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Church Life: AD 150  /  Communion  /  Discussion Questions
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Question 7
Bercot says the only ancient group he knows who denied the Eucharist as Christ’s flesh were the Gnostics, because they believed God couldn’t use the material world for salvation; in what specific ways can anti-Catholic overreaction (his word) start to resemble that Gnostic instinct today, even in churches that claim to be “Bible-believing”?
Another way to ask: Bercot says the only ancient group that denied the Eucharist was Christ’s flesh were the Gnostics, who thought God couldn’t work through material things. How can an anti-Catholic overreaction today start to sound like that, even in churches that call themselves “Bible-believing”?

Direct Answer

Bercot warns that some “Bible-believing” Protestants can resemble the Gnostic instinct when, reacting against Roman Catholic abuses, they refuse to believe God can use physical creation (bread, wine, water) as a real means of grace and reduce communion to “nothing but a symbol.” This overreaction pushes salvation and God’s work into an “all spiritual plane” that rejects material channels.

Support from Transcript:

  • He says no one “in the church” taught pure symbolism; the only deniers he knows were “a group outside the church…the Gnostics.”
  • Gnostics rejected communion’s reality because material things “cannot in any way…be used by God to affect man’s salvation.”
  • He says some non-Catholics go “almost to that same extreme” after reacting to Rome’s errors.
  • He describes Rome’s abuses (monstrance, miracles, waving it over people, bowing, fear of spilling, withholding the cup), which triggered a reaction.
  • He explicitly ties overreaction to Zwingli: “It’s all symbolic…predominant view among Bible believing Christians today.”
Discussion Follow-ups

Where do you see your church assuming that if something involves physical matter it must be superstition? How can you reject Roman Catholic abuses without rejecting the idea that God works through His creation?

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