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Joe Heschmeyer examines the Old and New Testaments and the biblical proof for Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist.
Transcription:
Joe:
Welcome back to Shameless Popery. I’m Joe, HES Meyer. I want to explore a pretty straightforward biblical connection. What connection is there, if any, between the Old Testament manna and the Eucharist in the New Testament? Because this is a question on which the Bible seems to speak a lot, but is surprisingly controversial among Catholics and Protestants. So in John six, for instance, Jesus says, I’m the bread of life. Your fathers ate the man on the wilderness and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven that a man may eat of it and not die. So Jesus is clearly drawing some kind of contrast between the man and the Old Testament and something, some kind of heaven, heavenly bread come down from heaven and the New Testament and is clearly identified with him in some way. In John 6 51, he says, I am the living bread which came down from heaven.
If anyone eats of this bread, he’ll live forever. And the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my. And then if you’re a Protestant, you might be tempted to say teaching because that’s the way many Protestants interpret what’s happening in John six. But in fact, Jesus says, is my flesh, and he goes on several times to address this and to say most notably at the end of a whole series of affirmations in John six verse 55, my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink drinking deep. Now, I’m not going to do a deep dive on John six today. I’m going to actually do a deep dive on the Old Testament treatment of the manna, but I want to make clear why this matters because the popular Protestant reading of this is that John six is not actually connecting the manna to the Eucharist at all. So for instance, James White tries to claim that even when Jesus is saying, my flesh, my flesh, my flesh over and over again, what he actually means to say is my teaching. Here’s his interpretation of the text.
CLIP: James White:
By the way, verse 54, remember back to verse 35, my flesh eats my flesh, drinks my blood, eating, drinking. That’s what was fulfilled by believing all the way back in verse 35. Nowhere is that broken and nowhere is the object of the faith changed from Jesus to some magical ceremonial change of substance and accidents.
Joe:
Now, that’s the kind of cartoonish misunderstanding of the Catholic view and the Eucharist. We don’t think, oh, we don’t believe in Jesus. We believe in magic. No Catholic believes what James White describes as the Catholic belief on this matter. But the point is you see him working pretty hard to try to say no, this isn’t about the man of Prefiguring, the Eucharist. This is all just about have faith in Jesus and his teachings. Now, there are some clues in John six that this is a weak reading. So for instance in John six verse four, we find out that the timing here is Passover time. Well, this is going to be important both because it means that whatever Jesus is talking about here connects backwards to the Passover but also forward because it’s the very next Passover is what the institution of the Eucharist at the last Supper.
And so if you’re reading this with one eye closed to the Passover, this is a bad reading of John six. But moreover, John six begins after describing that his Passover time with the multiplication of loaves in which Jesus takes five barley loaves and two fish, and he takes a bread and he gives thanks Eucharist, Deus in the Greek and miraculously multiplies them. But again, although I want to kind of acknowledge there’s plenty of clues in John six itself, I want to talk about the clues we get from reading about the Old Testament man at all. When we’re reading about the manna for many Christians, if we are encountering the manner is we’ve got a vague idea. Oh, somewhere back there in the Old Testament in Exodus, God provided manna from heaven. But maybe we haven’t done a deep dive to see, well, what does the Old Testament actually say about manna and what does that tell us about the Eucharist?
Let’s highlight several different themes. Number one, the bread in question. The manna isn’t the natural substance of bread. Even those described as bread, it’s clear from the text it is not literally bread. That’s a big clue for how we understand the New Testament bread. But we’ll get to that. So in context, in Exodus chapter 16, the Israelites are in the wilderness and they’re complaining that they’ve left behind the flesh pots of Egypt where they could eat bread to the full. And now they’ve been brought out into the wilderness where they’re convinced they’re going to all die of hunger. And the response, Moses is told by God, behold, I will reign bread from heaven for you. But then the people are told to go out and gather as much as they can for that day. So it’s a daily sort of bread that’s going to be in a really important detail.
There’s a miraculous property to the bread that you can only gather as much for one day or else it will rot. But again, even though it’s described as bread, it’s literally not. It’s a fine flake like thing. Fine is whore frost on the ground. We’re told in Exodus 16, verse 14, and in fact because this isn’t literally breaded because there’s not really a word for it, the Israelites call it manna. We get that in verse 31. What does manna mean? Well, I actually just answered the question. What is what manna means? It literally means what is it? It comes from the Hebrew word for what? It’s an unknown substance. So you have this supernatural, heavenly substance come down that is unlike anything they have on earth. That is what the manna is when Jesus is talking about that the Eucharistic connections are not hard to draw at all, especially when you look at other places.
Jesus speaks in a similar sort of way. I’ll give you one in Matthew chapter six. When Jesus gives us the our Father, there’s this line, give us this day our daily bread. And many Protestants simply interpret this as give us the stuff we materially need for the day. But you may not know is that the Greek word for daily is not the word used there. Rather, epi is no O means essence. So this is the super essence or super substantial bread. Give us this day, our super substantial bread would immediately call to mind the manna in the Old Testament, this miraculous heavenly bread. What is the New Testament form of a miraculous heavenly bread on which we rely? Well, it seems pretty clearly to be the Eucharist. Now, I really liked reading the reflections of Deborah Sra, who is Protestant. She’s writing in reform journal about this discovery when she realizes that the early church fathers understood this to be a eucharistic reference as well as a reference to relying upon God.
By all means, the standard Protestant interpretation, we should rely upon God every day. Beautiful, good. And in fact, in Luke’s version, Jerome translates the word as daily bread. But in Matthew, when he’s translating the same word, he translates it as pum, super substantial, super substantial bread. And so Deborah Rera asking, well, why is this? And she says, well, Jerome no doubt knew that there’s a perfectly good Greek word for daily that is not being used by Matthew or by Luke. Instead, they apparently make up this word. We do not find epi oua anywhere else. We don’t find any other place like the evangelists appear to have made up a word to describe what Jesus was saying in Aramaic or whatever language he was speaking in. And the word they settle on is based on the Greek word for essence or substance usia. And she points out, you might be familiar with that word when we say there’s for instance, the Father in the Son are of the same substance, homo is how you say that in Greek, they’re of one substance.
So this is a word with a clear philosophical kind of bent to it. Now, if you watch James White’s treatment, he laughs at the idea that there’d be any kind of philosophical nuance. They’re like, oh, these Aristotelian categories wouldn’t be known to them. No, a philosophical kind of word seems to be in view here to describe this thing of this super substantial daily bread. Now, likewise, when we talk about there being three persons and one being in God, that one being is his usia, his substance. So Deborah Reta then asked, well, what would it mean to pray? Give us this day our super substantial bread. And she realizes that the early church fathers understood this in a eucharistic sort of way, and that the Catholic catechism continues to understand this. This is our medicine of immortality. We’re not just asking for a material needs to be met, but this spiritual sustenance we get in the Eucharist.
And so she concludes. I can see how this interpretation got abandoned for ordinary Protestants in the Reformation after all super substantial connects readily to the theology of transubstantiation, and the reformers wanted to keep their distance from that in every way possible. So I bring this up as the first point to say, when you look at the treatment of the manna as a daily supernatural bread and then understand this original meaning to Matthew six of a daily supernatural bread that is lost in many Protestants, this linkage pretty clearly points towards the Eucharist. But there’s a second linkage that there’s this linkage between bread and flesh in the text. Now this is something that you have to actually read Exodus 16 to notice that their pining for the flesh pots and bread from Egypt. And so Moses tells them that the Lord will give them flesh to eat and bread to the full.
And that’s in verse eight. And then in verse 11 and 12, God says to Moses, well to tell the Israelites, excuse me, that at twilight you shall eat flesh and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. Now, to be clear, eventually this is fulfilled with both the manna and the quail. In verse 13, we’re introduced to the fact that God also gives quail. But here’s the thing, in those prior lines, when Moses is declaring that they’ll feed on flesh and bread, this is describing at this point the manna because the quail have not been introduced yet. So that’s a subtle thing, but I think it’s not a coincidence that the manna is linked with both bread and flesh. Likewise, there’s a beautiful detail that the word Bethlehem, where Jesus is born means house of bread in Hebrew and house of flesh in Arabic.
So the bread, flesh, linkage and the birth of our Lord in his ministry. All of this, when he links the bread which he’ll give for the life of the world to his flesh, this is well founded even in Exodus 16 where bred and flesh are linked together both in the complaints of the Israelites and in God’s providential provision. Third, there’s also a link between bread and teaching. Now here I want to give homage where it’s due to the Protestant interpretation. I think there’s a strong Protestant argument of saying, look, there are times where it talks about feeding on the Lord in a certain way. Most famously, when Jesus is tempted by Satan, he says, it is written man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. So we can talk about being nourished by the word of God, chewing on the word, those sorts of things.
Now, that doesn’t actually work very well in John six where he talks about gnawing his flesh and drinking his blood. That is never language used to describe being nourished by his teachings. But nevertheless, there is clearly some sense in which food related metaphors could be used. But here’s the thing, if all you’re reading is the New Testament, without doing a deep dive in the Old Testament, you are missing how you eucharistic this passage is what is Jesus quoting when he says it is written? Well, he’s quoting Deuteronomy chapter eight about the manna. In Deuteronomy eight verse three, it says, God humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know. Nor did your fathers know that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but that man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.
That what proceeds from the mouth of the Lord is in fact the man I hear. And in receiving that you realize utter dependence upon God. And so by all means, we should understand that we are reliant upon God for all of our material needs. We are nourished by his teaching. All of that is true and good and all of that is grounded in the Old Testament, in the Humana and in the New Testament in the Eucharist. But the final point of connection is that the manna is also the bread from angels, and we need to recognize that whatever is being talked about is superior to that. So the Eucharistic teaching presented that’s prefigured by the manna is greater than bread from heaven, greater than the bread of angels. Here’s what I mean by that. Psalm 78, in speaking of the manna, says Man ate of the bread of the angels.
He sent them food in abundance. So it’s a beautiful way of describing it. Again, this is not just literal like bread. We took some wheat, we grounded it up, we made bread. No, there’s something divine about this. It is heavenly bread. It is the bread of the angels. Nehemiah connects it with the water from the rock. If you again go back and read the story of the exodus, thou does give them bread from heaven for their hunger and bring forth water for them from the rock for their thirst. So we want to connect two things here, the heavenly bread, the bread of angels, and the water from the rock. Where do we see these two things connected in the New Testament? In one Corinthians chapter 10, St. Paul points to these two things as prefiguring the Eucharist. Here’s what he says. He says, I want you to know, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.
What’s he talking about there? In the partying of the Red Sea, you have the pillar of cloud, which is the Holy Spirit leading them through a parting through water. So they are baptized as it were. They’re brought under the level of the water, and this is the baptism in which they’re baptized in to Moses. That’s what he said. So the beginning of the journey out of the place of sin towards the promised land is in this prefigurement of baptism, the partying of the Red Sea. That’s not me making up some connection. Paul is telling you that connection’s right there and then once they’re baptized, they go out into the wilderness and God takes care of them by giving them supernatural. Or another way of translating that Greek word is spiritual. So spiritual food and spiritual drinks, supernatural food, supernatural drink, and he tells you the supernatural drink in question is they all drank from the supernatural rock, which followed them in the rock was Christ the supernatural drink?
There is the water from the rock, and what does the supernatural food? Well, quite clearly, he has in view the manna because this is how God nourished the Israelites in the wilderness. But then Moses says, now these things are warnings for us not to desire evil as they did, and he reminds them of this line from Exodus 32. The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to dance. Now, for context, this is about the golden calf. Now, why would he warn a bunch of new Christians from Corinth about this danger that we might fall into the same trap they fell into? Because his point is they’re eating and drinking, they’re being nourished supernaturally, and yet they’re desecrating this with this idolatrous celebration to the golden calf. Now, what does that have to do with the Christians in Corinth? Well, he tells you in one Corinthians 11, the very next chapter when you meet together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat for in eating.
Each one goes ahead with his own meal and one is hungry and another is drunk. In other words, they’re bringing this chaotic pagan revelry to the Lord’s supper, to the Eucharist, desecrated it. So it ceases to even be the Lord’s supper. That’s his point that just as in the Old Testament, people were receiving supernatural food and drink and yet dedicating it to golden calves, turning it into a pagan sort of celebration that this same kind of inappropriate sacrilegious approach to the Eucharist needs to be washed out for. But this parallel only makes sense if you realize that the man is prefiguring in the Eucharist, right? If that wasn’t clear enough, one Corinthians 10, verse one to 14 tells his story of the ancient Israelites, and then he turns directly and addresses the Corinthians and he says, to shun the worship of idols, he says like, speak as de sensible men, judge for yourselves.
When I say the cup of blessing, which we bless, what is that? That’s the eucharistic chalice, and he’s using the liturgical language from the Passover of the blessing cup, the cup of blessing, which we bless. Is it not a participation in the blood of Christ, the bread which we break? Is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Somehow two things are clear. Number one, the supernatural food and drink, the manna and the water from Christ, the rock, which is Christ prefigure the bread and wine in the Eucharist. And two, this so-called bread and wine are actually somehow a participation in the body and blood of Christ. Now, Paul doesn’t explain all of that yet. He does give us in the very next verses a very big clue where he connects the Eucharistic sacrifice to the pagan sacrifices and the Jewish sacrifices that his readers would be familiar with, where he compares how we commune in the body and blood of Christ in a way, not unlike what happened in the Old Testament temple and even in the Jews of their day with food sacrifices and even what the pagans were doing with demons and what he calls the table of demons.
Now, you can read one Corinthians 10 yourself. I’m not going to address the kind of sacrificial eucharistic theology he lays out here, because my point is, look at the Old Testament connections that he’s making all over the place. Unlike James White, St. Paul sees very clearly that the manna is prefiguring the Eucharist. This matters. Why does this matter? Because there’s this principle called typology. And so to give you one verse, there’s really several verses that speak to this theme. The things in the Old Testament prefigure, the things in the New Testament, but the things in the New Testament are better than the things prefiguring them in the Old Testament. So St. Paul can say not to let anyone pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or New Moon or Sabbath, because these are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
The foreshadowing cannot be better than the thing being foreshadowed. If your foreshadowing event is greater than the thing that’s foreshadowing, that’s the failure. Even if you’re making a movie, right? You’ve got a movie, you’ve got a big buildup. But it turned out the event in the first 10 minutes was actually way more important, and it was actually the climax of the movie, not the thing at the end, bad movie, right? Salvation History works the same way. It’s not a bad movie. The Old Testament stuff is foreshadowing newer and greater things. In the New Testament, Hebrews talks about this all over the place. This is true with the temple and the priesthood and all of these things. With any of these Old Testament details, we should say, what greater thing is this foreshadowing in the New Testament? And if you follow that, you’ll realize the manna is foreshadowing the Eucharist.
So the Eucharist must be greater than the manna, but the manna was bread of angels. It is bread of heaven, and then you have water from the side of Christ from the rock, which is Christ. What could you possibly have above that in the Eucharist? Certainly not a mere memorial, certainly not a mere remembrance, not some bread you got at the store and some wine or grape juice where you just recall how Jesus died for us. You could do that at home by yourself. That is not a supernatural food and drink that is not an actual nourishment from heaven. But what John six and one Corinthians 10, and the whole principle of typology tell us is the only way you really go above the already amazing gift of the manna in the Old Testament is with the Eucharist, where you’re not just eating the bread of angels, you’re not just having the bread of heaven in that sense. You’re actually receiving the one who’s come down from heaven, God incarnate in the flesh, who gives himself to you bodily in the Eucharist. So the early Christians understood what so many Protestants like James White don’t, which is if typology is true, if the New Testament fulfillments are greater than the Old Testament prefigurement, then the Eucharist must be true because it’s even greater than the incredible divine gift of the manna. For Shameless Ri, I’m Joe Heme. God bless you.