Roman Catholics are quick to point to Matthew 26:26 and John 6:53–57 as scriptural proof for transubstantiation. Many argue that Evangelicals are being inconsistent with their own hermeneutical principles of a literal interpretation of the Bible when they do not allow Jesus to mean what He said when he took the bread in his hand and said, "this is my body" (Matt 26:26). The problem with this line of reasoning is that it misses the fundamental point of Protestant interpretation in that we are not hyper-realists, but that we actually allow for authorial intent and permit the verses to be read and interpreted in their own context. Just as we do not call for a literal interpretation of phrases such as, "I am the living bread" (John 6:51), "I am the light of the world" (John 8:12), "I am the door" (John 10:9), "I am the good shepherd" (John 10:11), and "I am the true vine" (John 15:1), we allow Jesus to use metaphors when talking to His disciples. No serious exegete would dare suggest that Jesus was to be taken literally in the above passages, yet some then turn around and insist that Matthew 26:26 and John 6 be taken in the sense that the bread is actually the body of Christ and the wine is the actual blood of Jesus.

Imagine the confusion that would have come over the apostles if they themselves believed Jesus to be holding His own body and drinking His own blood. The lack of confusion should demonstrate that they understood the bread and wine to be symbolic of Christ. The apostles would have naturally assumed Jesus’ words were not to be taken literally, just as we do not take the words of others literally when they are spoken of in a context that demands a symbolic interpretation in order to make any sense at all.

On the night of May 2, 1863 at the Battle of Chancellorsville, Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson was mistakenly shot in the arm by his own men. Jackson was taken to a safe place behind enemy lines to recuperate. Round-the-clock care was administered to the wounded General, but insufficient medical treatment cost Jackson his left arm. The Presbyterian General’s chaplain, B. Tucker Lacy, recounted the loss to General Robert E. Lee who replied, "He has lost his left arm, but I have lost my right arm." Clearly the context leaves little room for doubt that General Lee simply meant he lost a valuable soldier and friend, not that he literally lost his right limb from the tragic news. In like manner, the passages alluded to are little evidence to support the idea that Jesus’ audience would have interpreted His words in a literal manner, because a literal manner would not be a clear manner. That is, the literal interpretation of the bread and wine transubstantiating into the body and blood of Christ creates more confusion and misunderstanding than would a different, more plausible, interpretation of the text.

One practical problem with a hyper-literal interpretation of Jesus’ words is that it contradicts the Councils of Chalcedon and Ephesus. Those councils combined opposed the heresies of Apollinarianism, Monophysitism, and Nestorianism—heresies which taught a singular nature of Christ, with the latter teaching that Christ is two persons. However, the councils affirmed the dual natures of Christ, that being His human nature and His divine nature. The councils openly rejected any attempt to deify the humanity of Christ. Augustine echoed the decisions of the councils when he wrote: "Since, then, Christ is God and man…we must take account of both these nature in Him…When we say that Christ is the Son of God we do not separate His humanity from Him, nor when we say that the same Christ is the Son of man do we lose sight of His divinity. For, as man He was on earth, not in heaven where He is now…we are not to think that He is everywhere present. We must beware of so building up the divinity of the man that we destroy the reality of His body."

Yet, the reality of the doctrine of transubstantiation is that it remains at open variance to the conclusions reached at the fifth century ecumenical councils. In the Eucharist, the human nature of Christ is deified and presented with the attribute of omnipresence. Hundreds of thousands of churches worldwide celebrate the sacrifice, many of which are at the same time, so Christ is corporeally present in a church in South America at the same time He is said to be present is Europe, Asia, North America, or anywhere else the Mass is celebrated. The point of the councils was to deny the idea that Jesus’ physical body could be in more than one place at a time—the very notion the Eucharist demands.

So how, then, are the words of Jesus to be interpreted? What did He intend His hearers to believe when they heard Him say, "this is my body" (Matt 26:26) and, "Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life" (John 6:53)? It must first be pointed out that John 6 transpired before the institution of the Eucharist in the synoptics, so the disciples would have remembered back to these words following the feeding of the five thousand when Jesus said, "this is my body". The Eucharist, therefore, must be seen in the context of being interpreted in light of John 6 and not the other way around.

Remember that on the day following the miracle of the feeding of five thousand the people were comparing the work of Jesus with the provisions given to Israel when in the wilderness. Beginning in verse thirty-two of chapter six, Jesus tells His listener’s that they needed the "true bread from heaven". Unsure what this "true bread" was, the crowd demanded that He give them some to which Jesus responded, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst" (John 6:35). The crowd understood that Moses provided provision for physical sustainment, but here, Jesus was attempting to tell the crowd He provides the necessity for eternal life through the analogy of bread—the very thing that proved to be at the forefront of their minds.

"Eating" and "drinking" are synonymous with "coming" and "believing" in Him. This is evident in the words of Jesus when He says, "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life" (John 6:47). This belief = eternal life equation is followed up with, "I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die" (John 6:48–50). Jesus equated "belief" in verse 47 with "eternal life" in verses 48–50. This truism is demonstrated again just one verse later when Jesus again uses the analogy of bread to convey spiritual truths of eternal consequences. "I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh" (John 6:51). Physical food gives nothing more than physical life, whereas heavenly bread gives spiritual life—life that does not end.

We would also do well to remember another metaphor Jesus found useful when attempting to convey such weighty matters. Just two chapter earlier, the story is recorded of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well. We read: "A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink.’ (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?’ (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water’" (John 4:7–15).

The similarities in this passage to John 6 are striking. Jesus was using the interest of His hearers in each case and presented the gospel in each situation. In the case of the woman at the well, she was interested in physical water, but Jesus told her about the living water. After the feeding of the five thousand, the crowd was interested in physical bread, but Jesus introduced them to the living bread. In both instances, His hearers mistakenly took the metaphor literally, which created confusion and made no sense out of the message. Rome tells us that we must interpret John 6 literally, but they fail to demand the same standard be applied to John 4. If the Roman Catholic applied a standard method of exegesis, then he has no basis for rejecting a literal interpretation of drinking physical water in John 4 in order to gain eternal life

Returning, now, to the Last Supper. The apostles had just celebrated the Passover, a meal that was steeped in symbolism. Each item present on the table was a reminder of some greater truth and a remembrance of the escape from Egypt. The entire context of the final gathering before the crucifixion illustrated deliverance by the hand of God. So when Jesus takes the bread and says, "this is my body," the apostles know they have heard this metaphor before. They remember back to the aftermath of the feeding of the five thousand when Jesus proclaimed that He was the living bread that gives eternal life over against the manna that only sustained the Israelites for a short period. No one in that upper room was confused about what He meant. No one looked around in disbelief at His words, because they understood what He meant. Surely no one would seriously argue that Jesus had just transubstantiated the bread into the same substance that stood before His disciples. And after those words He said that the wine was His blood, the blood of a new covenant, blood that would be understood to be significant just as it had always been. The audience that night recognized what blood means. They would have understood it against the backdrop of a sacrifice, how blood was sprinkled upon the people to ratify a covenant, in the same manner it had been done centuries previous. The blood that Jesus was referring to was the blood shed for the new covenant, from a sacrificial victim. At this time, however, no one had died so it is preposterous to think the blood to which Jesus was referring was actually His blood.

Christ used the elements directly before Him as He done on previous occasions. The bread was symbolic of His broken body and wine represented the blood of the New Covenant. These symbols pointed towards the great Sacrifice that He was about to make on behalf of His people. The Cross was still in the future when He uttered those words; His body was not yet broken, and His blood had yet to be shed. The entire event pointed the apostles towards the reality of the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ Jesus and our completed redemption in and through the atoning work of our Savior at Calvary.