The Biblical Foundations of The Catholic Mass
(Part 4)
Paul Newcombe
Regarding the Biblical Foundations of the Catholic Eucharist
The Eucharist in Scripture
At this point we need to do some backtracking to further confirm the validity of the Catholic Mass. For the sacrifice of the Mass to be one with the sacrifice of Calvary, and for God’s people to be able to “eat the Lamb”, the Eucharist must be more than a symbol, it must actually be the victim — Christ Himself. But what biblical evidence is there in support of the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist? I believe Catholics can happily say: “there is much to choose from” — the Holy Scriptures contain much evidence to support the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist. When we read through the Old Testament we read about the bread and wine offered to God and given as food to the soldiers of Abraham by the High Priest Melchisedech; we read of the Pascal lamb sacrificed to God and eaten by his chosen people; we see the manna in the desert prepared not by man but by angels; and the miraculous food in the strength of which Elias walked for forty days — even to the mountains of God. We wonder what great gift from God all these wonders prefigure and foretell. If God intended to give us merely ordinary bread, then, would He not be giving us less than He gave to the Jews? It is impossible that the religion of Christ — for which the ancient religion was but a preparation — should not be more perfect, should not infinitely transcend the forerunner. Even as Christ Himself infinitely transcended the last prophet of the Old Law — St John the Baptist — who declared “I must decrease, and He must increase" (John 3:30).
If the Jews received a divine and miraculous food to eat during their journey through the desert, we too may expect a divine and miraculous food to eat during our journey through the desert of this life — a food prepared not by angels but by Christ Our Lord under some form within our reach. In the Catholic mind, all of these Old Testament figures are primitive signposts that lead us to expect the Eucharistic bread of the New Covenant. There are volumes that could be written; nevertheless, for our survey to keep progressing forward we will proceed to the teachings of Christ where He sets forth the coming miracle that will supersede the Manna and provide God’s people with “the true bread of life come down from heaven”.
John’s Gospel Chapter Six… (Jesus Announces the Holy Eucharist)
In the first portion of John’s gospel chapter six we see Jesus performing a bread miracle now known as the miraculous feeding of the five thousand. He gives the apostles a tiny piece of bread each and sends them forth to feed the hungry masses. When the apostles run out of bread, I can imagine them returning to Jesus and confusedly asking “what do we do now Lord?” They find their answer when they look up and see Jesus standing before them with more bread in His arms — the multiplication has begun. No matter how fast they run to feed the people, when they return to Christ empty-handed there is always more bread to receive from the hand of the Saviour. The apostles have stepped into the supernatural and partake of this miracle until every person is fed from five loaves and two fishes. Is this greater than the bread miracle performed by Moses? No. At least not to the Jewish people of Jesus’ day. Moses produced the manna miracle which fed three million people daily for forty years. Jesus just fed five thousand people, once. For Jesus to claim to be the Messiah, the “new Moses”, He will need a much greater bread miracle than that! Hence, the feeding of the five thousand must also be a preparation for some greater miracle yet to come.
In the second portion of John chapter six we see Jesus crossing the Sea of Galilee. In this crossing Jesus is reminiscent of Moses who also crossed the waters by parting them and walking “on dry ground” (Exodus 14:22). However here Jesus demonstrates His superiority to Moses by walking on top of the water — no parting of the sea is necessary for Him. The crowds also cross the sea to Capernaum to look for Jesus. When they find Him, Jesus indicates that they are not following Him because of the signs He performed but because they simply want another free meal! It is here that Jesus begins the third portion of John chapter six — known today as “the bread of life discourse”.
Jesus Teaches About the “Bread of Life”
Jesus begins by announcing to the people:
“Amen, amen, I say to you: …Do not work for the food that cannot last, but work for food that endures to eternal life, the kind of food the Son of Man is offering you” (John 6:27).
The Jews reply by asking for a sign:
“Then what sign do you do, that we should believe in you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate manna in the wilderness; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat” (John 6:30).
We might be tempted to criticise the Jews who ask for a supernatural sign immediately following the miracle of the loaves and the fishes. However, our inclination to scold the Jews for their apparent lack of faith may be a little hasty. As hinted earlier, the Jewish people recognised that there would be another great leader, a great prophet after Moses — the Messiah. In John chapter six they have their eyes set squarely upon Jesus, however, their discernment is also being based squarely on a biblical principle. Catholic theologian Steve Wood explains this principle in the following way:
“The primary drift of scripture is to move from shadow to substance, from promise to fulfilment, from lesser to greater. For the Jews to recognise and embrace Jesus as the Messiah they would require a sign that effectively surpasses the signs produced by Moses”.[8]
In our current context the Jews are effectively seeking a “bread miracle” that exceeds the dimensions of the Manna miracle of Exodus 16. In the minds of the Jews, Jesus needs to perform a sign that is significantly greater than feeding three million people daily for forty years. Jesus replies to their request by saying:
“Amen, amen, I say unto you: it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven; for the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (John 6:32).
The Jews reply:
“Lord, give us this bread always” (John 6:34).
Jesus responds to their plea by commencing to teach them about the sign that is greater than the manna. One can almost imagine Jesus pointing to Himself as He says:
“I am the bread of life” (John 6:35).
This miraculous statement by Jesus amazes and discomforts the Jews. For many of them their faith begins to show signs of cracking:
The Jews therefore murmured at him, because he had said: “I am the living bread which came down from heaven.” And they said: “Is this not Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, I have come down from heaven?” (John 6:41).
Jesus replies by repeating himself in verses 48 and 51:
“I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE. Your fathers ate manna in the desert, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven: so that a man may eat it and not die. I AM THE LIVING BREAD, which came down from heaven. If any man eats this bread, he shall live forever. (John 6:48-51).
At this point in His teaching Jesus utterly shocks the crowd by saying:
“…and the bread which I will give, IS MY FLESH for the life of the world” (John 6:51).
Jesus makes this shocking statement to totally clear up the misinterpretation that the bread of which He speaks may be simply “listening to His doctrine” or “feeding upon His preaching”. The Jews have now been abruptly blocked from adopting a symbolic interpretation, and instead, they are challenged by Our Lord to take His words literally. The Jews are obviously alarmed by this:
The Jews, therefore, disputed among themselves, saying: “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” (John 6:52).
Is This Symbolic Language?
“Thus far Jesus has used very powerful language to correlate His own flesh as being the new manna. If Jesus was only speaking symbolically, He would be obligated to clarify that for the Jews who are taking offense”[9] to His portrayal of the bread of life. Does Christ make clear that He is only speaking emblematically? No. In fact, He forces the issue by providing an all-the-more literalistic explanation:
“Amen, amen, I say to you: Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, has everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood, is drink indeed: He that eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father has sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eats me, the same shall also live by me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers ate manna and died. He that eats this bread shall live forever” (John 6:53-58).
If Christ was speaking in symbol only, He would have made that clear to His audience. However, as we have seen, Jesus does not deviate from the literal. Nowhere does He give a clear order to restrict His words to the symbolic level. The people who heard these sentences from the lips of Our Lord most definitely received them in a literal sense as we can see from their continuing consternation:
He taught this doctrine at Capernaum, in the synagogue. After hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This saying is hard, and who can accept it?” (John 6:59-60).
But Jesus knowing in himself, that his disciples murmured at this, said to them: “Does this scandalize you? What if you should see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before? It is the spirit that quickens: the flesh profits nothing: the words I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:61-63).
Many people who come from a Protestant background will employ verse 63 as a total negation of the Catholic literal interpretation of the bread of life discourse. Non-Catholic Christians may ask the question: “Did not the Jews think that they were asked to eat the very body of Christ? Yet didn’t Jesus refute them by saying that His body would ascend to heaven and that the flesh profits nothing? Verse 63 says ‘spirit and life’. This means that we are supposed to receive these words in a spiritual sense, a symbolic sense, a metaphorical sense.” In this instance, non-Catholic biblical interpretations take one verse and unwittingly wrench it out of context in order to use it as a missile to torpedo the rest of the Eucharistic teaching in John chapter six. How does the twenty-first century reader recognize that John 6:63 is not Christ’s re-assurance to His listeners that all is poetry? How do we know that Jesus’ reference to “spirit and life” is not a mechanism to make it clear to the Jews that He was only speaking in symbol? We know with certainty, because it was after He made this statement that the majority of the crowd walk away complaining of intolerable language:
After this many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him (John 6:66).
If “spirit and life” is Jesus’ clarification that the entire bread-of-life discourse is symbolic, then why did the vast multitude abandon Him? We need to remember that the Jewish Old Testament constantly speaks about God through symbolic and poetic imagery. The Jewish mind revels in symbolism and similitudes, in parallels and figurative expressions. If the Jews believed Jesus to be speaking about the “bread of life” as nothing more than a figurative expression used to encourage the people to “feed on His preaching” and to “digest His doctrine”, they would not have walked away complaining of intolerable language. Rather, the Jews would have marvelled at Jesus’ use of symbolic imagery just as they always have when reading the Old Testament scriptures. The obvious loathing and disgust of the crowds show us that they understood Jesus to be speaking in a very literal manner. The Jews could not stomach the teaching that they would have to literally eat His flesh and drink His blood to consume the “bread of life” come down from heaven. They wanted nothing more to do with Jesus or His faith.
Was the Crowds’ Literal Understanding a Correct Understanding?
If the crowd was incorrect — if they took Jesus literally when He was only speaking figuratively, Jesus, who knows their thoughts, would have immediately corrected them. The fact that Jesus watched them walk away and did not run after the dispersing crowds to correct their “false perception” proves that their understanding of His preaching was an accurate one! The crowd was right. They had gotten the message — Jesus meant literally what He had said. This is a very powerful indicator that the historic Catholic understanding of the Eucharist as the actual body and blood of Christ is, in fact, the correct explanation of Christ’s words in John chapter six.
What Jesus says in verse 63 has been mishandled by many biblical scholars, however, it fits perfectly with the Catholic interpretation. When Christ promised that He would give His very flesh to eat, the Jews protested because they imagined a natural and cannibalistic eating of Christ’s body. However, Jesus is not asking us to share in a flesh and blood relationship with Him by eating and drinking His earthly body and blood. If the apostles had started munching on His arms and legs at this point — it wouldn’t have done them much good. In actuality Jesus is asking us to eat and drink His spiritualized, glorified, heavenly, resurrected body and blood. “The flesh profits nothing”, the words spoken by Christ are “spirit and life”. This resurrected body of Christ is what Catholic congregations receive in the blessed Eucharist. Far from it being a key that locks St. John into a metaphorical mode, verse 63 is merely clarifying the characteristics of Christ’s flesh and blood and the spiritual realities of its consumption and in no way dilutes or diminishes the greatest force and realism of Jesus’ words in the preceding 36 verses.
In recognizing that John chapter six does not contain strong evidence to prove the symbolism of Christ’s words, we are obliged to grant that the Catholic Church’s insistence upon Christ being truly present in the Eucharist does indeed emanate from a rock-solid biblical foundation. The entire direction of Christ’s preaching during the “bread of life” discourse provides ample evidence from Scripture to confirm this early Christian belief. It is also important to note that there is not a single atomic particle of evidence anywhere in the New Testament to support the idea that John chapter six is to be read and understood in a symbolic sense. The evidence is overwhelming that Jesus spoke His message literally. Moreover, this literal understanding of Jesus’ words as the “bread of life” discourse is unambiguously testified to through the lived experience of the whole Christian Church for a thousand years. The early Church had one man called Berengarius, who, in the eleventh century questioned the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. He quickly recanted his theory as a misunderstanding and came back to the Catholic doctrine declaring his retraction in 1079: “I acknowledge that the bread is substantially changed into the substance of Christ’s body.” So, it wasn’t really until 1500 years after Jesus spoke these words in John chapter 6 that people began disseminating a new message by saying: “He didn’t really mean it! He was only speaking figuratively!” With so much contrary biblical evidence at hand it is very improbable that such is the case. In light of the crowds abandoning Him and in light of the fact that Jesus does nothing to stop them. In fact, He turns to the apostles, and He says to the twelve:
“Do you also wish to go away?” (John 6:67).
Simon Peter does not respond by praising Christ for His poetic use of symbolic imagery. Instead, he provides Jesus with a somewhat mystified response:
“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. And we have believed, and have known that you are the Christ, the Son of God.” (John 6:68-69).
Here we may admire not only the excellency of the apostle’s faith, but the plain, yet noble motive of their faith: they believe, because He is Christ, the Son of God, who is incapable of deceiving and whose power is perfectly equal to perform and deliver the promises He has here made in the bread of life discourse. Usually, our modern mind which always craves for scientific data will ask: Well, how does God do this? “That’s the wrong question. Who is doing this? If it is the God who created all things out of nothing — then perhaps He can do something that we can’t conceive of”.[10] This, however, requires an element of Christian faith for us to receive the words of Scripture — the preaching of Christ — in a supernatural manner. Professor Scott Hahn has suggested:
“The Eucharistic teaching in John six is the dividing line amongst the very disciples of Jesus between faith and unbelief. From the very beginning of the New Covenant, and even before it was firmly instituted in the upper room, the Eucharist has always been a stumbling block for those whose faith is only partially supernatural. In other words, the Eucharist has always been a kind of acid test to see whether we will really take God at His word”.[11]
Much prayer and contemplation of this divine mystery is required in an age of skepticism and unbelief. Conversely, however, the early Christians were certain regarding their literal (and therefore Catholic) reception of John chapter six. For instance, Cyprian of Carthage, writing his treatise on The Lord’s Prayer in 251 A.D., formulates the following:
As the prayer continues, we ask and say, “Give us this day our daily bread.” …And we ask that this bread be given us daily, so that we who are in Christ and daily receive the Eucharist as the food of salvation, may not, by falling into some more grievous sin and then in abstaining from communicating, be withheld from the heavenly Bread, and be separated from Christ’s Body. …He Himself warns us, saying, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you.” Therefore, we do ask that our Bread, which is Christ, be given to us daily, so that we who abide and live in Christ may not withdraw from His sanctification and from His Body.[12]
Jesus Institutes the Eucharist… (the upper room discourse)
We can find the Catholic view of the Eucharist substantiated in the synoptic gospels. Matthew chapter 26:26-28, for example, records the following:
And whilst they were at supper, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke, and gave to his disciples, and said: “Take ye, and eat: THIS IS MY BODY.” And taking the chalice he gave thanks: and gave to them saying: “Drink ye all of this. For THIS IS MY BLOOD of the new covenant which shall be shed for many, for the remission of sins” (Matthew 26:26-28).
Jesus doesn’t say, “This represents my body.” He doesn’t say, “This is a symbol of my body.” He doesn’t say, “This is like my body.” He doesn’t say, “This will remind you of my body.” Jesus says: “This is my body” (Matthew 26:26). In point of fact, there are forty-six ways in Aramaic that Jesus could have expressed a symbolic equivalence between the bread and His body. He used none of them. Instead, Jesus made the bluntest, most straight forward identification possible: “THIS IS MY BODY” (Matthew 26:26). A God who previously said, “Let there be light” and light sprang into existence in obedience to His almighty Word: this same God says, “This is my body” and His powerful Word transforms the bread and wine—making it what He identifies it as being.
Justin the Martyr, regarded generally as the most important of the 2nd century Christian apologists, writes his First Apology between 148-155 A.D. as an address to Antoninus Pius. His Second Apology written during the same period is addressed to the Roman Senate. In the sixty-eight chapters which comprise his First Apology, Justin, in his elaborate and tedious style, illustrates the details of many Christian doctrines — not the least being the Church’s literal interpretation of Matthew 26:26-28:
We call this food Eucharist; and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true… For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by Him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nourished, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus.
The Apostles, in the Memoirs which they produced, which are called Gospels, have thus passed on that which was enjoined upon them: that Jesus took bread and, having given thanks, said, “Do this in remembrance of Me; this is My Body.” And in like manner, taking the cup, and having given thanks, He said, “This is my Blood.”[13]
Jesus Uses the Sacrificial Language of the Old Testament Law to Institute the Eucharist
The ancient Jewish Passover liturgy (mystically transformed by Christ) is now superseded and replaced by the New Covenant Eucharist. This meal that Jesus initiates in the upper room is viewed by Catholics as the first Holy Mass where He institutes the Eucharist and offers His own Body and Blood to the Father. It is the perfect sacrifice where Christ’s death is made present and the redemptive merit of the cross is rendered to the people of God in every age. As further confirmation of this—it must be noted that the language of sacrifice runs throughout these passages:
(1). In Matthew 26:28 Jesus says:
“For this is my blood of the new covenant which shall be shed for many for the remission of sins.” (Matthew 26:28).
Jesus is echoing the language of Moses in Exodus 24 where Moses celebrates the first sacrifice at the foot of Mt Sinai, and says to the Israelites:
“This is the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you...” (Exodus 24:8).
This first covenant at Mt Sinai made Israel the bride of God. It is a marriage covenant. God is asking Israel to enter into a marital union with Himself. This is simply elevated to a higher level through the New Covenant established between Christ and His bride—the Church.
(2). In Luke 22:19 Jesus says:
“This is my body which is given for you: Do this as a memorial of me.” (Luke 22:19).
The word that Jesus uses here, translated as commemoration or memorial in Greek is anamnesis. Both that Greek word and the Hebrew word underlying it refer to one of the four types of sacrifices that were offered in the Old Testament. The book of Leviticus describes them as the “Holocaust” or “burnt offering”; the “Oblation offering”; the “Memorial offering”; and the “Sin offering.” The Memorial offering was not simply a way of remembering something—it was a type of sacrifice (see Lev 5:12; 6:8). With this in mind we can see a deeper meaning to Christ’s words when He says to the apostles:
“This is my body which is given for you: Do this as a memorial [as a memorial offering] of me” (Luke 22:19).
This is the second indication that the meal which Jesus gave us is a sacrificial meal, as the Catholic Church teaches.
(3). In addition, the verb Jesus uses in that same verse: “poieto” in Greek, and “Asa” in Hebrew (whenever it’s within a sacrificial context), is a commandment to: “perform this sacrifice.” Jesus is telling the apostles to “do” or “accomplish” a sacrifice.
“Do [poieto] this as a memorial of me.” (Luke 22:19).
We see this use of the same verb in Exodus 29:
“This is what thou shalt sacrifice upon the altar: Two lambs of a year old every day continually, one lamb in the morning, and another in the evening... 41 do [poieto] this with the same oblation and the same libation as in the morning, as an appeasing fragrance, an offering burnt in honor of Yahweh.” (Exodus 29:38-39, 41).
(4). Jesus also speaks of His blood as being “poured out for the remission of sins” (Mt 26:28; Mk 14:24; Lk 22:20). The verb, translated as “poured out” or “shed” is also a verb used throughout the Old Testament to describe a libation—a pouring out of blood to atone for our sins and to placate the wrath of God:
“If his offering is a holocaust of an animal out of the herds, ... (5) he must immolate the bull before Yahweh, and the sons of Aaron, the priests, shall offer the blood. They will pour it out on the boarders of the altar...” (Leviticus 1:3, 5).
“If a man’s sacrifice is a memorial sacrifice, and if he offers an animal from the herd, male or female, whatever he offers before Yahweh must be without blemish. He is to lay his hand on the victim’s head and immolate it at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. Then the sons of Aaron, the priests, must pour out the blood on the boarders of the altar. ... (7) If he offers a sheep, he is to offer it before Yahweh; he is to lay his hand on the victim’s head and immolate it in front of the Tent of Meeting; then the sons of Aaron shall pour out its blood on the boarders of the altar. Of the memorial sacrifice he is to offer the following as a burnt offering to Yahweh: ... (11) The priest must burn this part on the altar as food, as a burnt offering for Yahweh. ... (12) If he is offering a goat, he is to offer it before Yahweh: he is to lay his hand on the victim’s head and immolate it in front of the Tent of Meeting, and the sons of Aaron shall pour out its blood on the boarders of the altar. ... (16) The priest must burn these pieces on the altar as food, a burnt offering for Yahweh” (Leviticus 3:1-2, 7-9, 11-13, 16).
“…the priest’s shall pour out the blood of the victim. (15) And the flesh of it shall be eaten the same day, neither shall any of it remain until morning.” (Leviticus 7:14-15).
(See also Leviticus 4:18; 25; 34, 5:9, 7:2, 8:15; 24, 9:9; 18).
Jesus’ abundant use of sacrificial language is another clear testimony to the sacrificial nature of the Last Supper — the first Mass. It is also a testimony to the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist for no sacrifice can be made present unless Christ is also truly present in the offering itself — as the true Lamb of God. His “real absence” (as proclaimed by many non-Catholic Christians) is a clear contradiction of Christ’s specific use of sacrificial language throughout the upper room discourse.
As published by Dr. Ron Carleson & and Ed Decker:
Unbiblical Traditions
“Some of these Catholic traditions which Bible believing Christians reject include such teachings as: …The Eucharist of the Mass and transubstantiation, the teaching that the bread and wine literally become the blood and body of Christ when taken at Communion”.
[Dr. Ron Carlson & Ed Decker, Fast Facts on False Teachings, Roman Catholicism, p. 213, (1994), Harvest House Publishers]
What we basically have in this statement is a compact denunciation of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist presented without any real reasoning or supporting evidence. This type of assumption begs the question — is there, in fact, any biblical foundations for these Catholic beliefs? This should have been more thoroughly researched prior to publishing a book that simply lists the Eucharist as an “unbiblical tradition”. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, considers its Eucharistic dogmas to be firmly planted in scripture and has a very powerful biblical case to make in her defense. Again, simply making broad statements for general consumption by the public without allowing your opponent’s position to be flushed out in any manner is to present the issue on an uneven playing field. These methods continue to be unhelpful in the dialogue between Catholics and Protestants as they tend to shed heat instead of light.
Footnotes:
[8] Steve Wood, Eucharistic Messages: Miracle Bread of the Old and the New Testaments, Port Charlotte, Family Life Center, audio tape, 1995.
[9] Scott Hahn, Answering Common Objections: The Eucharist: Holy Meal, St Joseph Communications, audio tape, 1995.
[10] Steve Wood, Eucharistic Messages: Miracle Bread of the Old and the New Testaments, Port Charlotte, Family Life Center, audio tape, 1995.
[11] Scott Hahn, Answering Common Objections: The Eucharist: Holy Meal, St Joseph Communications, audio tape, 1995.
[12] Cyprian of Carthage, The Lord’s Prayer, 251 A.D., in William A. Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers, Collegeville, The Liturgical Press, 1970, p.223.
[13] Justin the Martyr, First Apology, 148-155 A.D., in William A. Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers, Volume 1, Collegeville, The Liturgical Press, 1970, p. 55.