Church's Views on the Eucharist Part 4

Let us not forget Calvin. “According to this view, the bread and wine represent the body and blood of Jesus. They do not in any way become the literal body and blood themselves. We do not literally chew on Jesus' flesh with our teeth or literally drink Jesus' blood with our mouths. But when we partake of the Lord's Supper, the Holy Spirit uses the symbolic message that Jesus is our spiritual nourishment, to strengthen our faith in Jesus. And faith is the human experience of our mystical union with Christ. How can we have this mystical union with Jesus in His humanity if Jesus is now at the right hand of God and is not returning to earth bodily until the Second Coming? The Holy Spirit accomplishes this is a way beyond our understanding, not through Jesus' coming down to earth at this time, but through our mystically ascending to heaven. The Christian's identification with the risen Christ is so real and significant that there is a genuine sense in which the Christian is now where Christ is. The Christian is seated with Christ in the heavenlies (Ephesians 2:4-6). The Christian has come to the heavenly Jerusalem and to Jesus and His blood (Hebrews 12:22-24). We are where Jesus is through the mystical union effected by the Holy Spirit. Our subjective experience of the mystical union grows as our faith grows. The Holy Spirit uses the communion service to increase our faith, to strengthen our faith, to confirm our faith. Thus through the communion service, we can have communion with the total person of Christ, including His body which was broken and His blood which was shed for our salvation.