Jesus' Bread and Wine
Does the Bible say the bread and wine turn into Jesus' flesh & blood when blessed?
The bread and wine symbolize Jesus' body broken and Jesus
'
blood shed on the cross but remain bread and wine physically. Jesus made this
clear during the Last Supper:
"When the
hour had come, He sat down, and the twelve apostles with Him. Then He
said to them, “With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover
with you before I suffer; for I say to you, I will no longer eat of it
until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” Then He took the cup, and
gave thanks, and said, “Take this and divide it among yourselves; for I
say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom
of God comes.” And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it
to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in
remembrance of Me." (Luke 22:14-19).
Notice that Jesus clearly identified the content in the cup as
"fruit of the vine" - wine - and said we were to take
it and the bread
"in remembrance" of
Him. Per Jesus' own words then, the bread and wine remain exactly that: bread
and wine.
Claiming to turn bread and wine into the human flesh and blood of Jesus, and
then inviting people to eat the bread to be saved in effect tries to repeat Jesus' sacrifice on the cross. The
notion of eating human flesh is not only repugnant but
also demeans Jesus'
sacrifice and makes Jesus a
liar for declaring,
"It is finished!"
(John 19:30) on the cross (see
Lord, Liar or Lunatic?).
The
Bible also clearly says
that Jesus died
"once":
"... knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead,
dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died,
He died to sin once for all ..." (Romans 6:9-10)
"For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the
unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made
alive by the Spirit." (1 Peter 3:18)
"Not with the blood of
goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for
all, having obtained eternal redemption... not that He should offer Himself
often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of
another - He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the
world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by
the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after
this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many... By that will we have been sanctified
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all."
(Hebrews 9:12, 25-28 & 10:10)