Matthew 26:26

26. As they were eating When in the course of the paschal supper they arrived at the breaking of bread, as we have above described. The bread was in the form of cakes. The breaking, under the old dispensation, represented the breaking which Israel suffered in Egypt; but in the new, the breaking is transferred to the victim, who assumes our sins and sufferings in his own body. The breaking was the customary mode of separating bread into parts; yet it was none the less a significant part of the rite. Paul clearly intimates that the breaking symbolized the violence by which our Lord’s body was put to death. 1 Corinthians 11:24. Breaking and not cutting, seems the proper mode of severing the sacramental portions. Blessed it To bless is to implore the divine blessing upon it, that is, to pray solemnly that God would graciously make it effective of its beneficent purpose. The blessing on the bread was the Redeemer’s prayer that the bread might be of a blessed effect to the partaker.

This is my body A customary mode in Scripture, as in common language, of expressing that a symbol is or stands for its original. It is perfectly natural to say that a sign IS the thing it signifies. This is usually done in explaining some symbolical representations. So Joseph in explaining a dream says: “The three branches are three days.” Genesis 11:12. So at this very supper our Lord says: “This cup is the new testament.” 1 Corinthians 11:25. If the phrase “This [bread] is my body,” really means that the bread is our Lord’s literal material body then the phrase “This cup is the new testament” means that the material vessel (not the wine in it) was an actual “new testament.” Common sense ought to show that our Lord is now explaining the import of certain symbols, and in so doing he uses the ordinary phrase of saying that the symbol is the thing symbolized.

Our readers perceive that we are here refuting the strange doctrine of the Church of Rome, which affirms that the bread is transubstantiated, that is, changed in substance, into the very body of our Lord. And as it implies that the bread is Christ’s present body, it is also called the doctrine of real presence. This doctrine bears marks of dishonesty, for,

1. It doctrinally places the material person of God in the hands of a priest. It makes the salvation of the layman’s soul dependent upon the priest’s consent to give him the flesh of God. It thus places the man at the mercy of the priest. Hence the doctrine of transubstantiation is the basis of the most abject subjection of the laity to the priesthood in the Church of Rome.

2 . It is a most absurd doctrine. It makes Christ to have held his own body between his own thumb and fingers. While his body was reclining, they were holding it in their hand, chewing it with their teeth, digesting it in their stomachs. Thus were they cannibals, eating human flesh! All this is founded upon a forced interpretation of language which, according to ordinary idiom, means something else.

3 . The doctrine violates the very nature of the institution. From the time of the first paschal lamb downward, the purpose of the slain victim was to represent the body of the true victim instead of presenting the body itself. The slain lamb represented that true body until He came. The broken bread must represent it until he come again. What makes this plain, is the fact that at the old Jewish passover the master of the table was accustomed to say as he took the bread, “This is [that is, this represents ] the bread of affliction, which our fathers did eat in the land of Egypt.” But in the place of this formula our Lord substitutes, “This is [that is, represents ] my body.” From being the representative of Israel in suffering, it becomes now the representative of the suffering substitute of the sinner. To make it not a representative, but the thing itself, is, therefore, to violate the congruity of the typical system.