There are many different issues separating
Catholics and Protestants today. Each is extremely important in its own way.
Ought we to base our doctrines on the Bible alone? Is a man saved by faith
alone, or isn't he? Was Mary conceived without sin? These are clearly very
important issues, and issues that are not to be taken lightly. Most of them may
have an impact on our eternal destination, but if one really loves God, getting
them right is important even if they didn't. With all the complexities of these
issues, a person hardly knows where to begin and where to turn to determine the
truth.
However, there is one doctrine that really stands out above the rest, and that
is the Eucharist. The importance of the Eucharist cannot be understated. If
Catholics are wrong, they are guilty of daily committing what is by far the
most stupid act of idolatry in the history of man by worshipping a small piece
of bread. On the other hand, if Protestants are wrong, they mock and
denigrate God, and pass up the chance to be with Him every day, while Catholics
have the strongest testimony to the truth of their beliefs possible: God
Himself. This question, then, could be a great aid to those trying to decide
who just don't have the ability or the time to go through an endless supply of
theological books, documents, and arguments.
So then, the pivotal, all important question is simply, is the Eucharist really
Jesus Christ? Does the evidence support this view? And is this evidence
independent of other areas of disagreement, such as the authority of the
Church?
Undeniably and overwhelmingly. In fact, the Bible provides all the information
one could ever need to show this.
The last supper accounts provide some of the information. Matthew's gospel
records this in chapter 26, starting in verse 20 when the 12 apostles sit down
to eat the Passover meal. It is critical to remember that this was a Passover
meal. The Passover sacrifice was always to be an unblemished lamb (Ex. 12:5),
and its bones were not to be broken (Ex. 12:46, Num. 9:12) Jesus was a Passover
sacrifice, and in keeping with the statutes of the Passover, He was
unblemished, being without sin, and His bones were not broken (John 19:36). It
is for this reason that He is called "Lamb of God." This is so
important because God required that the Passover lamb be eaten in its entirety
after shedding its blood (Ex. 12:8-10, 34:25, Num. 9:12) If the lamb was not
eaten, the Passover sacrifice had not been kept. The Lamb of God had His blood
shed on the cross, and after it must be eaten for the sacrifice to be kept.
This is done through the Eucharist. In fact, the Passover sacrifice was
instituted to save the firstborn sons, and sons are exactly what we become when
we enter into faith with Christ (Mat. 5:9, 5:45, Luk
6:35, 20:36, John 12:36, Rom. 8:14-15, 8:23, 9:26, 2 Cor 6:18, Gal. 3:26,
4:5-6, Heb. 12:7-8). We must consume the Lamb if we, as sons, are to be saved.
The language that Jesus used at the last supper is also a big help in answering
this question. As He said "Take this, and eat it, this is my body,"
He instructed the Apostles to "do this in remembrance of me." To our
modern English ears this sounds as though the Lord simply wished the apostles
to recall Him. However, the Greek word which is translated as
"remembrance" is very interesting. It is anamnēsis, a word which had two important uses during the time of Christ. To the
Greeks, the word referred to a process by which an abstract idea moved into the
material world. For example, Plato used the word to refer to the forms becoming
realities to the people of this world. To the Greek speaking Jews, the word had
sacrificial meaning. In the Greek Old Testament that was used by Christ and the
apostles, the word is used to mean "memorial sacrifice" in Leviticus
24:7, Numbers 10:10, Psalm 38, and Psalm 70. In the book of Hebrews, the word
is also used in a sacrificial way "There is in these sacrifices a reminder
[anamnēsis] of sin year after year." (10:3)
Therefore, from one standpoint Christ's words indicate the moving of His
heavenly body into the material world, and from another they indicate the
sacrificial nature of what He was commanding the apostles to do. In fact, even
the word which is translated as "do this," poiein, carries sacrificial meaning. In
the Greek Old Testament, it is used 70 times in this way, such as in Exodus
29:38: "Now this is what you shall offer (poieseis) upon the altar: two lambs a year old, day by day,
continually." Translating Luke 22:19 most literally and according to these
etymological facts would mean Jesus said, "This is my body given for you;
offer this as a memorial sacrifice of me."
The Bible continues to point to this idea in 1 Corinthians 11, where Paul gives
his great instruction on the Eucharist. He uses the very same words as does
Luke: anamnēsis and poiein. This gives
even further insight into the meaning of anamnēsis. Jesus spoke the words of the last supper in Aramaic, not Greek. Paul's
letter to the Corinthians is one of the earliest writings existing about the
Eucharist, even earlier than Matthew. When he wrote to the Corinthians, he had
to translate Christ's words into Greek. Corinth
was a Greek city and Paul chose the word anamnēsis
realizing that the Corinthians would have understood itaccording to the Greek usage, the
passing from a heavenly existence to a material existence. On the other hand,
Paul was Jewish rabbi who was very familiar with the Greek Old Testament. He
understood the term also in its sacrificial meaning. Paul's use of the word
conveys both the sacrificial and the transcendental meaning. (In fact, the
Hebrew equivalent of anamnēsis, zikaron, also carried the
transcendental meaning.)
Paul's Letter to the Corinthians holds even more evidence that the Eucharist
truly is the body of Christ. In chapter 10, he asks, "Is not the cup of
thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ?
And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?
Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake
of the one loaf." (16-17) The only way that the
cup could be a participation in the blood of the Lord, and the bread a
participation in his body, would be if the cup contained His blood and the bread was His body. Paul then writes,
"Consider the people of Israel:
Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar? Do I mean then
that a sacrifice offered to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything?
No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do
not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the
Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord's Table
and the table of demons." (18-21) He speaks of eating sacrifices in the same passage as speaking of the
Eucharist. He says that eating sacrifices is a participation in the altar, just
as receiving the Eucharist is a participation in Calvary,
the altar of Christ's sacrifice. He then goes on to make the distinction
between sacrifices to idols and those made to God, saying that one cannot both
participate in the sacrifice of pagans and also participate in the sacrifice to
God, which he has just identified as the Eucharist.
In chapter 11 Paul continues to discuss the Eucharist, strengthening the case
even further. In verse 27, he says that "whoever eats the bread or drinks
the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body
and blood of the Lord." The only way that one might profane the body of
the Lord would be if the Eucharist really were His body. Paul then goes on to
explicitly say that the Eucharist is the body of the Lord, as he warns that,
"anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body eats and drinks
judgment on himself." (29) Lastly, in verse 30, he says that many were
sick and dying from committing this sin. This is very reminiscent of the Jews
who died from touching the Ark of the Covenant, where the Lord truly dwelt,
because they were impure with sin.
Even given all of this, the strongest evidence that the Eucharist is truly
Christ's body may be found in John chapter 6. This chapter overflows with
Christ speaking of eating His body and drinking His blood. Those who reject
that the Eucharist really is Christ make one criticism of this passage. They
say that the context shows Christ is speaking symbolically. In the beginning of
chapter 6, Jesus feeds the 5,000 with his miraculous bread. Then, in verse 34,
the people ask Jesus to always give them this bread. Christ then replies that
He is the bread of life, and in verse 35 says that those who come to Him will
never go hungry. This context, some say, shows that Jesus' references to eating
Him are merely symbolic.
However, the passage clearly shows that this is not the case. After Christ
speaks of giving the people His flesh, the disciples ask "how can this man
give us his flesh to eat?" (52) Here they are interpreting Jesus' words to
mean He will give them His literal body to eat. Instead of correcting them,
Jesus uses even more direct and strong language. First, he makes the well-known
statement, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of
Man and drink his blood, you have no life in
you." (53) He then continues in verse 57 to say, "Just as the living
Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who eats me will
live because of me." The Greek word used in this verse, trogon, is not the standard word for
eating, but actually conveys the idea of chewing. Christ does not then simply
say that we must eat his body, but that we must chew His body. Chewing is not symbolic. After this, the
disciples question Jesus again,
asking, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?" (60) Jesus does
not ease their fears by clarifying that He is speaking symbolically, but rather
says that the fallen nature of flesh cannot comprehend spiritual truths, and
that the disciples must think spiritually, and listen to His words of truth:
"Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he
was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I
have spoken to you are spirit and they are life." (61-63)
Some claim that Christ's statement that "the words I have spoken to you
are spirit" is a claim that the words are symbolic. However, in asking the
question "does this offend you," Christ affirms His previous
statements. More so, the fact is that the word "spirit" is not
interpreted as meaning 'symbolic' anywhere
else in the Bible. More importantly, and perhaps most importantly of all,
immediately after this we are told that many stopped following Jesus after
this. If the Eucharist is not the body of Christ, then Jesus allowed many
disciples to walk away from Him, and to walk away from eternal life, simply
because of a misunderstanding. Twice the disciples voiced their concern over
His statement that they must eat, even chew, His flesh, and twice He reaffirmed
His words, even letting many leave Him instead of clarifying further. In fact,
there are other Bible passages where Christ does
correct such a misunderstanding, as He does in Matthew 16:5. He
does not even call them back as they start to leave. Instead, He turns to the
apostles and asks, "Do you want to leave too?"(67)
The biggest problem with the idea that Christ is speaking symbolically in John
6 is that the statement to eat someone's flesh was a Semitic expression which
meant to persecute and betray them. Just as we have expressions today, like
"it’s raining cats and dogs," or "I'm so hungry I could eat a
horse," the Semitic peoples did, too. This was one of them. In fact, The
Bible uses this expression several times. Psalm 27:2 says, "When evil men
advance against me to devour my flesh, when my enemies and my foes attack me,
they will stumble and fall.” In Micah 3:2-3, the prophet writes, "Listen,
you leaders of Jacob, you rulers of the house of Israel. Should you not know
justice, you who hate good and love evil; who tear the skin from my people and
the flesh from their bones; who eat my people's flesh...”
Isaiah uses the form of speech in chapters 9 and 49 as well. If Christ was
speaking symbolically, He would have been telling the disciples that if they
did not persecute and betray Him, they would have no life in them. The Jews who
followed Christ would not have gotten the symbolic meaning out of Jesus'
statements that we do today.
There is in fact far more evidence that the Eucharist is indeed the body of
Christ than I have presented here. The early Church fathers were unanimous in
their belief that the Eucharist was the body of Christ, many of them even using
language that is similar to the language of transubstantiation. Those men who
learned directly from Peter and Paul, men such as Ignatius of Antioch, deemed
the opinions of those who did not confess the Eucharist to be the body and
blood of Christ to be heterodox. On top of all of this are the many Eucharistic
miracles that have occurred over the centuries, such as the breathtaking miracle
of Lanciano. In these miracles, hosts have
visibly become flesh during consecrations What's more,
the blood types of all of them have been the same, AB, the same as the blood
that was found on the Shroud of Turin. However, even discounting all of this,
the fact is that the Holy Bible itself shows clearly and inarguably that the
Holy Eucharist is indeed the body of Jesus Christ, our Lord and our God.
