St. Paul’s Defense of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist

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Hey everyone,

 

Welcome to The Sunday Catholic Word, a podcast where we reflect on the upcoming Sunday Mass readings and pick out the details that are relevant for explaining and defending our Catholic faith.

 

I’m Dr. Karlo Broussard, staff apologist and speaker for Catholic Answers, and the host for this podcast.

 

In today’s episode, we’re going to focus on two details that have apologetical significance. The first comes from the first reading, which is taken from Exodus 3:1-8a, 13-15. The related topics are the relation between the God of the Philosophers and the God of the Bible, along with the Divinity of Jesus. The second detail is found in the second reading, which is taken from 1 Corinthians 10:1-6, 10-12. The related topic is the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

 

Let’s get started with the first reading, which, again, is taken from Exodus 3:1-8a, 13-15. The portion of the passage that I want to focus on is verses 13-14. After God tells Moses to go and set his people free from slavery in Egypt, Moses asks God,

 

But when I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ if they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what am I to tell them?” God replied, “I am who am.” Then he added, “This is what you shall tell the Israelites: I AM sent me to you.”

 

The detail that I want to focus on is God’s name: “I am who am.” There are two implications this text has for apologetics.

 

First, Jesus applies the divine name to himself in John 8:58, which is a claim to be divine. Here’s what he says, starting in verse 56:

 

⁵⁶ Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it† and was glad.” ⁵⁷ The Jews then said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” ⁵⁸ Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” ⁵⁹ So they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple.

 

Notice the Jews attempted to stone Jesus. Why? Because Jesus said, “before Abraham was, I am.” Why would move the Jews to desire to kill him? Given the Old Testament backdrop of our first reading, the answer is because Jesus just claimed to be God.

 

The Jews interpreted Jesus to be ascribing the divine name to himself. And notice Jesus doesn’t try to offer any sort of clarification. Rather, he simply escapes them. This indicates that Jesus meant what they interpreted him to mean: the statement was a claim to be divine.

 

The second implication this text has for apologetics is the relation the God of the philosophers has with the God of the Bible. I dealt with this topic in episode 28 for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, Year A. But I think it’s worth repeating here.

 

Some Christians claim that what we know about God through philosophical reasoning—that He is pure being or existence itself—doesn’t match with the God of the Bible. But God’s revealed name in Exodus 3:14 proves otherwise. As St. Thomas Aquinas observes, God’s revealed name signifies “simply existence itself” (Summa Theologiae I:13:11). And that God is pure being or existence is the very conclusion we come to through philosophical reasoning. Aquinas quotes Damascene for support in making this connection: “HE WHO IS is the principal of all names applied to God; for comprehending all in itself, it contains existence itself as an infinite and indeterminate sea of substance (De Fid. Orth. I).”

 

So, there is correlation between what we can know about God through reason alone and what the Bible reveals to us about God. They are one and the same.

 

Let’s now turn to the second reading, which, again, is taken from 1 Corinthians 10:1-6, 10-12. Here’s what Paul writes,

 

I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters,
that our ancestors were all under the cloud
and all passed through the sea,
and all of them were baptized into Moses
in the cloud and in the sea.
All ate the same spiritual food,
and all drank the same spiritual drink,
for they drank from a spiritual rock that followed them,
and the rock was the Christ.
Yet God was not pleased with most of them,
for they were struck down in the desert.

These things happened as examples for us,
so that we might not desire evil things, as they did.
Do not grumble as some of them did,
and suffered death by the destroyer.
These things happened to them as an example,
and they have been written down as a warning to us,
upon whom the end of the ages has come.
Therefore, whoever thinks he is standing secure
should take care not to fall.

 

The detail that I want to highlight is his statement, “the rock was the Christ.” This detail comes up in discussions concerning the literal interpretation of Jesus’ words at the Last Supper: “this is my body . . . this is my blood.”

 

Some older Protestants have appealed to this verse as a counter argument to the literal interpretation of the words of the Last Supper. The argument goes something like this: If we take the bread and wine to be really Jesus’ body and blood because he says, ‘This is my body . . . This is my blood,’ then we’re gonna have to say Paul meant the rock that followed the Israelites in the wilderness to be really Jesus, since he says, ‘the rock was Christ’ (1 Cor. 10:4). But most Christians don’t believe that the rock really was Jesus, as believers in the Real Presence believe that the consecrated host really is Jesus’ body. Therefore, we shouldn’t take Jesus to mean that the bread and wine really became his body and blood because he says, ‘This is my body . . . This is my blood.’”

 

How might we respond?

 

Note that some of the answers I give here are drawn from my book Meeting the Protestant Response: How to Answer Common Comebacks to Catholic Arguments.

 

First, the appeal to 1 Corinthians 10:4 doesn’t show that Jesus’ use of “is” must be taken figuratively. It shows only that the verb “is” can be taken figuratively. So this argument gets only as far as saying a figurative interpretation, like in 1 Corinthians 10:4, is possible.

 

But this is a moot point, because a believer in the Real Presence could agree that Jesus’ words “this is my body . . . this is my blood” taken by themselves, can be interpreted literally or figuratively. There’s nothing in the words themselves that determines one interpretation over the other. So believers in the Real Presence need not have any qualms about saying that these words could be taken figuratively when they’re considered in isolation from other evidence.

 

Secondly, the objection demands that a Catholic interpret Jesus’ use of the verb to be at the Last Supper in the same way it’s used in 1 Corinthians 10:4—figuratively, the reason being that it’s supposedly obvious that bread and wine can’t be Jesus’ body and blood. However, such a demand makes sense only on the supposition that Jesus is not performing a miracle.

 

For example, I might hold up a picture of my father and say, “This is my father,” and you know that the picture is not literally my father, but a figure of him. But—and here’s the key—your conclusion would be based on the assumption, and a true one at that, that I’m not performing the miracle of making my father substantially present under the form of ink and paper.

 

Similarly, to interpret Jesus’ use of “is” at the Last Supper figuratively would be natural if we already knew he’s not performing a miracle. But if there is evidence that what Jesus is doing at the Last Supper is miraculous, then a literal interpretation becomes a viable option, and even a more probable one.

 

And there is an abundance of such evidence. Due to the limited time here, however, we’re going to consider only some of it.

 

When Jesus first makes the promise to give his flesh to eat in John 6:49-50, he does so against the backdrop of the manna of old: “Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die . . . the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

 

This bread that God gave in the wilderness was not ordinary bread. It was miraculous bread:

 

• It appeared every day when the morning “dew” would burn off (Exod. 16:13).
• It never lasted more than a day, except on the Sabbath. When the Israelites didn’t obey the instruction to leave none until the next day, it “bred worms and became foul” (Exod. 16:19-20).
• But when the Israelites held it over in accordance with the Lord’s command—that is, to assure that they did no work on the Sabbath—it did not breed worms and become foul (Exod. 16:22-26).
• It appeared every day for forty years, and stopped only upon the Israelites entering the promised land (Exod. 16:35; Josh. 5:10-12).
• A jar with an omer’s worth was kept in the Israelites’ sanctuary “throughout the generations” (Exod. 16:31-34).

 

As Bible scholar Brant Pitre argues in his book Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist, to say the Eucharist at the Last Supper, the new manna, is merely a symbol, we’d have to conclude that the old manna in the wilderness was superior to the new, since miraculous bread is clearly greater than ordinary bread.[i] But that’s a no-go in biblical theology. The New Testament fulfillment is always greater than the Old Testament type.

 

That the Eucharist is supernatural is further confirmed by Jesus’ teaching that faith is required to accept his command to eat his flesh and drink his blood. Jesus prefaces his revelation that his flesh is the bread of life by saying, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” Then, after giving his discourse about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, he says, “There are some of you that do not believe. . . . This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.” If Jesus begins and concludes his remarks about eating his flesh and drinking his blood with faith, a gift that only the Father can give, then Jesus is revealing that faith is required to accept his teaching. And if faith is required to believe the Eucharist, then something supernatural is going on at the Last Supper, thereby undermining the parallel to the “the rock was Christ” statement.

 

There’s another reason why the parallelism fails, which makes for a third response here. We know “rock” is not meant to be literally Christ because the verb “to be” is being used here in a way that meets one of the criteria for the verb “to be” to mean “signify.”

 

Here’s the criteria: Whenever a complete substance is predicated of another complete substance, there can exist no logical relation of identity between them, but only the relation of similarity, inasmuch as the first is an image, sign, symbol, of the other. (see article at newadvent.org; http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05573a.htm).

 

The rationale behind the principle is obvious. A complete substance cannot both be another substance and not be another substance at the same time and in the same respect. When applied to 1 Corinthians 10:4, the rock can’t be a rock (insofar as Paul speaks of a rock) and not be a rock (insofar as it’s identified with Christ) at the same time and in the same respect. Therefore, we can reasonably conclude that Paul intends the rock to be a symbol of Christ.

 

Now, the relation between the bread and Jesus’ body at the Last Supper is different. Jesus never speaks of the complete substance of bread being his body. In other words, he doesn’t say, “This bread is my body,” or “This wine is my body.” He simply says, “This (that which I hold in my hand) is my body.” This language allows for the interpretation that the object which he holds in his hand is not bread but his body.

 

Thus, since Jesus doesn’t predicate a complete substance of his body at the Last Supper like Paul predicates the complete substance of a rock to Christ in 1 Corinthians 10;4, we can’t draw a parallel between the two. And if we can’t draw a parallel, then the challenge from 1 Corinthians 10:4 loses its force.

 

Conclusion

 

Well, my friends, that brings us to the end of this episode of the Sunday Catholic Word. The readings for this upcoming 3^rd Sunday of Lent, Year C provide us with material for apologetic discussions involving,

 

• The relation between the God of the philosophers and the God of the Bible,
• Jesus’ self-understanding to be divine, and
• The literal interpretation of Jesus’ words at the Last Supper.

 

Those are apologetical topics definitely worth discussing.

 

As always, I want to thank you for subscribing to the podcast. And please be sure to tell your friends about it and invite them to subscribe as well through any podcast platform that they use. You can also access the archived episodes of the Sunday Catholic Word at sundaycatholicword.com.

 

You might also want to check out the other great podcasts in our Catholic Answers podcast network: Trent Horn’s The Counsel of Trent, Joe Heschmeyer’s Shameless Popery, Jimmy Akin’s The Jimmy Akin podcast, and Tim Staples “1 on 1 with Tim,” all of which can be found at catholic.com. And if you want to follow more of my own work, check out my website at karlobroussard.com

 

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I hope you have a blessed 3^rd Sunday of Lent, Year C. Until next time, God Bless.

 

 

[i] See Brant Pitre, Jewish and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist: Unlocking the Secrets of the Last Supper (New York: Doubleday, 2011), Chap. 4; Electronic Edition.