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10gr8kids
Guest
I’m lost again, I guess. I agree that Jesus is present both spiritually and physically in the Eucharist. Does symbol mean the same as spiritual? I didn’t think so.
Catholic Apologists and the Greek Word Trogo (“Eat my flesh” John 6)
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juliamajor
Guest
Protestant take on scriptureI’m lost again, I guess. I agree that Jesus is present both spiritually and physically in the Eucharist. Does symbol mean the same as spiritual? I didn’t think so.
Is either or example .Mary is the mother of Jesus - so she can not be the mother of God.
Catholic take
Is both/and.
Mary is both the mother of Jesus and since Jesus is God that makes her Mother of God!
It is a deeper reading of scripture, practiced by the Jewish people and church fathers and now us.
If scripture only held one meaning for each verse, we’d be through reading it shortly.everybody draws meanings out of it consciously or no.we all interpret scripture. As long as it doesn’t contradict the magisterium you are ok. No matter what some think , the church doesn’t have a huge book with every verse of the bible explained.the guidance is what the magisterium has given us.
As for as physical / spiritual.sacraments are outer signs of invisible grace. To be efficacious sacraments need physical actions and words in order to bring about grace. So physical actions do not preclude spiritual realities. So a Sacrament is a both physical and spiritual. Why ?because humans are spiritual and physical. The Lord knows that.
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10gr8kids
Guest
Yes, I agree with this Juliamajor. However Marcos accused Catholics of thinking “spiritual= symbolic, lacking reality”. We don’t believe this, and I was pointing out Marcos was the one who has said he thought the wafer was just symbolic, or lacking reality, his definition.
Anyhow, I’m still wondering what Marcos meant when he said Catholics think spiritual=symbolic
Anyhow, I’m still wondering what Marcos meant when he said Catholics think spiritual=symbolic
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juliamajor
Guest
Since he never defines anything your guess is as good as mine:shrug:
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Robyn_p
Guest
So are you saying you believe Jesus is present spiritually in the Eucharist? If so, what does that mean? Do you believe the bread really is Him, and we just don’t see Him? (because spirit is invisible) Or do you believe the host just represents him?When Chistians say, spiritual, in most contexts they mean non-physical, but a spiritual reality; Very real.
But most catholics get it wrong, they think: spiritual= symbolic, lacking reality. So once for all get it right.
I think the issue here is we are kind of talking on two different planes. You see the physical and spiritual as mutually exclusive. Since Christ was talking about feeding us in a spiritual way, there must be no physical element involved. But this is actually a gnostic idea, not a Christian one.
Catholics believe that our bodies and souls are intimately connected. We are not disembodied spirits. What happens to the body affects the soul and vice versa. That’s why Christ instituted the Eucharist for us. Because he knew that, he created us that way. He wants to completely feed us. To be completely united to us. Body AND soul. And that’s exactly what happens in the Eucharist. We unite our ENTIRE selves, not just our minds, not just our souls, but our bodies too, to Christ.
There doesn’t have to be a divide between spirit and matter anymore. That’s what the Incarnation changed for us.
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Marcos100
Guest
The Jews didnt like and didnt believed Jesus statement “I come from heaven” 6:41, so Jesus told " what if you see me ascending to heaven, will you believe? V.62 He was telling them. Dont you understand that I will return with my whole body to heaven. I wasnt talking literally, I wont end up in your stomachs!! Dont ylu get it yet? Ill come back to heaven complete but the Jews didnt undersrand this clarification either.So are you saying you believe Jesus is present spiritually in the Eucharist? If so, what does that mean? Do you believe the bread really is Him, and we just don’t see Him? (because spirit is invisible) Or do you believe the host just represents him?
I think the issue here is we are kind of talking on two different planes. You see the physical and spiritual as mutually exclusive. Since Christ was talking about feeding us in a spiritual way, there must be no physical element involved. But this is actually a gnostic idea, not a Christian one.
Catholics believe that our bodies and souls are intimately connected. We are not disembodied spirits. What happens to the body affects the soul and vice versa. That’s why Christ instituted the Eucharist for us. Because he knew that, he created us that way. He wants to completely feed us. To be completely united to us. Body AND soul. And that’s exactly what happens in the Eucharist. We unite our ENTIRE selves, not just our minds, not just our souls, but our bodies too, to Christ.
There doesn’t have to be a divide between spirit and matter anymore. That’s what the Incarnation changed for us.
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Marcos100
Guest
in other words if i came dow n here to be eaten, I wont be going back intact. (Not nibbled at best)
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slh3016
Guest
Marcos, this^^^ is *your *own fallible interpretation of the meaning behind Jesus’s words. It’s extra-biblical, at the very least.
So, again, Marcos, for the 101st time now, you say the passage means one thing and we all say it means something else……where should we turn for clarification? Where does the Bible say to turn?
Please give book, chapter, and verse. You keep conveniently ignoring this question. I suppose it’s because you don’t really like the answer.
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slh3016
Guest
This is just pure belligerence. If you were Catholic for 20 years, you know this is NOT what Jesus meant nor what the church teaches. Partaking the Eucharist does NOT nibble Him away.
:banghead:
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Marcos100
Guest
So Little buddy, fallible means you may be correct and you may be incorrect. I listened the interpretation your apologists give about verse 62 , it is pitiful.All you say to your people, is “There is nothing to worry about guys , it is a fallible intepretation”Marcos, this^^^ is your own fallible interpretation of the meaning behind Jesus’s words. It’s extra-biblical, at the very least.
So, again, Marcos, for the 101st time now, you say the passage means one thing and we all say it means something else……where should we turn for clarification? Where does the Bible say to turn?
Please give book, chapter, and verse. You keep conveniently ignoring this question. I suppose it’s because you don’t really like the answer.
Now disprove me. Will you?
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Marcos100
Guest
OK I answer you , I answerd before , it is not my problem if you miss it , ok?Marcos, this^^^ is your own fallible interpretation of the meaning behind Jesus’s words. It’s extra-biblical, at the very least.
So, again, Marcos, for the 101st time now, you say the passage means one thing and we all say it means something else……where should we turn for clarification? Where does the Bible say to turn?
In this situation you know what you need is reading comprehension, apparently you lack of it.
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Marcos100
Guest
The only person that deals with the points I give is Robin, even tohugh I dont agree with her explanation, but learn form her , it is the way debate forums work, talk to her ask her some advise to something.
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Marcos100
Guest
I just told what the Bible teaches, Am I wrong?
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Marcos100
Guest
Intepretation means get to know what the person had in mind, why did he say that, what was he or she thinking about. Sometimes I say what I think Jesus was saying just like your apologist do, so if I am wrong disprove me. You just avoid dealing with the problem.Marcos, this^^^ is your own fallible interpretation of the meaning behind Jesus’s words. It’s extra-biblical, at the very least.
So, again, Marcos, for the 101st time now, you say the passage means one thing and we all say it means something else……where should we turn for clarification? Where does the Bible say to turn?
Please give book, chapter, and verse. You keep conveniently ignoring this question. I suppose it’s because you don’t really like the answer.
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Marcos100
Guest
Every one that have a cursory knowledge of the Bible knows that the problem of the Jews was they were intepreting Jesus"s words literally, it happens time time, and they hung unto to their literal intepretation tenaciously, and that problem continous today…
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10gr8kids
Guest
St. John the Evangelist taught St. Ignatius of Antioch who wrote this in a letter c. 110 A.D.
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Robyn_p
Guest
I agree with you that Jesus was trying to correct them from a crass naturalistic understanding of his words here. (And that’s the key distinction here we need to make. It’s not just that the Jews understood him literally, but naturalistically. Catholics take Jesus literally, but not naturalistically.) They thought that he meant they were going to eat a dead body, he’s telling them that his body is going to be glorified and he’s not going to be dead. The way they will eat him will be in a much more glorified miraculous way than they are imagining.
But, it still doesn’t follow that all he’s talking about is believing. I still don’t think the context supports that reading. He made it abundantly clear that we do have to eat his flesh and drink his blood. But just because we aren’t supposed to do that in a cannibalistic way, does that mean we don’t actually have to eat him at all? I don’t think so, and here’s why. The Last Supper.
It’s really a bad idea to try and read John 6 in isolation from the Last Supper accounts. Because both are connected to each other and both shed light on the other. I know that that article you linked us to tries to say that the two have nothing to do with each other, but I find that odd personally. Both take place on Passover, both have Jesus commanding his disciples to eat his body and drink his blood. There’s a reason that Christians throughout the ages have always seen a connection between the two.
Anyways, at the Last Supper, Jesus shows us exactly how we are supposed to eat his body and drink his blood. Not in a cannibalistic form, but under the form of bread and wine.
I think this changes everything. Because if John 6 were it, and Jesus never went on to do what he did at the Last Supper, then we would be forced to interpret Jesus’ words symbolically. There’d be no way we can eat his flesh now. But because of what he did at the Last Supper, that sheds a whole new light on his words. We do really have to eat him, but it’s in a miraculous way no one could have imagined.
Now I know you disagree and don’t believe Jesus was speaking literally at the Last Supper, and we’ll get to that
but for now do you see what I’m saying? That by saying what he did at the Last Supper, he was revealing exactly HOW we were supposed to eat his flesh and drink his blood. That means he was talking about more than just believing in John 6. We really do have to physically eat and drink.
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slh3016
Guest
I believe the broader problem with the Jews than just interpreting Jesus’s words as always literal was that they just plain misinterpreted them. In every case, their minds just simply couldn’t comprehend the deeper meanings of Jesus’s words, whether literal or figurative.
In the case of John 6, they simply couldn’t get past the shock of what they perceived Jesus to be saying in regards to eating His flesh. They erroneously thought He meant that His physical body would be laid out to eat (and gnaw on) much like a Passover lamb would be (keep in mind that verse 4 says that the Passover was near so of course this was the context of the entire scene).
The day before, Jesus had miraculously fed them all with a few loaves of bread and pieces of fish, so they had seen firsthand that Jesus had Divine power, but they couldn’t “see” or apply that reality to what Jesus was telling them would happen with His body. Their minds couldn’t mesh the physical and the spiritual reality of Jesus’s words. That’s why they grumbled and complained and many walked away. They were in the mindset of the Passover and all that it entails. When Jesus talks of those who must “eat” Him, they no doubt thought of cannibalism and not as Jesus as the lamb of God. Their minds could not comprehend beyond what was immediate. They couldn’t understand that Jesus was saying that through His Divine power (which He had demonstrated the day before in multiplying the loaves of bread and fish), He could make His sacrifice literally present in the appearance of bread, not in bloody, limited, and perishable way, but yet still in a physical, spiritual, non-bloody, non-perishable, limitless way.
The key is to realizing that physical and spiritual are not always mutually exclusive with the Eucharist illustrating this point perfectly. We know this through the testimony of the earliest Christians as evidenced in the writings of the ECF’s, all of Christendom for 1,500 years and by Catholics and Orthodox alike for 2,000 years.
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Marcos100
Guest
Jesus says in verse 27 “Labor not for the food that perishes, but for that food which endureth unto everlasting life.” He says you’re looking for the wrong stuff, folks, you’re working for a perishing food. What you ought to be doing is looking for that food which endures unto everlasting life. And they were thinking, “What kind of bread is that? I wonder how you bake that?” They were still hung up on the physical. They never do get off it in this whole passage. He says, “This bread…verse 27, or this food the Son of Man shall give you for Him hath God the Father sealed or approved.” In other words, He says the Son of Man can give you this food because He has been approved by God as the dispenser. He can give it out.I agree with you that Jesus was trying to correct them from a crass naturalistic understanding of his words here. (And that’s the key distinction here we need to make. It’s not just that the Jews understood him literally, but naturalistically. Catholics take Jesus literally, but not naturalistically.) They thought that he meant they were going to eat a dead body, he’s telling them that his body is going to be glorified and he’s not going to be dead. The way they will eat him will be in a much more glorified miraculous way than they are imagining.
But, it still doesn’t follow that all he’s talking about is believing. I still don’t think the context supports that reading. He made it abundantly clear that we do have to eat his flesh and drink his blood. But just because we aren’t supposed to do that in a cannibalistic way, does that mean we don’t actually have to eat him at all? I don’t think so, and here’s why. The Last Supper.
It’s really a bad idea to try and read John 6 in isolation from the Last Supper accounts. Because both are connected to each other and both shed light on the other. I know that that article you linked us to tries to say that the two have nothing to do with each other, but I find that odd personally. Both take place on Passover, both have Jesus commanding his disciples to eat his body and drink his blood. There’s a reason that Christians throughout the ages have always seen a connection between the two.
Anyways, at the Last Supper, Jesus shows us exactly how we are supposed to eat his body and drink his blood. Not in a cannibalistic form, but under the form of bread and wine.
I think this changes everything. Because if John 6 were it, and Jesus never went on to do what he did at the Last Supper, then we would be forced to interpret Jesus’ words symbolically. There’d be no way we can eat his flesh now. But because of what he did at the Last Supper, that sheds a whole new light on his words. We do really have to eat him, but it’s in a miraculous way no one could have imagined.
Now I know you disagree and don’t believe Jesus was speaking literally at the Last Supper, and we’ll get to that
Jesus replies to their demand to give them this bread. And they were still talking physical. And this must have shocked them. It doesn’t say what their expressions were but they must have really been scratching their heads when He answered them in verse 35. His second reply was this, “Jesus said unto them, ‘I am the bread of life.’” Can’t you just see them? Huh? He’s the bread of life? What is He talking about? He says, “I am the bread of life. I’m not talking about some kind of physical loaves, I’m not talking about anything physical, I’m the bread of life. And I’m not talking about physical life, I’m talking about spiritual life.”
I love this verse, “I am the bread of life.” Now watch this, “He that cometh to Me shall never hunger and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst.” Now you know He’s not talking about physical things, I get thirsty, I even get hungry, so do you. That’s normal. He’s not talking about physical hunger. He’s talking about the soul. He is saying, “I satisfy the soul.” The soul stops thirsting and the soul stops hungering. Oh, when you meet Jesus Christ, isn’t there satisfaction there? There’s no more hunger in the soul when you’ve met Jesus Christ. He becomes food and nourishment. He is the soul food that gives satisfaction.
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Marcos100
Guest
Robin,I agree with you that Jesus was trying to correct them from a crass naturalistic understanding of his words here. (And that’s the key distinction here we need to make. It’s not just that the Jews understood him literally, but naturalistically. Catholics take Jesus literally, but not naturalistically.) They thought that he meant they were going to eat a dead body, he’s telling them that his body is going to be glorified and he’s not going to be dead. The way they will eat him will be in a much more glorified miraculous way than they are imagining.
But, it still doesn’t follow that all he’s talking about is believing. I still don’t think the context supports that reading. He made it abundantly clear that we do have to eat his flesh and drink his blood. But just because we aren’t supposed to do that in a cannibalistic way, does that mean we don’t actually have to eat him at all? I don’t think so, and here’s why. The Last Supper.
It’s really a bad idea to try and read John 6 in isolation from the Last Supper accounts. Because both are connected to each other and both shed light on the other. I know that that article you linked us to tries to say that the two have nothing to do with each other, but I find that odd personally. Both take place on Passover, both have Jesus commanding his disciples to eat his body and drink his blood. There’s a reason that Christians throughout the ages have always seen a connection between the two.
Anyways, at the Last Supper, Jesus shows us exactly how we are supposed to eat his body and drink his blood. Not in a cannibalistic form, but under the form of bread and wine.
I think this changes everything. Because if John 6 were it, and Jesus never went on to do what he did at the Last Supper, then we would be forced to interpret Jesus’ words symbolically. There’d be no way we can eat his flesh now. But because of what he did at the Last Supper, that sheds a whole new light on his words. We do really have to eat him, but it’s in a miraculous way no one could have imagined.
Now I know you disagree and don’t believe Jesus was speaking literally at the Last Supper, and we’ll get to that
He adds this most glorious truth. “Verily, verily I say unto you, he that believeth on Me hath everlasting life.” I’m the One, I’m the representation of God here, just believe on Me. Notice the present tense, “hath.” When do you get everlasting life? In the future? I’ve got it right now, do you know that? I’ve got everlasting life right now. I’m going to live forever, so are you if you know Christ, present tense, “hath,” present tense.
Robin,
Did Peter has LIFE at the moment?
How did he get it?
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