What Would the Body and the Blood Literally Mean?

“Protestants don’t really believe everything Christ said,” a staunch Roman Catholic said to me. “He said, ‘This is my body,’ and ‘This is my blood.’ But Protestants don’t take that literally, like they say they take the rest of the Bible.”

Besides his many other opinions on things Catholic vs Protestant, this was the most critical challenge brought to me by this person. (I think perhaps somewhere in this person’s past, someone as a Protestant greatly offended him, and that has brought a root of bitterness into his outlook that has guided his religious life.)

But because of this statement, my thoughts turned to the teaching he referred to, the central dogma of the Roman Catholic faith: transubstantiation, the belief and teaching that when a priest consecrates the host and wine during Mass, they transform into the “literal” physical body and blood of Jesus. So consequently, when the priest raises his just-consecrated host and says, “This is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,” it is to be worshipped as Jesus. (Either this is true worship, or most grievous idolatry—if God does not overlook it as a mere fallacy.)

Now either this teaching is true or it is not (obviously). His claim is that the scriptures teach this, that the words spoken by Jesus at the Last Supper were to be taken literally, not metaphorically, to establish this transubstantiation doctrine as scriptural.

I am not writing this to attack anyone’s faith. I know many devout Catholics who, aside from their particular dogmas, I would say give sufficient evidence of having a heart faith relationship to Christ. Perhaps God has grace for many of our false beliefs, fallacies and misconceptions, as long as they do not turn us to sin against God’s moral law.

Anyway, let’s see what in my mind must be the implications of the reality of this if the words of Jesus were to be taken literally, and what happens at a Catholic Mass is true.

I will start with the Body of Christ. Jesus said of the bread he broke and gave to the disciples, “This is my body, broken for you.” Now, here’s what we know of Jesus’ body in its current situation. Christ’s body was raised from the dead—his body is currently in heaven, and it is made up of cells with DNA that can be traced all the way back to king David. Also, there are a finite number of cells in Jesus’ body that had been offered on the cross and rose again, otherwise, the humanity of Christ is no longer truly humanity. Glorified it may be, but still human, and his cells do not need to reproduce, because they will not die, they are raised incorruptible. All this is straight from the Bible.

Now, if the consecration of the hosts in Mass is to be literally the body of Christ, they must be his real body cells, with the cytoplasm, DNA and all, otherwise it is not literally his body. If we say, it is a re-creation of his body, like a clone of the original, then it is not a literal true fulfillment of the scripture. For it has to be his real body to be literally true.

So Christ’s body cells must be taken from his body in heaven constantly, to be transferred somehow (by angels?) to earth to be “put” into the substratum of the host or bread being consecrated. (By the way, why aren’t the words of consecration in Aramaic or Hebrew, instead of Latin?) Otherwise, there are not enough “real” cells of Jesus’ body to make millions of hosts turn into his literal body all around the world every hour of every day. Then these cells are being eaten, and they need to be removed supernaturally from the recipients’ stomachs before being digested, so they may be re-used into another consecrated batch of hosts soon later. This all seems rather absurd to me, rather than a mystery.

So which is a literal fulfillment of Jesus’ words?

Jesus’ body broken on the Cross.

or        

Cloned cells of Jesus (not broken).

By the way, accurate knowledge of human anatomy and the laws of physics and chemistry were mainly unknown in the time of Gregory the Great, the man who promulgated this doctrine into a full fledged dogma in the Catholic Church. But, maybe you can get away with replicated body cells here, or “proxy” body cells.

However, when it comes to the blood, there are very specific terms to keep in line with if we are to take it literally. In the Gospel of Mark the words of Christ are very pointed: “This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many.” Mark 14:24. Note the words: if it is literally his blood, then is is literally shed.

Now at this first consecration, Jesus had not shed his blood yet. But we are to take this literally. That means that the blood in that cup (which must be literally what was now in that cup, if transubstantiation is true) was the blood of Jesus that was going to be shed during his passion and on the cross, otherwise it is not literally true. So, I repeat, if then and there it was his actual blood, it must be, for it to be true, that that blood in that cup was going to be shed on the cross. Somehow, that blood had to get from that cup back into Jesus’ veins (before it could be digested in the disciples’ stomachs) and be there in his body to be spilled out for sins at the crucifixion.

Jesus only had about 10 pints of blood in his body that was shed during his passion and crucifixion. Now if the blood in all the consecrated chalices in every Roman Catholic Mass is truly Jesus’ blood, it must be the blood that was shed. Proxy, cloned blood cannot be what is there, because it would never have been shed for sins at the cross. I’m just keeping it literal, now.

Which is the true “literal” fulfillment of this scripture? Which is the actual blood of Christ that was shed?

10 pints of blood in Jesus’ veins.          
(Shed on the cross and during his passion.)

 or
      
Tons of cloned blood, copies of the original          
blood. (Never shed at the cross.)

So, if these things are so, the cloning of his body and blood cells is not sufficient to be a literal fulfillment of the words of Jesus at the Last Supper and therefore is no more “literal” than a metaphor. For a clone of his cells, may look and be in all other respects the same, but they were never in his body, nor ever suffered nor were shed at the cross.

So, in my mind, to hold onto this belief, you must pile on absurdity on top of absurdity to make it consistent with its claims.

The Breath of Life

When we look at the creation of mankind in Genesis, an important aspect of that event discloses a very special insight. Of course, I have to talk about the Hebrew text in particular.

Let’s look at the verse in question.

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

Genesis 2:7

The specific phrase I am focusing on is “the breath of life.” In the Hebrew it is pronounced neesh-maat cha-im. It is a compound noun of two words. Want to guess what they are?

This phrase is not used many times, but it is actually easy to discern the meaning of its context. “The breath of life” is the special thing God imparted to mankind to bring him moral agency and self-awareness. Let’s analyze this verse before going on. A few points are in order.

Perhaps you may recall that with all other aspects of creation, it was done as “God said” and it was so. God apparently made everything outside of himself, very distinctly. The impartation of life to man was different, because it is the only instance mentioned.

The neesh-maat cha-im was something DIRECTLY imparted to man by God. It notes he breathed into man this breath of life. Not until here is such a direct, intimate connection borne between the Creator and his Creation. Scripture is very clear that up to this point, God spoke and it came to be—God’s previous operations were less direct than this.

This phrase is important, and it’s easily distinct from another phrase related to animal life in general. Animals are said to have a “breath of life,” but in Hebrew it is ruach cha-im, and ruach could also be rendered soul, spirit, wind and, in general, air, because ruach can be very broad in its usage and meaning.

But the Bible gives significance to phrases. For example, in the New Testament, Paul uses two specific phrases using the word baptize: one is “baptized into the name of Christ;” the other is “baptized into Christ.” Each has a distinct meaning and refers to different things: the first refers to water baptism; the other refers to an effective result of one’s conversion to Christ.

The same is true about these two phrases: ruach cha-im refers mostly to animal life, and man in general with them as animate life; neesh-maat cha-im refers, I believe, to the life of mankind specifically. I think the context of this can bear this out.

So, the next time this phrase comes up is in Genesis 7:21-23.

And all flesh died that moved on the earth: birds and cattle and beasts and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and every man. All in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, all that was on the dry land, died. So He destroyed all living things which were on the face of the ground: both man and cattle, creeping thing and bird of the air.

Now some translations read the 22nd verse as if it applies to all living things on the land. But a case can be made in the Hebrew text for it to read as a parenthesis expanding on the mention of man, something like: “and every man—all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, all who were on the dry land—died.”

Here the phrase is compounded with ruach, neesh-maat ruach cha-im.

The point here is that ruach may also apply to man, but neesh-maat (breath of) does not apply to animals. If you would look up all the other uses of this word, breath, you would see it either applies to man or to God.

So, what’s the point or insight of all this? I conclude from the nature of this phrase, and its implication of being God’s direct imparting of spiritual life to man, that that spiritual nature of man is immortal, or eternal. Not in the complete sense as equal to God’s immortality, because God is self-existent and fully eternal (without beginning or end). But mankind is, may I say?, half-eternal. That is, though people have a beginning of life, their spiritual existence will be forever.

There is no other scripture that may explicitly say so, but is there need for more? What, would you say, is the nature of God’s breath? Would it not to some extent have the same essential nature and qualities as God, not in degree but in kind?  These qualities include mind, free will, emotions, as well as immortality. Do you think God can or could or would wipe out his own existence? Can God “stop”  his breath? In the same way, I think, it would be against God’s nature or character to wipe out man’s spiritual existence. Though I would not go so far as to impinge upon God’s omnipotence.

Therefore, I don’t think there is any basis for saying that the immortality of man’s soul is only conditional, or granted on salvation, or that we will be annihilated if we are lost. We each in our conciousness have an eternity to face.

Cain’s Contradiction

And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the LORD. Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the LORD respected Abel and his offering, but He did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell.

So the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.”

Genesis 4:3-7 (NKJV)

Wait a minute, something in these verses just blew my mind! I mean, something wrong has been said here. I get the feeling that God is misleading Cain, or intentionally giving him wrong information! Or is there some real contradiction going on here? I mean, a contradiction from what I have been always taught in every church and Sunday school, save a very few.

Here is Cain, with a long face, angry heart and feeing rejected, and obviously growing jealous of Abel the more he thinks about this situation. I mean Abel’s offering was accepted, and his was rejected, however the evidence for that bore out to them. That’s not the problem. Well, that’s Cain’s problem; not mine.

Mine is with what God said to Cain before the big first murder. It just doesn’t make sense! Here’s Cain, the very first person recorded that was born from Adam and Eve, right? That is the first person directly born from the first human sinners. What was supposed to have happened after the Fall, and the curse and all that? Well, everyone else after that is supposed to be born sinful, right? I mean, guilty and powerless to do good, right?

So, why is God lying to him? OK, so at least only misleading him into thinking something different! Why is God saying he can either equally do good or do bad? Do well, be accepted, get these good consequences. Do not well, be threatened to be invaded with sin—because, it’s at the door, not in the door, not inside yet, but just at the entrance (they had doors then?). 

Wait a minute! If there was ever a time to set the record straight, it was right then, with the first person to be born from these first sinners, that he was born with a sinful nature, and was guilty, and so forth, passed on to him from his parents. Why didn’t God do that? Instead he misleads Cain into thinking that he could have mastery over sin!

Why didn’t God tell him the plain truth, letting him know that 3,500 years down the road, someone named Augustine would set the record right, informing us that no one born from Adam and Eve has any chance of equally choosing between good and evil, that we can only choose to sin, unless our nature (physical or metaphysical being) gets recreated by God?