Welcome to Ask the Church, our series where we seek to answer your questions about church worship, practice, and theology in under five minutes.
Today’s question is about transubstantiation and the Prayer of Humble Access.
There’s no way in the world I can cover everything that swirls around the Eucharist in just five minutes(!), but I want to give a brief summary.
The Prayer of Humble Access
The question comes from the language in the Prayer of Humble Access:
“Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood.”
The question was: Is that not the doctrine of transubstantiation? Don’t Anglicans reject that doctrine?
The first thing to notice is that the prayer is quoting Jesus in John 6: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” (John 6:53).
So in that prayer, we’re simply taking Jesus’s words and offering them back to the Father. And this is important: the prayer itself doesn’t take a stand on how to interpret those words.
You could pray it metaphorically, or you could pray it literally. The prayer isn’t endorsing one doctrine or another. It’s simply taking Jesus at His word and then using those words back to the Father.
Effectual Signs
To understand what Anglicans believe, you need to step back and look at how we think about the Sacraments.
The Anglican framework is the idea of effectual signs (or efficacious signs): signs that actually do the thing they signify.
We know what signs are. A map is a sign of a country or city. A speed limit sign tells you the law of the road.
A sign points beyond itself.
But an effectual sign accomplishes the thing it signifies.
A dollar bill is a sign of wealth. It isn’t wealth itself, but it functions effectually like wealth—you can buy and sell with it.
A wedding ceremony is a sign of two people being joined together. But it’s also the moment God actually does it. In the very symbol, God acts!
That’s what a Sacrament is: a sign that accomplishes the very thing it signifies.
So when we come to the Eucharist, it is a sign of Jesus’s Body and Blood given to us. And because it’s an efficacious (or effectual) sign, it’s not just a picture. It actually is the offering of His Body and Blood.
Why Anglicans Rejected Transubstantiation
Now, to the question of transubstantiation.
The Anglican Reformers, in the Articles of Religion (Article XXVIII), rejected transubstantiation—not because they denied that Jesus’s Body and Blood are offered in the Eucharist. They actually affirmed that!
What they rejected was the mechanism—the explanation of how. In their rejection of transubstantiation, the Anglican Reformers used Aristotelian philosophy and the definition of a Sacrament to explain that the substance changes while the accidents (appearance) remain. The Reformers argued that the mechanism of transubstantiation was not the best way to explain it. And, it’s not compatible with Scripture, or with the Early Church’s way of speaking.
So they said: No, that mechanism doesn’t work. But they weren’t rejecting the idea that Christ’s Body and Blood are truly given. Quite the opposite!
What We Believe
So what do Anglicans believe?
We believe that Christ’s Body and Blood are truly offered to us in the Eucharist.
How? That’s where Anglicanism is silent. The Reformers were content to say, “God hasn’t told us how, so we’re not going to make something up.”
Article XXVIII says the offering is spiritual, not physical. That doesn’t mean that the offering of His Body and Blood, just because it is spiritual rather than physical, is any less real. It simply means that the ordinary belief for Anglicans is that this offering is in a spiritual manner, vs. a physical one. But, the gift is real. His Body and Blood are truly offered.
It’s also true that many Anglicans over the centuries have said, “I think it’s both spiritual and physical.” But regardless of that stance, the official Anglican doctrine is that Jesus’s Body and Blood are truly offered to us in this moment.
How? That’s in the mystery of God. But truly offered to us.
Richard Hooker’s Lament
Richard Hooker, the great Anglican theologian of the late 1500s, wrote about this in The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. He lamented that we spend so much time arguing about how it happens instead of rejoicing in what is.
And what is?
That Jesus offers Himself to us in this moment.
In the Eucharist, Jesus gives us the fullness of Himself. Week after week, with open hands, we receive the very life of God.
How? That remains in God’s mystery. But enjoy, Hooker says.
I hope this answer helps.
As always, if you have questions, send them to steven@incarnationrichmond.org.
And now, go in the grace of our Lord.