σῶμα

In October 1529, in a castle at Marburg in central Germany, two of the great Reformation theologians met to try to resolve their differences. Luther and Zwingli had agreed on fourteen of fifteen articles of faith. They could not agree on the fifteenth. The dispute was over the Lord’s Supper, and it crystallized around a single Greek word in the words of institution.

When Christ took bread, broke it, and said, “This is my body” — touto estin to sōma mou — what did He mean by is?

Luther said is meant is. The bread Christ offered to His disciples actually was His body, given by His Word, received as His Word said it would be received. Zwingli said is meant signifies or represents. The bread was the sign; Christ’s body was in heaven; the Supper was a memorial of an absent Lord. At some point in the proceedings, by tradition, Luther wrote the Latin words HOC EST CORPUS MEUM — “this is my body” — on the table in chalk, and refused to move from them.

The colloquy ended without agreement. The Lutheran and Reformed branches of Protestantism have remained divided on the Supper for the five centuries since. The dispute is not over yet. And the dispute is, in its essential character, a dispute over the Greek word sōma — and the verb estin that goes with it.

This is the chapter on sōma. The previous chapter on anamnēsis set up the framework: the Lord’s Supper is participatory memorial, not merely psychological recollection. This chapter takes the next step. The participation is in Christ’s body. Christ’s body is really, truly, substantially given in the bread at the Supper. The Lutheran position has held this against five centuries of pressure to soften it, and the pressure has not slackened.

The Word

σῶμα (sōma), pronounced SOH-mah. A neuter noun, third declension. The family includes the adjective sōmatikos (σωματικός, “bodily”), used several times in the New Testament including in Colossians 2:9 (“in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily”). The plural sōmata (σώματα) appears in various passages for multiple bodies.

The word’s basic semantic field is body in the most general sense. Greek had a separate word for flesh — sarx, treated in Chapter 10 — and the two words occupy related but distinct territory. Sarx in New Testament usage often carries moral weight, particularly in Paul, where it names fallen human nature in its rebellion against God. Sōma is more neutral — the bodily aspect of human existence, the body as the medium through which the person acts in the world. Paul tells the Corinthians to glorify God in their body (1 Cor 6:20), uses sōma for the resurrection body (1 Cor 15:35–44), and calls the church the body of Christ (1 Cor 12:12–27). The word’s range is wide. Context governs which sense is in play.

For this chapter, the dominant New Testament use is the body of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. The words of institution use sōma; the Pauline discussion of the Supper in 1 Corinthians 10 and 11 uses sōma; the entire Reformation dispute over the Supper turns on what is meant by sōma in these passages. The other senses of sōma — physical body, ecclesiological body of Christ, resurrection body — remain in the New Testament’s broader use, but the sacramental sense is what the chapter is built around.

Range of Meaning

In its New Testament usage, sōma covers:

• The physical human body. The basic sense, used throughout the New Testament for what we mean by “body” in ordinary speech.
• The body as the locus of moral action. Particularly in Paul, where the body is to be presented to God (Rom 12:1) or kept from sexual immorality (1 Cor 6:13–20).
• The corpse. Matthew 27:58–59 uses sōma for Jesus’s body laid in the tomb.
• The body of Christ as the church. 1 Corinthians 12:12–27, Romans 12:4–5, Ephesians 4:4, Colossians 1:18.
• The body of Christ given on the cross. Hebrews 10:10 — believers are sanctified “through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”
• The body of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. The institution narratives and 1 Corinthians 10:16–17, 11:23–29.

The last three senses converge in Lutheran sacramental theology. The body of Christ given on the cross is the body of Christ given at the table. The body of Christ at the table is what unites the body of Christ as church. One body. Multiple deliveries. One Christ.

Where You’ll Meet It

“Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body.’” (Matthew 26:26, ESV)

The words of institution. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Paul all preserve this saying with minor variations; all four use sōma. Christ takes bread, blesses it, breaks it, gives it, and says: touto estin to sōma mou. The verb estin — “is” — is the third person singular of einai, the Greek verb of being. It asserts identity. This (the bread Christ is holding and giving) is (genuine identity-statement) my body. The sentence is grammatically simple. The implications are five centuries of theological controversy.

“The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.” (1 Corinthians 10:16–17, ESV)

Paul’s interpretive comment on the Supper. The word translated “participation” is koinōnia — which the closing chapter of Part IV (Chapter 35) will treat. Paul names the bread as a participation in the body of Christ. The verb koinōnia names sharing-in, communion-with — not symbolic representation of an absent reality, but actual sharing in a present reality. The bread is the participation. The body is what we participate in. And the verse extends naturally to the ecclesiological body: because there is one bread, we (the participants) are one body. The sacramental body and the ecclesiological body are deeply joined.

“Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.” (1 Corinthians 11:27–29, ESV)

Paul’s warning. The unworthy participant is “guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord” — enochos tou sōmatos kai tou haimatos tou kyriou. The body and blood are present in the elements; that is what makes unworthy reception serious. If the bread were merely symbolic, the warning would be diluted; one cannot be “guilty” concerning a symbol in the same weighty way one can be guilty concerning the Lord’s actual body. The Lutheran tradition has consistently read this verse as one of the strongest internal-to-Paul arguments for Real Presence. The body is there; the unworthy eat the body; the eating is guilt or judgment for those who do not have faith. This is the doctrine the Lutheran tradition has called manducatio indignorum — the eating of the unworthy.

“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.” (1 Corinthians 12:12, ESV)

The ecclesiological sōma. The church is one body — multiple members, one Christ. This use of sōma extends throughout Paul’s letters (Romans 12, Ephesians 4, Colossians 1) and is distinct from the sacramental sōma of the institution words. But the two are connected: the one body of Christ in the Supper is what unites the one body of Christ in the church. The same body. The same Christ. Different aspects of one reality.

“And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” (Hebrews 10:10, ESV)

The crucified sōma. Hebrews names Christ’s body, offered once for all, as the means of the believer’s sanctification. The body that suffered on the cross is the body that sanctifies. This connects directly to the Supper: the body offered then is the body given now. The cross and the table are joined by the same body of Christ, given for the same purpose — the salvation of sinners.