I have been pondering a question about the bread and fruit of the vine and whether or not it truly is the body and blood of Christ in a literal sense.
I grew up in the Catholic tradition, and transubstantiation is a doctrine that was considered tantamount to being Catholic, if you didn't believe in transubstantiation, you were considered a heretic and technically no longer a Catholic. At least that's how it was taught to me.
This post is meant mainly to address the Catholic idea of transubstantiation, and how I feel about it, but I think that much of it could also be applied to the Lutheran concept of consubstantiation as well. I don't know as much about the Lutheran doctrine, but I think it is somewhat similar to the Catholic idea, with only slight differences.
I can't claim that these are all my own ideas, because they aren't. I have been studying the Lord's Supper over the summer, and have drawn this out of many resources, most importantly, the Bible.
Another resource that I have used extensively (aside from the internet, and you know, if it's on the internet it has to be true, right?), is John Mark Hicks book, "Revisioning the Lord's Supper". If you haven't read it, I would highly recommend it to you. He gets deep into the idea of Old Testament fellowship at table and how it should carry over to the table today.
One of the major problems I have with transubstantiation is the idea that at every mass, Christ is crucified all over again, His body is broken and His blood is spilled during the rite spoken by the priest. This is an integral part of the transubstantiation doctrine, that Christ is re-sacrificed at every mass. But in Hebrews 7:27 it says "Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself." It doesn't say that Jesus keeps dying over and over again, week after week, at churches all over the world.
Another key difficulty with transubstantiation for me is that Jesus constantly uses symbolism to describe spiritual ideas. In John 6, which is probably the book/chapter that most Catholics would point to in order to justify transubstantiation, Jesus uses many different metaphors to speak of spiritual truths. In fact, before He speaks about eating His flesh, Jesus has already told the unbelievers four times that they must BELIEVE in Him in order to have life.
Jesus tells them in John 6:51 "I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." If we interpret the verses that you must literally eat Jesus' body and blood, we run into problems.
This verse claims that you must eat His body and drink His blood in order to have eternal life. Over and over again in this chapter, Jesus made it clear that eternal life came from believing in Him. We "eat" Jesus only in a spiritual sense. Eating isn't a spiritual act, but believing in Him is. If we take this verse literally, we see that the thief on the cross didn't eat Jesus' body or drink His blood, so Jesus would have to have been lying when He told him that he would be with Him in heaven that very day.
In John 6, Jesus was illustrating spiritual truths with earthly examples. Eternal life comes from belief in Christ, not from eating the bread. Near the end of the chapter, in verse 63, Jesus tells the disciples that He was talking about spiritual truths: "The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life."
Luke 22:10-20 says, "And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me." In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you." When you look at the context of the situation, I don't think that these words were meant to be taken literally. How could Jesus, who was still present in His own body, say that bread and wine were His body and blood? Jesus told them to commemorate His sacrifice and New Covenant by using the bread and wine as symbols of His body and blood.
Jesus also said that He was able to give "living water:" Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." John 4:10This is one of the best examples that Jesus may have been talking about the same thing in John 4 as in John 6. Both times, He uses the word "living." Jesus is the "living bread" and the "living water." I think he was referring not to a physical reality, but to spiritual truths. The way that bread is needed for physical life, water is also needed for physical life.
But Jesus gives us the living (spiritual) water that we need for eternal life:
Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." John 4:13-14
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