A question to all Evangelical Protestants who deny the "real presence" of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist: Why do you have no problem believing the literal words of Genesis that God created the world in 6 literal days, yet you deny the literal words of Jesus who proclaimed His flesh to be the "living bread" and at the Last Supper, declared that "THIS IS MY BODY" and "THIS IS MY BLOOD," in very literal terms?
Take a look at John 6:1-14. In this passage, Jesus performs a great miracle, foreshadowing the Eucharist, by taking five small barley loaves and two small fish and making them feed the thousands of people on the mountain who had followed him up there.
Jesus elaborates by equating the bread which he had served earlier, to the manna sent by God to the Jews in the desert (Exodus 16:4; Neh. 9:15; Psalm 78:24,25), to the ultimate "bread of life" (v.35). Take a look at John 6:32-70.
Jesus' teaching went beyond the Passover. Jesus first repeated what he said, then summarized: "'I am the living bread which came down from heaven; 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.'.
His listeners were stupefied because now they understood Jesus literally-and correctly. "The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, 'How can this man give us his flesh to eat?'" (John 6:51-52) He again repeated his words, but with even greater emphasis, and introduced the statement about drinking his blood: "Truly, truly, I say to you, 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, and I will raise him up at the last day. 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" (John 6:53-56).
Notice that Jesus made no attempt to soften what he said, no attempt to correct "misunderstandings," for there were none. Our Lord's listeners understood him perfectly well. They no longer thought he was speaking metaphorically. If they had, if they mistook what he said, why no correction?
On other occasions when there was confusion, and Jesus was speaking in parables, He explained just what he meant (for example, Matt. 13, 15, 16:5-12). In this case, however, where people were not only confused, but began to fall away from Christ, disgusted and bewildered by what He was telling them. It is here, in the rejection of the Eucharist, that Judas fell away; look at John 6:64. "After this, many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him" (John 6:66). This is the only record we have of any of Christ's followers forsaking him for purely doctrinal reasons. There was no effort by Jesus to correct their understanding, or explain a supposed parable. Instead, he repeated himself for greater emphasis.
Twelve times he said he was the bread that came down from heaven; four times he said they would have "to eat my flesh and drink my blood." John 6 was an extended promise of what would be instituted at the Last Supper-and it was a promise that could not be more explicit. Or so it would seem to a Catholic. But why do Fundamentalists insist that Jesus was merely speaking in metaphor?
Merely Figurative?
"The phrase 'to eat the flesh and drink the blood,' when used figuratively among the Jews, as among the Arabs of today, meant to inflict upon a person some serious injury, especially by calumny or by false accusation. To interpret the phrase figuratively then would be to make our Lord promise life everlasting to the culprit for slandering and hating him, which would reduce the whole passage to utter nonsense" (O'Brien, The Faith of Millions, 215). For examples of this use, see Deut. 28:53, 32:42; 2 Samuel 23:17; Psalm 27:2; Isaiah 9:20, 49:26; Ezekial 5:10; Micah 3:3; Revelation 17:6, 16.
Fundamentalist writers who comment on John 6 also assert that one can show Christ was speaking only metaphorically by comparing verses like John 10:9 ("I am the door") and John 15:1 ("I am the true vine"). The problem is that there is not a connection to John 6:35, "I am the bread of life." "I am the door" and "I am the vine" make sense as metaphors because Christ is like a door-we go to heaven through him-and he is also like a vine-we get our spiritual sap through him. There is little symbolic or metaphoric similarity between Christ's flesh and bread, and the parallel is not the same as Jesus referring to Himself as the door, the vine, the light, the rock, etc.
But Christ takes John 6:35 far beyond symbolism by saying: "For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats (or feeds on) me will live because of me" (John 6:55-57).
The Greek word used for "eats" (trogon) is very blunt and has the sense of "chewing" or "gnawing." This is not the language of metaphor. What's more, the Greek word for "body" in John 6 is "sarx", which can only mean physical flesh. This is certainly not the language of metaphor. It creates a very graphic, literal image of eating human flesh.
At this point, a Fundamentalist will point to John 6:63 to refute any "literal" meaning of eating Jesus' flesh: "It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life." Former Catholic turned fundamentalist James McCarthy wrote, "Eternal life was to be obtained by believing in Jesus' words. Eating His flesh would be profitless."
The problem is that Mr. McCarthy is mistaken in his quote above. Nowhere did Jesus say "MY flesh is of no avail." Rather, he stated that "the flesh is of no avail." Indeed, keep in mind the context of these words, the language and tone of what Jesus said, and recall also that in believing and following the words Jesus preached can help discern the man who lives by the spirit and he who lives by the flesh (1 Cor. 2:14-3:3; John 3:3-6)
Indeed, as Peter recognized Jesus as the Messiah (Matthew 16), even though he did not resemble God, so to speak, it is also through the Spirit that we would recognize that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist.
Christ's flesh, which overcame the power of death, is hardly "profitless." (1 Cor. 15:39-45; 2 Cor. 3:6, 4:10-14, 5:4-5; Romans 8:11; 1 Peter 3:18)
At the Last Supper, Jesus was celebrating Passover with His disciples on the eve He would be given over to the Roman authorities and be crucified. He takes the bread and the wine and declares, "THIS IS MY BODY WHICH SHALL BE GIVEN UP FOR YOU" and, "THIS IS MY BLOOD, WHICH SHALL BE SHED FOR YOU."
The Apostles and early believers recognized the sacrificial character of Jesus' instruction, "Do this in remembrance of me" ("Touto poieite tan eman anamnasin"; Luke 22:19, 1 Cor. 11:24-25) which is better translated "Offer this as my memorial offering."
In Greek: "Touto poieite eis ton emen anamnesin" translated "Do this in remembrance of Me"
POIEIN ("DO") has sacrificial overtones. In the Septuagint (LXX), the Greek version of the OT, there are about seventy sacrificial uses of poiein. One example: "Now this is what you shall OFFER [Gr poieseis] upon the ALTAR: two lambs a year old, day by day, continually" (see Exodus 29:38).
ANAMNESIS ("REMEMBRANCE") also has sacrificial overtones. It occurs only eight times in the NT and the Greek OT. All but once (Wisdom 16:6) it is in a sacrificial context: "There is in these SACRIFICES a REMINDER [Gr anamnesis] of sin year after year" (Heb 10:3).
"And you shall put pure frankincense with each row, that it may go with the bread as a MEMORIAL portion [Gr anamnesis] to be OFFERED by fire to the Lord" (Lev 24:7).
"On the day of your gladness...you shall blow over your burnt OFFERINGS and over the SACRIFICES of your peace OFFERINGS; they shall serve you for REMEMBRANCE (Gr anamnesis) before your God" (Num 10:10).
Psalm 38 (39) is titled "A Psalm of David, for the MEMORIAL OFFERING" [Gr anamnesin]. Psalm 70 (71) is titled, "To the choir-master. A Psalm of David, for the MEMORIAL OFFERING" [Gr anamnesin].
In these cases the term ANAMNESIS can be translated as "memorial portion," "memorial offering," or "memorial sacrifice."
Thus in the remaining two occurances of ANAMNESIS (Luke 22:19; 1 Cor 11:24), Christ's words "DO THIS in REMEMBRANCE of Me," can be translated as "OFFER THIS for my memorial SACRIFICE." Given the sacrificial character of the Eucharist, there is little doubt this translation is appropriate. To tell someone, "offer this for my memorial sacrifice" is to direct him to fulfill a priestly function (see Heb 5:1; 8:3). So the Catholic Church has correctly regarded Christ's words as the institution of the apostles' priesthood and as the basis for all future priests who offer the Eucharistic sacrifice.
Now take into account that the Last Supper was a celebration of Passover. Christ is not only equating Himself with the sacrifice of the Passover. In Exodus 24:8, the blood of the original covenant was shed in the sacrifices Moses did of the bulls. Christ Jesus proclaims that His blood will be the blood of the "new covenant." (Luke 22:20; Matthew 26:28).
In Exodus 24, after offering the sacrifice, Moses received the Law (Torah) from Yahweh. It was the "way" of the Jews, their guidance of Faith. The "way" in Hebrew is "Halakha" and refers to the Law as such in Exodus. It is also the same word describing Jesus when He declared that He is "the WAY, the Truth and the Life" (John 14:6).
Following the sacrifice given by Moses, and the blood of the Old Covenant, Moses went to the mountain and received the Law from Yahweh. Following Christ's New Covenant being established in the Eucharistic sacrifice, what happens? The fulfillment of the Law, Jesus is crucified. Salvation is paid in full by Jesus (Acts 20:28; 1 Cor. 6:20, 7:23; 2 Peter 2:1). Pretty neat!
When a Passover sacrifice is offered, it is always customary, rather necessary, to eat the flesh of the sacrifice, in order to make the act complete.
Let's take a look at what the rest of the New Testament has to say on this issue.
Paul wrote to the Corinthians: "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?" (1 Cor. 10:16). So when we receive Communion, we actually participate in the body and blood of Christ, not just eat symbols of them. Paul also said, "Therefore whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. . . . For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself" (1 Cor. 11:27, 29).
"To answer for the body and blood" of someone meant to be guilty of a crime as serious as homicide. How could eating mere bread and wine "unworthily" be so serious?
The Greek here and in the parallel Gospel passages (Matt. 26:26; Mark 14:22) reads: "Touto estin to soma mou." Paul's version differs slightly: "Touto mou estin to soma "(1 Cor. 11:24). They all translate as "This is my body." The verb "estin" is the equivalent of the English "is" and can mean "is really" or "is figuratively." The usual meaning of "estin" is the former (check any Greek grammar book), just as, in English, the verb "is" usually is taken literally.
The literal meaning can't be avoided except through violence to the text-and through the rejection of the universal understanding of the early Christian centuries. The writings of Paul and John reflect belief in the Real Presence.
But forget about the Greek, what about the Aramaic? Some Fundamentalists say the word "is" is used because Aramaic, the language Christ spoke, had no word for "represents." Jesus just had to do the best he could with a restricted vocabulary. Those who make this feeble claim are behind the times, since, as Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman showed a century ago, Aramaic has about THREE DOZEN WORDS that can mean "represents."
Paul, who wrote his epistles in Greek, knew very well how to translate the Aramaic speech of Jesus and the Apostles into Greek, and what was meant by "This is my body," as illustrated above. This simply reinforces that there was a complete consensus as to what Jesus taught to the Apostles, and what teaching was to be passed down and transmitted by the Church.
Of course throughout the centuries, even to MARTIN LUTHER this was ALWAYS THE UNDERSTANDING OF SCRIPTURE. The Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodoxy, some Methodists and some Lutherans understand and accept this Biblical truth. So why is it rejected so widely now by Fundamentalists?
There are several Church fathers who wrote about this:
Ignatius of Antioch, who had been a disciple of the apostle John and who wrote a letter to the Smyrnaeans about A.D. 110, said, referring to "those who hold heterodox opinions," that "they abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in his goodness, raised up again" (6:2, 7:1). This was to combat the Docetist heretics who denied the humanity of Jesus, claiming Jesus was only of divine nature. Here Ignatius (who was a disciple of John the Evangelist himself) equates the flesh of the Eucharist to that same flesh which was crucified on the Cross, just like in John 6.
Ireneaus, a student of Polycarp who was a disciple of the Apostle John as well, used the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist in order to prove the resurrection of the Christian dead: "The Eucharist becomes the body of Christ� How can they say that the flesh which is nourished with the body of the Lord and wit his blood passes into corruption and partakes not of life?" (Ireneaus, Against Heresies, 4.18.5; 5.2.3)
Denying the flesh of either is to deny our salvation, because if Christ did not die and rise from the dead, our faith is in vain (1 Cor. 15).
Forty years later, Justin Martyr, wrote, "Not as common bread or common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nourished, . . . is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus" (First Apology 66:1-20).
Rather than take up any more space quoting old church fathers confirming this teaching since the earliest days of the church, I will offer you a link which provides a series of quotes from the first century and beyond regarding this doctrine:
This is My Body: Eucharist in the Early Fathers by PhilVaz
If those who knew the Lord Jesus Christ taught their students that Jesus was truly present in the Holy Communion bread and wine - that when consecrated the bread and wine, while retaining the appearance of bread and wine, actually become the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, obviously they understood what Jesus was teaching. It was very literal!
And lo' and behold! Protestant scholars do agree!
Protestant early Church historian J. N. D. Kelly writes that in the early Church "the Eucharist was regarded as the distinctively Christian sacrifice. . . . Malachi's prediction (1:10-11) that the Lord would reject Jewish sacrifices and instead would have "a pure offering" made to him by the Gentiles in every place was seized upon by Christians as a prophecy of the Eucharist. The Didache indeed actually applies the term thusia, or sacrifice, to the Eucharist. . . .
"It was natural for early Christians to think of the Eucharist as a sacrifice. The fulfillment of prophecy demanded a solemn Christian offering, and the rite itself was wrapped in the sacrificial atmosphere with which our Lord invested the Last Supper. The words of institution, 'Do this' (touto poieite), must have been charged with sacrificial overtones for second-century ears; Justin at any rate understood them to mean, 'Offer this.' . . . The bread and wine, moreover, are offered 'for a memorial ("eis anamnasin") of the passion,' a phrase which in view of his identification of them with the Lord's body and blood implies much more than an act of purely spiritual recollection" (Early Christian Doctrines [Full Reference], 196-7).
Not until "rationalism" in Europe would this doctrine be challenged, necessitating a ruling from the Second Lateran Council in 1215 to reiterate centuries old teaching rooted in the Scripture. Many fundamentalists, not knowing history, nor understanding the purpose of Church councils, have tried to convince people that the idea of transubstantiation did not come into the Church until the Middle Ages, pointing to the date in which the Second Lateran Council met. Obviously, nothing could be further from the truth, as I have already illustrated. Doctrines only necessitate councils when they are challenged by heretics. (More on this later, in my discussion about Church Authority.) Since there was no movement in the first millennium of Christianity seriously posing a challenge to the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, there was never a need to convene a council on the matter.
In spite of infinite amounts of writings, teachings and the like, fundamentalists like to accuse the Catholic Church constantly re-crucifies Jesus, when they state that "Christ's sacrifice was completed on Calvary." Therefore the whole idea of the Mass is unscriptural.
The Mass, of course, does not re-crucify Christ. The Catholic Church specifically says Christ does not die again-his death is once for all. It would be something else if the Church were to claim he does die again, but it doesn't make that claim. Through his intercessory ministry in heaven and through the Mass, Jesus continues to offer himself to his Father as a living sacrifice, and he does so in what the Church specifically states is "an unbloody manner"-one that does not involve a new crucifixion.
For His sacrifice is ETERNAL, once and for all, and its effects are permanent.
But let's take a look at a verse which perplexes fundamentalists, for which I have yet to know one fundamentalist group to have an answer. In Zechariah 14:20-21, we see that sacrifices will CONTINUE even after the coming of the Messiah: "On that day� all who come to sacrifice will take some pots and cook in them."
How can this be if Jesus' sacrifice is final? Well, the answer is: it IS FINAL. It is the eternal sacrifice made present (as we all partake in the salvation Jesus promises, we partake in breaking the bread and drinking the wine, which are the Body and Blood of Jesus) during the Mass.
Fundamentalists are adamant that there is no need of a priesthood on earth, because there is no need for sacrifices. But why would God reinstate an antiquated system done away with His ultimate sacrifice on Calvary?
Take a look at Psalm 110:4, a Messianic prophesy where the Lord speaks to the Messiah : "The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind: 'You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.'"
Keep in mind that by definition a priest offers a sacrifice. What did Melchizedek bring to Abraham as an offering? Bread and wine (Genesis 14:18).
Jesus offered His life and His body as an eternal sacrifice. But He also, in line with the priesthood of Melchizedek, offered at the Last Supper, bread and wine, declaring them to be His body.
Keep in mind that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever" (Heb. 13:8 ). What Jesus did in the past is present to God now, and God can make the sacrifice of Calvary present to us at Mass. "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes" (1 Cor. 11:26).
"Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise--the fruit of lips that confess his name. And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased." (Hebrews 13:15-16)
Jesus does not offer himself to God as a bloody, dying sacrifice in the Mass, but as we offer ourselves, a "living sacrifice" (Rom. 12:1). Jesus died, but He also rose from the dead! And as we offer ourselves as a living sacrifice along with Christ's sacrifice, is this not, in our role as Christians, as the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ, one flesh with the Saviour, our duty to follow Him as He called us to partake in His death and resurrection? (Matthew 16:24; Romans 6; 1 Cor. 15; Colossians
As this passage in Romans 12 indicates, the offering of sacrifice does not require death or the shedding of blood. If it did, we could not offer ourselves as living sacrifices to God. Jesus, having shed his blood once for all on the cross, now offers himself to God in a continual, unbloody manner as a holy, living sacrifice on our behalf.
