François Turretin (1623-1687) was a Reformed Protestant theologian and was generally considered to be the best Calvinist apologist besides John Calvin himself. In his primary work, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, he stated, in opposition to the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist:

He who departed in body from the earth and left the world that he might betake himself to heaven ... where he sits at the right hand of God, cannot be said to be carnally present in the sacrament. ... How can he be said to leave the world and to be raised up into heaven, if he as yet remains perpetually on earth?

This is remarkably unbiblical, and it led me to ponder the various forms of divine presence revealed in Holy Scripture. I wound up identifying no less than 20 examples:

Immaterial Divine Presence

1. God is omnipresent.

2. God can be and was specially present in empty spaces (e.g., the temple, tabernacle, and above the ark of the covenant).

3. God was “with” the victorious armies of the Israelites (Judges 6:16) and with holy men like Moses and Joshua.

4. God was present in sublime visual scenes, such as described by Isaiah, Daniel and St. John (Isaiah 6:1-7; Daniel 7:1-10; Revelation 1:12-16).

5. God was specially present in — even to the point of being equated with — the Angel of the Lord.

6. God indwells believers. The Bible says this interchangeably about all three Persons of the Holy Trinity. Once again, God is “in” physical matter (us).

7. We are continually working toward being united to God in the sense of theosis/divinization (2 Corinthians 3:18; Ephesians 4:15; 2 Peter 1:4).

8. Jesus’ disciples are “in Christ.”

9. Jesus’ disciples are “in the Father” (1 John 2:24), and (the same thing) “in him” (Acts 17:18; 1 John 2:5; 3:6).

10. Jesus’ disciples are “in the Holy Spirit” and “in the Spirit.”

 

Divine Presence Involving Physicality Wholly or Partially

11. God can be and was present in a special way in matter (the pillars of cloud and fire, the burning bush).

12. God was present in theophanies in the Old Testament.

13. God became a man, Jesus, in the incarnation (Jesus’ 33 years or so of earthly life).

14. Jesus was present for 40 days as the incarnate God the Son risen from the dead, with a resurrected body capable of walking through walls (John 20:19, 26).

15. Jesus will be physically present in his glorified post-Ascension state when he returns in the Second Coming.

16. Jesus is present sacramentally (a different sort of miraculous physicality) in the Holy Eucharist.

17. We’re mysteriously united to Jesus in his death and resurrection in baptism (Romans 6:3-8).

18. We’re united in a profound sense to Jesus’ death and resurrection on an ongoing basis (2 Corinthians 4:10; Philippians 3:10; Galatians 2:20).

19. St. Paul said that “in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions” (Colossians 1:24) and “I bear on my body the marks of Jesus” (Galatians 6:17).

20. Jesus is somehow connected to his Church, the Body of Christ; so much so that he told Paul that he was persecuting him when he was persecuting the Church (Acts 9:4-5; 22:7-8; 26:14-15).

Turretin denied the miraculous and the supernatural in many ways, and this bias led him to deny certain manifest themes in the Bible. Accordingly, he wrote a little later in his text:

The union which exists between us and Christ is nowhere said to be corporeal, but spiritual and mystical, which can be brought about in no other way than by the Spirit and faith (1 Corinthians 6:17; Ephesians 3:17).

This is untrue, since nos. 17-20 above (especially no. 19) refer to mysterious but literal corporeal aspects of our union with Jesus. Much of theology involves rather fine distinctions. But because Turretin was so hostile to Catholicism, he became a “prisoner” of his own bias, leading to false premises and erroneous conclusions drawn from them. Hence, he only regards as relevant to this discussion, nos. 13 and 15 of the types of presence above and ignores the others. Earlier, Turretin had written:

The Scriptures so often propose to us the communion of the body and blood of Christ as the foundation and source of all his blessings ... 

Isn’t it odd and sad that Turretin could so casually and frequently refer to “the body and blood of Christ” while at the same time denying that the Holy Eucharist really is that?

This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. ... If any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh. ... Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life ... For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. ... He who eats me will live because of me. ... This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever” (John 6:50-51, 53-58).

Theological falsehood and heresy always change the plain meanings of words. It’s almost as if God — in anticipating the false eucharistic teaching that appeared in the 1520s — made the truth of the matter so clear in Scripture that no one without a prior bias or constant contrary teaching could possibly deny it. Yet they do ... so our apologetic and exegetical task remains.