What's the deal with bread and wine?

I've grown up in a specific Christian heritage that views the elements of the Lord's Supper [or Communion] as physical symbols of a spiritual reality. I wholeheartedly agree with that view, and believe it to be Biblical. I live in a place where most disagree with me. They view the elements [bread and juice or wine] as physically the body and blood of Jesus. Coupled with this is a belief that taking communion is accepting the body and blood [the sacrifice] of Jesus and assures salvation. Dangerous ground to be treadding? Why?

1. Ephesians 2:8: For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.
Salvation, then, is only by God's grace - which is represented in the Lord's supper - through faith. Faith in what? Faith in Christ: back up to Ephesians 2:6-7 and we see that we are seated with God in Christ Jesus in the heavenly realms, which is totally gracious. And ultimately this grace is in Christ Jesus: v. 7 reads "in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. The grace is expressed in Christ, the means of Grace is Christ, the object of faith, then, is Christ.

2. Okay, so Jesus is our salvation, He brings us to God, by His death and ressurection [I Peter 3:18]. So what is the Lord's Supper? Matthew, Mark, and Luke all have written record of the Last Supper, which is the model for the Lord's supper. Jesus takes bread, gives thanks, and breaks it - passing it out - saying "this is my body, given for you." and with the wine he says "this is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you." The bread and the wine represent the sacrifice Jesus would [and now has] complete[d]. The Passover, which they were celebrating, was the time when the Passover lamb was sacrificed. The religious people all celebrated the passover, but they did not eat THE passover lamb, but representations of the lamb. They celebrated God's forgiveness and looked forward to the completion of the the sacrifice, which was completed in Jesus. So now, we look back in the Lord's supper to what Jesus has completed on the cross and in resurrection. Hence, Luke records Jesus saying "do this in remembrance of me." [22:19] The Lord's Supper, then, is a visual picture to remind the believer of what Jesus has done. The Bible does handle the subject in the Epistles as well. See "The Fundamental Significance of the Lord's Supper" by B.B. Warfield for more info. Check it at google.com.

3. Is the bread body and the wine blood? Jesus gives a hint of this himself: Matt. 26:29, and Luke 22:18 - He, Jesus, will not drink the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes. So Jesus saw the wine as wine. Moreover, would Jesus need His own blood to enter the kingdom? Is He not God incarnate? Why would Jesus need blood, he lived perfectly and it's only by His blood that we have entrance. Jesus' view was that the bread and wine were representations. In Luke 22:16 he says "I will not eat it [bread] again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God." Jesus, again, does not need His own body for salvation. He purchases and gives salvation because it's His. So he must be saying that the bread is physically bread, representing His body.

4. The Epistles reiterate that the Lord's Supper is in remembrance: I Corin. 11:24. There is a serious tone regarding the Lord's supper in Paul's 1st letter to the Corinthians, but it is about the spiritual nature. Taking the Lord's supper without thinking on Christ is judgment - there are no benefits without the requirements. The requirement is Christ and the benefit is the spiritual blessings, eternal life, God Himself, and the joy of the Lord's Supper. The Lord's Supper is a physical picture of a spiritual reality [and the physical reality of the death of Christ - I Corin. 11:26, but it is a proclaimation of His death, not participation in it by eating the body or by eating the bread. It is proclaimed in the Lord's supper, and Christ's death is participated in by faith, just as His resurrection is joined by faith.]
4a. The wine represents the new covenant more than the blood. "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me." I Corin. 11:25. The new covenant supercedes the covenant of the passover. In the Last Supper, the passover was completed and the new covenant commenced, and we celebrate it in the Lord's Supper today. The new covenant commenced with the death and resurrection of Jesus. We look back to that historical point in faith for our salvation, and the Lord's Supper points us that way. It doesn't save us, but it points to the Savior.

5. Also in Corinthians, Paul remarked that the church was gathering for the Lord's supper, but weren't really taking it: their spirits were wrong before God. Evidence of this was in the church's fight to be first at the table and getting drunk at the Lord's supper. Wine causes drunkeness, not blood. Spiritually, the Corinthians were not examining themselves and confessing sins and trusting Christ on the cross and celebrating in the Lord's supper - they were missing it's purpose. They took it to excess, and made a mockery of it. The Lord's supper is a valuable tool toward sanctification in the Christian's life.