“Do some Christians believe that at communion the bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus?”

January 2013 – Grace & Truth Magazine

QUESTION: Some Christians claim that at communion the bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus. Do they actually believe this?

ANSWER: This claim is based on John 6:53-54, where Jesus said, “Most assuredly, I say to you ... whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life.” Based on these verses and Matthew 26:26-28 – in which Jesus said of the bread and wine, “Take, eat; this is My body ... this is My blood” – some Christians do hold the error that the bread and wine are Jesus’ actual flesh and blood.

But how can this be? He was bodily with His disciples when He “took bread, blessed and broke it” (Mt. 26:26). And then in Matthew 26:29, He identified the contents of the cup as wine, saying, “I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.”

In Luke 22:20, the writer was careful when recording the Lord’s words describing the symbolism of the cup, writing that it is not His blood but “the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.” This shows that the bread and the wine are a testimony to and symbol of the Lord’s body and blood given for us.

In 1 Corinthians 11:26, Paul added a very important statement after quoting words similar to that of the Gospels. He wrote, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.” He did not refer to the “flesh” and “blood” but instead wrote “bread” and “cup.” Also he had written earlier that “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?” (1 Cor. 10:16).

These statements by Paul (added to the record provided in the Gospels) help us to better understand two specific truths: that the bread and wine symbolize His body and blood as a sign of communion, and that the request to remember Him was not given only to the disciples but to the whole Church throughout this age.

The bread also symbolizes the unity of the body of Christians, as Paul pointed out when he wrote, “For we, though many, are one bread, and one body; for we all partake of that one bread” (1 Cor. 10:17). Here the bread symbolizes both the body of the Lord Jesus and the unity of the body of all believers. To suggest that the loaf becomes the actual flesh of Jesus Christ makes the symbol for the two different things they represent awkward if not impractical.

It must also be pointed out that in both the Old and New Testaments God commanded that no one drink blood (Lev. 7:27; 17:12; Acts 15:20,29). God the Son would never go against His own prohibition! Based on John 6:53-56 and Matthew 26:26-28, to demand a literal rendering of the words “flesh” and “blood” goes against God’s Word. So it must mean something else. The Lord’s words actually imply that we must make Him spiritually a part of ourselves. Even as the food that we eat and the liquid we drink become part of us – in that we use them to build our bodies – so we must read the Bible and learn of Christ so much that we are made more like Him in thought, word and deed.

Answered by Hank Blok