[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

I submit that I have given you a completely faithful exposition of John 6. And I am afraid that it thoroughly condemns the RCC on all points.

In my opinion, the RCC left the Lord Jesus quite a long time ago (John 6:66-67).

***********

~~ the_doc

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

Gridley has fired, when ready.

;-)

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

I have been disappointed, my fellow Protestants, to leave aside the KINGDOM AMILLENIAL discussion.

Professional demands necessitated my temporary absence; but I insist, my fellow Protestants, that we soon return to the KINGDOM AMILLENIAL discussion. There is much good soil for learning there, even (perhaps especially) when the Plow cuts painfully deep.

However, when we have argued strenuously and in good conscience all "afternoon" as it were, it is right and fitting that we should Sup at the Table together awhile before we return to the "after-dinner" discussion of Eschatology.

Let us Sup again at the Table together awhile... upon the Words of spirit and life.

The_Doc's "Eucharist of Jesus Christ" Thread is now open for discussion.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

This is mostly "the_doc"s exposition of John chapter six; and I am aware that some of you elect to engage in discussion with "the_doc" only on a selective basis.

BUT, it really is top-notch Protestant exegesis. It's much better than I do, anyway; at least usually (I am, after all, primarily an amateur Apologist, not an exceptional Theologian).

Even if only to INFORM YOURSELVES, I would commend you this article for your consideration.

Best, OP

[Catholicguy]

<> I wish this post was longer. OK, I admit it. We are liars, Augustine was a Crypto-Calvinist, we are cannibals, and Jesus did abandon the Church He established. I thank you and the Doc for your illuminating doctrine so humbly ofered.<>

[Wrigley]

Bump for read

[SoothingDave]

Unfortunately, things got much, much worse over time -- murderously so, in fact. Finally, in the 16th Century, the Protestant Reformers pulled another huge population of Christians out of Rome. These folks realized that they wanted no part of what the RCC had become. A lot of them were murdered for their trouble, of course.

Yes, and of course no Protestant ever engaged in religious-based warfare or intolerance. Nope, never.

SD

[drstevej]

While we are storm watching here in Baton Rouge, you might enjoy working through this article on John 6. I'm sure your comments and questions are welcome.

[Claud]

I submit that I have given you a completely faithful exposition of John 6. And I am afraid that it thoroughly condemns the RCC on all points.

My goodness OP!! I am with Catholicguy in sarcastically wishing this manifesto was longer.

This will not go unanswered though.

As they used to say in Pole Position..."Prepare to Qualify...."

[Woodkirk]

Perhaps the most overlooked verse regarding the fraud perpetrated by the RCC is in Matthew 24:26:

"Wherefore if they shall say unto you, 'Behold, he is in the inner chambers', believe it not".

Sitting on every altar in every Catholic Church is one of these "inner chambers" that they call "tabernacles" where the leftover consecrated hosts are stored for later distribution. It is precisely what Jesus referred to here -- a locked closet, a dispensary, a safe place used for storage. Catholics have been conned into believing that Jesus resides in these inner chambers, comes out only for Mass or other ceremonial adoration, then, goes back into hiding again, and all this through the magical powers of the priest. But Jesus said DON'T BELIEVE THEM..

So who are Catholics here going to believe: Jesus or those who Jesus said not to believe?

[Gophack]

IN THIS SERIES OF SEVEN CONSECUTIVE POSTS, I will show you what the Lord meant in John 6:48-58.

I do not intend to get in a large theological argument as I am a mere layman without a doctorate or much theological training. But this sentence sums it up "I will show you what the Lord meant in John 6:48-58".

I believe that Jesus gave the authority to his church and specifically St. Peter to interpret Scripture. I believe that Jesus meant what he said in John Chapter Six. When Jesus spoke metaphorically, he was generally pretty clear that he was speaking metaphorically. In John Six he was emphatic and repeated his words to show that he meant what he said.

I know I can not hold my own with you in a debate. But I can have the deep and abiding faith in my Lord, Jesus Christ and that God would not be the author of confusion. I believe with my body and soul that when I receive the Holy Eucharist, that I am receiving the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. I believe that Jesus died for my sins that I might have the chance of eternal life, and I know that I am not worthy. I praise the Lord because he has given me the chance. If I fall, I know I can turn to the Lord and seek forgiveness.

I do not hate you, I do not condemn you, I do not wish to yell at you. You, too, are a child of God and I pray that He blesses you. I do fear that your often harsh and negative words towards Catholics do not show the love that God commands us to show, but that it between you and God.

God bless.

[Claud]

OP, your arguments are uncharacteristically weak.

You rest on the idea that John 6 is metaphorical/typological. But then why does Christ say "my flesh is true [Greek alethes] food". Which other metaphor does Christ use that same language? I am the true gate? No. I am a true lamb? No. That "true" there is fatal to your assumptions about John 6, and I have noticed an alarming tendency to hastily skip over it, or falsely translate it as "food indeed." In my Liddel-Scott, alethes in Greek is "true, real". It is a very pointed word in that context, and the *opposite* of pseudo = "false".

There certainly is a metaphorical aspect to the idea as bread of heaven--but where you see this as excluding the idea of transubstatiation, we see it as *supporting a proper understanding of it.* You can find other metaphors for the Word as bread till the cows come home. Frankly, it is fitting that such metaphors would be made--and they cannot in any way be read as excluding a literal understanding of the bread as well.

Next let me quote something else you said:

The Book of Hebrews points out something inherent in Biblical symbolism: the type invariably proves to be spiritually inferior to the antitype. Therefore, we should assume that the literal feeding on the Passover lamb anticipates and is replaced by a strictly spiritual feeding on the Lamb of God -- i.e., the non-literal feeding which is simply spirit-sustaining faith in Christ.

You use the correct argument to get the exact wrong conclusion! To show where you went wrong on this:

The important thing to notice is that typology involves a kind of antithetical parallelism. (The literal idea in the type is replaced with a purely spiritual idea in the antitype.)

By saying "purely spiritual", as if to exclude any possibility of literal material parallelism as well, you are grafting your own false assumptions on a sound principle. Moses was a type of Christ. David was a type of Christ. By applying your "antithetical parallellism" consistently, we are forced to conclude then Christ *must not have been a true man* because that would be a literal fulfillment, not a *purely* spiritual one. Hold to this line of argument, and you are forced to deny the incarnation. Catholic understanding, rather is not an antithetical parallelism, but a fully perfected one. A purely literal type (David, Moses, manna, Israel) prefigures the literal AND spiritual antitype: Christ, the Eucharist, the Church.

Furthermore, you say:

We also find the Passover lamb being assimilated through an eating in the Old Testament, but we must not conclude that the Lamb of God is to be literally eaten -- since He is not a literal lamb.

Christ is a literal lamb. Not in the sense of being a hoofed mammal of course, but in that he literally fulfilled what I might call the "office" of the lamb in Judaism. He was *literally* killed for the atonement of sins, and he was in effect a more perfect lamb than even the lamb was. You are perhaps right that it is not necessary to conclude that the Lamb of God must be eaten as was its prototype, but it is more fitting (and in keeping with both a spiritual and literal typology) that it should.

Another quote of yours:

Besides, if the bread did not become human protein, it was not transubstantiated. Period. If it did not look and smell like human flesh, it was not human flesh. Human flesh definitely does look like human flesh. There are no exceptions to this. Human flesh smells like human flesh. (As a physician, I will assure you that this is the case!) There are no exceptions to this, either.

I "corrected" you on this sloppy use of concepts once before, and your response was that you actually knew what the correct understanding was, you were just trying to see if anyone noticed. I accepted that, but here you are doing it again.

Again, let me point out that transubstantiation means that the *accidental qualities* of the bread are *retained*:taste, color, touch, smell. You could run the bread through a gas chromatograph and it would come up bread. Strictly materially, it would be impossible to tell a consecrated host from an unconsecrated one. Transubstantiation means that the metaphysical *substance* has changed, that no matter how much it looks like bread, that's not what it IS. I am reminded of a quote from C.S. Lewis' "Voyage of the Dawn Treader", where Ramandu tells Eustace that he is star: "In my world", says Eustace, "A star is a big ball of flaming gas." And Ramandu replies, "Even in your world, child, that is not what a star is, but only what it is made of." The Eucharist is made of bread, but that's not what it is, and if that should prove too mysterious for your tastes, then I suppose it is not surprising you have such a problem with John 6.

Your chief argument is that this passage is metaphorical. However, no one has yet to explain where else in Scripture an obvious "metaphor" is phrased so strangely bluntly as "my flesh is true [real] flesh, and my blood is true [real] drink.". That language is quite simply not the language of metaphor.

I apologize for the long reply, but it was merited.

[RobbyS]

The Eucharist is primarily about faith, so that if John was talking about faith he was on point. But John alone of the Gospels does not record the words of institution at the Last Supper, and we can take this in two ways: one, John was "Baptist" in his views: nonhierarchial and stressing the work of the Holy Ghost , so there was no proper priesthood in "his" church. (This is assuming that "John"was not the companion of Jesus, but "the beloved disciple," or a disciple of the latter.) However, his gospel must be reconciled with the other three and probably earlier gospels as "his" church joins with the great or "catholic" Church. This can be done in two ways: One by interpreting their words in the light of John's words; or 2) by interpreting his words in the light of theirs. I think we must do the second. The parts of his gospel that make Peter the "shepard" the letters which face the problem of "false" prophets and evident schism in John's church, show that that church was pulling in line with the other churches whose views can be found in Clement I and in the letters of Ignatius. The notion of a "perfect" Church with a fixed order imposed Jesus Himself or described by Paul et al. I find hand to accept either in the Protestant notion that all we have to do is to imitate the New Testament Church or in the Catholic form that has Jesus having a "plan" that is identical with the Church of tradition is immediately put in place by Peter and the Apostles. I think we must accept that despite the witness of the Risen Jesus Himself and the tutelege of the Holy Ghost, Peter and the rest, even though they were filled with certitude, had to live their lives like us and follow the Spirit where it leads.

With regard to the Eucharist itself, I think we need to look at the form of the Eastern Liturgies, which stress the power of the Spirit more than the Latin Rite does. I would invite the opinion of someone who knows much more about that than I do, because my point is speculative.

[PresbyRev]

John's Gospel is rife with symbolism and allegory. One of the currents in the Gospel is the stubborn blindness of the religious leaders as they continually stumble upon Christ's words, adhering to a rigid and wooden literalism and missing Christ's meaning entirely. I think one can argue from John here for a spiritual conception of the Eucharist, a real means of grace and a real spiritual presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

[Revelation 911]

A few months ago, OP actually demonstrated on another thread the propriety of the Protestants' objections when he stated your own doctrine of the Eucharist very clearly for you Romanists. You folks found his demonstration of your position offensive -- and got him temporarily suspended for his efforts on your behalf.

But he was just giving back to you your own doctrine. So, by condemning OP's post, you RCs actually condemned yourselves. You were offended at your own position.

Oh, you refer to the time he said Catholics "suck the carotid artery and gnaw the kidney" of Christ ?

fyi - It was me - not the Catholics that hit the abuse button back then - you owe them an apology -

Rather, I was offended at OP's gross insensitivity in dealing with an issue that strikes to the core of some peoples communion with Christ himself....

Do I agree with them, no I do not. I do however recognize my Roman brothers and sisters as Christians, and as such, deserving of respect. They are not deserving of such shameful beating. Lift up your brother.

.

.

Wonder twin powers ACTIVATE!

"I take the form of a flamesuit"

[Antoninus]

Isn't it a little ironic that it took you 13,906 words (yes, I counted) to "deconstruct" four little words of Christs's that could not be more clear:

"THIS is my body."

I'll trust Jesus's 4 words over your 13,906 any day.

[Commander8]

Interesting stuff.

[eastsider]

Besides, if the bread did not become human protein, it was not transubstantiated. Period. If it did not look and smell like human flesh, it was not human flesh. Human flesh definitely does look like human flesh. There are no exceptions to this. Human flesh smells like human flesh. (As a physician, I will assure you that this is the case!) There are no exceptions to this, either.

The argument cited above indicates that the author has an incorrect understanding of transubstantiation. Transubstantiation means that after consecration, the substances of bread and wine become the substances of flesh and blood, not that the appearances of bread and wine become the appearances of flesh and blood.