Says who? You?
Who gets to choose?
How about the Pillar and Bulwark of the Truth... The Church.
Like metmom asks, have you plucked out your eyes lately?
Like pgyanke asks, where were we commanded to pluck out our eyes? Sure, there was the suggestion that we might choose that course of action as a solution to our sinfulness... but it wasn't a direct command.
He said he was the door. I don't think he was made of wood with a metal handle.
You define the term too narrowly: Door is also defined "any means of approach, admittance, or access:" Seems to fit to me.
He said he was the Good Shepard, but I don't think his followers get sheared for their wool.
Again, too narrow a definition: I am gladly of his fold and see no insult in him calling me his sheep. Baaah.
He is the bright and morning star, but I don't think he shines in the sky at night. He is the Lily of the Valley, but I don't think he is growing in the ground. He is the Alpha and the Omega, but I don't think he is letters on a piece of paper.
You are far to narrow in your interpretations all around. He is the Light in the darkness and the rare flower among thorns. He is beginning and end, not just a jot or tiddle.
Look, there are metaphors in the Bible, yes. But that doesn't make everything metaphor. There are direct exhortations also that demand attention. Jesus used metaphor to explain our relationship to him. He is the vine and I am a branch of His. This explains how we can be a separate individual and yet still part of Him. However, there is only one place in all of Scripture where Jesus says, "This is Me." ... and it wasn't while holding Scripture (which He held often). It was only when He took the bread and fulfilled the Jewish Passover which was to be always celebrated in all times. Do you still celebrate it? We do. It's the Mass. What Jesus said... is.
Actually in the greek, pluck out is in the imperative....the mood of command.
Now, do we believe Jesus literally meant for us to do this?
No, else there would be a lot of maimed Christians.
It is ironic that you are using your own personal interpretation of Scripture in these passages to fit your own need.
I think you recognize Jesus is using a parable to illustrate a point as He often did.
Now, if you keep John 6 in context, you will see He calls Himself the bread of life. A parable if you will. There are admonitions to believe. This is real...it is how we come to faith...through believing in him. It is how you "eat the flesh" and "drink the blood".
No where does this passage suggest the catholic belief of transubstantiation where the bread and wind become the actual flesh and blood.
If we take this literally, then the disciples should have been literally eating Him right there on the spot. that they didn't is telling. They understood what He was saying.
Says me, yes. You think you can make interpretions, so can I. You may disagree with my interpretation. Fine, I disagree with yours too.
He said he was the door. I don't think he was made of wood with a metal handle.
You define the term too narrowly: Door is also defined "any means of approach, admittance, or access:" Seems to fit to me.
By golly, I believe you just figured it out. Of course I know it means approach, admittance or access. I do what Rush does, I demonstrate absurdity, by being absurd. Telling me that Jesus Christ meant to physically eat his body and drink his physical blood is absurd. He meant it figuratively, not literally. God says don't eat the blood, so that is how I interpret it. You may disagree with my interpretation. So be it.
I do not celebrate one day over another. Paul said for every person to be convinced in there own minds, if they want to celebrate one day over another. That is the beauty of Christian liberty. I can choose to consider one day over another, or not. You may disagree with that. So be it. Mostly, as I said, we will have to agree to disagree.
A good question. Certainly the magisterial office is Scriptural, as Westminster affirms, and has authority, but the question (asked of another also) is whether being the instruments and stewards of Divine revelation means they are the infallible judges as to what is of God and what it means?
How about the Pillar and Bulwark of the Truth... The Church.
And just what do you extrapolate out of this text, based upon what it says in Greek? And has this verse been infallible defined as meaning what you say, or are you validating personal interpretation of Scripture as long as you say it supports Rome?
Sure, there was the suggestion that we might choose that course of action as a solution to our sinfulness... but it wasn't a direct command.
So "if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell" (Matthew 5:29) is not a direct command but further on "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:48) is?
You define the term too narrowly: Door is also defined "any means of approach, admittance, or access:" Seems to fit to me.
Nor is everything literal, and the point is that only the metaphorical view is consistent with both John and the rest of Scripture.
First, the use of figurative language for eating and drinking is quite prevalent in Scripture, in which men are referred to as bread, and drinking water as being the blood of men, and the word of God is eaten, etc
And the three mighty men brake through the host of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well of Beth–lehem, that was by the gate, and took it, and brought it to David: nevertheless he would not drink thereof, but poured it out unto the Lord. And he said, Be it far from me, O Lord, that I should do this: is not this the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives? therefore he would not drink it. These things did these three mighty men. (2 Samuel 23:16-17)
To be consistent with their plain-language hermeneutic Caths must also insist this was literal. After all, David clearly said it was blood and refused to drink it, consistent with the Law, and this poured it out as an offering unto the Lord.
As well as when God clearly states that the Canaanites were “bread: “Only rebel not ye against the LORD, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us” (Num. 14:9)
And or that the Promised Land was “a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof.” (Num. 13:32)
And or when David said that his enemies came to “eat up my flesh.” (Ps. 27:2)
And or when Jeremiah proclaimed, Your words were found. and I ate them. and your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart” (Jer. 15:16)
And or when Ezekiel was told, “eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.” (Ezek. 3:1)
And or when (in a phrase similar to the Lord’s supper) John is commanded, “Take the scroll ... Take it and eat it.” (Rev. 10:8-9 )
Moreover, the use of figurative language for Christ and spiritual things abounds in John, using the physical to refer to the spiritual:
• In John 1:29, Jesus is called “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” — but he does not have hoofs and literal physical wool.
• In John 2:19 Jesus is the temple of God: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” — but He is not made of literal stone.
• In John 3:14,15, Jesus is the likened to the serpent in the wilderness (Num. 21) who must “be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal” (vs. 14, 15) — but He is not made of literal bronze.
• In John 4:14, Jesus provides living water, that “whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (v. 14) — but which was not literally consumed by mouth.
• In John 7:37 Jesus is the One who promises “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” — but this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive. (John 7:38)
• In Jn. 9:5 Jesus is “the Light of the world” — but who is not blocked by an umbrella.
• In John 10, Jesus is “the door of the sheep,”, and the good shepherd [who] giveth his life for the sheep”, “that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” vs. 7, 10, 11) — but who again, is not literally an animal with cloven hoofs.
• In John 15, Jesus is the true vine — but who does not physically grow from the ground nor whose fruit is literally physically consumed.
• In John 6, Jesus is the bread of life — but who does not give His physically flesh to eaten tio gain life, any more than He lives by the Father by eating His, (Jn. 6:57) but reveals that like as the Son lived by every word which proceeded from the mouth of God, (Mt. 4:4) and thus doing the Father's will was His "meant," (Jn. 4:24) so the flesh itself profits nothing, but the words He spoke are spirit and are life. (Jn. 6:63)
And nowhere in Scripture was physically eating anything literal the means of obtaining spiritual and eternal life, but which by believing the word of God, the gospel. By which one is born again. (Acts 10:43-47; 15:7-9; Eph. 1:13)
And which is consistent with the rest of John, in which not only is faith in Christ, not eating, the means of obtaining spiritual and eternal life, but like as in Jn. 6, John often reveals the Lord speaking in an apparently physical way in order to reveal the spiritual meaning to those who awaited the meaning.
In. Jn. 2:19,20, the Lord spoke in a way that seems to refer to destroying the physical temple in which He had just drove out the money changers, and left the Jews to that misapprehension of His words, so that this was a charge during His trial and crucifixion by the carnally minded. (Mk. 14:58; 15:29) But the meaning was revealed to His disciples after the resurrection.
Likewise, in Jn. 3:3, the Lord spoke in such an apparently physical way that Nicodemus exclaimed, "How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?" (John 3:4)
And in which, as is characteristic of John, and as seen in Jn. 6:63, the Lord goes on to distinguish btwn the flesh and the Spirit, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit," (John 3:6) leaving Nicodemus to figure it out, requiring seeking, rather than making it clear. Which requires reading more than that chapter, as with Jn. 6, revealing being born spiritually in regeneration. (Acts 10:43-47; 15:7-9; Eph. 1:13; 2:5)
Likewise in Jn. 4, beside a well of physical water, the Lord spoke to a women seeking such water of a water which would never leave the drinker to thirst again, which again was understood as being physical. But which was subtly inferred to be spiritual to the inquirer who stayed the course, but which is only made clear by reading more of Scriptural revelation.
And thus we see the same manner of revelation in Jn. 6, in which the Lord spoke to souls seeking physical sustenance of a food which would never leave the eater to hunger again. Which again was understood as being physical, but which was subtly inferred to be spiritual to the inquirers who stayed the course. But which is only made clear by reading more of Scriptural revelation.
And again, in so doing the Lord makes living by this "bread" of flesh and blood as analogous to how He lived by the Father, "As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me." (John 6:57)
And the manner by which the Lord lived by the Father was as per Mt. 4:4: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." (Matthew 4:4)
And therefore, once again using metaphor, the Lord stated to disciples who thought He was referring to physical bread, "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work." (John 4:34)
And likewise the Lord revealed that He would not even be with them physically in the future, but that His words are Spirit and life:
What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. (John 6:62-63)
And as with those who imagined the Lord was referring to the physical Temple, the Lord left the protoCatholics to go their own way, who seemed to have yet imagined that the Lord was sanctioning a form of cannibaalism, or otherwise had no heart for further seeking of the Lord who has "the words of eternal life" as saith Peter, not the flesh, eating of which profits nothing spiritually..
And which is made clear by reading more of Scriptural revelation For as shown, the fact is that the allegorical understanding of Jn. 6:27-69 is the only one that is consistent with the rest of Scripture, and again, which nowhere in all of Scripture is spiritual and eternal life gained by literally eating anything physical, which manner of eating is what Jn. 6:53,54 makes as an imperative according to the literalistic interpretation. Which RCs do not take fully literally as they render it an unbloody blood and transubstantiated presence, nor do they exclude all who do not believe the Cath. theory from having eternal life.
Supposing one gains spiritual life by literally eating human flesh and blood is endocannibalism, not the Scriptural gospel.
Alpers and Lindenbaum’s research conclusively demonstrated that kuru [neurological disorder] spread easily and rapidly in the Fore people due to their endocannibalistic funeral practices, in which relatives consumed the bodies of the deceased to return the “life force” of the deceased to the hamlet, a Fore societal subunit. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_%...9#Transmission
he custom of eating bread sacramentally as the body of a god was practised by the Aztecs before the discovery and conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards."
The May ceremony is thus described by the historian Acosta: “The Mexicans in the month of May made their principal feast to their god Vitzilipuztli, and two days before this feast, the virgins whereof I have spoken (the which were shut up and secluded in the same temple and were as it were religious women) did mingle a quantity of the seed of beets with roasted maize, and then they did mould it with honey, making an idol...all the virgins came out of their convent, bringing pieces of paste compounded of beets and roasted maize, which was of the same paste whereof their idol was made and compounded, and they were of the fashion of great bones. They delivered them to the young men, who carried them up and laid them at the idol’s feet, wherewith they filled the whole place that it could receive no more. They called these morsels of paste the flesh and bones of Vitzilipuztli.
...then putting themselves in order about those morsels and pieces of paste, they used certain ceremonies with singing and dancing. By means whereof they were blessed and consecrated for the flesh and bones of this idol. This ceremony and blessing (whereby they were taken for the flesh and bones of the idol) being ended, they honoured those pieces in the same sort as their god....then putting themselves in order about those morsels and pieces of paste, they used certain ceremonies with singing and dancing. By means whereof they were blessed and consecrated for the flesh and bones of this idol. This ceremony and blessing (whereby they were taken for the flesh and bones of the idol) being ended, they honoured those pieces in the same sort as their god...
And this should be eaten at the point of day, and they should drink no water nor any other thing till after noon: they held it for an ill sign, yea, for sacrilege to do the contrary:...and then they gave them to the people in manner of a communion, beginning with the greater, and continuing unto the rest, both men, women, and little children, who received it with such tears, fear, and reverence as it was an admirable thing, saying that they did eat the flesh and bones of God, where-with they were grieved. Such as had any sick folks demanded thereof for them, and carried it with great reverence and veneration.”
...They believed that by consecrating bread their priests could turn it into the very body of their god, so that all who thereupon partook of the consecrated bread entered into a mystic communion with the deity by receiving a portion of his divine substance into themselves.
The doctrine of transubstantiation, or the magical conversion of bread into flesh, was also familiar to the Aryans of ancient India long before the spread and even the rise of Christianity. The Brahmans taught that the rice-cakes offered in sacrifice were substitutes for human beings, and that they were actually converted into the real bodies of men by the manipulation of the priest.
...At the festival of the winter solstice in December the Aztecs killed their god Huitzilopochtli in effigy first and ate him afterwards. - http://www.bartleby.com/196/121.html
There may be some differences, but these have far more in common with the Cath idea of the Eucharist than anything seen in Scripture interpretive of the words of the last supper.