Reasoning Together

You are openly talking from tradition and closing your mind to the idea that Jesus was not speaking literally, but was speaking metaphorically in connection with the Seder meal. He was telling the disciples that He is the Lamb of God, slain for the atonement of God's children who make up the New Covenant in his blood.

The text is clear. Yet, your tradition binds you to its interpretation.

 

Jesus followers that walked away, left believing Jesus literally because Jesus was speaking literally.

It was a hard offensive teaching that required Peter to make a supernatural act of Faith in Jesus Words, after Jesus asked if the 12 if they also were going to leave him over this.

There is nothing hard in the teaching if Jesus was speaking metaphorically. There would be no reason for the followers to leave or ask the 12 if they were going to go if Jesus was talking symbolically.

What you are suggesting is that Jesus deceived them into believing it was literal, all the while meaning it metaphorically.

They left understanding it literally, because Jesus meant it literally.

 

They misunderstood...kinda like you.
Tell me, do you support cannibalism? If you are going to go the route of absolute literalism, you are going to support cannibalism and the drinking of blood, both which are forbidden by the Mosaic law.
So, was Jesus openly telling everyone to break the law that God gave them?

Think. Stop falling on your tradition and think.

 

Hmm ... @Cathode ...


He has a point. Jesus came to fulfill the Law not abolish it. (Matt 5:17) For it is through the Law we get the knowledge of sin. (Romans 3:20)

 

Unless you believe the command to eat was itself symbolic, and not literal, you are advocating symbolic cannibalism. Commanding someone to eat something that symbolizes a body would be commanding symbolic cannibalism.

To refute this, can you demonstrate anywhere in salvation history (via the Scriptures) where eating a body was a metaphor for something other than that?

The belief that Jesus instituted an empty ritual that is merely symbolic is itself a tradition (a late-arriving one).

 

I think there's a failure to understand a broader directive here.

From John 1 ... In the beginning was The Word, and The Word was with God and the Word was God. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. That's JESUS.

Also from John 15 ... abide in Me and my Word abides in you ...

consume the Word.

From Luke 9 --- deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Me

crucify the flesh.

the ordnance of The Lord's Supper aka Communion is like the other ordnance; Baptism.

symbolic ... but not unimportant and certainly not irrelevant. Being baptized doesn't confer eternal life. eating a wafer and drinking 1.2 oz of juice isn't itself giving life, either.

What's relevant is THE HEART ... in BOTH of these ordnances. One following in obedience to the example given by The Master ... a visual testimony of that which has already happened to one's spirit having been breathed back to life.

the other ... opportunity to be still and listen to the Still Small Voice and renew the commitment to our First Love ... to being sanctified.


Matt 4:4 ... Man doesn't not live on bread & water alone, but on every word (how many words?) of God.

The Word of God is to be consumed ... this do in remembrance of Me.

 

“ Does this offend you?” John 6:61

It’s such a shocking teaching,

 

tear down this temple and in 3 days I'll rebuild it.

did that mean He was going to rebuild the Temple ... and in only 3 days?

In that very passage you cite ... " the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life."

who eats my flesh and drinks my blood ... abides in me and I in Him.

THE WORD OF GOD. Consume the Word.

I've stated this as many times as I care to. Cathode, you have some great contributions to the board and I'm glad you're here ... this isn't ever going to be a point of agreement. I'll let you continue with your superior understanding. Have grace on my lack of faith, ok?

 

That is why this can only be believed by the spiritual means of Faith, human reason profits nothing.

 

You ignored the question and avoided. Why? These are legitimate questions for you to answer. Care to actually answer them?

Tell me, do you support cannibalism? If you are going to go the route of absolute literalism, you are going to support cannibalism and the drinking of blood, both which are forbidden by the Mosaic law.
So, was Jesus openly telling everyone to break the law that God gave them?

 

When the symbolism is in regard to the Lamb that was slain, it's not cannibalism. Again, have you ever participated in a Seder meal? You would learn much if you did.

Passover is an annual feast of the Lord initiated in the twelfth and thirteenth chapters of Exodus and mentioned in many other places in Scripture. Jesus celebrated Passover, and the communion service arose from the elements of the Seder. Jesus highlighted the third cup, the cup of redemption, which represents His blood shed for the remission of our sins. Jesus also said the unleavened bread, the matzo, represents His body broken for us. Passover in the Hebrew Scriptures commemorates the Lord’s deliverance of the Jewish people from bondage and slavery to Pharaoh. In the New Testament, it also commemorates our Messiah Jesus delivering those who receive Him from bondage and slavery to sin. The purpose of this redemption is so God may be glorified and so that we can have new and eternal life in Him.

How to Host a Passover Seder

 

He wasn't speaking literally, he was literally standing there in front of them. Come on.

 

If you read John chapter 6, the whole thing you will notice that there were a lot of followers who were very desirous of getting free food. Earlier in chapter 6 they wanted to make him a king. Verse 26 Jesus rebukes them. Verse 28 they say they want to do miracles also. Verse 31 the conversation turns to bread. Verse 35 Jesus tries to show them the connection of himself to bread. Verses 41,42 the Jews are getting angry at Jesus over this. In verse 52 the Jews say "How can he give us his flesh to eat"? Verse 56, Jesus explains that this shows the unity of "dwelling in me and I in him." Read it and you'll see the whole exchange is what made the followers offended. Verse 63 Jesus flat out says HE IS NOT TALKING ABOUT LITERAL FOOD. Verse 64 Jesus says he knows that some of them believed not and when they realized that this was not about food or doing miracles or getting a new leader a lot of them left. Jesus asks the remaining disciples if they want to leave too. Verse 68 Peter says "thou hast the words of eternal life". Peter knew what the conversation in chapter 6 was about and in verse 69 sums it up.

 

Jesus is the fulfilment

“Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

“Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven,which anyone may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. The bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

 

Taken literally, Jesus must be a big chunk of bread that came down from heaven.
When Jesus said to eat his flesh and drink his blood, did he cut off a section of his thigh and bleed out a pint of blood?

Of course not. These things were never literal.

 

thank you Dave.

I was hitting at this, but you did a MUCH better job explaining it.

 

Baptists accuse the Catholic Church of violating the Jewish dietary laws by her doctrine of Real Presence since, in your mind, it amounts to cannibalism. But is this doctrine, which most Christians have always held in some form, a violation of the Torah? Let’s look at Mark’s gospel for some helpful clues. In Mark 7:15 Jesus says, “Nothing outside a man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him.” In verse 19, Jesus gives the reason and Mark explains the full implication of this radical statement, “‘For it doesn’t go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body.’ In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.”

Jesus points out that eating food is a physical process. It goes in physically, is physically digested, and then discarded. It doesn’t enter the heart and therefore does not defile. This isn’t dualism, just common sense. Now it follows that if something cannot cause spiritual harm by a purely physical process, it cannot cause spiritual benefit by a purely physical process.

The objection Memorialists raise regarding the Jewish dietary laws and the Eucharist reduces the doctrine of Real Presence to a purely physical process which is a straw-man fallacy. That is, if the reception of Christ’s Body by Christians is a purely physical process, we would be guilty of cannibalism and therefore a violation of the Jewish dietary laws. Now the contemporary Memorialists are not the first to accuse the Catholic Church of cannibalism. This unsubstantiated claim was widely used against us by the pagans of the second century. We emphatically do not hold the Eucharistic reception to be a purely physical process and we are not guilty of cannibalism because receiving the Eucharist is not the equivalent of taking a bite out of Jesus’ Arm nor of drinking His Blood from the Cross. Those things would be a violation of the Jewish dietary laws. The substance of the host has been changed into the risen Body of Christ which although fully corporeal and real, does not physically belong to this universe. The Jewish dietary laws pertain to the natural; what we are partaking of in the Eucharist is supernatural. So our reception of Christ in the Eucharist is not a mere physical event. It is an event where the supernatural meets the natural. The benefit of the Eucharist is spiritual not physical; namely: grace. We cannot receive grace via digestion. Moreover, we do not digest Christ.

From these arguments, it is clear that the doctrine of the Real Presence does not amount to cannibalism and thus does not violate the Jewish dietary laws (which Mark 7:19 abolished anyway).

 

Talk about cannibalism is just rhetorical because in actuality transubstantiation does not occur. And it was not believed by everyone even in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. I don't think it was official Catholic teaching until much later - like 1215. What troubles me as a Baptist is some of the teaching and the things said around the Mass and the way the priest claims to administer it. We all will have some kind of spiritual picture in our minds of remembering what Jesus did for us and how we identify with him when we drink of the cup and eat the bread. But if you think of this in any way as a reception of salvation by this physical act it is a grave error.

 

So...you spiritualize it. (By the way, Mark 7 has nothing to do with Torah.) You call it real presence, but it's not real human flesh, nor real human blood. Therefore it isn't really Jesus. Instead, it is the real spiritual presence of Jesus. Any way you shake it, you aren't eating Jesus flesh or drinking his blood.

 

No, He established the Eucharist at the Last Supper so that His flesh and blood could be available to the whole world.

It’s a big chunk of bread raised up to Heaven and The Holy Spirit transforms it into the Body of Christ.