Transubstantiation

[Presbyterian Continuist]

I think I believe in transubstantiation despite being Protestant.

Is that bad?

One thing to think about. At the last supper, Jesus took the bread and said, "This is my body". Then He took the wine and said, "This is my blood of the New Covenant, drink ye all of you." Now if Jesus wanted to eat His body and drink His blood while He was there in person with them, does that mean that He was going to slice off a bit of His body and merge it with the bread, and cut His wrist and merge His blood with wine? Wouldn't that sound loopy tunes to you?

And during the Mass, how does a wafer miraculously change into human flesh while still being a wafer? And how does the wine change into human blood when it remains wine? To a normal common sense person it would be koo koo bananatown stuff!

 

[Jonaitis]

I kind of see its purpose as twofold:
NT sacrificial meal, and proclaiming the Lord's death until he comes.

I don't attribute any spiritual presence of the living Christ in the meal, as there was no living presence of the sacrifice in the OT sacrificial meal.
I attribute only the benefits of the sacrifice to the participants.

Strange, because I explained that.

 

[Clare73]

Strange, because I explained that.

"Proclaim" the Lord's death sounds like a declaration going beyond the participants.

 

[Jonaitis]

"Proclaim" the Lord's death sounds like a declaration going beyond the participants.

So you don't participate in the sacraments?

You believe the sacraments proclaim Christ's death, how is that not a form of preaching its analogy to the one participating? If it preaches Christ's death, it is a means to encourage the faith of the one participating.

You are not really in conflict with me, sister.

 

[friend of]

And during the Mass, how does a wafer miraculously change into human flesh while still being a wafer? And how does the wine change into human blood when it remains wine? To a normal common sense person it would be koo koo bananatown stuff!

Okay but I'm confused. What is the orthodox Protestant way of viewing communion?

 

[Clare73]

So you don't participate in the sacraments?

I do, in the Lord's Supper, baptism and the laying on of hands.

You believe the sacraments proclaim Christ's death, how is that not a form of preaching its analogy to the one participating? If it preaches Christ's death, it is a means to encourage the faith of the one participating.

You are not really in conflict with me, sister.

Indeed, I am not, if you follow the Puritans.

"Proclaim" sounds like the participant is proclaiming something to someone beyond himself.

But it could mean that I proclaim my faith in the Lord's death. . .like reciting the Apostles' Creed proclaims my faith.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

Okay but I'm confused. What is the orthodox Protestant way of viewing communion?

It is a remembrance of the suffering and death of Jesus on the Cross where His body was broken and His blood shed. The remembrance of his broken body is so that we know through it that we are made whole and complete spiritually, and that through His blood our sins are washed away. The actual bread and wine are symbolic and not the actual body and blood of the Lord. When Jesus said earlier on to the crowd that to be true disciples they should eat His body and drink His blood, He wasn't saying to do it literally, but as a metaphor to show full commitment to Him and identification with His death. In the same way, we say we are crucified with Christ, nevertheless we live, yet not us, but Christ lives in us. This does not mean that we are literally nailed to a wooden cross along with Christ, but it is a metaphor to show how that we have died to our previous sinful life and we are totally identified with the life of Christ within us through the indwelling Holy Spirit.

 

[HTacianas]

I think I believe in transubstantiation despite being Protestant.

Is that bad?

Transubstantiation is something of a loaded word. It attempts to describe the manner in which the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ. If you say you accept transubstantiation to describe it, it's more or less neutral. The fact that the bread and wine become the body and blood Christ is the teaching of Christianity regardless of the manner in which it does is explained.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

Transubstantiation is something of a loaded word. It attempts to describe the manner in which the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ. If you say you accept transubstantiation to describe it, it's more or less neutral. The fact that the bread and wine become the body and blood Christ is the teaching of Christianity regardless of the manner in which it does is explained.

Quote from Google:
"In Roman Catholicism and some other Christian churches, the doctrine, which was first called transubstantiation in the 12th century, aims at safeguarding the literal truth of Christ's presence while emphasizing the fact that there is no change in the empirical appearances of the bread and wine."

Sounds fair enough to me. I don't think the roof will fall in on people believing that.

 

[The Liturgist]

I think I believe in transubstantiation despite being Protestant.

Is that bad?

Nope. Lutherans, Moravians and most High Church Anglicans believe in the real physical presence of Christ in the Eucharist, as well as some members of other denominations, including myself. When I first partook of the Eucharist, it was at a Methodist church, and I was four years old, and when they told me it was the Body and Blood of our Lord, I believed them, particularly considering that to this date a truly consecrated Eucharist is the most extraordinary thing I have ever tasted.

Now, there is a technical Scholastic doctrine called Transubstantiation which is specific to the Roman Catholic Church which seeks to explain how the bread and wine become the precious Body and Blood of our Savior, using Aristotelian categories (specifically, the substance changes, but the “accidents”, that is to say, the perceptual qualities, do not change), which the other churches which believe our Lord is physically present in the Eucharist, a belief by the way which we can trace back to the early church in the First Century, do not hold to transubstantiation as the means of explaining it. Lutherans say that the Body and Blood of our Lord is “in, with and under” the species of bread and wine, whereas the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and the Assyrian Church of the East regard the physical presence of our Lord in the Eucharist as a sacred mystery.

 

[The Liturgist]

This is a Catholic doctrine.

Not just Catholics, but also Lutherans, high church Anglicans, Moravians, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Assyrians, and also some Methodists and Congregationalists believe in this doctrine.

 

[The Liturgist]

I'll have to get back to you. I do believe in the real presence of Jesus in the sacraments, but what makes that different from traditional Protestant thinking?

Nothing, in the case of the oldest Protestant churches (the Moravians, Lutherans and high-church Anglicans).

 

[Maria Billingsley]

Not just Catholics, but also Lutherans, high church Anglicans, Moravians, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Assyrians, and also some Methodists and Congregationalists believe in this doctrine.

I believe you are speaking of Consubstantiation.
consubstantiation | Definition & Doctrine

 

[The Liturgist]

I believe you are speaking of Consubstantiation.
consubstantiation | Definition & Doctrine

Nope. Consubstantiation is an extremely problematic term that has always been rejected by Lutherans to describe their doctrine of the Real Presence, and there are good reasons for that. Since a central doctrine of Chalcedonian and Miaphysite Christology is that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is consubstantial with we the human race, declaring Him to also be consubstantial with bread and wine would be Christologically problematic. Furthermore, in saying that Christ is consubstantial with us, we are not saying, as Lutherans say about the Eucharist, that our Lord exists “in, with and under” the species of man. Rather, He is fully Man and fully God, at the same time.

 

[Maria Billingsley]

Nope. Consubstantiation is an extremely problematic term that has always been rejected by Lutherans to describe their doctrine of the Real Presence, and there are good reasons for that. Since a central doctrine of Chalcedonian and Miaphysite Christology is that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is consubstantial with we the human race, declaring Him to also be consubstantial with bread and wine would be Christologically problematic. Furthermore, in saying that Christ is consubstantial with us, we are not saying, as Lutherans say about the Eucharist, that our Lord exists “in, with and under” the species of man. Rather, He is fully Man and fully God, at the same time.

Understood but there seems to be a difference between the Catholic and Reformed versions referring specifically to the actual bread and wine. On a side note, there are four types of Eucharistic explanations.
Thanks for engaging!

 

[The Liturgist]

Understood but there seems to be a difference between the Catholic and Reformed versions referring specifically to the actual bread and wine. On a side note, there are four types of Eucharistic explanations.
Thanks for engaging!

Well, basically, you have the following doctrines concerning the Eucharist:

• Patristic / Eastern Orthodox / Oriental Orthodox Real Presence - The bread and wine become the actual Body and Blood of our Lord through the action of the Holy Spirit in response to the Epiclesis, a prayer asking God to change, via His Holy Spirit, the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of our Lord. The Epiclesis is part of the Anaphora, or Eucharistic prayer.
• Roman Catholic Transubstantiation - When the Priest says the Words of Institution, the substance of the bread and wine is changed to that of the Body and Blood of our Lord, while the accidents (perceptual properties like taste and appearance) remain unchanged.
• Lutheran Real Presence - When the Pastor says the Words of Institution, the bread and wine are changed, so that the Body and Blood of our Lord are present in, with and under the species of bread and wine.
• Calvinist Spiritual Presence - In the Holy Communion service, the Body and Blood of our Lord become spiritually present in the bread and wine.
• Zwinglianism - The Bread and Wine are symbols or signs of the Body and Blood of our Lord.
• Receptionism - The Bread and Wine remain unchanged but the faithful communicant receives them as the Body and Blood of our Lord.
• Memorialism - The Bread and Wine are a memorial of the sacrifice of our Lord’s Body and Blood in establishing the New Covenant.

Of these views, I personally believe in only the three Real Presence doctrines, for the same reason as Martin Luther, who famously carved “HOC EST CORPUS MEUM” into a table when defending the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist at an attempted reconciliation between the Lutherans and the Reformed churches. And of these doctrines, I favor the Patristic / Orthodox doctrine where the Real Change happens with the Epiclesis, because this is the oldest and most well established Eucharistic theology.

Of the other views, however, I regard Calvinist Spiritual Presence and Receptionism as more compatible with Scripture than Zwinglianism or Memorialism. This would not be the case with Memorialism if we only had the Synoptic Gospels, but as I see it, John 6 poses an intractable problem for the Memorialist theology of the Eucharist.

 

[DragonFox91]

Quote from Google:
"In Roman Catholicism and some other Christian churches, the doctrine, which was first called transubstantiation in the 12th century, aims at safeguarding the literal truth of Christ's presence while emphasizing the fact that there is no change in the empirical appearances of the bread and wine."

Sounds fair enough to me. I don't think the roof will fall in on people believing that.

It's more complicated than Tacianas & that quote are presenting itself as, & so therefore gets into theological problems. They present it as simple to try to make it convincing.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Okay but I'm confused. What is the orthodox Protestant way of viewing communion?

There isn't a "Protestant" way of viewing Communion. The earliest Protestant view--the Lutheran view--is what we sometimes call "The Sacramental Union". This phrase was coined by Luther by way of analogy with the Hypostatic Union--the perfect union of God and man in the one undivided Person of Jesus Christ our Lord. In the same way that there is a true and indivisible union of God and man in Jesus' Person, so in the Supper we do not have merely bread and wine, but we have Christ's very flesh and blood sacramentally present "in, with, and under" the bread and the wine.

But other views arose later in the period of the Reformation, such as those of Calvin and Zwingli.

So there are at least three distinct historically Protestant views of Communion.

-The Real (bodily) Presence of Jesus in the material elements (Lutheran)
-The Spiritual Presence of Jesus in the faith of the recipient who partakes of the Supper (Calvin)
-The Supper is purely a symbolic memorial, it's just bread and wine and nothing more (Zwingli)

-CryptoLutheran

 

[friend of]

The Real (bodily) Presence of Jesus in the material elements (Lutheran)
-The Spiritual Presence of Jesus in the faith of the recipient who partakes of the Supper (Calvin)
-The Supper is purely a symbolic memorial, it's just bread and wine and nothing more (Zwingli)

I'm vaccilating between the first and second

 

[RileyG]

In light of the OT sacrificial meal on the sacrificed flesh, I suspect it is a misunderstanding of Christ's meaning about eating his body and blood.
I think he was telling them that the bread and wine would be the NT sacrificial meal on the sacrifice itself, corresponding to the OT sacrificial meal on the sacrifice itself shared by the Israelite and the priest who offered it (who ate his portion up at the Temple) where, in partaking of the meal on the sacrifice itself, they were partaking in the benefits of the sacrifice.

Yes. We connect the Mass with a sacrifice. The Mass IS a sacrifice.