The actual event of the last supper is of course used for the claim of transubstantiation, this is the first Mass, this was the institution of the Eucharist. My apologies if I never brought up the Last Supper as I assumed you already knew of the Last Supper. I brought up the John 6 discourse to give you a background of where the belief that the Eucharist is the body and blood of our Lord. The John 6(“Eat My flesh, Drink my blood”) discourse happened at the Jewish Passover, one year later the Last supper happened at the same time at Passover. Jesus is clearly teaching His disciples about what is now called the Eucharist which led to the climax at the Last Supper when He held up the bread and wine and said to his disciples “Take all of you and eat from it, for this IS my body”, The apostles clearly understood what He was saying.
Such a doctrine does not “Fly in the Face” of Levitical Law(Lev 17:4):
Firstly, any divine command that comes later modifies divine commands that came earlier. When Jesus declared all foods clean (Mk 7:19), his command superseded the earlier command that certain foods be regarded as unclean (Lv 11:1-8). If Jesus today commands us to drink his blood, his command supersedes any prior command concerning drinking blood.
Second, the command against drinking blood, like all of the Old Testament dietary regulations, has passed away, for “These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink” (Col 2:17, 16).
Thirdly, the Old Testament is very specific about why one was not to eat blood: “The life of every creature is the blood of it; therefore I have said to the people of Israel, You shall not eat the blood of any creature, for the life of every creature is its blood” (Lv 17:14, cf. Dt 12:23). The Israelites could not eat animal blood because it contained the animal’s life, but there is one Person whose life you must have in you, “Christ who is your life” (Col 3:4).
Had Jesus been speaking in a metaphorical sense here then this would have been the perfect point to clarify His intentions like what He did many times in scripture like in Matthew 16:5-12 where Jesus’ listeners thought that he was speaking in a literal sense, and he had to correct them. In this passage, Christ was warning the disciples of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. The disciples concluded that he was speaking of the bread they had forgotten to bring for their journey. In seeing their confusion, Jesus had to reiterate that he was not speaking literally of bread.
But Jesus never corrected their confusion in John 6. Look how Jesus answers the Jews’ objections in John 6:53–58: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. . . . For my flesh is food indeed, and my flesh is drink indeed.” These words would hardly quell the Jew’s fear that Jesus spoke literally.
Following this, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?”(6:60). At this point, we witness the only place in Scripture where anyone leaves Jesus for a doctrinal reason. Had Jesus been speaking metaphorically, what would have been so hard for the disciples to accept?
And regarding John chapter 10 like what you mentioned Jesus says, “I am the door.” Some say that this is the sense in which Jesus’ words in John 6 should be taken. However, no one understood Jesus to be speaking literally when he said that he was a door. The narrative does not continue, “And his disciples murmured about this, saying, ‘How can he be a door? Where are his hinges? We do not see a doorknob.’ Jesus answered them, ‘Amen, Amen, I say to you, I am a door, and my chest is real wood, and my hips are real hinges.’” This is absurd, but it illustrates how shocking Jesus’ words were when he said that his flesh was real food and his blood real drink.
I missed John 6:63 because I know this is a Protestant favourite used to try and disprove the Eucharist being the real flesh and blood of Christ, so I left it for you to mention
The fundamental misunderstanding here springs from the implication that the word
spirit is symbolic. Never in Scripture is this the case. We are told that God is spirit and that the devil is spirit, but no one would conclude from this that they are merely symbolic beings.
What Jesus is driving at is that the carnal understanding of fallen human flesh is incapable of understanding spiritual realities—such as the Eucharist.
If one concludes from the above verses that Jesus was speaking metaphorically of his flesh and blood, a major difficulty arises. The Bible teaches that blood is essentially the seat of life within living things, and thus it is sacred. Every time the Bible speaks of symbolically eating another’s flesh and drinking their blood, this is the idiomatic phrase that meant to persecute, betray, and murder (see Micah 3:3; Psalm 27:2; Isaiah 9:20, 49:26). Now read John 6 in light of those that understood Jesus to speak symbolically. “I solemnly assure you that unless you persecute and betray me, you have no life within you. He who does violence to me has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” This is senseless, but it is what his words would have meant if they were symbolic.
We do not believe that in the Mass we are re-crucifying or re-sacrificing Jesus on the cross. It’s not that Jesus is dying again. That is not what we mean when we say that the Mass is the sacrifice of Christ. Christ’s sacrifice is eternal, and since God is not limited by time, it is therefore that one sacrifice which we can draw from at any time, it’s a re-presentation of that one sacrifice. Let’s go back one verse from the Hebrews passage you quoted to Hebrews 7:24, We’re told that Jesus holds his priesthood permanently, and he’s exercising that permanent priesthood “in the sanctuary and the true tent, which is set up not by man but by the Lord.” That’s Hebrews 8:2. And what is he doing there? He’s “always living to make intercession” for us (Hebrews 7:25), so that all of us who draw near to him, we can be saved.
Now here’s the key: when you jump to 8:3, here’s what the author of Hebrews says—so this is coming after the author of Hebrews is saying that Jesus is our high priest who is exercising his priestly ministry forever, interceding for us in the heavenly sanctuary. Verse 3, he writes: “For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices, hence it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer.” Now notice that the author of Hebrews is saying Jesus our high priest, as high priest in the heavenly sanctuary, must have a gift to offer in his heavenly priestly ministry.
Now which offering could that possibly be? It can’t be some distinct offering that he’s offering to his Father in this heavenly priestly ministry, because that would imply that his sacrifice on the cross was insufficient, which is absurd given revelation. So, what is it that he’s offering? What is the gift? What is the offering that he’s making present to the Father? It is his One sacrifice on the cross. But notice, that He’s making it present to the Father in the heavenly sanctuary in a different manner—in an unbloody manner. And we as Catholics are saying the Mass is simply that reality of Jesus making his one sacrifice present to the Father in an unbloody manner; that reality becomes present on the altar every time we go to Mass, and that’s the reality. You keep arguing “Context” “Context” “Context”, well I’ve just given you 100% context.
No, you have got this totally wrong and totally mis-representing what St Ignatius is saying.
St Ignatius is refuting Docetism which was a Christian heresy that affirmed that Christ did not have a real or natural body during His life on earth. Ignatius speaks of Christ having flesh, But he also points out this flesh of Christ is also denied by heretics to be the Eucharist. Two things,
1. Denying Jesus didn’t come in the flesh and
2. Denying the Eucharist is the flesh of Christ…But nice try buddy.
“Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God… They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the Flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, Flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes”. —Letter to the Smyrnaeans, Ch 6
Here Ignatius equates the Eucharist to the same flesh of Christ that suffered for our sake on the cross. Jesus also uses this literal comparison when he explained, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” (John 6:51).
Tertullian was not considered a church father in early Christianity.
Tertullian died a Montanist Heretic. Tertullian taught heresy on many basic Christian beliefs. I’m not sure why you would use a Heretic like Tertullian to justify your beliefs. A Heretic loses credibility. But that doesn’t really matter for our purpose here, because he clearly did believe in the Real Presence anyway.
When Tertullian uses the term “figurative” he does not mean to deny the real presence. Tertullian is emphasizing the fact that the Lord’s body and blood are communicated under the “appearances,” “signs,” or “symbols” of bread and wine. “Figure” is another synonym for “sign.” Even today the Catechism of the Catholic Church uses the terms “sign” and “symbol” to describe the Eucharist in paragraphs 1148 and 1412.
With Tertullian, all we have to do is go on reading in the very document quoted above by you to get a sense of how he is using the term “figure,” and it is entirely Catholic. Notice what he goes on to say:
“Then, having taken the bread and given it to His disciples, He made it His own body, by saying, This is my body, that is, the figure of my body. A figure, however, there could not have been, unless there were first a veritable body. An empty thing, or phantom, is incapable of a figure. If, however, (as Marcion might say,) He pretended the bread was His body, because He lacked the truth of bodily substance, it follows that He must have given bread for us. It would contribute very well to the support of Marcion’s theory of a phantom body…”
Tertullian’s point here is that Marcion’s “theory of a phantom body” fits with Christ “pretending the bread was His body,” because Marcion denied Jesus had a body in the first place. But the Christian believes Christ “made it His own body, by saying, This is my body.” The transformation does not take away the symbolic value of bread and wine, it confirms it.
Tertullian makes clear in multiple places that he believed that Jesus communicated his true body and blood under the “figures” or appearances of bread and wine:
- On the Resurrection of the Flesh (ca. AD 200), chapter 8.
- On Prayer, Of Stations (Fasting), chapter 19.
- On Modesty, chapter 9.
This is a very poor understanding of the English language on your behalf. Origen states “we have a symbol of gratitude”. It’s a Symbol of our “Thank You” to God, Origen doesn’t say it’s ONLY a symbol of the body/flesh of Christ, but says it’s a symbol of gratitude. Protestants always uses the Either/OR approach, why not Both/And?
The Catholic Church has always understood the Eucharist
both to employ “figures” or “symbols” AND to be God’s instrument to communicate the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ, in his substantial reality, under the accidents or appearances of bread and wine to the people of God for their spiritual sustenance. The answer is
both/and not either/Or.
Your quote of Origen doesn’t prove anything