The Unreasonableness of Transubstantiation
We are again reminded, by a report in The Times, of the unreasonableness, as well as the unscripturalness, of the Romish doctrine of transubstantiation. Communion wafers, it says, are being found from time to time hidden under chairs in the Roman Catholic cathedral in Northampton, and the canon of the cathedral has been eating these leftover wafers himself. His action is entirely in character with his belief that the wafers, having been consecrated, are the real body and blood of Christ, and that the proper way to dispose of them is for himself, a priest, to consume them.
The Roman Church has long held the false doctrine that Christ is physically present in the Lord’s Supper. Therefore, say they, in each communion wafer, for example, there is the whole body and blood of Christ. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994) states that in the sacrament “the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained. This presence is called real . . . because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present.”
The absurdity of the heresy of transubstantiation is shown by the mere fact that Christ was physically present at the first Lord’s Supper, when he appointed the sacrament and administered it. Herbert Carson says in his The Faith of the Vatican: “Jesus was present in His incarnate perfection. It was a human voice which the disciples heard. The action of setting apart the bread and the wine was performed by human hands. To accept a literalistic interpretation of the words of institution is to claim that He who reclined at the table held His body and blood in His own hands. This surely is not only an affront to common sense but, more seriously, a denial of the essential integrity of His humanity.”
NMR
Moderator’s Visit to the Pope
Shame on the Moderator of the Church of Scotland, a nominally Protestant church, that he should enthusiastically countenance the Papacy by visiting the Pope and bringing him “the greetings of the General Assembly”. Even although he said his visit was in “a context which recognised the very significant differences between us”, it was a further betrayal and weakening of Biblical Protestantism in Scotland, especially when he went so far as to “express the warmest good wishes” of his Church.
Long gone are the days when the national church of Scotland was not ashamed to describe itself as Protestant, or to give due honour to that noble reformer and founding father of the Reformed Kirk, John Knox. The present Moderator appears to have been cast in the ecumenical mould and rather rejoices in what he calls “the happy friendship which I enjoy with Cardinal Winning and Archbishop O’Brien”. Little wonder that the Pope in his statement about the meeting “expressed his appreciation of the Church of Scotland in its commitment to reconciliation”. Reconciliation, of course, can only be at the price of compromising Reformed principles and deferring to the assumed authority of the Roman pontiff.
May the Lord arise and have mercy upon His Church in Scotland!
NMR
Return to Table of Contents for The Free Presbyterian Magazine – April 2001