“It IS God’s plan and when the disciples held the bread that Jesus had broken at that Last Supper, it was BREAD. When they put it in their mouths, it was STILL bread. When they chewed and swallowed it, it NEVER changed from being bread. The same thing with the cup of wine. It is so obvious that these “elements” represented Christ’s broken body and shed blood and that partaking of these elements in the like manner was to be done...what did Jesus say? IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME.”
So, you do not accept what Jesus said. And that is the problem we continue to have between Christians. I understand both of the ‘arguments’...yours and ‘theirs’. Think how much easier it is if we just take what God says, what Jesus says, at face value. It is only in your mind if you do not believe that it is still ‘bread’ or still ‘wine’.
It does not ‘become’ it does not ‘represent’...it is...Jesus said so. Is that a lie?
So how do YOU get around the Scriptural prohibition against eating blood?
God has been very clear about it, even to the point of reiterating it in Acts 15 at the council of Jerusalem.
Could you perhaps give us the reason why it’s so important to believe that it becomes the literal flesh and blood of Jesus?
I accept what Jesus said completely! No, he did not lie, he cannot lie because he is Almighty God incarnate. Think how much easier it is if we just take Jesus at HIS word. He said he is the door to the sheepfold. Is he made of wood? He said he is the vine and we are the branches, is he a plant? He said he was the bread of life, is he made of wheat and yeast? He is the water of life, is he H2O? He said he is the resurrection and the life, is he limited by our semantics of words? Were the followers of Jesus? When they were assembled that last night before the Crucifixion the next day, Jesus was celebrating the Jewish observance of the "seder". Those elements of bread and wine were part of that and they had quite specific reasons for being there all those thousands of years of the same observance by the Jews. Do a little research about the symbolism of each of those elements and what they represented. Go back and think about when Jesus started talking about himself being the "bread of life" and the "water of life". He was giving simple to understand similes and object lessons so that these simple people could grasp his meaning.
Now think forward two thousand years and see how convoluted and twisted his words have become. The simple lesson that he is the bread of life and whoever "ate" of him - meaning believed/received him - would NEVER be hungry (spiritual hunger), would HAVE eternal life. But what have men done with his words? "Special" priests have to "confect" the elements of the Eucharist (which simply meant thanksgiving). They do some actions, say some "special" words, and viola! the bread and wine are literally - yes, that is what they say - changed into the body and blood of our savior so that all those who come forward and eat that tiny piece of cracker are literally receiving the life of Christ into their souls. But if you go back to the first century life of the Christians, they had "love feasts" where they partook of the bread and wine just like Jesus told them to do - in REMEMBRANCE OF ME. They did not look at that as the way they could be given the grace to be saved. They already KNEW they were saved because they had already accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior before they came together in their local assemblies to share in this observance.
From the site http://www.the-highway.com/eucharist_Webster.html we learn:
The Roman Catholic Church teaches that when the priest utters the words of consecration, the bread and wine are changed into the literal body and blood of Christ. He is then offered to God on the altar as a propitiatory sacrifice for sin. The Council of Trent explicitly states that ‘in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the mass, that same Christ is contained and immolated in an unbloody manner who once offered himself in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross’. There are thus two aspects of the Roman doctrine: transubstantiation, which guarantees the ‘real presence’ of Christ; and the mass, in which Christ, thus present bodily, is re-offered to God as a sacrifice. This, however, is not the only view which has been expressed in a consistent way throughout the history of the Church. From the beginning of the Church the Fathers generally expressed their belief in the Real Presence in the eucharist, in that they identified the elements with the body and blood of Christ, and also referred to the eucharist as a sacrifice, but there was considerable difference of opinion among the Fathers on the precise nature of these things, reflected in the fact that the ancient Church produced no official dogma of the Lord’s Supper. Interpretation of the meaning of the eucharist in the writings of the Fathers must be done with great caution for it is very easy to take a preconceived theology of the eucharist and read it back into their comments and teachings.
I encourage you to go to the link and read the excerpts given of some of the Early Church Fathers and their views about the subject. It clearly shows that the idea of the "eucharist" becoming the body and blood, soul and divinity of Christ and its propitiatory purpose was NOT held by the Apostles nor the first Christians and, instead, it was a process of development of doctrine and changes over centuries that give us the dogmas the Catholic Church teaches today. Rather than this church's contention that it teaches the orthodox Christian faith as it has ALWAYS and EVERYWHERE been believed is patently untrue. It is NOT "only in my mind" that I don't accept the teaching about this observance, it is what Scripture says and I believe God's word over fallible men who presume to contradict God's word. You can choose to believe they have that right, but I hold the truths of God's word to be THE authority NOT men.
Do you take Jesus says at "face value" when he says he is the door? Is Jesus an actual door?
When Jesus said call no man "Father" on the earth do you take this at "face value" as well?