A Study of the Scriptures and of Patristic Doctrine.

From the book “Not everyone who says Lord, Lord”

Unless otherwise indicated, all biblical quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, Old and New Testaments, Old Version by Casiodoro de Reina (1569), Revised by Cipriano de Valera (1602) [Reina-Valera], 1960 Revision, With references. Text © United Bible Societies 1960. (English renderings follow the Douay-Rheims version.)

True presence or only a symbol?

I will take the chalice of salvation (Ps 116:13).

Shortly after Martin Luther, the Protestant churches rejected the belief that Jesus Christ is truly and sacramentally present in the consecrated bread and wine. They say these are only symbols of Christ’s presence, and for that reason they do not adore the consecrated elements as Catholics do. Their argument is that Christ spoke in a parable when He spoke of eating His flesh, and that the Lord’s Supper is nothing more than a remembrance: Do this in remembrance of me.

If our separated brethren are right, they lose nothing. But if the Catholic Church is right — that is, that the bread and wine efficaciously and literally mean the body and blood of Jesus Christ — then the brethren lose a great deal, because they do not have the opportunity to receive this food that gives eternal life.

“Transubstantiation, that is, the change of the substance of the bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper, cannot be proved by Holy Scripture, but is repugnant to the plain words of the Bible….” (Art. 18 of the Constitution of the Methodist Church of Mexico, 1975, and Discipline of the Methodist Church of Mexico, 1991, p. 54).

“That doctrine which maintains a change of substance of the bread and wine into the substance of the body and blood of Christ… has been and is the cause of a great many superstitions, and moreover of gross idolatry” (Westminster Confession of Faith, Publicaciones el Faro, Mexico, 1984, 1993, Chap. 29, art. F).

However…

Those who receive Communion must be fully convinced that what appears to be bread is not bread, even though it tastes so, but the body of Christ; and that what appears to be wine is not wine, even though the taste is so (Cyril of Jerusalem, A.D. 350, Catechetical Lectures).

First, it is important to know what the word “transubstantiation” means. It is the belief that the body-blood-soul and divinity (in other words, Christ Himself) is truly present under the appearances of bread and wine.

What does the Bible say?

As our brethren affirm, it is true that Jesus spoke of Himself in symbols: I am the door (Jn 10:9); I am the vine (Jn 15:1). On these occasions none of those who heard Jesus took Him literally. No one asked, “If you are a door, where is the latch? If you are the vine, where are the leaves, and why are you not green?” Everyone understood that He was speaking in symbols and that it made sense. Christ is like a door — we go to heaven through Him — He is also like a vine because He gives us life when we abide in Him. On other occasions, when the people did not understand Him, He corrected their misunderstanding. It is interesting to note that on some of these occasions the misunderstanding had to do with food: He said to them: I have meat to eat, which you know not. The disciples therefore said one to another: Hath any man brought him to eat? Jesus saith to them: My meat is to do the will of him that sent me. (Jn 4:34). Jesus cleared up the matter. See also “the leaven of the Pharisees” in Mt 16:5-12.

But it was not so in John 6 and in the Last Supper. Jesus gave no explanation, because it was clear. There is no likeness between “I am the vine,” “the door,” and “I am the bread of life” of Jn 6:35. Jesus goes far beyond symbolism: “My flesh is meat indeed, my blood is drink indeed” (v. 55). But let us look at the whole context of John 6.

What happened in the sixth chapter of John?

The context of the chapter is important: Jesus worked a miracle with bread; He fed all the people. Afterward, He taught that He is the bread that came down from heaven. He Himself is food (Jn 6:35-41).

The reaction of the Jews during the discourse is extremely important. Jesus began to speak literally, and the Jews took Him at His word when He told them that He had come down from heaven. That is why they were displeased: How then saith he, I came down from heaven? (Jn 6:42). But Jesus really did come down from heaven; they took Him literally and He did not correct them. Our separated brethren will agree with us that Jesus literally came down from heaven. But it is sad that, while the brethren literally believe this part of Jesus’ discourse in John, they do not take the rest of the chapter that way. For them it is symbolic. We shall now see that it is not.

Jesus continued to speak in a literal manner as before: No man can come to me, except the Father, who hath sent me, draw him; and I will raise him up in the last day (Jn 6:44). The brethren do believe that here Jesus spoke literally when He said, “I will raise him up.” The Catholic Church also believes it. But afterward the brethren, for historical and not biblical reasons, say that what follows is symbolic.

I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying: How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said to them: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you (Jn 6:51-53).

We see that Jesus, in John 6:51 to 60, had to keep repeating that my flesh is meat indeed and that the people took Him at His word. How can this man give us his flesh to eat? And Jesus did not correct them! He did not tell them that He was speaking only in parables and that they should not take Him literally[1].

Once again Jesus repeated: my flesh is meat indeed, my blood is drink indeed (cf. Jn 6:55). And once again the Jews reacted. In v. 60 we read that the Pharisees said: This saying is hard; who can hear it? Then we read that: Many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him (v. 66). It is the only case in which it is stated that Jesus was abandoned by some disciples on account of what He was saying. And JESUS DID NOT PREVENT THEM FROM WITHDRAWING FROM HIM. He did not say to them: “Do not go, I am only speaking symbolically. Do not misunderstand me.” He risked losing all His apostles, yet He kept speaking in a literal manner. And the Apostles grasped that He was speaking this way. That is why it was a “hard” saying.

Why were the Pharisees and disciples able to grasp that Jesus was speaking literally when He said that He came down from heaven and that His flesh is meat indeed, while the brethren think that Jesus spoke only literally when He said that He came down from heaven in the earlier verses? What kind of teacher would Jesus be if everyone takes Him literally when it ought not to be so?

When He said that His flesh is meat indeed, the brethren say it was a parable. But the text gives no indication that the first expression is literal and the second is not. In fact, after saying that His flesh is true food, Jesus once again told them that He is the bread that came down from heaven (Jn 6:58). It makes no sense to say that, of two things Jesus said literally, the first phrase is literal, the second is symbolic, and the third is literal — that is to do violence to the context.

Underlying the expression “My flesh for the life of the world” there is an Aramaic formula in which “flesh” substitutes for “body” to designate the creaturely reality of the human person. “For the life” translates the Greek word HYPER, which in the accounts of the Last Supper, when Christ institutes the Mass (see below), denotes the sacrificial and expiatory character of Christ’s death.

     The separated brethren cite verse 35, where Jesus says that “whoever comes to me” shall not hunger and “whoever believes in me,” as proofs that chapter six is symbolic. They claim that when Jesus calls Himself “the bread of life” He is only saying that if we believe in Him He will nourish us spiritually as bread nourishes us physically. They say that we “eat” and “drink” Christ by coming to Him and by believing in Him. But as we have seen, the context is clearly literal and not symbolic. Martin Luther himself believed in the true presence of Christ (see Luther’s Collected Works No. 7, Wittenberg Edition)[2].

Moreover, Jesus did not correct them when the disciples stopped following Him for taking Him literally (Jn 6:66)[3]. They were of His own race and knew how to understand Him; they could also see His face and knew His manner of speaking. That is why they were displeased when He spoke of His flesh being meat indeed. If He had been speaking only of instituting a meal as a blessing, it would not have caused His disciples to abandon Him, because the Jewish religion and the customs of the ancient world were full of special meals. Look how many times Jesus took part in meals when He visited people, and how He used the image of the banquet in His parables.

We notice how literal Jesus’ words are in His use of the Greek word TROGO instead of PHAGO. TROGO is more specific in the sense of to chew, to gnaw, to munch, whereas PHAGO is a general word for eating. The only other places where the NT has TROGO are Mt 24:38 and Jn 13:8. IT NEVER MEANS TO EAT SYMBOLICALLY[4]. Furthermore, the Jews already knew that Jesus was speaking of literal eating, because they asked How can this man give us his flesh to eat? (v. 52), even before Jesus used TROGO.

Another reason to be sure that Jesus was speaking literally is that in Jesus’ time, “to eat someone’s flesh” in a symbolic sense was associated with persecution, violence, betrayal, and slaughter: You that hate good and love evil: that violently pluck off their skins from them, and their flesh from their bones. Who have eaten the flesh of my people, and have flayed their skin from off them: and have broken and chopped their bones as for the kettle, and as flesh in the midst of the pot (Mic 3:2-3). Whilst the wicked draw near against me, to eat my flesh, my enemies that trouble me, have themselves been weakened, and have fallen (Ps 27:2). And he shall turn to the right hand, and shall be hungry: and shall eat on the left hand, and shall not be filled: every one shall eat the flesh of his own arm (Is 9:20). And I will feed thy enemies with their own flesh: and they shall be made drunk with their own blood, as with new wine: and all flesh shall know, that I am the Lord that save thee (Is 49:26). (See 2 Sam 23:15-17 and Apoc 17:6 and 16.) If Jesus had spoken figuratively, He would be saying: I assure you that unless you persecute, betray, and kill, you have no life. He who commits violence has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

Some brethren add that the words cannot be literal because Jesus says that it is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing (Jn 6:63). But Jesus does not say that “my flesh” profits nothing, but “the flesh.” In the Bible “flesh” refers not only to the physical body of a human being but also to sin in contrast with the life of the Spirit: For when we were in the flesh, the passions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members, to bring forth fruit unto death (Rom 7:5 and 1 Cor 2:14-3:4). We walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. For they that are according to the flesh, mind the things that are of the flesh; but they that are according to the spirit, mind the things that are of the spirit (Rom 8:4-5).

Jesus was not offering to eat His body at that moment. That would have been cannibalism[5]. What He was saying was that, by the power of the Holy Spirit — it is the spirit that quickeneth — soon His body would be glorified. Remember that the context of the chapter is the Passover (Jn 6:4). He was pointing to the moment after His death when He would give His disciples His body transformed by the Spirit for “the life of the world.” Because the spirit gives life: the bread that I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world (Jn 6:51)[6].

In the Mass it is not the body of Jesus-man, like you and me, that we receive, but the body of the glorified Christ. Christ suffers no more; there is no blood of red and white corpuscles. That is why we say “Body of Christ” and not “Body of Jesus.” As the High Priest did at the Last Supper, so in the Mass the priest, representing Christ, pronounces over the bread and wine the same words: This is my body, this is my blood. And the Spirit gives life: And the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life (Jn 6:63). This same Spirit that gave life to Creation (Gen 1:2) and formed the life of the Messiah in the womb of Mary transforms the bread into the body of Christ.

To cite Jesus’ words “my words are spirit and life” in order to affirm that Jesus’ words are symbolic makes no sense when we reflect: Jesus’ words are spirit and life, of course. But not all of them are symbolic.

When God says a thing, it happens (Is 55:11). His word is effective: This is my body (Mk 14:22-24). He did not say “This symbolizes my body” but “This IS.” Christ having said “this is my body,” who is going to say: “No, Lord, this is not your body. It is bread, nothing more”? To say “this is my house, this is my friend” does not mean “this is a symbol of my house, a symbol of my friend”[7] . For 1,500 years, until after Luther, no one disputed this belief.

It is a miracle, and it is not by chance that Jesus Christ gave this discourse after the multiplication of the loaves. The miracle was to feed the body. Now He wished to feed the soul.

You seek me, not because you have seen the signs, but because you did eat of the loaves, and were filled. Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth unto life everlasting, which the Son of man will give you… (Jn 6:26-27). Our fathers did eat manna in the desert…. Jesus said to them:… Moses gave you not bread from heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven (Jn 6:31-32). Jesus affirmed that the food He would give is superior to the multiplied bread and to the manna (vv. 31-32). If the bread and wine are not changed into the Body and Blood of Christ, these words are lies. Ordinary bread and wine are no better than the manna and than that which miraculously fed five thousand men.

After all, if it is as the brethren say — that Christ was not speaking of His own flesh because “the flesh profiteth nothing” (v. 63) — then the whole chapter MAKES NO SENSE. We would have to understand that, even though Jesus has just commanded His disciples to eat His flesh, He then says that to do this makes no sense (“profiteth nothing”)! “Eat my flesh, but you will see that it is a waste of time.” Is this what Jesus is saying? Of course not. The phrase the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life DOES NOT MEAN “what I have just said is symbolic.” The word “spirit” is never taken that way in the Bible. Moreover, if Jesus were making clear that He was speaking in symbols and that — “the flesh [literally speaking] profiteth nothing” — why did His disciples nevertheless leave Him? It is important to note also that at the Last Supper Jesus uses the word body. “This is ‘my body,’” and not flesh. This makes the matter clearer still, because in Jewish thought there is no dualism between body and soul. “My body” means the person in his entirety. “This is my body” means “this is I.”

In Luke 22:19 we read: do this for a commemoration of me. Evangelicals think this means that celebrating the Supper is nothing more than an intellectual remembrance, recalling what Jesus did that night. For them He is present only spiritually through the “communion” of the believers when they celebrate together.

But we have to understand that Jesus was celebrating the Passover, and for the Jews to “make memorial” is not merely to recall a historical fact, a remembrance of something past, but a RELIVING. A “memorial” for Christians and Jews is an efficacious proclamation of the mighty work that God does anew. It means that the unrepeatable event of Calvary is made real in the present through the Holy Spirit. On the altar, the bread and wine do not remain merely as symbols, but become the very Jesus Christ of that first Good Friday at the place of the Skull (Mk 15:21). (See the following chapter.) It is something of the past that enters spiritually into the present, as the Greek word ANAMNESIS expresses (1 Cor 11:25).

In Exodus 24:8 we read: And he took the blood and sprinkled it upon the people, and he said: This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words. These words prefigure Jesus’ words when He took the wine: Drink ye all of this. For this is my blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins (Mt 26:27-28). To complete the covenant, Moses used the blood of a lamb and not a symbol of it. So too when Jesus, the Lamb of God, signed the New Covenant in His blood. It is important to note that the only place where Jesus speaks of the New Covenant in His blood is at the Last Supper, when He shared the cup of wine[8].

How did Paul understand Jesus’ words?[9]

Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord (1 Cor 11:27). Or, in the Latin American Version: If anyone eats the bread and drinks of the cup of the Lord unworthily, he sins against the body and blood of the Lord.

Paul was speaking of the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. And to sin against the bread is to sin against the body (not against the bread). To sin against the cup is to sin against the Blood (and not against the cup). The bread is the body. To sin against God is to sin against the Creator, because God and Creator are one.” How could the sin bound up with “eating” be so great if it were only bread and wine? (See v. 29 onward.) The Creator does not give us merely “little things that symbolize.” He sent His Son to take our poor flesh, and the Son gives us Himself. What great love!

In v. 29 Paul uses the word DIAKRINO (to discern)[10]: he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, not discerning the body of the Lord, eateth and drinketh judgment… Therefore, the Corinthians were not discerning, or were doubting, that it was the body of Jesus Christ. If it were not so, we would have to ask ourselves: why be judged with sickness and spiritual death (v. 30) if it were only the bread they were abusing? Paul says they were guilty of sinning against the body and blood of Christ (v. 27); but how, if He were not physically present in the meal? Paul does not say they sin against the Lord’s Supper. One cannot sin against something if one is not present. The conclusion is clear: he who eats unworthily is guilty with regard to what he eats.

The chalice of benediction, which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? And the bread, which we break, is it not the partaking of the body of the Lord? (1 Cor 10:16)

A pamphlet called Roman Catholics and Communion, from the group Evangelical Outreach, argues that if it were true that Jn 6:53 is interpreted literally — that to eat His flesh and drink His blood gives eternal life — then how could Zacchaeus (Lk 19:9) have been saved if Communion was instituted only at the Last Supper (Lk 22:15-20)? For the Catholic Church this question is the same as asking how the Patriarchs of the OT could be saved without knowing and believing in Jesus Christ. The answer is that God does not ask the impossible, such as, for example, believing in Christ before He was born, receiving Communion before instituting Communion (in the case of Zacchaeus), or a mentally disabled person believing in Christ to be saved when he lacks the mental capacity. Jesus would not ask the “good” thief to be baptized when he could not (Lk 23:42-43). This pamphlet says that the host MUST have the taste of flesh if it truly is flesh. But this argument is like saying that Jesus must have looked like God-Omnipresent when He was on earth and not like an ordinary Jew if He truly was God. Nevertheless, He appeared as an ordinary man. Who are we to say how God must or must not act? If He wills that the host retain the same taste, that is His will.

Foreseen in the OT

It is very important to read Exodus 12:11ff to understand what Jesus was doing and thinking when He celebrated the Last Supper during the feast of the Passover.

Each year the Jews relive the flight from Egypt when they celebrate the Passover in their homes, following God’s orders: The Lord spoke to Moses… on the tenth day of this month let every one take a lamb… And they shall take of the blood thereof, and put it upon both the side posts, and on the upper door posts of the houses… And they shall eat the flesh that night… and unleavened bread… And thus you shall eat it: you shall gird your reins, and you shall have shoes on your feet, holding staves in your hands, and you shall eat in haste: for it is the Phase (that is, the Passage) of the Lord (Ex 12:1-11). Literally the flesh of a lamb and living blood!

For the Jew this feast and the manner of celebrating it is a perpetual custom by command of the Lord (Ex 12:17).

Why eat in haste as God commands, if today the Jew does not have to flee from the Egyptians? It is because he is reliving the event. It is thus with Catholics when we celebrate the Mass: we relive the Last Supper, the New Passover, when we come out of the slavery of sin. And as we saw above, it is more than an intellectual remembrance. It is not the same meaning as a national holiday in which one simply remembers the past but does not relive it, does not make present a past event. Our Passover is different: IT IS TO RELIVE THE LAST SUPPER, an encounter with Jesus IN HIS FULLNESS in the “Breaking of the Bread” (Lk 24:30-31).

He hath satisfied the empty soul, and hath filled the hungry soul with good things (Ps 107:9). Blessed is he… whose hope is in the Lord his God… who giveth food to the hungry (Ps 146:5-7).

How would you feel if, being hungry, a child’s father were to give him an artificial apple (of wax or of wood) that symbolizes a real fruit? Terrible! Jesus said: What man is there among you, of whom if his son shall ask bread, will he reach him a stone? Or if he shall ask him a fish, will he reach him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, HOW MUCH MORE will your Father who is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? (Mt 7:9-11). Nevertheless the brethren say that Jesus gives us only a symbol of the Bread of Heaven. If we say that we are hungry, and if Jesus says to us: Labour for the meat which endureth unto life everlasting, which the Son will give you …and the bread that I will give is my flesh (Jn 6:27-51), will He give us something artificial that is only a symbol — something that symbolizes it, like the wax apple that only represents real food? Lord, we hunger for you What father among you, if his son asks him for bread… how much more will your Father give good things…

Brother, perhaps like the Jews you think that this saying is hard, who can hear it? To believe in Jesus is an act of faith and of the will, not of the wisdom of man, says Paul (1 Cor 1:19)[11]. If you keep withdrawing from the Church that Christ founded, you follow the example of some of the disciples who also withdrew from Jesus on that day (Jn 6:66). It is better to follow Peter, the leader of the Apostles and of us, as Jesus wills (Jn 21:15-17; Mt 16:18-19). Return to the true Church, because Jesus Himself said he that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood HAS ETERNAL LIFE. If the manna of the OT, something miraculous but only bread, was called the corn of heaven and the bread of angels (Ps 78:24-25), how much more is the Bread Come Down from Heaven: Jesus Christ!

In summary, we can say that there is a profoundly spiritual sense in John 6: Jesus is the spiritual bread sent by the Father. His giving us His flesh points to His death on the cross. Eternal life is the force that drives the words of this chapter (Jn 6). But the glory of Christianity is that He is present not only symbolically, but physically as well. Because we are physical, God offers this dimension to our faith in order to bless us. That is why we take part in the sacrifice of Christ not only by believing in Jesus with our mind, but also by receiving His body. As in a Christian marriage the two are one flesh (Mk 10:8), so it is with Christ and His spouse the Church (Eph 5:31-32). Christ physically enters into us and becomes one with us. It may seem ridiculous, but as Paul says, God uses absurd things that to the Gentiles are foolishness (1 Cor 1:23).

Jesus used wine and not grape juice

Many of our brethren try to convince us that Jesus took a kind of non-alcoholic wine called “must,” this because they condemn all use of liquor, and even condemn Catholics for being drunkards. But what does the Word of God say?

God’s promise included a land with wine. And the floors shall be filled with wheat, and the presses shall overflow with wine and oil (Joel 2:24). And the Lord of hosts shall make unto all people in this mountain, a feast of fat things, a feast of wine, of the purest wine… (Is 25:6. See Neh 8:10). God knows how to distinguish between the good and the bad use of wine; He approves the good use. Furthermore, if it were only “grape juice,” how could Isaiah speak of “the purest wine” (other translations: “exquisite wines”)? The Apostle Paul also speaks of using wine for illnesses: Do not still drink water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake, and thy frequent infirmities (1 Tim 5:23).

If Jesus did not want us to drink wine, why change the water into wine at the wedding of Cana? (Jn 2). At Jewish weddings, the feast lasted at least a week (Gen 29:27 and Jgs 14:10-12.) Jesus doubled the quantity of wine! It is not correct to say that this wine had no alcohol. The same Greek word OINOS is used here that Paul uses to say that one must not get drunk; he also used it to condemn the Corinthians for getting drunk at the Lord’s Supper (although drinking in moderation was not wrong: What, have you not houses to eat and to drink in?… (1 Cor 11:20-22). This means that this “wine” has alcohol. If not, why forbid getting drunk if it is only grape juice? In John 2:7-10, the word wine is the same Greek word that Paul uses in his first letter to Timothy (3:8 and 5:23). The steward (master of the feast) of the wedding would not have said what good wine this was if it had been only juice!

The Assemblies of God biblical theologian Stanley M. Horton says that must is “new wine, it is not grape juice, but a word that means an especially intoxicating wine, the one made from sweet grapes” (The Holy Spirit Revealed in the Bible, Editorial Vida, USA, 1976, 1992, revised edition). This statement comes from one who is against drinking!

Jesus did not get drunk, but He did drink wine. The Pharisees criticized Him for not fasting; they even called Him a glutton, and a drinker of wine (Mt 11:19). They would not have criticized Him for drinking wine if He had never drunk it. We see the contrast with John, who did not drink: John came neither eating nor drinking (like the Evangelicals), and they say: He hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say: Behold a man that is a glutton, and a wine drinker (Mt 11:18-19).

It is clear that the Bible condemns drunkenness (Gal 5:21; Eph 5:18). But it says other things about the use of wine as well. In Psalm 104:15 we read that God makes wine to be produced, which gladdens the heart of man. Drinking wine is not the same as getting drunk. It is the excessive quantity that is bad. Deacons should not drink too much wine: not given to much wine, says Paul (1 Tim 3:8).

The Catholic Church is against drunkenness (but not against the person); her wisdom and maturity allow her to distinguish between its good and bad use. The Bible says that to judge and criticize the drunkard is worse than the drunkenness itself (Gen 9:21-27). In citing Galatians 5:20-21 to criticize Catholics who get drunk, the brethren forget that Paul also condemned, at the same time, sectarianism and divisions (Latin American version), divisions and factions (Dios Habla Hoy).

Come, eat my bread, and drink the wine… (Prov 9:5).

And I set food before them (Hos 11:4).

Jehovah’s Witnesses celebrate their “supper” only once a year, the Presbyterians four times a year, the Baptists generally once a month. But the Church follows the first Christians, who celebrated every week (Acts 20:7 — the first day of the week). Do not let another week pass without being able to eat the bread of life which Christians have eaten since the first century.

“I am not a Roman Catholic because, as an Evangelical, I believe that the participation in the Lord’s Supper (or Holy Supper) is a symbolic commemoration of the death of Christ… and therefore I could never believe the incredible assertions of the Catholic Church that its priests have the mysterious power of changing ordinary bread and wine into the very flesh and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ”[12] .

Now we know that this way of understanding the Catholic belief is incorrect. It is not the priest who works the miracle, but the Holy Spirit Himself through him. It is not that we believe because we understand how the bread is changed into the body of Christ. We believe because Jesus said it: He has words of eternal life.

What does the Early Church say?

The true presence of Christ

  • Ignatius of Antioch (A.D. 110): Letter to the Romans, 7:3, “the bread is the flesh of Jesus Christ, the wine the blood.”
    Letter to the Smyrnaeans, 6:2-7:1, “certain evil ones withdraw from the church for not confessing that the Eucharist is the flesh of our savior Jesus Christ, the same which suffered for our sins”
  • Didache (9): The offertory prayers of the Mass come from this chapter. (14): The Mass is “a pure sacrifice.” This is the sacrifice of which the Lord said, ‘In every place and at every time a pure sacrifice is offered to me because I am a Great King.’
  • Justin Martyr (A.D. 151): First Apology 65, 66. Justin describes the Catholic Mass that they celebrated in that time. In chapter 66 Justin says that the bread is not just any bread nor the wine just any drink, but Jesus, who by the power of His word nourishes us with His body and His blood, the very body and blood of our nature which He takes on in becoming man. “For we have received from the Apostles that Jesus said ‘This is my blood’ and it was given to them.”
  • Irenaeus (A.D. 189): Against Heresies, 4:32-33: “The wine and the bread, on receiving the words of consecration, become the body and blood of Christ.”
  • Clement of Alexandria (A.D. 191): The Instructor (Paedagogus), 1:6:43:3.
  • Tertullian (A.D. 210): On the Resurrection of the Dead, 8.
  • Hippolytus (A.D. 217): Fragment of the Commentary on Proverbs.
  • Eusebius: Proof of the Gospel (Demonstratio Evangelica).
  • Origen (A.D. 248): Homilies on Numbers, 7:2.
  • Tertullian: On Prayer, On the Resurrection of the Body, The Chaplet (De Corona)
  • Cyprian (A.D. 251): Epistle to Those Who Fell Away, 15-16.
  • First Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325), Canon 18.
  • Aphrahat (A.D. 340): Treatises, 12:6.
  • Cyril of Jerusalem (350): Catechetical Lectures, 19:7 and 22:6-9.

“There was no true controversy (about the true presence of Christ in the Mass) in the first ten centuries of the church” (p. xiii).

“The faith of all times is the same. At the beginning of the second century, St. Ignatius of Antioch expressed the common faith, in opposition to the Docetist error, with the graphic expression that the Eucharist is <<the flesh of Our Savior Jesus Christ, which has suffered for our sins, and which the Father has raised up by His good pleasure>> (Letter to the Smyrnaeans).

“Cyrillonas (fourth century): ‘the bread changed into the true body of Jesus, so truly that at that Last Supper Jesus.. raised Himself up out of love and held up His own body in His hands.’ (Hymns, Homilies on the Pasch of Christ #1)

“The sacrificial character (of the Eucharist) is manifestly indicated in Sacred Scripture. We find, in effect, typically sacrificial expressions, principally in reference to the blood, of which it is said: <<shed for many unto remission of sins>> (Mt 26:28)… Greater force is given by the fact that St. Luke says <<the chalice>> is shed (22:20), for thus it appears more clearly that it is not a matter of the blood shed on the cross, but of the blood contained in the chalice. It is, therefore, the sacrifice offered by Jesus at the Last Supper in indissoluble union with the sacrifice of the cross” (p. 21).

From the book Textos Eucarísticos Primitivos (Early Eucharistic Texts), Volume I (from the Gospels to the end of the fourth century). J. Jesús Solano, Editorial B.A.C., Spain, 1952.

The Protestant scholar J. N. D. Kelly admits that “Eucharistic teaching, it should be understood at the outset, was from the beginning realistic without question; that is, the consecrated bread and wine were taken and treated and designated as the Body and Blood of the Saviour… Ignatius (of Antioch) roundly declares that the bread is the Flesh of Jesus, the cup His Blood… He teaches that the bread and wine are truly the Body and Blood of the Lord” (Early Christian Doctrines, pp. 440, 197-198).

Banquet and Sacrifice

The Mass (or Eucharist) is the principal worship of the Church. This celebration is derived from the Last Supper, and is divided into two parts: the Word of God, OT and NT, and the breaking, the breaking of the bread mentioned in Acts 2:42. A model of this celebration is that of Jesus with the disciples of Emmaus. He explained to them that the OT referred to Him, and afterward celebrated with them the breaking of the bread (Lk 24:27-30). We see the first Christians following this example: And on the first day of the week, when the disciples were assembled to break bread, Paul discoursed with them, being to depart on the morrow…. And when he had gone up, and had broken bread, and tasted, and talked a long time to them, until daylight, so he departed (Acts 20:7-11).

A Sacrifice

“In this sacrament (the Lord’s Supper) Christ is not offered to His Father, nor is any true sacrifice made… it is only a commemoration of the one offering of Himself, by Himself, upon the cross… So that the papal sacrifice of the Mass, as they call it, [where?] is most abominably injurious to the one only sacrifice of Christ, the only propitiation for all the sins of the elect” (Westminster Confession, Chap. 29, art. B).

The Catholic Church teaches that the Mass, besides being a banquet of thanksgiving (“Eucharist”), is also a sacrifice.

The brethren, citing Hebrews 9:27-28, argue that it cannot be a sacrifice because that happened only once at Calvary. The Church agrees that Jesus died once for all.

The Sacrifice of Christ on the cross was unique and sufficient to expiate the sins of all, and cannot be repeated. But there is more to say about the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It is more precise to say that His death happened once and was not repeated again. But we shall see that the Mass revives, re-presenting (making present again) the Sacrifice. Jesus does not die, but the Mass is a true sacrifice that applies to men the fruits of Calvary. It is a sacramental re-presentation of this same sacrifice.

The Last Supper of the Lord and Calvary form a unity[13]

The Last Supper took place during the feast of the Passover (Mk 14:1). Jesus could have celebrated the Supper on another day, but He did it during this feast. And He gave it a new meaning. To understand the Last Supper (Mass), we have to know what Jesus did.

The Passover was celebrated each year. The Jews still celebrate it. It is the commemoration of the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. The angel of death passed over each house that was smeared with the blood of a lamb. Afterward the family ate the lamb. It was not enough to smear the lintel of the house with the blood. They had to eat: And they shall eat the flesh that night roasted at the fire, and unleavened bread (Ex 12:8). The lamb had to be without blemish (v. 5) as a prefigure of Jesus, the Lamb of God (Jn 1:36), who is also without stain. In this celebration God made a covenant, a pact with His people.

In Exodus 24:7-8 it is narrated that Moses sprinkled the people with the blood of the lamb to seal this covenant.

Now Jesus celebrated this same feast, but He transformed it. It is His blood that would save from the death of sin, not that of the lamb. The bread used at the feast of Passover (and at the Mass) is unleavened bread (Mk 14:1). With the bread in His hands, Jesus said: This is my body. Let us recall what we have already said about the sixth chapter of John: Jesus’ discourse about eating His body was given close to the Passover (Jn 6:41). One can see in this the link between the discourse and the celebration of the Last Supper. This is my blood of the new testament (Mk 14:24 and 1 Cor 11:25) alludes to the Old Covenant of Exodus 24.

Four cups

More than one cup of wine entered into the celebration of the Passover, as we see in Luke 22:17-20. If today you celebrate the Passover with a Jewish family, they will celebrate it with four cups[14]. It was the third cup of wine that Jesus changed into His blood. Thus Paul identifies the cup of blessing with the Eucharist in 1 Cor 10:16. He said something that would have surprised the Apostles: I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine, until that day when I shall drink it new in the kingdom of God (Mk 14:25). What a surprise for the Apostles, because they knew that there was still another cup remaining in the paschal feast, but Jesus did not take it. Where is the last cup to finish the feast of Passover? The feast that Jesus was celebrating at the Last Supper had not ended. He would give another meaning to “the cup” and to the feast.

The fourth

In Mark 14:36 Jesus said: Father, remove this chalice from me. Here is the other cup of which Jesus spoke: The chalice which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it? (Jn 18:11). It is the suffering and death on the Cross. The celebration of the Last Supper continues in the Passion of the Lord. Calvary would finish the Passover (and the Supper). It would be a single act of Paschal Sacrifice. Calvary represents the sacrifice of the perfect Lamb. The tunic that Jesus wore was like the one the Jewish priest used for the sacrifices in the temple (Jn 19:23). He is the Supreme Priest.

On the way to Calvary the soldiers offered wine to Jesus (Mk 15:23) but He did not take it. He had said that He would not drink until that day when He would drink it in the kingdom (14:25). Then on the cross Jesus said: I thirst. Was it that Jesus suddenly became thirsty? No. For hours He had been suffering thirst from the loss of blood (and in a desert climate). But now on the cross He wishes to finish the Last Supper (the last cup of the Passover), that the Scripture might be fulfilled (Jn 19:28). The soldiers give Him sour wine (“atum” [gr: OXOS], a kind of vinegar for the common soldiers) and this time He does drink it (Jn 19:29). They give it to Him with a branch of hyssop, the same as they used when they smeared the house with the blood of the lamb (Ex 12:12). Then Jesus says (all) it is consummated. What is “consummated” if Jesus has not yet risen? He was raised for our justification, says Paul (Rom 4:25). It is the Last Supper of the Passover that is concluded. And it is worth noting that the name of the fourth cup was “the Cup of Consummation,” and what Jesus said (in Hebrew) is exactly what the father of the family said when he finished the fourth cup.

The Passover celebrated the event of the death of the firstborn of the Egyptians. Now it is Jesus who is the firstborn sacrificed to save, not only the Jews, but the whole world. He is the Passover that frees us (1 Cor 5:7); it is the blood of the New Covenant that is shed for many (Mk 14:24). But the feast did not end at the table.

For the Jews it was not enough to smear the door in order to be saved; they had to eat. And we, those of the New Covenant, have to celebrate it too: Do this in remembrance of me (1 Cor 11:24). And it is not by chance that the Word of God links “remembering/making memorial” with “sacrifice” in Heb 10:3. The only two places where the holocaust is spoken of — Lev 24:7 and Num 10:10 (echoed in Ps 37 and 39) — make a connection between bread and sacrifice.

That is why Paul says: let us feast (1 Cor 5:8) in order to keep the sacrifice present. Or as Jesus said, he that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath everlasting life (Jn 6:54). To be saved from death, the Jews in Egypt did not eat a thing that represented a lamb. They ate a lamb. Nor do Catholics believe that they eat only a symbol of the Lamb of God. Moses did not sprinkle something that symbolizes the blood of a lamb (Ex 24:8).

Jesus Christ is our sacrifice; He was sacrificed once at Calvary, but we have to eat His body to fulfill the Covenant. The Last Supper was a reliving of the Passover. The Catholic Mass is a reliving of the Last Supper. It is not merely a remembrance. The Mass is not “another sacrifice” but the participation in the one and same sacrifice of Christ on the cross, just as the Passover for the Jews today is to participate in that night when they celebrated their liberation from Egypt. The past is made present — ANAMNESIS — do this in remembrance of me.

We have to distinguish between the death of Christ and the sacrifice on the Cross. The Catholic Church knows that Christ died once for all. He does not die at Mass. But His sacrifice is made present at each one. The Holy Supper is infinitely bound up with the sacrifice of Calvary. For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall show the death of the Lord, until he come (1 Cor 11:26).

John witnesses the heavenly Mass

It was a Sunday, the day of the Lord (Apoc 1:10) when the author of the Apocalypse saw Jesus: And I saw: and behold in the midst of the throne… a Lamb standing as it were slain (Apoc 5:5-6). How did John see Jesus? As a triumphant king? As the Lion of Judah? He saw Him in His glory as a slain lamb. Spiritually, the sacrifice continues. The Mass reflects and participates in this heavenly celebration, as the Fathers of the early Church used to say. The author of the letter to the Hebrews speaks of the possibility that Jesus be sacrificed “again” for our sins: and are fallen away, to be renewed again to penance, crucifying again to themselves the Son of God, and making him a mockery (Heb 6:6). In the Bible Dios Habla Hoy we read: because they themselves are crucifying again the Son of God and exposing him to mockery. Obviously Jesus is not crucified in the same manner as at Calvary. The sense is spiritual.

We participate in this cup, this sacrifice: For thy sake we are put to death all the day long. We are counted as sheep for the slaughter (Rom 8:36). Can you drink of the chalice that I drink of, or be baptized with the baptism wherewith I am baptized? asked Jesus (Mk 10:38). With Christ I am nailed to the cross. And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me (Gal 2:20).

Jesus clearly refers to the sacrifice during the Supper: the chalice is the new testament in my blood (1 Cor 11:25. See Jeremiah 31:31). He sealed the New Covenant between God and the people with His blood. The new sacrifice in the blood of Christ is efficacious to seal the New Covenant, as the sacrifice of animals was for the Old Covenant (See 1 Cor 10:14-21). It is through the Eucharist that Paul understands how the prophecy of Malachi was fulfilled — that “the table of the Lord” in Jerusalem would be replaced by the Christian sacrifice, the new “table of the Lord”: Wherefore, my dearly beloved, fly from the service of idols…. Behold Israel according to the flesh: are not they, that eat of the sacrifices, partakers of the altar? What then? Do I say, that what is offered in sacrifice to idols, is any thing? Or, that the idol is any thing? But the things which the heathens sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God. And I would not that you should be made partakers with devils. You cannot drink the chalice of the Lord, and the chalice of devils; you cannot be partakers of the table of the Lord, and of the table of devils (1 Cor 10:14 and 18-21). Note how Paul places the sacrifices in the Jewish Temple, the pagan sacrifices, and the Eucharist in the same category: sacrificial tables, altars at which people participate by eating the sacrifices and so commune with the divinity.

Another link between the Last Supper and the Cross is the water and blood that flowed from the side of the Crucified, which the early Church understood as symbols representing Baptism and the Eucharist.

The Apocalypse shows the slain Lamb standing (Apoc 5:5). Slain, in the sense of sacrificed, is not synonymous with dead. Paul said: I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing unto God (Rom 12:1). The feast of the Passover is eternal: Let us feast (1 Cor 5:8). The Mass fulfills the prophecy that the Passover would be eternal, according to what God said to the Israelites: And this day shall be for a memorial to you; and you shall keep it a feast to the Lord in your generations with an everlasting observance;… you shall keep it a holy day… And you shall observe the feast of the unleavened bread… in your generations by a perpetual observance (Ex 12:14-17).

The brethren cite the Letter to the Hebrews to say that there is no other sacrifice — that the sacrifice of Christ on the cross was once for all. WE AGREE. But looking more closely at the letter to the Hebrews, what do we see?:

1) Hebrews sets aside the Levitical sacrifice of the OT, not the memorial sacrifice of Christ instituted at the Last Supper. The Levitical sacrifices were part of the Law (Heb 7:11, 18 and 28). The context of Hebrews 7 to 9 is not opposed to the sacrifice of Christ, but to the Levitical one.

2) The memorial sacrifice of Christ is not under the Law but within the promise or oath of God (Heb 7:20-21) (Note: “sacrament” comes from the Latin word for oath). It is the same distinction between Law and promise that we find in Rom 4:13-17; Gal 3:15-22.)

3) Since Christ is “a priest for ever,” His office of offering sacrifice continues: always living to make intercession (Heb 7:25). Brother, if all your sins are forgiven and you are saved forever, why does Jesus Christ keep interceding for you? (See topic 19.) The Bible says: And he is the propitiation for our sins (the same word used in Rom 3:25, which speaks of Christ offering Himself as a sacrifice for sins. If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father (1 Jn 2:1). It is not only once for all. His ministry of propitiation for our sins continues.

4) The first intercession to the Father took place on the cross. His intercession continues in the memorial sacrifice. IT IS NOT A NEW SACRIFICE but the same sacrifice in an unbloody manner. Sacrifice does not mean to die but to offer oneself (present your bodies a living sacrifice, Rom 12:1)[15].. That is, Christ does not shed His blood as He did at Calvary, yet He offers Himself to the Father in the Eucharist. Christ died on the cross “once for all” (Heb 7:27), that is, for all humanity throughout all eternity. He is not going to return to Calvary to die. But the re-presentation (making present) of this sacrifice is offered to the Father by His eternal priesthood.

5) The word “memory” or “commemoration” that Jesus uses at the Last Supper (Lk 22:19; 1 Cor 11:24-25) is the word ANAMNESIS, which translates the Hebrew word AZKARAH (used seven times in the OT to refer to the sacrifices: Lev 2:2, 9, 16; 5:12; 6:15 and Num 5:26) in the Septuagint. It is significant that ANAMNESIS is used only four times in the NT, the fourth in Heb 10:3, referring to a memorial sacrifice[16]. Jesus’ use of ANAMNESIS in Lk 22:19 therefore underscores the sacrificial dimension of the Eucharist. Jesus is saying: when you do this, do it in memorial sacrifice of me.

6) The use of ANAMNESIS in Lk 22:19 is even more significant because it underscores the aspect of sacrifice, since there existed another Greek word that Luke could have used for a non-sacrificial memorial: MNEMOSUNON (see Mt 26:13; Mk 14:9; Acts 10:4).

7) If we take the Protestant argument that “there is no more sacrifice” after the Cross, then we must not obey the Word of God that tells us to “make (offer) sacrifices”: of our body (Rom 12:1), of our gifts (Phil 4:18), or of praise (Heb 13:15-16). Why offer our bodies as a sacrifice if everything is accomplished on the Cross?

In summary, the letter to the Hebrews warns the newly baptized not to return to the former sacrifice that brings no salvation, but to continue with the New Passover and “not to forsake the assembling” (Heb 10:25). The implication is clear: the sacrifice of the Mass — new Passover — continued. We have an altar, [it makes no sense if there are no priests!] whereof they have no power to eat who serve the tabernacle (Heb 13:10). Remember your prelates (Heb 13:7).

More biblical proofs

The OT foretells that Christ would offer a sacrifice of bread and wine to God. Melchizedek, a priest who prefigures Christ, offered this and blessed God (Gen 14:18-20). Now then, Psalm 110 says: Thou art a priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek (v. 4). In Hebrews Christ is this priest (Heb 5:5-6). A priest is one who offers sacrifice. In the case of Jesus, He is at once priest and sacrifice. Where is the form of eternal sacrifice (“priest for ever”) of Jesus that is according to the sacrifice offered by Melchizedek and, therefore, distinct from Calvary? That of Melchizedek was in the form of bread and wine. Catholics believe that the only thing that fulfills this takes place at the Mass, where Jesus Himself offers Himself forever to the Father in sacrifice under the appearance of bread and wine.

We saw that the Last Supper began the sacrifice of Jesus, culminated on the “altar” of the Cross[17]: This is my body, which is given for you…. This is the chalice, the new testament in my blood, which shall be shed for you (Lk 22:19-20). In both cases, the verbs — given and shed — are in the present, which shows that it refers not only to the sacrifice of the Cross. Furthermore, “given/shed” indicates an immolation at the Supper.

The prophet Malachi said: in every place there is offered to my name… a clean oblation (Mal 1:11). Christ is the clean oblation. The sacrifice of Calvary occurred only once and in a single place. What, then, did Malachi prophesy? For Catholics, it is the Masses celebrated at every hour and throughout the whole world, where the sacrifice of Christ prophesied by Malachi is carried out. If it is not there, where can we say the prophecy is fulfilled?

Hebrews 9:25-27 shows that Jesus dies no more. He offered His life only once, and was enthroned as: King of justice… King of Peace as High Priest (Heb 7:1-3). And it is exactly thus that the Father regards the perfect and perpetual offering of His Son Jesus. If it had ended, there would be no eternal sacrifice: Thou art a priest for ever (Heb 5:6). And the other priests became many, because by reason of death they could not continue; but this, for that he continueth for ever, hath an everlasting priesthood (Heb 7:23-24). The unbloody sacrifice of the Mass applies the merits of Jesus Christ won once for all on the Cross. Although He dies no more, His Blood shed at Calvary is offered to the Father perpetually by Him. If not, there would be no need for an altar here on earth, as Hebrews 13:10 says: we have an altar, whereof they have no power to eat who serve the tabernacle (of the Jews) (Heb 13:10). Know you not, that they who work in the holy place, eat the things that are of the holy place; and they that serve the altar, partake with the altar? (1 Cor 9:13). The once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus is made present upon our altars at Mass: By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise always to God (Heb 13:15).

After all, the brethren who fix their attention on Hebrews 9 oppose the Catholic teaching of the sacrifice at Mass: “I am not a Roman Catholic because, as an Evangelical, I believe that when Christ died on the cross, He died once and for all — and therefore I could never believe the fantastic heresy of the Catholic Church, which declares that every time one of its priests offers the Mass, Christ is crucified anew on that Romanist altar”[18] .

In the book Un Católico Investiga el Evangelio (A Catholic Investigates the Gospel) (pp. 21-22) the Evangelical author supposes the following dialogue with a Catholic: “I am going to suppose that you are the Lord Jesus. You are at the right hand of God, managing all the affairs of the Universe. You are the object of the admiration of millions and millions of angels and saints…. Now, countless times a day, the command comes from some lowly worms of the earth: Come down immediately, Jesus, I want to sacrifice you and eat you. What do you think? What would your reaction be?” And the Catholic answers: I would say they were mad and blasphemous. The Evangelical responds, among other things, that “Christ would say I die no more. Death has no more dominion over me.”

Brother, at Mass the priest says: “You are indeed Holy, O Lord, the fount of all holiness; therefore we ask you to sanctify these gifts (the bread and the wine) by the outpouring of your Spirit, that they may become for us the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ our Lord.” The priest does not say: “come down immediately, Jesus, I want to kill you.” It is the Spirit who works the miracle. Furthermore, Jesus is omnipresent. He would not need to come down. On the other hand, to call priests “lowly worms” is to fail against the commandment of love.

For us it is an error in interpretation. Hebrews 9 examines the Old Covenant. Moses takes the blood of the calves and of the goats to purify the tabernacle (9:19-25). Under the Old Law the sacrifice had to be repeated for the remission of sins. In the Christian dispensation, the blood of Christ was shed only once, but it is offered continually to the Father. How can this be? Jesus is the same yesterday, and today, and for ever (Heb 13:8). In fact the Bible says that the Sacrifice is offered from the foundation of the world: the Lamb, which was slain from the beginning of the world (Apoc 13:8); this is not fixed in time[19]. What Jesus did in the past is for God present now, and God can make the Sacrifice of Christ at Calvary become present for us at Mass: For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall show the death of the Lord, until he come (1 Cor 11:26).

What does the Early Church say?

The Mass is a sacrifice

  • Didache: Where it cites Mal 1:11 and 14 and Mt 5:23-24.
  • Clement: Letter to the Corinthians, 44:4-5.
  • Ignatius of Antioch: Letter to the Philadelphians, 4.
  • Justin Martyr: Dialogue with Trypho, 41.
  • Irenaeus (A.D. 180-199): Against Heresies, 4:17:5
  • Justin Martyr: In Dialogue with Trypho he writes that the Mass is a sacrifice, p. 41.
  • Cyprian (A.D. 252): Letter of Cyprian to a certain Caecilius, 53:14.
  • Cyril of Jerusalem (A.D. 350): Catechetical Lectures, 23: Mystagogical, 5:8.

Author: Daniel Gagnon

Source: Apologetica.org

Notes

  1. Another reason to know that Jesus was not speaking in symbols is that when He said He was “the vine” and “the door,” He was pointing to Himself, “I am,” and He explained what this meant. But at the Last Supper He refers to an object (bread) and says that it is His body, and He never explains that it meant anything other than His body. ↩

  2. If “eat my flesh” was symbolic for believing, why mention “drink my blood” as well? What is gained by saying both eat and drink? The bread could have carried the symbolic sense by itself. ↩

  3. The anti-Catholic James G. McCarthy (The Mass from Mystery to Meaning) says that there were other moments when Jesus spoke figuratively and the apostles did not understand and took Him literally. He cites when Jesus spoke of His body as a temple, and when He spoke of the leaven of the Pharisees. But in BOTH CASES Jesus corrected them (see Jn 2:21 and Mt 16:11), something He did not do in Jn 6. Furthermore, in Jn 6 even His disciples left Him! McCarthy correctly mentions that drinking blood is forbidden in the O.T. It is exactly for this reason that Jesus’ word is HARD! It would not be so if it were symbolic. Moreover, he forgot that it was TRUE FOOD (loaves) that Jesus had multiplied earlier and linked with the manna. That is why He does not mention wine.

    McCarthy argues that in 1 Cor 11:26 Paul speaks of “drinking the cup” and not of drinking its contents, so it is figurative. Not                  necessarily. When someone wants a soft drink or asks for “a bottle” at the store, the seller knows you are speaking of its                contents. He does not give you an empty bottle! McCarthy says that John 6 has nothing to do with the Last Supper, but the context is            the Passover (Jn 6:4), the same as in the other gospels. Moreover, the words are the same, “drink my blood” and eat my flesh, in              Jn 6 and 1 Cor 10:16-17 and 11:23-30. ↩

  4. PHAGO can indeed have a symbolic meaning ↩

  5. This is one of the arguments I also use when some brethren cite Lev 7:26: not to eat blood. We do not metabolize blood when we receive Communion. Moreover, the Levitical law was abolished by Christ. If they want to return to this law, why do they not bring sacrifices to the temple as Lev 12 commands? The commandments of the N.T. maintained those of the Old (see Mt 5:27). The commandment not to eat blood is replaced by Jesus, who tells us that if we do not eat of His Blood we have no eternal life. ↩

  6. NOWHERE do we find that the Bible treats the word “Spirit” as symbolic. It is always real, as matter is. That is why in this text “to eat His flesh” is not a symbol of receiving the Spirit. The disciples would not have left Jesus if He had been speaking symbolically. ↩

  7. Except when someone shows us a photo and says “this is my son.” There is no need to explain that the photo is an image of the son and not the son himself. But if the image in the photo is another person or is a thing, then one has to explain why he says it is his son if it is not. An argument that some brethren use to say that the consecrated bread is not the body of Christ is the following: “This is my body does not mean identity but representation. If I show a photograph and say: This is my mother, no one will come to the conclusion that that piece of cardboard is my mom” (The Lord’s Supper, Ronald Harris, p. 8). This argument is not logical. Of course “his mom” is not the photo, but the person in the photo is indeed the mom. And it is to her that he refers when he says “it is my mom,” not to the “piece of cardboard.” If Jesus had shown a photo of bread and said that “this is my body,” He would be referring to the bread and not to the photograph. In a similar way, Jesus, taking bread, said that it was His body. So this Protestant argument does not hold. ↩

  8. When Jesus says that He will not drink of the fruit of the vine, it is in the sense of state of origin. He does not deny the change into the blood of Christ (see Gen 2:23; Ex 7:12; Jn 2:9 and 2 Pet 2:22). Moreover, the Greek word is GENNEEMA, meaning generation/origin. The sense of the phrase, then, is “that which was generated or produced from the vine.” Its literal sense does not specify whether it is grape juice, wine, or the blood of Christ, because all three can be products of the vine. It is the same in 1 Cor 11:23-29, where Paul interchanges “bread” and “body.” ↩

  9. The church La Luz del Mundo (The Light of the World) speaks of its founder, Aarón Joaquín Flores, as another “apostle” (on the same level as Paul, then). Contradicting his companion the (true) Apostle Paul, Aarón said: “When in 1928 (Aarón) returned once again to the city of Tepic, he stood to speak of the Gospel, in front of the very Cathedral of the Catholic Church, saying to the people: They are not Gods (the host), those that they make with the hands (of the priests)!” From the magazine La Luz del Mundo No. 2, January 1984 edition, p. 4. Of course, if it were only bread, it would be idolatry to adore it. The Bible forbids idolatry (see chapter 16) ↩

  10. Many times this word is understood as “to discern WITHOUT DOUBTING” (Mt 21:21; Mk 11:23; Acts 10:20 and 11:12; Rom 4:20 and 14:23; Jas 1:6). ↩

  11. Like other fundamentalists, the aforementioned Mr. McCarthy ends his pamphlet by saying how absurd it is to believe that the consecrated host, which remains the same in appearance and taste, is the body of Christ. Equally foolish for him is that Jesus, with His body present at the Last Supper, speaks of the bread as body, as if there were two bodies. But the same arguments are heard from a Jew: How difficult to believe in the incarnation, that this baby in swaddling clothes in the hands of Mary, and who later is betrayed, abandoned, denied by His own disciples, condemned by the religious authorities, and then dies on a crossis the Second Person of the Trinity. And how could Jesus have been present on earth and yet be a member of the Trinity in heaven? Obviously we do not base ourselves only on appearances and logic to understand the mysteries. Jesus asks for faith. ↩

  12. Ibid., Fisher p. 75 ↩

  13. Thanks to Dr. Scott Hahn for contributing part of this chapter. ↩

  14. The first cup is called the Kadush. The celebration truly begins with the second cup, which is taken after reciting Psalm 113. The third cup is the cup of blessing, which is taken after giving thanks and praying over the bread and singing the Hallel (Psalms of praise Nos. 114-118). In Mark, Jesus sings these psalms but does not conclude with the fourth cup, which is called the cup of consummation. The Gospel of Luke has changed the order of Jesus’ words somewhat. It is recognized by all biblical scholars that Luke based himself on the Gospel of Mark. If not, it seems that Jesus contradicts Himself. For more on the four cups and how the Jews celebrated the Paschal Supper, see chap. 15 ofLa Plegaria Eucarística, Luis Maldonado, pp. 166-170. ↩

  15. And walk in love, as also Christ hath loved us, and hath delivered himself for us, an oblation and a sacrifice to God (Eph 5:2). ↩

  16. One of the definitions of ANAMNESIS in the lexicon is “memorial sacrifice” (Bauer, Welter,.A Greek English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, Univ. of Chicago , 1979, p. 58) ↩

  17. The idea of an altar as a table is implicit in Psalm 50, where the sacrifices are presented as divine food. The link between the two is explicit in Ez 41:22 and Mal 1:6b-7. ↩

  18. Ibid., Fisher, p. 75. ↩

  19. (The Catholic Church) asserts that the bread and wine are transformed, by virtue of the authority of the priest, into the body and blood of our Lord Jesus, in such a way that the soul and the divine nature are present. We are not told whether it is the earthly body or the glorified body that good Catholics eat…” An Analysis of ROMANISM by J.A. Phillips, p. 107. A lie! A lie, because the Church does indeed say so. What kind of “analysis”! Some will say that “it would not be possible for Jesus at the Last Supper to change the bread and wine into His body and blood. This would mean that there were two bodies of Jesus, the normal body and the bread changed into His body and blood. He did not vanish in order to change into bread and wine. His normal body remained present beside His Apostles.” Mr. Phillips says: “What was His body? Precisely the little fragment of bread that Christ held in His hand at that moment. In other words, He had two bodies” (p. 108). But why limit Jesus? That Christ can be present in two ways simultaneously is a mystery, as it is that God is in every place. As Keating says: “a mystery is a religious truth that cannot be fully comprehended by reason, but not for that reason is it impossible. Something does not become impossible merely because we cannot understand it” (p. 243). We have seen that the consecrated bread is not the same body of Jesus before it was transformed in the resurrection. ↩

From the book No todo el que dice Señor, Señor (Not everyone who says Lord, Lord)
Parish of Claveria, Mexico, 1998
© Daniel Gagnon
Internet version: Carlos Alberto Jardón