The Very Early Eucharist---Jesus not present in the Bread and Wine?

[YAQUBOS]

Peace be with you!

We continue by His Grace.

The Lord said:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves.” ( John 6:53 )

So unless we eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, we cannot be worthy to eat the Bread and drink of the Cup.

Yes, we believe God when He says that we have Life by the once for all presented Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Eating the flesh of the Lord and drinking His blood BY FAITH, we have LIFE before eating the Bread and drinking of the Cup. And we thank the Lord for that.

So the Bread and the Drink are NOT that same flesh of the Lord and His blood that we ate and drank by faith before eating the Bread and drinking of the Cup.

I know Christians from a Muslim background who believed in the Lord and ate His flesh and drank His blood even before being baptized. They became alive by the flesh of the Lord and His blood. And just as God says: “In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation–having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise” ( Ephesians 1:13 ). Yes, those Christians who were Muslims before they believed, after they believed they were sealed in Christ with the Holy Spirit. Just like those Gentiles in Acts 10, who became ALIVE and were sealed with the Spirit before being baptized:

"While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were listening to the message.

All the circumcised believers who came with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also.

For they were hearing them speaking with tongues and exalting God. Then Peter answered,

“Surely no one can refuse the water for these to be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we did, can he?”

And he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ." ( Acts 10:44-48 )

Yes, we have Life by eating the flesh of the Lord and drinking His blood by faith. Not Baptism nor the Lord’s Supper are the flesh and the blood of our Lord.

To be continued, if the Lord wills.

In Love,
Yaqubos†

 

[Church_Militant]

YAQUBOS:

But I don’t see anything God said about a “mortal” sin.

What about the verse about “There is a sin unto death…” ?

 

[YAQUBOS]

Peace be with you!

The Lord gave us the grace to continue. Thank You, Lord!

We have Life by eating the flesh of the Lord and drinking His blood by faith. Not Baptism nor the Lord’s Supper are the flesh and the blood of our Lord.

But this doesn’t mean that the Church is not the Body of Christ. But what is the “Body” in this sentence, and how is it related to the “Church”???

This doesn’t mean also that the Bread and the Cup that we bless are not the body and blood of our Lord.

When Jesus said we must eat His flesh to have Life, He didn’t mean that we must eat the Church or the Bread.

In addition, there is a real transformation that happens to the person who becomes Christian, and thus he BECOMES a member of Christ’s Body. But this doesn’t mean that the Christian is now a real member of Jesus of Nazareth ( for example, a hand by which He blessed the children… ). And this doesn’t mean that he is no more a human by nature.

The same for the Bread and the Cup. Not all bread that you buy from the market is the Lord’s Body. But “Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ?” ( 1 Corinthians 10:16 ).

So there is a transformation that makes the common bread a sharing in the body of Christ.

But this word “transformation” is not what some human philosophers call “transubstantiation”. For, as the person who becomes Christian doesn’t need to be divine so as to be called a member of Christ, the bread also doesn’t have to change its nature to be called “a sharing in the body of Christ”.

We don’t worship a Christian because he is a member of Christ. We don’t worship the Church because She is the Body of Christ. We don’t worship the Bread and the Cup because they are a sharing in the body and blood of Christ.

Most of the early Church Fathers, if not all of them, when using terms like “transformation”, meant what we have said here. They wanted to say that the Bread and the Cup are not common bread and common cup. After prayer and the Word of God, they aren’t common anymore. The Fathers did never imagine the philosophy of transubstantiation that some human philosophers have created later.

When talking about the Fathers, some Romans think that they had complete doctrines, and a tradition that was guiding them to know the truth. But, as we saw, the Fathers did many mistakes, and they contradicted each other in many cases. Don’t ever think that Origen, for example, knew the Doctrine of the Trinity, when he contradicted it!!!

They didn’t have any rule to follow other than the SCRIPTURE.

In Love,

Yaqubos†

 

[YAQUBOS]

Peace be with you!

Clement of Alexandria,The Instructor,2(ante A.D. 202),in ANF,II:242

“For the blood of the grape–that is, the Word–desired to be mixed with water, as His blood is mingled with salvation. And the blood of the Lord is twofold. For there is the blood of His flesh, by which we are redeemed from corruption; and the spiritual, that by which we are anointed. And to drink the blood of Jesus, is to become partaker of the Lord’s immortality; the Spirit being the energetic principle of the Word, as blood is of flesh. Accordingly, as wine is blended with water, so is the Spirit with man. And the one, the mixture of wine and water, nourishes to faith; while the other, the Spirit, conducts to immortality. And the mixture of both–of the water and of the Word–is called Eucharist, renowned and glorious grace; and they who by faith partake of it are sanctified both in body and soul.”


Tertullian,Against Marcion,40(A.D. 212),in ANF,III:418-419
“Then, having taken the bread and given it to His disciples, He made it His own body, by saying, ‘This is my body,’ that is, the figure of my body. A figure, however, there could not have been, unless there were first a veritable body. An empty thing, or phantom, is incapable of a figure. If, however, (as Marcion might say,) He pretended the bread was His body, because He lacked the truth of bodily substance, it follows that He must have given bread for us. It would contribute very well to the support of Marcion’s theory of a phantom body, that bread should have been crucified! But why call His body bread, and not rather (some other edible thing, say) a melon, which Marcion must have had in lieu of a heart! He did not understand how ancient was this figure of the body of Christ, who said Himself by Jeremiah: ‘I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter, and I knew not that they devised a device against me, saying, Let us cast the tree upon His bread,’ which means, of course, the cross upon His body. And thus, casting light, as He always did, upon the ancient prophecies, He declared plainly enough what He meant by the bread, when He called the bread His own body. He likewise, when mentioning the cup and making the new testament to be sealed ‘in His blood,’ affirms the reality of His body. For no blood can belong to a body which is not a body of flesh. If any sort of body were presented to our view, which is not one of flesh, not being fleshly, it would not possess blood. Thus, from the evidence of the flesh, we get a proof of the body, and a proof of the flesh from the evidence of the blood. In order, however, that you may discover how anciently wine is used as a figure for blood, turn to Isaiah, who asks, ‘Who is this that cometh from Edom, from Bosor with garments dyed in red, so glorious in His apparel, in the greatness of his might? Why are thy garments red, and thy raiment as his who cometh from the treading of the full winepress?’ The prophetic Spirit contemplates the Lord as if He were already on His way to His passion, clad in His fleshly nature; and as He was to suffer therein, He represents the bleeding condition of His flesh under the metaphor of garments dyed in red, as if reddened in the treading and crushing process of the wine-press, from which the labourers descend reddened with the wine-juice, like men stained in blood. Much more clearly still does the book of Genesis foretell this, when (in the blessing of Judah, out of whose tribe Christ was to come according to the flesh) it even then delineated Christ in the person of that patriarch, saying, ‘He washed His garments in wine, and His clothes in the blood of grapes’–in His garments and clothes the prophecy pointed out his flesh, and His blood in the wine. Thus did He now consecrate His blood in wine, who then (by the patriarch) used the figure of wine to describe His blood.”

In Love,
Yaqubos†

 

[YAQUBOS]

Peace be with you!

YAQUBOS:

But I don’t see anything God said about a “mortal” sin.

Church Militant:

What about the verse about “There is a sin unto death…” ?

Read the context, my friend:

“If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask and God will for him give life to those who commit sin not leading to death There is a sin leading to death; I do not say that he should make request for this.” ( 1 John 5:16 )

If you think we should not pray for the sin that is unto death, then ok… Please mention the “mortal” sins for which we will not pray…

If you think, for example, the sin against the Spirit is the mortal sin, then ok… Then maybe adultary is that sin against the Spirit…

I hope you are getting to understand the following PROPERLY:

“For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit,
and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come,
and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.” ( Hebrews 6:4-6 )

“For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins” ( Hebrews 10:26 )

In Love,
Yaqubos†

 

[YAQUBOS]

Peace be with you!
Church Militant:

Originally Posted by YAQUBOS

*Can someone who is NOT baptized be in a state of grace?

Was Dismas? The good thief?*

I know some Christians from a Muslim background who believed in Jesus Christ. If they are not yet baptized, do you think they have already eaten the flesh of the Son of Man and drank His blood?

Nope.

If they didn’t eat the flesh of our Lord and they didn’t drink His blood, then how did they have Life?

In Love,
Yaqubos†

 

[manualman]

Yaqubos,

He with the most posts does not necessarily win. Try pondering a bit more before hitting send.

I find that many evangelicals often seem to have the assumption that they posses information that the poor ignorant catholics have never heard or thought of. Bad news for you. We have.

I spent many years as a neo-protestant, studied with the Navigators in college and can see plainly that YOU are the one reading from someone else’s text, repeating charges made against the Church formed by someone else, not your own conscience and learning. You have no idea what biases and ill will linger in the heart of that/those authors. Consider that.

What YOU need to ponder now is NOT the nature of the Eucharist. It is the nature of the Church. You say you trust the authority of scripture alone. Why? Where did it come from? Who decided what writings were scripture and which were not? The fact is that we have a scripture today called the Bible only because the Catholic Church had the authority and infallibility granted by God to sift through all the religious writings, all the books claiming apostolic authorship and separate the wheat from the chaff. If you believe the Church did NOT have infallible authority to conduct this task, then you should spend MORE time worrying about whether your Bible contains the right books than about what Catholics believe about communion. If you believe that the Bible IS complete and without error, then you have already demonstrated to yourself the first certain instance in which God acted infallibly through the Catholic Church. Congratulations. Keep searching, you’ll find more. Lots more.

 

[Sarah_Jane]

"In summarizing the early Fathers’ teachings on Christ’s Real Presence, renowned Protestant historian of the early Church J. N. D. Kelly, writes: “Eucharistic teaching, it should be understood at the outset, was in general unquestioningly realist, i.e., the consecrated bread and wine were taken to be, and were treated and designated as, the Savior’s body and blood” (Early Christian Doctrines, 440).

From the Church’s early days, the Fathers referred to Christ’s presence in the Eucharist. Kelly writes: “Ignatius roundly declares that . . . [t]he bread is the flesh of Jesus, the cup his blood. Clearly he intends this realism to be taken strictly, for he makes it the basis of his argument against the Docetists’ denial of the reality of Christ’s body. . . . Irenaeus teaches that the bread and wine are really the Lord’s body and blood. His witness is, indeed, all the more impressive because he produces it quite incidentally while refuting the Gnostic and Docetic rejection of the Lord’s real humanity” (ibid., 197–98).

“Hippolytus speaks of ‘the body and the blood’ through which the Church is saved, and Tertullian regularly describes the bread as ‘the Lord’s body.’ The converted pagan, he remarks, ‘feeds on the richness of the Lord’s body, that is, on the Eucharist.’ The realism of his theology comes to light in the argument, based on the intimate relation of body and soul, that just as in baptism the body is washed with water so that the soul may be cleansed, so in the Eucharist ‘the flesh feeds upon Christ’s body and blood so that the soul may be filled with God.’ Clearly his assumption is that the Savior’s body and blood are as real as the baptismal water. Cyprian’s attitude is similar. Lapsed Christians who claim communion without doing penance, he declares, ‘do violence to his body and blood, a sin more heinous against the Lord with their hands and mouths than when they denied him.’ Later he expatiates on the terrifying consequences of profaning the sacrament, and the stories he tells confirm that he took the Real Presence literally” (ibid., 211–12)."

 

[Sarah_Jane]

“There is not a soul that can at all procure salvation, except it believe whilst it is in the flesh, so true is it that the flesh is the very condition on which salvation hinges. And since the soul is, in consequence of its salvation, chosen to the service of God, it is the flesh which actually renders it capable of such service. The flesh, indeed, is washed, in order that the soul may be cleansed… The flesh is shadowed with the imposition of hands, that the soul also may be illuminated by the Spirit;** the flesh feeds on the body and blood of Christ**, that the soul likewise may be filled with God.” (Tertullian, The Resurrection of the Dead, 8 [A.D. 210])

 

[Kurt_G]

YAQUBOS:

Peace be with you!

All sins are not equal, and the Scripture is clear about that…
Whatever, this is not our topic here.
In Love,
Yaqubos†

Hello Yaqubos… my apologies for the unintended change of subject. Pehaps another time, on another thread…

Now, for Tertullian:

YAQUBOS:

**Tertullian,Against Marcion,40(A.D. 212),in ANF,III:418-419
**"Then, having taken the bread and given it to His disciples, He made it His own body, by saying, ‘This is my body,’ that is, the figure of my body. A figure, however, there could not have been, unless there were first a veritable body. An empty thing, or phantom, is incapable of a figure. If, however, (as Marcion might say,) He pretended the bread was His body, because He lacked the truth of bodily substance, it follows that He must have given bread for us. It would contribute very well to the support of Marcion’s theory of a phantom body, that bread should have been crucified!
In Love,
Yaqubos†

Yaqubos, if your intent with this quote from Tertullian was to prove Jesus’ Real Presence, you could have found better quotes than your blue ones…if your intent was to disprove Jesus’ Real Presence, your chosen quote is squeezed between two red ones, both of which seem to give support to Tertullian’s belief in Christ’s Real Presence. I’m not sure where you’re coming from, but I’m really trying to figure it out!

We might find it difficult to defend everything Tertullian wrote. After all, he’s not known as “Saint Tertullian”, I presume for his later Montanist views. But to attempt to use Tertullian as an Early Father who “knew nothing of Jesus’ Real Presence” is stretching it a bit…

…Just my opinion (and hopefully a few others’)!

God Bless Us All!

 

[SPOKENWORD]

The only flesh that I can see through the human eyes is on my body.If Christ lives and dwells in me then my flesh is Christs,for I am the body of Christ. Any thing else is seen only through the eyes of faith and cannot be seen with human eyes. To a nonbeliever its not possible to prove what you believe. The problem is mans understanding. God Bless.

 

[Psalm45_9]

Pax Vobis Cvm!

YAQUBOS:

Jesus Christ said:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves.” ( John 6:53 )

So I want to know: Can a person be in a state of grace without being alive by eating the flesh of the Lord and drinking His blood?

Yes, through: Baptism, faith, and charity.

YAQUBOS:

If the bread and the cup are the SAME flesh and blood about which the Lord was talking in John 6:53, then why can’t the Eucharist give life, and “will do nothing for them”, as you say?

A person is born with life, that person is already alive, but if that person does not eat food, the person will eventually succumb to the forces of nature and die. Food sustains this person, it gives him life.

On a spiritual level, a person is born again through baptism. At baptism he is given spiritual life, but if he does not get the nutrients of spiritual food (the Eucharist) that person will eventually succumb to the forces of nature (sin) and will die. The Eucharist provides nutrients to this person’s soul, giving him life (strength to fight temptations). Thus the Eucharist does give us life.

 

[Psalm45_9]

Pax Vobis Cvm!

YAQUBOS:

As for the symbol: if a person burns the flag of your country, do you think he is guilty against you?

On a side note, some people believe burning the American Flag is the most patriotic thing you can do. When Flags get weathered and torn, they are supposed to be burned. Anyhow, can a person receive a flag unworthily? I do know that if someone commits a murder, the murderer is guilty of the victim’s blood. Guilt involves doing something wrong in; St. Paul’s case, sin. I still do not know how someone can receive a symbol unworthily.

YAQUBOS:

I can be an enemy to your country and hold the flag of your country in an unworthy manner.

Hold what unworthy, Fabric? If you were to take it, I can just make another one, no big deal there. I can even make one just like yours and hold it up. If someone were to tell me I was unworthy to receive bread, I can just go home and eat my own. You’re replies make no sense out of St. Paul’s statement.

YAQUBOS:

Does confession give you LIFE and forgiveness of “mortal” sin without eating the flesh of our Lord and drinking His blood?

If a person receives in the state of mortal sin, then that person has received unworthily and has just committed another mortal sin. Christ, who is present in the confessional, can only forgive mortal sins. Once this has happened grace has just entered that person’s soul, grace that will be strengthened by the Eucharist that will aid in the fight against the mortal sin that the person fell into.

 

[YAQUBOS]

Peace be with you!

manualman:

Yaqubos,

He with the most posts does not necessarily win. Try pondering a bit more before hitting send.

Do you really think we are here to see who will win?? :nope: We are sure that Jesus Christ is the Winner.

manualman:

I find that many evangelicals often seem to have the assumption that they posses information that the poor ignorant catholics have never heard or thought of. Bad news for you. We have.

That’s not bad news, my friend.

manualman:

I spent many years as a neo-protestant, studied with the Navigators in college and can see plainly that YOU are the one reading from someone else’s text, repeating charges made against the Church formed by someone else, not your own conscience and learning. You have no idea what biases and ill will linger in the heart of that/those authors. Consider that.

You mean the authors of Scripture??

manualman:

What YOU need to ponder now is NOT the nature of the Eucharist. It is the nature of the Church. You say you trust the authority of scripture alone. Why? Where did it come from? Who decided what writings were scripture and which were not? The fact is that we have a scripture today called the Bible only because the Catholic Church had the authority and infallibility granted by God to sift through all the religious writings, all the books claiming apostolic authorship and separate the wheat from the chaff. If you believe the Church did NOT have infallible authority to conduct this task, then you should spend MORE time worrying about whether your Bible contains the right books than about what Catholics believe about communion. If you believe that the Bible IS complete and without error, then you have already demonstrated to yourself the first certain instance in which God acted infallibly through the Catholic Church. Congratulations. Keep searching, you’ll find more. Lots more.

The Scripture existed when the Roman Church didn’t even exist. Whatever, this is not our topic here.

As usual, when there is no answer from the Scripture, people try to put a human authority higher than the Scripture.

In Love,
Yaqubos†

 

[YAQUBOS]

Peace be with you!
Kurt G.:

Now, for Tertullian:

Yaqubos, if your intent with this quote from Tertullian was to prove Jesus’ Real Presence, you could have found better quotes than your blue ones…if your intent was to disprove Jesus’ Real Presence, your chosen quote is squeezed between two red ones, both of which seem to give support to Tertullian’s belief in Christ’s Real Presence. I’m not sure where you’re coming from, but I’m really trying to figure it out!

We might find it difficult to defend everything Tertullian wrote. After all, he’s not known as “Saint Tertullian”, I presume for his later Montanist views. But to attempt to use Tertullian as an Early Father who “knew nothing of Jesus’ Real Presence” is stretching it a bit…

…Just my opinion (and hopefully a few others’)!

God Bless Us All!

Thank you. That’s how you interpret the Fathers with your presumptions…

By the way: did you read carefully what I wrote? What did I say about the Eucharist? Didn’t I say that it is the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ?.. Just read it again…

In Love,
Yaqubos†

 

[YAQUBOS]

Peace be with you!

"In summarizing the early Fathers’ teachings on Christ’s Real Presence, renowned Protestant historian of the early Church J. N. D. Kelly, writes:

Are you sure you are quoting a Protestant, a “heretical” as you call them??..

In Love,
Yaqubos†

 

[YAQUBOS]

Peace be with you!
Psalm45:9:

A person is born with life, that person is already alive, but if that person does not eat food, the person will eventually succumb to the forces of nature and die. Food sustains this person, it gives him life.

Thank you. This is more than clear. So a person is born with God’s Life in him, right? And so Jesus Christ was talking in vain about eating His flesh and drinking His blood so that we may have Life…

In Love,
Yaqubos†

 

[Sarah_Jane]

YAQUBOS:

Peace be with you!

Are you sure you are quoting a Protestant, a “heretical” as you call them??..

In Love,
Yaqubos†

Yes, I’m sure.

 

[Kurt_G]

YAQUBOS:

Peace be with you!

Thank you. That’s how you interpret the Fathers with your presumptions…

By the way: did you read carefully what I wrote? What did I say about the Eucharist? Didn’t I say that it is the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ?.. Just read it again…

In Love,
Yaqubos†

Thank you, Yaqubos. I was posing an honest question to you, not meant to “stir the pot”. It is just that your comments were difficult for me to follow, but perhaps I am the only one…

As for quotes like this:

YAQUBOS:

The Scripture existed when the Roman Church didn’t even exist. Whatever, this is not our topic here.

As usual, when there is no answer from the Scripture, people try to put a human authority higher than the Scripture.

In Love,
Yaqubos†

Some of us would love to respond and counter (in a sharing way, though, all of us under the loving care of God, as members in the Body of Christ.) I truly feel you are missing something about the very Church that Jesus Christ promised to build for us, but this thread is not the place to discuss it.

God Bless Us All!

 

[manualman]

YAQUBOS:

Do you really think we are here to see who will win??

You mean the authors of Scripture??

The Scripture existed when the Roman Church didn’t even exist.

I have no idea why you are here. I don’t believe in mind reading. But the frantic pace of your postings suggests a lack of contemplation. That’s all I meant in the first line.

The authors of scripture? Come now. Let us be honest. You have never heard a preacher “debunk” the catholic teaching of transubstantiation? You have never read books at least partially dedicated to defending the modern protestant notions regarding communion? Baloney. Anybody who reads John without preconceived notions can see that Jesus clearly stated that he was giving us his very flesh and blood to eat. People were just plain disgusted with the concept and left him. It’s right there in black and white for everyone who isn’t already closed to the concept.

As for the last statement…only the old testament. My point is that MOST basics of the faith can be argued against by a good logical contortionist using a few verses twisted out of shape. I’ve been to debates where atheists use the same tactics you use here to try to disprove the Divinity of Jesus. Arguments against the Real Presence are a prime example of why God gave us a VISIBLE church with real authority so that each man wouldn’t be awash in the vast wasteland of conflicting opinion on interpretation of the basic truths of the faith (i.e. protestantism).