July 17 – LD 29, Day 2: The Bread and Wine Do Not Become the
Literal Body and Blood of Christ
by Rev Arie den Hartog
Read: Matthew 26:26 - 29
The church
of Rome teaches that during the Lord’s Supper, the bread and wine are changed
into the literal body and blood of Christ. This change is termed
‘transubstantiation,’ literally “change of one substance into another”. In the
language of the debate about the meaning of transubstantiation, the church of
Rome states that even though the bread and wine continue to look like, feel
like, and taste like bread and wine, they are in fact really the body and blood
of Christ. The change of the elements takes place when the priest in the mass
repeats the words of consecration. The church of Rome
teaches that the word ‘is’ used by Jesus when He said, concerning the broken
bread in the Lord’s Supper: ‘this is my body,’ and concerning
the wine: ‘this is the new testament in my blood’, must be
taken literally.
The errors that followed
from these teachings of the church of Rome are that in
the mass, communicants must imagine that Christ is literally present and being
consumed.
The Reformed Church
maintains the truth that the bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper always remain
ordinary bread and wine even though in a sacramental way, these elements are
signs and pledges of the sacrifice of the body and blood of Jesus on the cross.
It is quite obvious that
when Jesus first instituted the Lord’s Supper, He could not have meant by the
words of consecration, that the bread and wine were changed into His body and
blood. In fact, at the time of the institution of the Supper, the Lord was
present with His disciples in the wholeness of His body. He did not pluck off his
flesh and give it to the disciples nor drain some of his blood to give to them.
Jesus did not say concerning the elements of the Supper, that they change into
something which they quite obviously do not appear to be. Such a gross
misunderstanding and superstitious ideas of the Lord’s Supper confuse the
simplicity of its teaching as intended by the Lord.
The meaning of the word
‘is’ in scripture often is “this signifies”. This is true also in common
language today. Jesus Himself used the language “I am the way”, “I am the
door”, “I am the bread of life”, “I am the living
water”. In none of these expressions did Jesus mean that there is the change of
substance of the sign into reality.
Communion with Christ is
nowhere in scripture presented as a matter of mere physical and carnal contact
with Him. Our communion with Christ is definitely a spiritual act and not a
carnal one. We receive the blessings which Christ has merited for us by His
sacrifice on the cross only in the spiritual way of faith.