Borgen’s book, by the way, was used as the primary model for Rob Staples’ Outward Sign and Inward Grace: The Place of Sacraments in Wesleyan Spirituality. Dr. Staples was my professor of Sacramental Theology at Nazarene Theological Seminary. His book is the first of its kind to originate from the Holiness wing of Methodism. So, if you are a part of one of the Holiness denominations (e.g., Nazarene, Free Methodist, Wesleyan), I recommend Staple's book, first, followed by Borgen for a more in-depth study. The following quotes identify Wesley’s understanding of Christ’s Real Presence in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
The first quote is an excerpt of a letter from John’s mother, Susannah, in response to John’s description of Christ’s presence as understood by one of his friends. Susannah writes:
I own I never understood by the ‘real presence,’ more than what he has elegantly expressed,
that ‘the divine nature of Christ is then eminently present, to impart, by the operation of his
Holy Spirit, the benefits of his death to worthy receivers.’ And surely the divine presence of
our Lord, thus applying the virtue and merits of the great atonement to each true believer,
makes the consecrated bread more than a sign of Christ’s body; since by his so doing, we
receive not only the sign, but with it the thing signified, all the benefits of his incarnation
and passion!1
John
responds to his mother by saying:
One
consideration is enough to make me assent to his and your judgement concerning
the
Holy Sacrament; which is, that we cannot allow Christ’s human nature to be
present in it,
without allowing either con- or transubstantiation. But that His divinity is so united to us
then, as He never is but to worthy receivers, I firmly believe, though the manner
of that
union is utterly a mystery to me.2
Borgen, himself, asserts:
Wesley rejects the Lutheran views of consubstantiation and ubiquity, which
require a
communicating of the properties of the divine nature to the human.
Christ is only
omnipresent according to his divine nature; therefore, in order
to communicate the benefits
of his human life and death to us, these must be,
as it were, at the disposal of Christ as
omnipresent God. According to Wesley,
no corporeal, carnal, material, substantial or
localized presence of Christ in
the sacrament can be accepted.”3
Borgen summarizes Wesley’s view by saying:
Wesley’s conception of the “Real Presence” excludes all ideas of corporeal,
physical-
material, substantial or localized presence, tied to or subsumed under
the visible elements.
In fact, although he would insist upon a close
relationship between the res and the signum,
he shies away from
any view of a static presence, connected organically, although spiritually
with
the elements after consecration. This would impose a form of necessity upon
God, as
well as lead to the dangers of con- or transubstantiation. Instead,
Wesley holds a view of the
“Real Presence,” which may properly be called “Dynamic”
or “Living Presence”: where
God acts, there he is. The “objective presence”
cannot be thought of as the static presence of
an object, but rather as that of
a living and acting person working through the means.4
Borgen quotes one of the Wesley Hymns to illuminate John’s views:
The Cup of
Blessing, blest by Thee,
Let it thy Blood impart;
The Bread thy Mystic Body be,
And chear each languid Heart.5
Thus, “As the cup conveys or imparts the Blood; so the bread conveys or imparts
the ‘mystic
Body’; and both the bread and the cup . . . are said to be what
they convey.6
_____________________________________________________________________________
1. Borgen,
p 63.
2. p 63.
3. p 65
4. p 68-69
5. p 69
6. p 69
