the Eucharist ..
Nowhere is the difference between Luther and Zwingli regarding the sacraments clearer than in their views of the Eucharist. While Luther denied transubstantiation, he nevertheless affirmed a form of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. Zwingli rejected such a notion. For him, the Eucharist was a mere memorial of Jesus’ death, a ritual sign Jesus left his Church by which to remember his act of self-surrender. The bread and wine of the Eucharist did not change in their being; at best, they changed in their significance because of the context in which they were received.
Luther and Zwingli disagreed vehemently regarding Jesus’ words at the Last Supper. Luther understood “This is my body” to refer to the Real Presence. For Luther, “is” meant “is,” so that when Christ had said “This is my body,” he meant to affirm that something had happened to the Eucharistic elements. Zwingli, on the other hand, understood “This is my body” to mean “This signifies my body.” He didn’t believe anything happened, other than a change of meaning in the minds of the congregants.
The disagreement between Luther and Zwingli represented a first major division among the various wings of the Reformation. Calvin would later disagree with both Luther and Zwingli on the nature of the sacraments, especially the Eucharist.
Calvin, with respect to the Eucharist, he staked out a position between Luther’s belief in the Real Presence on the one hand and Zwingli’s purely symbolic, memorial view on the other. Christ’s Body and Blood were dynamically or virtually “present” in the Eucharist and received through faith. In other words, the grace of Christ was present, but not the substance of his Body and Blood. This view, sometimes called the Dynamic or Virtual Presence, makes it difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish Christ’s presence in the Eucharist from his presence in Baptism or any other occasion of grace. For the “power” of Jesus’ Body and Blood are present in other places as well. What distinguishes the Eucharistic presence of Jesus, then, from his presence in, say, Scripture attended to with faith or a sermon devoutly received?