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Nicea325
Guest
That is not what I asked you. I’ll ask you again,show the historical writings of the early Christians who taught the Eucharist was only symbolic? Provide me historical evidence,not Biblical quotes.
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shawn38
Guest
But we already have received the Spirit.
- Have not you received the Holy Spirit (Jn 7:39, Acts 2:38) as promised (Acts 1:4, 2:39, Gal 3:14, Eph 1:13)?
- Does not the Spirit of truth (Jn 14:17, Jn b 15:26, Jn 16:13) live with us (Jn 14:17) and will be in us (Jn 14:17, Rom 8:4, 1 Jn 4:4)?
- Are you not a member of Christ’s body (Eph 5:30, 1 Cor 12:27)?
- Are you not God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you (1 Cor 3:16, 1 Cor 6:19) whom you have received from God (1 Cor 6:19, 1 Cor 2:12, Jn 15:26)?
- Did not God promise that “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” (Heb 13:5)? 6. Did not Jesus promise to ask the Father,to give us another Counselor to be with us forever, the Spirit of truth (Jn 14:16-17)
Because He has given us of His Spirit, we know that we live in Him and He in us (1 Jn 4:13) already. So I don’t have to consume the body and blood of Christ to be in me. You could say Christ is present at communion for He already resides inside each of us that make up the body of the church.
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brkn1
Guest
My argument stands upon the fact that Jesus Christ is both 100% God and 100% Man.
Jesus Christ has a human nature in both the time before and after His crucifixion at Calvary. His glorified body does not preclude Him from also being human.
With that point as clear as I can make it for now, I would like to also point out that Jesus came to fulfill the Law to the last bit when He died for our sins.
If the Last Supper was the eating of the literal body and blood of Christ, then Jesus couild be said to be violating the very Law that He came to fulfill to the last bit. All were still bound by the Law until Christ rose from the dead. You are trying to get past this fact by asking about whether Christians are still bound to the Law.
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brkn1
Guest
Hi, I’m glad that you know the Bible too. Maybe you can recall a verse in (2nd Corinthians 5:16) where Paul says :Haven’t you protestants learned you cannot use Bible verses to prove a point to Catholics?We know the Bible too. That’s one of the reasons we are Catholic.
The Eucharist is the only way I can see Christ truly and physically present among us on earth. It just doesn’t make any sense any other way. One day you will see…and rejoice with us in His Most Blessed Sacrament.
16 “Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we (Him, Jesus) no more.”
That verse seems to be a little bit of a problem for those who claim to be able to see Christ physically right now.
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shawn38
Guest
Really I don’t feel like wasting much time researching early church fathers. The Bible is sufficient enough.
Being that the CC is hugh on parallelism between the NT and OT:
The central event of the Old Testament is one of God rescuing His people from slavery in
Egypt. This story of deliverance is known as the Exodus. To help Israel remember and celebrate God’s faithfulness in delivering them from slavery, God instituted a meal for the Jews designed to help them worship and remember His saving work. God commanded that each year His covenant people come together in their homes with their families over a meal that symbolized and memorialized the night that He “passed over” the sins of Israel
in order to rescue them from the bonds of their oppressors. Every detail about the meal was symbolic, given by God to help His people remember how faithful He had been to them through His rescuing grace. During the Passover meal, Israel also celebrated
and remembered that God had promised, through His prophets, that there was coming an even greater rescuing, a day when God would rescue them from their slavery to sin just as He had rescued them from their slavery to Egypt.
Jesus’ subsequent death and resurrection initiated the new The Lord’s Supper Exodus, the new covenant that the people of Israel had been expecting for over a millennium. Just as God had rescued Israel from slavery to Egypt, God in the flesh, Jesus, was now rescuing His followers from their deeper slavery and their bondage to sin and death. Just as God had done with Israel after He rescued them, Jesus left His followers a meal to remember and proclaim His work and their deliverance.
Village Church
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mikeledes
Guest
Sure Christians have the Spirit!
They couldn’t be Christian without Him. But throughout our journey to the heavenly Jerusalem, God gives us many blessings and graces necessary for our growth in grace, for our sanctification. We need nourishment and one of the ways we believe He nourishes us is through the Eucharist.God Bless,
Michael
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mikeledes
Guest
I never said His glorified body precluded him from also being human. In fact, I said the opposite. Now I’ve said that the Law has exceptions… as in the case of the prohibition against marrying a brother’s wife and the Levirate marriage exception. But also, Jesus is God. Let’s take a look at Matthew 12:
**1At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples became hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat.
2But when the Pharisees saw this, they said to Him, “Look, Your disciples do what is not lawful to do on a Sabbath.”
3But He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he became hungry, he and his companions, 4how he entered the house of God, and they ate the consecrated bread, which was not lawful for him to eat nor for those with him, but for the priests alone?
5"Or have you not read in the Law, that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple break the Sabbath and are innocent?
6"But I say to you that something greater than the temple is here.
7"But if you had known what this means, ‘I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT A SACRIFICE,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.
8"For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” **
Now here is what the Matthew Henry Bible Commentary, a well respected Protestant commentary and particularly used by Calvinists, says about verse 8:
The Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day, v. 8. That law, as all the rest, is put into the hand of Christ, to be altered, enforced, or dispensed with, as he sees good. It was by the Son that God made the world, and by him he instituted the sabbath in innocency; by him he gave the ten commandments at mount Sinai, and as Mediator he is entrusted with the institution of ordinances, and to make what changes he thought fit; and particularly, as being Lord of the sabbath, he was authorized to make such an alteration of that day, as that it should become the Lord’s day, the Lord Christ’s day. And if Christ be the Lord of the sabbath, it is fit the day and all the work of it should be dedicated to him. By virtue of this power Christ here enacts, that works of necessity, if they be really such, and not a pretended and self-created necessity, are lawful on the sabbath day; and this explication of the law plainly shows that it was to be perpetual. Exceptio firmat regulam—The exception confirms the rule.
ccel.org/ccel/henry/mhc5.i_1.xiii.html
According the the Law, David was not supposed to eat the consecrated bread:
Exodus 29:33
33"Thus they shall eat those things by which atonement was made at their ordination and consecration; but a layman shall not eat them, because they are holy
But the circumstances made David’s particular case an exception, the basic point Jesus is trying to make. Moreover, the prohibition against drinking blood was a ceremonial precept, not a moral one. Jesus is Lord and God. What He commands us to do can never be a violation of the Law. As God, He knows the proper interpretation of the Law and its scope, including if there are exceptions. So when He commands us to eat His Body and drink His Blood, that is not a violation.
God Bless,
Michael
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Laura15
Guest
Sorry I’m in a little late, but YES I accept Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.Every year after lent I am taught something very important. This time for some reason I could not get my mind off of the Eucharist.
John 6:66 (the devils numbers) That blows my mind.
Did anyone ever really make that connection. That is the scripture where the disciples that could not accept the true teaching that Jesus Christ in the Eucharist is the living Christ left Jesus and walked away.
Judas comes to mind. It was Judas that was one of his Apostles and left Jesus. Did you notice when he left him. At the Eucharist!!! Judas could not accept that teaching.
As a kid me and my brother when we were first beginning to drive would go to Church and split right after communion. My Dad would always say are you like Judas are you going to leave right after the Eucharist
I never really understood until years later what he was saying. Trust me I stay now!!
Jesus was quite clear when he stated For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. John 6:53-56)
Even the disciples said this is a hard saying who can listen to it? See Jesus knew some would not believe. This is where Judas fell away. John 6:64.
Many say he was speaking sybolically. But he wasn’t. If so both the Jews who were suspicious of him and the disciples who accepted everything up to this point would have remained with him if he were.
But he did not correct the protesters.
12 times he said he was the bread that came down from heaven.
4 times he said he said they would have to eat my flesh and drink my blood.
Who can really accept this teaching? Can you?
We as Roman Catholic’s are not just symbolically commemorating Jesus in the Eucharist we are actually participating in his body and blood as Paul tells us.
The cup of blessing which we bless, IS IT NOT a participation in the blood of Christ. The bread which we bread, IS IT NOT a participation in the body of Christ? (1 Cor 10:16)
Jesus said DO THIS in memory of me!! Do This!!!
And I have been doing it in memory of him for the past 7 years!!!
It is amazing that "we are actually participating in his body and blood."
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mikeledes
Guest
The “flesh” refers to the “natural.” That’s why He says that we see no NO MAN after the flesh (v. 16). If your interpretation of that verse is right, then we see NO ONE physically right now. Is he really saying that we are not able to see anyman physically right now? What He is talking about is the new way Christians perceive the world. There are many who have heard about Christ and know about His life and teachings, but they do not have faith. They see him as merely a good teacher. That is knowing Christ after the flesh. But once we have faith, we no longer perceive Christ that way. Christians do not perceive the world according to the flesh, but rather according to the Spirit. We relate to Christ and our fellow man differently.
God Bless,
Michael
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mikeledes
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brkn1
Guest
Jesus spoke against those who used extremism in applying the Law.
The Law was meant to benefit man; not harm man. The spirit of the Law was not allowed to be over-ridden by the letter of the Law.
David and his men desperately needed food and so the exception you pointed out applied. Common sense shows when such “violations” are proper.
Drinking of any manner of blood was forbidden to Israelites and strangers that sojourn among them. The penalty was God would “…set My face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among the people.”
You can argue that it was only a ceremonial precept, but it was still part of the Law with serious consequences for its violation.
How could Christ be said to have fulfilled every bit of the Law, if He “supposedly” changed it in the process as you hold to?
The “is” must be symbolic or Christ did not fulfill every bit of the Law, and I know that Christ did fulfill the Law completely.
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Verbum_Caro
Guest
brkn1,
I hope you, or mikeledes, don’t mind me jumping in here.
What do you both think about this idea? Would it be possible to draw a comparison between the command God gave to sacrifice animals and the command God gave not to drink blood?
The command to sacrifice animals was abrogated – made unnecessary – after Christ’s perfect Sacrifice. Those early animal sacrifices didn’t seem to just have a propitiatory meaning but also seem to have a pedagogical meaning in that it prepared the people to recognize and understand Christ’s sacrifice.
Could the prohibition on drinking blood likewise have have had a pedagogical meaning? Could it have been preparing people to recognize and understand the Eucharist?
What do you think?
VC
I hope you, or mikeledes, don’t mind me jumping in here.
What do you both think about this idea? Would it be possible to draw a comparison between the command God gave to sacrifice animals and the command God gave not to drink blood?
The command to sacrifice animals was abrogated – made unnecessary – after Christ’s perfect Sacrifice. Those early animal sacrifices didn’t seem to just have a propitiatory meaning but also seem to have a pedagogical meaning in that it prepared the people to recognize and understand Christ’s sacrifice.
Could the prohibition on drinking blood likewise have have had a pedagogical meaning? Could it have been preparing people to recognize and understand the Eucharist?
What do you think?
VC
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Radical
Guest
Well, now I am only repeating my repetitions. From this side of the fence your view is missing an explanation every bit as important as the missing explanation that you see for the figurative view.
A entire body is taken into the mouth in one small gulp of a bit of bread and you want to compare that to the manner in which regular food is eaten?
Eating consists of more than just putting something into one’s mouth. One takes air in through one’s mouth, but one doesn’t eat air. One puts orange juice into one’s mouth, but one doesn’t eat orange juice. One puts a tongue depressor in one’s mouth, but one doesn’t eat the tongue depressor. Eating is something everyone in the audience that day had done and nothing that any one of them had done even remotely resembled the way that Jesus’s body is believed to be “eaten” in your Eucharist. Eating is a physical act and a body is a physical thing. Christ specifically mentioned the chewing of flesh involved in the eating that he contemplated. Supposedly one puts a entire body in one’s mouth by putting the “accidents” of a small piece of bread in one’s mouth. (nothing else enters the mouth in that fashion) Supposedly one chews that body’s flesh by chewing the “accidents” of bread. (nothing else is chewed w/o it actually touching the teeth). The allegedly unique nature impacts the manner of eating such that it doesn’t resemble any other manner of eating. You say that there is a real bodily presence, but by any method of analysis known to man, there is no presence and there is no eating of flesh. That is a long, long way from the plain meaning of the words.
Yes, they speak for themselves. The words were figurative from beginning to end. As Augustine said, we eat his flesh by sharing in the sufferings of our Lord, and by retaining a sweet and profitable memory of the fact that His flesh was wounded and crucified for us.
that is your take on what was essential…that surely wasn’t what was essential for his audience to even begin to understand that he wasn’t talking about cannibalism (if they actually took his words literally) Further, this sort of assertion works equally well for the figurative view. The most essential thing for Jesus was to identify the source of eternal life.. He did just that by repeatedly referring to himself. The essential aspect of belief in him as the Holy One of God is also presented. The less important matter of how one was to understand and obey the figurative requirement to eat his flesh etc. was left for another day.
Who has suggested that an exhaustive explanation was in order? One or two sentences could have worked. It could have sounded like: I am not talking about a cannibalistic act. I will give you a ritual in which you eat what looks like bread, but my body will be miraculously present behind/underneath/mixed with (pick a word to reflect your RP flavour) the bread.
Exactly. The explanation is the product of human effort and reasoning
I don’t recall John actually mentioning the Eucharist. John simply tells us who Jesus is and Jesus tells us who is the source of eternal life and who we are to receive as our savior.
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Radical
Guest
I don’t see anything "physical’ about your Eucharist, except of course, for the wine and the bread. They are physical things and they are really present. What do you mean by “objectively”? Again, to simply edit your words so that they apply to the figurative view, I get: Again, Jesus in John gives us the source of eternal life and the necessity of belief and not the *specific “how” of his figurative requirement * and it is the what that is most important. That is the plain and obvious meaning of the text.
Well of course he meant what he said, but he meant it figuratively (each and every time). There is no prohibition against repeating a figurative statement. He repeats that he is bread (which is quite a different thing from the substance of bread being changed to the substance of his body whilst the accidents of bread remain…tis kinda the opposite thing.) By your argument, his repetition of that claim would require us to believe that, at that moment on that day, Jesus was a walking talking loaf of wonder bread.
Agreed. It is entirely about faith. Faith in your (Church’s) interpretation and faith in God’s ability to do what he wills. I doubt the former and endorse the latter.
well, we all believe that we are obeying his words
I don’t grasp the point you are trying to make here…I don’t see Paul making reference to a bodily presence.
The bottom line is that the problems that you see for a figurative understanding are also present for your “transubstantial” understanding…Now there is a presence involving transubstantiation that I can support
Peace.
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Nicea325
Guest
You do not feel like researching the early church fathers? In other words, you have no such empirical -historical evidence.Why? Because NONE teach the Eucharist was only symbolic? For years and years I have yet to find one early church father or Christian teaching the Eucharist as being only symbolic,which does not support the NOVEL belief it is only symbolic.
Parallelism between the OT & NT? No,it is called fulfillments. The NT is concealed in the OT and the OT is revealed in the NT.
The Bible is sufficient enough? Nope! The Bible is not sufficient to support your argument or for salvation. I find it amazing how so many Bible-Only Christians place limitations on God regardless if they wish to admit it or not.
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mikeledes
Guest
Hello Radical.
I have little time to respond to your rebuttal… because there is a lot that needs to be addressed… but I want to respond to one thing that you said about Saint Augustine. First of all, to believe in the Real Presence does not mean that we do not believe there is a symbolic dimension to the Eucharist. The visible signs of bread and wine symbolize the reality that is present behind them (the Body and Blood of Christ). Moreover, Saint Augustine also said the following:
The bread which you see on the altar is, sanctified by the word of God, the body of Christ; that chalice, or rather what is contained in the chalice, is, sanctified by the word of God, the blood of Christ. {Sermo 227; on p.377}
Not all bread, but only that which receives the blessing of Christ, becomes Christ’s body. {Ibid., 234, 2; on p.31}
What you see is the bread and the chalice . . . But what your faith obliges you to accept is that the bread is the Body of Christ and the chalice the Blood of Christ. {Ibid., 272; on p.32}
Not only is no one forbidden to take as food the Blood of this Sacrifice, rather, all who wish to possess life are exhorted to drink thereof. {Questions of the Hepateuch, 3, 57; on p.134}
The Sacrifice of our times is the Body and Blood of the Priest Himself . . . Recognize then in the Bread what hung upon the tree; in the chalice what flowed from His side. {Sermo iii. 1-2; on p.62}
The Blood they had previously shed they afterwards drank. {Mai 26, 2; 86, 3; on p.64}
Eat Christ, then; though eaten He yet lives, for when slain He rose from the dead. Nor do we divide Him into parts when we eat Him: though indeed this is done in the Sacrament, as the faithful well know when they eat the Flesh of Christ, for each receives his part, hence are those parts called graces. Yet though thus eaten in parts He remains whole and entire; eaten in parts in the Sacrament, He remains whole and entire in Heaven. {Mai 129, 1; cf. Sermon 131; on p.65}
Secondly, one does not eat just “accidents” because accidents cannot exist separately from a subtance. So when we eat the Eucharist, we consume the substance with its accidents.
I’ll continue tomorrow. In the meantime, may God richly bless you.
In Christ,
Michael
I have little time to respond to your rebuttal… because there is a lot that needs to be addressed… but I want to respond to one thing that you said about Saint Augustine. First of all, to believe in the Real Presence does not mean that we do not believe there is a symbolic dimension to the Eucharist. The visible signs of bread and wine symbolize the reality that is present behind them (the Body and Blood of Christ). Moreover, Saint Augustine also said the following:
The bread which you see on the altar is, sanctified by the word of God, the body of Christ; that chalice, or rather what is contained in the chalice, is, sanctified by the word of God, the blood of Christ. {Sermo 227; on p.377}
Not all bread, but only that which receives the blessing of Christ, becomes Christ’s body. {Ibid., 234, 2; on p.31}
What you see is the bread and the chalice . . . But what your faith obliges you to accept is that the bread is the Body of Christ and the chalice the Blood of Christ. {Ibid., 272; on p.32}
Not only is no one forbidden to take as food the Blood of this Sacrifice, rather, all who wish to possess life are exhorted to drink thereof. {Questions of the Hepateuch, 3, 57; on p.134}
The Sacrifice of our times is the Body and Blood of the Priest Himself . . . Recognize then in the Bread what hung upon the tree; in the chalice what flowed from His side. {Sermo iii. 1-2; on p.62}
The Blood they had previously shed they afterwards drank. {Mai 26, 2; 86, 3; on p.64}
Eat Christ, then; though eaten He yet lives, for when slain He rose from the dead. Nor do we divide Him into parts when we eat Him: though indeed this is done in the Sacrament, as the faithful well know when they eat the Flesh of Christ, for each receives his part, hence are those parts called graces. Yet though thus eaten in parts He remains whole and entire; eaten in parts in the Sacrament, He remains whole and entire in Heaven. {Mai 129, 1; cf. Sermon 131; on p.65}
Secondly, one does not eat just “accidents” because accidents cannot exist separately from a subtance. So when we eat the Eucharist, we consume the substance with its accidents.
I’ll continue tomorrow. In the meantime, may God richly bless you.
In Christ,
Michael
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mikeledes
Guest
I would like to clarify something that I said here. Accidents cannot exist by themselves. That’s what I mean by accidents cannot exist separately.
God bless,
Michael
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brkn1
Guest
I agree with your interpretation of the first part of 2 Cor. 5:16.
Paul speaks next about knowing (physically seeing) Christ when he said, “…though we have known Christ after the flesh”.
Paul then said, “yet now henceforth we know (physically see) Him no more.”
If the bread was physically Christ’s flesh, then Paul would be incorrect, since we would then be physically seeing Christ in another form. Paul could not properly say “no more”.
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brkn1
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Those sacrifices did point to Christ’s one Sacrifice at Calvary. They were preparing the people as you said.
The prohibition would certainly seem not to be preparing the people to accept any literal drinking of Christ’s blood in any form. It would be giving the very opposite pedagogical meaning.
The basis of all the sacrifices had to do with the life being in the blood. Jesus is telling us that we are to accept His sacrificially shed blood for our sins in true faith. We are promised eternal life based on God’s gift of faith in Christ’s shed blood for our sins. Such saving faith has nothing to do with our physically drinking blood. Anything requiring our own flesh, such as drinking literal blood etc will not save us. Paul explains that when he asked, “What the Spirit begins will the flesh complete?” when he spoke of salvation.
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Verbum_Caro
Guest
Would it have to be so, necessarily?
Not to give to crass or crude an analogy, but could it be akin to the prohibition we are given as young adults not to have intercourse? Would we say that intercourse is a bad thing, or that in our current context – being unmarried – intercourse is bad thing. Or rather should we say, intercourse is such a good and holy thing, that to have intercourse outside its proper context is degrade it.
That’s the idea I was wondering about – could the prohibition on drinking blood be because drinking blood would become a holy act, a very holy act?
I find that suggestive. Do you?
Thanks for the discussion.
VC
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