Welcome to answers from an apostolic faith.
In name in Father and Son and the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen.
So, is eating the Eucharist, the body and blood of Christ, really essential for my salvation or is merely believing in Him enough for me to go to heaven? For us to answer this question, we have to go back to Adam and Eve. So, Adam and Eve, before they fell, before the original sin, they were living in love, in peace, in purity. They were naked, yet they were pure-minded. There was love: there was no lust; there was no sin.
But after they ate and they fell, they realized that they were naked and they covered themselves. And God came and asked Adam: Did you eat of the tree? And he said: It's the woman you gave me that tricked me into it. And Eve said: It's the serpent that tricked me into it. They were all blaming each other. There was disunity at that point, but there was unity before. And it continues: Cain and Abel. Cain kills Abel. And Cain was afraid that others would kill him. Something very deep happened in humanity. Corruption reigned in humanity.
So, sin led to corruption. It wasn’t just a matter of forgiveness of sins anymore. You had forgiveness of sins on one side, and on the other side, you had this corruption inside of humanity that required healing. So, God had to manage for this. So, His Grace Bishop Raphaël puts it beautifully in this fictional story and it goes something like this:
You have this father that walks in the kitchen and he tells his son: You see this bottle? Do you see this flask? This is full of poison. Do not drink from it. And he puts it on top of the fridge. Once the father is gone, the son says: My father is lying to me. This is juice and I'm thirsty. So, he takes it and he drinks. Since it's poison, he falls on the floor. He is sick. The father comes back. He sees the son on the floor. Of course, the father will forgive him. However, there's still poison inside that son that required healing and God had to deal with this.
And that's why, when this corruption, this poison inside of humanity was there, God had to give us the medicine to heal this corruption. Of course, this is a fictional story. God would never test us by giving us poison to drink or not to drink, but the idea is that He had to heal this corruption inside of us.
So, out of the Holy Trinity, the Son of God, the hypostatis, came down and was incarnate. And as you very well know, this incarnate Son of God was fully divine and fully human at the same time, and His divinity and His humanity were united together. The thing is the divinity is the source of life and that source of life gave His humanity, His flesh to also become the source of life.
So, when I eat the Eucharist, the body and the blood of Christ, I eat life. So, I have this corruption inside of me that will lead to death, but God gave me the antidote. He gave me life to eat. So, when I eat it, I regain life. And that's what God explains very thoroughly in John 6. Let's see. It says:
'' 53 Then Jesus said to them, ''Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. [You have no life, because you have death. Unless you eat it, you have no life.] 54 Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed.'' (John 6:53-55)
So, going back to the fictional story, imagine the father is also physician. He's a doctor. So, he sees his son, he grabs him and he runs to the hospital. And the son tells his dad: Dad, I believe in you and he tells him: Dad, forgive me my sin. So, the son has faith in his father. He repented. He confessed. But until he eats and he drinks of the medicine, he will still die. And that's how crucial the Eucharist is.
Now, I'm not discussing how are we saved, because salvation is much bigger than this, but how crucial, truly, the Eucharist is. Now, if I sin again and I sin every day, corruption is again inside of me, and therefore, I need to eat that life, that body and blood, again and again and again.
So, this is the correct understanding of the Eucharist the Church received from Christ from the beginning. This is also demonstrated in Church history and in the Church Fathers. We'll look at one quote from St. Justin Martyr. St. Justin is born in the year 100 and died in 165. So, we're talking about someone that lived in the beginning of the 2 nd century. Thinking about it, St. John the evangelist wrote his Gospel in the year 98 to 100. So, St. Justin came right after. Look what he says:
''And this food is called among us Eucaristia [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true [meaning he believes in God and the teachings of the Church], and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration [meaning he was baptized], and who is so living as Christ has enjoined [or instructed, meaning he's living as per Christ's commandments].
''For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these [meaning it's not just a symbol]; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Savior, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation [Christ was incarnate and had a body that was made of flesh and blood], so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word [the liturgy], and from which our blood
and flesh by transmutation are nourished [so, we eat of it], is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.'' (St. Justin Martyr, First Apology, 1, 62)
It is exactly the same body and blood Christ had on earth.
Remember: Know your faith, live your faith, and teach your faith. And glory be to God forever. Amen.