John 6 and Eucharist?

[Philthy]

sandusky:

Actually, I think both statements beg the question.

You are correct: you do need to take the weekend and think about it.

Just so we’re clear, the question you believe I have “begged” is, “Were they correct in their literal understanding?” right?
That is kind of the question of the thread.
I was actually addressing that the Apostles had a literal interpretation of Christs words, as did the other disciples. I believe everyone understood him literally. Some had attempted to refute that claim. I am glad to hear that you are on my side in this respect! So let me some it up so far:

The Apostles understood him to be speaking literally*
The transient disciples understood him to be speaking literally*
Ignatious understood him to be speaking literally*
The Early Church understood him to be speaking literally*
The Catholic Church perennially understands him literally*
Martin Luther understood him literally*
I understand him literally*

                          and

You understand his speaking to exclude a literal interpretation

I have to say, I think Im OK with that.

Have a nice weekend -

Phil

*While maintaining the truth of a literal interpretation, we do not exclude elements of metaphor and symbolism as well in the full understanding.

 

[Philthy]

Kurt G.:

Nice try, Bene. Actually, your position has more in common with those disciples who walked away, not ours…
For yours to have any merit, you must establish that the apostles who stayed with Jesus took him symbolically, which we all know by now is a debatable point

Its not really debatable - they understood him literally just like everyone else, its simply that despite their inability to comprehend how he could literally mean what he said, they BELIEVED him, and that is why they followed him. Not because they understood, but because he had “the words of eternal life”. Even Sandusky agrees with this. Right Sandusky?

The question is not whether they understood him literally, but whether were they correct in understanding him literally? Right Sandy? Its called “begging the question” from what I hear.

Im afraid bene is alone in his position that the Apostles understood Christ only figuratively or spirtitually.

Divide and conquer :yup:

Philthy

 

[cyprian]

I’m just kinda jumpin in here, so if it’s already been said…
Metaphor- “That nag is greased lightening” or “That child is like a perpetual motion machine”

John 6, wow what a discourse, fast forward now to the last supper.
A metaphor as a vehicle in a sentence has to make some sense as to the idea intended. As in the examples above, or even using physical things in front of someone like using match sticks todescribe the arrangement of a floorplan of a house* "*Now here is my garage etc.

Someone holding up a piece of bread to someone else and saying “This is my body”, makes absolutely zero sense. What a turn of events, Jesus making all things new!! The apostles must have been in awe. I don’t think Jesus would would have been speaking in riddles to a bunch of fishermen the night before His death. I am the vine, you are the branches is one thing, this is my body something else altogether.

Jesus was setting up this humanly unbelievable thing in John 6, driving it home in the same mentioned chapter at the end, and then at the last supper again. I don’t here anyone complaining about it at the last supper, except the one who had the devil, who was scandalized by and denied the eucharist even though recieving it.

People are scandalized by it today, Cath’s as well as protesters.
How great it is that we get to eat our God!!

Who was it that said “thou doth protesteth too much” (you know it’s true but you protest merely to protest. (The function of a protestant)

Peace to all during this light -filled season.

 

[ThomasMore1535]

bene7:

You certainly can’t treat his letter like Holy Spirit inspired, inerrant Scripture. I believe this whole issue must be settled by what is revealed in Scripture, not the writings of mere men.

There’s just one little problem with this–Ignatius was one of the major leaders of the Church, and the New Testament as we know it, did not yet exist. Its canon would not be settled until the end of the Fourth Century. Literacy back then was not nearly what it is today, and the “common people,” the laity, HAD to rely on what St. Ignatius said were they to understand what Christianity taught. They could not, as you seem to suppose, “read their Bible” and get saved, for there were no Bibles to read, and even if there were, they could not read them either.

Also, it is quite hyppocritical of you to so easily dismiss Ignatius’s interpretation of John 6 as the “writings of mere men” while at the same time insisting that YOUR OWN PERSONAL INTERPRETATION of John 6 is the correct one. Are you not also a “mere man”? So why, under your logic, should I listen to you anymore than I listen to St. Ignatius?

Who should I trust more when it comes to interpreting Scripture–you, who follow a man-made tradition that is only five hundred years old, or St. Ignatius, a man who personally knew, and was personally evengelized by, St. John, who was one of the most important leaders of the early Christian Church, who suffered maryterdom for Christ, who the laity HAD to rely on for doctrine since they were illiterate? Furthermore, St. Ignatius’s interpretation was hardly novel–it was the UNIVERSAL interpretation of the ENTIRE CHRISTIAN CHURCH for about ONE THOUSAND YEARS(I checked, and my last post about 700 years was wrong) before people such as yourself started claiming that John 6 was merely symbolic.

This is how the Holy Spirit works? He does not inspire any Christian for 1000 years about the interpretation of St. John?

As I said, I pray that you will have the humility to one day accept the wonderful gift that Our Lord has given us lowly sinners for the wonderful miracle that it is.

God bless.

 

[Sirach14]

mikeledes:

Some Proetstatnts might reply that in the Gospel of John there are plenty of instances when Jesus is speaking spiritually while others interpret him literally. For example being “born again” and Nicodemus and “living water” and the Samaritan woman. How do I respons to that?

God Bless

Scripture never uses the word Spirit in a symbolical sense.

 

[Sirach14]

Maranatha:

Some Protestants believe the bread and wine are only symbolic. Others believe in the Real Presence. If both groups are inspired by the Holy Spirit, how do we know who’s right and who’s wrong?

The Catholics and Eastern Orthodox can both trace their bishops back to the Apostles. Both groups believe in the Real Presence.

This is because Protestants go by the “Bible alone.” Catholics have the Bible, Tradition, writings of the Church Fathers, and the magisterium.

 

[mercygate]

ThomasMore1535:

There’s just one little problem with this–Ignatius was one of the major leaders of the Church, and the New Testament as we know it, did not yet exist. Its canon would not be settled until the end of the Fourth Century. Literacy back then was not nearly what it is today, and the “common people,” the laity, HAD to rely on what St. Ignatius said were they to understand what Christianity taught. They could not, as you seem to suppose, “read their Bible” and get saved, for there were no Bibles to read, and even if there were, they could not read them either.

Also, it is quite hyppocritical of you to so easily dismiss Ignatius’s interpretation of John 6 as the “writings of mere men” while at the same time insisting that YOUR OWN PERSONAL INTERPRETATION of John 6 is the correct one. Are you not also a “mere man”? So why, under your logic, should I listen to you anymore than I listen to St. Ignatius?

Who should I trust more when it comes to interpreting Scripture–you, who follow a man-made tradition that is only five hundred years old, or St. Ignatius, a man who personally knew, and was personally evengelized by, St. John, who was one of the most important leaders of the early Christian Church, who suffered maryterdom for Christ, who the laity HAD to rely on for doctrine since they were illiterate? Furthermore, St. Ignatius’s interpretation was hardly novel–it was the UNIVERSAL interpretation of the ENTIRE CHRISTIAN CHURCH for about ONE THOUSAND YEARS(I checked, and my last post about 700 years was wrong) before people such as yourself started claiming that John 6 was merely symbolic.

This is how the Holy Spirit works? He does not inspire any Christian for 1000 years about the interpretation of St. John?

As I said, I pray that you will have the humility to one day accept the wonderful gift that Our Lord has given us lowly sinners for the wonderful miracle that it is.

God bless.

In Ignatius of Antioch’s epistle to the Romans, facing his own martyrdom, he states:

I will gladly die for God if only you do not stand in my way. I plead with you: show me no untimely kindness. Let me be food for the wild beasts, for they are may way to God. **I am God’s wheat and shall be ground by their teeth so that I may become Christ’s pure bread. **

Eucharistic imagery is a consistent feature of the martyrdom accounts in the early Church.

 

[bene7]

Kay Cee:

I would think that God justifying a repentant sinner is miraculous.
It’s certainly supernatural and something that we cannot achieve on our own. Doesn’t God work a miracle within us when this happens?

The fruit of that miracle may be visible, but the miracle isn’t.

No Kay Cee, justification is not a “miracle.” It’s a Divine declaration based on the historical, *visible * finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

The incarnation was a miracle, but justification is a just reckoning based on the work of the incarnate Son of God on the cross.

“But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness” (Rom. 4:5).

God performs a miracle to glorifiy Himself. Hence in some capacity it must be sensed by man. This cannot be done with what Catholicism claims about its “Eucharist.” At the time of the supposed transformation into the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ you cannot see, hear, feel, smell, or even taste that a change had occurred.

You’re claiming that God is performing a miracle that is completely void of ALL the senses man possesses. Not even man’s intuitive sense. No such thing is even demonstrated in the Bible, muchless taught.

Blessings,
Bene

 

[Kay_Cee]

bene7:

No Kay Cee, justification is not a “miracle.” It’s a Divine declaration based on the historical, *visible *finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

The incarnation was a miracle, but justification is a just reckoning based on the work of the incarnate Son of God on the cross.

“But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness” (Rom. 4:5).

I don’t want to get into a debate here over whether justification is imputed or infused. If you want to debate that, please begin another thread.

However, you must agree a change has occurred. What was once unrighteous is now righteous. We cannot bring about that change ourselves. Only God can, and we cannot perceive it with our physical senses.

God performs a miracle to glorifiy Himself.

How on earth would you know God’s motives?

Hence in some capacity it must be sensed by man.

Where in scripture does it say this?

This cannot be done with what Catholicism claims about its “Eucharist.” At the time of the supposed transformation into the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ you cannot see, hear, feel, smell, or even taste that a change had occurred.

So?

You’re claiming that God is performing a miracle that is completely void of ALL the senses man possesses. Not even man’s intuitive sense. No such thing is even demonstrated in the Bible, muchless taught.

Blessings,
Bene

Please show me where the Bible says all miracles must be visible.

 

[bene7]

ThomasMore1535:

You’re equivocating HAVING eternal life with ENJOYING eternal life. You yourself have said that eternal life is a free gift from God. I fully agree. Since you consider yourself “saved,” I also assume that you firmly believe that Christ has already given this gift of eternal life to you, correct? But you can’t enjoy it yet because you’re not in heaven yet. You have (or at least you think you have, I don’t judge the state of your soul) the present of eternal life. Christ has given it to you. But you can’t open it yet. You can’t tear the wrapping paper off (hey–it’s Christmas time! ) and actually enjoy your gift yet. But you still have the gift. Likewise, suppose your parents get you a brand-new car for Christmas, but you don’t turn 16 until January. You have the car, don’t you? But you can’t drive it yet. You have to wait to enjoy it fully

I certainly can and do enjoy, NOW, the LIFE that God has given me “in Christ.”

JOHN 17:3 “And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.”

I have now and enjoy a personal and intimate relationship with both the Father and the Son every day of my life. I “know” the Father and the Son and we have constant fellowship. This knowledge and fellowship is eternal and began the moment I trusted in what Christ did FOR me through His substitutionary, sacrificial death on the cross.

I don’t in any way have to wait for heaven to enjoy what I possess now. You have a faulty notion of what “eternal life” is. My fellowship with the Father and the Son began when I believed and will go on throughout eternity. The core of this fellowship will not change when I enter their presence, physically, it will only expand.

So too, when I eat Our Lord’s Flesh and drink His Blood, when I receive into my unworthy body and my lowly soul, Christ’s Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, I am receiving His gift of eternal life. I LITERALLY HAVE eternal life, as Jesus say I do. But I won’t actually enjoy this gift in its fullness until, with the help of His grace, I enter into heaven.

The problem is Jesus in John six does not say you receive eternal by eating and drinking His body and blood (certainly He doesn’t say His soud and Divinity in John six - you add that). He says “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood HAS eternal life” (vs. 54). Just as He says “…he who BELIEVES in Me HAS eternal life.” The gift is given when one believes, it is not constantly given, it is an eternal possession based on its eternal nature. The “eating” and “drinking” is symbolic of Christ’s resurrected LIFE (eternal) being transferred to the believer at the time of personal belief in Him (the life He possessed AFTER the sacrifice of His body and shedding of His blood). As the manna gave life to those in the wilderness, so He gives life eternal to those who believe. Eternal life is given gift-wise to all who believe (Rom. 6:23), not by physically eating or drinking anything. John’s Gospel account is replete with this truth.

I would also ask if you’re aware that for about eight hundred years, starting from the time in John 6, not a single solitary Christian interpreted John 6 in the way you do. Not one.

You have absolutely no way of knowing this. Did you know every, single, solitary Christian who lived duirng that eight hundred years??? Did you interview them? Again, “real presence” does not necessarily translate into transubstantiation.

Blessings,
Bene

 

[bene7]

Kay Cee:

I don’t want to get into a debate here over whether justification is imputed or infused. If you want to debate that, please begin another thread.

However, you must agree a change has occurred. What was once unrighteous is now righteous. We cannot bring about that change ourselves. Only God can, and we cannot perceive it with our physical senses.

Justification is a legal change in standing before God. However, a change does take place in the believer through spiritual “regeneration.” It’s truly is a miracle. But that’s not “justification.” Regeneration by the Holy Spirit is made aware by the senses of the believer. One personally senses a definite change in his life when this occurs. I experienced it in my own life and I’ve seen it in many others at the time they truly trusted Christ as their personal Savior. Just as one senses when he comes out of the darkness into the light.

Blessings,
Bene

 

[bene7]

mercygate:

In Ignatius of Antioch’s epistle to the Romans, facing his own martyrdom, he states:

I will gladly die for God if only you do not stand in my way. I plead with you: show me no untimely kindness. Let me be food for the wild beasts, for they are may way to God. **I am God’s wheat and shall be ground by their teeth so that I may become Christ’s pure bread. **

Eucharistic imagery is a consistent feature of the martyrdom accounts in the early Church.

I’m sure you don’t believe Ignatius is speaking literally here, right? Or do you? Do you really think Ignatius literally BECAME bread for Christ? He’s now “wheat” in heaven, is he? I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and say no. Obviously he’s speaking fiuguratively, just as Christ spoke figuratively in John six in respect to eating and drinking His body and blood. How is it you can easily recognize figurative speech by Ignatius, but not by Christ; whether in John six or at the “Last Supper?”

Blessings,
Bene

 

[bene7]

Philthy:

I’m afraid bene is alone in his position that the Apostles understood Christ only figuratively or spirtitually.

If you’re talking about John six I never actaully said how they took the words of Christ. The text doesn’t reveal this. Personally, I don’t think, at the time, they understood Him at all. But they did know He had the words of eternal life, and for the moment that was good enough for them. They didn’t leave Him.

As for the Last Supper, there is no subsequent, Biblical revelation that they understood Christ literally. Nowhere is there any historical evidence of a “Eucharistic Mass” being performed by any of the Apostles.

Blessings,
Bene

 

[sandusky]

ThomasMore1535:

Excuse me? You are now blaspheming God as much as any rationalist, materialist atheist does. The Eucharist is not “invisible.” It is an objective reality, which is something that your secularist-influenced, rationalist mind does not seem to understand. God is so loving that He humbles himself under the form of bread and wine for us.

Philippians 2:5-8

5…Christ Jesus, who,…taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man

That is the word of God and that is the form it says Christ took; He has never taken the form of bread and wine.

In the O.T., God sent plagues on Pharoah. What He said He would do, was visibly manifest. The reason for that was so Pharoah, and God’s people would know that He was God.

Same with the parting of the Red Sea, the manna in wilderness, Joshua at Jericho, the Lord halting the sun’s movement for Joshua, etc.

That Christ was from God, God attested to by the ***outward, visible ***miracles Christ performed. That was so people would know that it was from God.

Acts 2:22
22 “Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know—

IOW, the visibly seen miracles proved that Christ was from God.

Compare that with John 3:2:

*2 this man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, **we know that You have come from God…for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” ***

Do you understand?

Miracle seen = From God
Miracle unseen = Not from God

That is a gauge that God has given His people, so that they won’t be fooled.

Therefore, IMHO, if someone, or some church, claims that it is presenting a miracle from God, but the miracle is not observable, God’s people should flee from them.

Neither Christ, nor the apostles speak of the bread and wine in terms of a miracle, either at the Last Supper, or at any other time. Paul calls it the bread and the cup; no big deal, unless your heart is not right when you partake of it. It is the spiritual condition of the partaker that is in view.

ThomasMore1535:

You know who you sound like? Some people talking to Our Lord many centuries ago…

“This saying is hard, and who can hear it?” But Jesus, knowing in himself, that his disciples murmured at this, said to them: “Doth this scandalize you?”

Yes, and in the future, many will say, “Lord, Lord…”

That Christ spoke figuratively in the Gospels is truth; and that He worked miracles is truth, and all of His miracles were seen.

 

[ncgolf]

bene7:

God performs a miracle to glorifiy Himself. Hence in some capacity it must be sensed by man. This cannot be done with what Catholicism claims about its “Eucharist.” At the time of the supposed transformation into the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ you cannot see, hear, feel, smell, or even taste that a change had occurred.

Oh my … just because you cannot sense it … it cannot be. I sense it. I feel it. Thomas did not believe until he put his fingers in His side even though all the disciples said we have seen the Lord. He must have thought the other disciples were speaking figuratively of the Lord too. Thomas’s doubts live today too. I have heard the “carnal” image of people only believing in the flesh. You do the same thing … you only trust in what the flesh tells you … the senses tell you … you sound much more “carnal” in the words you wrote than you think you are.

bene7:

You’re claiming that God is performing a miracle that is completely void of ALL the senses man possesses. Not even man’s intuitive sense. No such thing is even demonstrated in the Bible, muchless taught.

You are way wrong on this. I do not understand how if you cannot sense something it cannot be. The question you should have is why can’t I sense this. When one is baptized we see no outward change in the appearance. The bapitzed/unbaptized person looks the same to us. You cannot sense … just by looking at someone if they are baptized. It is invisible to us but not God. No where in the Bible does it say we must sense every miracle.

 

[Kay_Cee]

bene7:

Justification is a legal change in standing before God. However, a change does take place in the believer through spiritual “regeneration.” It’s truly is a miracle. But that’s not “justification.” Regeneration by the Holy Spirit is made aware by the senses of the believer. One personally senses a definite change in his life when this occurs. I experienced it in my own life and I’ve seen it in many others at the time they truly trusted Christ as their personal Savior. Just as one senses when he comes out of the darkness into the light.

Blessings,
Bene

As I mentioned before, if you want to discuss this, please begin another thread. This is going off the topic.

BTW, you never answered my challenge. Please show me where the Bible says all miracles must be visible.

 

[mercygate]

bene7:

I’m sure you don’t believe Ignatius is speaking literally here, right? Or do you? Do you really think Ignatius literally BECAME bread for Christ? He’s now “wheat” in heaven, is he? I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and say no. Obviously he’s speaking fiuguratively, just as Christ spoke figuratively in John six in respect to eating and drinking His body and blood. How is it you can easily recognize figurative speech by Ignatius, but not by Christ; whether in John six or at the “Last Supper?”

Blessings,
Bene

bene, the point I was making – and you know it because I stated it – was that the consciousness of Christ in the Eucharist perfused the spirituality of the subapostolic age.

 

[bene7]

Kay Cee:

As I mentioned before, if you want to discuss this, please begin another thread. This is going off the topic.

BTW, you never answered my challenge. Please show me where the Bible says all miracles must be visible.

The way it was brought up on this thead it was not off topic.

As to your challenge, you’re asking me to prove the negative, that’s impossible. It is up to you to prove they were not. ALL miracles in the Bible were displayed visibly. Miracles performed by God are called “*signs,” * they testify of His veracity, His power and His glory.

NUM. 14:11 "And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people spurn Me? And how long will they not believe in Me, despite all the signs which I have performed in their midst?”

NUM. 14:22 “Surely all the men who have seen My glory and My signs, which I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have put Me to the test these ten times and have not listened to My voice…”

JOHN 2:11 “This beginning of His signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him.”

JOHN 2:23 “Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, beholding His signs which He was doing.”

There is nothing to behold, to be looked upon, to feel, to be able to touch or even smell after the priest’s words, 'hoc est corpus meum." No sign is manifested. You must argue for an invisible miracle which is not compatible with the historical, Biblical record of God working in the midst of humanity.

Think about it Kay Cee, it’s quite impossible to conceive of the bread which Jesus broke at the Last Supper as being the *same * body which was handling it. Rome asks us to go against all human senses and believe that what tastes and looks like bread and wine, is really flesh and blood; to believe in the separation of a substance and its properties, and in the presence of a material body in several places (even millions) at the same time, all of which is totally contrary to reason. Faith is not the absence of reason. If it was then God could not judge men according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He cannot condemn a man to Hell for not believing something that is totally unreasonable.

John six is not about believing in changing common bread into Chrit’s body, or common wine into His blood. Nor is it, hermeneutically, even connected to Jesus’ words at the “Last Supper.”

Blessings,
Bene

 

[bene7]

mercygate:

bene, the point I was making – and you know it because I stated it – was that the consciousness of Christ in the Eucharist perfused the spirituality of the subapostolic age.

The point is, Mercy, Ignatius used strong, figurative language and you readily recognized it. John chapter six,starting with verse 48, is no different.

Blessing,
Bene

 

[AquinasXVI]

Sandusky:

Nice to see you back. I’m wondering, what if you were in the presence of Christ in John 6, what would you have done? Believe in the apparent literal equation that his body must be eaten during passover like the passover lamb or would you have thought it symbolic? Those who left and said “who can accept this?” left what they understood as a literal eating of the Eucharist…the new and everlasting covenant per Christ.

To boot, you have the evidence of 2000 years of continuos faith in this most demanding of all miracle-the transubstantiation. Every generation from the first century to date have this article of faith recapitulated in writings. Historical proof of Christians faith in the Holy Eucharist exist while the claim of symbolic eucharist simply does not appear until the reformation.

in XT.