There is a clip going around of the well known Evangelical Francis Chan saying that for the first 1,500 years of the Church, the unanimous belief was that the Eucharist was the body and blood of Jesus Christ. I want to say that I don’t agree that it was unanimous. It was about 95% but still a strong majority. When Protestants start to read the Church Fathers their jaw drops at the early view of the Eucharist. They clearly viewed it as the body and blood of Christ and Francis Chan sees that.
I’ve been following the work of James White for over ten years. The guy is smart. Even though I don’t accept Sola Fide as a doctrine I’ll concede that he gives a great defense of it in his book The God Who Justifies. He’s also really good at defending essential doctrines like the Trinity.
However, when it comes to church history White is stumped. I know that he’s read a lot but I don’t think he’s understood it fully. There is no place for White’s beliefs in the early church. His views of the Eucharist, baptism, justification, church government, and eternal security cannot simply be found in the first thousand years and to be honest closer to 1,500 years.
White in his response to Jay Dyer said that the reformers believed that they were returning to the early church. I’ll grant that to the reformers as they did believe that. What I won’t grant is that they resembled anything like the early church. He said that Calvin’s Institutes are full of quotes from the church fathers. He’s right, they are, but so are all of the medieval scholastic writings that White loathes. Take someone like St. Bernard of Clairvaux for example who was just before the scholastic period. His writings are full of quotes from people like St. Augustine and many others. Does White think that these medieval men carried on the tradition of the early church? Not at all.
White can’t stand what the early Church believed about the Eucharist. He tries to say that St. Augustine didn’t have the Catholic view of the Eucharist which is laughable. The truth is that the vast majority of the early church believed in a real presence Eucharistic sacrifice. That is why the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox churches all believe in a real presence Eucharistic sacrifice to this day. The Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches can both challenge the Catholic church by claiming that they are the true Church of Christ. Of course, all three of these groups have been engaged in dialogue for the last 50 years. The Eucharist is never brought up. Instead the debate issues are papal authority, the filioque, the immaculate conception, and Christology(in the case of the Orientals).
James White seems to have respect for the Council of Nicaea and St. Athanasius. Well, this is what the Council of Nicaea says about the Eucharist in Canon 18:
It has come to the attention of this holy and great synod that in some places and cities deacons give communion to presbyters, although neither canon nor custom allows this, namely that those who have no authority to offer should give the body of Christ to those who do offer. Moreover it has become known that some of the deacons now receive the eucharist even before the bishops. All these practices must be suppressed. Deacons must remain within their own limits, knowing that they are the ministers of the bishop and subordinate to the presbyters. Let them receive the eucharist according to their order after the presbyters from the hands of the bishop or the presbyter. Nor shall permission be given for the deacons to sit among the presbyters, for such an arrangement is contrary to the canon and to rank. If anyone refuses to comply even after these decrees, he is to be suspended from the diaconate.
Remember, this council was signed by over 300 bishops; it’s not some lone voice. James White’s theology simply cannot allow him to accept the fact that the vast majority(about 95%) of the early church fathers believed in a real presence Eucharistic sacrifice. This is because it would nullify the gospel. When I say gospel I refer to the gospel of James White, not the Gospel of church history or the scriptures. If the early church believed in the real presence Eucharistic sacrifice it means that the gates of Hades have prevailed against the Church if you accept White’s theology. Luckily we don’t have to.
At the end of the section on Francis Chan he recommended that everyone read Nick Needham and a couple other Protestant historians. I’m just going to say to read primary sources. Read St. Augustine. Read St. Athanasius. Read the canons of the Ecumenical Councils. Read every church father that you can. I want everyone to read them. Why read modern Protestants on the early church when the early church fathers are available to read?
In 1999 James White did a debate with Robert Sungenis on the Mass. I encourage everyone to watch this debate. Ask yourself, who is quoting more church fathers and who is quoting more modern(and Protestant) historians? I’ll let you watch the debate and decide.
John 6 v 63 The flesh availeth nothing. So why would Christ institute a ritual that involves eating flesh. Its because tradition and religion like it that way it has nothing to do with scripture. If people really rightly divided the word of truth and accepted that the only Gospel that saves gentiles today is the Gospel of the mystery given to Paul by the risen and ascended Christ as per Romans 16 v 25 then the world would be a better place.
The Gospel is found in 1 Corinthians 15 v 1-4 and Ephesians 1 v 13. There is no eating a wafer and wine, no water baptism, no confession of sin no being in right standing with the pope . It is a very clear and simple Gospel because God wants all men saved if possible.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a Zwinglian on our hands!
” Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
– John 6:54
“The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life.”
– John 6:63
It seems like a contradiction but it’s not. Eating the flesh and blood gives you eternal life but it profits nothing? WHAT?? However, you notice he doesn’t say MY flesh in verse 63 like he does in 54. In verse 63 he’s talking about the flesh in the same sense as Galatians 5:19 which reads:
“The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery;”
Another proof that he’s talking about a different flesh is that he no longer accompanies it with the word blood like he did in the 50s.
God bless,
Allan
As Allan says below, in v63 Christ switches from saying “my flesh” to “the flesh”. This is because in v63 he’s no longer referring to his divine flesh, but to our frail, concupiscent, error-prone human flesh.
If you think Christ is still referring to his divine flesh in v63 when he says, “The flesh availeth nothing” then you’re saying his fleshy incarnation, his fleshy suffering and bleeding, and his fleshy death on the Cross all availed nothing. And if you believe that, you’ve completely underminded the linchpin of Christanity.
Could you compile a list of quotes or links to such which cite all the major fathers from east and west before and up to Augustine on the eucharist? I want such quotes for my benefit so I can bring them up when I discuss them.
That would be hard to do. Do you have Sungenis’ book Not by Bread Alone? He has an extensive list of Church Fathers quotes on the Eucharist.
It’s in a box put in storage in Illinois, thanks to my ex-wife. And so I have no access to it.
Sorry to hear that man. In my opinion it’s the best book of his “Alone” trilogy. I hope that you get it back soon.