Does scripture actually teach transubstantiation?

[dad94513]

My father always taught me to keep it simple. When delving into our faith and you come to a point in confusion, stop and wait on the Holy Spirit to answer in His time. Confusion is the hallmark of the devil. You ask a very serious question but you want to read with your eyes or hear with your ears the words to convince your mind. Your search will end with no answer. Pray on this and ask for the GIFT of faith. You will have your revelation in due time. “Happy are those who are called to this supper.”

 

[MaHeRsHaLaL]

It is well know that the Rabbinical teachers of Jesus time, Hillel and Shamai, taught that to be fully converted to Judaism was to eat and drink of the the teachings.
Christ was paralleling this and also establishing the sacrament in his teaching of eating his flesh and drinking his blood. The bread and wine were symbols on the night of the last supper and I believe they still are today. If Christ had wanted us to literally eat his flesh and drink his blood he could have carved a piece of flesh from his mortal body and passed it to the Apostles, and then bled into the chalice and passed it among them. This would have, without a shadow of a doubt, established the literal necessity of the flesh and blood. But this he did not do.

I do not see the need for the elements to be changed into the literal flesh and blood of the savior. This seems to be a superficial doctrine and I do not intend any disrespect but it seems gross to me. God could just as easily accept our partaking of simple bread and wine as symbols. (As all the ordinances of the Old Testament were symbolic in nature)

 

[elvisman]

Again, if you answer just basically amounts to “the church says so” there’s no use in saying it, and I respectfully request that you go somewhere else (to another thread, etc) to say such things. I already know what the RCC says on the matter, and I do not concede any authority to that organization – therefore its words and decrees have no meaning to me currently. I’m trying to figure out if there’s even a remote possibility that scripture supports transubstantiation at all. If not, I’ll go on to exploring another belief I have. If there is a possibility, I’ll study further.

Yes, it does.
I’ll tell you where as soon as you tell me where the Bible teaches that the Bible alone is our sole authority.

 

[GatorMommy]

I just finished an entire blog post on this topic! I’ll have to go back and read the 11 pages of comments here to see if there is anything that I can add…

 

[dad94513]

It is well know that the Rabbinical teachers of Jesus time, Hillel and Shamai, taught that to be fully converted to Judaism was to eat and drink of the the teachings.
Christ was paralleling this and also establishing the sacrament in his teaching of eating his flesh and drinking his blood. The bread and wine were symbols on the night of the last supper and I believe they still are today. If Christ had wanted us to literally eat his flesh and drink his blood he could have carved a piece of flesh from his mortal body and passed it to the Apostles, and then bled into the chalice and passed it among them. This would have, without a shadow of a doubt, established the literal necessity of the flesh and blood. But this he did not do.

I do not see the need for the elements to be changed into the literal flesh and blood of the savior. This seems to be a superficial doctrine and I do not intend any disrespect but it seems gross to me. God could just as easily accept our partaking of simple bread and wine as symbols. (As all the ordinances of the Old Testament were symbolic in nature)

 

[dad94513]

You do not see the need…Of course you don’t. You are not Christ. He saw the need for us to take him in fully, to dwell in us. These are mysteries of our faith that may or may not be fully understood my mere mortal minds. I would be concerned if I was not called. I would humbly ask to be included if I, at the very least, believed in Jesus.

 

[MaHeRsHaLaL]

You do not see the need…Of course you don’t. You are not Christ. He saw the need for us to take him in fully, to dwell in us. These are mysteries of our faith that may or may not be fully understood my mere mortal minds. I would be concerned if I was not called. I would humbly ask to be included if I, at the very least, believed in Jesus.

I guess the real question then is; When you partake of the literal flesh and blood of Christ is there an actual change in your status with God or is it simply a symbolic gesture? Are you forgiven of your sins at the moment you partake of the elements or is it an outward action. Is it necessary for you to partake in order to be admitted to heaven?

 

[dad94513]

As in any embrace, are you sincere, open, loving? Are you withholding, doubting intentions, distant? What do you bring to this communion? God brings himself, his love, his embrace, his presence. Do you need this to enter heaven? Of course not, but why would you wander this earth without this gift freely offered? Pride? Doubt? Fear? I can’t answer that for anyone except for myself and because I have been called through faith, I am happy to come to his supper. I am most honored to participate in serving him at his table as an eucharistic minister. I find my relationship with God, Jesus deepening as my path continues in prayer, quiet contemplation and not hurrying him with answers but trusting him to unfold his truth and wisdom as he chooses. I hope I have helped.

 

[CHRISTISKING]

If Jesus’ only message was that they were to believe in Him (an easy message to understand), why would He insert a symbolism into the message that did nothing to clarify, but instead only served to confuse

• confuse to the point of loss of faith in Him and choosing to no longer follow Him.

Nita

Hi All
One thing that stands out in the new testament is that many times when Jesus is speaking, he is speaking about things that are spiritual. The Pharisees would continually try and get him to mess up. They would always hold him to the “law” when Jesus was speaking to them in a spiritual sense. I believe that the reason Jesus let them walk away is because they were thinking in the literal sense (He is asking us to be cannibals, how can this be since it is against the law. Jesus tells us shake the dust off our shoes, or not casting our pearls before swine when talking to someone who refuses to believe. Why would he tell us to just walk away? because they just don’t understand. I have a question for you Nita. "Why doesn’t God just stand in front of the whole world and show himself to stop all the confusion?
Because He wants people who have the FAITH to believe in Him even though we can’t physically see him.
Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

 

[Nita]

Hi All
One thing that stands out in the new testament is that many times when Jesus is speaking, he is speaking about things that are spiritual. The Pharisees would continually try and get him to mess up. They would always hold him to the “law” when Jesus was speaking to them in a spiritual sense. I believe that the reason Jesus let them walk away is because they were thinking in the literal sense (He is asking us to be cannibals, how can this be since it is against the law. Jesus tells us shake the dust off our shoes, or not casting our pearls before swine when talking to someone who refuses to believe. Why would he tell us to just walk away? because they just don’t understand. I have a question for you Nita. "Why doesn’t God just stand in front of the whole world and show himself to stop all the confusion?
Because He wants people who have the FAITH to believe in Him even though we can’t physically see him.
Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Hi CHRISTISKING,

Re underlined section: But Jesus didn’t shake the dust off His shoes and walk away - the unbelieving listeners did!!!

Re the audience at the Bread of Life discourse: The crowd wasn’t composed of scribes and Pharisees, trying to trip Him up, — it was the crowd who had experienced the multiplication of the loaves that were His audience as well as His disciples and the apostles.

Just as an experiment, imagine/pretend that what the Catholic Church teaches is really true.
In His risen, glorified body, Jesus really desires and is able to dwell/abide right within His followers;
He desires to institute a physical means through which this will occur - so there is a physical confirmation of His coming for us physical creatures;
He chose to do this by using bread (tangible) which could be eaten and thus be actually within us. He will change the bread into Himself and yet allow all the physical “accidents” of bread to remain.
As I said, just pretend that for the moment.
**How would you explain it to your followers? **

Jesus did it in 2 stages:

1. the Bread of Life discourse (and it took the FAITH you spoke of for the apostles to accept His words - John 6:68)
2. the Last Supper when He instituted the means thru which His teaching would be carried out.
   “And He took bread” — real bread, not verbal, allegorical, or metaphorical
   “This IS My Body” — "IS, not symbolizes or represents
   “Take and EAT” — really eat, physically eat; not just invisibly accept the accompanying words into their intellect.

Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen ---- We live this verse every time we receive Our Lord in the Eucharist.

Nita

 

[Nita]

Having said that I must admit that I’m rather impressed with JR’s spin on Emmaus referenced in the post above-it’s one of those verses that I’ve always found “less than clear” whenever one tried to understand it beyond the basic meaning of the words (i.e. the disciples didn’t recognize Jesus and then they did). The “why’s” and “how’s” of the recognition have made for much speculation over time. My favourite interpretation has always been simply that Jesus used the same “formula” that He used during the last supper and they recognized Him as a result.

The only problem with that interpretation is that the Emmaus road disciples weren’t present at the Last Supper (only the twelve apostles were Luke 22:14).

Luke 24:33 And they (Emmaus disciples) rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven gathered together and those who were with them,

 

[CHRISTISKING]

Hi CHRISTISKING,

Re underlined section: But Jesus didn’t shake the dust off His shoes and walk away - the unbelieving listeners did!!!

Hi Nita
You and I both know that “Shaking the dust off” is simply a way of Jesus telling us not to waste our time on someone who will not listen to the gospel message. Weather Jesus walked away or the other followers doesn’t matter.

Re the audience at the Bread of Life discourse: The crowd wasn’t composed of scribes and Pharisees, trying to trip Him up, — it was the crowd who had experienced the multiplication of the loaves that were His audience as well as His disciples and the apostles.

I know Scribes and Pharisees weren’t the ones who following, I was simply using them as an example as some who refused to look at things in the Spiritual sense and only compared them to the law. This was a continual happening throughout out Jesus ministry.

Just as an experiment, imagine/pretend that what the Catholic Church teaches is really true.
In His risen, glorified body, Jesus really desires and is able to dwell/abide right within His followers;
He desires to institute a physical means through which this will occur - **so there is a physical confirmation of His coming for us physical creatures; **He chose to do this by using bread (tangible) which could be eaten and thus be actually within us. He will change the bread into Himself and yet allow all the physical “accidents” of bread to remain.
As I said, just pretend that for the moment.
**How would you explain it to your followers? **

Do you need a physical confermation of his coming?

“And He took bread” — real bread, not verbal, allegorical, or metaphorical
“This IS My Body” — "IS, not symbolizes or represents

Have you ever taken a button and used it to symbolize something when giving instructions? you know, you might be giving dirrections to someone and use a cracker as a building and cough drop as a school. maybe you draw a football play up in the dirt and use a stick for a tree. If Jesus wanted them to take it litteraly don’t you think he would have just cut a peice of his arm off and said “Take and eat, this is my body”?. The key here is not to injest Jesus so he can dwell inside of us, as Christians Christ is already alive in us.

Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen ---- We live this verse every time we receive Our Lord in the Eucharist.

We should live this verse everyday of our lives.

 

[onenow1]

Quote= CHRISTISKING. Do you need a physical confermation of his coming?

Hi,
Jesus must of thought so,being born in the form of man to convey the message of the Father !

Ohav Shalom Love and Peace] OneNow1

 

[Nita]

If Jesus wanted them to take it litteraly don’t you think he would have just cut a peice of his arm off and said “Take and eat, this is my body”?.

No. That would have been His mortal flesh; His unglorified flesh; flesh that had not yet risen to the Father (Jn 6:62); flesh in which death still had power; flesh that was not totally permeated by Spirit and life.

Cannibalism is eating dead flesh; one consumes nothing but physical matter; the human soul has departed. Cannibalism is far removed from what Jesus is instituting.

The key here is not to injest Jesus so he can dwell inside of us, as Christians Christ is already alive in us.

The key is to believe His words. You say “eat” applies to His words; - then "eat’ them, eat those words in John 6 -; that is, take them into your heart and mind and believe what He said.

The “key” is that the Second Person of the Trinity desired to indwell us not just in His deity/Divine Nature, but in His Human Nature also. Since we cannot detect the purely spiritual (at least at this point in our existence), He chose to unite it with something tangible (as He did with other sacraments).

Could Jesus have chosen to give Himself to us only in invisible, undetectible, spiritual ways? Of course. But that isn’t what He chose. He gives Himself to us both ways - intangibly and tangibly. Only God could love us that much; only God has the power to do such an unheard of, wondrous thing.

Nita

 

[GatorMommy]

If Jesus wanted them to take it litteraly don’t you think he would have just cut a peice of his arm off and said “Take and eat, this is my body”?.

Of course not! Go back and re-read the Bread of Life discourse in John chapter 6. Then read “The Quail and the Manna” section of Exodus 16 (vs. 4-36 to be exact).

“I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat and not die.” (John 6:48-50)

Christ is saying the He, himself is the true Manna from heaven. Like the Jews is Exodus at the flesh and bread, so will the followers of Christ.

Futhermore, look at the Messianic prophecy in Zechariah 9.

“See, your king shall come to youl a just savior is he, meek and riding on an ***.” (vs. 9) “The Lord of hosts shall be a shield over them … they shall drink blood like wine…” (vs. 15)

The Bible is crystal clear. And so is Christ. When He spoke in parables, He let the followers know. The Bread of Life discourse is not a parable or a mere symbol. Christ was the ultimate sacrificial Lamb, slaughtered for us all. We eat his flesh (as was the custom of sacrifices in the Old Testament) and we drink his blood “like the corners of the alter” (Zech. 9:15).

He couldn’t “cut a piece of His arm off” because, as that sacrificial lamb, He had not yet been slaughtered. In the O.T., you didn’t eat the sacrifice until the ritual was complete, so it is with the Eucharist. The sacrifice is now done and we are able to participate in the sacrificial meal!

Praise be to God!

 

[CentralFLJames]

If Jesus wanted them to take it litteraly don’t you think he would have just cut a peice of his arm off and said “Take and eat, this is my body”?. The key here is not to injest Jesus so he can dwell inside of us, as Christians Christ is already alive in us.

You are applying the limitations of your own human thinking to judge divine will.

Don’t you imagine that if God had wanted to save us He could have thought of something other than sacrificing His only Son on the cross?

God’s ways are not our ways.

James

 

[Catholic_Author]

Nita, these are some good points. Let’s expand on them…

The key is to believe His words. You say “eat” applies to His words; - then "eat’ them, eat those words in John 6 -; that is, take them into your heart and mind and believe what He said.

The word translated as eat means more than just to consume. It means to mash down, to gnaw. In a sense to crush it. Taken literally, it would mean that Jesus must be crushed for our sakes. Taken in the figurative it would mean to contemplate these things the way Mary kept them. But if that’s all it was meant to mean then he might just as well have said that. If we are to take all this symbolically why didn’t Jesus just say what He means? Those who protest in this thread are saying that Jesus is not speaking plainly. If it’s true that Jesus was speaking symbolically then Why didn’t anyone ask Him to speak plainly? there are only two answers. Either everyone knew he was speaking symbolically or everyone knew he was speaking plainly. Let’s look at symbolic first. If everyone knew he was speaking symbolically then why do they have an issue with Jesus symbolically being bread from heaven? Now let’s look at plainly. If everyone knew he was speaking plainly then… and only then is there an issue of incredulity.

There is also one more very important thing to be said about the symbolic only interpretation. If Jesus is speaking consistently symbolically throughout the passage then we have to… must conclude that Jesus is only symbolically from the Father and not truly the Son of God. I reiterate. Those who believe this passage is symbolic only are forced, if they will remain consistent and not be hypocritical,… they must accept that Christ is not literally the Son of God. If you are Christ believing then this is absurd.

The “key” is that the Second Person of the Trinity desired to indwell us not just in His deity/Divine Nature, but in His Human Nature also. Since we cannot detect the purely spiritual (at least at this point in our existence), He chose to unite it with something tangible (as He did with other sacraments).

As he did with the other sacraments and then some. In the other sacraments the sign points to the grace. In the Eucharist the sign not only pints to the grace, since it is Christ, it is the grace. It therefore is the crown of all the sacraments.

Could Jesus have chosen to give Himself to us only in invisible, undetectable, spiritual ways? Of course. But that isn’t what He chose. He gives Himself to us both ways - intangibly and tangibly. Only God could love us that much; only God has the power to do such an unheard of, wondrous thing.

That is the precise point. Christ came in the flesh. He has a body and a spirit united in one. Where His spirit is there also must His body be. To separate them is to take away the life that is in them. And he Himself said that His bread is life and spirit… And what did He say His bread is?.. He said His bread is His flesh. Hence His flesh is life and spirit. If you want the life and the spirit you must accept and receive the flesh. If you are going to somehow receive symbolic flesh then all you are going to get along with it is symbolic life and symbolic spirit. What good is a symbolic spirit to a living body? How does today’s Christian truly encounter the living Christ today? Well, there is the visible body of Christ… His Church… the Catholic Church. That is how the world encounters Christ today but how does the Church encounter Christ? We need Him to be truly present to us or else His resurrection is a sham. So how do we encounter the risen Christ today? The Eucharist is how we communion with Him, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. He is the Eucharist.

 

[PeterMichael]

Having spent five years in the Independant Fundamental Baptist Movement, I remember that the church I attended would only have communion service maybe once a year ( crackers and grape juice) they would state that having communion every church service, it becomes a ritual. The preacher also stated that by the bread and wine becoming the actual body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ; that by Catholics receiving communion it is cannibalism. I am not making this up, I thank God everyday for opening my eyes and calling me out of that movement.
God Bless You

 

[Jerry-Jet]

Why is it that if a person is born again their substance has changed and they are a new creation even though you couldn’t see that if you peered into their body with microscope

But that Jesus is incapable of changing the substance of the bread and wine–that substance which we also can’t see into His body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity?

Of course Jesus can do that!

If Jesus can change me and make me a new creation–don’t tell me that when He said “This is my body” that He didn’t have the power to do that–or even the more lame argument that He didn’t choose that!

If He wasn’t choosing that He wouldn’t LITERALLY pound it into people’s ears over and over again and He wouldn’t have let them leave in John 6:66!

The Real choice is whether Jesus is a Liar or the people who left in John 6:66 are liars!

 

[MaHeRsHaLaL]

Why is it that if a person is born again their substance has changed and they are a new creation even though you couldn’t see that if you peered into their body with microscope

But that Jesus is incapable of changing the substance of the bread and wine–that substance which we also can’t see into His body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity?

Of course Jesus can do that!

If Jesus can change me and make me a new creation–don’t tell me that when He said “This is my body” that He didn’t have the power to do that–or even the more lame argument that He didn’t choose that!

If He wasn’t choosing that He wouldn’t LITERALLY pound it into people’s ears over and over again and He wouldn’t have let them leave in John 6:66!

The Real choice is whether Jesus is a Liar or the people who left in John 6:66 are liars!

Do you believe God can do anything?