Zwingli: Three Dimensions

Abstract

The Zurich reformer Huldrych (or Ulrich) Zwingli defined his doctrine of the Lord's Supper against both the Catholic and Lutheran teachings. His doctrine turned on the word "significat." When Jesus says of the bread at his Last Supper "This is my body," Luther read the word "is" to mean quite literally that the bread IS, in the context of the sacrament, the body of Christ. Zwingli on the other hand understood Jesus to mean that the bread SIGNIFIES his body. The sacramental meal, however, is not for that reason an insignificant event in the life of the church. Zwingli taught that the Lord's Supper, experienced in the present, helped the congregation to call Jesus' sacrifice in the past to mind, and it also provided them with a foretaste of the heavenly banquet to come in the future. Therefore, the Lord's Supper is experienced in "three dimensions" -- past, present, and future.