Posted on 07/09/2008 5:53:23 AM PDT by markomalley
It is if you read the entire Luke 22:19.
I like Iscool.
good for you!
This is mainly in response to your first post:
In Context:
John 6:30 begins with an event that took place in the synagogue at Capernaum where the Jews asked Jesus what sign he could perform so that they could believe in him. As a challenge, they said “our ancestors ate manna in the desert.” Could Jesus top that? He told them the real bread from heaven comes from the Father. “Give us this bread always,” they said. Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” At this point the Jews understood him to be speaking metaphorically.
Jesus REPEATED what he said and then He summarized: “I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.’ The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’” (John 6:51–52).
His listeners were shocked because now they understood Jesus literally and correctly. He again repeated his words, but with even greater emphasis, and introduced the statement about drinking his blood: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at 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).
Jesus made NO attempt to soften what he said, NO attempt to correct “misunderstandings,” for there were none. Our Lord’s listeners understood him perfectly well. They no longer thought he was speaking metaphorically. If they had and mistook what He said - Jesus did NOT retract!
Christ also explained exactly what he meant in Matt. 16:5–12. Here, where any misunderstanding would be fatal, Jesus made NO effort to correct – instead he REPEATED himself emphatically.
Then in John 6:60: “Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?’ These were his disciples, people used to His remarkable ways. Jesus warned them not to think carnally, but spiritually: “It is the Spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” John 6:63; 1 Cor. 2:12–14.
But He knew some didn’t believe and it’s here, in the rejection of the Eucharist that Judas fell away, read John 6:64. “After this, many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him” John 6:66.
This is the only record we have of any of Christ’s followers forsaking him for purely doctrinal reasons. If it had all been a misunderstanding, if they erred in taking a metaphor in a literal sense, why didn’t He call them back and straighten things out? Both the Jews, who were suspicious of him, and his disciples, who had accepted everything up to this point, would have remained with him had he said he was speaking only symbolically!
But HE DID NOT CORRECT these protesters. TWELVE times He said He was the bread that came down from heaven; FOUR times He said they would have “to eat my flesh and drink my blood.”
John 6 was a promise of what would be instituted at the Last Supper and it was a promise that could not be more explicit.
Paul CONFIRMS it when he wrote to the Corinthians: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16). So when we receive Communion, we actually participate in the body and blood of Christ, not just eat symbols of them. Paul also said, “Therefore whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. . . . For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself” (1 Cor. 11:27, 29). “To answer for the body and blood” of someone meant to be guilty of a crime as serious as breaking one of the Ten Commandents. How could eating mere bread and wine “unworthily” be so serious? Paul’s comment makes sense only if the bread and wine became the real body and blood of Christ!
You/your article compared the John 6 verses saying they’re metaphorical like John 10:9 “I am the door” and John 15:1 “I am the true vine”. Where is the connection to John 6:35 “I am the bread of life”?
“I am the door” and “I am the vine” make sense as metaphors because Christ is like a door we go to heaven through him and he is also like a vine we get our spiritual sap through him.
But Christ takes John 6:35 way beyond symbolism by saying, “For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed” John 6:55 and continues: “As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me” John 6:57.
The Letter to the Hebrews explains, Jesus is the one eternal high priest who always lives to make intercession for the people before the Father. In this way, he surpasses the many high priests who over centuries used to offer sacrifices for sin in the Jerusalem temple. The eternal high priest Jesus offers the perfect sacrifice which is his very self, not something else. “He entered once for all into the sanctuary, not with the blood of goats and calves but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption” Heb 9:12
St. Paul taught us in his letters, using the analogy of the human body, the Church is the Body of Christ, in which many members are united with Christ their head (1 Cor 10:16-17, 12:12-31; Rom 12:4-8). This reality is frequently referred to as the Mystical Body of Christ. All those united to Christ, the living and the dead, are joined together as one Body in Christ. This union is not one that can be seen by human eyes, for it is a mystical union brought about by the power of the Holy Spirit.
And so it was handed down...
St. Augustine...those who are to receive the Body of Christ in the Eucharist: “Be what you see, and receive what you are” (Sermon 272). In another sermon he says, “If you receive worthily, you are what you have received” (Sermon 227).
St. John Damascene wrote: “The bread and wine are not a foreshadowing of the body and blood of Christ—By no means!—but the actual deified body of the Lord, because the Lord Himself said: ‘This is my body’; not ‘a foreshadowing of my body’ but ‘my body,’ and not ‘a foreshadowing of my blood’ but ‘my blood’” (The Orthodox Faith, IV [PG 94, 1148-49]).
St. Cyril of Alexandria, “Christ is not altered, nor is his holy body changed, but the power of the consecration and his life-giving grace is perpetual in it” (Letter 83, to Calosyrius, Bishop of Arsinoe [PG 76, 1076])etc., etc.
...most of it taken from here:
http://www.catholic.org/clife/jesus/eucharist.php
Nobody, but nobody believes everything in the Bible is “literal.” Otherwise, then we’d believe the garbage and claptrap that people like Benny Hinn preach, wherein God is described as having a hand or that we are sheltered under “his wings.”
So, please don’t say that Protestants want literal translations on some things and then not on others. All we want, as I assume you want, is to have a faithful understanding of what Scripture says, IN CONTEXT.
Regarding the part about drinking of the cup and eating of the body in an unworthy manner, I can’t help but think that every one of us has done that at some time more than likely, without even realizing it.
What really frosts me is to think that the Priests giving the communion were the same degenerates molesting children.
Yes, I know that they are the minority but the Church just passed them on...
Oh, and why I keep bringing this topic up here and there is because one of my dearest friend’s brother was molested. She said the priest came to their house on several occasions and her parents thought this guy was just perfect.
yes paved you are right that which is said IN CONTEXT.
I have a problem - whenever I get together with several Protestants to discuss the Bible, four of them will have four very different interprertations.
In the case in point, Christ means what he says so I always perk up my ears and direct my attention to what is written by any of the evangelists directly quoting the Lord.
Lurking’
Hi! Yes, you may be right, but you, on the other hand, are the fifth interpretation, are you not?
See? And I bet you don’t agree with all of your Catholic brothers and sisters either. Oh, we mortal men (and women). God must just shake his head at us.
I volunteered to monitor the teens religious education classes and was thoroughly questioned, was fingerprinted and had a criminal background check performed PRIOR to any work for our parish or anywhere in our diocese of over 150 churches.
Who knows maybe they thought I looked a little shady - but seriously everybody who works in any position anywhere in the diocese gets a thorough one over.
Lurking’
Actually I rarely agree with any of their interpretations.
It seems a lot of what Protestants believe today was verboten 50-60 years ago.
Birth control and abortion were openly castigated as a grevious sin against God - now they are ignored and even tolerated so as not to offend.
I can find extremely well reasoned interpretations in the Catechism of the Church ones that I agree with.
Lurking’
It’s probably a good thing they do this. One of my friends is a pastor. Several years ago he was teaching a confirmation class (you know 7th-8th graders). One of the girls did something and threatened to make a false claim against him if he ticked her off. He told me he was never going to teach them again because it was too dangerous. I really feel for people today. I know that MOST people (our priests, pastors, and laypeople, etc.) who work in our churches ARE good and kind and are NOT pedophiles or thieves. Sadly, though, the nature of us Christians is to be forgiving and loving and that automatically makes us vulnerable to those who wish to pray upon us AND our children.
God bless you for volunteering and sharing of your time and talents.
I don’t know anyone that is a true Christian that thinks abortion is okay. I know many people who think birth control is okay but that includes most RCs I know (almost all I know for that matter).
I do know some people that think birth control is wrong. One of the notable people I recall was Hank Hanegraff, who was the president of the Christian Research Institute. He had 8 children and truly believed to deliberately prevent conception by birth control was wrong.
Incidentally, I think the RCs are onto something here. Besides all the medical problems I think BC causes (lack of sexual desire in those on BC pills, infections from IUDs and too many otherthings to name), I came to the position several years ago that the Roman Catholic position on this is right.
Oops, re my other post “pray” should be “prey.”
“Priests Who Molest Children”:
(1) Statistically, less than one percent of Catholic priests have been accused of sexual abusing children. Of that amount, only a portion of that 1% have in fact done so.
(2) Thus, more than 99% of priests have “not” sexually abused children.
(3) What is said of Catholic priests is also said of Protestant ministers. In Protestant Christian denominations a very small minority of church leaders have been accused of sexually abusing, and a lesser amount of that portion has been substantiated as valid.in such accusations.
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(4) Of the two, Catholic and Protestant, the Catholic Church especially is generally targeted as sexually abusive to children. At times in the media it is made to appear that the Catholic Church alone is plagued with problems of sexual abuse.
(5) Catholic priests are often accused to be sexual abusers, because they practice celibacy. It is purported in major media that because Catholic priests do not entertain a sexual experience in their lifestyle, their natural passions are suppressed, thus acted out in ways that are harmful to others.
(6) It is precisely “because” of both the “gift” and “sacrifice” of celibacy, that priests are chaste, and capable to perform their duties without preoccupation with personal sexual gratification.
(7) The more than 99% of priests who have “NOT” abused children, perform their duties amidst sadness and grief, having been falsely labelled as child abusers (or being united in service with other priests who are child abusers).
(8) It is the Catholic Church that remains united and committed, worldwide, on pro-life issues. Strongly advocating for traditional marriage and family, and against abortion, homosexuality, premarital sex and use of contraceptives.
(9) The small percentage of priests who have been proven to abuse children, are referred to as pedophiles. (Pedophilia is defined as an adult having fantasy, desire, and engaging in sexual activity with a child 13 years old or younger.)
(10) Until the mid 1980’s, most professionals in the field of psychology believed and taught that sexual abusers could be rehabilitated through mental health therapy and treatment.
(11) Much hierarchy in the Catholic Church, particularly in North America, thought resorting to advice from the secular counseling community was wise on such matters as abuse to children.
(12) Cases of accused priests for alleged molestation of children were not always easy to substantiate.
(13) In most cases where possible sexual abusing priests were relocated to distant perishes after accusation of abuse, Catholic Bishops usually responded in principle to advice and general teaching of secular psychologists.
(14) The vast majority of cases where priests were in fact proven to have molested children, those cases did not include harm to young children.
(15 ) Sexual abuse by these priests were not found to have taken place against children who were “female”.
(16) Sexual abuse by these priests happened against older teenagers who were “male”.
(17) The proper term for these priests who have sexually acted out upon older teen aged boys is NOT “PEDOPHILE”, but instead “HOMOSEXUAL”.
(18) If a Catholic priest does, or ever had, heterosexual or homosexual tendencies, this is of little concern or consequence in his life, duties and service as a priest. Because a Catholic priest by pledge, definition, service and function is “celibate”.
(19) Catholic priests who have transgressed sexual boundaries with anyone, including a child, is “NOT” a Catholic priest in that title’s rightful definition. The one who claims to be a priest and has done these things, has broken the vow he made before God to be priest.
(20) A sexual abuser, by criteria and definition, chooses his or her profession, position, hobby and daily activities, to have access to those he or she wishes to sexually molest.
(21) Any Christian leader who has harmed a child in the manner described, never was a leader of a Christian church. His leadership of a church was only access to abuse, not a correct function of ministry.
(22) A priest who has abused a child never was of the Church. He is an “outsider”, and in the truest sense of the term, always was. (Excommunication from the Catholic Church is a process of similar relevance, but general application remains functional for our cause here in my opinion.)
(23) For media or any other person to call a sexually abusing priest a Catholic, has scandalously misrepresented what the Catholic Church and Christianity in general stands for.
(24) Critics who are secularists and against the Church, cannot have it both ways. Which is it? ... “Does the Catholic Church stand for marriage, family, right to life and accountability to a moral God? Or does Catholicism stand for ‘priests who practice their homosexuality lawlessly upon older teen aged boys’?”
(25) The answer to this final question is clear. A priest, who has sexually molested a child, or anyone else for that matter, is not a priest or a representative for the Church. It is very possible he is not a Christian, thus not Catholic. This person is a “wolf in sheep’s’ clothing”. Whatever vows this man has made while prostrate in holy ceremony before God, were instead lies and falsehood.
In conclusion to this post, consider the following scriptures, words spoken directly by the mouth of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself:
“Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me. But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes!” (Matthew 18:5-7)
***
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name”’ And then I will declare to them. ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” (Matthew 7:21-23)
Now, any comments on the actual thrust of the post?
In Context:
John 6:30 begins with an event that took place in the synagogue at Capernaum where the Jews asked Jesus what sign he could perform so that they could believe in him. As a challenge, they said “our ancestors ate manna in the desert.” Could Jesus top that? He told them the real bread from heaven comes from the Father. “Give us this bread always,” they said. Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” At this point the Jews understood him to be speaking metaphorically.
Jesus REPEATED what he said and then He summarized: “I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.’ The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’” (John 6:51–52).
His listeners were shocked because now they understood Jesus literally and correctly. He again repeated his words, but with even greater emphasis, and introduced the statement about drinking his blood: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at 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).
Jesus made NO attempt to soften what he said, NO attempt to correct “misunderstandings,” for there were none. Our Lord’s listeners understood him perfectly well. They no longer thought he was speaking metaphorically. If they had and mistook what He said - Jesus did NOT retract!
Christ also explained exactly what he meant in Matt. 16:5–12. Here, where any misunderstanding would be fatal, Jesus made NO effort to correct – instead he REPEATED himself emphatically.
Then in John 6:60: “Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?’ These were his disciples, people used to His remarkable ways. Jesus warned them not to think carnally, but spiritually: “It is the Spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” John 6:63; 1 Cor. 2:12–14.
But He knew some didn’t believe and it’s here, in the rejection of the Eucharist that Judas fell away, read John 6:64. “After this, many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him” John 6:66.
This is the only record we have of any of Christ’s followers forsaking him for purely doctrinal reasons. If it had all been a misunderstanding, if they erred in taking a metaphor in a literal sense, why didn’t He call them back and straighten things out? Both the Jews, who were suspicious of him, and his disciples, who had accepted everything up to this point, would have remained with him had he said he was speaking only symbolically!
But HE DID NOT CORRECT these protesters. TWELVE times He said He was the bread that came down from heaven; FOUR times He said they would have “to eat my flesh and drink my blood.”
John 6 was a promise of what would be instituted at the Last Supper and it was a promise that could not be more explicit.
Paul CONFIRMS it when he wrote to the Corinthians: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16). So when we receive Communion, we actually participate in the body and blood of Christ, not just eat symbols of them. Paul also said, “Therefore whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. . . . For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself” (1 Cor. 11:27, 29). “To answer for the body and blood” of someone meant to be guilty of a crime as serious as breaking one of the Ten Commandents. How could eating mere bread and wine “unworthily” be so serious? Paul’s comment makes sense only if the bread and wine became the real body and blood of Christ!
You/your article compared the John 6 verses saying they’re metaphorical like John 10:9 “I am the door” and John 15:1 “I am the true vine”. Where is the connection to John 6:35 “I am the bread of life”?
“I am the door” and “I am the vine” make sense as metaphors because Christ is like a door we go to heaven through him and he is also like a vine we get our spiritual sap through him.
But Christ takes John 6:35 way beyond symbolism by saying, “For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed” John 6:55 and continues: “As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me” John 6:57.
The Letter to the Hebrews explains, Jesus is the one eternal high priest who always lives to make intercession for the people before the Father. In this way, he surpasses the many high priests who over centuries used to offer sacrifices for sin in the Jerusalem temple. The eternal high priest Jesus offers the perfect sacrifice which is his very self, not something else. “He entered once for all into the sanctuary, not with the blood of goats and calves but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption” Heb 9:12
St. Paul taught us in his letters, using the analogy of the human body, the Church is the Body of Christ, in which many members are united with Christ their head (1 Cor 10:16-17, 12:12-31; Rom 12:4-8). This reality is frequently referred to as the Mystical Body of Christ. All those united to Christ, the living and the dead, are joined together as one Body in Christ. This union is not one that can be seen by human eyes, for it is a mystical union brought about by the power of the Holy Spirit.
And so it was handed down...
St. Augustine...those who are to receive the Body of Christ in the Eucharist: “Be what you see, and receive what you are” (Sermon 272). In another sermon he says, “If you receive worthily, you are what you have received” (Sermon 227).
St. John Damascene wrote: “The bread and wine are not a foreshadowing of the body and blood of Christ—By no means!—but the actual deified body of the Lord, because the Lord Himself said: ‘This is my body’; not ‘a foreshadowing of my body’ but ‘my body,’ and not ‘a foreshadowing of my blood’ but ‘my blood’” (The Orthodox Faith, IV [PG 94, 1148-49]).
St. Cyril of Alexandria, “Christ is not altered, nor is his holy body changed, but the power of the consecration and his life-giving grace is perpetual in it” (Letter 83, to Calosyrius, Bishop of Arsinoe [PG 76, 1076])etc., etc.
...most of it taken from here:
http://www.catholic.org/clife/jesus/eucharist.php
Back on topic - this post?
I like that you took the entire ministry at Capernaum in context. I disagree with the conclusion. See post #77 for why.
God Bless.
I agree that Jesus makes an identification between Himself and the bread of life. This, in fact, is the Catholic Doctrine of Real Presence.
Jesus was making an analogy here
This doesn't follow. He said that He IS the bread of life and that He will give us His flesh to eat, which is "food indeed". Identification between the Eucharistic bread and Jesus in person is there; the connection between the Eucharist and the sacrifice of the Cross is there; analogy as something opposite to identification is not there.
in accordance with the rest of the Gospel, the Catholic Eucharist is not evident.
Read the Last Supper episode. It is in the "rest of the Gospel".
1) Communion had not been instituted yet.
Correct; it has been instituted at the Last Supper. So? In John 6 the entire discourse is in the future tense: the Eucharist is in the future and the Cross is in the future.
2) If Jesus was referring to Communion, then He was saying that Communion, not His sacrifice, brings salvation; that partaking in Communion, not acceptance of His sacrifice, is how salvation is received… which contradicts even verse 40 of this chapter.
The Eucharist IS His sacrifice, which the faithful receive. You propose a false dichotomy.
often Christ speaks allegory, but not here.
For protestants it is a big BUT.
You have to refute it - you have NO alternative.
It is a direct commnad.
You need to read it in the vulgate or older - not the KJV, which was twisted specifically to the whims of the king.
I am a Catholic, I believe in my faith, I accept the words “eat the Flesh of the Son of Man” at face value.
You are part of the everyone else described in John 6:60-66
Lurking’
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