There is a spiritual food. Christ imparts Himself at the table of communion to believers as the true meat and drink unto eternal life.
There is, secondly, a spiritual operation. It is through the Spirit of Christ that He imparts Himself to believers.
And thirdly, there is also a spiritual mouth by which we eat and drink. And that spiritual mouth is faith.
But this entire spiritual mode of operation, this spiritual eating and drinking of Christ, takes place through the means of the signs of the broken bread and the wine that is poured out.
Let us elaborate a little on this idea of spiritual eating and drinking.
For the sake of clarity it may be well to compare this spiritual eating and drinking with the process of physical nourishment, as is also done in the article on the Lord's Supper in our Netherland Confession. First of all, in physical nourishment there is a physical organism, the human body. It cannot sustain its own life, but is dependent on the outside world. Constantly it must be supplied from without. Secondly, there is a physical substance, food and drink, that must be assimilated by that body. Because the body is physical, it stands to reason that the food it assimilates and can assimilate must also be physical. You could not feed a physical body with spiritual nourishment. In the third place, there is the longing of that body for physical food and drink: it hungers and thirsts. In the fourth place, there is the eating and drinking by the physical mouth. And finally, there is the process of assimilation, whereby the body changes the food and drink into its own flesh and blood, and thus is strengthened.
Al this can be applied spiritually. In the first place, there is a spiritual entity that must be nourished, the regenerated, inward man, which is created in Christ Jesus, but is not independent and cannot sustain its own life, but must be nourished from without. Now the proper nature of that regenerated life is spiritual. It consists of a spiritual knowledge of God in Christ, forgiveness of sin, righteousness before God, adoption unto children, holiness, hatred and abhorrence of sin, delight in the law of God. And that spiritual life must be nourished. It must be sustained, and it must grow and develop unto perfection.
Now even as the physical organism of our body cannot be nourished by spiritual food, so the spiritual entity of the regenerated man can never be nourished by material food, but must have spiritual nourishment. There therefore be a spiritual nourishment, righteousness, holiness, wisdom, light, knowledge, which is outside of that regenerated man and which can be assimilated by him. That spiritual food and drink is the one word: grace. And that grace is all in Christ. Christ is the food of that regenerated man, by which he is fed unto eternal life. For "of His fulness have we all received, and grace for grace." John 1:16. And again: "But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." Christ is the fountain of the water of life. For: "Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." Christ is the bread of life that came down from heaven to give life unto the world. John 6:33. Hence, Christ could say: "I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." John 6:35. And again: "I am that bread of life." John 6:48. And once more: "I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." John 6:51. Christ therefore is the spiritual nourishment which the regenerated man needs to sustain his life.
But also the process of assimilation by which this spiritual food and drink becomes my own, so that I become flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone, is purely spiritual. Christ must impart Himself to the regenerated believer. And the believer must eat and drink Him. And also this mode of operation cannot be physical, but must be purely spiritual. According to the Roman Catholics there is an action of Christ through the priest on that physical food by which it is changed into the body and blood of Christ. But this would place the living Christ actually beyond my reach. For that bread and wine can be taken only physically; and it can have nourishing effect only on my body. And therefore the operation in the Lord's Supper is spiritual. Christ is truly present in the signs of the broken bread and the wine that is poured out, but only in a spiritual sense. By an operation of His Spirit He imparts Himself to the believer, and that not only mystically, but also through the consciousness of the regenerate man, so that he constantly is strengthened in righteousness and holiness, in knowledge and wisdom, and grows in the grace of the Lord. And as Christ imparts Himself by His Spirit to the regenerated man, the latter eats and drinks Him, and that too, not with his physical mouth, but by the spiritual mouth of faith. Faith is the spiritual power of the soul to eat and drink Christ. And this faith whereby I receive Christ and assimilate Him is wrought and also strengthened chiefly by the Word of the gospel, but also through the signs and seals of the sacraments, in this case particularly through the signs of the broken bread and the wine that is poured out.
And herein lies the special significance of the Lord's Supper. It is not thus, of course, that in the supper a grace is imparted to us that is not and cannot be received in any other way than by eating and drinking the signs of the broken bread and the wine that is poured out at the table of the Lord. Christ always imparts Himself to the believer and feeds his soul unto everlasting life. And the chief means whereby He thus imparts Himself is always the preaching of the gospel. The sacraments add nothing to the Word. But through the signs of the broken bread and the wine poured out the Holy Spirit effects two things. In the first place, through these visible signs He strengthens the personal assurance and the personal confidence of faith, "that not only to others, but to me also, remission of sin, everlasting righteousness and salvation, are freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ's merits." Heid. Cat., Q. 21. And Secondly, the same Spirit through these same visible signs stimulates faith to a greater hunger and thirst for Christ, so that by faith we eat and drink Him unto life eternal, even as He imparts Himself to us at His table. And thus the supper of the Lord is a means unto growth in grace.
It stands to reason that a spiritual disposition is required in order to be truly partakers of the table of the Lord. The unregenerated and unbeliever cannot eat and drink Christ. He has no life that can be nourished. Like the gospel, the supper of the Lord is strictly particular. Unbelievers can indeed receive the visible signs; but they cannot partake of the essence of the supper. But there is more. Even believers are not always ready to partake of the supper of the Lord. Even as we may be sick in body, so we may also be sick spiritually. We may nourish a certain sin, of which we will not repent. We may fail to attend the preaching of the Word of God. We may love the things of the world and seek them. And in such a disposition we cannot fruitfully partake of the supper of the Lord. We must be spiritually healthy. And spiritual health is characterized in the first place by a sincere and heartfelt sorrow over sin, by a fervent longing for forgiveness and for the grace of Christ, by an earnest desire to live in sanctification, to crucify the flesh, and to walk in a new and holy life, and by the sincere love of the brethren. Only in this true spiritual disposition of heart and mind can we expect to receive the spiritual food and drink that is presented to us in the table of the Lord.
Herman Hoeksema
The Triple Knowledge, II: 629-633
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