Posted on 07/09/2015 9:33:36 AM PDT by RnMomof7
The doctrine of Transubstantiation is the belief that the elements of the Lord’s table (bread and wine) supernaturally transform into the body and blood of Christ during the Mass. This is uniquely held by Roman Catholics but some form of a “Real Presence” view is held by Eastern Orthodox, Lutherans, and some Anglicans. The Calvinist/Reformed tradition believes in a real spiritual presence but not one of substance. Most of the remaining Protestant traditions (myself included) don’t believe in any real presence, either spiritual or physical, but believe that the Eucharist is a memorial and a proclamation of Christ’s work on the cross (this is often called Zwinglianism). The Roman Catholic Council of Trent (1545-1563) defined Transubstantiation this way:
By the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation” (Session XIII, chapter IV)
As well, there is an abiding curse (anathema) placed on all Christians who deny this doctrine:
If anyone denies that in the sacrament of the most Holy Eucharist are contained truly, really and substantially the body and blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and consequently the whole Christ,[42] but says that He is in it only as in a sign, or figure or force, let him be anathema. (Session XII, Canon I)
It is very important to note that Roman Catholics not only believe that taking the Eucharist in the right manner is essential for salvation, but that belief in the doctrine is just as essential.
Here are the five primary reasons why I reject the doctrine of Transubstantiation:
1. It takes Christ too literally
There does not seem to be any reason to take Christ literally when he institutes the Eucharist with the words, “This is my body” and “This is my blood” (Matt. 26:26-28, et al). Christ often used metaphor in order to communicate a point. For example, he says “I am the door,” “I am the vine,” “You are the salt of the earth,” and “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:13-14) but people know that we don’t take such statement literally. After all, who believes that Christ is literally a door swinging on a hinge?
2. It does not take Christ literally enough
Let’s say for the sake of the argument that in this instance Christ did mean to be taken literally. What would this mean? Well, it seems hard to escape the conclusion that the night before Christ died on the cross, when he said, “This is my body” and “This is my blood,” that it actually was his body and blood that night before he died. If this were the case, and Christ really meant to be taken literally, we have Christ, before the atonement was actually made, offering the atonement to his disciples. I think this alone gives strong support to a denial of any substantial real presence.
3. It does not take Christ literally enough (2)
In each of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) we have the institution of the Eucharist. When the wine is presented, Christ’s wording is a bit different. Here is how it goes in Luke’s Gospel: “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood” (Luk 22:20). Here, if we were really to take Christ literally, the “cup” is the new covenant. It is not the wine, it is the cup that is holy. However, of course, even Roman Catholics would agree that the cup is symbolic of the wine. But why one and not the other? Why can’t the wine be symbolic of his death if the cup can be symbolic of the wine? As well, is the cup actually the “new covenant”? That is what he says. “This cup . . . is the new covenant.” Is the cup the actual new covenant, or only symbolic of it? See the issues?
4. The Gospel of John fails to mention the Eucharist
Another significant problem I have with the Roman Catholic interpretation of the Eucharist and its abiding anathemas is that the one Gospel which claims to be written so that people may have eternal life, John (John 20:31), does not even include the institution of the Eucharist. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell the story of Christ giving the first Lord’s table, but John decides to leave it out. Why? This issue is made more significant in that John includes more of the “Upper Room” narrative than any of the other Gospels. Nearly one-third of the entire book of John walks us through what Christ did and said that night with his disciples. Yet no breaking of the bread or giving of the wine is included. This is a pretty significant oversight if John meant to give people the message that would lead to eternal life (John 20:31). From the Roman Catholic perspective, his message must be seen as insufficient to lead to eternal life since practice and belief in the Mass are essential for eternal life and he leaves these completely out of the Upper Room narrative.
(Some believe that John does mention the importance of belief in Transubstantiation in John 6. The whole, “Why did he let them walk away?” argument. But I think this argument is weak. I talk about that here. Nevertheless, it still does not answer why John left out the institution of the Lord’s Supper. It could be that by A.D. 90, John saw an abuse of the Lord’s table already rising. He may have sought to curb this abuse by leaving the Eucharist completely out of his Gospel. But this, I readily admit, is speculative.)
5. Problems with the Hypostatic Union and the Council of Chalcedon
This one is going to be a bit difficult to explain, but let me give it a shot. Orthodox Christianity (not Eastern Orthodox) holds to the “Hypostatic Union” of Christ. This means that we believe that Christ is fully God and fully man. This was most acutely defined at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Important for our conversation is that Christ had to be fully man to fully redeem us. Christ could not be a mixture of God and man, or he could only represent other mixtures of God and man. He is/was one person with two complete natures. These nature do not intermingle (they are “without confusion”). In other words, his human nature does not infect or corrupt his divine nature. And his divine nature does not infect or corrupt his human nature. This is called the communicatio idiomatum (communication of properties or attributes). The attributes of one nature cannot communicate (transfer/share) with another nature. Christ’s humanity did not become divinitized. It remained complete and perfect humanity (with all its limitations). The natures can communicate with the Person, but not with each other. Therefore, the attribute of omnipresence (present everywhere) cannot communicate to his humanity to make his humanity omnipresent. If it did, we lose our representative High Priest, since we don’t have this attribute communicated to our nature. Christ must always remain as we are in order to be the Priest and Pioneer of our faith. What does all of this mean? Christ’s body cannot be at more than one place at a time, much less at millions of places across the world every Sunday during Mass. In this sense, I believe that any real physical presence view denies the definition of Chalcedon and the principles therein.
There are many more objections that I could bring including Paul’s lack of mentioning it to the Romans (the most comprehensive presentation of the Gospel in the Bible), some issues of anatomy, issues of idolatry, and just some very practical things concerning Holy Orders, church history, and . . . ahem . . . excrement. But I think these five are significant enough to justify a denial of Transubstantiation. While I respect Roman Catholicism a great deal, I must admit how hard it is for me to believe that a doctrine that is so difficult to defend biblically is held to such a degree that abiding anathemas are pronounced on those who disagree.
A cannibal eats the flesh of its victim. That IS its substance.
I reiterate, John 6 CANNOT be a discussion of the eucharist, its was years before the Last Supper, when the sacrament was instituted.
In the early years of the Church of Jesus Christ --not the Methodist Church, or the Baptist Church or the Catholic Church, etc, the Church of Jesus, the Bride of Christ, the Body of Christ-- the breaking of bread and cup of remembrance wine was most often done in someone's home. Passover is meant to be observed in the home. The family of God will soon be in 'The Father's House'. God is coming in the Air to get all His temples and gather them to Himself and head back to His House for a really big celebration with family members.
I'm going to do that Remembrance this very evening, in the company of my little tuxedo cat. She won't know what I'm mumbling about, but I will, and more importantly GOD will.
Your reply is a joke. Jesus then goes on to say that you need the bread that God provides. The entire rest of the chapter is dedicated to eating Jesus’ body.
But you have confirmed my point for me ...
Whether it was 1 year or several years ... it was before the sacrament was instituted ... so it could have been at most a foreshadowing.
And given that John does not mention the institution during the upper room discourse (John 13-17) ... it is inconceivable that John 6 is about the eucharist.
There is no cogent explanation that I have heard from any RC why John would mention it in John 6, but then fail to mention it in John 13-17.
Given the number of times Jesus mentions 'believe' in John 6 ... I suspect that your theology has blinded you to the main point.
When we devour food we eat all of it. Both what it truly is - its substance - and also its ephemeral accidents.
The Eucharist is not an act of cannibalism - not because of accidents vs substance, but because We eat Christ.
He is not dead flesh, but uttermost, living reality. He is the true Passover Lamb.
And - like the Jews in Egypt we eat Him to save ourselves from death. We eat of our Saviour, the true Lamb of God who is prefigured in the Passover meal.
Most of those walked away mumbling were probably slaughtered by the Romans, when Titus entered Jerusalem in 70AD and killed a million Jews there. Christians, those who took the Word of Life at His Word fled from Jerusalem while the Roman legions diddled outside the city for nine months while Vespasian returned to ROME to settle the Emperor question.
Jesus had warned them during the Olivet Discourse (Mark 13 and Matthew 24) and the earlier that day discourse in the Temple (see it in Luke 21) that when they saw the armies encamped about Jerusalem to flee the city. He went on to warn later generation to expect a much more horrible fate for mankind. But He gave Christians a hint that they were not appointed to God's Wrath and that they would be removed prior to the hour of 'testing', so they would not face the actual testing.
God has not appointed His family to suffer His wrath upon the sin-drenched earth. But He is only going to snatch away HJis family before pouring out His wrath.
And what do you as a Catholic believe He brought? he did say He had come to fulfill the law, not break it or end it. What did Peter say he saw that The Christ had for he and the few who remained, in John 6?
Other than the timing, you make a most brilliant point! Sad that some will focus upon the time thing and ignore the crucial Truth you showed openly.
The Synoptics (with the exception of Luke) targeted a Jewish or mixed audience. Saint John (OTOH) was targeting a Graeco-Roman audience.
It appears that John wrote His Gospel at a time when the specifics of the Eucharistic Liturgy were kept private (not that belief in the Eucharist was secret: just the specifics of the ritual itself).
The early Christians kicked out the unbaptized halfway through Mass, before the Eucharistic Prayers. That’s why the first half of Mass is called the “Mass of Catechumens”: it was the part of the Liturgy open to the public - to 'Catechumens' who were learning about Christianity.
However the Eucharist itself - the second part of the mass - wasn't open to the public.
This seems to have been for good and sufficient reason: there was great danger of exciting blasphemy. The Roman mystery cult dedicated to Mithras created a rite imitating or parodying the Last Supper. IIRC it involved the blood of bulls.
Also there were frequent accusations that the Christians were cannibals for feasting upon the Body and Blood of our Lord.
In such a milieu it would make sense to protect the Eucharist from abuse. For remember:
So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.
So - one theory is - that while John wrote at great length on the words spoken at the last Supper, he deliberately kept the details of the ritual of the Eucharist private - to preserve it from casual blasphemy and mockery by Romans.
After all: the Christians already had the other three Gospels, describing the most important moment of the Last Supper. Any enquiring Romans would learn about Christ's words on His Body and Blood from e.g. John, and find out later what the actual form of the Eucharist was.
Bkmk
For example, taking Aquinas as the paradigmatic expositor of transubstantiation, we do not metabolize the body of Christ when we digest the thing we put in our mouth. We metabolize the accidents, the baked flour, the long chain polysaccharides of which it is made. It lost the “form” of bread once we chewed it an turned it into a bolus of flour and saliva. And once the form is gone, the substance of the indivisible Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity is no longer there, because the miracle is the change of substance while the accidents of bread remain.
(Really, the best place to get the technicalities down is the Summa. One of the sneakiest aspects of the so-called "Enlightenment" was the changing of vocabulary. "Real" now refers to accidents. "Substantial" means something like "massive," another accident.)
If I name a lamb (as I once did) “Church Picnic”, have him slaughtered, quartered, and barbecued for the fall Church picnic, We're not eating “Church Picnic.” We're eating meat — delicious meat.
(Bear with me, I'm thinking on my feet here.)
So, the superstitious may think that in eating Chief Naku Penda from the next valley they are ingesting his courage and whatnot. But they're mistaken. They're eating people meat. The chief has gone to his reward and didn't hang around to be devoured. And what is happening instead is that his flesh is metabolized and whatnot. Body to body.
Because the “him” —the self, rather than the “it” — the sirloin, is a living body, as we read in Gen 2:7.
By contrast, what we eat in the Eucharist is the real and substantial “Him,” the living body. Cannibalism, despite the superstition of the pagans, is a kind of polar opposite. Instead of the self, all they get is meat. But we, instead of meat, get the self.
The passage where Paul speaks of “Christ our Passover Lamb” isn’t in your Bible?
In all three scenes recorded in the Gospel of Matthew the Gospel of Mark (probably the dictated Gospel of Peter) and the Gospel of Luke. Jesus calls the contents of the cup Wine, never His blood but wine. He stated clearly that the wine in the cup was to be drunk in remembrance of the blood of the new covenant to be shed for them the next day on the cross, and the fourth cup was poured out. Jesus Himself when Instituting the REMEMBRANCE used the WINE as the symbol of His blood shed for them and for us. At the actual instituting of the REMEMBRANCE the Lord Himself called the contents of the cup wine.
It would not be out of line to say that Jesus, knowing what trouble the disciples and which they held as questions from the months walking with Him, would clarify something as significant as John 6. For His friends, His closest followers who were, as best they could, 'down for the struggle'. He used the PAssove meal to institute the new covenant He was going to seal with His blood the next day, and He made clear the Truth of the bread and wine discourse from John 6 by passing among them pieces of bread He instructed to be eaten as a remembrance of His body about to be offered up BY HIM on the Cross for them. And he passed the cups of wine among them instructing all of them to drink from them because that wine in those cups, those Passover remembrance cups of wine, THAT wine was the symbol of His blood about to be shed for them.
Sitting at Passover table with His Disciples Jesus OUR HIGH PRIEST would not have violated the Levitical laws the night before His sealing the new covenant with His own Perfect and Righteous, full of His Life blood.
Folks can make alkl the fables up they want to, but the scene in John 6, as dartuser has stated so concisely, was not the establishment of the REMEMBRANCE COMMUNION! It may be what catholics point to as the establishment of catholic Eucharist, but that connects their ritual immediately tot eh curse upon any who drink blood, as clearly and unequivocally commanded BY GOD in Leviticus 3 and 17. The wine was made the symbol of His blood shed for us and He even said He would not drink WINE again until He drank it with them again in His Father's Kingdom. Read the Gospel passages for yourself. What is given in John 6 is not the establishment of THE REMEBRANCE. Jesus occasionally used sarcasm to address hardened hearts. He used that same technique with the hard hearts and those who He knew would not be all in for the mission.
BUT THE LORD did clarify in the John 6 scene, for those who remained, those who declared they were sticking with Him because He had the WORDS of eternal life. To them He clarified:
John 6:61And Jesus having known in himself that his disciples are murmuring about this, said to them, ‘Doth this stumble you? 62if then ye may behold the Son of Man going up where he was before? 63the spirit it is that is giving life; the flesh doth not profit anything; the sayings that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life; 64but there are certain of you who do not believe;’ for Jesus had known from the beginning who they are who are not believing, and who is he who will deliver him up, 65and he said, ‘Because of this I have said to you — No one is able to come unto me, if it may not have been given him from my Father.’66 From this [time] many of his disciples went away backward, and were no more walking with him, 67 Jesus, therefore, said to the twelve, ‘Do ye also wish to go away?’ 68 Simon Peter, therefore, answered him, ‘Sir, unto whom shall we go? thou hast sayings of life age-during; 69 and we have believed, and we have known, that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ [Young's Literal Translation]
Squirrel!
That is severely twisted logic. There is no transubstantiation. We do not eat the literal body and blood of Christ. Cannibalism has always been, and always shall be, an abomination.
Have you ever read that whole chapter ?
The bread of life discourse ended and no one left..
Jhn 6:60 Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard [this], said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?
Jhn 6:61 When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you?
Still no one left ...So Jesus continued .....
Jhn 6:62 [What] and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?
Jhn 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.
Jhn 6:64 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him
.
Jhn 6:65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.
Jhn 6:66 From that [time] many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.
They did not like hearing that salvation had to be given them and much like the manna in the desert, it was totally a gift of the Father.
They could not do anything on their own to earn it, they only had access to it by faith ( remember the Jews could only gather enough manna for the one days meals, and for 2 days on the day before the sabbath, they had to have faith in God to provide what was necessary for their life)
. The idea that salvation was all of God and not found in law keeping was blasphemy to the law oriented Jews that felt their salvation was based on their will, their law keeping etc....
So after those left that Jesus already knew would leave.. what happened??
Did Peter ask for some of "that bread ???
No because he and the others understood what Jesus had been teaching
67 Then Jesus said to the Twelve, 'What about you, do you want to go away too?'
68Simon Peter answered, "Lord, who will we go to? You have the words of eternal life.
69 and we believe; we have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.'
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