“Are you saying that you can sin all you want, not receive the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and still live?
Is that what Christ says?”
I’m saying you got into your Priest’s secret stash of consecrated wine, since I didn’t say anything vaguely resembling any of that, and you cannot demonstrate how I did.
I have drank His blood and eaten His flesh. I did so through faith, just as He himself said.
As the reading for this Sunday says, “The Jews quarreled among themselves.”
I guess that still must be going on. Only it’s Christians who are quarreling over Christ’s words.
Amen, so have I! I think our FRoman catholic friends maybe were a little bored lately since the Religion Forum hasn't been as acrimonious as they seem to like, so they repost yet another provocative thread mocking "those" Protestants and boasting that they alone have the only real gateway to salvation. Yet, we understand from the Holy Scriptures that we ARE save by grace through faith and NOT by the deeds or works that we do.
Telling people they HAVE to go to Mass and receive the literal body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ through a "legitimate" apostolic priest saying the precise words and wearing the "right" garments, etc. to ever have a glimmer of a hope that they may one day be worthy to go to their "beatific vision" is just plain UNSCRIPTURAL. It is also an accursed Gospel since it is something other than what Paul said WAS the Gospel.
The Catholic Church teaches that the Mass is a propitiatory sacrifice for sin and this is why she insists that without participating in the Eucharist a set number of times a year, you cannot be saved. The Mass, then is just another "means" of getting grace. But we know from Scripture that it is faith alone in the finished work of Christ that saves us from our sins and we can be assured that we have been redeemed from the penalty of our sins and can KNOW that we HAVE everlasting life. So much of what the Catholic Church has taught over the centuries is NOT what has been "always and everywhere believed", but is a compromise of differing interpretations and ideologies of those who came before. There is an excellent essay on this subject that speaks about the differing views of the "church fathers" and the development of the doctrines they now claim to hold. It is http://www.the-highway.com/eucharist_Webster.html. This additional link gives several short essays into the subject: http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/search?q=eucharist.
It is humorous that in the article of this current thread, the author derides the Protestant doctrine of sola Scriptura saying the rejection of the "literal" Catholic version of the Lord's Supper goes against the doctrine, but then the author quotes verses to try to prove his interpretation is the ONLY correct one. Catholics usually think all that matters is what they are told is de fide (of the faith) today and don't worry whether or not Scripture substantiates it. We know, however, that the Bible is the God-breathed truth that IS the authority for our Christian faith. Counting on fallible and sinful men to be the Oracles of God to us is faulty and, even, deadly.
We know that Scripture teaches Christ died "once for all" and that He "is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them." I'm not worried in the least that not being a Roman Catholic condemns me - because for freedom Christ has set me free.