This do in remembrance of me Luke 22:19

[Doubting Thomas]

There is no reason otherwise to not understand this metaphorically, and your argument is basically that "the scriptures should say this, if it meant that"; but they often did spea metaphorically as if it really was the thing they were calling it (Like Christ the door).

So, I guess the next step would be to compare the John 6 passage regarding “the bread” to other passages in which other metaphors, particularly the ‘door’ and the ‘vine’, are used. That way we can see if your assertion, “there is no reason otherwise to not understand this metaphorically”, is actually supported by the evidence or is simply a bald assertion.

Yes, at the beginning of the discourse in John 6 Christ makes a statement which is similar to other metaphorical statements when He declares:
“I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me will never hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.” (John 6:35)
This is stated in a similar way to two other metaphorical statements:
“I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved” (John 10:9)
“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in Him, bears much fruit.” (John 15:5)

So initially all three statements are similar in that they express truths about Christ metaphorically, but as the John 6 discourse and the other passages proceed, the similarities end. Notice that in John 10 and 15 (respectively) that Jesus does not go on to say:
“And the door that I am speaking of is my physical flesh you must walk through”, or
“And the vine of which I speak is my flesh to which you must affix yourselves if you want to abide in Me.”

And of course the puzzled disciples did not respond by saying:
“How can we physically walk through his flesh? “, or
“How can we be affixed to his flesh like branches on a vine?”

To which, Jesus did not follow up by saying:
“Most assuredly I say to you that unless you walk through the flesh of the Son of Man, you have no life in you”, or
“Most assuredly, I say to you that unless you attach yourselves to the flesh of the Son of Man, you have no life in you”.

By contrast, however, although Christ did start off metaphorically in the “bread of life” discourse, as He proceeded He became more literal by more specifically identifying the “bread” with His own flesh:
“I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever, and the bread that I will give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.” (John 6:51)

So here Christ states the bread is His flesh (and not His “teachings” or “words” as some unjustifiably suppose”), the same He was about to give for the life of the world (ie on the cross). To this plain statement of identification, the Jews responded:
“How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?” (v. 52)

But instead of backing down and suggesting His flesh is really just a metaphor for His “teaching”, He emphatically continues to speak of His literal flesh while introducing for the first time the idea of “drinking His blood” which is certainly not implicit in a “bread of life” metaphor:

“Most assuredly I say to you, that unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is food indeed and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me and I in Him.” (John 6:53-56)

So the same flesh Christ was literally going to give for the life of the world was the flesh He identified as true “food” (and His blood true “drink”) which was to be eaten (v54 literally “munched”, “chewed”). He started metaphorically (“bread of life”…”come to Me”…”never hunger”) then proceeded to speak in the specific way He wanted His disciples to come to Him—by eating His flesh and drinking His blood (the latter, again, is not part of or implied by the “bread of life” metaphor).

(cont’d)

 

[Doubting Thomas]

There is no reason otherwise to not understand this metaphorically, and your argument is basically that "the scriptures should say this, if it meant that"; but they often did spea metaphorically as if it really was the thing they were calling it (Like Christ the door).

(continuing in response to this point)

Lest, one think that Christ is just expanding the original metaphor or introducing a new one, it must be kept in mind that the Jews already had an understanding of “eating one’s flesh” metaphorically, and it wasn’t a positive one. Such metaphorical use is seen in Psalm 27:2, Job 19:22, Micah 3:3, and Eccl 4:5 etc. For example Psalms 27:2 states:
“When the wicked came up against me to eat up my flesh”.
In other words, to “eat [one’s] flesh” and to “drink [one’s] blood” in biblical times was used in metaphorical sense to revile or show hostility towards that one.

So in order for Christ to be using “eat my flesh” metaphorically, in the usage of the day, the Jews would have heard him to be saying:
“Most assuredly I say to you, that unless you revile and show hostility towards the Son of Man, you have no life in you. Whoever reviles and shows hostility towards Me has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is food indeed and My blood is drink indeed. He who reviles and shows hostility towards Me abides in Me and I in Him.”

As such an understanding would have been nonsensical, and since Jesus didn’t introduce to them a new metaphorical meaning for “eating His flesh” (again, what He specifically identified as the “bread” He was giving, the same which He was about to literally give for the life of the world) or “drinking His blood”, the Jews were left with the hard literal saying which they couldn’t accept (because they were thinking carnally, and not spiritually, as Jesus implied) most likely because they couldn’t understand how Jesus could be teaching such realism without referring to cannibalism. But instead of running after the departing disciples to correct an alleged misunderstanding—that this was all just only a new metaphor—He never backed off the fact that they must eat His flesh (the same He was giving for the life of the world) and drink His blood, except to suggest that they must think of doing this spiritually (and “spirit” is not a synonym for ‘metaphor’) rather than carnally, as the carnal understand profits nothing.

So, getting back to the comparison with the “vine” and “door” metaphors, it must be observed that looking at the wider Scriptural context, that Christ never later pointed to an actual vine and said “This is Me, Attach yourselves to this to abide in Me.” Nor did He point to a physical door in the upper room and declare, “This door is the entrance to the New Covenant. Walk through it, all of you.” Nor did Paul day regarding a vine, ““This vine which attach ourselves to, is it not the communion of our grafting into Christ?” or of the door, “This door that we walk through, is it not the communion of our entrance into eternal life?”.
On the other hand, Christ’s discourse was an anticipation of what was later to be revealed in the upper room. After Christ had already told His disciples that His flesh was the “bread” He was giving for the life of the world, and that they must eat that flesh and drink His blood to abide in Him, (and that they must think of doing so spiritually rather carnally), He revealed the manner in which they were to eat His flesh and drink His blood by declaring that the literal bread they were about to literally eat was His body (that He was about to literally give) and the literal wine they were about to literally drink was His blood (that He was about to literally shed).

If Christ, the True Passover Lamb*, actually wanted to teach that we must in fact eat His flesh* and drink His blood to have Life, and that His actual flesh and blood were true food and drink, I’m not sure He could have stated so more forcefully than in the discourse as recorded in John 6. If on the other hand, Christ intended for these words to be meant only metaphorically then one must ask why He let many of His disciples abandon Him on this crucial teaching particularly when He could have just cleared it all up and reassured them that “eating His flesh” was a new metaphor, with a specific meaning more or less opposite to the metaphorical meaning of that phrase already in use.

(*Bonus Question: What did the children of Israel do with the Passover Lamb once it was killed?)

 

[Doubting Thomas]

And that's why I was pointing out that Christ is in us spiritually.

And you still haven’t responded the point I made that God can be present in His Church in more than one way. That the Holy Spirit is Personally in the Church does not rule out the Christ can be Personally present in another way in the giving of His Body and Blood to us during Holy Communion.

WE are "the body".

But Christ also clearly calls the BREAD His body:
“And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed it, and broke it and said: ‘Take, eat; this is My Body’.” (Mark 14:22)
You want to ignore the fact that Scripture refers to both the Church AND the bread (a physical loaf of bread that Christ literally broke in the upper room) as Christ’s Body.

To come together and eat together in His name IS to "partake of His body" without it having to say "our togetherness...".

But the same textual difficulty remains. Here’s the passage again:
“The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?” (1 Cor 10:16)

Paul specifically identifies that “communion of (participation in) the blood of Christ:” with the “cup”, and the “communion of (participation in) the body of Christ with the “bread”. Like it or not, Paul does not say:
“’Our coming together in His name to drink’, is this not the communion of the blood of Christ? ‘Our coming together in His name to eat’, is this not the communion of the body of Christ[/b]?”

Paul was referring back to an actual cup they were blessing, and actual bread that they were literally breaking. This is not only readily apparent from the grammatical construction of the statement itself, but also the surrounding context. Paul references the institution of the Lord Supper in the upper room (in chapter 11) when Christ also was speaking of a literal cup that He wanted His disciples to drink and literal bread He wanted them to eat:

“…that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which we was betrayed took bread (ie, literal BREAD), and when He had given thanks, He broke it (ie, the BREAD) and said: ‘Take, eat; this (the BREAD) is my body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me. In the same manner He also took the cup (ie, a literal cup of literal wine) after supper saying, ‘This cup (ie a literal cup with literal wine) is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it in remembrance of Me.’” (1 Corinthians 11:23-25)

So not only does Paul identify the elements (the bread and the wine) with the Body and Blood of Christ, but Christ Himself does the same. Paul does not record Christ as saying:

“…that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which we was betrayed took the people gathered to eat in His name, and when He had given thanks, He said: ‘Eat; for you are My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me. In the same manner He also took the same group of people gathered in His name to drink, saying, ‘Your drinking in My name is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you gather to drink in remembrance of Me.’”

Of course such a reading would be nonsensical, but such would be the case if the bread and cup are really meant to be only the “gathering of people to eat and drink in Christ’s name”. Nor does Paul record Jesus as saying:

“…that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which we was betrayed took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said: ‘Take, eat; this bread is you gathered to eat in My name, which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me. In the same manner He also took the cup after supper saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood by you being gathered together to drink in My name. This do, as often as you drink it in remembrance of Me.’”

However, if we let Paul’s words—and Christ’s---speak for themselves, we don’t have the resulting contextual absurdities. Paul could have clearly stated that “our gathering to eat in His name” was the “communion of the body of Christ”, but He didn’t. Instead, he clearly stated it was the bread (bread they were literally breaking) that was the communion of the Body of Christ, and the cup (from which they were literally drinking) that was the communion of the blood of Christ.

The same body and blood of Christ which Christ Himself identified with the literal bread and literal wine in the upper room which He told His disciples to literally eat and drink.

The same flesh and blood that Christ had earlier said was true food and true drink of which the disciples must eat and drink to abide in Him. The same flesh He was to give for the life of the world.

But notice one more thing in the Corinthians passage. Paul actually compares the Lord’s Table/Communion with the OT sacrifices. Notice what he writes (10:18):
“Observe Israel after the flesh: are not those who eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?”

Paul did not say:
“Observe Israel after the flesh: are not those who eat visual aids of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?”

He didn’t say this because in the OT, they actually ate of the sacrifices that were killed on the altar—not ‘symbols’ or visual aids of those sacrifices. Likewise, in the NT we actually partake of the Body and Blood of Christ—the NT sacrifice--in the Euchatist, and not mere visual aids of that sacrifice, as Paul declared the bread and wind to the be the communion of (participation in) the Body and Blood respectively.

 

[Doubting Thomas]

(continued)

Again, you are forcefitting your eccelsaiastical interpretation on it,

Again, I’m not ‘force fitting’ my ecclesiastical interpretation on it…at least not anymore. That’s what I used to do as a Baptist.. After, taking the Biblical language seriously I decided to quit forcing the view I was taught onto the text. It’s the Zwinglians who are forcing their view on the Scripture. I just demonstrated the contextual absurdities that when one tries to force Zwinglian type interpretations into the texts.

... and it is the same mistake the Jews made when they got offended,

They certainly weren’t forcing an “ecclesiastical interpretation” on the passage. They rightly understood that Christ was talking realistically. Their problem was that they were fixated on understanding this realism carnally as opposed to spiritually (not realistically as opposed to metaphorically)

“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.” (John 6:63)

Two things need to be observed. One, “spirit” in the Bible is not synonymous with “metaphor”—unless you want to relegate God, angels, and/or God’s gracious spiritual enlightenment to the realm of metaphor. Two, when Christ said that “the flesh profits nothing”, He wasn’t referring to His own physical flesh, or else He’d be saying in essence that He was giving His flesh for the life of the world but such would ultimately be a profitless, useless endeavor. No, in this instance Christ is juxtaposing “flesh” in the sense of carnality (not ‘physicality’) verses spirit in the sense of grace filled (not ‘immaterial’ or ‘metaphorical’), as this juxtaposition occurs frequently in the New Testament.
Here are just two examples:
“The spirit is indeed willing but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:41)
“…who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” (Romans 8:1)

...or when the apostles misunderstood the "leaven of the Pharisees".

Yet in Matthew 16, it is written that the Apostles did come to understand that the “leaven” referred to the teaching of the Pharisees. There’s no recorded evidence of such a realization in the John 6 discourse that the “bread” Christ was giving was really His “teaching” (or that "eating His flesh" was somehow a new metaphor)—instead Christ specifically identified it as His flesh, the same flesh He was about to give for the life of the world.

Again; you're introducing a foreign idea of "re-produce".

When did I say “re-produce”? But when for that matter did the text say “represent”? (Isn’t that word ‘foreign’ to the text in regards to holy communion?)

Metaphorically; it is still "re-producing" it, without having to add all of this other stuff to it.

But the “metaphorical” idea is not what is taught by the Scriptures. Rather, it’s the proponents of the “metaphorical” idea who have to do a lot fancy eisegesis in order to get Scriptures to “teach” their position.

 

[Doubting Thomas]

It was the language they used, and with the Trinity it was not even unanimous, but basically it was politics that led to either one or the other side gaining power at different times, and eventually one winning out.

That doctrine as well, you could see slowly developing as you go through the same ECF's, and they begin adding more and more language to it, to try to clarify it. Then, you end up with a perfect symmetrical statement of "three equals", called "persons", sharing one "substance". But this continued to confuse prople and raise objections. Then, just like with Transubstantiation, the West continues to add to it, with Augustine's and others endless atempts to illustate it, and the East (such as the Cappadocians) drawing a line and saying "no, this is just a mystery for contemplation only; do not try to explain it any further". But they still had the Nicene symmetry, and that was already overformulated, and then that became an end in itself (like the fact that the symmetry was handy to "contemplate" on). They should have left it with Ireneaus, Tertullian or Hippolytus' language (The Father as the one substance, the Son and Spirit proceeding forth from Him. That also may have even halted filioque). They still could have countered Arianism, Modalism and others without adding the symmetrical stetements.
ce.

I really don’t think you answered why/how the Trinity was “overformulated” (and I’m not entirely sure what you mean by “symmetrical statements”) other than you prefer the language of Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Hippolytus. Tertullian and Hippolytus both refered the Father and Son as “Persons’ (Latin, persona, Greek, prosopon) in reference to their individual distinctiveness as opposed to their one common (and undivided) substantia. However, persona and prosopon both originally meant “mask” or “role”, and although Tertullian rightfully used “Person” to connote a more concrete individuality, to many (particularly in the East) those terms, given their original signification, smacked of the modalist (Sabellian/Patripassionist/etc) heresy. It took time to develop the linguistic apparatus, so to speak, to more properly speak of the Trinity so as to avoid falling into either modalism or tritheism. It was the Cappadocians who were able to give such an apparatus by taking hypostasis, formerly a synomym for ousia and give it new meaning, connoting that which is more concretely distinct about the Divine Persons, and by equating prosopon with the concrete hyspostasis, in contrast to the ousia which now came to be universally used for what the Three had in common. I know that’s the Cliff notes version (and this would probably take another thread to elaborate and debate, if debate is really necessary here), but I don’t see how the Cappadocians “overformulated” the Trinitarian concepts that were expressed by Tertullian and Hippolytus, except to give a more consistently agreeable apparatus to both East (Greek) and West (Latin)for contrasting the Trinity to both modalism and tritheism. Similarly we could open up a big discussion on the terminology used at Chalcedon, but my brief conclusion to this point would be to say that, politics aside, I don’t see a huge discrepancy between the more developed “definitions” of Nicaea, Constantinople, and Chalcedon and the consensual faith of the ante-Nicene fathers except that the “definitions” were able to more consistently exclude heresy by removing previously ambiguous formulations through the redefining of certain linguistic concepts to satisfactorily express the common orthodox catholic faith of both East and West.

In relation to the point of discussion, my point is that just as the post-Nicene Trinitarian and Christological formulations were in continuity to the beliefs of ante-Nicene Christianity, so to were the expressions of the fathers regarding the Real Presence of the bread and wine in Holy Communion. Within the bounds of orthodoxy, there has always been (among some other key teachings) from the beginning the belief in the somehow-Triune nature of the One God, the belief in both the real humanity and divinity of the One Lord Jesus Christ, and the real presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the bread and wine of Holy Communion (however expressed)

(continued)

 

[Doubting Thomas]

I did not denigrate the using of matter for spiritual purposes, you misunderstood what I was trying to say, and mischaracterized it as such to get the "gnostic" label on it, as an apparant "association" tactic.

But you have made comments in the past which seemed to identify the mere possibility of using matter for spiritual purposes to the “weak and beggarly elements” that Paul associated with the practices of the OLD Covenant—as if what made the Old practices “weak and beggarly” was the mere fact that they were physical and not purely spiritual, rather than that fact of being “weak and beggarly” because they were only types and shadows of the reality to come, and that the animal sacrifices of the Old Covenant couldn’t actually take away sins (Hebrews 10:4). If you really meant that by those comments, then your views (in that respect) are indeed more in line with Gnosticism. If I misunderstood, then perhaps you can give me another reason why you think the mere use of physical objects to confer spiritual benefits is “weak and beggarly”.

"Supernaturally"; HOW? Any other supernatural act, even if you could not completely understand or describe it, there was something about it that you could explain.

So how do you explain the Hypostatic Union? I’m not talking about merely reciting the Definition of Chalcedon, I want you to explain to me how it is that the One Divine Person can assume complete humanity—body, soul, mind, will—so as to have two unconfused natures yet eternally remain one subject. I’m not sure your ‘explanation’ will be anymore informative regarding the “how” of the Hypostatic Union than anyone else’s “how” of the Real Presence.

The problem here is that in the incarnation and the other miracles; it was a Person who was present in ojects, not other objects present in objects.

But Christ is Personally present in the giving of His body and blood in the bread and wine of Holy Communion.
It’s funny how in a previous thread you began by claiming that God doesn’t indwell objects (“things”, I believe was the word you used), and then in the face of Biblical counter-evidence you gradually backed off into a “not other objects present in objects” defense. Yet, you haven’t given me one logically necessary reason why Christ couldn’t give His Personal body and blood to us in the empirical forms of bread and wine.

That's what the real issue is here...

No, I think the “real issue” is still to come…(see below).

 

[Doubting Thomas]

..and why I said you were making up a new kind of "supernatural". Not that God can't do something new, but what you are doing is totally foreign to the acts of a God who HIMSELF becomes present in objects.

Yet God (Christ) Himself is present in the bread and the wine. Just because He calls the bread “His Body” and the wine “His blood” doesn’t logically mean He Himself is Personally absent from those objects.

Also, you keep getting hung up on the Real Presence in the Eucharist being some ‘new kind of “supernatural”’, ignoring the fact that the Incarnation itself was, to the Jews of that day, a ‘new kind of “supernatural”’. In the past, God would temporarily dwell in objects like clouds in locales such as temples, but with Christ God became hypostatically joined to humanity—not to a pre-existing man—as Jesus Christ in a way totally unique compared to anything that ever came before or would ever come afterwards. It then could be said that the flesh and blood of Jesus was uniquely GOD’s flesh and blood, something He didn’t have previously. In other words, the Jews would rightfully consider this (the Incarnation) to be ‘foreign’ to the way God acted or existed in the OT. And this same flesh and blood is now permanently and PERSONALLY HIS, so if He decides to give this in the bread and wine, He isn’t giving mere “objects in other objects”, but something now Personally inseparable from HIMSELF.

The bottom line is you accuse me of “making up a new kind of ‘supernatural’” and doing something that is “totally foreign to the acts of God” in the Bible, but the Jews could accuse both of us of doing the same thing regarding the Incarnation. But if God can do something new and unique in the Incarnation, He certainly can do something new and unique by giving His Incarnate flesh and blood in the forms of bread and wine.

You are making matter into separate "personal" deities by comparing it to God's presence in various forms.

That doesn’t even make any sense, nor is that remotely what I’ve suggested. It’s the ONE Divine-human Christ who communicates HIS flesh and blood in Communion—there’s only ONE Personal Deity involved.

Again; someone can do that to any two objects, and claim "well; it's supernatural; you just can't understand it.”

Except that “someone” here is Christ Himself--and then His Apostles—and He indeed implied that we would have to accept His words in a spiritual (“supernatural”) sense not carnally.

And in all of this, you have still skirted the issue that you are denying Transubstantiation, but what you are teaching in place of it is only semantically different.

I don’t have to dogmatically wed myself to the Aristotelian categories of “substance” and “accidents” to believe that what empirically is bread and wine also becomes supernaturally Christ’s very Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist.

In either case, there is no empirical change in the bread and wine, so some sort of "supernatural" reality must be apealed to.

Indeed. Christ “supernaturally” (spiritually) nourishes us with His actual Body and Blood in the bread and wine of Holy Communion in a way that cannot be empirically detected.

(continued)

 

[Doubting Thomas]

But you all have not been saying that the Person of Christ is present, but rather the flesh and blood only.

But I haven’t said that Christ is not Personally present. In fact I mentioned in an earlier post how Christ can be Personally present in the giving of His body and blood in the bread and wine in a way that was distinct to the Holy Spirit’s Personal presence in the Church.

You all likened it to the burning bush, but God did not say His "flesh" was present in that.

No, He didn’t, but that’s a non-sequitur since God had not yet become Incarnate in Jesus so He had no flesh and blood to speak of at that time.

Likewise was the Son present "in the Flesh". It wasn't just "flesh" that was present, but rather a Person present in the Flesh.

I never said otherwise. The Son is of course Personally present with His flesh and blood both in Heaven and when He gives us His flesh and blood the bread and wine of Holy communion.

Most of us here just say that "receiving Jesus" is a one time event, and a symbolic "washing" and "receiving His flesh", and the one time baptism, and periodic Communion represent it, without turning either event into "receiving" Christ over and over, and putting some sort of spiritual presence in the inanimate matter itself.

I think that this--finally--is the “real issue”: that your soteriological presuppositions won’t allow you to accept the Real Presence (of the Body and Blood of Christ in the bread and wine) despite the plain meaning of the texts. If salvation is something that is once-for-all and irrevocable and is reducible to the intitial one-time event of “receiving Jesus” (and is seemingly extrinsic to any ongoing life in Christ), than it would make sense to reduce the Lord Supper and Baptism to empty ‘symbols’, mere visual aids, of that once past event. However, for such a soteriological position there are many, many more Scriptures that need to be explained away other than just those regarding Communion (and Baptism)…but of course, that would take a whole ‘nother thread….

(I guess that’s all for now.)

 

[Eliyahu]

I have noticed a lot of misunderstanding regarding the verses of John 6. Especially RCC people have been well trained to interpret them as meaning Transubstantiation of the Lord’s Supper.
They say that what Jesus meant by saying “ eat my flesh and drink my blood” was that we should eat His flesh and drink His blood physically. However, if we read some verses in the same chapter we notice the followings:

Joh 6:35
And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; andhe that believeth on me shall never thirst

Joh 6:47
Verily, verily, I say unto you,He that believeth on me hath everlasting life

Doesn’t Jesus equate “ Eat my flesh and drink my blood “ with “ Believeth on Me” ?

Eating flesh of Jesus and drinking blood of Jesus is the same as Believing in Jesus. This is why the teachings of John 6 coincides with the teachings of all the scripture.

There are hundreds of verses which support that we should believe in Jesus Christ to get the eternal life, to get the salvation, which was emphasized by Jesus even in John 6.

Luke 7:50

And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.
RCC may want to change this to:
Eat my flesh and drink my blood then you can be saved!

John 1:12


But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name

RCC may want to change this to :
to them who eat Human Flesh and drink Human Blood gave He the power to become the sons of God!

John 3:15
That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life


RCC may want to change this to : Whosoever eat Human Flesh and drink Human Blood should not perish but have eternal life ( ?)

.John 3:16
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life

RCC may want to change this to : Whosoever eat His Flesh and drink His Blood should not perish but have everlasting life.

Joh 3:18
He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God


Joh 3:36
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him


John 5:
24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life


John 5:24
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.

Joh 6:35
And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst

Joh 6:47
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life

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

RCC may want to change this to :

Only the words that I speak about eating Human Flesh and drinking Human Blood are life, and the rest of my words are neither spirit, nor life, forget them!

 

[Doubting Thomas]

Eliyahu,
Apparently you really didn't read my post about John 6 because I dealt with many of those "objections". Oh well.
DT
(PS: And you may want to read my sig--I'm not a Roman Catholic)

 

[Eliyahu]

Eliyahu,
Apparently you really didn't read my post about John 6 because I dealt with many of those "objections". Oh well.
DT
(PS: And you may want to read my sig--I'm not a Roman Catholic)

No, I didn't read the latest posts between you and Eric.

I was not specifically addressing mine to you guys, but that one was what I wanted to point out since some time ago.

I oppose to RCC and therefore am I Heretic?
When RCC slaughted the people and if I had opposed to RCC, then I would have become Heretic, right? It doesn't matter to me very much.

 

[Eliyahu]

DT,

I have read your lengthy, lengthy posts. I do understand that it was ineveitably long because you had to answer the issues raised by Eric already.

Shortly speaking, I would point out the following feelings that I have got from reading your posts.

1. You lack the understanding about the Memorialism or Remembrance Belief.
You downgraded such belief as thinking only Eating a special bread and drinking a nice wine.

I must tell you that the Partakers have the same belief when they participate in the Supper as you may think of Eucharist or Transubstantiation.
We do believe and reckon that we eat the flesh of Jesus and drink the blood of Jesus by eating the Bread and drinking the Wine, by faith. The only difference is that we admit that the real materials are still Bread and Wine.
Lots of your posts rather ignore or down-grade the belief of the Christian believers.

2. Your focus on John 6 is the same as RCC, which equates "Eat Flesh and Drink Flesh" as the eating of Human Flesh and drinking of Human Blood.
But you failed to notice His Words on important points:

v 35 And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

Why doesn't He say that " he that eats me" ?

40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day

For what do you claim eating flesh and blood of Jesus?
Isn't that you may have the everlasting life by eating His flesh and blood?

But you can notice from the above mentioned verses that Jesus is saying that anyone who BELIEVES in the Son shall have the Everlasting Life?

Therefore can we not safely equate what Jesus meant by " eat my flesh and drink my blood" with Believing in Jesus Christ so closely and intimately as if we eat His flesh and drink His blood ?

3. Read the verse 63 again:

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.

You misinterpreted this verse again saying Spirit means Metaphor. Then you may admit that the whole words of eat flesh and drink blood is a metaphor.
But the real problem with your misunderstanding is this:
The same words appear in John 4:24 - Pneuma ho Theos.
Are you interpreting " God is a metaphor, and actually do not exist" ?

You better interpret the words by words themselves first, then if you cannot interpret them literally, you may have to dig down the deeper meaning.

The sentence of v 63 is very clear and is this:
The Words which I mentioned to you when I said " eat my flesh and drink my blood" were Spirit as my words were spirit all the time, and therefore don't misunderstand that you eat the human flesh and drink the human blood. But what I meant by that was that you have to believe in me because my words are life so that you may have the eternal life.

Can you understand this?

4. You referred to the OT about eating the flesh of the lamb after they sprinkled on the door posts.
That is the difference between the Real Person Jesus Christ and the shadow of Jesus Christ which was the animal in that case.

Did Disciples eat the dead body of Jesus after they took down His body from the Cross?

In case of the animal sacrifice, the intimate relationship established by the shadow of Christ can be shown by eating the flesh of the sacrifice. But the Real person Jesus was not eaten after the Crucifixion.

5. You could never answer my question about the Prohibition of eating Blood in OT like Lev 17:10-14, Genesis 9:4, Deut 15:23.
Do you still claim that Jesus commanded Disciples to eat the Blood by drinking His blood?
You must answer this Q, because this is the most fundamental obstacle to the Transubstantiation.
Throughout the history, there were so many believers whom God knows well and denied the Transubstantiation but just believed and behaved only according to the Bible expressions.


Again, as a whole the posts you brought have down graded very much the belief of the True Christians who oppose the Transubstantiation. They reckon the Bread as Flesh of Jesus and Wine as Blood of Jesus. The only difference is that they admit the real substances still remain the same.

 

[Eric B]

And, by the way, my interpretation of the ECFs is really no different from that of respected church historians
such as JND Kelly and Jaroslav Pelikan. In other words, I don’t have to resort to some…(ahem)…creative revisionism in
which the ECFs are read to support an imaginary memorialist biblical interpretation which only (allegedly) became
gradually corrupted into the realist position by that rascally ‘institutional’ Church.
Not only is mine “older”, but there is no historical record of anyone who was otherwise orthodox holding your position
until very late in church history unless: (1) you want to try to misread the ECFs to support Zwinglianism, (but of
course, that would merely be yet more eisegesis); or (2) you want to include Gnostic heretics among the otherwise
orthodox catholic Christians.

Eliyahu was right that you characterize what we say as "imaginary memorialism", to make it a straw man in comparison
with what you think is a "plain meaning". You take this modern debate, and try to project both sides in their current
form back to the 2nd century with your view as "orthodox", and our view as "gnostic", but it was not that clear cut.
Not on this, the Trinity, or many other issues.
And many times, scholars read later church interpreations into ECF statements that reallty do not teach the whole
thing. Like when Archbishop Wake, who translated 2 Clement claimed that his statement "Think of Jesus Christ as of God"
proved his "fullness of belief" in the Trinity. That again, is another whole long subject in itself, but that does not
tsay that, but rather does reflect the beginning of the Church's gradual understanding of the tri-une nature of God.
But that's a big difference from "the fullness of belief" in it. And this is the same mistake being made with the Real
PResence.

But is the word, “changing”, a distortion of the Eucharistic teaching, or is it implied in the Biblical doctrine and is
therefore a legitimate ‘development’? (In other words, is it the addition of a truly novel concept, or the
clarification on an implied one?) You seem to make a big deal about the absence of the word “change” in either the
Bible or Ignatius, but if there was not a “change” involved (ie, in the bread and wine also becoming the Body and Blood
of Christ at consecration) then EVERY loaf of bread and EVERY cup of wine in a non-liturgical setting would already be
the Body and Blood of Christ, which no one has ever taught to my knowledge. Paul teaches that it’s bread they were
breaking (in the service) and the cup they were blessing (also in the Communion service) that is the communion of (or
participation) of the Body and Blood of Christ; he doesn’t teach that all bread and wine everywhere (outside of the
Eucharist) is the Body and Blood. The “change” from ordinary bread and wine to that which is also the communion of the
Body and Blood of Christ is therefore implied from the realist perspective, a perspective that otherwise derives from
and is consistent with the actual text (as will be shown below).

The so-called "inferential doctrine" argument, which all the differing groups use. Calvinists claim reprobation and
unconditional election are "implied" by salvation being of God alone. Sabbatarians claim sabbath observance is
implied by NT scriptures mentioning "commandments", which is taken to imply all ten of the Ten Commandments.
Everybody comes with their own doctrine, and tries to read it into the Bible as an "implication" if they cannot find
any clear enough support of it.

I really don’t think you answered why/how the Trinity was “overformulated” (and I’m not entirely sure what you
mean by “symmetrical statements”) other than you prefer the language of Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Hippolytus.
Tertullian and Hippolytus both refered the Father and Son as “Persons’ (Latin, persona, Greek, prosopon) in reference
to their individual distinctiveness as opposed to their one common (and undivided) substantia. However, persona and
prosopon both originally meant “mask” or “role”, and although Tertullian rightfully used “Person” to connote a more
concrete individuality, to many (particularly in the East) those terms, given their original signification, smacked of
the modalist (Sabellian/Patripassionist/etc) heresy. It took time to develop the linguistic apparatus, so to speak, to
more properly speak of the Trinity so as to avoid falling into either modalism or tritheism. It was the Cappadocians
who were able to give such an apparatus by taking hypostasis, formerly a synomym for ousia and give it new meaning,
connoting that which is more concretely distinct about the Divine Persons, and by equating prosopon with the concrete
hyspostasis, in contrast to the ousia which now came to be universally used for what the Three had in common. I know
that’s the Cliff notes version (and this would probably take another thread to elaborate and debate, if debate is
really necessary here), but I don’t see how the Cappadocians “overformulated” the Trinitarian concepts that were
expressed by Tertullian and Hippolytus, except to give a more consistently agreeable apparatus to both East (Greek) and
West (Latin)for contrasting the Trinity to both modalism and tritheism. Similarly we could open up a big discussion on
the terminology used at Chalcedon, but my brief conclusion to this point would be to say that, politics aside, I don’t
see a huge discrepancy between the more developed “definitions” of Nicaea, Constantinople, and Chalcedon and the
consensual faith of the ante-Nicene fathers except that the “definitions” were able to more consistently exclude heresy
by removing previously ambiguous formulations through the redefining of certain linguistic concepts to satisfactorily
express the common orthodox catholic faith of both East and West.
In relation to the point of discussion, my point is that just as the post-Nicene Trinitarian and Christological
formulations were in continuity to the beliefs of ante-Nicene Christianity, so to were the expressions of the fathers
regarding the Real Presence of the bread and wine in Holy Communion. Within the bounds of orthodoxy, there has always
been (among some other key teachings) from the beginning the belief in the somehow-Triune nature of the One God, the
belief in both the real humanity and divinity of the One Lord Jesus Christ, and the real presence of the Body and Blood
of Christ in the bread and wine of Holy Communion (however expressed)

What I meant was the symmetrical "Three
equal persons in one substance" formula, which people make a test of orthodoxy, and it's all based on this same
"implication" rationale, ultimately. For instance, Servetus' position was for the most part identical to Irenaeus,
Tertullian and Hespecially Hippolytus, but because h did not express it in the Nicene/Chalcedonian terms, Calvin had
him killed, and Luther and Catholics had condemned him as well. Calvin ould go on th justify himself by saying
that Ignatius expressed it "just as if we wrote it", or something like that (when he had actually been reading a
spurious codex), and either him or Melanchthon would claim that the earlier fathers such as Irenaeus were confused on
it.
I discuss the whole issue at http://members.aol.com/etb700/triune.html

 

[Eric B]

So, I guess the next step would be to compare the John 6 passage regarding “the bread” to other passages in which other
metaphors, particularly the ‘door’ and the ‘vine’, are used. That way we can see if your assertion, “there is no reason
otherwise to not understand this metaphorically”, is actually supported by the evidence or is simply a bald assertion.
Yes, at the beginning of the discourse in John 6 Christ makes a statement which is similar to other metaphorical
statements when He declares:
“I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me will never hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.” (John
6:35)
This is stated in a similar way to two other metaphorical statements:
“I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved” (John 10:9)
“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in Him, bears much fruit.” (John 15:5)
So initially all three statements are similar in that they express truths about Christ metaphorically, but as the John
6 discourse and the other passages proceed, the similarities end. Notice that in John 10 and 15 (respectively) that
Jesus does not go on to say:
“And the door that I am speaking of is my physical flesh you must walk through”, or
“And the vine of which I speak is my flesh to which you must affix yourselves if you want to abide in Me.”
And of course the puzzled disciples did not respond by saying:
“How can we physically walk through his flesh? “, or
“How can we be affixed to his flesh like branches on a vine?”
To which, Jesus did not follow up by saying:
“Most assuredly I say to you that unless you walk through the flesh of the Son of Man, you have no life in you”, or
“Most assuredly, I say to you that unless you attach yourselves to the flesh of the Son of Man, you have no life in
you”.
By contrast, however, although Christ did start off metaphorically in the “bread of life” discourse, as He proceeded He
became more literal by more specifically identifying the “bread” with His own flesh:
“I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever, and the bread
that I will give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.” (John 6:51)
So here Christ states the bread is His flesh (and not His “teachings” or “words” as some unjustifiably suppose”), the
same He was about to give for the life of the world (ie on the cross). To this plain statement of identification, the
Jews responded:
“How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?” (v. 52)
But instead of backing down and suggesting His flesh is really just a metaphor for His “teaching”, He emphatically
continues to speak of His literal flesh while introducing for the first time the idea of “drinking His blood” which is
certainly not implicit in a “bread of life” metaphor:
“Most assuredly I say to you, that unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in
you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh
is food indeed and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me and I in Him.” (John
6:53-56)
So the same flesh Christ was literally going to give for the life of the world was the flesh He identified as true
“food” (and His blood true “drink”) which was to be eaten (v54 literally “munched”, “chewed”). He started
metaphorically (“bread of life”…”come to Me”…”never hunger”) then proceeded to speak in the specific way He wanted His
disciples to come to Him—by eating His flesh and drinking His blood (the latter, again, is not part of or implied by
the “bread of life” metaphor).
(cont’d)

Lest, one think that Christ is just expanding the original metaphor or introducing a new one, it must be kept in
mind that the Jews already had an understanding of “eating one’s flesh” metaphorically, and it wasn’t a positive one.
Such metaphorical use is seen in Psalm 27:2, Job 19:22, Micah 3:3, and Eccl 4:5 etc. For example Psalms 27:2 states:
“When the wicked came up against me to eat up my flesh”.
In other words, to “eat [one’s] flesh” and to “drink [one’s] blood” in biblical times was used in metaphorical sense to
revile or show hostility towards that one.
So in order for Christ to be using “eat my flesh” metaphorically, in the usage of the day, the Jews would have heard
him to be saying:
“Most assuredly I say to you, that unless you revile and show hostility towards the Son of Man, you have no life in
you. Whoever reviles and shows hostility towards Me has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My
flesh is food indeed and My blood is drink indeed. He who reviles and shows hostility towards Me abides in Me and I in
Him.”
As such an understanding would have been nonsensical, and since Jesus didn’t introduce to them a new metaphorical
meaning for “eating His flesh” (again, what He specifically identified as the “bread” He was giving, the same which He
was about to literally give for the life of the world) or “drinking His blood”, the Jews were left with the hard
literal saying which they couldn’t accept (because they were thinking carnally, and not spiritually, as Jesus implied)
most likely because they couldn’t understand how Jesus could be teaching such realism without referring to cannibalism.
But instead of running after the departing disciples to correct an alleged misunderstanding—that this was all just only
a new metaphor—He never backed off the fact that they must eat His flesh (the same He was giving for the life of the
world) and drink His blood, except to suggest that they must think of doing this spiritually (and “spirit” is not a
synonym for ‘metaphor’) rather than carnally, as the carnal understand profits nothing.
So, getting back to the comparison with the “vine” and “door” metaphors, it must be observed that looking at the wider
Scriptural context, that Christ never later pointed to an actual vine and said “This is Me, Attach yourselves to this
to abide in Me.” Nor did He point to a physical door in the upper room and declare, “This door is the entrance to the
New Covenant. Walk through it, all of you.” Nor did Paul day regarding a vine, ““This vine which attach ourselves to,
is it not the communion of our grafting into Christ?” or of the door, “This door that we walk through, is it not the
communion of our entrance into eternal life?”.

Yet in Matthew 16, it is written that the Apostles did come to understand that the “leaven” referred to the
teaching of the Pharisees. There’s no recorded evidence of such a realization in the John 6 discourse that the “bread”
Christ was giving was really His “teaching” (or that "eating His flesh" was somehow a new metaphor)—instead Christ
specifically identified it as His flesh, the same flesh He was about to give for the life of the world.

This is kind of the reverse of the other argument about God/Christ "doing new things". Just because He did not explain
or state it exactly the same way He did the other metaphors does not prove it is not a metaphor. I don't see how you
think that argument follows.
And Eliyahu also answered weel, by quoting the rest of the verse, where He interprets this "eating" as "believing" (it
is a parallelism, where parallel thoughts are stated next to each other. This is one key to interpreting many
such scriptures).
Also, you still never answered the following earlier responses by others:

[Helen]
In the meantime, if anyone should look at little earlier in John 6, Jesus has already explained what He means by the
'flesh and blood' -- and the comment about the flesh profiting nothing simply wraps it up.
"Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry and he who believes in me will
never be thirsty."
(John 6:35)
Bible explains Bible. Jesus explains exactly what He is about to talk about. You will also notice that when Jesus is
talking to Nicodemus in John 3, Jesus is very calm. That's because Nicodemus honestly wants to know. However in John 6,
the attitude of the crowd is different. They are grumbling and challenging -- they liked the food they were fed earlier
in the chapter, but this business about believing in Jesus "whose father and mother we know" -- that's pushing it just
a bit too far!
And so rather than honestly questioning Him, they simply argue among themselves (v.52).
So Jesus responds to them in a very Jewish way, turning their arguments on their ears. It has nothing to do with eating
His actual flesh or drinking His actual blood!

[Gerhard Ebersoehn]:
Can the bread then, be taught anything? (Eph1:4:12)
How are WE, the Body of Christ but don't eat ourselves? (1Cor12:27)
As for Lk22:19. A perfectly legitimate translation (and literal at that), would be:
"Then taking a loaf having given thanks, He broke (it) then gave to them saying: This the body of mine is for you being
given; unto my memory do (eat) ye!"
The reference clearly is not to the bread as the body of Christ; but to the body of Christ Himself being broken for the
disciples; eating the bread, they should remember that!

 

[Eric B]

On the other hand, Christ’s discourse was an anticipation of what was later to be revealed in the upper room.
After Christ had already told His disciples that His flesh was the “bread” He was giving for the life of the world, and
that they must eat that flesh and drink His blood to abide in Him, (and that they must think of doing so spiritually
rather carnally), He revealed the manner in which they were to eat His flesh and drink His blood by declaring that the
literal bread they were about to literally eat was His body (that He was about to literally give) and the literal wine
they were about to literally drink was His blood (that He was about to literally shed).
If Christ, the True Passover Lamb*, actually wanted to teach that we must in fact eat His flesh* and drink His blood to
have Life, and that His actual flesh and blood were true food and drink, I’m not sure He could have stated so more
forcefully than in the discourse as recorded in John 6. If on the other hand, Christ intended for these words to be
meant only metaphorically then one must ask why He let many of His disciples abandon Him on this crucial teaching
particularly when He could have just cleared it all up and reassured them that “eating His flesh” was a new metaphor,
with a specific meaning more or less opposite to the metaphorical meaning of that phrase already in use.

Regarding the disciples, the same thing basically happened with His death. They didn't understand, as they thought He
was going to take over and put the Romans down. As He was being killed, they gave up hope, and abandoned Him. But after
the resurrection, theyn they understood, and knew what their mission was. Likewise, they understood what "eating His
flesh" meant, and no longer the carnal understanding.

But Christ also clearly calls the BREAD His body:
“And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed it, and broke it and said: ‘Take, eat; this is My Body’.” (Mark
14:22)
You want to ignore the fact that Scripture refers to both the Church AND the bread (a physical loaf of bread that
Christ literally broke in the upper room) as Christ’s Body.

And both are metaphorical. I point out we are the
body, because you speak of a spiritual presence, and WE are the "body" that the Spirit resides in. The bread and wine
is the "body" that is eaten. (and Christ's literal body was the one that hung on the cross, and was resurrected) You
are getting them all mixed up. But that is how both plus the literal can all be "the body".

(*Bonus Question: What did the children of Israel do with the Passover Lamb once it was killed?)

But the same textual difficulty remains. Here’s the passage again:
“The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not
the communion of the body of Christ?” (1 Cor 10:16)
Paul specifically identifies that “communion of (participation in) the blood of Christ:” with the “cup”, and the
“communion of (participation in) the body of Christ with the “bread”. Like it or not, Paul does not say:
“’Our coming together in His name to drink’, is this not the communion of the blood of Christ? ‘Our coming together in
His name to eat’, is this not the communion of the body of Christ[/b]?”
Paul was referring back to an actual cup they were blessing, and actual bread that they were literally breaking. This
is not only readily apparent from the grammatical construction of the statement itself, but also the surrounding
context. Paul references the institution of the Lord Supper in the upper room (in chapter 11) when Christ also was
speaking of a literal cup that He wanted His disciples to drink and literal bread He wanted them to eat:
“…that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which we was betrayed took bread (ie, literal BREAD), and when He had given
thanks, He broke it (ie, the BREAD) and said: ‘Take, eat; this (the BREAD) is my body which is broken for you; do this
in remembrance of Me. In the same manner He also took the cup (ie, a literal cup of literal wine) after supper saying,
‘This cup (ie a literal cup with literal wine) is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it in
remembrance of Me.’” (1 Corinthians 11:23-25)
So not only does Paul identify the elements (the bread and the wine) with the Body and Blood of Christ, but Christ
Himself does the same. Paul does not record Christ as saying:
“…that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which we was betrayed took the people gathered to eat in His name, and when
He had given thanks, He said: ‘Eat; for you are My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me. In the
same manner He also took the same group of people gathered in His name to drink, saying, ‘Your drinking in My name is
the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you gather to drink in remembrance of Me.’”
Of course such a reading would be nonsensical, but such would be the case if the bread and cup are really meant to be
only the “gathering of people to eat and drink in Christ’s name”. Nor does Paul record Jesus as saying:
“…that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which we was betrayed took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it
and said: ‘Take, eat; this bread is you gathered to eat in My name, which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of
Me. In the same manner He also took the cup after supper saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood by you being
gathered together to drink in My name. This do, as often as you drink it in remembrance of Me.’”
However, if we let Paul’s words—and Christ’s---speak for themselves, we don’t have the resulting contextual
absurdities. Paul could have clearly stated that “our gathering to eat in His name” was the “communion of the body of
Christ”, but He didn’t. Instead, he clearly stated it was the bread (bread they were literally breaking) that was the
communion of the Body of Christ, and the cup (from which they were literally drinking) that was the communion of the
blood of Christ.
The same body and blood of Christ which Christ Himself identified with the literal bread and literal wine in the upper
room which He told His disciples to literally eat and drink.
The same flesh and blood that Christ had earlier said was true food and true drink of which the disciples must eat and
drink to abide in Him. The same flesh He was to give for the life of the world.
But notice one more thing in the Corinthians passage. Paul actually compares the Lord’s Table/Communion with the OT
sacrifices. Notice what he writes (10:18):
“Observe Israel after the flesh: are not those who eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?”
Paul did not say:
“Observe Israel after the flesh: are not those who eat visual aids of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?”
He didn’t say this because in the OT, they actually ate of the sacrifices that were killed on the altar—not ‘symbols’
or visual aids of those sacrifices. Likewise, in the NT we actually partake of the Body and Blood of Christ—the NT
sacrifice--in the Euchatist, and not mere visual aids of that sacrifice, as Paul declared the bread and wind to the be
the communion of (participation in) the Body and Blood respectively.

Again, you're telling the Scripture what it
should say, in order for your understanding to not be correct, and it to be a metaphor. It does not follow.

They certainly weren’t forcing an “ecclesiastical interpretation” on the passage. They rightly understood that
Christ was talking realistically. Their problem was that they were fixated on understanding this realism carnally as
opposed to spiritually (not realistically as opposed to metaphorically)

But according to you, it really was cannibalism; only it looks like bread and wine. That's the only difference
between your view and theirs. Otherwise, you are using the same line of thought.

Quote:
Again; someone can do that to any two objects, and claim "well; it's supernatural; you just can't understand it.”
Except that “someone” here is Christ Himself--and then His Apostles—and He indeed implied that we would have to accept His words in a spiritual (“supernatural”) sense not carnally.

 

[Eric B]

“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they
are life.” (John 6:63)
Two things need to be observed. One, “spirit” in the Bible is not synonymous with “metaphor”—unless you want to
relegate God, angels, and/or God’s gracious spiritual enlightenment to the realm of metaphor.

It is not "synonymous with", meaning that "spirit [itself] IS symbol", but physical things being metaphors of spiriaul realities is "spiritual meaning". Just like all OT types. Taking it "literally" when it doesn't make any sense, is "carnally" (and claiming "well, it is just supernatural" again, is a copout, in that context).

Two, when Christ said
that “the flesh profits nothing”, He wasn’t referring to His own physical flesh, or else He’d be saying in essence that
He was giving His flesh for the life of the world but such would ultimately be a profitless, useless endeavor. No, in
this instance Christ is juxtaposing “flesh” in the sense of carnality (not ‘physicality’) verses spirit in the sense of
grace filled (not ‘immaterial’ or ‘metaphorical’), as this juxtaposition occurs frequently in the New Testament.
Here are just two examples:
“The spirit is indeed willing but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:41)
“…who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” (Romans 8:1)

I never used "the flesh profits nothing" argument, so that doesn't pertain to me. I know that "flesh" in that case is
not literal anyway (it is our unfallen nature, or the Jews trusting in their physical heritage), so I don't use it in
this argument about flesh being "literal".

But you have made comments in the past which seemed to identify the mere possibility of using matter for
spiritual purposes to the “weak and beggarly elements” that Paul associated with the practices of the OLD Covenant—as
if what made the Old practices “weak and beggarly” was the mere fact that they were physical and not purely spiritual,
rather than that fact of being “weak and beggarly” because they were only types and shadows of the reality to come, and that the animal sacrifices of the Old Covenant couldn’t actually take away sins (Hebrews 10:4). If you really meant that by those comments, then your views (in that respect) are indeed more in line with Gnosticism. If I misunderstood, then perhaps you can give me another reason why you think the mere use of physical objects to confer spiritual benefits is “weak and beggarly”.

I think you still misunderstand what I said, or at least the context of it. I think that was more in answering your or someone else's justification of Catholic practice because the OT did it. Like the cherubim, the brass serpent, etc. Either the Eucharist is just like those things, and it is then another "weak and beggarly elelemt", or it is different (as you are claiming), and really stands on its own merit, and should not be justified based on those other things.

So how do you explain the Hypostatic Union? I’m not talking about merely reciting the Definition of Chalcedon, I want
you to explain to me how it is that the One Divine Person can assume complete humanity—body, soul, mind, will—so as to
have two unconfused natures yet eternally remain one subject. I’m not sure your ‘explanation’ will be anymore
informative regarding the “how” of the Hypostatic Union than anyone else’s “how” of the Real Presence.

You just
explained it the way I and most would explain it, even though none understands "how". Yet again, with the Real
presence, you can't even really explain it in any consistent fashion. It is a change, but it's not transubstantiation.
It indwells unchanged bread and wine; no; actual flesh and blood that looks like bread and wine takes the place of the
bread and wine. (this is at least what Agnus Dei last implied).

But Christ is Personally present in the giving of His body and blood in the bread and wine of Holy
Communion.

But I haven’t said that Christ is not Personally present. In fact I mentioned in an earlier post how Christ can be Personally present in the giving of His body and blood in the bread and wine in a way that was distinct to the Holy Spirit’s Personal presence in the Church.

Of course! But He's in us!

It’s funny how in a previous thread you began by claiming that God doesn’t indwell objects (“things”, I believe
was the word you used), and then in the face of Biblical counter-evidence you gradually backed off into a “not other
objects present in objects” defense.

Simply restating what I have said, when I see how it is mistake for
something else. "not other object in objects" is what I originally meant, but I did not know the best way to express it
until your counterpoint. It is not "backing off".

Yet, you haven’t given me one logically necessary reason why Christ couldn’t give His Personal body and blood
to us in the empirical forms of bread and wine.

Because He gave us His flesh and blood on the Cross, and said
to use the bread and wine in "reMEMbrance" of Me" (ie.e His giving us His flesh and blood on the cross)!

And you still haven’t responded the point I made that God can be present in His Church in more than one way. That the Holy Spirit is Personally in the Church does not rule out the Christ can be Personally present in another way in the giving of His Body and Blood to us during Holy Communion.

Yet God (Christ) Himself is present in the bread and the wine. Just because He calls the bread “His Body” and
the wine “His blood” doesn’t logically mean He Himself is Personally absent from those objects.
Also, you keep getting hung up on the Real Presence in the Eucharist being some ‘new kind of “supernatural”’, ignoring
the fact that the Incarnation itself was, to the Jews of that day, a ‘new kind of “supernatural”’. In the past, God
would temporarily dwell in objects like clouds in locales such as temples, but with Christ God became hypostatically
joined to humanity—not to a pre-existing man—as Jesus Christ in a way totally unique compared to anything that ever
came before or would ever come afterwards. It then could be said that the flesh and blood of Jesus was uniquely GOD’s
flesh and blood, something He didn’t have previously. In other words, the Jews would rightfully consider this (the
Incarnation) to be ‘foreign’ to the way God acted or existed in the OT. And this same flesh and blood is now
permanently and PERSONALLY HIS, so if He decides to give this in the bread and wine, He isn’t giving mere “objects in
other objects”, but something now Personally inseparable from HIMSELF.
The bottom line is you accuse me of “making up a new kind of ‘supernatural’” and doing something that is “totally
foreign to the acts of God” in the Bible, but the Jews could accuse both of us of doing the same thing regarding the
Incarnation. But if God can do something new and unique in the Incarnation, He certainly can do something new and
unique by giving His Incarnate flesh and blood in the forms of bread and wine.

Like the last issue, it is a matter of finding the best way to phrase things. Especially with me having limited time,
and being in a rush, and you do atomize my posts, so it is hard to think but so much at times.
What I am trying to say you're doing, is using "supermatural" to try to justify something you are arguing that is in
question. IT is easy to slap "it's supernatural" on anything; such as people's answer to your claim as to how to know
all the truth, with "God tells us". So there are hundreds of sects of people claiming that; how do you know what God is
telling anyone? Yet, that appeal to the supernatural makes people feel like they have refuted the skeptics reason, and
answered the questioner's questions. So likewise, you have a claim that something is "happening" to bread and wine, but
it is not a transubstantiation; you admit there is no empirical change, so what is it? "Well; it's a supernatural
change; see, there, our Church is right". Sorry; but you have not proven anything. You have just made a hypothesis and
tossed it up into the air as "just is" because it's "supernatural". That just doesn't prove anything, and it is the
final dodging of the initial issue of whether that is really a necessary interpretation of the scriptures in question
in the first place. "This is the true interpretation because those scriptures cannot be metaphorical, and they really
are eating flesh and blood, but it doesn't look like flesh and blood because it is just supernatural". That is a
tautology.

 

[Eric B]

That doesn’t even make any sense, nor is that remotely what I’ve suggested. It’s the ONE Divine-human Christ who communicates HIS flesh and blood in Communion—there’s only ONE Personal Deity involved.

I guess it is Agnus Dei who claims "all His divinity" lies in it. That would make it "a deity", but if you claim it is the one God, then it must be like a new hypostasis of the Trinity (or quaternity).

Quote:
You all likened it to the burning bush, but God did not say His "flesh" was present in that.
No, He didn’t, but that’s a non-sequitur since God had not yet become Incarnate in Jesus so He had no flesh and blood to speak of at that time.

Quote:
Likewise was the Son present "in the Flesh". It wasn't just "flesh" that was present, but rather a Person present in the Flesh.
I never said otherwise. The Son is of course Personally present with His flesh and blood both in Heaven and when He gives us His flesh and blood the bread and wine of Holy communion.

He still could have said something like "His flesh present in the bush". Or used some other thing that would amount to your "real Presence" concept. The point was, it was a Person in the bush, not an object. And you now say that a person is in the bread and wine, but a "person" is someone who can speak to us. The Spirit in us speaks to us (from Heaven), just as God in the burning bush spoke to Moses, and God in the flesh of Christ spoke to those of His day. Do you claim Christ "speaks" (in any perceivable way) from the bread and wine?

Quote:
And in all of this, you have still skirted the issue that you are denying Transubstantiation, but what you are teaching in place of it is only semantically different.

I don’t have to dogmatically wed myself to the Aristotelian categories of “substance” and “accidents” to believe that what empirically is bread and wine also becomes supernaturally Christ’s very Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist.

Quote:
In either case, there is no empirical change in the bread and wine, so some sort of "supernatural" reality must be appealed to.

Indeed. Christ “supernaturally” (spiritually) nourishes us with His actual Body and Blood in the bread and wine of Holy Communion in a way that cannot be empirically detected.

Quote:
Most of us here just say that "receiving Jesus" is a one time event, and a symbolic "washing" and "receiving His flesh", and the one time baptism, and periodic Communion represent it, without turning either event into "receiving" Christ over and over, and putting some sort of spiritual presence in the inanimate matter itself.
I think that this--finally--is the “real issue”: that your soteriological presuppositions won’t allow you to accept the Real Presence (of the Body and Blood of Christ in the bread and wine) despite the plain meaning of the texts. If salvation is something that is once-for-all and irrevocable and is reducible to the intitial one-time event of “receiving Jesus” (and is seemingly extrinsic to any ongoing life in Christ), than it would make sense to reduce the Lord Supper and Baptism to empty ‘symbols’, mere visual aids, of that once past event. However, for such a soteriological position there are many, many more Scriptures that need to be explained away other than just those regarding Communion (and Baptism)…but of course, that would take a whole ‘nother thread….

I think that is the issue, as well, which is why I said that. On the flipside of what you said about my view; your soteriological suppositions (however you may have been convinced out of your previous beliefs) are what will not allow you [any longer] to see all of this as spiritual metaphors. (just like the Jews with their "literal interpretation" of it). And Catholicism is a lot like Judaism in these respects! If salvation and even "ongoing living in Christ" is by the works of doing some deeds to supposedly "receive" Christ over and over, then turning baptism and communion into supposed metaphysical acts of actually "washing" something, and "literally eating Christ's flesh" as a way of physically "receiving Christ", then it makes sense to turn these ordinances into "sacraments" (by which one is continuously saved), and read it into scripture as "plain meaning" (i.e. the literal understanding like the Jews), even though it is really not.
(When you have the communion service, has salvation "worn off". Has Christ "left" you in the interim period, so you have to "receive Him" again? Why then isn't the "washing" of baptism repeated as well, since that was also a form of "Receiving Christ"?)

This is the reason why I earlier called it "weak and beggarly elements", and others say "the flesh profits nothing". All you have done is repackage Judaism up in new garb, and added "Christ" to it, and changed the days of worship. But Jesus had said "old wine cannot be put into new wineskins".
And this mystical view, for the purpose of teaching salvation by works is really what is closer to the gnostic concepts that were coming in, even if some of the details of their doctrines (such as rejecting physical things) may be different from what the later Church accepted, and rejected by its councils.
So with this:

Except that my interpretation and that of the ECF’s derive from the plain, grammatical meaning (as I will demonstrate below). I no longer have to employ the same a priori assumptions you have used to distort the plain meaning in support of a historically novel Zwinglian memorialism like I used to do when I was a convinced Southern Baptist.

Again, I’m not ‘force fitting’ my ecclesiastical interpretation on it…at least not anymore. That’s what I used to do as a Baptist.. After, taking the Biblical language seriously I decided to quit forcing the view I was taught onto the text. It’s the Zwinglians who are forcing their view on the Scripture. I just demonstrated the contextual absurdities that when one tries to force Zwinglian type interpretations into the texts.

Quote:
Metaphorically; it is still "re-producing" it, without having to add all of this other stuff to it.

But the “metaphorical” idea is not what is taught by the Scriptures. Rather, it’s the proponents of the “metaphorical” idea who have to do a lot fancy eisegesis in order to get Scriptures to “teach” their position.

You haven't derived it from any "plain grammatical meaning"; you have just filtered it all through your view of salvation.

 

[Eliyahu]

Last time I posted the verses which help clarify what Jesus meant by "Eat my Flesh and Drink my Blood" but it was too long and the rest of it is as follows:

Jn 11:25
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live
Ac 10:43
To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.
Ac 13:39
And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.
Ro 1:16
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
Ro 1:17
For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
Ro 3:22
Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:
Ro 3:25
Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;
Ro 3:26
To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
Ro 3:28
Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law

Ro 5:1-2
Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
Ro 10:9
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
Ro 10:10
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
1Co 1:21
For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness ofpreaching to save them that believe.
Ga 2:16
Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
Ga 2:20
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me

Ga 3:26
For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
Eph 2:8
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
1Jo 3:23
And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.
1Jo 5:13
These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God
( All bible quotations are from www.crosswalk.com)

 

[Eliyahu]

Throughout the Bible we are told that we get the Salvation by believing in Jesus, and the verses in John 6 are not different from other verses which I mentioned above.

However, suddenly the people who claim Transubstantiation interpret those verses in John 6 regarding " Eat my flesh and drink my blood" as meaning that we should eat His flesh and His blood to get the Everlasting Life. But the verse 63 of Jn 6 tells us that Jesus was talking about the spiritual meanings of them.

So far, nobody has brought any explanation to override the commandments of god prohibiting the drinking of Blood. None of ECF's writings mentioned it, IMO.

 

[Agnus_Dei]

So far, nobody has brought any explanation to override the commandments of god prohibiting the drinking of Blood.

Under the Old Covenant, God forbade the Jews from consuming blood because blood was considered a source of life: “Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood” (Gen 9:4); “Whoever eats any blood, that person shall be cut off from his people” (Lev 7:27). On the basis of these Old Covenant prohibitions, Protestants argue that Jesus could not have literally given His blood to drink as the source of life in the New Covenant. This argument is easily refuted.

Most obviously, the laws of the Old Covenant have been superseded by the laws of the New Covenant (2 Cor 3:14; Heb 7:18; 8:7; 10:9). All of the Jewish religious laws and rituals concerning festivals, diets, circumcision and consuming blood are obsolete. While the Church at the council of Jerusalem recommended that the Gentiles abstain from consuming blood and food strangled or offered to idols, this was a temporary, pastoral decision made to facilitate the Jews’ inclusion in the Church. Paul made it clear that this was not a dogmatic decision by permitting these practices if they didn’t harm the conscience of a fellow believer.

Moreover, the Old Covenant proscribed drinking literal blood from dead animals. It has nothing to do with drinking the living blood of Jesus Christ. There is not a one-to-one correspondence between the blood of the Old and New Covenants. We also remember that the Old Covenant was not designed to give life, only knowledge of sin. Because blood was the source of life, it could not be drunk. In the New Covenant, the very blood that removes the Old Covenant laws now actually gives life, and must be drunk.

Because God’s people are no longer under the dietary restrictions of the Mosaic law but live in the freedom of Christ, Paul can say: “the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom 14:17). “Therefore,” Paul says, “let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath” (Col 2:16).

By those sacrifices of the Old Law, this one Sacrifice is signified, in which there is a true remission of sins; but not only is no one forbidden to take as food the Blood of this Sacrifice, rather, all who wish to possess life are exhorted to drink thereof. (Questions on the Heptateuch 3:57) Augustine
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