper: 1. Because of the command of Christ, Do this. 2. Because of the authority and example of the church in the times of the Apostles, which in view of this circumstance, termed the whole transaction, the breaking of bread. 3. For our comfort, that we may know that the body of Christ was broken for us, as certainly as we see the bread broken. 4. That the doctrine of transubstantiation and consubstantiation may be rejected, and abandoned.
1. Is there a general historic consensus on this, or do some understand the breaking part as a means of distribution and not of spiritual significance?
2. What is the practice of your church?
Thanks!