Dawn, a Protestant convert to Roman Catholicism wrote:
"My favorite part of Catholicism is the receiving of the actual Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ in Holy Communion. Through transubstantiation, the miracle of bread and wine changing into Jesus Christ's body and blood at the hands of the Priest, I actually have Christ coursing through my veins!"
Our answer:
In these last days, many protestants are converting to Catholicism. Conversely, many who remain protestant, are incorporating Roman Catholicism into their worship by changing the Lord's Supper into the Roman Mass. This is due to an appealing ecumenical agenda designed by the Vatican to bring protestant religions back into the Catholic fold.
The body, blood, soul, and Divinity of Jesus does not literally reside in the Eucharist of the Roman Catholic Mass. In refusing to receive the Mass (in denying the doctrine of transubstantiation), millions of Christians were burned at the stake during the Spanish Inquisition.
The body, blood, soul, and Divinity of Jesus does not literally reside in the Eucharist of the Roman Catholic Mass. In refusing to receive the Mass (in denying the doctrine of transubstantiation), millions of Christians were burned at the stake during the Spanish Inquisition.
Refusal to accept the lie of transubstantiation was central to the Protestant Reformation, and millions chose to burn to death rather than agree with a soul-stealing lie.
But didn't Jesus say, in John 6:53-54 "...I say unto you, except you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood you have no life in you Whoso eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise them up at the last day."
Is Jesus contradicting himself in John 3:16 where he said simple faith in him is all the Father requires for eternal life?
Is he really saying, in John 6:53-54, that when we partake of the Lord's Supper, the bread and wine wholly cease to be simple bread and wine, and instead become literally and completely the body and blood of Jesus? And, that we must eat it believing that or we have no hope of eternal life?
If Jesus meant those words literally...then we must believe Jesus was teaching us that our faith entirely consists of cannibalism and idolatry. Cannibalism, because, according to the doctrine of transubstantiation, we are eating human flesh and drinking human blood. And idolatry, because when the eucharist is blessed by the priest, it is said to become God himself and worshipped as such.
The Vatican (which claims to speak for God) takes John 6:53-54 literally. The kingpin of Roman Catholicism is the doctrine of transubstantiation which teaches that once the bread and wine (of communion) are blessed by the priest, the entire physical essence of our Lord Jesus Christ resides in that bread and wine.
Roman Catholics are taught that they are "fully incorporated into the body of Christ by participation in their first mass" (Documents of the Vatican 2). This contradicts scripture which says we are incorporated into the Body of Christ when we are born again and baptized into the the Body of Christ by the Holy Spirit. Nothing in scripture even hints that participation in the Lord's Supper is what saves our souls.
In the Roman Catholic processional (as well as in the mass), the Eucharist (disc shaped wafer) is blessed and displayed. The people are then permitted to "worship it", because, at that point, they are taught that the entire essence of the body of their God (Jesus Christ) resides in the Eucharist.
Roman Catholic Dogma teaches that when they look upon the Eucharist after it is blessed... They are beholding their God
That Is Blatant Idolatry.
If indeed the wine and bread are completely transformed into the literal body and blood of our lord with "no trace of the original bread and wine existing" after the priest blesses it, then once we ingest it... we become guilty of cannibalism.
We have a biblical example, in the sixth chapter of John, of those who also mistakenly believed Jesus was advocating cannibalism...and, because they erroneously believed he was commanding cannibalism, they turned away from following him. They could not see what he was really saying.
Jesus said what he did, in John chapter 6, because the crowd was following him for the wrong reason, and he boldly confronted their true motivations.
Those people wanted breakfast! And Jesus told them they needed to hunger for Heavenly food instead.
The Heavenly food Jesus referred to, in John 6:53-54, is not a reference to what Roman Catholicism (and some Protestants) refer to as the Eucharist or Mass, and what the Bible calls "The Lord's Supper."
What are the actual words of Christ concerning the Lord's Supper?
Matthew 26:26 Jesus took bread, and blessed it… Take eat, this is my body… Matthew 26:27-28 drink ye all of it, this is my blood... Mark 14:22 Jesus took the bread, and blessed it... take eat, this is my body… Mark 14:23-24 he took the cup...this is my blood… Luke 22:19 this is my body…Luke 22:20 this cup is the new covenant in my blood…
There is no doubt that Jesus called the bread and wine his body and blood. The question is, at the last supper, did the bread and wine transmute (transubstantiate) into another substance altogether, i.e., the physical/literal body and blood of Jesus, or did it remain simple bread and wine?
Was Jesus speaking symbolically or metaphorically rather than literally?
Jesus called the wine he drank at the last supper his blood. He also called it "this fruit of the vine," after it was blessed and after he said it was his blood (Matthew 26:29, Luke 22:18, mark 14:25).
We know from this, that it did not change into his literal blood, but rather remained what it started out as, simply wine, as Jesus clearly identified it as such after he had blessed it.
Was Jesus lying when he said this is my blood? Of course He wasn't. He was speaking symbolically. He also said...This Do in Remembrance of Me
Jesus the Christ has no need of giving sacrifice after sacrifice as is portrayed in the Roman Mass. He died to sin once. The Bible says no more sacrifice is needed. Now he lives (Hebrews 10:12, Romans 6:10).
Before Jesus came (and died and rose again), faith in the promise of his atonement was necessary. That atonement was prophetically foretold in the rituals and oft-repeated sacrifices under the Law of Moses, all of which symbolically represented the Messiah.
Today we participate in the remembrance of that atonement through the fellowship (not sacrifice) of the Lord's Supper.
The Hebrew slaves, in Egypt, symbolically partook of the Lord's Supper at the very first Passover. No transubstantiation took place then, none takes place now.
Faith in the atoning death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord is what saves us. The act of his death would not have been enough to save us from our sins had he not risen from the dead, as he said he would do.
Participating in the Lord's Supper cannot save us from our sins. Yes, Jesus died for our sins, but he was proclaimed the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead (Romans 1:4).
The eucharist is an idol. The Roman Mass is idolatrous. And Christians are commanded to flee idolatry.
To say that the essence of our Creator can be compressed into a man made wafer of bread, to say that we can hold our God in our hands and put him into our mouths (even worship that piece of bread after it has been blessed) is nothing short of blasphemous idolatry.
So what exactly is the communion of the blood and body of Christ?
The word, communion, means "fellowship."
The cup which we bless and the bread which we break is the fellowship of the body and blood of Christ, which we all participate in the blessings of.
It is a rejoicing of remembrance till he comes (1 Cor. 10:14-16).
It is not the re-enactment of his sacrifice over and over. That is not necessary. Bulls and goats had to be repeatedly sacrificed... not our Sovereign Lord (Hebrews 9:26-29, 10:11-14).
When Christians participate in what many refer to as Holy Communion (biblically called, The Lord's Supper), we are rejoicing in fellowship with one another in the blessings received from the atonement.
And we are remembering what Jesus did for us... until he comes again.
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