Catholics and others believe the bread, when blessed, becomes the actual body of Christ.  But there is one problem, the Greek text (and even the Latin).  

In Matt 26:26, Mark 14:22, Luke 22:19 and 1 Cor 11:24, the words “this is my body” in the Greek have important traits that contradict this belief.  Here is the Greek, rather literally in English:

"This (speaking of the bread) of-me is (pin, at any present time) the body on behalf of you .."

First, the operative word “is”, is a verb in the present indicative active 3rd person singular, in the underlying Greek. So it means “at any present time, solely, and from the perspective of a third person”.  The word in the Greek comes from the root word (eimi), which means “to be or to exist”.  So it is a state of being at any present time, not a process, and if it is not a process, then blessing the bread does not transform it into anything.

Thus, in theory, either the bread is, at any present time, literally the body of Christ, or is at any present time, symbolically the body of Christ.  Again, there is no transformation in a verb that is only in the “at any present time” state of its being.

Now the doctrine of transubstantiation says that while the elements of bread and wine still look like those things, they are miraculously changed into the literal body and blood of Christ with the blessing of them.  But the Greek does use a verb in a tense that indicates a temporal transformation takes place, but rather it is always “at any present time” the body of Christ.

Stated more emphatically, the Greek verb tense for the word "is" indicates a relationship between the bread and the body of Christ that has no temporal significance, which reinforces the idea that no transformation takes place with the blessing of the bread and wine.  It is only in a temporal situation that a transformation can take place, that is, at first the bread is literally only bread and then with the passing of time, after the blessing is said, the bread is now literally the body of Christ.  However, the Greek does not show a transformation took place, since the verb is the “be” verb and applies only “at any present time,” that it is, it is a state of being, not a process of change, so it is not temporal.  Hence, transubstantiation cannot take place.

To illustrate further, let us look at 2 Peter 1:17 and ask if the verb “is” indicates a transformation of Jesus into the Son of God, or that Jesus always has and always will be the Son of God?  The answer is, there is no temporal transformation, but rather Jesus' state of being is “at any present time” the Son of God.

"This is (pin, at any present time) the son of-me the beloved ..." (literal Greek in English)

So then, is the bread and wine always literally the body and blood of Christ at any present time, or is it only symbolically that, and it never undergoes any transformation based on the Greek verb used?  It only makes sense that it is not at any present time literally the body of Christ, but can at any present time be symbolically the body of Christ, without any transformation required, since any "transformation" only occurs in one's mind, not literally in the bread and the wine, and thus is a symbolic status only.

But to exercise our minds a bit more, suppose transubstantiation were true.  Then what Greek verbs could work?  Well, ones with temporal meaning would work.  Some of those temporal verbs could be:

  • aorist (something happened at some time in the past that resulted in the current state of something)

  • perfect (some action took place, absolutely resulting in the new state of something)

  • subjunctive (some condition is met, resulting in an outcome)

As we can see, none of these verbs are used to describe the relationship of the bread to the body of Christ, and thus transubstantiation is not real.  But if they were used to make transubstantiation real, then the English might read like this:

  • “This bread is now become my body.” (“is” in the aorist)

  • “By blessing the bread it is now my body.” (“is” in the perfect tense)

  • “Because it was blessed, it is literally my body.” (“is” in the subjunctive)

Next, in 1 Corinthians 11:27-29, the noun "bread", in the underlying Greek, is in the masculine, while the noun "body" is in the neuter. If the bread was transformed from ordinary bread into the literal body of Christ, then "bread" would have been put in the neuter, just like "body" is. (BTW, when "bread" is in the masculine it means it is tangible, but the "body" being in the neuter indicates it is neither or necessarily tangible and intangible, such as the parts of the body that one can and cannot see or touch.)

It also turns out that in all the other places the bread and body are mentioned with respect to communion, "bread" is in the masculine and the "body" in the neuter. So all the verses on communion concur with this.

Finally, in Luke 22:19 and 1 Cor 11:24-25, the purposes of consuming the bread and the wine is described, namely as a remembrance, that is, to recollect that Jesus' body was broken for us (just as the bread is symbolically broken) and that His blood was shed for us (just as a cup can symbolically pour out blood).  There is no "Real Presence" as a reason for the consumption and there is no literal consumption of the body and blood of Christ.

CONCLUSION

Does the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ in the literal or the symbolic sense?  Looking at the Greek, it only becomes the body and blood of Christ in the symbolic sense.  The symbolic sense, is a case where no literal transformation has taken place, which is what a present indicative active verb indicates and also, the nouns "bread" and "body" are not even in the same gender, so the "bread" cannot be literally transformed into the "body" of Christ. And if the bread is not transformed, neither is the wine.  So, of course, the scripture tell us to have communion for the purpose of remembering that Jesus body was broken for us and His blood shed to forgive us of all of our sins.

FUTHER CONSIDERATION: EXAMPLES FROM SCRIPTURE OF LITERAL TRANSFORMATIONS

In the Greek, had the bread and wine become the literal body and blood of Christ, then, as described above, it would be necessary for the Greek to say so using an aorist, perfect or subjunctive verb to indicate that ordinary bread and wine had been transformed into Jesus' body and blood.  To see how this works, here are some examples of literal temporal transformations using Greek verbs in the Bible.

"And when he had thus spoken, he took bread and gave thanks to God in presence of them all; and when he had broken it, he began to eat." (Acts 27:25, Jubillee 2000)

In the above verse, there are two cases of active aorist participle in the underlying Greek.. First, "had spoken" is a temporal transformation from speaking to not speaking any longer, and second, when Paul "took" the bread, it was a temporal transformation from not holding any bread to holding bread in his hands.  In both cases, the transformations were literal.


 "And Jesus having seen her, did call her near, and said to her, `Woman, thou hast been loosed from thy infirmity;' " (Luke 13:12, Young's Literal)

In the above verse, "hast been loosed" is in the underlying Greek in the perfect indicative passive, in which case, a temporal tranformation took place where the woman went from being overpowered by her illness, to where she was made healthy, in a very literal sense, by the power of God.

"And the Jews’ passover was nigh at hand: and many went out of the country up to Jerusalem before the passover, to purify themselves." (John 11:55, AKJV)

In the above verse, "purify" is in the aorist subjunctive active. As such, it indicates that a result is the product of a condition that has to be met first.  In this case, the underlying Greek indicates that these Jews had to go to Jerusalem and perform the purification ceremony, and in doing so, the temporal transformation from unclean to purified would take place within their bodies, in a very literal sense, by the power of God.

It is hoped that the reader can understand now, that to describe the bread and wine as literally the body and blood of Christ using a verb that is in the present indicative active is insufficient to indicate there was any kind of literal temporal transformation, since a verb indicating literal temporal transformation is not used in any of the verses describing communion.
Response to  John 6:53-57
In this passage we read: "Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; ..."

This is another case where the Greek must be understood.  Both the noun "flesh" and "blood" are in the feminine.  One of the feminine traits is that of being "intangible".  So right away we know we do not have to eat the actual body of Christ or act like vampires and consume his literal blood.  Thus we must eat His flesh and drink His blood, symbolically or figuratively.  Well, there are two ways to do that:

(1) symbolically: eat his flesh and blood by consuming the bread and the blood
(2) figuratively: live our lives continuously, as if our own bodies are broken and our own blood spilt (which, BTW, is the result of coming to have eternal life)

The point is, there is nothing literal in anything that is intangible (feminine in the Greek).

Next, the verbs "eateth", "drinketh" and "hath" are, in the Greek, in the present active participle. That means, in the Greek, these verbs are continuous (no interruptions), therefore, unless one eats the flesh and drinks the blood without interruption, one cannot have eternal life.  What???

Well we already know we cannot consume the flesh and the blood 24x7, either literally symbolically, so that rules out communion as a means to salvation.  However, we can live 24x7 the way Christ died, with broken bodies and spilt blood, figuratively speaking.  But the verb is in the continuous tense, so how do we do that, since we know no Christian has ever lived such a perfect life?  The issue is, that is a human, not a spiritual viewpoint.  In our flesh, as Paul put it, "we serve the law of sin", but in our mind "the law of God". (See Romans 7:25.)  The spiritual viewpoint is to observe what happens in our Spirit-filled mind, not only our outward fleshly behavior.

You see, the born of God Christian cannot sin in the Spirit-filled mind (1 John 3:9) and does perpetually, figuratively speaking, eat the flesh and drink the blood of Jesus by the way the Spirit within works to cause us to live with broken bodies and split blood.  The Spirit works in our minds 24x7, no matter how much the flesh conforms or not to that Spirit.  The 24x7 work of the Spirit is intangible, which concurs with the intangible/feminine nouns in the passage.  

(There are, of course, tangible manifestations of the Spirit in the life we live in our bodies, but they are not ever 24x7, since the flesh interferes, however much that it does.)

In summary, the underlying Greek shows that the concept of claiming that eating and drinking the bread and the wine as the literal body and blood of Christ as a means to salvation is false, and further, that even symbolically, it cannot be achieved 24x7, as the text would seem to require.  Therefore, this passage is to be taken figuratively, only, keeping in mind that anything that is 24x7 is achieved by the Spirit in us, not our fleshly efforts, and this alone satisfies the requirement that "Whoso eateth [continuously] my flesh, and drinketh [continuously] my blood, hath [continuoualy] eternal life; ..."

The figurative application, as described above, also satisfies the requirement in this passage that says, "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you."