THE EUCHARIST
When Pope Paul VI issued his recent Eucharist encyclical, called "Mysterium" (from the Greek, mysterion, meaning a mystery), at Rome, it was a theological discussion of the meaning of the Eucharist. The Pope had become concerned over the attitude expressed by some Protestants and some Catholics, that the bread and wine are symbols only. In this, his third encyclical, he asserted the Roman Catholic teaching that the body and blood of Christ are truly and substantially present in the consecrated bread and wine of the Eucharist.
The act of the priest, claiming to transform the bread and wine into the actual body and blood of the Lord Jesus, is called transubstantiation. But this is serious error, for it is but a memorial of the death of Christ. In contrast to all this, how simple is the truth as to the remembrance of the death of our Lord as given us in 1 Cor. 10:16: "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?" When we as Christians partake of the loaf and the cup, we remember the Lord as He requested. We do so in loving remembrance of Him in death.
"No blood, no altar now,
The sacrifice is o'er!
No flame, no smoke ascends on high,
The lamb is slain no more.
But richer blood has flowed from nobler veins,
To purge the soul from guilt,
And cleanse the reddest stains."
Horatius Bonar, 1808-1889
When Martin Luther taught the strange doctrine of consubstantiation, he claimed that the body and blood of Christ were actually present, and not merely a memorial of Christ's death and blood-shedding. In Luther's shorter Small Catechism, he mistakenly taught "the real presence" of "the true body and blood" of Christ "in, with and under," the bread and wine.
We feel sure that much of the misapprehension as to the simplicity of this memorial of the Lord's death stems from a misinterpretation of our Lord's teaching in John's Gospel, chapter six. We need to keep in mind this foundation truth as to John's ministry, that he never once refers to, or mentions Christian baptism or the Lord's supper. In John six, He is bringing before our souls the necessity of personally appropriating His death and blood-shedding as the answer to the need of our souls. So, "Whoso eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath life eternal." John 6:54. When we receive Christ as the One who gave Himself in death for our sins, we thereby become possessed of eternal life. This is in nowise an institution of a memorial, but the solemn statement of the necessity of owning Christ as the one sufficient sacrifice before God for all our sins.
Let us then, dear fellow-Christians, be kept in the simplicity of what the Lord has given us through the Apostle in 1 Cor. 11:23-26. What a precious privilege to come together and show His death in the eating of the bread and in the drinking of the cup till He come.