Eucharist

The Roman Catholic Church is a false religion and a false church. One reason for this is their teaching on the Eucharist, also called transubstantiation — the doctrine that when you take the Lord's Supper or communion, the bread literally turns into the body of Jesus Christ and the wine literally turns into his blood. That is weird. That is cannibalism. And it is false. It is simply not what the Bible says.

In John chapter 6 the Bible uses symbolism, and the Catholic Church completely misses it. Verse 48: "I am that bread of life." Notice that Jesus made that statement in the present tense — he does not say I am going to turn into the bread of life, he says I am that bread of life. And he was not even taking the Lord's Supper at that moment when he said it. This is merely an example — and it is actually an example of salvation. Because the verse right before says: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life." What Jesus is saying is that being saved and believing on Christ is as easy as eating a slice of bread.

You see other examples of this kind of language throughout the Bible. Jesus said "I am the living water" — drinking water. He said "I am the door" — opening a door. In each case he is using something simple and everyday to illustrate a point. It is actually very easy to be saved because Jesus did all the work for us. So when he says I am that bread of life, he is not literally saying that he is bread. A little bit of common sense is going to teach you that. What he is saying is that it is as easy as eating a slice of bread. A baby can take a slice of bread and eat it themselves — you do not have to be an adult or educated or have a college degree to eat a slice of bread. It is very easy. And salvation is very easy.

The Roman Catholic Church makes it very difficult. They require you to actually take the Eucharist on a weekly basis to get your sins forgiven. But this is not what the Bible teaches. The Lord's Supper is merely a picture — a remembrance. When we eat of that unleavened bread and drink of that unfermented juice, it is picturing the perfect life, the broken body, and the blood of Jesus Christ which was shed to pay for our sins.

The concept of transubstantiation — that the bread and wine literally become the body and blood of Christ — is not a biblical concept. It is a false doctrine. And because the Roman Catholic Church teaches it, that is one more reason why the Roman Catholic Church is a false religion and a false church.

Pastor Matthew Stucky