Quick Thought On Transubstantiation

CMP,
Great post

I did notice the comments took a bit of a side turn into linguistics et al. but I’ll answer just the four questions:

Do you take Christ’s words literally when he said “This is my body” (toute estin to soma mou)?
I used to. As an ex-RC I was brought up that way. I’m little more moderate lately, but in essence, yes. I’ve been studying what Luther said on the topic and am perhaps more starting to lean his way.
If so, since the verb “is” (estin) is in the present tense, do you believe that it was his body at the time of the original Lord’s supper?
Yes. Be it purely physical as per the hard-core transubstantiation or more “in, with and under”, I’m not quite as clear (yet).
If not, why are you at liberty to take it non-literally here, but insist that it is literal otherwise? In other words, how could not be literal here, but be literal after Christ’s death?
Since I answered yes to the previous one, it doesn’t apply.
If so, don’t you think this is a violation of Chalcedon?
Not necessarily. I think Chalcedon was a valiant effort, yet human. And human efforts in describing the Trinity or in this particular case the hypostatic union, will always be flawed. I think Chalcedon poses a myriad of other challenges to other topics that we adhere to and believe in. For a longer response to this question, I posted it with the original article on Catholics and Chalcedon found here

Hope this can be helpful.
In Him
Mick

“But why isn’t arton in 11:23 the likely antecent for the “touto” in 11:24?”

1) Because its a quotation. And one that Paul may well have heard hundreds of times at church. One that has become liturgical, and that he is not going to mess with.

2) Because “body” is the most immediate reference, and what the Greek mind would be most used to agreeing with.

“And artos/arton is indeed the substantive in 11:23-24 where Paul relates what Jesus did on the night in which He was betrayed. Why do you say it’s not?”

Because Paul wasn’t present on the night he was betrayed and didn’t say the word “bread”.

If I point to an apple and say “take this to school”, its going to be neuter. Otherwise am I going to agree case with fruit (masculine I think) or with apple (neuter)? That’s why my initial argument in this thread was neuter is the default for unstated inanimate objects.

“John 1:8 gives a similar example (with the exception of the not/ouk): ouk ên ekeinos (masc.) to fôs (neut). Could John not have written ekeinos ên to fôs, which would have been an example of ekeinos correctly referring to the antecedent Iôannês in 1:6, and also correctly not agreeing in gender with fôs?”

I’m not sure if I understand what you’re saying. When the antecedent is a person, the rules become basically like English – you always use masculine and feminine. This would be the case whether or not “John” is explicitely mentioned in the context as the antecedent. You don’t need an antecedent as an excuse to use gender with people.

“But if there is an antecedent, and it refers to that antecedent, then it would usually agree in gender and number with the antecedent, and not the word after the equative verb if that word and the antecedent didn’t agree in gender and number.”

Hmm… maybe if you wanted to wrap up a previous abstraction into a neuter, like..Heb. 10:20 … τοῦτ᾿ ἔστιν τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ, or Is. 27:9 τοῦτό ἐστιν ἡ εὐλογία αὐτοῦ. But I can’t find any other case of it, even in the LXX, at least with that exact form. I’d be surprised if there was a simple case of “this is a blah”, where blah is some kind of object and speaker is trying to indicate what the object is he is holding. But I’m willing to hear the evidence if it exists.

D.W. wrote:

“But why isn’t arton in 11:23 the likely antecent for the “touto” in 11:24?”
.
1) Because its a quotation. And one that Paul may well have heard hundreds of times at church. One that has become liturgical, and that he is not going to mess with.
.
2) Because “body” is the most immediate reference, and what the Greek mind would be most used to agreeing with.

So let’s forget Paul’s quote of a liturgical formula. Let’s look at the Gospels, recorded or remembered by those who were likely there:

Matthew 26:26 εσθιοντων δε αυτων λαβων ο ιησους αρτον (arton) και ευλογησας εκλασεν και δους τοις μαθηταις ειπεν, λαβετε φαγετε, τουτο (touto) εστιν το σωμα μου.

And while they were eating, Jesus took bread (arton) and said the blessing and broke it and gave it to his disciples, and said: Take, eat, this (touto) is my body.

Mark 14:22 και εσθιοντων αυτων λαβων αρτον (arton) ευλογησας εκλασεν και εδωκεν αυτοις και ειπεν, λαβετε, τουτο (touto) εστιν το σωμα μου.

And while they were eating, he took bread (arton) and said the blessing and broke it and gave it to them and said: Take, this (touto) is my body.

Why does touto not have arton as its antecedent and its referent?

(I still plan on doing my word/syntax searches.)

CMP,

I am not sure why you are asking this question when plenty of Catholic theologians have discussed it. Why not engage their answers?

Second, the Orthodox don’t think Christ is substantially present since they don’t think the concept of substance is appropriate in the first place. Persons aren’t substances in the primary use of that term as individual.

Third, when the Reformed speak of a “spiritual presence” what they do not mean is that the body of Christ is present via a spiritual power or mode IN the elements. That would be an Anglican or say Lutheran gloss. So for the Reformed there is no real presence in terms of the body being in the elements themselves.

What they mean is that the presence is tropic, namely that the virtues or effects of Christ’s power are conveyed through the vehicle of faith to the recipient in the elements. But those things are not strictly speaking the actual body of Christ present in the elements. The Reformed view then has elements of a figurative interpretation as well as aspects of the Lutheran view in so far as a genuine power is conveyed through the elements. Ronald Wallace’, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Word and Sacrament, is one of the better works on the topic

Cmp, (cont.)

As far as Chalcedon, first I’d make a friendly suggestion that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. The Reformed view of Christ in the person of the mediator as the product and result of the “two hypostases” as the 2nd Helvetic Confesison states coming together is explicitly Nestorian. (See the official Latin text.) As is Calvin’s statement in Institutes Bk 2, chap. 14, sec 5,

“Now the old writers defined ‘hypostatic union’ as that which constitutes one person out of two natures.”

Or again,

“For although the boundless essence of the Word was united with human nature into one person, we have no idea of any enclosing.” Inst. 2.13.4.

This gross mistake by Calvin and taken up by almost all of the Reformed writers with perhaps the exception of Jerome Zanchi, is due to a corrupt Latin translation of John of Damascus’, On the Orthodox Faith. Calvin’s view that the hypostasis is the composite product and hence the single human-divine subject is directly contradictory to Chalcedon. For Chalcedon states that Christ is IN, not OF the two natures. Calvin’s understanding of the ancient writers is factually in error.

Further, it betrays a superficial understanding of Nestorianism to gloss it as grossly presenting two separate persons, since Nestorius clearly affirmed a single prosopa or subject. The dispute between Cyril and Nestorius turned on the nature of the single subject, and not on whether there was a single subject. For Nestorius, he took it to be the result or product of two natures coming together by an act of will, with the divine subjecting the human through a predestinating and determining act of will. So for Nestorius, there was really only one activity in Christ, that of the composite divine-human person. John Romanides is quite clear when he writes, “When the Nestorians stated that there is in Christ one energy and one will, they did not hold that the created nature and created will in Christ were abolished. They one energy and will of the Nestorians relates to the person of the union in Christ of the two natures, which is the result of the union of two persons and hypostaseis.” An Outline of Orthodox Patristic Dogmatics, 2004, p. 71

CMP,

Chalcedon fully affirms that Christ is a divine person, whereas the Reformed indicate that he is a human-divine person following Calvin in the incarnation. This is all well documented in Muller’s, Christ and the Decree. “The person of the mediator is, moreover, anointed to a unified work of obedience and redemption in which the two natures conjoin, neither the divine nature nor the human nature alone constituting the mediatoris persona or the mediatoris officium for only the one who occupies a middle position between God and man can fulfill the divine-human work of salvation: in the mediatoris officio God and man come together in harmony. In the eternal plan of God, the mediator appears as the one ordained by the divine will to effect a salvation otherwise impossible. Calvin explicitly predicates the historical person of the God-man and the office of mediation on the decree…Here the focus of the act of mediation is the divine-human person rather than the flesh assumed by the divine person.” pp. 31-33

This is why Christ’s sacrifice for Calvin is not valuable because it is performed by a divine person, but because God so willed it to be valuable.

“In discerning Christ’s merit, we do not consider the beginning of merit to be in him, but we go back to God’s ordinance as the first cause. For God solely of his own good pleasure appointed him mediator to obtain salvation for us.” Inst. 2, 12, 1, Cited by Muller, p. 36.

Consequently for Calvin, the divine subordinates the human or created elements in the eucharist so that language of presence is tropic and instrumental, just the same as Nestorius’s view of the eucharist. That is to say, the composite divine-human person that resulted from the union of the two natures cannot descend on the altar to be in the elements of the bread and wine because that would imply a separation of the produced persona. So, the eucharist and other sacraments are instruments of divine will which convey divine power and produce created effects in the soul. This is why Calvin objects to Rome’s doctrine of Transubstantiation. Consequently, it is the Reformed understanding of the eucharist that is inconsistent with Chalcedon, because the Reformed advocate a non-Chalcedonian Christology in the first place.

CMP,

In your other post that you linked, in reference to Nestorianism you speak of Christ not being able to be divided into two separate consciousnesses, but this seems wrong. For consciousness or intellect is not a person, for Christ, contra Apollinarianism has a human intellect.(See Morris, The Logic of God Incarnate.) On Chalcedonian Christology Christ still has two intellects or consciousnesses.

Chalcedon doesn’t deny but rather affirms that the energies of the human nature are in fact transferred through the divine hypostasis to the human nature. This is clearly taught by Cyril. The problem is that you are thinking of attributions or attributes as properties of an essence so that the transfer of attributes would imply a transfer of the essence. Chalcedon only precludes the mixing or replacements of essences, but it fully affirms that the divine energies of glory, immortality, etc. are in fact transferred to the humanity of Christ and make it deified. If not, Jesus was not transfigured with the divine glory and his humanity would not be immortal after the resurrection. And not that the transfiguration is long prior to the resurrection.

The Reformed unfortunately reinterpret the communicatio idiomata to be a “figure of speech” as Calvin says or a way of speaking without any real predication as a consequence of the mistaken view of Christ as a divine-human person. The communication by Chalcedonian lights includes a transferral of divine properties like immortality. If it doesn’t, then again, Christ isn’t glorified with divine glory and immortality. There is no sharing of the divine glory with humanity, but a created substitute, contrary to Scripture. (You hinted at this elsewhere.) The fact that the Reformed reinterpret and dissent from Chalcedon at this point is well documented by Muller, McCormack and other Reformed scholars.

Nor will an appeal to the extra Calvinisticum help here since it is predicated on the confusion regarding the hypostatic union so that the Reformed speak of the divine person prior to the incarnation and the person of the mediator after the union as a divine-human person. This was Beza’s distinction between totus and totum. (See Jilla Raitt’s The Colloquy of Montbeliard.)

CMP,

Lastly, and hopefully you wil lindulge me since it is impossible to clarify the heart of the disagreement in any way more brief.

As for humanity not being able to being more than one place at a time, that is strictly speaking false. For the human soul is for example present to every part of the body, without being circumscribed by any part of the body at the same time. To be in more that one place at a time is not co-extensive with omnipresence. Something can be in more than one place at a single moment and not be omnipresent.

As to the definition of transubstantiation, you seem to be using substance in terms of a stuff or an essence, but this is not its primary usage. Rather it is used to denote an individual thing, which is greater than any of or the sum total of its parts including its form or essence. So for Aquinas, Boethius, et al, a human being is a substance since a human person is more than the body and the soul. Consequently, Transubstantation seems to posit not the replacement of one essence with another, but with one individual thing with another. I grant that this is still problematic (I of course don’t’ adhere to it), but your gloss seems to be off. The idea is that the individual substance or thing is no longer the created elements as an individual thing, even though it possesses created properties, but the individual thing is the body and blood of Christ.

The

Why don’t we believe simply what the Bible has to say on the subject?

Jesus said “This is my body and this is my blood”. If the disciples at that time believed it to be cannibalism it would have been forbidden or not kosher to them because that was a big no-no if indeed the properties made them natural flesh and blood.

So I am inclined to believe the bread was indicative of His broken body and the blood that was shed. It implies not just symbolically the elements, but the act itself, brokeness and shed. Because today we have a baker who makes the bread and it is broken but not holy because the baker cannot do that act of becoming broken. The winemakers today are not holy because they cannot redeem mankind. So I think it is not so much the nature of the bread and wine, it’s the single redemptive act that can only come through the broken body and shed blood of Jesus.

“Why does touto not have arton as its antecedent and its referent?”

Again, Jesus didn’t say the word “bread”, so it can’t be a referent.

And even if he had, the predicate nominative is what the case generally agrees with. The cases where it doesn’t seem to be exceptional. I’ll try and ask a native Greek speaker on Tuesday and report back if I get any insight, if you are interested.

D.Williams
When He said “I am the Bread of life which comes down from heaven” it is a marked reference as the papa of the table still performs this act at the seder meal today.

D. Williams:

I’m not very good with searches in Logos, but I couldn’t find anything that identically matched the syntax of the words of institution other than those verses – i.e., demonstrative pronoun => eimi => article => noun, allowing for intervening words in some instances and sometimes restricting the demonstrative to a neuter. IIRC, most of the demonstratives seemed to point forward, and there was no antecedent noun. I checked the NT and the LXX/Apocrypha; I can’t seem to do a graphical query of Philo or Josephus or the Apostolic Fathers, even though they are morphologically tagged; maybe I’d have to do a regular query, not a graphical one.

Hopefully I’ll be able to find Winter’s book to read without having to do a blind buy:

http://www.amazon.com/After-Paul-Left-Corinth-Influence/dp/0802848982

and see how he argues for “touto” and “arton.”

I may pose the question on B-Greek sometime soon. Thanks for your engagement with me on it.

Is your affiliation Catholic? Orthodox? Lutheran? Anglican? I.e., do you hold to Real Presence and/or Transubstantiation?

P.S. I found Winter on Google Books:

Page 153 (and the next page, 154) is the passage Garland references:

http://books.google.com/books?id=sclZnr2SUIgC&pg=PP1&dq=winter+%22after+paul+left+corinth%22#PPA153,M1

Just like the OT was a shadow of Christ to come, we look at the seder a prefiguring of Christ, who is the eternal Pascha(Passover). I can only speak to what I know within Orthodox worship, the structure of our liturgy has the elements of the SederPassover meal and their Christian agape meal. In an earlier post, someone quoted part of the anaphora of the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, which shows the beautiful weaving by the early Church of the Passover with the Gospel.

I believe that many Protestants are unable to properly engage in this thread due to the absence of the Mysteries (or what RCs would call sacraments) in their worship and theology. Praise in worship is good, a good sermon is want, but what Christ has given the Church most of all is the gift of Himself, “wherever two or three are gathered in my name,” and in the form of the Eucharist. How? This thread could continue indefinitely, and is beyond me, we must be comfortable leaving it a mystery. The EO way, don’t define unless you have to.

Kara: not sure what your point is.

Eric: Is Winter arguing what you did?

It seems rather anachronistic to argue that the tradition was a particular word order and then Paul came along and rearranged it. Everybody seems to agree that Paul wrote prior to the Gospels, so if anything the Gospels came along and altered it. Either way, I don’t see any particular reason to think that one tradition is older than the other, or that Paul is responsible for any word order.

I can only see two other cases in the bible of outos ego(genetive) eimi. That is: Ex 3:15 τοῦτό μού ἐστιν ὄνομα αἰώνιον and Isaiah 42:8 τοῦτό μού ἐστιν τὸ ὄνομα. They also happen to be neuter touto.

and there doesn’t seem anything to support Winter here.

I’m Orthodox to answer your question.

D. Williams:

Winter is more arguing for the meaning of Paul’s syntax and use of touto in 1 Cor 11:24. I can’t cut and paste the Google image, but it’s only two short pages if you want to read it at the link.

Thanks!

I did read the link, but it didn’t seem the same as what you are arguing.

D. Williams:

Winter isn’t arguing from what I’m arguing, but his point somewhat supports my conjecture.

I was suggesting (somewhat supported by Winter’s observation) that the use of touto in 1 Cor 11:24 instead of houtos (assuming the referent for the demonstrative was the artos/arton in 11:23) might support touto referring to something other than specifically and simply the bread. And since Paul sometimes uses sôma to mean the gathering of believers in this passage (1 Corinthians 10-12), it’s possible that touto combined with sôma in 11:24 might refer to something other or something more than the bread Jesus had just blessed and broken.

Even if touto is expected to agree grammatically with sôma, I’m not sure that means that Jesus here is saying, and only saying, that the bread and only the bread is his body.

A question: Does the Orthodox Church believe that the bread Jesus held at the last supper also became his body at that moment in the same way it’s held to do so during the Eucharist? I think the Roman Catholic Church teaches that it does, per some of the replies here or in the Chalcedon/Transubstantiation thread (of which this is sort of a continuation)?

Fr. Thomas Hopko, former Dean of St Vladimir’s seminary, has stated:

The Orthodox Church denies the doctrine that the Body and the Blood of the eucharist are merely intellectual or psychological symbols of Christ’s Body and Blood. If this doctrine were true, when the liturgy is celebrated and holy communion is given, the people would be called merely to think about Jesus and to commune with him “in their hearts.” In this way, the eucharist would be reduced to a simple memorial meal of the Lord’s last supper, and the union with God through its reception would come only on the level of thought or psychological recollection.

On the other hand, however, the Orthodox tradition does use the term “symbols” for the eucharistic gifts. It calls, the service a “mystery” and the sacrifice of the liturgy a “spiritual and bloodless sacrifice.” These terms are used by the holy fathers and the liturgy itself.

The Orthodox Church uses such expressions because in Orthodoxy what is real is not opposed to what is symbolical or mystical or spiritual. On the contrary! In the Orthodox view, all of reality — the world and man himself — is real to the extent that it is symbolical and mystical, to the extent that reality itself must reveal and manifest God to us. Thus, the eucharist in the Orthodox Church is understood to be the genuine Body and Blood of Christ precisely because bread and wine are the mysteries and symbols of God’s true and genuine presence and manifestation to us in Christ. Thus, by eating and drinking the bread and wine which are mystically consecrated by the Holy Spirit, we have genuine communion with God through Christ who is himself “the bread of life” (Jn 6:34, 41).
REF: (Jn 6:51) Thus, the bread of the eucharist is Christ’s flesh, and Christ’s flesh is the eucharistic bread. The two are brought together into one. The word “symbolical” in Orthodox terminology means exactly this: “to bring together into one.”

Thus we read the words of the Apostle Paul: ref (1 Cor 11:23-26).

The mystery of the holy eucharist defies analysis and explanation in purely rational and logical terms. For the eucharist — and Christ himself — is indeed a mystery of the Kingdom of Heaven which, as Jesus has told us, is “not of this world.” The eucharist — because it belongs to God’s Kingdom — is truly free from the earth-born “logic” of fallen humanity.

Eric, I asked my Greek teacher about this. He said that the case should agree in outos estin type statements. I asked him about τοῦτό ἐστιν in a case like Heb 10:20, and he said that τοῦτό ἐστιν is an idiom, that means roughly “that is to say…”.

So it seems to me that all the cases would be covered by these proposed rules:

1. If it’s a person, use masc/fem. 2. Otherwise cases agree with the predicate except occasionally when τοῦτό ἐστιν is considered an idiom.

Re your question, I’m not aware of the Orthodox church having much to say on the topic. I don’t think this question has occurred to many people. Logic would seem to dicate though that if you are going to take it a certain way now, then it meant the same back then.

I am a Christian since about 14 years, I used to be catholic, and I believed that the bread and the wine where His body, but after reading the Bible and understanding His will and the multiple vercicles where He says that He will not dwell in temples made by men, I changed to the Christian belief.
I think that Jesus was showing the disciples that this bread that He was broken in pieces and given to them, was an example of His one life given for His church, which at that moment they did not understand.
The same for His blood, it was drunk by them all from the same vase, in order to appropiate the justification that came of receiving his sacrifice in the Cross for their one sins, the justificatoin that comes only from His holy blood.

The value of this Last Supper is out of our one minds, it is one of the most Holy thing that Jesus left for His Church. The communion between the multiple parts of His body should lead to the perfection of His will on earth.
It is a living force for each Christian, and we should be iluminated and transformed during this celebration.
Many revelations of His will can be taken place during the meditation and after been part of it. The sence of the high price that The Father paid for your lifes should be considered during this kingdom earthly manifestation.
I read a very wonderfull book about the value of the supper of the Lord, from Ana Mendez, “Eat my Flesh and drink my Blood” a wonderful view of this marvelous moment.

here is a simple solution, after a Roman Catholic communion pump the stomachs of how many volunteers you can find. see if any of them have flesh and blood in them or just bread and wine.

Given that Christ can multiply bread and fish to feed thousands, stop a storm, drive demons out of people, heal the sick, make wine out of water, and many others, then why would a Christian not believe that he can change an ordinary bread and wine into his very own body and blood, irrelevant of his time of death on the cross?

Can’t someone notice the development of how “christians” diversified in NOT believing in the reality of Christ’s body and blood in the Eucharist.

The Passover is a perpetual ordinance and perfected in the Calvary with Christ as the Lamb. Hence, the “remembrance” is a participation of the Passover in the New Creation and Covenant with Christ as the Covenant and Lamb at the same time. The OT will give us an idea why there is such thing as “Covenant Theology.”

Last comment: The development of the paragraph seems to hint as if the Catholic Church (not just “Roman” or Western Rite) agreed with Luther and Zwingli. Before them, the Church Doctors and Church Ancient Fathers have believed and passed on that belief (Traditio) to be true and taught by Christ, believed by the Apostles.

Given that Christ can multiply bread and fish to feed thousands, stop a storm, drive demons out of people, heal the sick, make wine out of water, and many others, then why would a Christian not believe that he can change an ordinary bread and wine into his very own body and blood, irrelevant of his time of death on the cross?

Why not believe this? Because the Last Supper’s context as a Passover Seder, as well as what Jesus did and said re: the bread and wine on that occasion (assuming we can determine this – Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22 and 1 Corinthians 11 don’t agree with each other on this), don’t support Him wanting the church and Christians to believe that such a change was or should be expected to happen.

Sure, He can do it. But the idea that Christians are supposed to believe that this is what happens to the bread and wine of communion is not supported by what the Scriptures teach that Jesus said and did.

I am a Presbyterian. I love the sacrament of the Lords Supper but the roman church teaching makes a balsphemy of it.

Dr. Loraine Boettner, in his classic book “Roman Catholicism”, and referring to the rc teaching of trnsubstantiation asks the reader to “Notice that throughout these verses occurs the statement ‘once for all’, which has in it the idea of completeness, or finality, and which precludes repetition. Christ’s work on the cross was perfect and decisive. It constituted one historic event, which need never be repeated, and which in fact cannot be repeated. The language is perfectly clear: ‘He offered one sacrifice for sins for ever’ (10:12). Paul says that ‘Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more’ (Romans 6:9); and the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews says that ‘By one offering he had perfected for ever them that are sanctified’ (10:14)…We are told that Christ has sat down as token that His work is finished.

I am a Presbyterian Protestant and was at one time a roman catholic. I now no longer believe that Christ descends from His Father in heavento be a further sacrifice upon Rome’s altars or on any other; for such sacrifice there is no need…. Thank God that we Protestants can look back to what our Lord did on Calvary and know that He completed the sacrifice for sins once for all, and that our salvation is not dependent on the decree of any priest or church. Any pretense at a continuous offering for sin is worse than vain, for it is a denial of the efficacy of the atoning sacrifice of Christ on Calvary for all that place their faith in Him alone.

In faith,
Dudley

I am an ex Roman catholic and now a Reformed Protestant. When I first left Roman Catholicism in 2006 I became an Episcopalian. My reason for leaving was the papacy of Benedict and the direction I believed the Roman catholic church was heading. I did believe in the Roman catholic teaching of transubstantiation and at first joined a high Episcopal church that also held that view. However I then began a study of the Reformation and the Council of Trent. My views on the Lords Supper gradually became Calvinistic and then more Zwiglian. I now believe the Lords supper is a memorial of Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary but I believe that the celebration of the supper is symbolic of his saving act and not actually a re enactment and sacrifice anew. I now no longer believe in the rc teaching of transubstantiation. I also began to ask the same questions Michael asked and it brought me to the conclusion that I was a Reformed Protestant in my beliefs on The Lords Supper and Baptism. It is one reason why I became a reformed Protestant in 2007.

Michael said “my question has only to do with those who hold to a Real Presence in body and blood (i.e. not a spiritual Real Presence).

It is also true as Michael said that “Most who believe in some form of Transubstanitation will defend this view by taking a very literal interpretation of Christ’s words during the Lord’s Supper:

Matthew 26:26-28 “While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.” And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.”

“This is my body.” These are the word that Luther etched onto the table in his famous meeting with Zwingli.

Indeed, it was these words that were used by the Council of Trent as a primary justification for a belief in Transubstantiation: “Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation” (Council of Trent [1551]: DS 1642; cf. Mt 26:26 ff.; Mk 14:22 ff.; Lk 22:19 ff.; 1 Cor 11:24 ff. Catechism of the Catholic Church 1376).”

The brief questions Michael had I also had and found that my answers denied that I could any longer believe in the teaching of transubstantiation. I at one time did believe and now have for those who believe that Christ’s words must be taken literally are these same questions followed by my answer now as a…

The brief questions Michael had I also had and found that my answers denied that I could any longer believe in the teaching of transubstantiation. I at one time did believe and now have for those who believe that Christ’s words must be taken literally are these same questions followed by my answer now as a Reformed Protestant.

Do you take Christ’s words literally when he said “This is my body” (toute estin to soma mou)? No not anymore

If so, since the verb “is” (estin) is in the present tense, do you believe that it was his body at the time of the original Lord’s supper? No
If not, why are you at liberty to take it non-literally here, but insist that it is literal otherwise? In other words, how could not be literal here, but be literal after Christ’s death?
If so, don’t you think this is a violation of Chalcedon? Yes I now do
Michael said ” I am most certain that thoughtful people have worked through this, I have just never heard an answer that seems to make any sense.” I now agree with Michael.

In faith,

Dudley

“Everybody interprets the Bible differently; how do I know what’s right?” Is Christianity a matter of opinion or a matter of fact?

This is from the Westminster Confession. Not everything in the Bible is perfectly clear to the casual reader. Scriptural interpretation must come from careful study and always in context and harmony with other passages of Scripture. We are never to interpret Scripture based on personal experience. For this reason, there are some things denominations interpret differently.

I believe as a Protestant thatt Salvation is the unconditional gift of God. How we define our religion does not determine our salvation. Yes, the Catholics have beliefs which are not Biblical. But so-called “evangelical”and Protestant denominations too.

However as a Reformed Protestant I believe in the “Sovereignity of God” who is infinite in his Knowlede and understanding. I began to also question how can any man define how Christ makes himself present in the Lords Supper.That is exactly what the Council of Trent attempted to do. How Christ makes himself present to us in His Supper is a mystery of the almighty and to base our belief on any thing which contradicts scripture or goes beyond it as does the roman catholic teaching of transubstantiation is arrogant and a denial in itself of our own finite understanding and Gods total sovereignity. To assume we can define what God who is infinite and complete in His knowledge is to commit the same sin Lucifer did. It is to assume we are as good as God himself.

A teaching like transubstantiation leads us from the truth and adds many superstitious rituals which lead away form the one truth of the Gospel, Christ alone saves us by His one time sacrifice on Calvary for all who are born again in Him.

Once a Catholic is born again, he would see the errors of Roman Catholicism, and come out from it, that’s what happened to me and many others.. You would know that you couldn’t remain under the pope’s authority, and be a born again Christian, most of them don’t know they need a saviour, and that they are lost – they follow the Roman Catholic teachings, which is the broad road. Reflecting back I never heard any true sound preaching of the Word of God as a Roman Catholic but I heard many fables including the doctrine of transubstantiation.

II Tim. 4: 1-5

” I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”

I believe in the real, objective presence, but I consider the metaphysics secondary (though Transubstation is not wrong provided one is an aristotilian). I don’t think there’s a huge difference in Catholic or Orthodox views. Christ is present in the Eucharist and this persists as long as the appearance of bread and wine remains. This is also consistent with the early Church’s teaching.

The Reformed “spiritual presence” is needlessly implying a dualism that need not exist (and I disagree with the calvinist idea that a body could not be present in many places at once and be unbroken), but I think the Reformed understanding is much better than the Zwinglian understanding, which was reprehensible.

Dudley, I think the understanding that Christ’s sacrifice was full, perfect, and sufficient doesn’t preclude the Roman Catholic understanding that Christ is truely and substantially present. the Mass or Divine Liturgy of Orthodoxy has always been called a “bloodless sacrifice” in that Christ doesn’t die all over again every time there is a Eucharist. What is happening is that Christ’s sacrifice is being re-presented sacramentally. This is because Christ’s death and resurrection have a power that is beyond a specific historical time (in some ways, the Lutheran Scholastic Eucharistic theology might actually fit this more obviously).

Incidentally, Jews also believe the Passover Seder is a re-presentation of the same Passover of the Hebrews in Egypt. It is not a memorial in the sense of simply bringing to memory something that happened a long time ago. Through the Seder they experience the redemption of God: – “Why Is This Day Different Than Any Other Day? Today we are no longer slaves”. This is similar to the anaphora in the Christian Eucharist, it is a re-presentation of the salvation of God.

John 19:30 says it is finished, according to Rome the Mass says it is continual, it is not sufficient, it must go on if you are to be saved perhaps. However the mass is not based on Gods word. It is a man made form of worship. Father Catholic are ingrained from early years to accept almost like faith that the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Christ. I am not sure all Catholics rally believe it anyway. They just never take the time to investigate the whole issue.

If they asked the questions you asked Michael, i.e Do you take Christ’s words literally when he said “This is my body” (toute estin to soma mou)? If so, since the verb “is” (estin) is in the present tense, do you believe that it was his body at the time of the original Lord’s supper? If not, why are you at liberty to take it non-literally here, but insist that it is literal otherwise? In other words, how could not be literal here, but be literal after Christ’s death? If so, don’t you think this is a…

If so, don’t you think this is a violation of Chalcedon?

If they asked the questions you presented above they would also be Protestants like you and I. I am speaking form experience. I was at one time a Roman Catholic. I accepted the catholic teaching of transubstantiation however I never felt comfortable with the adoration of the bread wafer in a gold monstrance. I was one of the Catholics who was glad to see the practice diminish greatly after Vatican II. However this current pope has re introduced and encouraged the practice…it was my love for the sacrament of the Lords Supper and other issues that led me to question and read and in the process over a period of time I became a Protestant and I am now a Presbyterian. If anyone seriously examined the questions you asked as I did they could not believe any longer in the catholic teaching of transubstantiation or the mass. I no longer believe in that teaching and I see the mass as an abomination and blasphemy of the one time on…

I am quite surprised with your answers. I don’t know why you all make so much noise about the transubstantiation. Jesus died on the cross once and for all. In memory of his death we offer Holy Eucharist. It is Jesus who said “Do this in memory of me”. So we are doing this in memory of Jesus Sacrifice on the Cross for the salvation of human kind. Christ is really present in the Holy Eucharist. This is what we believe and this is our Faith. Don’t be an obstacle for the faith of others… I may enlighten you all on this belief later…