The Last Supper

At the last supper, Jesus taught that the bread and wine which He consecrated was His body and His blood and He told His followers to partake of them in remembrance of Him. He did not say that these elements were symbols of His blood and body but that they were essentially the same substance and life as His body. This also has been the teaching of the church, as interpreted by the Council of Trent: "Under each species and under each particle of each species Christ is contained whole and entire." This is the doctrine of transubstantiation, that the consecration by the minister of bread and wine changes the material elements to Christ elements without affecting their appearance.

This doctrine has been attacked both within and without the church, the majority of ministers and laymen accepting it on faith as in some way related to the miraculous. But the discoveries of the elemental character of matter by modern science is revealing the universal unity of substance and the possibility of its transformation from one thing to another by changing the number and arrangement of the electrons in the atom.

According to modern science, this whole universe of forms can be dissolved into energy, from which it may again be formed. Science does not say that the directive and formative power is man, but the Bible so teaches and especially Jesus. Jesus said that all power was given unto Him in heaven and in earth. He manifested His power in a small way by multiplying a few loaves and fishes to feed more than five thousand persons. In various other instances, He demonstrated that He had an understanding of the transmutation of substance. He raised His flesh body to an energy

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level far higher in potential life and substance than any reached before.

As a race, we have for ages been deprived in our consciousness of union with our creative source, and the result has been a gradual decrease in vitality until our body has lost the ability to hold its atoms together and, consequently, has disintegrated. Thus, death has come to be accepted as in some mysterious way a part of the divine plan. Here again, certain biological experiments with cells prove them to be possessed of an ability to reproduce themselves, which at least hints at physical immortality.

There are in the world today men and women who have followed the teaching of Jesus and have developed in their bodies a superenergy or life that not only permeates the physical structure but envelops it in a luminous aura that can be and is felt by both themselves and others. Spirit reveals that spiritual thinking breaks open the physical cells and atoms and releases their imprisoned life, which originally came from Divine Mind. Jesus carried this process so far that His whole body was transformed and became a conscious part of the Father life and intelligence.

In this way, the substance and life of Jesus' body became a connecting link between our body and the body of God. Jesus merged His consciousness with the race consciousness and made Himself subject to our shortcomings in order to lift us up to spiritual life. This is the secret of our Saviour's great sacrifice and sin offering.

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Preceding Entry: The Household of Faith 273-274: Jesus Christ
Following Entry: The Household of Faith 277-284: Attaining Eternal Life