DNA and Holy Communion

In the late afternoon on December 25, 1972, I knelt beside my bunk. The sun was setting outside the barracks window. I told God I believed Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, and I would follow Him for the rest of my life.

I didn’t know it then – I knew nothing of theology – but at that moment the Holy Spirit made me a new creature in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Now here's the point:

If you’d run a DNA test of my blood on December 24, and then repeated the text on December 26, my DNA would have been identical. Even though God tells us through the apostle Paul that I was a NEW creation, medical science would not have been able to prove that to be the case. Nonetheless, on December 25, I became a new creation. I know it is so because God said it was so.

Likewise, if you’d subject the ordinary wafer and wine used for Holy Communion to scientific testing before priestly consecration and after consecration, you would discover the wafer is and remains simple cellulose and the wine simple fermented grapes and water.

But that would NOT merely be what it was after consecration. It would, in fact, be the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. We know that to be true because Jesus said it was true (e.g. Luke 22:19-20, etc.).

Christians acknowledge our new creation in Christ, even if our DNA remains as it was before our consecration to Messiah Jesus. I wonder, then, why is it difficult for so many Christians to acknowledge the bread and wine becomes what Jesus said it becomes, even if it still tastes like ordinary bread and wine?