A Wesleyan Theology Of The Lord’s Supper

To John Wesley, the Lord's Supper was a powerful sacrament. He believed that even repentant unbelievers could take of the bread and cup and find salvation. Above all, Communion was a means of santification by which believers are transformed into the image of Christ. Wesley's Understanding of the Eucharist In his eucharistic thought, John Wesley (17031791), the founder of Methodism, was consciously and faithfully Anglican. As such, in his Articles of Religion for the Methodists, he took over verbatim the twenty-eighth article of the Anglican Thirty-nine Articles of Religion (1563), which rejected transubstantiation to be a senseless opinion hurtful to piety (Works of John Wesley 7:64; 9:2-78). He was just as strongly opposed to Luther's view of consubstantiation. He insisted that Christ is bodily present in heaven and not on the Table in either the Catholic or Lutheran sense. However, Wesley did believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, putting him in opposition to Z…