Tradition must give way to the clear statements of the Scripture

  DOES THE NEW TESTAMENT SUPPORT THE ROMAN CATHOLIC VIEW OF COMMUNION? By Norman L. Geisler Introduction In the first three Gospels Jesus is represented as saying “this is my body” and “this is my blood” (Mt. 26:26, 28; Mark 14:21, 24; Lk. 22:19, 21) about the bread and wine at the Lord’s Supper.  This is repeated in 1 Corinthians 15:24.  On another occasion Jesus exhorted his disciples to “eat” his “flesh” and “drink” his blood” (John 6:52-58).  Roman Catholics base their doctrine of transubstantiation on these passages, affirming that bread and wine of the Communion are literally transformed into the physical body and blood of Christ, while retaining the outward appearance and characteristics of ordinary bread and wine.  

To you, O king, as you lay in bed, came thoughts of what would be hereafter, and the revealer of mysteries disclosed to you what is to be. Da 2:29 just as you saw that a stone was cut from the mountain not by hands and that it crushed the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold.  The great God has informed the king what shall be hereafter. The dream is certain and its interpretation trustworthy.” Da 2:45. As I watched in the night visions, I saw one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven. And he came to the Ancient One and was presented before him. To him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed. Dan. 7:13–14 “Seventy sevens are determined for your people and your holy city, to end wrongdoing, and to finish with sin, and to atone f...

 Modern readers tend to interpret “flesh” as “bodily appetites,” especially sexual desires, but “flesh” normally has a very different connotation in the New Testament. On the one hand, it describes the condition of all men in Adam and indeed the entire Old Covenant order, which is a fleshly order in contrast to the New Covenant order of the Spirit. More specifically, Paul frequently connects the “flesh” of circumcision with the “fleshly” interests of the Jews. Judaizers want to be perfected by the flesh (Gal. 3:3) and insist that Gentiles can be perfected only through the fleshly rite of circumcision (Gal. 5:13). Obsession with a ritual that is quite literally “fleshly” is connected with the “fleshly” behavior described in Galatians 5:19-21 . When we read the list of the “works of the flesh,” we cannot forget that Paul has consistently been describing the Jews and Judaizers as “fleshly.”   The “works of the flesh,” appalling as they might be, are primarily descriptions of the...