Does Church of Rome Hold the The True Gospel?

Again, let's revisit the 'cannibalistic' accusations against the Church. BTW, the in the early centuries of the Church, Christians were accused of just this practice because they used the words 'feeding upon the Lord's body and blood in the Eucharist. There was no outcry within the Christian Church about this believe.

he charge of cannibalism does not hold water for at least three reasons. First, Catholics do not receive our Lord in a cannibalistic form. Catholics receive him in the form of bread and wine. The cannibal kills his victim; Jesus does not die when he is consumed in Communion. Indeed, he is not changed in the slightest; the communicant is the only person who is changed. The cannibal eats part of his victim, whereas in Communion the entire Christ is consumed—body, blood, soul, and divinity. The cannibal sheds the blood of his victim; in Communion our Lord gives himself to us in a non-bloody way.

Second, if it were truly immoral in any sense for Christ to give us his flesh and blood to eat, it would be contrary to his holiness to command anyone to eat his body and blood—even symbolically. Symbolically performing an immoral act would be of its natureimmoral.

Moreover, the expressions to eat flesh and to drink blood already carried symbolic meaning both in the Hebrew Old Testament and in the Greek New Testament, which was heavily influenced by Hebrew. In Psalm 27:1-2, Isaiah 9:18-20, Isaiah 49:26, Micah 3:3, and Revelation 17:6-16, we find these words (eating flesh and drinking blood) understood as symbolic for persecuting or assaulting someone. Jesus’ Jewish audience would never have thought he was saying, “Unless you persecute and assault me, you shall not have life in you.” Jesus never encouraged sin. This may well be another reason why the Jews took Christ at his word.

Not Metaphorically Speaking
If Jesus was speaking in purely symbolic terms, his competence as a teacher would have to be called into question. No one listening to him understood him to be speaking metaphorically. Contrast his listeners’ reaction when Jesus said he was a “door” or a “vine.” Nowhere do we find anyone asking, “How can this man be a door made out of wood?” Or, “How can this man claim to be a plant?” When Jesus spoke in metaphor, his audience seems to have been fully aware of it.

When we examine the surrounding context of John 6:53, Jesus’ words could hardly have been clearer. In verse 51, he plainly claims to be “the living bread” that his followers must eat. And he says in no uncertain terms that “the bread which I shall give . . . is my flesh.” Then, when the Jews were found “disput[ing] among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’” in verse 52, he reiterates even more emphatically, “Truly, truly, I say unto you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”

 

He wasn't talking about cannibalism and He wasn't talking about transubstantiation, which is literal blood and body although chemically it is wine in, wine out and bread in and bread out. Catholicism has bad hermeneutics on this issue.

 

Notice how Jesus explains what He has just told them...

John 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

In the Catholic Douay-Rheims the verse is:

John 6:64 It is the spirit that quickeneth: the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.


Transubstantiation and the "unbloody" sacrifice of the mass is a total contradiction.
You cannot have it both ways. Well, I suppose you can as an exercise of Orwellian double-think.
And of course ALL Christians are accused of that in some venue of logic e.g. God becomes a human being through the virgin Mary.

This is the "real presence"
Matthew 18:20 For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

Can we settle for this at least?

 

Not always...

John 2
19 Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
20 Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?
21 But he spake of the temple of his body.
22 When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.

 

Just like our bodies are temples that should not be defiled in any way - we should keep them holy. We understand what the word temple means as it relates to Jesus and holiness (and who He actually was) and so did the first Christians, the Jews didn't - they remained in a state of ignorance about Him and His reality.

 

Didn't Walter's explanation about the Holy Eucharist strike any chord within you? He made a fully understandable explanation of what is involved here and you see no possibility of this being correct?

And why do we Christians believe this impossibility is possible? It all comes down to one thing - having faith that this is true. Believing in the orthodox teaching of Holy Communion is on the same plane - an everlasting faith that this is also true.

 

Obviously being a former Catholic I did give credence to the Real Presence and yes it seems to go back quite a way in the history of the early church.
I just don't accept it anymore.

 

Catholic hermeneutics are bad. They take things that are not literal as literal. On the issue of transubstantiation, they have insisted on literalism and at the same time denied that it is literal, at least here.

Ambrose said that the bread and wine "...are believed to be nothing else than the body and blood of Christ."

Communion is an ordinance and it is not a sacrament.

 

1 Corithians 10

16Is 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?

NOPE its not.


1 Corinthians 11

27Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.

Nope because that is not the body or blood of the Lord.


1 Corinthians 11

29For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly.


Judge the body rightly. You mean its just bread? right?

Judge the BREAD rightly.

Paul is so crazy.


John 6
52Then the Jews began to argue with one another, saying, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?”

You mean his symbol? Before this he called himself a door and a vine, Made way more massive claim of being equated to God in the previous chapter...... no one leaves him. No one said hold up Jesus you are not a piece of wood, or you are not a plant.

John 5

23so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.

24“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.


No body leaves. Its all cool. No problem.

But hold on when he says he is symbolically a bread from heaven that is the last straw? after all the bolder claims before?

I guarantee you tell someone it just symbolic they got no problem with it.

John 6

53So Jesus said to them, “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. 54“He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55“For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. 56“He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. 57“As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me. 58“This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever.”

TRUE FOOD, TRUE DRINK.

What exactly would he have to say to convince you the BREAD is his flesh?

and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.”

51“I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.”


He says the bread which he WILL give. When does he give it?

Nobody would have a problem with just symbolism.

Even so they would believe he says:

62“What then if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before?

The ascension to prove what? that bread represents his body and wine his blood?

I can claim pizza represents my body and coke represents my blood, there is no unbelieving to it.

All his disciples couldn't handle Jesus claim.


Do you think i would have to do the miracle of floating into heaven to convince you that I believe pizza represents my body?

No.... you would just know. But to convince that is ACTUALLY my body, you might need a miracle to convince.

 

It's a good thing that Jesus did not say that he is a banana split because someone might take that literally as those who think that Jesus is a loaf of bread.

 

Only in the new fangled interpretation that arose some 1600 years down the line. Communion is the most sacred of all the sacraments, it is at the top of the list.

 

Douay-Rheims
John 6:64 It is the spirit that quickeneth: the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

 

I totally accept the idea of the spirit and thus life. Our flesh profits nothing, but the flesh that was sacrificed profits everything.

 

His words are to be interpreted as Spirit, not flesh

 

Oh yea.... the Lord gave us the reformation