When sharing with Catholics the wonderful news about the finished work of Jesus on the cross, one of the most tragic deceptions that many of them have blindly bought into is their worship and idolization of the eucharist.

To break bread for any Christian is something we all cherish and take very seriously, especially after reading Paul serious admonition not to come to the Lord's table with any unconfessed sin in our hearts (1 Cor. 11:23-34.)

However communion is only for those of us that have already been saved and forgiven, to do in remembrance of the price that Christ paid to save us from the wrath of God.

In John 6, which I cover point-by-point in the follow-up article, Jesus makes it very clear that when a person eats His flesh and drinks His blood, they have (present tense) everlasting life. (See John 6:54.)

With the above verse proving that to eat the Lord's body meant one has everlasting life (present tense), affirms that this is no mere reference to sitting down and breaking bread each week. (I have more to say on this later.)

The author John Armstrong, wrote the following:

"In ancient ritual blood sacrifices (in pagan religions) the worshipper must consume the blood of the victim as a sacrifice. This idea was incorporated in such manner that now the communing believer takes the bread (the body of Christ) into his own flesh in this the supreme and highest moment of Christian worship. This becomes the central mystery of the Christians faith and practice eating the body of Christ." (A View Of Rome, p. 56)

Up until the 12th century, many popes and councils had differing views as to the necessity of the mass. For example, Gregory I placed an anathema and automatic excommunication on anyone who didn't participate in this unbiblical and non-bloody sacrifice. 

Yet Innocent III said that all those who taught it was necessary and essential to attend mass, would be excommunicated (also some church "fathers," like the above popes, believed in the eucharist being literal, divine and essential to salvation, while others considered it only to be symbolic and no more than that.) 

Many Catholics and high Anglicans believe that the priest has magical powers to change a wafer and wine (not unleavened bread and fruit juice, both being Scriptural) into the literal body and blood of Christ, and the Scripture that is commonly misused is John 6:51-63.   

This kind of Biblical interpretation is called letterism. The concept is quite simple: every passage in the Bible (if one is not careful) ends up being interpreted literally, resulting in many problems occurring, if this is taken to the extreme.

Catholics along with the Mormons have also fallen prey to this theological blunder.  

For example, in John 6:54, the Lord speaks to His Jewish disciples (never forget the historical and religious context) and tells them:

"Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath [present tense] eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day."   

(No Catholic is ever allowed in their lifetime to have any assurance that all their sins are forgiven and should they die at any moment, would they go straight to be with the Lord, even though the above text is crystal clear that salvation is eternal and given to those that eat His flesh and drink His blood. Once again, Rome is proven to be teaching falsehoods on matters of one's salvation.)

May I remind the reader that Jewish culture forbade drinking blood (animal or human), before the law, during the law and after the law (Lev.17:11-14), so obviously Jesus would not teach against His own Law, while the Jews were still living under the law (Acts 15:28-29.)  

Peter, some years after this event, would say: "I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean" (Acts 10:14.) Yet, according to Rome, he and all the disciples had done so during their time with Jesus. Peter, it would seem didn't know what he was talking about!  

With Catholic doctrine desperately needing to affirm John 6 as being literal, I find it rather odd that other verses such as Matt. 5:29: "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee," is not interpreted literally but metaphorically. (One church leader Origen did actually mutilate himself, when reading this Scripture.)  

So how should Matt. 5 be correctly interpreted?

Jesus is warning His Jewish audience about the drastic consequences of unrepentant sin (Rom. 12:1 should be cross-referenced here.) Correctly, nobody within Catholicism or Protestantism today takes this verse to be literal but spiritualises it, which of course is the only correct way to exegete it.  

And what about John 6? Well, Scripture with Scripture, and we read how the some of the unbelieving Jews, when hearing about eating and drinking Christ's body later complained (vs. 61.)

This is reminiscent of what happened with Moses and his followers, when they were still wandering in the wilderness (Ex. 16:2.)

Also from the same chapter, we read about the "Bread of Heaven," which God gave as a test to Israel to see who would obey His laws or not.

John 6 comes to its completion, with the false believers departing from Jesus, even though He made it clear His words weren't literal in vs. 63, but they had already made their minds up to "walk no more with Him," and with this Christ allowed them to depart  (John 6:66; 1 John 2:19.) 

So then how should one understand what Jesus means when He says they must eat Him and drink Him? The most sensible and logical conclusion for any honest and open-minded person to come to would be to understand this as being metaphorical. Therefore the Lord underlying the fact that He would soon die, taught His followers that they would need to partake of this spiritual memorial, i.e., believe in Him, if they wanted to be saved (John 1:12.)  

Two other things should be said about the eucharist: 

1)     If receiving it (pre-Vatican II) warrants eternal life, then grace through faith alone is thrown out and works is taught along side for salvation; something that the cults believe, and please also remember that communion hadn't yet been officially instituted by Christ.  

2)     Today's Catholic church (post-Vatican II) no longer holds to the urgent need that recipients of communion will be saved; for they state that Muslims and Jews will be saved without any faith or repentance in Jesus Christ.   

Other Scriptures like "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst" (John 4:14); "I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever" (John 6:51); also "I am the door" (John 10:7) and finally "God will cover you with his feathers" (Ps. 91:4), are never taken literally by any sane person (letterism) but are understood figuratively, within the loving understanding that God does and will look after His own, and will feed those that believe in Him spiritually.  

Thus redeemed sinners will never thirst again if they feed on Him and His word daily. And we know that God is not a bird (Ps. 91:4), but is a Spirit (John 4:24) and is also invisible (Col. 1:15.) 

Later in the Bible and we read how Paul ridiculed his pagan audience in Acts 17:25, when he totally dismantled their nonsensical belief that:

"Neither is [God] worshipped with men's hands [out goes transubstantiation], as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things." 

One should also read chapter 19:26, 27 where Paul once again reiterates this position, and what follows from his pagan crowd? Much persecution and violence. Why? Because they, like Rome, know that Paul's rebuke of their foolish notion of creating gods, is very bad for business (like church attendance for Rome.) How times never change. 

Lastly on this note, 1 Cor. 8:8 is the final clincher that eating food doesn't save us:

"But meat commendeth us not to God: for neither, if we eat, are we the better; neither, if we eat not, are we the worse."

Each of these verses totally obliterates the warped view of the Catholic eucharist being a Biblical doctrine.  

And may I briefly share with the reader, the following and most profound statement made by Anne Asken, while been tortured for Christ, by a Catholic bishop, for failing to submit to the mass:

"I have read that God made man, but that man can make God, I have never read."  

Anne was only 25 years old, when she was later taken out and burnt alive!  

In Peter Ruckman's two-volume set on church history, we read the following madness on how Rome deals with a wafer:

"If a Catholic gets the wafer (not unleavened bread) stuck in his false tooth, he is to scrap "Jesus" out of his mouth with a knife or finger, dip Him in water and drink Him...If a person vomits up the wafer, they must pick up their vomit."

(See also Rev. R.P. Blackeney, Manual of Romanish Controversy, 1851; The Roman Missal, Article III, No. 7, Article X, Nos. 5, 12, 14.) 

One last example of this type of wooden interpretation would be when the Mormons take 1 Cor. 15:29 literally:

"If the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?"

After reading this passage, the founder of the Mormon religion, Joseph Smith (who was also a freemason and warlock) started baptising dead people. This form of exegesis is sheer madness for when did a dead unrepentant person ever benefit from being baptised after they died? 

(The Mormons have been known to baptise dead people at random, regardless of their religious backgrounds, and then add the names of such people to their own private computer, which incidentally has billions of names of people throughout the whole world dating back many years, in their many underground tunnels in Utah.)  

1 Cor. 15:29 simply means that if Christ had not died and then been raised from the dead, then our baptism and faith in Him, may just as well have occurred when we were dead.

Armstrong once again offers the following warning:

"If you are a practising Catholic. You are to say amen when the priests says 'The body of Christ.' This amen is Hebrew for it is so; this is the body of Christ! The Catholic Church requires you to refrain from talking the communion if you do not agree with her. You cannot escape the force of Scripture upon your own conscience. You must decide this utterly serious matter before God and His Word" (p. 60.)  

For non-Catholics, the whole concept of what the mass is, was clearly defined and explained by John F. Whealon, Catholic Archbishop of Hartford: 

"Sacrifice is the very essence of religion. And it is through sacrifice that union with the Creator can be perfectly acquired. It was through sacrifice that Christ Himself was able to achieve this for man. It is only through the perpetuation [continuing] of that sacrifice that Christ Himself was able to achieve this for man."