A Presbapterian is someone who claims to be Reformed, or Presbyterian, but has a view of the Sacraments that is essentially Baptist, meaning, believing the Sacraments to be essentially just symbols.

The Westminster Confession makes it clear that Sacraments have two parts: the outward sign and the inward reality signified, and that there’s a spiritual relation, or “Sacramental Union” between the two, such that when we speak of the Sacraments, we’re speaking about both the outward signs and what they signify. 

So a Presbapterian view essentially agrees with the Reformed perspective on the outward signs. Presbapterians will still support Infant Baptism unlike actual Baptists. However, they define the Sacraments as only the outward sign, rather than a union of the signs and what they signify. So, Presbapterians have a 50% Reformed view of the Sacraments, because they will use Reformed language about the signs, but will not properly connect those signs to what they signify.

It is extremely common for Presbyterian pastors to say that “Baptism doesn’t save.” It is true that the Reformed don’t believe in Baptismal Regeneration, which is that the outward sign of Baptism automatically causes one to be regenerated regardless of who they are, but we do believe in Baptismal Efficacy, which is that salvation through faith alone can still be called the “effect” of Baptism because of the Sacramental Union. It is true that the outward sign in Baptism, the sprinkling with water, does not save in and of itself. But the inward reality signified by the water, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, does save, and Baptism is a union of both. Therefore, saying “baptism doesn’t save” is a Presbapterian view of Baptism. 

Regarding the Lord’s Supper, the outward sign is the eating of bread and wine, and the thing signified is feeding on the body and blood of Christ. Presbapterians will indeed use Reformed language regarding the outward sign. They’ll take communion seriously, unlike many Baptists, they’ll restrict who can take it and who can’t, and they may even call it a means of grace. What they will not say, however, is that we truly feed on the body and blood of Christ. 

John Calvin wrote condemnations of the Presbapterians (though he obviously didn’t call them that, as that’s a word that I made up) in his “Institutes of the Christian Religion” in the section about the Lord’s Supper. As he says, “That Christ is the bread of life by which believers are nourished unto eternal life, no man is so utterly devoid of religion as not to acknowledge. But all are not agreed as to the mode of partaking of him. For there are some who define the eating of the flesh of Christ, and the drinking of his blood, to be, in one word, nothing more than believing in Christ himself. But Christ seems to me to have intended to teach something more express and more sublime in that noble discourse, in which he recommends the eating of his flesh” and elsewhere, “I am not satisfied with the view of those who, while acknowledging that we have some kind of communion with Christ, only make us partakers of the Spirit, omitting all mention of flesh and blood. As if it were said to no purpose at all, that his flesh is meat indeed, and his blood is drink indeed; that we have no life unless we eat that flesh and drink that blood; and so forth.” (Institutes IV 17) 

So if someone says the Lord’s Supper is a mere symbol, that’s not even Presbapterian – that’s just straight up Baptist. According to Calvin, what Presbapterians will say is, we have some sort of experience of Christ or communion with Him, but they won’t mention us actually feeding on His flesh and blood. Or, they will define eating His flesh and drinking His blood (which is inescapable, as our Lord says this explicitly in John 6) as simply a metaphor for believing in Christ. It’s true that it’s only possible to feed on Christ by faith, but at the same time, we cannot draw an identity between one and the other.