Transubstantiation—Hard to Believe? Transubstantiation

The Catholics tried to suppress them through violence, and when that failed, have continued to try to lie about what these groups believed and practiced

Could you please post a source document for this statement.

FYI, a discussion I had with another Catholic about the mass on a thread a few days ago, here:

"What I find profoundly ironic is that while Catholics love to quote John 6:51-56 in support of their error, they conveniently forget to also cite v. 6:63,

"It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life."

The words Jesus spoke were meant to be understood by his hearers in a figurative sense. They are spirit, and they are life. A spiritual understanding gives life as we believe on Him and "ingest" Him by faith (actually a very similar idea to that found in Jeremiah 15:16 - "Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O LORD God of hosts."). Having a fleshly, carnal understanding of Jesus' words "profiteth nothing". This is shown, too, in that those who became offended by His saying and departed were those who took His words woodenly literally - THEY (the people who thought He literally meant to eat His flesh and drink His blood) were the ones who had a carnal, fleshly understanding, THEY were the ones who demonstrated that they had never been called by the Father to come to Jesus to begin with (cf. vv. 64-65). The faithful disciples, in contrast, understood that the eternal life being offered was a result of Christ's WORDS (v. 68). It was believing on Christ's message of Messiahship and being the one God had given to His people to nourish their SPIRITUAL needs, that gave eternal life - as Peter understood.

Elsewhere, the Scripture gives no indication of any sort of understanding of the transubstantiative sense of the bread and wine. In Luke 22:18, in the very act of instituting the Lord's Supper, Jesus said, "For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come." Jesus clearly says it was "fruit of the vine", and He gave it to them while He was yet living. If we are to take Catholicism literally on this, we have to believe that Jesus gave His disciples blood and flesh pertaining to His sacrificial death, when He hadn't even been crucified yet. They were eating His flesh as a re-presentation of a sacrifice which had not even occurred yet. And one which Jesus had clearly and specifically said was NOT His actual blood, and which He then said (v. 19) was "in remembrance of Him". Jesus outright TELLS them that the Lord's Supper was not anything more than a symbolic remembrance of what He was shortly going to do for them.

The other major place in the NT besides the Gospels where the Lord's Supper is dealt with is in I Corinthians 11. In this passage, again, Catholics like to pull a verse out of context (in this case v. 26 - "For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come."), while ignoring the surrounding context and the lexical analysis. I've seen Catholic apologists point to this verse and argue that the act of "shewing" the Lord's death till He comes means that the act is occurring again and again in the transubstantiated Eucharist. Of course, this is not what "shew" (Gk. kataggelo) means. the words actually means "to proclaim, announce, report, or publish", and refers again to the act of remembrance (which Paul makes explicitly clear in vv. 24-25, where he again states that these were "in remembrance of" Christ's sacrifice - not a re-creation or "re-presentation" of it. The act of the Lord's Supper is exclamatory and evangelistic, not re-presentational."

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Which was replied to with this (me in italics):

What I find profoundly ironic is that while Catholics love to quote John 6:51-56 in support of their error, they conveniently forget to also cite v. 6:63.

Before we get to 6:63, the verb "eats" of "eats my flesh" in 6:54-58 is not the Greek verb used to denote human eating, but instead the gnawing of animals - why would Jesus go out of the way to emphasize physical eating if He meant merely "spiritual feasting" on His words? Just to confuse or scare away His disciples?

"It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life." John 6:63

This references John 3:6 - "What is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of spirit is spirit." Peter and the rest remained because they were not afraid of His WORDS - the words were eat my body. It was a command. Yes, they were not afraid of such a command because they recognized the Christ, the "Lamb of God" (John 1:29), and they knew that they must eat the Lamb, as their forefathers did at Passover.

In Luke 22:18, in the very act of instituting the Lord's Supper, Jesus said, "For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come." Jesus clearly says it was "fruit of the vine", and He gave it to them while He was yet living

You're mistaken here. This is part of the Passover celebration - the Jewish ritual required 4 cups of wine. Jesus, as a Jewish Rabbi, ceased the ritual sacrifice with the third cup. Ask a Jew you know what it would mean if they stopped their Passover celebration with only 3 cups - it borders near sacrilege. Jesus' ceasing demonstrates the sacrificial nature of his death - the Passover sacrifice he celebrated was not complete until the Lamb was slain. "It is finished" marks the completion of the Passover celebration.

John 22:19-20 is the institution of the last supper. Then he took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me." And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you." Yes, He is giving the Apostles His Body and Blood before He died - this supports my position, since His Sacrifice exists outside time. It is the interplay between Kairos and Chronos. God exists outside of time, as does His sacrifice. The "do this in remembrance of me" is a rough translation - a more proper one is probably "offer this as my memorial offering." The sacrifice of the Lamb is one in perpetuity which we are called to take part of - that is the entire reason for the Mass.

The other major place in the NT besides the Gospels where the Lord's Supper is dealt with is in I Corinthians 11. In this passage, again, Catholics like to pull a verse out of context (in this case v. 26 - "For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come."), while ignoring the surrounding context and the lexical analysis. I've seen Catholic apologists point to this verse and argue that the act of "shewing" the Lord's death till He comes means that the act is occurring again and again in the transubstantiated Eucharist. I've seen Catholic apologists point to this verse and argue that the act of "shewing" the Lord's death till He comes means that the act is occurring again and again in the transubstantiated Eucharist. Of course, this is not what "shew" (Gk. kataggelo) means. the words actually means "to proclaim, announce, report, or publish",

The words of the Mass are "when we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim your death, Lord Jesus Christ," so I'm not sure where these Catholics you speak of struggle with the translation. But you need also look at 1 Cor. 11:28-29

A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself

The Greek word for "examine" translates better as "test and find true" - part of that examination requires discerning the body of Christ in the Eucharist.

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Which I responded to with (him in italics):

Before we get to 6:63, the verb "eats" of "eats my flesh" in 6:54-58 is not the Greek verb used to denote human eating, but instead the gnawing of animals - why would Jesus go out of the way to emphasize physical eating if He meant merely "spiritual feasting" on His words?

Because what Jesus was doing in this passage is pointing to Himself as the Word, and using allusions to the Old Testament to do so. Granted, I think we all can agree that Jesus is the Word - John's Christology, as it saturates his Gospel, makes that plain enough. One thing Jesus did before the verse in question was to point to Himself as the bread of life (vv. 32, 35, 48), as the true fulfillment of that typology taught by the giving of the manna to their fathers in the wilderness (vv. 49-51). Essentially, Jesus is saying, look, you want bread, well *I* am that bread - but I am bread that satisfies your SPIRITUAL need, rather than your physical hunger - He was directly referring back to the people's error in seeking Him because He fed the 5,000, and telling them not to seek Him to have physical needs met, but to have their spiritually lost condition changed (cf. v. 27). In other words, that is the "set up", the context for what we see later in the chapter, which is usually ignored by Catholic apologists.

Jesus' allusion to Himself as the bread of life fits right in with His role as the Word, and fits nicely with Matthew 4:4,

"But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."

Same concept as we see in John 6 - He cites Deut. 8:3 in refuting satan's temptation, a passage in Moses which also refers to the manna in the wilderness. So, Jesus, as the Word, is the true bread of life which sustains a person's life and soul. Now, did He mean it literally? Was He saying to literally eat His flesh and drink His blood? Of course not. He was instead alluding to Jeremiah 15:16,

"Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O LORD God of hosts."

"Eating" God's Words means to internalise them mentally and spiritually to such a degree that they become a deep, inner part of you. That's what Jesus was telling His disciples they needed to do with Him - move away from a surface acceptance of Him as great teacher who provides a lot of free food, and instead learn and understand that He, as the Messiah, as the Word of God, must be "internalised" to such a degree that serving and living for Him becomes the very reason they live. Incidentally, the Hebrew word translated as "eat" in that verse is 'akal, which is ALSO a word used to describe the devouring of food as an animal would. Hence, when Jesus uses the same type of word in Greek, He is, again, referring back to this concept of devouring/eating God's Word by giving full heed to it.

Near the start of His discourse, He more or less laid it out plainly that His words were not meant to be taken woodenly literally, but that they had a spiritual import instead, when He said,

"I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." (v. 35)

Notice the Hebrew parallelism. Though the Gospel is written in Greek, Jesus and His audience were Jews - they thought like Jews, acted like Jews, and spoke like Jews. Jesus uses a classic example of the "poetic parallel" so common in Jewish poetry and wisdom literature (the latter of which John 6 can arguably be said to be a representative). He parallels "coming to Him to never hunger" with "believing on Him to never thirst". Coming to Him and believing on Him are paralleled - believing on Him is the whole point. Clearly, He has NO intention in this passage of telling His audience that they actually, truly, literally were to eat Him.

Just to confuse or scare away His disciples?

Actually, yes. It's common enough in the Gospels for Jesus to use hyperbolic language so as to force His listeners to make a decision about Him or something He has said. Usually, He does so as part of the "true disciples have their eyes and ears open to the true meaning, while false disciples will get offended by not understanding the true meaning, and leave" motif. This is what we see happening here - the people who didn't "get it", who still had their minds on filling their bellies, the people who were still thinking carnally, were the ones who took His words in a woodenly literal fashion, thought He was saying to actually eat Him, and left.

This references John 3:6 - "What is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of spirit is spirit." Peter and the rest remained because they were not afraid of His WORDS - the words were eat my body. It was a command. Yes, they were not afraid of such a command because they recognized the Christ, the "Lamb of God" (John 1:29), and they knew that they must eat the Lamb, as their forefathers did at Passover.

Peter and the rest knew that His Words were of a spiritual, rather than literal, intention. Jesus clearly is speaking figuratively in this passage, just as He was speaking figuratively each and every other time where He made a declarative "I am the ______" statement. Surely you don't believe that Jesus was really and truly a flat, wooden board with an iron bar across Him, just because He said "I am the door", do you? You don't think He was a green, leafy plant because He said "I am the true vine", do you?

Your argument from John 3:6 doesn't really seem to apply in any sense. If anything, those born of the flesh but not yet born of the Spirit (i.e. those who were unregenerate) would be the ones who would understand His words in a fleshly, literal way on this point, which actually goes against your argument.

're mistaken here. This is part of the Passover celebration - the Jewish ritual required 4 cups of wine. Jesus, as a Jewish Rabbi, ceased the ritual sacrifice with the third cup. Ask a Jew you know what it would mean if they stopped their Passover celebration with only 3 cups - it borders near sacrilege. Jesus' ceasing demonstrates the sacrificial nature of his death - the Passover sacrifice he celebrated was not complete until the Lamb was slain. "It is finished" marks the completion of the Passover celebration.

This argument has no merit. The four cups ceremony which you describe was actually institued very late - it's doubtful that it was widely practiced at the time of Jesus, and even if it were, the Jewish sources themselves are very clear that it was a "rabbinic tradition" (a term which itself suggests a post-70 AD origin), not sanctioned by the Scriptures themselves. Given Jesus' disdain for Pharisaical (the folks who more or less "became" the later rabbinate after the destruction of the Temple and the Diaspora) innovations to Scripture, it's not likely that He even engaged in this ritual at all - since the OT never mentions it. The New Testament certainly doesn't say that He did - it says nothing about how many cups of wine He drank/offered period, other than the one He used when instituting the Lord's Supper.

Yes, He is giving the Apostles His Body and Blood before He died - this supports my position, since His Sacrifice exists outside time. It is the interplay between Kairos and Chronos.

That's exactly the point, however. Suggesting that Jesus' sacrifice "exists outside of time" is pagan, as pagan as going in to a Phoenician temple prostitute to re-enact fertility rites to Ba'al to ensure the rains come in.

God exists outside of time, as does His sacrifice.

That is a non-sequitur. Yes, God exists outside of time, by virtue of His being the Creator and being GREATER than time. However, the Scripture clearly says that Jesus' sacrifice came at one, specific point in time, and that it's economy was centred about that one specific moment. The Scripture positively denies your "sacrifice exists outside of time" argument.

"But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;" (Hebrews 10:12)

He offered one sacrifice, a singular sacrifice which has efficacy "for ever". Further, the sacrifice is treated punctiliarly - it had a point in time, which was sequentially antecedent to His sitting down at the right hand of God. Further, the verb "to offer sacrifice" (prosphero) is in the aorist tense, indicating one-time action.

"For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." (Hebrews 9:26)

Again, this verse indicates that the sacrifice offered by Christ had not occurred until that one, single incident at "the end of the world" (lit. aeon, age, the transition between the OT and the NT). He did it once, and it's importance was met at one, singular instance in time. It's efficacy, true, is from the beginning of the world, but not its ACTIVITY, which is where you are in error. Hebrews 7:27 makes the same point as well.

The "do this in remembrance of me" is a rough translation - a more proper one is probably "offer this as my memorial offering."

Completely untrue. Actually, "this do in remembrance of me" is a very clear translation of the phrase touto poieite eis ten emen anamnesin. Touto = this, poiteite = do (present active imperative), eis = of, ten emen = me (accusative), and anamnesin = remembrance. Perhaps a more modern sounding translation would be "Do this in my remembrance", but there is nothing in the actual Greek text to suggest "offer this as a memorial offering" as any sort of a valid translation.

The sacrifice of the Lamb is one in perpetuity which we are called to take part of - that is the entire reason for the Mass.

And that is a lot (though not all) of the reason why the mass represents (no pun intended) a pagan syncretisation into Christianity.

The words of the Mass are "when we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim your death, Lord Jesus Christ," so I'm not sure where these Catholics you speak of struggle with the translation. But you need also look at 1 Cor. 11:28-29

A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself

The Greek word for "examine" translates better as "test and find true" - part of that examination requires discerning the body of Christ in the Eucharist.

Which has nothing to do with whether or not the elements of the Supper actually turn into the body and blood of Christ, or are just symbols. What Paul is referring to when He tells them to examine themselves, and that eating unworthily means they are not discerning the Lord's body looks back to the earlier parts of the chapter, when Paul had to take the Corinthians to task for their abuse of the Lord's Supper - getting drunken, eating everything up before the poor and others had a chance to get any, etc. (which, interestingly, seems to suggest that the Lord's Supper was much more than just the "eat a wafer and drink a little wine/grape juice as we sit in the pews" that is common to Catholics, Protestants, and Baptists alike). The discerning going on here is that which understands the importance of the ordinance. Treating it lightly is to basically treat the sacrifice which Christ made for us lightly. There's nothing in vv. 28-29 which specifically or even alludingly refers to the actual nature of the elements.

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When we understand fully revelation and reason, the mass suddenly appears to be the laughably pagan tomfoolery that it realy is. The "real presence" interpretation of John 6 is clearly refuted by other portions of Scripture, it relies upon a complete ignorance of the allusions to Jeremiah 15:16 which Jesus was making, it relies upon a completely pagan (and therefore foreign to God's Word) conception of repetition in "sacred time", and it is simply the result of syncretising Christianity with late Roman paganisms found throughout the Empire.

You wrote:

“Completely untrue. All throughout the Middle Ages, there were many, many independent baptistic bodies of Bible believers who had no communion nor any history with the Catholic religion.”

Completely untrue - as demonstrated decisively and definitively by James McGoldrick, a PROTESTANT, in his book on Baptist Successionism. The whole “Trail of Blood” idea is nonsense and completely ahistorical.

“The Catholics tried to suppress them through violence, and when that failed, have continued to try to lie about what these groups believed and practiced, but they were there nevertheless,”

Again, nonsense. What violence was used on heretics in the 9th century by Catholics in the Roman Church? Please document that. Can you?

“...the true adherents to the apostolic Christianity, instead of the paganised “Christianity” which arose in the 4th century when Constantine tried to unite the various belief systems of the Empire together, which eventually resulted in Catholicism.”

Nonsense again. 1) Constantine didn’t try to unite “various belief systems”. He knew they were separate and kept them that way. If he did otherwise then Constantinople wouldn’t have been built as it was. All evidence defies you. 2) There is no evidence whatsoever that Christianity was paganized in the 4th century or any other century. Christians were taught to resist paganism as vigorously in the 4th century as any other. 3) The Catholic faith already existed BEFORE Constantine took power and in fact was given by Christ to the Apostles. Constantine knew this and that’s why he met with the Catholic bishop when he first entered Rome as a claimant to the throne after the Battle of Milvian Bridge. Also, Constantine’s mother was already long before that, a Christian.

Read James McGoldrick, A PROTESTANT CHURCH HISTORIAN, and you’ll realize the “trail of blood” idea is nothing more than a Baptist scam foisted on people to make up for 1500 years of NO HISTORY for their sect.

Islam is similar to Calvinism, which led to Unitarianism.

I don't have any issue with Catholics believing the Eucharist is literally the body and blood of the Lord. In the literal sense of the Word, the Lord said it was. I have no argument at all with someone believing that.

We believe that because the Lord spoke in parables and everything He said has spiritual meaning, there's more to it than that. We believe the bread to be good and the wine to be new spiritual truth. These correspondences are consistent throughout the Word.

We also believe that the Ten Commandments have spiritual meaning which the Lord taught - adultery of the heart and unjust anger (Matt 5:21,22). These are evils that we should shun as sin after self-examination, prayer for the Lord's help with combatting them because only with Him can we conquer evil and making a commitment to change our life. Confession is an important aspect to acknowledge which evils are a problem. Usually we choose the most troublesome or grievous to work on. Evils are much like bad habits - they don't go away instantly. We will be tempted to repeat them.

The Holy Supper, we believe, is the most sacred of sacraments. It's the culmination of the regeneration process where we being the Holy Spirit into our bodies (eating and drinking mean to make our own) and as such we don't take communion daily or weekly. It's special.

We don't have children take communion. Reasoning and choices between right and wrong do not happen until maturity - early 20's. Then, a person is in freedom to make their own decisions.

I’d be careful there too, there was the Eastern Orthodox Church too, which was a significant part of the Christian faith. The ‘minor heresies’ were also a rather large component, as various sects rose and fell prior to the Reformation.

Be careful telling all Reformed believers they’re wrong, because it’s pretty easy to bring up some papal bulls that have no business existing.

NYer,

You asked:

“Could you please post a source document for this statement.”

..in regard to: “The Catholics tried to suppress them through violence, and when that failed, have continued to try to lie about what these groups believed and practiced”

Don’t hold your breath. You’ll either be 1) stonewalled completely, 2) get some silly ramblings based on nothing or gross distortions from some amateur “historian” (who will happen to have been a Baptist by the way), or 3) your get some of the fanciful 17th century histories where medieval heretics are rehabilitated as “true Christians” despite all the evidence of their heterodox beliefs and practices (e.g. sodomy and ritual murder among the Albigensians are quietly overlooked).

"Excuse me, WHO was it precisely that such charges were lodged against? ALL people professing Christianity? I don’t think so."

And you'd be wrong. At the time in question, the only Christians WERE Catholics. You Protestants came MUCH later.

You wrote:

“Be careful telling all Reformed believers they’re wrong, because it’s pretty easy to bring up some papal bulls that have no business existing.”

What? So, because you can bring up papal bulls that make YOU feel uncomfortable you think we should stop telling the truth about “Reformed believers”?

Oh, please!

Whoa! Islam is similar to Calvinism?

Let’s be honest, Calvinism did create quite a few schisms of its own, from Unitarian Universalism to denominations whose sole purpose has been the refutation of Calvinism. But Calvinists have not tried to hold all believers of a different religion as second class citizens, nor struck out against modern life in all its incarnations as much as possible.

Calvinism very much exists outside of Unitarianism. Be very careful with your assumptions. Unitarianism, in many Calvinists’ opinions, has no place within Calvinism.

As our priest said at Mass yesterday, “For those who believe, no explanation is necessary. For those who won’t believe, no explanation is possible.”

You wrote:

“Unitarianism, in many Calvinists’ opinions, has no place within Calvinism.”

Only “many”? Not all? Wow, that’s worse than I thought. Not only should Unitarianism have no place with Calvinism, it DEFINITELY has no place with Christianity.

Many?

No, if you believe the Bible then you’ll see that all orthodox believers had one set of beliefs and one Church.

Funny, orthodox is not even a word in the bible. Jesus never created this so-called category of 'orthodox', which has evolved over the years into a Pharisee-type state.

Could you please post a source document for this statement.

Actually, there are TONS of "source documents" about the history of baptistic groups who existed completely outside Rome. A couple of sites with compendiums:

http://www.reformedreader.org/history/list.htm

http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/fbns-index/historyfbns.htm

http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/fbns-index/waldensianhistoryfbns.htm

I urge all readers to explore these. Some sources from the last two are not linked, being on a purchaseable CD, but for individual users (i.e. not mass mailing, hence, remaining within fair use), I will be happy to email the text of titles not linked.

It seems you like to use nonsense is that because you only make sense?

It must be fun, sometimes, to be a Protestant anti-Catholic polemicist. Just recycle the old myths and misrepresent the dogma and let fly. The lies are stronger (in the "world" anyway), having been repeated yet again, and since there seems to be a kind of fear that those filthy Papists might have something after all, the grateful response will be huge.

The guy is not exactly brimful of accuracy as touches either Catholic dogma or practice.

Not that anyone cares. The Truth is not at issue here.

You said: Funny, orthodox is not even a word in the bible.

...as opposed to sola scriptura which is explicitly mentioned. < /sarcasm>

And you'd be wrong. At the time in question, the only Christians WERE Catholics. You Protestants came MUCH later.

So called Protestants came along because the Catholics got so far away from the original Word.

...as opposed to sola scriptura which is explicitly mentioned.

Believing in the Bible is hardly extra-Biblical.

Unless I understood you correctly, unless something is specifically mentioned in the Bible it is an invalid concept (your eg. no mention of orthodox). I assume then that you can readily document where the Bible specifically states sola scriptura.