Foy E. Wallace, Jr.
The canons of the Council of Trent concerning “the Eucharist” declared, first, that “whosoever shall deny that in the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist are contained truly, really and substantially, the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore the entire Christ; but shall say that he is in it only as in a sign, or a figure of virtue; let him be accursed; second, that “whosoever shall deny” that the “whole substance of the bread” and the “whole substance of the wine” are converted into the body and the blood of Christ, “only the forms of the bread and wine remaining,” which doctrine “the Catholic church most aptly calls “transubstantiation” is accursed–“let him be accursed;” third, that “whosoever” (they are strong on these whosoevers!) shall deny that the body and blood of the Lord “does not remain in the hosts, or consecrated morsels which are reserved or left after the communion,” is also “accursed;” fourth, “whosoever shall say that Christ, as exhibited in the Eucharist is eaten spiritually, and not also sacramentally and really,” is also to be “accursed”–yes, after each pronouncement comes that onus of Roman Catholic anathema, “let him be accursed.”
Upon the papal assumptions of that “canon,” based solely on the human authority of a Catholic council, I want to make some pointed observations.
First: Transubstantiation Destroys the Nature Of Institution as Set Forth in 1 Cor. 1:23
(1) The Lord’s Supper is a memorial—“in memory” of Christ. A sign is something “signified.” The doctrine of transubstantiation takes away the memorial and the sign and puts the object commemorated, or the thing signified, in its place.
(2) Jesus was not dead when he set up the institution of the Lord’s Supper, and ate it, as recorded in Matt. 26:26. Did he eat, and then give his body to the disciples? Did he drink, and pass to them his own blood? The existence of his body made it impossible for such to be so then, but the elements of the supper means the same now as then, no more, no less. Nothing can be more impossible than this Catholic dogma, and nothing more incompatible with sense or scripture.
Second: Transubstantiation is Contrary to the Use of Language.
(1) It is insisted that Matt. 26:26 says “this is my body”—not “represents” my body. But in Jno. 14:6 Jesus said, “I am the way,” and he did not say “represent’‘—is he a “graded,” “improved” or “paved” road?
(2) In Jno. 10:9 Jesus said, “I am the door”—he did not say that he represented a door-so, is he paneled, glassed or solid, walnut, oak or mahogany? In John 15: he said, “I am the vine”—is that literal? If so, are disciples literal branches?
(3) In Matt. 5:13-14 Jesus said, “Ye are the light of the world”—incandescent, fluorescent, or neon? And—“Ye are the salt of the earth”—so we are all sodium chloride!
(4) Of the fruit of the vine Jesus said, “this cup is the new testament in my blood.“—Jesus did not say the fruit of the vine “represented” a cup or was a cup—but was the cup; and he did not say the “cup” represented the new testament—he said the cup is the new testament; so, according to Catholics, we must take all of that literally, and the fruit of the vine is a literal cup, and that literal cup is literally the new testament. So their rule on the bread being the literal body works against itself on the cup.
Third: Transubstantiation is Contrary to the Meaning of a Memorial
A memorial institution is for the absent not for the present. Paul said the bread and cup were for a memorial, observed in remembrance of Jesus—1 Cor. 11:24. In verse 26, he said it is to “show the Lord’s death till he come”—he is, therefore, not present, as transubstantiation teaches. In the exhortation of verse 28 the apostle refers to that bread and that cup. The doctrine of the actual body and blood is inconsistent with the exhortation of these verses. If Paul believed “that bread” was the real body of Jesus, why did he call it bread?
Fourth: The Doctrine Has no Foundation in Science or Reason
A laboratory test of the bread and the wine, before the priest officiates and after he officiates, will prove that they undergo no change from bread to flesh, or from juice to blood, and will therefore be a scientific demonstration that the doctrine of transubstantiation is false.
It is unreasonable because it would enable a priest to manufacture God, and deposit Jesus on an altar, carry him in a box, put him in his vest pocket, or prescribe Deity in a capsule! It subjects the real body of the Lord to an accident, to be dropped, to fall and to break, to be lost, stolen, spilled, frozen or eaten by a church mouse!
The doctrine has no foundation in science, reason or scripture, and was manufactured out of the imagination of an Italian pope, whose main business is to sit in the Vatican thinking up some new “sacrament,” unheard of in the Bible, to enact and bind on the consciences of his subjects.
Fifth: The Doctrine Violates the Scripture in Withholding the Cup
This error is a consequent part of the one great error of transubstantiation.
In the year 1415 the Council of Constance decreed that only the bread, not the wine, should be administered to the people, and that the priest should drink the wine for the people. Later the council of Trent listed the reasons for “withholding the cup from the laity.” Their reasons (?) turn the sublime into the ridiculous.
(1) It was to avoid an accident or an indignity in an assembly to the chalice, so only the priest handles it.
(2) The wine if not consumed would become vapid–so the priest consumes it!
(3) Many cannot bear to taste or smell wine—so because of one person in a thousand allergic to wine, the priest robs the church of the ordinance, deprives the audience of the element, and drinks it himself!
(4) It was considered the best means of eliminating the belief that the actual Christ, “whole and entire,” was not contained in the elements–so to banish a “heresy” they mutilated the ordinances and established another human dogma.
The practice is plainly opposed to every scripture bearing on the subject of the observance of the Supper. Matthew says Jesus “gave it to them and said, Drink ye all of it.”—
Matt. 26:26. Mark says that Jesus “gave it to them, and they all drank of it”—Mk. 14:22-23. Paul says, “But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup.”
Why turn from the New Testament institution to a human sacrament made unholy by the invention of the pope of Rome? Why turn the Lord’s supper from its memorial character, requiring faith in Jesus Christ, to a dogma of Rome, requiring faith in a Catholic priest?
There is no sacrament of Roman Catholicism more patronized and praised than the mass–low mass, high mass, solemn low and solemn high, pontifical mass, votive mass, conventual mass and masses for the dead–all of which are without scriptural precept or precedent, and therefore stand rejected as a relic of Rome.
The mass of Romanism changes the Lord’s Supper from the memory of Christ to the “memory of the saints,” and thus has the savior sacrificed in honor of a saint! There are numerous other weighty objections that can be urged against this abominable Roman relic, but we pass to another with a final pass at the mass—neither the office of the priest nor the altar of mass belongs to the church of Christ, and no scripture can be translated, twisted or distorted into the support of that doctrine.
