Posted on 02/20/2008 4:47:37 PM PST by NYer
Why does his blood have to spilled out over and over again. Why does his body have to be destroyed over and over. It is so inconsistent with Scripture. Either the sacrifice at the cross was enough to pay for all the sins or it wasn't.
Is it the RC position that the sacrifice at the cross was incomplete?
This argument is beneath you.
You could study the paper and ink of “The Constitution” until you knew every atom of it but you wouldn’t know anything about what it was.
It is sorrta the body of Christ,
If you had phrased this question just a few hundred years ago, people wouldn't understand what you meant. "Same in essence" means same. really truly same, identical.
These days "in essence" means "not really". It's like when people say, "I'll be with you in Spirit" what they mean is, "I won't be with you, but maybe I'll think of you."
So over time "substantially" and "in essence" have come to convey their opposite.. Again, Rush Limbaugh uses "literally" to mean, "greatly" or "excessively", but what it means is along the lines of "Exactly as I said", "by the letters".
If I owe you a thousand dollars and the note says, "$1,000," but I give you 500 UK £ (at today's rate of exchange, more or less) YOU might say that the debt had been "substantially" paid, since the appearance of the money, the country of origin, might not matter to you, just the value it signified. The value, the buying power, had been, in essence, restored to you and that's what you had lent to me, and that's what you wanted back.
Here "substantially" and "in essence" do not mean, "sorta kinda" they mean the very thing itself - the buying power - was what you wanted and you didn't care about the denomination.
I guess we could do a similar analogy with how the debt would be paid if I paid it in tens or fifties, as long as it was paid.
I guess one of the reasons I'm kind of slapping my head about this is that the view you and Uncle Chip are seeming to espouse is what I would want to call "materialism". And there are problems with materialism.
A member of Free Republic is 61. His blood carries very different hormones from what it carried 40 years ago. His muscles are different. He looks different. the composition of his body in terms of water, fat, muscle, bone - and even elemental and chemical constituents has changed. Maybe less Fe and Ca then there used to be. Maybe a few more lipids and whatnot, huh?
So does that make him a different person? Should he have changed his name and gotten new ID? When he wakes up in the morning and says, "I feel like a new man!" well, is he a new man? Isn't he REALLY just the same old guy he was, only older? or is he only "sorta kinda" the same guy because all this composition and characteristics have changed.
Or we could go back to the old ax problem: I have an ax, I lose the head three times and break the handle four times, each time I replace the lost or broken part. Is it the same ax?
So Jesus dies and is resurrected. Is it the same Jesus? His body is different in some respects. Do we say it's the same body or not?
The miracle part is not some change in the composition of the "gifts". Before they were a not very tasty bread and a usually too sweet wine. Now they look the same, but they, we think -- YMMV, are the same thing that Jesus is, really, truly, sho' 'nuff and NOT "sorta kinda".
And part of what makes that miraculous is that the "substance" or "essence" of money or even an ax is in some sene fungible. I really don't care as long as the people I owe it to accept it. But people are different, and one human is not just another. You can't sneak my wife out of the house and put another woman of the same age and appearance and general capability and temperament in and I won't care.
And then Jesus is his own very unique kind of one person, being of both human and divine hypostases.
Okay, my head is beginning to hurt.
Yeah. Amen.
Take it one step further. Not a single atom or molecule of that 61 year old person is the same as when he was a baby, or even from 10 years ago. Cells live and die, we take in new cells to replace the old. Metabolism happens.
So exactly nothing, materially speaking, is the same from the newborn FReeper to the 61 year old.
Yet he is, in essence, the same person!
How can this be? Unless what a thing is, essentially, is not the same as what a thing is composed of.
Not at all. It is we who are incomplete. We need to partake of the Sacrifice of the Cross in order to be covered by it. Exactly like the Israelites needed to eat the lamb in order to be covered when the Passover ghost came.
But since we were not all present at Calvary, historically speaking, God has given us a way to be present through the Sacrament.
If you will, the Mass is like a wormhole or singularity in time. The one-time historical event of the Crucifixion is always present in the Mass. We can always be present at the central moment in our salvation history.
The more I learn what you folks believe the more sorry I am for you. You never really know the joy of being saved. You always need your Grace refills and all the other things your church tells you that must be done.
The Truth is not that complicated.
Mark 16:16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.
Nothing about works, rituals or the constant refills of Grace just believe. If you truly believe you will have Faith in Jesus Alone and thru Faith Alone you will be saved by Grace Alone. It does not involve Grace refills. Once Jesus has you in his hands nothing can separate you from Him.
Sometimes I wonder how God feels about the majestic tapestry He created for our benefit being reduced to slogans.
The Truth is much more complicated than we can ever hope to conceive of. We see, at best through a glass, darkly. The saints never had the hubris of the modern American Fundamentalist.
The way you put it, belief sounds like a work which is up to the discretion of the believer (or the unbeliever). And if you do this work of believing, if you make the choice to follow wmfights's advice, then you will be rewarded with Salvation, and Blessed Assurance.
This is not an observation about you or your teaching. It's an observation about language and simplicity.
If I take wmfight's counsel and believe in Faith Alone in Jesus Alone by Grace Alone, it contradicts the mantra. For he will have been an agent of grace in bringing me to my spiritual senses.
So much for grace "alone." Grace had a human helper, which is anthema.
So does that make him a different person? Should he have changed his name and gotten new ID? When he wakes up in the morning and says, "I feel like a new man!" well, is he a new man? Isn't he REALLY just the same old guy he was, only older? or is he only "sorta kinda" the same guy because all this composition and characteristics have changed.
Very thoughtful post, Mad Dawg, and it dovetails nicely with Claud's post #71:
"In our world," said Eustace, "a star is a huge ball of flaming gas."
"Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is but only what it is made of."
Thank you both for giving me much to ponder.
Maybe the answer is in Scripture.
ICor. 1:18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
ICor. 1:23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness,
Luke 24:46-47 Then He said to them, "Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem".
If you think this is a bunch of slogans you really don't know THE GOSPEL. Maybe you're Greek. ;-0
I might consider that proposition, if only you could find a way to state it using fewer words. In fact, not replying at all would be the perfect answer! :)
excellent, excellent, excellent. The whole end of Voyage of the Dawn Treader is filled with symbolism.
Actually, FWIW, I really disagree with this.
The basis of my disagreement can be posed as a maxim: Some things are too simple for words.
What's invalid in the flux of logorrhea is the general invalidity of words to do the job when the topic is simple beyond reckoning.
In related news: Our Protestant brethren draw the wrong conclusion, I think, from the comparative lateness of the adoption of the formal statement of transubstantiation. Rightly or wrongly what we claim the Church has said from early days was that "It is Jesus" or "Jesus is present in the Sacrament". What transubstantiation does is not "explain" what happened -- it's a miracle, yo, inexplicable -- but to give us a handle on how to talk about it.
My Protestant teachers said that the problem of what came to be thought of or called as "accidents" and "substance" arose as pastors tried to reassure the laity that they were not being invited to partake of gobbets of flesh and sticky warm blood.
If this is true (I do not recall any sources to substantiate, heh heh,it) then the challenge that we are now supposed to show some change in the accidents to support the doctrine is absurd, since the doctrine asserts that there is NO change in the accidents.
So the simplest expression would be "Christ is really in the sacrament, though our sense do not say so."
Kind of you to say so. My head still hurts.
Where exactly in scripture did Jesus say bread was his body? He did specifically declare he is the bread of life - which is quite the opposite concept.
John Ch. 6
[33] For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.
[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.
[48] I am that bread of life.
How about my common sense which causes me to ask two pertinent questions:
1] Which body [flesh] did Jesus say was the bread of life that He was giving for the sins of the world: His pre-resurrection body or His post-resurrection body??? Hmmmm
2] And since His pre-resurrection body is no more, then just exactly what body [flesh] do transubstantiationists contend to be presently consuming in their sacrament???
The Bible tells us that He had the wounds of His crucifixion in His hands and His side, which would argue for the same body in a new, ah, condition, wouldn't it?
I think what lies behind your question would be the question of did Jesus get a NEW body or did His body just, so to speak, "go through changes"?
I would say the latter.
I would say (with Aquinas, if I recall correctly, it was more than 30 years ago …) that the "substance" of IHS's body is the resurrected body - now, so that in which we share is the resurrected body. But those in the upper room shared in the living, not yet died, not yet resurrected body.
Look, I'm not asking you to believe this or to be convinced by my alleged thought. I'm just trying to address the questions you raise. Does this have to be a contest?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.