Well, it cannot be the literal body and blood of Jesus, which was manifestly physical, and John condemn those who make Him the "Christ come in the flesh" into one without a manifest physicality.
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) (1 John 1:1-2)
This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. (1 John 5:6)
Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: (1 John 4:2)
even if we don’t know HOW it happens.
Unlike the incarnation, there is nothing manifest that shows it does happen, nor is there any need to say to does.
And the power doesn’t lie in any priest or any celebrant, but in the Word of God.
Or the consumption being the means of obtaining spiritual life I assume. But I will not damn you for your view, while for many Caths the wafer and wine is right up there with their Mary as needful for salvation and not believing this is damnable.
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I will get back to you when I get home from vacation.
——Well, it cannot be the literal body and blood of Jesus, which was manifestly physical, and John condemn those who make Him the “Christ come in the flesh” into one without a manifest physicality. -—
I don’t understand entirely what you mean by that statement.
But—at least if my best guess is correct—Jesus being God means omnipresence as one of the attributes of God. And omnipotence. The Lord made all of creation by speaking; it can’t be that difficult to put body and blood into bread and wine, just like it can’t be that difficult to form a Y-chromosome for a virgin birth.
-—Unlike the incarnation, there is nothing manifest that shows it does happen, nor is there any need to say to does. -—
Other than Jesus’s own words, which, considering that he is Lord, I need to take seriously. And in taking them seriously, I need to take them literally for this reason: As I said in an earlier post, why would Jesus use such language and call such specific attention to relatively insignificant bread and wine if he didn’t mean something very important by actual bread and wine instead of a more generic comparison?
Or the consumption being the means of obtaining spiritual life I assume.
It’s... complicated, at least here on FR when we have to deal with works-salvation Catholics v. grace-salvation everyone else. But no, we don’t believe that it’s a work we have to do in order to be saved. We believe that salvation is through the grace of God alone; nothing else.
You can skip the rest of the post if you’re satisfied with that.
I’ll do my best to explain in a way that doesn’t confuse with Catholic theology, because so much of the language is so similar and yet so, SO different in practice.
We believe that Communion is spiritually beneficial, and that it’s one of the means that the Lord uses to dispense his grace upon the recipients. The other means being the Word of God and baptism. That’s not to say that they are works that we have to perform, but rather that Word and Sacrament (that is, Scripture, Holy Baptism, and Holy Communion) are given to us in order to tell and show us about who Jesus is, and also to make our salvation clear to US.
I repeat, we’re NOT saying that Holy Communion is required for salvation, but is instead a gift from the Lord to increase our faith and give us assurance that what Jesus said about himself is true.
So (if I may ping him because this is something he’s passionate about), I have assurance of salvation just like Mark17 does. Jesus died to forgive the sins of the world; I know this because Scripture says so.
I know that Jesus died for ME because I was baptized into his death. So when the devil accuses me of unbelief or being insincere in my beliefs, I can point to the work of God that was worked within me instead of my own thoughts. Instead of turning my belief into a good work that I do for salvation, this places the focus on what the Lord has done for me instead.
(Not to say that baptism too is required for salvation—otherwise, that’d make it a work—but it too is a gift from God to give us assurance of that salvation.)
I... am not entirely satisfied with this explanation, mostly because I’m having to re-work the usual jargon because of the way FRomans use the same words to mean something radically different.
But it’s the best I can come up with right now.
If you want a better explanation that runs the risk of jargon issues, http://bookofconcord.org/ is for free online.