Jesus, Bread and Wine

This piece is an argument regarding doctrine. I make an argument about the doctrine of transubstantiation and my position on it. (I don't hold to this doctrine.) I wrote this to clarify my own thinking about it.

Transubstantiation is held true in some church traditions in Christianity and not held in other traditions. However, this church doctrine should not ever become a reason to avoid fellowship between Christians, regardless of position taken about it.

We who call ourselves Christians are followers of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ. We love Jesus and we love God because God first loved us and sent us son Jesus so that we can have fellowship with God. Because we all follow Jesus, growing to become like him, we also are to have fellowship with each other.

Note also that even if the bread were to have been the flesh of his body either in substance or in reality, it would not have been a benefit to anyone because as Jesus said, “the flesh is no help at all”. (John 6:63)

If the bread simply remains bread, then eating the bread in this meal is a reminder of the faith and trust that we have in Jesus and in what he accomplished on the cross. It is faith and trust in Jesus that saves us from the consequences of sin.

However, if the bread must become flesh, then it comes into the category of what Jesus said is helpless to do anything for us.

The doctrine of transubstantiation holds that the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper will appear to remain as bread and wine, but are actually transformed in substance into the actual flesh and blood of the Christ in ways that are undetectable to human measures.

Some branches of Christianity hold this theological position. To me, the scriptural evidence for holding the position seems weak. And it seems that a substantial part of the argument for the position rests only on the opinions of (notable) historical church figures.

There were struggles in church history about the position for many years. This brings to my mind that maybe at root the position is a problem, or at very least the position is something the church should hold loosely.

I realize that Jesus said about the bread that “this is my body”. I also note that Jesus did not say “this is my blood” about the wine.

The argument for transubstantiation is that Jesus’ words explicitly meant the bread of this meal is his flesh. However, Jesus made no such statement about the contents of the cup. Any theology that maintains the cup’s contents is transubstantiated into the blood of the Christ does so based in purely human opinion or interpretation. It has no explicit backing from a statement by Jesus or by any of the apostles. Therefore if the wine cannot be definitively evidenced from scripture as becoming the blood, it is likely from this alone that the interpretation about the bread should be reconsidered.

Jesus explicitly said about himself that he was bread (John 6:48), he was light (John 6:12), a gate/door (John 10:7), and a vine (John 15:1). And yet we do not think Jesus was made of bread dough, was photons, was a door frame or a plant. We do not make a theology that Jesus was transubstantiated into these things. Instead we understand that Jesus was teaching about himself using these ideas as metaphors to help us understand that he was so much greater even than what we could imagine about him.

Jesus said “I am the bread of life”, and of the bread he said “this is my body given for you”. Why should we think that Jesus’ own body is not a piece of bread, but then do think that a piece of bread is actually the flesh of Jesus? If the bread is transubstantiated into flesh, then Jesus was also transubstantiated into bread. But no, I suggest that both these ideas are false readings.

This theology also results in practical problems which of themselves indicate it is probably a mistake: We can’t throw any of this excess bread and wine away with the other leftovers of meals because we would be disrespectful of the body and blood of our Lord! What if a mouse got into the transubstantiated materials? That would be a genuine spiritual catastrophe to protect against! (Maybe instead this is the wrong idea.)

We should consider the teaching Jesus gave about David eating the consecrated bread (1 Samuel 21, Matthew 12:1-6). This bread held a special place in the Jewish rituals symbolizing the provision of God for the needs of bodies. It was a reminder that God was the giver of nourishment for his people. It was sacred and not for ordinary eaters. In the end, however, the consecrated bread was just bread which people eventually did eat for physical nourishment.

In the same way, the bread of the Lord’s Supper symbolizes the provision of God for the needs of our souls - both body and spirit. The bread of this remembrance meal likewise in the end is just bread which we eat.

The context about all this tells us that Jesus is using physical objects as tools to teach about something we need to stretch to learn. This understanding should be applied equally to all. We already understand that Jesus is not physical bread; in the same way we can understand that the bread is not in reality Jesus.

Note that the actual words of Jesus were that the cup was the new covenant in his blood. If we take the meaning of these words literally, then the holy grail, the object containing the wine, that very cup is the covenant. Without that object we do not have the covenant.

Wisely this literal interpretation is understood as error and is rejected. I believe a literal interpretation about the bread should be handled similarly.