Unless you eat my FLESH and drink my BLOOD you have no life in you.

[Montalban]

Protestants, most of them are ignorant of Christian history

It seems some wish to think that the history of the church jumps from c.33 to c.1500

 

[Mannyfit75]

Indeed, because there was a doctrine of the Eucharist!

It was one of the charges pagans used in saying Christianity was a ‘strange’ religion.

Many Protestants here want to deny history (confusing it with ‘tradition’) but this evidence from the pagans shows what Christians were doing - albeit through pagan eyes

I wonder why they want to deny history?

 

[Montalban]

I wonder why they want to deny history?

It is strange.

There you have Jesus saying His body is real food. He’s questioned on this. He insists it’s real.

He’s then giving the bread and wine as real body and blood.

Paul says that it’s a real sacrafice - not just a communal meal

Ignatius of Antioch, the next generation of Christians says it.

Then the next - Justin Martyr.
Justin Martyr, in his First Apology writes…
“CHAPTER LXVI – OF THE EUCHARIST.
And this food is called among us Eukaristia [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, “This do ye in remembrance of Me, this is My body;” and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, “This is My blood;” and gave it to them alone. Which the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of Mithras, commanding the same thing to be done. For, that bread and a cup of water are placed with certain incantations in the mystic rites of one who is being initiated, you either know or can learn.”

See also CHAP. VIII of
TERTULLIAN
ON THE RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH.

And so on.

And even the pagans charge the early church with cannibalism.

The best counter argument seems to be “Oh, that’s just your interpretation”

 

[mikeledes]

We have no biblical record of anyone eating Christ’s flesh, and drinking His blood; so what was said by the Lord in John 6 must not be taken literally.

If Jesus is present in the Eucharist, every instance that the Eucharist is mentioned in the Bible is a reference to “eating His flesh and drinking His blood.” Since you have rejected the Real Presence/ transubstatiation, then there is no way of proving to you that anyone in the Bible ate His flesh or drank His blood. That’s like someone asking “Show me an example of Divine Revelation”, but they have already rejected the Bible as being inspired.

God Bless,
Michael

 

[mrs_abbott]

Is the translations of the words “eat” and “drink” from Greek and/or Hebrew to English clear? Basically, I’m just trying to see if there could be any other explanation for the confusion between some Christians on this.

 

[colliric]

Amen! Very well said!!!

The icing on the Cake is the very verse where they decide to turn the ir back on him… look at it’s number!

John Chapter 6:66!

It’s the only time that happens in the entire bible!

Coincidence? I think not…

 

[colliric]

If Jesus is present in the Eucharist, every instance that the Eucharist is mentioned in the Bible is a reference to “eating His flesh and drinking His blood.” Since you have rejected the Real Presence/ transubstatiation, then there is no way of proving to you that anyone in the Bible ate His flesh or drank His blood. That’s like someone asking “Show me an example of Divine Revelation”, but they have already rejected the Bible as being inspired.

God Bless,
Michael

I agree with you mike and let me just say, that your posts are utterly brilliant, I’m thinking of copying and printing it out to keep it on file. You are a very smart user!

God Bless you.

 

[sandusky]

mikeledes:

If Jesus is present in the Eucharist, every instance that the Eucharist is mentioned in the Bible is a reference to “eating His flesh and drinking His blood.”

”If.” But, He’s not.

mikeledes:

Since you have rejected the Real Presence/ transubstatiation, then there is no way of proving to you that anyone in the Bible ate His flesh or drank His blood. That’s like someone asking “Show me an example of Divine Revelation”, but they have already rejected the Bible as being inspired.

Your argument, though utterly brilliant to Catholics, is specious, Mike, as it wrongly equates
rejection of real presence, and transubstantiation—two different things—with a rejection
of God’s revelation.

There is a way of proving it to me, Mike—prove it from the Revelation that you infer I reject.

You claim that people in the bible ate Christ’s flesh, and drank His blood; the bible states that they ate bread, and drank wine in remembrance of His real sacrifice on the cross—what are you committed to with transubstantiation?

 

[sandusky]

The problem with the door example (and the others) is that we don’t have an example of anyone claiming on the basis of the text that Jesus was a bunch of planks with a door knob. We do have, cited above, early records of those who knew the apostles and their disciples who believed that John 6 meant real Body, etc. And Saint paul in Corinthians specifically says “is it not the Body…?” and not a metaphor. Most people don’t die from metaphors.

Paul doesn’t ask, “is it not the body?” anywhere; also, no record exists of anyone eating Jesus; in fact, we watch Him move from John 6 to His ascension in Acts 1—uneaten.

Christ’s sacrifice on the cross abrogated the ritual worship of the law; why do you continue in ritual worship?

Christ told the woman at the well that the hour is coming when true worshippers will worship God in Spirit, and in truth, because God is Spirit, and that those are the worshippers God sought for Himself—the ritual worship of God ended almost two thousand years ago at Calvary; sacramentalism, and the mass are ritual worship.

 

[sandusky]

Montalban:

No. What I’m pointing to is the fact Jesus is asked if he’s serious and he says yes his body is real food.

It’s not a metaphor, indeed. It’s a literal truth.

Where then, is the record of this “literal truth?”

Montalban:

And Paul later says if you want a communal meal, stay home, 1 Corinthians 11:17 ff

Seems to me you misunderstand that passage, but, since you’ve offered no explanation of it, how can I know what you understand by it?

Montalban:

He did, because the bread and wine become his body and blood

How? Where is this stated?

At the wedding feast in Cana, the water became wine; when He calmed the storm, the wind and the sea became calm; where is it stated in scripture, anywhere, that anything became His body, and His blood?

Montalban:

That’s why Paul says it’s not just bread - if you’re hungry, stay at home!

But Paul calls the bread, bread, and he calls the cup, the cup in v27.

 

[sandusky]

“The devil knows that, according to the promise of Jesus Christ, they who receive Holy Communion worthily will not fall into his power, but will obtain eternal life, and on this account he either tempts men to disbelieve the mystery, or he suggests every sort of pretext to keep them from receiving it. But he himself believes it and trembles. Would to God that all men had so strong a faith!”

by Fr. Michael Muller

You don’t believe that the eucharist gives you eternal life, in fact, you can receive the eucharist regularly during your lifetime, die in mortal sin, and be condemned to hell; how is that the giving of eternal life?

Belief in the real sacrifice of Christ, the one offered on Calvary, is the only belief that can truly save forever; read the gospels, and the epistles.

 

[sandusky]

Montalban:

Then you ignore Paul’s gospel
1 Corinthians 11:17 ff

No; I understand it; if you read from v17, and really consider Paul’s chastisement of the Corinthians, you might see what body is not being “rightly” judged, or discerned—it’s not
the eucharist.

Montalban:

This is because they were ‘drinking blood’ and ‘eating flesh’.

OCTAVIUS The Christian: That story is probably based on reports that we share together a meal of the body and blood of Christ. That we do. But it is not human flesh we eat. It is bread and wine we consecrate to commemorate our Lord’s death.

You not only read your tradition into scripture, but into the words of Octavius as well.

Montalban:

There you have Jesus saying His body is real food. He’s questioned on this. He insists it’s real.

He’s not directly questioned, He overhears their grumbling—you’re reading your tradition into
the text.

You don’t take what Jesus says in Jn 6 literally either; instead, you believe the confabulation of the doctrine of real presence, or transubstantiation in which the bread and wine allegedly become the flesh and blood; that’s not taking John 6 literally, is it.

Montalban:

Paul says that it’s a real sacrafice - not just a communal meal

Here is a list of all of the verses in Paul’s epistles that reference a sacrifice:● Romans 12:1
● 1 Corinthians 10:18
● 1 Corinthians 10:20
● Ephesians 5:2
● Philippians 2:17
● Philippians 4:18None** of those verses references the eucharist—none, nada, zilch, zip—you are committed
to tradition.

 

[Isa_Almisry]

The problem with the door example (and the others) is that we don’t have an example of anyone claiming on the basis of the text that Jesus was a bunch of planks with a door knob. We do have, cited above, early records of those who knew the apostles and their disciples who believed that John 6 meant real Body, etc. And Saint paul in Corinthians specifically says “is it not the Body…?” and not a metaphor. Most people don’t die from metaphors.

Paul doesn’t ask, “is it not the body?” anywhere;

I’m sorry, different translation perhaps I Corinthians 10:16.

also, no record exists of anyone eating Jesus; in fact, we watch Him move from John 6 to His ascension in Acts 1—uneaten.

Actually you got me there. When Christ says, “Take, Eat, This is My Body,” it doesn’t record that the Apostles actually ate. I just infered it from their later actions. Acts 20:7. The disciples knew Him in the breaking of the Bread, from that first Paschal Sunday on till today. Luke 24:35.

Christ’s sacrifice on the cross abrogated the ritual worship of the law; why do you continue in ritual worship?

I read St. John account in Revelation on worship in heaven. Altar, candles, lampstands (actually he sees these while in the Lord on earth), incense, etc. seems a good enough model for me.

In Acts 13:2 As they ministered to the Lord is a mistration of “as they were in the Liturgy of the Lord.”

In I Cornthians 11 St. Paul is speaking of “when you come together as a Church” and then goes on to describe the central part of the Liturgy, done on Sundays (Acts 20:7), celebrated every Sunday from the Resurrectin to (barring the Second Coming) two days hence.

Christ came not to destroy the Law but to fulfil it, no detail of which will pass from the law before heaven and earth pass away (last I checked heaven and earth were still here). Whosoever breaks it and instructs others to do so will be least, whosoever does and teaches it shall be called great. Matthew 5:17-20.

Christ told the woman at the well that the hour is coming when true worshippers will worship God in Spirit, and in truth, because God is Spirit, and that those are the worshippers God sought for Himself—the ritual worship of God ended almost two thousand years ago at Calvary; sacramentalism, and the mass are ritual worship.

And the problem is, if you reject the mass, why do you care about what happened on Calvary? I Corinthians 11:26. Why were they worshipping in Corinth?

We enter the Holiest by His Blood with a new and living way which He consecrated for us through His Body. Hebrews 10:19-20.

God is Spirit, but God the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. John 1:14. We worship God in Spirit, but as Christ emphasized the “a Spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have” Luke 24:39, we are not free to minimize it.

It’s not a hypothetical. There were those in the time of the Apostles who denied the Real Presence in the Eucharist, because they denied Christ had a body. St. Ignatius, who knew the Apostles at Antioch, and whom the Apostles entrusted with that Church, speaks in his letter to the Smyneaeans about them, saying how they wouldn’t participate in the Eucharist because “they deny that it is the self same Body of the Lord which hung on the Cross.” At least they were consistent. And today, the JWs claim that Jesus didn’t rise with the body that hung on the Cross (exactly whose body He rose with is a matter of debate).

If the Spirit is everything, then I am afraid that the Blood of Jesus is nothing, as Spirit’s don’t have Blood.

 

[Isa_Almisry]

”If.” But, He’s not.

Your argument, though utterly brilliant to Catholics, is specious, Mike, as it wrongly equates
rejection of real presence, and transubstantiation—two different things—with a rejection
of God’s revelation.

There is a way of proving it to me, Mike—prove it from the Revelation that you infer I reject.

You claim that people in the bible ate Christ’s flesh, and drank His blood; the bible states that they ate bread, and drank wine in remembrance of His real sacrifice on the cross—what are you committed to with transubstantiation?

Johne 6:56 he who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood abides in Me, and I in him.
Take, Eat, this is My Body.
The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the Body of Christ.
John 6:60 Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said “this is a hard saying; who can understand it?”
John 6:61 When Jesus knew in Himself that His discples complained aobut this, He said to them, “Does this offend you?”
John 6:66 From that time many of His discples went back and walked with Him no more (Biblical Protestants).
John 6:68 But Simon Peter answered HIm, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life."

Looks like the same thing to me.

 

[mollydoggie2]

Did not the first Christians celebrate the Sabboth (Saturday) with the Jewish people as their law required and then meet on Sunday separately with their fellow Christians to celebrate the Eucharist?

 

[billpenn]

I’ve said this a thousand times. You are lumping all Protestants together. We celebrate the Eucharist EVERY Sunday. We believe in the Real Presence. The Eucharist is the CENTER of our worship. The whole point of you instigation here is for you to take cheap shots at ALL Protestant churches and say that NONE of them have the real Eucharist. Well, I believe you are wrong and Scripture would support that you are also wrong. Jesus established a church of all believers, you included, but not you alone.

You might believe in the Real Presence…but you don’t have Christ there - His Real Presence, whole and entire - since you do not have a valid Eucharist - no apostolic succession, no valide Eucharist.

 

[Isa_Almisry]

No; I understand it; if you read from v17, and really consider Paul’s chastisement of the Corinthians, you might see what body is not being “rightly” judged, or discerned—it’s not
the eucharist.

You not only read your tradition into scripture, but into the words of Octavius as well.

He’s not directly questioned, He overhears their grumbling—you’re reading your tradition into
the text.

You don’t take what Jesus says in Jn 6 literally either; instead, you believe the confabulation of the doctrine of real presence, or transubstantiation in which the bread and wine allegedly become the flesh and blood; that’s not taking John 6 literally, is it.

Here is a list of all of the verses in Paul’s epistles that reference a sacrifice:● Romans 12:1
● 1 Corinthians 10:18
● 1 Corinthians 10:20
● Ephesians 5:2
● Philippians 2:17
● Philippians 4:18None of those verses references the eucharist—none, nada, zilch, zip—you are committed
to tradition.

Just to take one point: 1 Corinthians 10:18 "Are not those who eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar? 20 Rather the things that the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God and I do not want you to have communion with demons
AND THEN
21 you cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the Lord’s table [btw, another term for altar] and the table of demons.

How to partake of the sacrifice of Calvary if not partaking at the Lord’s table? How do you commune with God? Btw note verses 14 up to your quotation is on the Eucharist (otherwise verse 16 makes not sense) and then goes on afterwards with idol worship then the conduct of women at worship and then conduct at the Lord’s Supper (eg. 11:20, 23-34).

You were so close. And yet so far.

Btw on tradition: when St. Paul writes, there were no written Gospels yet so it was only in the context of the Tradition of Liturgy that the Last Supper was being recounted (see 11:23). In fact that is how the canon was fixed: what writings were read at Divine Liturgy.

 

[Isa_Almisry]

No; I understand it; if you read from v17, and really consider Paul’s chastisement of the Corinthians, you might see what body is not being “rightly” judged, or discerned—it’s not
the eucharist.

You not only read your tradition into scripture, but into the words of Octavius as well.

He’s not directly questioned, He overhears their grumbling—you’re reading your tradition into
the text.

You don’t take what Jesus says in Jn 6 literally either; instead, you believe the confabulation of the doctrine of real presence, or transubstantiation in which the bread and wine allegedly become the flesh and blood; that’s not taking John 6 literally, is it.

Here is a list of all of the verses in Paul’s epistles that reference a sacrifice:● Romans 12:1
● 1 Corinthians 10:18
● 1 Corinthians 10:20
● Ephesians 5:2
● Philippians 2:17
● Philippians 4:18None of those verses references the eucharist—none, nada, zilch, zip—you are committed
to tradition.

Btw of all the above verses the sacrifice of Calvary is mentioned only once. I guess St. Paul didn’t find it that important.

Several do mention ourselves as a sacrifice. So I guess St Paul taught that our works (sacrifice is a work, no?) are more important than Calvary.

Not.

 

[Isa_Almisry]

Where then, is the record of this “literal truth?”

Seems to me you misunderstand that passage, but, since you’ve offered no explanation of it, how can I know what you understand by it?

How? Where is this stated?

At the wedding feast in Cana, the water became wine; when He calmed the storm, the wind and the sea became calm; where is it stated in scripture, anywhere, that anything became His body, and His blood?

But Paul calls the bread, bread, and he calls the cup, the cup in v27.

Because he says in verse 10:16 that it is the communion of the Body of Christ and the communion of the Blood of Christ. (note not “a” but “the”).

And the Bread and Wine became Body and Blood, “this is My Body,…This is My Blood” says so in three (actually four places).

 

[boog123]

Donny, you are confusing two different events.

Your question: ”Unless you eat my FLESH and drink my BLOOD you have no life in you,” does not pertain to the eucharist/Christ’s Passover/the Lord’s supper, but to belief in Christ—read John 6 in context.

Catholics in the know, are always quick to point out that when Jesus talks about belief in Himself, He is not talking about a one-time event, but in continuous belief—24 hours a day, 7 days a week—as the Greek present tense indicates.

The same is true of John 6:54—it is about belief, and it is in the present tense (continuous action); in order to be consistent with the Catholic teaching of this verse as the literal eating of the Lord’s flesh, and blood, Catholics should be consuming the eucharist 24 hours a day, 7 days a week until they die; are you doing that?

If not, why not? :ehh:

When you read the account of the true Lord’s Supper, which again, is not found in John 6,
Christ gives no command as to how often that Supper is to be celebrated; He merely says “do this in remembrance of Me.”

Even Paul in 1 Cor 11 says of the eucharist, ”as often as you do this”—no specified frequency is given.

Well, it would seem to me that my sect is certainly closer to the truth of this than your sect.

If your sect were consistent with their literal belief of what John is teaching in John 6:54, they would be consuming the eucharist 24 hours a day, 7 days a week without stopping; since they are not doing this, they are inconsistent in what they maintain concerning that verse.

whats everybodies take on these comments?