Question
My question has to do with the Catholic tradition of communion. To my understanding Catholics believe that the host is really the body of Christ and the wine is really the blood of Christ. I have read the Scripture and cannot decide whether this is accurate or not. Could you please help me with this.
Answer
Yes, my understanding that this Catholic teaching, commonly known as Transubstantiation, came about in the 13th century. Before that time, it was unknown to anyone, including Jesus and His apostles. The basic teaching is, as you put it, Jesus body and blood are mystically transformed when people partake of the wafer and juice. Therefore, Jesus is re-sacrificed every time someone partakes of the mass, what Christians would call the Lord’s Supper.
As to the Scriptures, there is nothing that is found that would lead us to believe such a teaching. First, Jesus has been sacrificed once and for all. There is no more sacrificing of Jesus again and again, as some would have us believe. Heb. 10:10-14.
As we partake of the Lord’s Supper each first day of the week (Sunday), it is a memorial where we use symbols, specified by Jesus Himself, to help us remember the actual sacrifice that was made on our behalf. Acts 20:7, Matt. 26:26-29, 1 or. 11:23-34.
To be fair, the only passage that comes close, through misunderstanding, to teaching the Catholic view, is found in John 6. To briefly summarize, the following points are mentioned in this account.
Verses 1-13 – Jesus miraculously feeds 5,000 men, plus women and children, with bread and fish.
Verses 14-15 – Their response to Him is, they want to take Him by force and make Him king over them. Their reasoning, He will provide with al material things, without any effort being needed on our part.
Verses 16-29 – Jesus withdraws from them and then after seeking for Him, the multitudes fin Him. He reveals their motives for seeking Him (they were filled with the bread) and challenges them to believe (trust and obey) Him, for He is the true bread of life.
What is seen in the rest of the exchanges that follow is, Jesus challenge to them is that they should accept and believe in Him as the Messiah. He couches this in the figure of eating bread.
He repeats the them in verses 35-36 and verses 46-47. To eat the bread is to believe (trust and obey) Him.
Then, in verse 51, He plainly defines the living bread as His flesh, the sacrifice He is going to make for our sins.
Finally, in verses 53-54, He goes back to the idea of eating is bread, His flesh. But, how do we do this? As He stated over and over to them we do it by believing (trusting and obeying Him). Although that would include taking the Lord’s Supper, it would also include all other things that relate to becoming a Christian and being a Christian. However, it has no reference to the bread and fruit of the vine becoming the literal body and blood of Jesus inside of us.
By Gary Hunt
