1Co 11:27 Disproves Transubstantiation?

[TheMese]

I’m a Catholic but I don’t really know how to answer this fundamentalist objection:-

1Co 11:27 Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy way will be guilty of sin against the body and blood of the Lord.

I thought this was a strong verse for us, but a fundamentalist pointed out that the aforesaid verse calls the ‘transubstantiated species’ the bread. According to the priest who received me into the church I must never call the consecrated host ‘the bread’ but always ‘the body of Christ’. I kept saying the bread and he said I mustn’t: that it was a really serious error.

Anyway what is the response to the fundamentalist?

 

[Mannyfit75]

I’m a Catholic but I don’t really know how to answer this fundamentalist objection:-

1Co 11:27 Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy way will be guilty of sin against the body and blood of the Lord.

I thought this was a strong verse for us, but a fundamentalist pointed out that the aforesaid verse calls the ‘transubstantiated species’ the bread. According to the priest who received me into the church I must never call the consecrated host ‘the bread’ but always ‘the body of Christ’. I kept saying the bread and he said I mustn’t: that it was a really serious error.

Anyway what is the response to the fundamentalist?

You miss one key point of the passage.

Let me quote it again:

Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy way will be guilty of sin against the body and blood of the Lord

Tell me what is the Body and Blood of the Lord, Paul is refer to? This passage doesn’t contract transtubstantiation at all. You have read the entire chapter 11 in its full context.

What does this passage say. Paul is upset that the Corinthians are going to the Lord’s Supper because they are hungry. Paul insist that if they came because they are hungry, they should be at home to eat. The Corinthians have been receiving the Body and Blood of the Lord at the Lord’s Supper because some are ill and some have died. He insist that one some examine himself before receiving the Body and Blood of the Lord. So Paul warns us. "Therefore whoever eats the bread and drink the cup of the Lord in an unworthily, will be guilty of profaning the Body and Blood of the Lord.

This passage no way contracts or disproves transubstantiation. Rather it proves Real Presence.

 

[Mannyfit75]

Consider this Apostolic Father’s writing.

St. of Ignatius of Antioch wrote. St.Ignatius was taught by St. John, the Apostle.

“Consider how contrary to the mind of God are the heterodox in regard to the grace of God which has come to us. They have no regard for charity, none for the widow, the orphan, the oppressed, none for the man in prison, the hungry or the thirsty. They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not admit that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, the flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in His graciousness, raised from the dead.”

“Letter to the Smyrnaeans”, paragraph 6. circa 80-110 A.D.

“Come together in common, one and all without exception in charity, in one faith and in one Jesus Christ, who is of the race of David according to the flesh, the son of man, and the Son of God, so that with undivided mind you may obey the bishop and the priests, and break one Bread which is the medicine of immortality and the antidote against death, enabling us to live forever in Jesus Christ.”

-“Letter to the Ephesians”, paragraph 20, c. 80-110 A.D.

“I have no taste for the food that perishes nor for the pleasures of this life. I want the Bread of God which is the Flesh of Christ, who was the seed of David; and for drink I desire His Blood which is love that cannot be destroyed.”

St. Irenaeus succeeded St. Pothinus to become the second bishop of Lyons in 177 A.D. Earlier in his life he studied under St. Polycarp. Considered, one of the greatest theologians of the 2nd century, St. Irenaeus is best known for refuting the Gnostic heresies.

[Christ] has declared the cup, a part of creation, to be his own Blood, from which he causes our blood to flow; and the bread, a part of creation, he has established as his own Body, from which he gives increase to our bodies."

Source: St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, 180 A.D.:

“So then, if the mixed cup and the manufactured bread receive the Word of God and become the Eucharist, that is to say, the Blood and Body of Christ, which fortify and build up the substance of our flesh, how can these people claim that the flesh is incapable of receiving God’s gift of eternal life, when it is nourished by Christ’s Blood and Body and is His member? As the blessed apostle says in his letter to the Ephesians, ‘For we are members of His Body, of His flesh and of His bones’ (Eph. 5:30). He is not talking about some kind of ‘spiritual’ and ‘invisible’ man, ‘for a spirit does not have flesh an bones’ (Lk. 24:39). No, he is talking of the organism possessed by a real human being, composed of flesh and nerves and bones. It is this which is nourished by the cup which is His Blood, and is fortified by the bread which is His Body. The stem of the vine takes root in the earth and eventually bears fruit, and ‘the grain of wheat falls into the earth’ (Jn. 12:24), dissolves, rises again, multiplied by the all-containing Spirit of God, and finally after skilled processing, is put to human use. These two then receive the Word of God and become the Eucharist, which is the Body and Blood of Christ.”

-"Five Books on the Unmasking and Refutation of the Falsely

-“Letter to the Romans”, paragraph 7, circa 80-110 A.D.

 

[JohnnyReb]

Good stuff. Where do you get your info Manny?

 

[Mannyfit75]

Good stuff. Where do you get your info Manny?

The first reply is my commentary on the passage. The second reply is from therealpresence.org/eucharst/father/a5.html where I got the ECF information.

The website gives a scholastic view on Real Presence

 

[TheMese]

Hi there Mannyfit75, Thanks for the replies,

I had this verse marked up in my bible as a killer-verse against fundamentalist objections to the Eucharist and I’m still happy with 1Co 11:27b.

However, the verse seems to be asserting ‘the bread’ is eaten not the ‘body of the Lord.’
1Co 11:27a Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord…

I’ll paraphrase what the verse should say and see if you can catch my drift.
Therefore, whoever eats the (Eucharistic) body of the Lord or drinks the cup of the Lord’s* blood* in an unworthy way will be guilty of sin against the (literal) body and blood of the Lord.

My problem is that the former part of the verse is calling what is eaten ‘the bread.’

As regards patristic quotes for arguments with I’d accept they are incredibly useful where they lend historical support to a literal reading of Scripture (or even a verse that could be taken in various ways) but pretty useless when the Scriptures flatly contradict them. I’m also aware that the patrological pool of available quotes is so vast that learned evangelicals and Lutherans usually have patristic quotes of their own. my patristic library runs to the potpourri volume by Willis ‘The Teachings of the Church Fathers.’ I’ll obviously never have the time to read these voluminous works firsthand.

 

[Mannyfit75]

Hi there Mannyfit75, Thanks for the replies,

I had this verse marked up in my bible as a killer-verse against fundamentalist objections to the Eucharist and I’m still happy with 1Co 11:27b.

However, the verse seems to be asserting ‘the bread’ is eaten not the ‘body of the Lord.’
1Co 11:27a Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord…

I’ll paraphrase what the verse should say and see if you can catch my drift.
Therefore, whoever eats the (Eucharistic) body of the Lord or drinks the cup of the Lord’s* blood* in an unworthy way will be guilty of sin against the (literal) body and blood of the Lord.

My problem is that the former part of the verse is calling what is eaten ‘the bread.’

As regards patristic quotes for arguments with I’d accept they are incredibly useful where they lend historical support to a literal reading of Scripture (or even a verse that could be taken in various ways) but pretty useless when the Scriptures flatly contradict them. I’m also aware that the patrological pool of available quotes is so vast that learned evangelicals and Lutheran usually have patristic quotes of their own. my patristic library runs to the potpourri volue by Willis ‘The Teachings of the Church Fathers.’ I’ll obvious never have the time to read these voluminous works firsthand.

Well, I could go much more indepth in Scripture. There is a deeper meaning in the 1 Corinthian 11:27. I know for the most part Evangelical Protestants will ignore the history of transubstantiation, though the term was not used. Rather the term, Real Presence best describes what we truly believe. Transubstantion is rather a process during the consecration of Bread and Wine.

I also like to add that in our Eucharistic Prayer during Mass. The priests often address the Body and Blood of the Lord as bread and wine.

Consider these prayers during Mass:

Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation. Through your goodness we have this bread to offer, which earth has given and human hands have made. It will become for us the bread of life.

By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity. Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation. Through your goodness we have this wine to offer, fruit of the vine and work of human hands. It will become our spiritual drink.

Does this make bread and wine just merely symbolic. Not at all.

The priest goes on saying:

Memorial of the Paschal Mystery and offering

Father, we celebrate the memory of Christ, your son. We, your people and your ministers, recall his passion, his resurrection from the dead, and his ascension into glory; and from the many gifts you have given us we offer to you, God of Glory and majesty, this **holy and perfect sacrifice the bread of life **and the cup of eternal salvation.

Look with favor on these offerings and accept them as once you accepted the gifts of your servant Abel, the sacrifice of Abraham, our father in faith, and the bread and wine offered by your priest Melchisedech.

Almighty God, we pray that your angel may take this sacrifice to your altar in heaven. Then as we receive from this altar the sacred body and blood of your Son, let us be filled with every grace and blessing.

If you want to look at the Patristic sources. New Advent.org has tons of them.

 

[EphelDuath]

Jesus refers to himself as the bread of life.

The Eucharist is still bread, but instead of being ordinary wheat, it is now the flesh of God.

 

[TheMese]

Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation. Through your goodness we have this bread to offer, which earth has given and human hands have made. It will become for us the bread of life.

Excellent. I like this answer. I might not be convincing the fundamentalists any time soon but you’ve laid my mind at rest regarding this problem.

Furthermore, in the Catholic vs fundamentalist debate in my head we are winning about 400 points to 3 so don’t worry about my faith too much. I’m Catholic forever.

 

[ljprevo]

I’m a Catholic but I don’t really know how to answer this fundamentalist objection:-

1Co 11:27 Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy way will be guilty of sin against the body and blood of the Lord.

I thought this was a strong verse for us, but a fundamentalist pointed out that the aforesaid verse calls the ‘transubstantiated species’ the bread. According to the priest who received me into the church I must never call the consecrated host ‘the bread’ but always ‘the body of Christ’. I kept saying the bread and he said I mustn’t: that it was a really serious error.

Anyway what is the response to the fundamentalist?

Read that again, that does not disprove anything. Matter of fact “read” it, it proves it. Jesus body and blood is there under the appearance of bread and wine.

So however eats “that” bread and “that” wine, which has become the body and blood is in a state of sin if they are unworthy.

It is bread and wine in appearance only.

I hope that makes sense.

 

[adam_in_ohio]

The argument that transubstantiation has not occured because it is still called bread is bad theology.
Look at the blind man that Jesus cured. The blind man is still called the blind man after he has been cured by Jesus. With this line of logic it would open up a dispute if the man realy was cured of his blindness because the Bible dosn’t call him the man who use to be blind…

 

[porthos11]

I’m a Catholic but I don’t really know how to answer this fundamentalist objection:-

1Co 11:27 Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy way will be guilty of sin against the body and blood of the Lord.

I thought this was a strong verse for us, but a fundamentalist pointed out that the aforesaid verse calls the ‘transubstantiated species’ the bread. According to the priest who received me into the church I must never call the consecrated host ‘the bread’ but always ‘the body of Christ’. I kept saying the bread and he said I mustn’t: that it was a really serious error.

Anyway what is the response to the fundamentalist?

This is a reason why Catholics should not whine too much when “Bread” and “Wine” are used to refer to the consecrated species, since St. Paul, under inspiration even used the terms.

Yes, it is the Body and Blood of Christ and not bread and wine, but even when those terms are used, they are now used phenomenologically, i.e. according to appearance, and that is how the terms are used in the liturgy.

 

[TheMese]

The priest who received me into the Church taught me it was an extreme error to say ‘the bread’ or ‘the wine’ hence my question. Perhaps he was going a bit too far in this?

Regardless, I was given a anti-Catholic sheet of bullet-point “errors” of our teachings (you know the type of thing which takes an eternity to reply to) and this point about the host still being called ‘the bread’ after consecration was hard to respond to.

 

[Ilroy]

The priest who received me into the Church taught me it was an extreme error to say ‘the bread’ or ‘the wine’ hence my question. Perhaps he was going a bit too far in this?

My guess was that becasue you were a convert, he might have thought that you didn’t have a full grasp of Catholic beliefs yet regarding the Eucharist. Maybe he was overstressing the point just to make sure you fully understood the realities of our belief in how Christ is present in the bread and wine. It seems you do have a good understanding though, so I wouldn’t worry too much about how the priest presented it to you.

As for answering the other guy about this, someone else said exactly what I was thinking on the subject. christ Himself said that He is the bread of life so us referring to His body as bread is just fine. You might ask this guy how he ignores Christ’s words at the last supper - this IS my body, etc…and what he says in John Ch. 6. especially from v. 30 forward.

 

[TheMese]

Ilroy:

You might ask this guy how he ignores Christ’s words…

The hand-written photocopied sheet was written by a English Pentecostal pastor called William F. P. Burton. He’s dead now so I guess he’s got the answers firsthand.

 

[rwoehmke]

The verse does not speak of any ordinary kind of bread or cup, but of the “bread and cup OF THE LORD”.

 

[Nita]

…According to the priest who received me into the church I must never call the consecrated host ‘the bread’ but always ‘the body of Christ’. I kept saying the bread and he said I mustn’t: that it was a really serious error.

Just a side note. There are times when it is okay to refer to the Eucharist as bread. I believe St. Thomas Aquinas went into why it was okay. Also, we do it at Mass when we use the proclamation: “When we eat this bread and drink this cup we proclaim your death until You come”.

Nita

 

[jcrichton]

I’m a Catholic but I don’t really know how to answer this fundamentalist objection:-

1Co 11:27 Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy way will be guilty of sin against the body and blood of the Lord.

I thought this was a strong verse for us, but a fundamentalist pointed out that the aforesaid verse calls the ‘transubstantiated species’ the bread. According to the priest who received me into the church I must never call the consecrated host ‘the bread’ but always ‘the body of Christ’. I kept saying the bread and he said I mustn’t: that it was a really serious error.

Anyway what is the response to the fundamentalist?

***Hi, The Mese!

Firstly, I think that the Priest was attempting to convey that the Lord’s Supper has a deeper value for Catholics than for most Christians since we celebrate His death and resurrection in each Mass and we believe that we were not commissioned to partake of a simple symbolic gesture but of His actual Body and Blood.

As a convert, you probably are aware that most of what the Church holds as Sacred Tradition is challanged by non-Catholics not as the means to understanding the Church and rejoining the Body of Christ but as the means for further separation as their interpretation of Scriptures lead them away form the Church.

Comapare 1 Co 11:27 with the following:

16 The blessing-cup, which we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ; and the loaf of bread which we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? (1 Corinthians 10:16)

Then, compare both passages with the following:

48 I am the bread of life.
49 Your fathers ate manna in the desert and they are dead;
50 but this is the bread which comes down from heaven, so that a person may eat it and not die.
51 I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world.’
52 Then the Jews started arguing among themselves, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’
53 Jesus replied to them: In all truth I tell you, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
54 Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life, and I shall raise that person up on the last day.
55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.
56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in that person.
57 As the living Father sent me and I draw life from the Father, so whoever eats me will also draw life from me.
58 This is the bread which has come down from heaven; it is not like the bread our ancestors ate: they are dead, but anyone who eats this bread will live for ever.
59 This is what he taught at Capernaum in the synagogue.
60 After hearing it, many of his followers said, ‘This is intolerable language. How could anyone accept it?’
61 Jesus was aware that his followers were complaining about it and said, 'Does this disturb you?
62 What if you should see the Son of man ascend to where he was before?
63 'It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh has nothing to offer. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.
64 ‘But there are some of you who do not believe.’ For Jesus knew from the outset who did not believe and who was to betray him.
65 He went on, ‘This is why I told you that no one could come to me except by the gift of the Father.’
66 After this, many of his disciples went away and accompanied him no more.
67 Then Jesus said to the Twelve, ‘What about you, do you want to go away too?’
68 Simon Peter answered, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the message of eternal life,
69 and we believe; we have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.’ (St. John 6:48-69)

26 Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had said the blessing he broke it and gave it to the disciples. ‘Take it and eat,’ he said, ‘this is my body.’
27 Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he handed it to them saying, 'Drink from this, all of you,
28 for this is my blood, the blood of the covenant, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. (St. Matthew 26:26-28)

Did you noticed how Jesus emphasized that we must eat His Flesh and drink His Blood–even when most left Him, did Jesus called to them explaining that they should not take Him literally? Paul, who was not with the Eleven, was very literal in his exhortations: the cup is*** Christ’s Blood; the bread is Christ’s Body!

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[peregrinus_sg]

I think that the language the Church uses to refer to the Sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist undergoes development in time as she ponders more deeply the apostolic faith and Tradition received. Fundamentalists, who are only looking for certain words and assume that the word has the same meaning for all time and ages, will never understand and appreciate the subtleties.

 

[epostle]

Fundamentalists are stumped. St. Paul is giving an unjust penalty for profaning a mere symbol. A person risks getting physically sick by partaking of the Lord unworthily. Symbols cannot do this.