Posted on 05/22/2015 9:05:44 AM PDT by RnMomof7
When sharing with catholics the wonderful news about the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross for the sins of the world, one of the most tragic and miserable deceptions that many of them have blindly bought into is their worship and idolization of the eucharist.
Breaking bread is something that all Bible believers cherish and take very seriously, especially after reading Paul's solemn admonition not to come to the Lord's table with any unconfessed sin in our hearts (1 Cor. 11:23-34). However, communion is only for those of us that have already been saved from all of our past, present, and future sins; and as such we do so in gratitude for and remembrance of the terrible price that Christ paid for us in dying for our sins to save us from the wrath of God, not in order to 'be saved' or to 'stay saved.'
For catholics, however, it is something they must do in the 'hope' of being saved and staying saved. So, for them it's rather simple: no priest, no mass. No mass, no salvation! And it's also something that they must continue to do right up until they die, otherwise all the 'good' that they've done in their lives will be wiped away upon death. Without meaning to sound crude, it's a bit like a 'pay-as-you-go' situation, a bit like buying 'credit' for their phone in order to use it. Translated, this means that they have to keep going to mass in order to 'stay saved.'
In John 6, which I covered point by point in another article, Jesus makes it very clear that when a person eats His flesh and drinks His blood, they have (present tense) everlasting life.
"Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day."
The above verse proves that eating the Lord's body means one already has everlasting life (present tense) and affirms that this is no mere reference to sitting down and breaking bread each week (I’ll have more to say on this later).
One writer offered the following:
"In ancient ritual blood sacrifices (in pagan religions) the worshipper must consume the blood of the victim as a sacrifice. This idea was incorporated in such manner that now the communing believer takes the bread (the body of Christ) into his own flesh in this the supreme and highest moment of Christian worship. This becomes the central mystery of the Christians’ faith and practice eating the body of Christ."
Up until the 12th century, many popes and church councils had differing views as to the necessity of the mass. For example, Gregory I placed an anathema and automatic excommunication on anyone who didn't participate in this unbiblical and non-bloody sacrifice. Yet Innocent III said that all those who taught that it was necessary and essential to attend mass would be excommunicated. (Also, some church "fathers," like the above popes, believed in the eucharist being literal, divine and essential to salvation, while others considered it only to be symbolic, and no more than that.)
Catholics believe their priests have magical powers to change a wafer and wine (not unleavened bread and fruit juice, both being Scriptural) into the literal body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ before 'crucifying' Him afresh, and the Scripture that is commonly misused and misunderstood to 'affirm' this is John 6:51-63:
"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, which I will give 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 unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live forever. These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum. Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it? When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life."
This kind of Biblical interpretation is called letterism. The concept is quite simple: every passage in the Bible (if one is not careful) ends up being interpreted literally, resulting in many problems, if this is taken to the extreme.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) have also fallen prey to this theological blunder!
For example, in the above piece of Scripture, the Jewish Messiah is speaking to His Jewish disciples and others present (never forget the historical and religious context) in their Jewish synagogue, and He tells them:
"Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath (present tense) eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day."
According to catholic teachings, no catholic is entitled to have any assurance of salvation, much the same way that Muslims don't either have any assurance that their sins are forgiven. Should they die at any moment, their religion offers them no guarantee that they will go straight to be with the Lord, even though the above text is crystal clear that salvation is eternal and given to those that eat His flesh and drink His blood. Once again, Rome is proven to be teaching falsehoods on matters of one's eternal and unconditional salvation.
May I also take a moment to remind the reader that Jewish culture forbade the drinking of blood (animal or human) before the law, during the law, and after the law (Lev. 17:11-14.) So, obviously, Jesus would not teach against His own law while the Jews were still living under the Jewish law (Acts 15:28-29).
Some years after this event, Peter would say: "I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean" (Acts 10:14). Yet, according to Rome, he had done this but didn't know what he was talking about!
As catholic doctrine desperately needs to affirm John 6 as being literal, I find it rather odd that other verses, such as Matt. 5:29 "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee," are not interpreted literally, but only metaphorically. (One church leader, Origen, did foolishly mutilate himself, when reading this Scripture.)
So, how should Matt. 5:29 be correctly understood and interpreted? Jesus is warning His Jewish audience about the drastic consequences of unrepentant sin (Rom. 12:1 should be cross-referenced here). Correctly, nobody within catholicism or Biblical Christianity would take this verse to be literal but metaphorical, which of course is the only correct way to exegete it.
And what about John 6:54? Well, Scripture with Scripture, and we read how some of the unbelieving Jews, when hearing about eating and drinking Christ's body, later complained (vs. 61). This is reminiscent of what happened with Moses and his followers, when they were still wandering in the wilderness (Ex. 16:2). Also from the same chapter, we read about the "Bread of Heaven," which God gave as a test to Israel to see who would obey His laws or not.
John 6 comes to its natural completion, with the false disciples departing from Jesus, even though He made it clear in vs. 63 that His words weren't literal. They had already made up their minds, however, and "walked no more with Him," and with this, Christ allowed them to depart permanently (John 6:66; 1 John 2:19).
So then how should one understand what Jesus means when He says they must eat Him and drink Him? The most sensible and logical conclusion for any honest and open-minded person to come to would be to understand this as being metaphorical. Therefore, the Lord was underscoring the fact that He would soon die and taught His followers that they would need to partake of this spiritual memorial, i.e., believe in Him and on Him, if they wanted to be saved (John 1:12).
Two other things should be said about the eucharist:
1) If receiving it (pre-Vatican II) warrants eternal life, then grace through faith alone is thrown out and works for salvation is taught alongside it, something that the cults believe. Please also remember that communion hadn't yet been officially instituted by Christ.
2) Today's catholic church (post-Vatican II) no longer holds to the urgent need for catholics to take communion in order to be saved; for they state that Muslims and Jews can be saved without any faith or repentance in Christ.
No sane person would take a literal interpretation of other Scriptures such as "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst" (John 4:14); "I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever" (John 6:51); "I am the door" (John 10:7), and finally, "He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler" (Ps. 91:4). This is known as letterism. Rather, these verses are understood figuratively, based on the loving understanding that God does and will look after His own and will feed those that believe in Him literally and spiritually.
Thus, redeemed sinners will never thirst again if they feed on Him and His word daily. And we know that God is not a bird (Ps. 91:4), but is a Spirit (John 4:24) and is also invisible (Col. 1:15).
Later in the Bible we read how Paul ridiculed his pagan audience in Acts 17:25, when he totally dismantled their nonsensical belief:
"Neither is [God] worshipped with men's hands [out goes transubstantiation], as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things."
One should also read Acts 19:26-27 where Paul once again reiterates this position, and what follows from his pagan crowd? Much persecution and violence. Why? Because they, like Rome, know, that Paul's rebuke of their foolish notion of creating gods, i.e., statues, etc, etc, is very bad for business (like church membership and attendance is for Rome). How times never change!
Lastly, on this note, 1 Cor. 8:8 is the final clincher that eating food (the wafer miraculously becoming 'the body of Christ') doesn't save sinners:
"But meat commendeth us not to God: for neither, if we eat, are we the better; neither, if we eat not, are we the worse."
Each of these verses totally obliterates the warped view of the catholic eucharist being a Biblical doctrine, let alone being able to save lost, ignorant sinners!
May I say the reason why I have titled this article, "The blasphemy of the mass" is not only in remembrance of the following victim of this cruel and heretical belief of a wafer being transformed into the literal body of the Lord Jesus, but because the church of Rome have created yet another idol and stumbling block to catholics all over the world, something God detests and will judge them severely for.
Before I move on, I wish to share with the reader, the following and most profound statement made by an Anne Askew, whilst been tortured to death for Christ by a catholic bishop, for failing to submit to the mass:
"I have read that God made man, but that man can make God, I have never read."
(Anne was 25 years old when she was tortured and later taken out and burnt alive!)
One writer had the following to say about the madness of how Rome deals with a wafer:
"If a Catholic gets the wafer (not the Biblical unleavened bread) stuck in his false tooth, he is to scrap "Jesus" out of his mouth with a knife or finger, dip Him in water and drink Him...If a person vomits up the wafer, they must pick up their vomit."
One last example of this type of wooden and woolly interpretation would be when the Mormons take 1 Cor. 15:29 literally:
"If the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?"
After reading this passage, the founder of the Mormon religion, Joseph Smith, (who was also a freemason and witch) started baptising dead people. This form of exegesis is sheer madness, for when did a dead unrepentant person ever benefit from being baptised after they died?
(The Mormons have been known to baptise dead people at random, regardless of their religious backgrounds, and then add their names to their own private computer, which incidentally has billions of names of people from around the whole world and dating back many years in their many underground secret tunnels in Utah).
1 Cor. 15:29 simply means that if Christ had not died and then been raised from the dead, our baptism and faith in Him would be totally in vain.
For non-catholics, the whole concept of what the mass is was clearly defined and explained by an archbishop, John F. Whealon:
"Sacrifice is the very essence of religion. And it is only through sacrifice that union with the Creator can be perfectly acquired. It was through sacrifice that Christ Himself was able to achieve this for man. It is only through the perpetuation [continuing] of that sacrifice that this union may be maintained."
This part of Scripture is partially true, apart from the perpetual aspect. And then Whealon goes on to say:
"What makes the mass the most exalted of all sacrifices is the nature of the victim, Christ Himself. For the Mass is the continuation of Christ's sacrifice which He offered through His life and death. Jesus then, is the priest, the offerer of the sacrifice. But Christ was not only the priest of this sacrifice (of the cross), He was also the victim, the very object itself of this sacrifice. The Mass is thus the same as the sacrifice of the cross. No matter how many times it is offered, nor in how many places at one time, it is the same sacrifice of Christ. Christ is forever offering himself in the Mass."
(Note: The mass is performed around 200,000 times a day, all around the globe, meaning Jesus, according to catholic belief, is continually being 'summoned' down from Heaven like a bellboy, to be repeatedly 'sacrificed' afresh for the sins of catholics. 'Salvation' at best is only temporary and most certainly 'conditional', and as such, catholics are constantly in limbo and fear of dying outside their so-called 'state of grace.')
One of the greatest blessings for people that had been trapped in organized religion was the protestant reformation of the 16th century. Much to their credit, the reformers re-discovered how sinners are saved solely and exclusively by their faith alone in the shed blood of Christ.
By Christ's precious and divine blood, anybody who believes on Him and in His substitutionary death on the cross for their sins can be totally forgiven and pardoned, regardless of anything they do to 'help' them earn 'favour' with God!
Of course, such an amazing re-affirmation of God's incredible grace was met with absolute fury from the priests of Rome because, for them, only they could act as little 'mediators' between God and man. To cut them out of the equation meant the end of livelihoods and strongholds over members of their religion.
So, Rome launched a counter-reformation movement, and one of the first things they did was to convene in Trent, northern Italy, where they issued over 100 curses on worldwide non-catholics, which in essence meant eternal Hell fire upon death!
The council of Trent and its many curses, which is still binding on non-catholics to this present day, had the following to say to anyone who didn't agree with them on this:
"If anyone shall say that a blasphemy is ascribed to the most Holy sacrifice of Christ performed on the cross by the sacrifice of the mass let him be accursed."
Well, before I respond to the curses promised by Rome, may I remind the reader of one very important point: if the mass is a continuation of the work of Calvary, than catholicism has a rather difficult problem. For the Bible says, "And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission" (Heb. 9:22).
The mass is a non-bloody sacrifice. The sacrifices in the Jewish temple were bloody. Jesus' death was bloody. The mass is not. Therefore according to Biblical theology, the mass is totally nullified, and subsequently worthless!
Now as far as the 100+ curses, which have so 'lovingly' been placed on all non-catholics are concerned, all I would say is this: I shall return such curses back to Rome via FedEx! Because as far as I am concerned, the mass is not needed at all. For we read the following in the book of Hebrews:
"But this man [Jesus], because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's: for this he did once, when he offered up himself. For the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity; but the word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh the Son, who is consecrated for evermore" (Heb. 7:24-28).
"Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us" (Heb. 9:12).
This monumental Scripture, which the apostle Paul also affirmed in his epistle to the Romans (6:10), has a most beautiful connotation to it. Such verses would echo the words of the Lord as He hung naked on Calvary's cross, "It is finished" (John 19:30).
And before I move on, please permit me to share what a real curse is, when concerning false teachers and their teachings, from a true servant of God:
"I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed" (Gal. 1:6-9).
So, it appears the Rome has actually cursed themselves, when seeking to curse true Bible believers!
To the observant student of Scripture, none of the above verses state that works of any kind are necessary for salvation; it's simply by one's faith alone in Christ alone!
So, what further need do we have to emphasise that the sacrificial aspect of the catholic mass is a farce and blasphemy in the eyes of God. Jesus has paid the price for the sin of the world (John 1:29), and no church, group, priest, vicar, guru, prophet, or god has the right or even the audacity to say or teach otherwise.
I'm not surprised that the author didn't attach his name to this steaming load.
(...wait for it...)
James Battell, ETC Ministries
.
I'm basing my assertion on other details from the website and the "JGB" initials at the end of the article.
They say:
We are a father and son UK ministry reaching out to Roman Catholics and others the world over, with the true and everlasting Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
(Hat tip to Al Gore for inventing the internet-thingy.)
First, #91 is not from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Second, it doesn’t say anything about those who are not under the auspices of the Catholic Church in physical form.
Not according to your religion...
The Catechism of the Council of Trent states the reality of the Mass being the same sacrifice as that of Calvary. It is only the form that is different, where one is a bloody sacrifice, the other is done in an unbloody way, but the sacrifice is still completely the same
Your religion says your Mass is a re-presentation of the Crucifixion, NOT the Last Supper...
You are RIGHT, sir (or madam.)
And yet you don't prove anything...
I am a student of logic in discourse, so I do appreciate it. My purpose is rhetorical, hoping to get an answer why one denomination only is attacked by this poster, and why others defend this. Can you tell me why?
Cornelius and the Samaritans would disagree with your position.
The Bible makes it clear that faith in Christ is what saves....not baptism, not the Lord's Supper or any other "work".
We've seen your standards and let's just hope you're not an attorney.
I don’t live my Catholic faith based upon how much I hate other denominations (which I don’t). But the back & forth on this topic typically degenerates into several kinds of Christians telling each other why they’re going to Hell when they die.
Or maybe it’s an old ethnic WASP thing from the days when “real Americans” watched in horror as hordes of mackerel-snappers poured in from Ireland, Poland, & Italy. Catholic immigrants with Anglo-Saxon names were the worst; they looked & sounded like normal people even as they brought their Pope- and Mary-worshipping ways into the land of sola scriptura.
And all the snarky comebacks do absolutely nothing to advance dialogue.
When I was a young man, we passed the cup during the LITURGY of the EUCHARIST (specifically, the Communion Rite).
Then along came Louis Pasteur's discovery of germs. Eventually the Catholic Church commanded that, in spite of the fact that Christ Himself passed the cup, we could no longer drink from the cup (glass or otherwise.)
The wafer could be distributed as before (but not fumbled). Even though they were practicing only HALF of what they read, they were stopping the plague - so, it's all good.
Was the priest afraid of spreading germs and risking a low turnout at BINGO night?
Did the priest say, "I know it is His actual blood, but now it could be infected? I better wash it out good (with Holy Water) at the end of the Mass." Did he ever ask, "Can Christ's actual blood be the vector for a communicable a disease? I'd better ask the Bishop on his next visit."
I'm not answering for anyone else here but I haven't seen very many posts from Muslims, Buddhists, Taoists, or even Secular Humanists telling me that their's is the only way to heaven.
If I DID see such a post, I would respond.
I haven't seen a Hindu Caucus, either.
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.And a misconception it is, if you think this is widely believed among Protestants/evangelicals. Among evangelicals you will find different degrees of knowledge, true, and there are also going to be people who just want to sin, and they will take any excuse to do so. But the typical conservative evangelical would be horrified to contemplate taking advantage of what Christ has done for them as an occasion for sin. Just the opposite. For us it is an occasion of love, of gratitude, of a desire to grow in that grace and become more like Christ in our thoughts and deeds and innermost being. Like Paul says, what you suggest raises up in us a mighty "God forbid!" It is a straw man argument. It does not represent what we believe. If you wish to address yourself to real beliefs as opposed to imaginary ones, this is a good one to let go of. It's not who we are.
(Romans 6:1-4)
But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.Peace,
(Romans 8:9)
Good work mom.
Good article, thanks for posting RnMomof7! Keep up the good work!
To worship the eucharist is to worship the ceremony and I'm pretty sure we're to worshop God and not the means by which we fellowship
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