Defenders Podcast

Dr. William Lane Craig opens the eschatology unit of Defenders 3 with a study of the Second Coming of Christ. He surveys Old Testament messianic prophecy (Isaiah 9:6-7, Isaiah 11:1-10, Daniel 7:13-14) as background, then turns to Jesus' Olivet Discourse in Mark 13, where Christ predicts wars, persecution, the "desolating sacrilege," and his own return "in clouds with great power and glory." Craig notes roughly 250 New Testament references to Christ's return and previews next week's look at Paul's parallel teaching.

Dr. William Lane Craig evaluates competing views of the Lord's Supper — transubstantiation, consubstantiation, and the Reformed spiritual-presence view — before defending his own position that the Lord's Supper is a memorial ordinance rather than a sacrament. He argues transubstantiation lacks scriptural support, showing that Jesus' words of institution and the "bread of life" discourse in John 6 use the same kind of symbolic, Semitic imagery found elsewhere in Paul (the rock as Christ, Hagar and Sarah as the two covenants) and throughout John's Gospel (new birth, living water, spiritual food), where literalistic readings are consistently shown to be misunderstandings. He also contends that a literal eating of Christ's body confuses the nature of his physical, humanoid resurrection body. He extends similar objections to consubstantiation, adding that it improperly mixes Christ's human and divine natures in violation of Chalcedonian Christology. Turning to the Reformed view, he argues that Christ's spiritual presence in the Supper is real but no different from his presence in prayer, worship, or fellowship generally, concluding that the Supper is best understood as a memorial in which believers remember Christ's death, examine themselves, confess sin, and commune with him spiritually.

Having examined the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation in previous episodes, Dr. Craig now turns to three more views of the Lord's Supper. He explains the Lutheran doctrine of consubstantiation — where Christ's body and blood are present alongside the bread and wine, grounded in Luther's doctrine of the communication of attributes (communicatio idiomatum). He then contrasts this with Calvin's Reformed view of a spiritual presence and communion with Christ, and finally with Zwingli's view of the Supper as a memorial ordinance rather than a sacrament. Next time: an assessment of these four competing views.

Dr. William Lane Craig continues his examination of the Lord's Supper with a deep dive into the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist as a sacrifice. Beyond transubstantiation, Catholics hold that the Mass is a propitiatory offering to God for the sins of both the living and the dead. Dr. Craig traces this doctrine from Irenaeus's early view of the Eucharist as a thank offering, through its codification at the Council of Trent, to its further development at Vatican II — exploring what it means for Christ to be "re-presented" to God in each celebration of the Mass.

Defenders: Doctrine of the Church (Part 9): Transubstantiation