Nevin's Eucharistic Theology

Definition

Old Reformed

Quoting Calvin, Nevin states that Christ's presence in the supper is "real, substantial, and essential" (Nevin, 58). The Reformed view rejects Roman transubstantiation and Lutheran consubstantiation (an unfortunate term). It holds two points: that the sacrament carries "an objective force," not merely representational, and that the grace involved "is the substantial life of the Saviour" (Nevin, 62). "Hence in the mystery of the Supper, his flesh and blood are really exhibited always in their essential force and power, and really received by every worthy communicant."

Puritan

The "Puritan Theory," as Nevin calls it, is considered deficient in five contrasted points (Nevin, 117).

1. Specific vs General

   • Old Reformed: The supper is a unique form of worship, offering a "peculiar communion with Christ in this ordinance, which we have in no other ordinance" (Nevin, 102).

   • Modern Puritan: Christ is present in all parts of worship in the same way; as Nevin quotes a Puritan theologian, "he is present in the same manner in them all" (Nevin, 118).

2. Mysterious vs Intelligible

   • Old Reformed: The supper is a supernatural mystery, a "miracle, transcending both nature and our own understanding" (Nevin, 118).

   • Modern Puritan: The supper is simple and rational, with means that are "intelligible to the humblest capacity... and therefore not easily susceptible of mystical or superstitious perversion" (Nevin, 119).

3. Objective vs Subjective

   • Old Reformed: The supper has objective power. The grace is not created by the believer's mind but is "mysteriously lodged, by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the sacramental transaction as a whole" (Nevin, 120).

   • Modern Puritan: The supper is entirely subjective. Its power is reduced to "a mere occasion, by which religious affections are excited and supported in the breast of the worshipper" (Nevin, 122).

4. Person vs Benefits

   • Old Reformed: You receive the person of Christ. The believer partakes not just in Christ's benefits, "but the very substance itself of the Son of Man" (Nevin, 74).

   • Modern Puritan: You receive the benefits of Christ's work. The believer is made partaker only of the "privileges and blessings resulting... from their Saviour's finished work" (Nevin, 115).

5. Humanity vs Divinity

   • Old Reformed: Union is through Christ's humanity. The divine-human life is communicated, for Christ "infused this virtue also into the flesh with which he clothed himself, in order that life might flow over to us from it continually" (Nevin, 68).

   • Modern Puritan: Union is with Christ's spirit or doctrine. The language of "body and blood" is seen as a "violent metaphor," and any real communion with Christ's human nature is dismissed as "incomprehensible" mysticism (Nevin, 114, 125).

Detraction

Nevin's work soon found academic opposition. His chief critics, represented by B. S. Schneck in his 1874 book, "Mercersburg Theology Inconsistent with Protestant and Reformed Doctrine", argued that what Nevin called the "Old Reformed" view was in fact itself the  radical departure from the Protestant faith.

The central charge was that Nevin's system displaced the historic foundation of Protestantism. Critics asserted that he shifted the core of salvation from the atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross to the mystery of the Incarnation. In this new framework, salvation was no longer grounded in justification by faith in Christ's vicarious death, but in a mystical and "organic conjunction with the Saviour" through a "literal, substantial conveyance...of the life of Christ incarnate" (Schneck, 28).

This led to three main points of opposition:

1. It Undermined Justification by Faith

   • Schneck and his allies argued that Nevin’s system replaced the forensic act of God declaring a sinner righteous with a process of being made righteous through a mystical infusion. This, they contended, was a view dangerously similar to Roman Catholic doctrine and inconsistent with the Heidelberg Catechism, which grounds salvation in the "only sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which He has once accomplished on the cross" (Schneck, 30).

2. It Promoted a "Romanizing" View of the Church

   • Critics rejected Nevin's ecclesiology, in which the visible Church becomes the "actual body of Christ" and the ongoing "depository and continuation of the Saviour's theanthropic life itself" (Schneck, 26, 76). For them, this dangerously elevated the visible institution and its rites, making them magical channels of grace rather than signs and seals of God's promise.

3. It Redefined Faith

   • In the Mercersburg system, critics charged, faith was no longer primarily trust in the finished work of Christ. Instead, it became a "sort of organ of the soul which lays hold of or apprehends the theanthropic life of Christ in a real, substantial way" (Schneck, 52).

Schneck would go so far as to characterize Nevin's theology as an all-new system that was "unsound to the core, anti-Protestant, and so anti-Reformed," concluding that it was, in effect, "another gospel" (Schneck, 39, 41).

Evaluation

This issue, just one part of the whole system of the Mercersburg theology, is a forgotten episode in American Reformed history. The RCUS generally comes from the non-Mercersurg wing, and the UCC isn't exactly known for its high view of the sacrament. A Mercersburg contingent persists in the form of The Mercersburg Society, which (in 2025) is affiliated with the Penn Central Conference of the UCC. 

Maybe this debate should remain forgotten. I will admit that I am partial to Nevin's case. I think another century of American church history has demonstrated a further decline in the practice of the Lord's Supper, especially among the Baptists and Non-Denoms. Yet, it seems so much more practical to follow Nevin's thoughts and travel ad fontes to the Catechism rather than resurrect the debates of his time, so far as his criticisms may have been true.

Care must also be exercised in tracking the logic of Nevin's Eucharistic theology in the context of the whole Mercersburg movement. This movement, for better or worse, has failed to maintain relevance in American churches, and involves so many more theological debates than simply the nature of communion.