Is Transubstantiation During Communion Supported By The New Testament Or Early Church History?

The Holy Communion Eucharist (Gk: ‘eucharisteo’ = give thanks), also known as the Lord’s Supper, commemorates the Last Supper Jesus shared with the Disciples before His crucifixion during their observation of the traditional seder meal served on the 15th and 16th of the month of Nisan in Jewish homes to commemorate the festival of Passover (Pascha) when the Jewish people were delivered from Egyptian bondage in the days of Moses and relived as a personal spiritual event each year.

“Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this, is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.” (Matthew 26:26-29 ESV)

The Holy Communion Eucharist is at the center of Christian worship. Along with baptism, it is one of the two sacraments in the New Testament that are repeated as a celebration and as an anticipation in this life of the joys of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb that is to come in the Kingdom of God (Revelation 19:9). The Eucharist was intended as both a symbol and a means of nurturing unity within the church. It focuses attention on the anticipation of Jesus's return and the coming glory of Heaven.

Early Christians observed the Eucharist annually at Passover. It then transitioned to weekly fellowship meals, and over 1000 years later, it became a daily practice in the Roman Catholic Church as a sacramental ordinance and sacrificial ritual that is the real presence of the transubstantiated body and blood of Jesus.

The Eucharist has always been considered a sacrament by the vast majority of Churches worldwide as a memorial of Jesus's sacrifice as the final payment for the forgiveness of sin. In many Christian traditions, the Eucharist is viewed as symbolic or commemorative as an expression of the universal Christian faith but not as a channel of grace. Sharing in Holy Communion enhances and deepens the communion of fellow Christians with Jesus and each other.

Transubstantiation

During the Eucharist, the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) believes that the substance of consecrated bread and wine is literally changed (i.e., transubstantiated) into the actual body and blood of Jesus, even though the outward appearance and physical characteristics remain the same.

According to the Modern Catholic Dictionary by John Hardon (2024), “transubstantiation” refers to “the complete change of the substance of bread and wine into the substance of Christ's body and blood by a validly ordained priest during the consecration at Mass, so that only the accidents of bread and wine remain. While the faith behind the term itself was already believed in apostolic times, the term itself was a later development. Before the sixth century, the Eastern Fathers preferred the term meta-ousiosis, meaning "change of being." In contrast, the Latin tradition developed the term 'transubstantiation,' which means "change of substance," and was incorporated into the creed of the Fourth Lateran Council in AD 1215. The Council of Trent (AD 1551), in defining the "wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the wine into the blood" of Christ, added, "which conversion the Catholic Church calls transubstantiation" (Denzinger AD 1652). After transubstantiation, the accidents of bread and wine do not appear in any subject or substance whatsoever. Yet they are not make-believe. They are sustained in existence by divine power. (Etym. Latin trans-, so as to change + substantia, substance: transubstantio, change of substance.) [TRANSUBSTANTIATION | Catholic Culture.

https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=36918]

According to the Bible, using the rules of biblical hermeneutics to exegete the Scriptures, the Apostles make no mention of transubstantiation in any way, manner, or form, nor did the early Church Fathers for hundreds of years, contrary to the teaching of the RCC. The fundamental biblical doctrine of the sacrament Communion was a symbolic memorial and not a subject of theological controversy and ecclesiastical action until the time of Paschius Radbert in the ninth century. Even the RCC couldn’t agree with the 4th Lateran Council in AD 1215 when it gave the first dogmatic expression and formally set forth transubstantiation as the official teaching of the RCC, which was the complete opposite of the first 900 years of church teaching. This was further affirmed by the Council of Trent, which also dogmatically asserted that the nature of the Lord’s Supper was that of a propitiatory sacrifice for sin.

Here are a few of the early Church Fathers' teachings on the Eucharist that are in complete opposition to the RCC.