PAUL OVER-SPIRITUALISED THE RISEN JESUS SO HIS BODY AND BLOOD CANNOT BE PRESENT AT MASS
Catholic theology holds that it is the glorified, spiritualised and resurrected body of Jesus Christ that is present in the Eucharist.
The doctrine that you can feed on Jesus' body and blood in the form of bread and wine is a core Catholic doctrine. It is not only absent from the Bible but refuted by the Bible.
The early Church had to deal with Greek believers who started saying the dead do not rise. They implicitly meant Jesus too. That is why Paul reminds them that the faith is worthless if the dead do not rise for it means Jesus has not risen either.
One objection they had was that they could not comprehend what a raised body would be like. This is the age old problem of people thinking that a body that has decayed cannot be brought back. It does not look like they believed that Jesus really raised Lazarus or the daughter of Jairus and so on. And at the back of that is the assumption that coming back in a fragile body is hardly a nice thing. It is an okay thing but not enough to build a faith on.
Paul seems to have been nudged by this crisis to concoct a new doctrine, that the risen body is like something Zeus would have. Healthy, immortal, strong and so on but gifted with supernatural powers that it is not a body as we would know it. The amount of time spent shows that he was trying to rationalise a new conception and sell it to them. You would expect converts to Christianity to know what rising from the dead entailed so why do they need all that teaching now?
In Paul’s theology, the
resurrection body comes from the physical body and is more like a spirit than a
body. One cell from the corpse would be enough to make it which is why it is
safe to say that Paul probably did not believe that when Jesus was raised he
left his tomb empty. If he just didn’t deny it, then it is an open question. But
there is another surprise about the resurrection body. It seems there is no
blood in it! He wrote, “I tell you this, brethren, flesh and blood cannot
[become partakers of eternal salvation and] inherit or share in the kingdom of
God; nor does the perishable (that which is decaying) inherit or share in the
imperishable (the immortal)” (1 Corinthians 15:50). Christians argue that he
only means that flesh and blood as they are now cannot inherit eternal life but
need to be changed. So they interpret it as saying they are changed into another
kind of flesh and blood. But Paul wrote that the resurrection body is spiritual.
Flesh has been used to make it but it is not flesh though it can materialise
flesh. Flesh has been turned into spirit. This is something we cannot
understand. It would be stupid of Paul to say that flesh and blood cannot enter
Heaven if he meant that another kind of it can and Paul did promise that he
would only write what was lucid and clear. He said “flesh and blood” not “flesh
and blood as they are now” so he did not mean the latter. The Christians are
wrong and Paul meant that the resurrection body is not flesh and blood. It is
something derived from them but not like them at all. He declared that Jesus,
the new Adam, has become a life-giving spirit unlike the old Adam who was a
death-giving man of flesh and blood (1 Corinthians 15:45).
Jesus is a spirit-being therefore his body and blood are not present in the
Eucharist. Paul didn't believe that they were except maybe in the sense that
time is a part of eternity so there is a sense that the nailed body and blood of
Jesus are present at all times and in all places. But that requires no change in
the bread and wine and implies Jesus is no more present in them than in anything
else.
Paul believed in eternity. There is no time with God so Jesus is dying and
rising before God right now. This sacrifice was present during the meetings when
they ate and drank in remembrance of Jesus. This was why the bread they broke
was a friendship in the body of Christ upon the cross.
Paul wrote that Christ, the Passover, has been sacrificed let us celebrate the
feast (1 Corinthians 5:7, 8). The Jews sacrificed a Lamb at the feast of
Passover and then ate it. Here, Paul says that Jesus is the Lamb. Does he mean
that Jesus has been transubstantiated into a Lamb to feed us? No he means that
the Passover Lamb is a symbol of Jesus. He says he has been sacrificed and that
we are to celebrate this feast now. Perhaps he meant that we are to continue the
Jewish feast of Passover. It is a mistake to argue that Christ being the
Passover means he is the new Passover meal in the Lamb’s place and in the form
of bread and wine. Paul could mean that Jesus is the Passover Lamb in the sense
that he was sacrificed like the Lamb and at Passover but this need not suggest
that the two are identical in all respects.
Some say that Jesus did not eat the Passover lamb for the prophets said that
God wanted mercy not sacrifice. There is no evidence that he did or he
didn't. And if we are told that Jesus said his death is a ransom sacrifice
for sin is that a lie?
The Passover Lamb is still the Passover Lamb even if it is not served up on a
platter say when the family have to flee all of a sudden.
It is a mistake to assume that the feast means meal. The verse does not refute
our discovery that the risen Jesus in Paul’s thought had no flesh and blood to
feed us with.
It is unlikely that Paul thought that Jesus would have materialised flesh and
blood for the Eucharist when he said that Jesus was a spirit that gives life
unlike the flesh and blood Adam.
The Catholic Mass is overruled by the apostle and is invalid. The Catholic Church claims to be one, holy, Catholic and apostolic. It is not apostolic and cannot call upon their authority.