When Christ, at the last supper, said, “This is My Body – This is My Blood”,was He talking only symbolically or did He really mean that the bread and wine were to be miraculous transformed into His real Flesh and Blood, while still retaining the outward appearance of bread and wine?
Matthew 26:26-28
26 While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, "Take, eat; this is My body."
27 And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you;
28 for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.
In this account, the bread Christ and his disciples had been eating and the wine they'd been drinking Jesus suddenly took up and declared to be his body and blood. Did any of his disciples gag and splutter in horror at the thought they had been eating the actual flesh and blood of their beloved Master? Did any of them cry out in shock, asking for clarification? Did any of Christ's disciples cringe at the thought that Jesus had been eating himself right along with them? No.
Luke 22:14-20 (NASB)
14 When the hour had come, He reclined at the table, and the apostles with Him.
15 And He said to them, "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer;
16 for I say to you, I shall never again eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God."
17 And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He said, "Take this and share it among yourselves;
18 for I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine from now on until the kingdom of God comes."
19 And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, "This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me."
20 And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, "This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.
Here, Jesus had more to say about "eating his flesh and drinking his blood" than in Matthew's Gospel. In
verse 19, Jesus plainly stated that consuming the bread he offered to his disciples was "in
remembrance of me." This accords with the apostle Paul's words:
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread;
24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me."
25 In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me."
26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.
Here it is evident that the Lord's Supper - Communion - is a ritual of memorial, the bread and blood symbolic of Christ's sacrifice on the cross of Calvary, nothing more.
First of all, I think that most people would agree that Christ certainly has the power to do that, and the Catholic response to this question has always been a resounding YES!
Christ has the power to do many things that he hasn't done. He hasn't made winged unicorns that poop rainbows, for example, or clouds made of cotton candy, or trees that sound out the Hallelujah Chorus whenever a breeze blows through them. But he could have. So?
Yes, He was talking literally and NOT symbolically, and yes, this has been the constant teaching of the Church, from apostolic times till now.
Nope. And what has been the teaching of the Roman Catholic church has not been the "constant teaching" of The Church, the Body and Bride of Christ, that extends well beyond the aegis of some senior citizen in fancy robes and a big hat.
Ever since the words of consecration were first spoken at the Last Supper, the apostles and their successors have believed in the literal meaning of Christ's words, believed in the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist.
As the quotations from Matthew and Luke clearly show, they thought no such thing, their bland response to Christ's declaration about the bread and wine demonstrating that they understood him to be speaking entirely figuratively.
However, despite all the scriptural evidence to the contrary, most protestants (non-Catholic Christians if you prefer) do not accept this teaching of Christ.
No, I accept
Christ's teaching without qualm or denial. What I don't accept is
the false teaching of the church of Rome that has used the Lord's Supper, not merely as the memorial it is, but as a means of making itself spiritually essential as the mystical distributor of the "true" flesh and blood of Christ in Communion.
Ask yourself this question. "Why do I not believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist? Is it a concept that is too difficult to understand (A "hard saying" as the Jews put it, as they walked away), or is it just because I have been told this all my life, but never seriously studied the scriptures to see if what I was taught was correct, or could it be that really deep down inside I just don’t want to believe it?
Perhaps you ought to ask yourself some questions, too:
Why, when there is obviously no such thing as transubstantiation taught in Scripture, do I believe it?
Am I so afraid of the cultic power of the church of Rome, or so long confined by its false teachings, that I can't think for myself when I consider what the Bible actually says?
Or could it be that deep down inside, I like the idea of religious cannibalism?
Therefore, first question - "What would be the consequences to my life if I choose to believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, if I choose to accept the literal meaning of Christ's words at the Last Super"?
If I take Christ's words literally, I will recognize that he was speaking about a
symbolic memorial of his Atonement at Calvary. See above.
John 6:53-63
53 So Jesus said to them, “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.
54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.
55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.
56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.
57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.
58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”
59 Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.
60 When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?”
61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this?
62 Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?
63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
So, where in this account does Jesus take out a knife and begin carving off bits of himself for folks to eat and draining himself of blood for his disciples to drink? Nowhere. Because, as Jesus said at the very end of the above quotation from the Gospel of John, "the flesh is no help at all." It is the Holy Spirit, the
non-physical, immaterial Third Person of the Godhead, who gives life, not religious cannibalism. See:
Titus 3:5, Romans 8:9-16, 1 John 4:13, John 14:16-17, etc. He does this by making of every true disciple of Jesus his "temple" (
1 Corinthians 6:19-20)
in himself, not the Lord's Supper, imparting spiritual life to all of God's born-again children.
