To overcome the rapidly increasing evils of secularism, disunity and the lack of internal discipline within the Communion, must we give up the truths of Anglican reformed Catholicism and agree to beliefs that err from biblical truth, including papal infallibility - as did the TAC bishops who secretly submitted to Roman doctrine and supremacy in October 2007? That cannot be the right solution. While internal discipline is a necessity, if it operates at the expense of biblical truth it cannot bring lasting peace to a spiritual household. See The Reshaping of Catholicism (Harper & Row, 1988), by the late Roman Catholic Cardinal Avery R. Dulles (son of former U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles) reporting that the Vatican Council has acknowledged the possibility that the Roman Catholic Church could fall into serious error and might require reform. This acknowledgement is a major first step. By God's grace it is the honor of Anglicanism that it has had in place for four centuries the needed doctrinal reforms.

Anglican history shows the main distinctions between official Roman and Anglican doctrine are of life-and-death proportions. See Parts I and II of this "English Reformation" series (VirtueOnline, May 2007, October 2008). If this were not so, there would be no call for a distinct Anglican identity with its witness resting squarely on God's Word.

It is crucial, therefore, that Anglicans understand their central doctrines and how they differ on scriptural grounds from those of other churches including Rome.

Archbishop Thomas Cranmer stated the biblical teaching of the Lord's Supper with clarity in the Book of Common Prayer, the Ordinal, and the Articles of Religion. To these he added his devout and scholarly work A Defence of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Our Saviour Christ, written in 1550 and revised not long before his martyrdom in 1556.

A little over three centuries before the English Reformation and 1,200 years after the time of Christ, the Roman Church for the first time declared transubstantiation to be official dogma. This holds that when the words of consecration are spoken, the bread and wine are changed objectively and converted into the actual flesh and blood of Jesus. Although they retain the appearance and all the other properties of bread and wine, they are no longer those substances. Fourth Lateran Council, Canon 1 (November 1215); Council of Trent, Session 13 (October 1551), reflecting elaboration of the theory by Aquinas (1225-1274); see also the Catholic Encyclopedia.

The English Reformation rejects this as unscriptural, contrary to the nature of a sacrament and against the teaching of the early church Fathers. Articles of Religion 28 & 29 (1571); Cranmer, Defence; the Rev. Mr. Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Book V, ch. 67 (1597); BCP Catechism: a sacrament is "an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given unto us; ordained by Christ himself, as a means whereby we receive the same, and a pledge to assure us thereof." By definition, an outward sign is not itself the thing which it signifies. This true teaching of Cranmer's Defence and of the English Reformation Fathers hinges on the promise of Jesus:

"I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." John 6:51. "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As . . . I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. . . . [H]e that eateth of this bread shall live forever." John 6:53-58.

Christ's promise of eternal life reaches all who simply "eat this bread." It is important to note that He states no other requirement, simply to eat. He does not say "eat with faith" or "with a believing heart." To make it clear that He intended not to add any such condition, He made His point three times:

"If any man eat of this bread he shall live forever." (v. 51) "Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life." (v. 54) "He that eateth of this bread shall live forever." (v. 58)

This absence of any condition conveys the fact that His flesh and blood are the food and drink of everlasting life. All who simply eat and drink them shall live forever.

This necessarily excludes any physical meaning, such as transubstantiation. If such a theory were true, the consecrated bread and wine of the sacrament would be objectively Christ's body and blood, and everyone who simply consumed them, with no other qualification, would obtain eternal life. This failed to happen in the case of Judas. To eat Christ's flesh and drink His blood means something other than this.

Christ has made His meaning clear. Study His words, including those immediately before He spoke of His flesh and blood. This is what He said first:

"I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." John 6:35. "This is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day." John 6:40. If a man "come to me . . . I will raise him up at the last day." John 6:44. "He that believeth on me hath everlasting life." John 6:47.

Christ here shows that in spiritual reality to have faith in Him is to eat his flesh and drink His blood. He makes all these actions identical: The soul that comes to Him "shall never hunger." Thus, to come to Him is in actuality to eat the Food that satisfies hunger forever (v. 35). The soul that believes on Him "shall never thirst." To believe on Him is to drink the Drink that quenches thirst forever (v. 35).

This is not something He will do later after we have believed. It is present: he that believes "hath [now] everlasting life."

The soul that "eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me and I in him" and "shall live by me." Truly eating His flesh and drinking His blood means nothing less than believing on (trusting in) Him - which is the only way of "dwelling in Him, being indwelt by Him and living by Him" (v. 56, 57).

Jesus demonstrates further the oneness of eating the Bread of Life and believing on Him. He gives one and the same promise of eternal life to both:

The soul that comes to Him, He will "raise up at the last day" (v. 44). The soul that believes on Him "hath everlasting life" (v. 47). The soul that eats His flesh and drinks His blood "hath eternal life" (v. 54).

There is not more than one way to obtain eternal life. Eating and believing are inseparable as one and the same way to life eternal. Any outward act of eating which is not in reality "living by Him, dwelling in Him and being indwelt by Him," is simply not eating the Bread of Life at all. The promise of eternal life was not made to any such person.

The early church Fathers say this clearly and emphatically. In the words of St. Augustine, receiving the sacrament is not a carnal eating and drinking of Christ's body and blood with the mouth and throat, but a spiritual eating and drinking: "Prepare not thy jaws, but thy heart." "Why dost thou prepare thy belly and thy teeth? Believe, and thou hast eaten."

Cranmer shows at length that this was the mind of the Fathers in general from the beginning - Justin Martyr, St. Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, St. Cyprian, St. Athanasius, St. Cyril, St. Basil, St. Jerome, St. John Chrysostom, St. Ambrose and others. Transubstantiation is not in the Bible, and their teachings were not consistent with it. They taught that to understand the eating and drinking of Christ's body and blood carnally would kill the soul. The eating and drinking of bread and wine is an outward sign of the true inward spiritual feeding of the soul on Christ's body and blood by faith in Him. He truly dwells not in bread and wine but in the faithful receiver of the sacrament. This is exactly the teaching held by Anglicanism. Articles 28 & 29; BCP Catechism; Cranmer, Defence; Hooker, Laws.

The unscriptural notion of an objective conversion of the elements into Christ's body and blood runs into insurmountable difficulties. First, it pre-supposes, as did the men of Capernaum, that Christ meant a physical eating and drinking of His actual flesh and blood, and it offers a theoretical means of doing so. replaces that which the sacrament should signify - the spiritual reality of feeding on Christ and His death by faith - with an outward eating and drinking which is not the sign of this higher spiritual reality. Because the elements themselves are said to be Christ's actual body and blood, this falsely makes the physical eating of them to be the very eating of which Christ spoke and to which He promised eternal life. Thus it bypasses the spiritual feeding by faith, to which alone the promise is given. It would not preclude such spiritual feeding, but that is not needed for the sacrament to function.

The case of Judas illustrates the fatal flaw in that theory. He partook of the sacrament from Christ's own hand. Yet Christ called him "a devil" and "the son of perdition" (John 6:70, 17:12), showing without doubt that Judas is damned. Receiving what is said to be objectively Christ's flesh and blood must have given eternal life to Judas. Instead, it only hastened his condemnation. Christ's promise cannot be broken. Therefore, what Judas consumed was not Christ's body and blood, objectively or otherwise.

To say Judas consumed Christ's flesh and blood but that his lack of faith prevented the promise from taking effect, violates both the promise and transubstantiation itself.

Christ makes eating the Bread of Life the same as faith in Him. The two are not separate. There is no eating of the Bread of Life which is not at the same time faith in Him. If Judas lacked faith, by the very terms of Christ's promise he never ate the Bread of Life, even if he consumed the consecrated elements. To say otherwise would make the promise false.

St. Augustine confirms this. He confutes both the heretic and also the Christian whose life is contrary to his profession: "Neither of them eats the body of Christ" by receiving the sacrament, "although to the condemnation of his presumption he receive every day the sacrament of so high a matter." Eating means "not sacramentally but in deed," as if Christ should say, "he that dwelleth not in me and in whom I dwell not, let him not say or think that he eateth my body and drinketh my blood." As St. Cyprian puts it: eating is our dwelling in Him. The eating is a hunger and desire to dwell in Him. Without this, "none do eat of this Lamb." Article 29 agrees exactly.

To say that Judas ate the Bread of Life but lacked faith to reap the benefit, destroys also the theory of transubstantiation itself. The supposed conversion of the elements is said to have occurred objectively, yet it was powerless to confer its benefit on Judas. It would be a moot point to call such a conversion an objective fact if it depends on individual faith in order to be effective. Faith already has Christ's direct promise of eternal life, John 6:35 & 47, and needs no conversion of elements to obtain it. Therefore, regardless of whether the individual is saved or lost, an objective conversion of the elements accomplishes nothing. It is a theory, but has no effect and no relevance.

It is still more problematic to say that faith in Christ is not even necessary, and that the benefit of Christ's promise goes to all who simply go through the prescribed rite intending to do so and not resisting it - "ex opere operato", simply "by performing the act" (Council of Trent, Session 7, Canon 8, March 1547). Here again, the conversion of the elements could hardly be an objective fact if it is rendered ineffective by an individual's state of mind, as it is rendered immaterial by Christ's promise of eternal life to the faithful. More importantly, to say someone has eternal life by this minimal compliance with a prescribed ritual, unaffected by whether or not he "dwells in Christ" by faith and is indwelt by Him, conflicts with Christ's words and the teaching of the Fathers. Christ promised His ultimate gift of eternal life, not to those who only go through the Church's prescribed rites, but to all those - and to those only - who "dwell in him", i.e., who "feed on Him in their hearts by faith." BCP, 82 (1928), 256 (1662).

Christ corrected those who thought the feeding He spoke of was physical, and affirmed His spiritual meaning: "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing." John 6:63. He spoke of the wine He had just consecrated as "this fruit of the vine" (Matt. 26:28-29; Mark 14:24-25), thus excluding transubstantiation. St. Paul calls that which we eat in the Communion "this bread" (I Cor. 11:26), the breaking and eating of which is "the communion" of Christ's body (I Cor. 10:16).

Both of the above teachings - that the eating and drinking of Christ's flesh and blood are spiritual rather than physical, and that only the faithful, not those without faith, eat and drink His body and blood in the sacrament - are stated most succinctly in the Catechism: "The Body and Blood of Christ . . . are spiritually taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper." The Rev. Mr. John Keble, father of the Tractarian or Oxford Movement, used this same formula repeatedly in his sermons. Sermons for the Christian Year (London, 1885).

An associate of Keble, the Rev. Mr. John Henry Newman, converted to Rome only a dozen years after the Movement began. Shortly before he converted, he attempted to fit the Articles of Religion into current Roman teaching. Tract 90 (1841). His attempt overlooks the fact that Christ's promise of eternal life to all who eat and drink His flesh and blood renders moot Newman's philosophical argument about whether transubstantiation is possible. In the end, Newman seems to leave the argument, and adopts parts of the English Reformation doctrine in a statement clearly contrary to Roman doctrine. He openly admits that his is not a scholarly effort to learn the intent of the Articles but only to try to make them fit Roman teachings - which the Articles speak against. Accordingly, he ignores Cranmer's and Hooker's extensive analyses of transubstantiation based on scriptural and patristic authority. Their writings addressed what then was and still is the official Roman doctrine.

Keble's close associate, the Rev. Dr. Edward Pusey, finds unconvincing the Roman claim to have found support for transubstantiation in the early church Fathers. The Doctrine of the Real Presence as Contained in the Fathers (Oxford, 1855).

The problems presented by transubstantiation have troubled even its advocates. Shortly after it became official dogma in 1215, the Scholastics defined it in terms of Aristotle's system of thought. Yet some of the most prominent of them, notably John Duns Scotus, acknowledged that they did this only because it was official church doctrine, although it was not found in Scripture. They said they could expound Scripture more easily and plainly without that doctrine.

Cranmer in his Defence presents earnestly the true scriptural and catholic doctrine of this sacrament: "We ought not unreverently and unadvisedly to approach unto the meat of the Lord's table, as we do to other common meats and drinks, but with great fear and dread, lest we should come to that holy table unworthily, wherein is not only represented, but also spiritually given unto us, very Christ himself. ... "Every faithful Christian putteth the whole hope and trust of his redemption and salvation in that only sacrifice, which Christ made upon the cross, having his body there broken, and his blood there shed for the remission of [our] sins. And this great benefit of Christ the faithful man earnestly considereth in his mind, cheweth and digesteth it with the stomach of his heart, spiritually receiving Christ wholly into him, and giving again himself wholly unto Christ. "And this is the eating of Christ's flesh and drinking of His blood,... which none evil man nor member of the Devil can do." +

The Roots of the Continuing Church Movement Part II can be seen here:

http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=9192

The Roots of the Continuing Church Movement Part I can be seen here:

http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=6051

---Stephen Cooper is Editor of The SOJOURNER, Ascensiontide 2007. He is a member of The Church of the Redeemer, Anglican, Fairbanks, Alaska, a Continuing Anglican parish founded in 1980. Mr. Cooper is a layman and an attorney, federal prosecutor and former state District Attorney. He was National Chancellor of the American Episcopal Church (under Archbishop Anthony Clavier) from 1987-1988 and Chancellor of the Diocese of the West (AEC and ACA) 1986-1995 and Provincial Chancellor, Province of the West, ACA 1993-1996. He is author of "Reclaiming Our Heritage -- A Call to Return to the Original Mission of the Continuing Church.