Errors Catholic Communion
The focus of the worship in the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) is placed upon the eucharist, and the focus of the eucharist is placed upon the wafer. It also is referred to as the mass. It is one of the seven sacraments of the RCC that are “efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is ‘dispensed’ to us.” (The Catechism of the Catholic Church as stated by wikipedia.org). This is one of many issues of faith and practice where Baptists greatly differ and stand apart from both the RCC and many protestant denominations.
Baptists for the most part (there is great variety in doctrinal differences among the various Baptist churches) reject the place of any “sacraments” in churches. We hold that God’s grace is freely dispensed to all and upon all who will repent and place their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for their salvation. Baptists also typically believe that the Lord Jesus Christ did not give commands to His church(es) to dispense divine life, or grace, through any rites. That is why the commands for baptism and the Lord’s Supper are referred to as ordinances. They were commanded by Christ and so are to be practiced in obedience upon conversion in the case of baptism and by believers as a remembrance of Christ’s redemptive work on the cross on our behalf in the Lord’s Supper (Luke 22:19-20; 1 Cor 11:23-25).
Baptists rightly understand that the elements of the Lord’s Supper are but symbolic of Christ’s 1) body that was given as a sacrifice to bear our curse(Gal 3:13), and of 2) His blood that He shed to propitiate the wrath of God and redeem us from the penalty of sin (Ephesians 1:7; Colossians 1:14; Romans 3:24; 1 John 2:2 ). Thus, we partake in remembering the price He paid as our substitutional sacrifice (Isa 53:6; 2 Cor 5:21; 1 Peter 2:24).
Baptists also rightly believe that Jesus Christ died only one time, never to die again. See Romans 6:9-10; Hebrews 9:26-28; 10:10; 1 Pet 3:18. Baptists also believe the Bible when it says that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin, Hebres 9:22. You cannot receive forgiveness of sins from God apart from the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
Yet in the Eucharist of the RCC, the wafer is somehow mysteriously transubstantiated into the literal body of the Lord Jesus Christ and is immolated (put to death as a sacrifice) every time that the sacrament is observed. They sacrifice Christ afresh! They believe that this practice is a bloodless sacrifice again of Jesus Christ that imparts grace to the believing participant(again in opposition to Hebrews 9:22). See this from their own words:
“Hence the Mass, the Lord’s Supper, is at the same time and inseparably: a sacrifice in which the sacrifice of the cross is perpetuated; a memorial of the death and resurrection of the Lord, who said ‘do this in memory of me’ (Lk. 22:19) … In the Mass, therefore, the sacrifice and sacred meal belong to the same mystery—so much so that they are linked by the closest bond. For in the sacrifice of the Mass Our Lord is immolated when ‘he begins to be present sacramentally as the spiritual food of the faithful under the appearances of bread and wine.’ … For in it Christ perpetuates in an unbloody manner the sacrifice offered on the cross, offering himself to the Father for the world’s salvation through the ministry of priests” (Vatican II, The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Instruction on the Worship of the Eucharistic Mystery, Introduction, C 1,2, p. 108).
Pastor Summy while preaching and teaching on 1 Corinthians 11 recently commented in words to this effect, that it was interesting that Jesus Himself, while present with and teaching His disciples in that first Lord’s Supper, referred to the bread as His body. How could Jesus’ body be in two places at the same time? Did He really mysteriously suddenly appear in the bread while still appearing to them in His own body?
Of course He didn’t! He was using the elements as symbols. Is He a literal door, John 10:7? Is He a literal grapevine, John 15:1? Are we believers literal branches, John 15:5? Of course not! Christ used metaphors, symbols, to get His teachings across. And that is what John 6 was all about.
The RCC Eucharist sounds like a bunch of mumbo-jumbo and hocus-pocus to me. They call it a mystery that has been revealed to the RCC. They should read Deuteronomy 29:29 and go strictly by the Bible and stop adding their traditions to it as the Pharisees did.
Going further, the RCC says,
“As often as the sacrifice of the cross by which ‘Christ our Pascha is sacrificed’ (1 Cor. 5:7) is celebrated on the altar, the work of our redemption is carried out” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Chapter 1, 3, p. 324).
Then, to top it all off, just as their cross still has the Savior on it, they not only worship their crucifix but also their wafer, or the host as they call it. See the photo above which is typical of the RCC Eucharist where the wafer is lifted up in adoration! It is easy to see why they have removed the second of the Ten Commandments and split the tenth into two. They worship images rather than the true and living God. Their Jesus is a different Jesus and their Gospel is a different Gospel.
The RCC takes what they call the Eucharist, or Mass, and what we call the Lord’s Supper, or Communion, far beyond a remembrance. They actually teach that it is a perpetual sacrifice, though bloodless, of our Lord Jesus Christ. And then they teach that Chrirst’s redeeming, sacrificiing work is continuing. But then, why is He seated at the Father’s right hand? Has not His redemptive price been paid once and for all for lost sinners to be saved, as the verses referred to earlier tell us? Thus we see that the RCC has taken their teachings, doctrines, beliefs and practice from other than what the Bible teaches us. Oh, my catholic friend be wary and open your eyes to the truth that there is much amiss in the RCC, and the mass/eucharist is central to its heresies.
The RCC in the Council of Trent pronounced accursedness, anathema, upon those who oppose the RCC’s doctrines. But I would caution them that the Bible will be their judge and it has its own anathema upon those who preach a different gospel and/or a different Jesus. I would choose to be right with God and Christ through their Word the Bible than to be right with Rome and its dogmas.
The following is the source of the photo of the wafer being lifted up in reverence.
This photograph was produced by Agência Brasil, a public Brazilian news agency.
Their website states: “Todo o conteúdo deste site está publicado sob a Licença Creative Commons Atribuição 3.0 Brasil exceto quando especificado em contrário e nos conteúdos replicados de outras fontes.” (English translation: All content on this website is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Brazil Licenseunless specified otherwise and content replicated from other sources.)
