Wputnam,
Sorry to be so long in responding, but I have been swamped the last few days with rescue mission work.
But here goes with my response to your
"posted June 16, 2003 06:37 PM "
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Then what you are saying here is that you believe what the protestants believe, and that is, that the substance that you consume is the substance in its natural form and that no transubstantiation has occured in the natural realm.
Huh?
No, all I am saying is, when we go to communion, we acdrtually receive Jesus' body and blood.
What was once bread and wine, is no longer bread and wine, but actually Jesus' body and blood.
What we taste is the "accidents," of what used to be bread and wine, but is no longer bread and wine. Our senses therefore deceive us is what it is we are receiving (the action of the flesh) but intellectually, we know, by faith, that it is really Jesus' body and blood (the spirit part.)</font>[/QUOTE]Then you accept the Words of Jesus, but do not apply the context to them. Jesus who was in his "real" body and blood declared the bread and wine on the table before him to be his body and blood. You see, Jesus' body and blood was destined for the Cross, the altar of sacrifice, to be sacrificed for the sins of the world. He was not altering bread into flesh or wine into blood, he was declaring them to be substitutes for his real body and blood to teach his disciples a way of remembering what it is He was going to do for all mankind. He did not assign any powers to the bread or the wine so that they would transubstantiate upon consumption to nourish or become part of the bodies and blood of those who consumed them. He painted us a glorious picture of remembrance which does the same thing for the one who eats the substitutes as the Rosary does for the one who uses it, that is "remembrance" of specific prayers, each bead being a memory jogger.
Since you insist on believing that you are "tasting the flesh and the blood" of Jesus, you should be made aware that the occult does the same thing. Which came first? Who knows, but the fact is clear that both good and evil do the same thing, they deceive themselves, which is what "transubstantiation" is, a total deception, you said so yourself!
First of all, how is it that we can eat and drink of this "unworthily" if it is only "substitutionary" as you say, since if it were so, it simply would not be the reality of Jesus Christ in His body and blood!!!?
"Unworthily" means that the one partaking of the substitutionary elements has in his heart a spot or blemish that the partaker does not want to wash clean, a grudge, or unsettled issue, if you will. Therefore Sin remains in the partaker's heart. And, that is why one who is convicted of sin is not supposed to partake, but to leave his offering at the altar, go to the one with whom there is a grudge or unsettled issue and resolve it first, then return to the Altar and offer the sacrifice with a clean heart (clear conscience).
The partaking of the substitutionary elements is directly equivalent to the OT substitutionary animal sacrifice. It was and is viewed as an Holy event, and the one who offers the sacrifice is required to do so with a clean heart else the sacrifice is not acceptable to Holy God, but is instead an abomination. So you see, it matters not that the elements are substitutes because they are mere symbols of the reality of the spirit in which the receiving of the elements represents the recieving of the real flesh and blood of the HOLY Son of God sacrificed for us. To hold a grudge or an unsettled issue between yourself and another is sin, so you are recieving the HOLY, pure and clean, into a dirty, UNWORTHY receptical therefore bringing damnation upon one's self for so doing.
Bread and wine do not "substitute" for Christ; the bread and wine are no longer bread and wine actually, completely but are His actual body and blood!
Neither did the spotless lamb or other "worthy substitute" become the real flesh and blood of the one who offered it for atonement of sin, but the blood of the lamb was accepted by God
in lieu of the blood of the sinner, just as the precious blood of God's only Son
has been accepted by God in our stead. In the OT, God no longer held the sinner accountable for the sins that were atoned by the substitute! Likewise, God no longer holds our sins against us because He has accepted the precious blood of His only Son as payment for our sins!
How does Christ appear to us in the Eucharist from on high on His throne in heaven? By one of the most wonderful gift he could give us, that sustains us in the greatest gift He gave us - Salvation!
Nothing "substitutes" for Him, as it is actually HIM! Else how can we partake of a "substitute" unworthily is the substitute is not actually HIM?
Answer: It cannot!
Just as the OT blood sacrifice of innocent animals was a substitute for the blood of the sinner, the blood of Jesus, God's only begotten Son, is the direct substitute for our blood. Remember the wage of sin is death! But the gift we receive out of the Grace of God is his Precious Son who atoned for our sin. Jesus paid the WAGE once-for-ALL, so that we would not be condemned by our sin. Thus, we are not condemned by our sin, but rather in our failing to believe in Jesus, even on his name, which is our salvation. Thus the flesh and blood of Jesus is the substitute for our own flesh and blood.
Jesus made "bread and wine" the memorial of his "flesh and blood", a remembrance device (gimick) like that of the rosary which is a gimick for remembrance. Thus when we partake of the bread and wine in remembrance of the Real flesh and Blood of Jesus we are reminded of his Substitutionary sacrifice in our stead. We are not continuing to crucify Jesus in order to eat his real flesh and real blood through transubstantiation, which is "the changing of one reality into another reality". We "consume" the one reality in our physical body. We "accept" the other higher reality in our spirit.
You may continue to crucify Jesus over and over as you wish, in order to eat and drink His 'real' flesh and blood. That is what the pagans do. OR, you can accept what the scriptures teach us, as I have stated herein, realizing that Jesus' Once-for-ALL sacrifice on the cross is a done deal that we celebrate in remembrance by consuming the substitues that Jesus gave us in the place of his 'real' body and blood. You see, Jesus knew that His "real" body and blood would not be available for us to continue to consume for 2000 years. Therefore we have bread and wine, those renewable substances that are available to us year after year, to be mere reminders of the Once-for-ALL real body and blood that was sacrificed in our stead.
How is it one could ever be "worthy" if what I partake of is simply "substutionary"?
"Worthiness" has nothing to do with the elements, but rather the "heart of the one partaking of the substitutionary elements. God is not interested in the bread wafer or the sip of wine or grape juice, he is interested in the faith condition of the one who eats and drinks the memorial substitutes of His Son's flesh and blood. You want to make of them something that Jesus did not!
Jesus declared the bread and wine to substitute for his own flesh and blood.
His real body and blood at the time were destined to the cross, and were not available to his disciples for consumption any more than they are available for us to consume today.
He declared that bread represents his 'real' flesh, and that wine represents his "real" blood. Yes, his words can be interpreted literally, as you do, but the disciples who did not understand fully at the time, did not subsequently interpret his words as you do! If one does interpret his words in this instance literally, then one must interpret all of his words literally. Can you imagine the chaos that would cause in the Catholic church? Jesus used figurative speach in declaring that the lowly bread and wine were his real and actual flesh and blood. Believe it or not!
If can tear-up a picture of you in anger, simply because that picture is "substutionary" of you as only an image of you, how can I then be "guilty" of actually hurting you?
Much different, I think you would agree, if I were to take my anger against you personally, right, Yelsew? (Heaven forbid! I am not a violent person!)
I do not see that this thought has any bearing on the discussion, you threw it in as diversion.
First of all, the Catholic Church is not a "denomination" simply because it was the ONLY church around for about 1500 years?!!!
Secondly, it rightfully claims it status and the only church established by Christ by simple history: She can trace her origins back to Christ Himself!
Your church cannot claim that status, simply because to go back to it's origins, guess which church do you find your "denomination" spring off from?
Firstly, the Roman church is a denomination, a branch of the true "catholic" (universal) faith. The Catholic church has at it's core the same tenets of the faith that ALL Christian denominations, regardless of origin, have. It is those universal truthes by which it is called Christian.
The Roman Catholic Church is not the "true church" any more than the Methodist Church or the Presbyterian, or the Jerusalem Church is the "true church". By what ever means it happened and for what ever reason it happened, the present Roman Catholic Church usurps the role of the true church by declaring it's self to be the true church. Historically speaking the Roman Church can trace it's roots back to the original 12 apostles, but in so doing, it simply is declaring what all true Christians can do! Can all true Christians follow an ancestry tree? Yes, but for what reason? We know that our Root is Jesus, so there is no reason to pass back through time and humanity to find a root! I possess documentation that traces my familiy lineage back over 1000 years to the then King of Ireland (at least one of them). Though it is interesting reading in spots, it is of no possible value to me or to my children or their children. The same applies to the present day Roman Catholic Church. Historical Lineage is of no value to any excepting those who claim BOASTING RIGHTS. As for me, my boasting rights are in Jesus alone!
Secondly,
Jesus did not establish the Roman Catholic Church! Jesus established "the Christ-ian Church" which is comprised of ALL who believe that Jesus is the Son of God, the Christ, and who adhere to His teachings. In core Tenets of the Catholic Church there are the teachings of Jesus preserved by faithful men in obedience to the Holy Spirit, none of us deny that. However, the True church of Jesus Christ is not comprised of flesh and blood, but of spirit! The spirits of all men who believe in Jesus the Christ are members of the True church of Jesus Christ regardless of the denominational affiliation with which they may worship God.
Thirdly, there has been a catholic (meaning universal) Christian Church with some of its membership within the Roman Catholic Church from the beginning of the Roman church which did not exist until after the first and possibly into the fourth an fifth generation of the original Christian church had died. Your claims aside, there is no foundation upon which the Roman church was built. However, there is a foundation upon which the Christ-ian church is built, and that foundation is quite simply the Everlasting Rock of our Salvation, the Person of Jesus, who is the Son of God, and who is the Christ. The last time I checked the Roman Church claims to be founded upon Peter, who never set foot in Rome!
