Expert: Elder Greg Madden - 12/5/2006

Question
Elder Greg,

Hope you were able to dig your way out of the snow. We’re being hit pretty hard here in the northeast as I type.

This is in response to your request to give the Catholic understanding of Matthew 28:19 and John 6:53-57 which, for Catholic Christians, help to signify the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist, respectively.

To consolidate what could easily be a whole textbook into a couple of sentences, we as Catholic Christians believe that God confers his grace to us through powerful signs.  The sacraments are no mere “works of the law” that Scripture tells us are useless in helping one to be saved, but are “efficacious because in them Christ Himself is at work…it is He who baptizes, He who acts in the sacraments in order to communicate the grace that each sacrament signifies” (CCC, 1127).  Let’s take for example, the Eucharist. The CCC states in 1323:

"At the Last Supper, on the night he was betrayed, our Savior instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice of his Body and Blood. This he did in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the cross throughout the ages until he should come again, and so to entrust to his beloved Spouse, the Church, a memorial of his death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a Paschal banquet ‘in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us.'"

Now, I’m not saying this is easy to understand.  Indeed, John 6:66 tells us that after Jesus says in verse 53 “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you”, that “many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.”  The passage signifies that it was a difficult thing for many to accept at the time, just as it is now.  If Jesus was merely speaking figuratively though, it is unlikely that His followers would have had a problem with a mere symbol.  But instead of equivocating after what was said in verse 53, He intensifies it in 55: “For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.” CCC 1336 states:

The first announcement of the Eucharist divided the disciples, just as the announcement of the Passion scandalized them: "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?" The Eucharist and the Cross are stumbling blocks. It is the same mystery and it never ceases to be an occasion of division. "Will you also go away?": the Lord's question echoes through the ages, as a loving invitation to discover that only he has "the words of eternal life" and that to receive in faith the gift of his Eucharist is to receive the Lord himself.

To conclude, I again say yes, what the Eucharist signifies to Catholic Christians is not easy to buy into, but is accepting that God can change ordinary bread and wine into the body of blood of Christ any more difficult than accepting that God became man in the person of Jesus Christ?  

This is getting pretty long so I think I’ll cut it here, and leave the passage from Matthew’s Gospel for later.  I hope that I have adequately addressed your request and this provides a good launching pad for further discussion.

Again, I appreciate your willingness to discuss this with me in a non-confrontational way.  I am interested to here what you have to say.  I also hope that my willingness to keep an “open mind” will be reciprocated, and that you are willing to examine a belief system that is different than yours with the same open mind.

Thanks again and hope all is well.

Edward


Answer
Edward,

Once again I must apologize for my late reply. Weather, work, ministry, and life in general tends to keep me rather busy. :-)
But for the most part, the delay in my reply is your last reply. I had to read it through several times before I could grasp your interpretation of catholic doctrine concerning transubstantiation. Let me see if I can sum up what I understand you to belive, and you may feel free to write back and correct me if I am wrong. What I understand you to say is that John 6:53 to be taken literally not figuratively. I will address the question with this understand.

Rome teaches that John 6:53 is to be taken literal. Thus Jesus is giving absolute and unconditional requirements for eternal life. Catholics believe as you consume the lifeless wafer you are actually eating and drinking the living body and blood of Jesus Christ. Correct?

Here is a few problems with this belief...

1. If priests indeed have the exclusive power to change finite bread and wine into the body and blood of the infinite Christ, and if by consuming Christ's body and blood is necessary for salvation, then the whole world must become catholic to go to heaven.

2. The Law strictly forbids Jews from drinking blood. A literal interpretation would have Jesus teaching the Jews to disobey the Law.
Leviticus 17:10-14

3. If John 6:53 is interpreted literally it is in disharmony with the eternity of Scripture. It would give no hope of eternal life to any Christian who has not consumed the literal body and blood of Christ. This opposes hundreds of Scriptures that declare justification and salvation are by faith alone.

4. John 6:54 says "eating and drinking", then in John 6:40 it says "believing" in verse 6:40, and that these are to both produce the same result -eternal life. If both are literal, then we have a big problem. What if a person "believes" but does not "eat or drink"? Or what if a person "eats and drinks" but does not "believe?" I am sure this has happened. Say that a non-believer walked into a catholic church and received the eucharist. Does this person have eternal life because he met one of the requirements but not the other? The only possible way to harmonize these two verses is to accept one verse as figurative and one as literal.

5. Jesus told the disciples that at times He spoke figuratively.

John 16:25
These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of the Father

Often He used this type of language to describe Himself. The Gospel of John records at least seven figurative declarations Jesus made of Himself...
"the bread of life" (6:48)
"the light of the world" (8:12)
"the door" (10:9)
"the good shepherd" (10:11)
"the resurrection and the life" (11:25)
"the way, the truth and the life" (14:6)
"the true vine" (15:1)

6. John 6:63
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.  

With the seven miracles in John's Gospel, Jesus used the miracle to teach a spiritual truth. In John 6, Jesus just multiplied the loaves and fish and uses a human analogy to teach the necessity of spiritual nourishment. This is consistent with His teaching on how we are to worship God.

John 4:24
God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.  

As we worship Jesus He is present spiritually, not physically. In fact, Jesus can only be bodily present at one place at one time. His omnipresence refers only to His spirit. It is impossible for Christ to be bodily present in thousands of Catholic Churches around the world.

Edward, conceder this question...
When Jesus is received spiritually through faith into the heart of the Believer, is it necessary to receive Him physically, over and over again in the stomach?

Once again I enjoy seeking the Truth of God's Word with you. I feel that the Lord has brought us together for purpose, and I look forward to seeing Christ glorified through our conversation.

Please feel free to take your time in responding. And just in case it takes a while, may you and your family have a very merry Christmas!

Elder Greg Madden