Study of Denomintions 08/22/2010

A Study of Denominations
Cont. from last week

The Lord's Supper

The Nature of the Emblems

There are many denominations that teach that the bread and the fruit of the vine are literally the body and blood of Christ. There are two streams of thought concerning how this comes about: transubstantiation and consubstantiation.

Transubstantiation is taught by some denominations, including the Roman Catholic Church and many in the Eastern Orthodox Church; it holds that the bread and the fruit of the vine literally turn into the body and blood of Christ after it is blessed and a Christian partakes of it. The metaphors used in the Gospels and by Paul in 1 Corinthians are essentially literalized. What do the Scriptures say concerning this?

The New Testament--in fact, the whole Word of God-- teaches that the eating of literal blood is an abomination to God. This has been so from the beginning: when God first commanded man to eat the flesh of animals, after the flood in Genesis 9, the only stipulation He made was in verse 4:

"But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat."


This teaching is carried down through the Law of Moses (cf. Leviticus 3:17 ) and then in the covenant under Christ, when the Apostles proclaim it as part of their edict in Acts 15:29 :

That ye abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication; from which if ye keep yourselves, it shall be well with you. Fare ye well.


Therefore, we have seen that from the beginning and even through the time of the Apostles, it has been forbidden for man to drink of blood. If the early Christians understood the fruit of the vine to literally become the blood of Christ, why do we see no exception in the prohibition in Acts 15:29 ? All evidence, therefore, demonstrates that the emblems do not actually become flesh and blood.

Argument: Jesus says explicitly that we must eat His body and drink His blood if we want eternal life. Therefore, the elements of the Eucharist are literally His body and blood.

Answer: Jesus indeed says such things in John 6:53-57 :

Jesus therefore 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 not life in yourselves. He that 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 abideth in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father; so he that eateth me, he also shall live because of me."


This is said to the Jews long before Jesus establishes the Lord's Supper, and yet He says that they must (presently) "eat His flesh" and "drink His blood". Since He is physically alive at this moment, how can it be possible for them to eat His literal flesh and drink His literal blood?

These questions are easily understood when we consider how Jesus often teaches in the Gospel of John: He constantly uses physical elements to refer to spiritual things, and the people constantly do not understand. Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that she should have requested from Him "living water" ( John 4:10 ), and she continues to think that He refers to physical water ( John 4:11 , 15 ). Yet we see the following in John 4:13-14 :

Jesus answered and said unto her, "Every one that drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life."


We understand that the water of which Jesus speaks is the Gospel, the Word of life that leads to salvation. There is further evidence of the figurative use of this type of language earlier in John 6: the people seek physical bread, and Jesus explains their spiritual needs using the same image in John 6:33-35 :

"For the bread of God is that which cometh down out of heaven, and giveth life unto the world."
They said therefore unto him, "Lord, evermore give us this bread."
Jesus said unto them, "I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall not hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst."


Would we say from this passage that Jesus is speaking any more "literally" than in John 4? By no means; from Jesus, the Word of God ( John 1:1 , 14 ), comes the Gospel and eternal life, and such is the "bread" and "water" of which Jesus speaks. Since Jesus teaches in this way in John 4:10-14 and 6:33-35 , why should we expect anything different in John 6:53-57 ? The image of eating His flesh and drinking His blood is certainly visceral, but it communicates the essential spiritual message: those who seek eternal life must partake of the salvation that comes forth from Jesus. This is certainly symbolized in the Lord's Supper, but it is an abuse of these passages to deduce that the Lord's Supper is literally the body and blood of Jesus.

Others, including some Lutherans and Eastern Orthodox, accept the consubstantiation view. They affirm that the bread is the literal body of Christ and that the fruit of the vine is the literal blood of Christ, but yet the emblems physically remain as bread and as the fruit of the vine. This approach seems to take a "middle way" that is rather inconsistent: either the bread and fruit of the vine are literally Christ's body and blood or they figuratively/symbolically are His body and blood. This doctrine seems to be an attempt to avoid any negative implications of a symbolic association between bread/fruit of the vine as body/blood while not going so far as the "Real Presence" belief of transubstantiation. Since it is either literal or symbolic, there is no room for the position of consubstantiation!

Furthermore, when we consider the Gospel accounts of the Lord's Supper ( Matthew 26:26-30 , Mark 14:22-26 , Luke 22:15-20 ), we see that it makes the most sense for Jesus to be speaking in figurative language; after all, how can He determine that bread is His body when He is physically present? How can the fruit of the vine be determined as His blood while the blood of Christ still runs through His veins? The bread and the fruit of the vine was to represent for the disciples His body and blood, and they are to represent the same for His disciples today. Representation and actualization, however, remain entirely different matters, and there is no good reason to accept the idea of the actualized body and blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper.