How to explain to a Protestant that the Eucharist isn't cannabalism?

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weirddude

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like they say it’s him sybolically and spirtually, but if it was literally, then it would be cannabalism (and recrucifying), so how can one explain this to a Protestant? thx
 
I’m not sure it is, or isn’t, cannibalism.

Some of Christ’s followers though it so abhorrent that they left Him even though He was standing right before them and telling them about the Eucharist - “From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.”

But we have an assurance and command from Christ Jesus to “Take and eat; this is my body.”

Perhaps tell your wayward friends about this clear message in the Bible of the necessity of the Eucharist, and perhaps leave the discussion about ‘what’ the Body and Blood of Christ is as not necessary to accept this hard teaching.
 
weirddude said:
like they say it’s him sybolically and spirtually, but if it was literally, then it would be cannabalism (and recrucifying), so how can one explain this to a Protestant? thx
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Protestants believe that Jesus was both God and man. Do you think Jeseus would have asked us to do something so horrible and sinful as that? No, absolutely not. He is asking us to receive His Body and Blood in its Glorified form, which is a physical form we cannot understand, but it is a physical form that passes through matter like doors and walls.; not in the form of solid matter. He tells us Himself that it is Spiritual Food. Yet it is real in a way we cannot comprehend. If he were in the material form as He was before His death, it would be cannabalism, but it is not in that kind of material form. And that is about all we can say.

Linus2nd
 
Concede it, say it is cannabilism and refuse to concede to the protestant that this was a metaphore. He no where clarified it. The early church (ante nicene fathers) were clear that the eucharist was the same body which was crucified on the cross (Ignatius said that). Christ said he who does not eat his flesh in this mystery, which I do not attempt to explain, does not inherit the kingdom. If the protestant who has faith alone and not the great mysteries which Jesus instituted refuses to eat Jesus, well then, they are not of Jesus and have no part in him if they deny them.
 
weirddude said:
like they say it’s him sybolically and spirtually, but if it was literally, then it would be cannabalism (and recrucifying), so how can one explain this to a Protestant? thx
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We really do eat the body of Christ and drink His blood because Christ said so at the Last Supper and in the gospel of St John where Jesus said that who ever eats his flesh and drinks his blood has eternal life. The Catholic Church has always taught that the body of Christ in the eucharist is the same body that was born of the Virgin Mary, was crucified on the cross and rose from the dead. The first christians took the words of Christ literally as they were charged by the pagans of cannibalism.
The body that we eat and the blood that we drink is not just the body and blood of any person but the body and blood of the God-Man Jesus Christ. If God wants us to eat His body and drink His blood than that is fine with me. For eating the body of Christ and drinking His blood brings us into communion with Christ and God. The whole Christ is in the eucharist, his body, soul, and divinity. The eucharist is also called spiritual food because though the physical body and blood of Christ are really present under the appearances of bread and wine, Christ’s body and blood are invisible to us. We have to exercise our faith to believe Christ’s body and blood are in the eucharist and this exercise of faith is a source of merit for us.
 
The Eucharist is to do with the need to be literally and completely {His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity] united - to be as one - with Jesus our Saviour.

There are numbers of references that indicate the literality of Jesus’ claims for what we refer to as Transubstantiation.

These include:

Luke 22:19-20, John 6:55-59, John 6:53, John 6:47-50, 1 Corinthians 11:23:27 Luke 1:37

And particularly John 6:56

There are also biblical references to actions as well as faith being needed for salvation.
 
In addition, the Miracle of Lanciano proves that the Eucharist is truly and wholly the literal Body and Blood of Christ.
 
It is a perpetual bloodless sacrifice, where the bread & wine are transformed into the body and blood. They remain under the appearance of bread (host) and wine but thru transubstantiation (NOT consubstantiation) they are his body & blood. It is how Christ figured out how to stay with us physically.

I’m not sure why Protestants have such a hard time with this. It is a mystery of faith. Yet they believe in the virgin birth. Its the whole buffet religion syndrome …I believe this, but I don’t like that.
 
This probably won’t help since your friend is Protestant (but maybe it’s a plausible explanation for him/her), but in a private revelation, God is said to have told the saint that it is not in our human nature to consume human flesh…hence the appearance of bread. So technically, as others have stated, people are consuming flesh but perhaps beyond what we can understand and perceive with our physical senses. (I hope I didn’t write a heretical view.)
 
How do you know that he transubstantiates into the form after his death, and not into the form before his death, which would be cannibalism, as Linusthe2nd pointed out in comment #4.
 
504Katrin said:
How do you know that he transubstantiates into the form after his death, and not into the form before his death, which would be cannibalism, as Linusthe2nd pointed out in comment #4.
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As I understand it, I don’t think we do know that - the Body and Blood of Christ is his entire divinity (man and God).

The more littleral translation of the Bible verse is quite explicit:

"Amen, amen, I say to you. If you should not eat the flesh of the SON OF MAN and you should not drink HIS blood, you have no life in yourselves. 54 The (person) gnawing on MY flesh and drinking MY blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For MY flesh is true food and MY blood is true drink. 56 The (person) gnawing on MY flesh and drinking MY blood remains in me and I (remain) in him. "

The Eucharist certainly doesn’t conform to the regulations of kashrut. 🙂
 
weirddude said:
like they say it’s him sybolically and spirtually, but if it was literally, then it would be cannabalism (and recrucifying), so how can one explain this to a Protestant? thx
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First off, which Protestant church believes that the Eucharist is cannibalism? I’ve never heard such a thing, and I’ve shopped plenty of churches.
 
504Katrin said:
How do you know that he transubstantiates into the form after his death, and not into the form before his death, which would be cannibalism, as Linusthe2nd pointed out in comment #4.
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Put quite simply that before Jesus’ death [and Resurrection] His mission to Redeem humanity was incomplete. It is in His crucified and resurrected essence {body, blood, soul AND divinity] that we Christians believe His mission as Messiah found fruition. “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree.” - [1 Peter 2:24 & 3:18]
 
weirddude said:
like they say it’s him sybolically and spirtually, but if it was literally, then it would be cannabalism (and recrucifying), so how can one explain this to a Protestant? thx
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Think about it. Logically speaking, if it isn’t his flesh and blood, then it is not cannibalism. But…if it IS his flesh and blood, you really have to ask yourself why? How? What would possess Christ to allow this to happen if it is not what he wants?
 
Mount_Carmel said:
Put quite simply that before Jesus’ death [and Resurrection] His mission to Redeem humanity was incomplete. It is in His crucified and resurrected essence {body, blood, soul AND divinity] that we Christians believe His mission as Messiah found fruition. “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree.” - [1 Peter 2:24 & 3:18]
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So how then did it make sense to give you his flesh and blood to eat the night before he died? What was it that you ate, given that he hadn’t died yet?
 
504Katrin said:
So how then did it make sense to give you his flesh and blood to eat the night before he died? What was it that you ate, given that he hadn’t died yet?
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That would be a miracle of Jesus! 🙂 Just as we believe in all the other miracles he performed. It was/ is his flesh and blood thru transubstantiation.
 
504Katrin said:
So how then did it make sense to give you his flesh and blood to eat the night before he died? What was it that you ate, given that he hadn’t died yet?
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God isn’t strapped to time like we are - it is He who created/made time, so He can twiddle with it as He wishes. Now, and backwards and forwards, infinity is infinity. God isn’t constrained by our five senses, 'though our own comprehension and physical experience by and large is.
 
504Katrin said:
How do you know that he transubstantiates into the form after his death, and not into the form before his death, which would be cannibalism, as Linusthe2nd pointed out in comment #4.
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Several reasons. First after his death, he was able to walk through locked doors, which he did twice. This shows that at his Resurrection, his body underwent a substantial change by which his body acquired the attribute of " subtlety, " through which it was freed from the restraints placed on matter in our world. It could now pass through solid objects, take on different sizes, shapes, weights, appearances, etc. This was again demonstrated when 500 witnessed his Ascension into the clouds - something bodies subject to the laws of physics cannot do.

Linus2nd
 
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