Oh, but it is the protestant spin.
Admit it that the Protestants don’t have the Real Presence of Jesus Body and Blood, so they protest.
The Protestants are like the followers in the Bible (John) that didn’t believe the words of Jesus and stopped following Jesus.
Just because you and others say so, doesn’t make it the Truth.
It must make you uncomfortable to say that you follow Jesus, except for God’s gift of His Body and Blood among other teachings.
As Jesus said, Peace be with you. Pax vobiscum.
The Protestants are like the followers in the Bible (John) that didn’t believe the words of Jesus and stopped following Jesus.
Just because you and others say so, doesn’t make it the Truth.
It must make you uncomfortable to say that you follow Jesus, except for God’s gift of His Body and Blood among other teachings.
As Jesus said, Peace be with you. Pax vobiscum.
The ones who stopped following Jesus, were the ones who took Him literally. I take him figuratively, because I didn't want to sin by drinking blood. It does not make me feel uncomfortable in the slightest. I am totally comfortable in my belief. You may believe whatever you like. I just don't have to do it. I guess when Gabriel returns and blows his bugle, then we will know who's got it. Until then, I am satisfied. Have a nice forever. I know I will. 😇
If the sentence is one of command, either forbidding a crime or vice, or enjoining an act of prudence or benevolence, it is not figurative. If, however, it seems to enjoin a crime or vice, or to forbid an act of prudence or benevolence, it is figurative.Here's our passage under discussion:
“Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man,” says Christ, “and drink His blood, you have no life in you.” John 6:53 This seems to enjoin a crime or a vice; it is therefore a figure, enjoining that we should have a share [communicandem] in the sufferings of our Lord, and that we should retain a sweet and profitable memory [in memoria] of the fact that His flesh was wounded and crucified for us.But he keeps on going, which helps us understand what he means by figure is exactly what we moderns call a metaphor
Scripture says: “If your enemy hungers, feed him; if he thirsts, give him drink;” and this is beyond doubt a command to do a kindness. But in what follows, “for in so doing you shall heap coals of fire on his head,” one would think a deed of malevolence was enjoined. Do not doubt, then, that the expression is figurative; and, while it is possible to interpret it in two ways, one pointing to the doing of an injury, the other to a display of superiority, let charity on the contrary call you back to benevolence, and interpret the coals of fire as the burning groans of penitence by which a man's pride is cured who bewails that he has been the enemy of one who came to his assistance in distress.3) Losing one's life:
In the same way, when our Lord says, “He who loves his life shall lose it,” we are not to think that He forbids the prudence with which it is a man's duty to care for his life, but that He says in a figurative sense, “Let him lose his life”— that is, let him destroy and lose that perverted and unnatural use which he now makes of his life, and through which his desires are fixed on temporal things so that he gives no heed to eternal.4) Don't help a sinner:
It is written: “Give to the godly man, and help not a sinner.” The latter clause of this sentence seems to forbid benevolence; for it says, “help not a sinner.” Understand, therefore, that “sinner” is put figuratively for sin, so that it is his sin you are not to help.All of the above is available here:
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/12023.htmIt's a good rule he's giving. What sort of Protestant was he, BTW? If you think this is Protestant spin, then you must admit Augustine was, on this one point at least, a Protestant, so I was hoping you might tell me what variety. Oh wait, this was all written over a thousand years before young Luther was even a twinkle in his mother's eyes. Never mind.
Admit it that the Protestants don’t have the Real Presence of Jesus Body and Blood, so they protest.The physical properties of Christ are located in Heaven, where they will remain till His return. We are specifically warned by Jesus not to go looking for Him on earth before he returns in glory:
Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not.But we do have the real presence of Jesus, every day in every way essential to our spiritual needs:
(Matthew 24:23-26)
But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.See that? You can't even be a Christian without having the Spirit of Christ. Would you argue his spirit is unreal? If you admit it is real, and it is with all who believe, as spoken of all throughout Scripture, how then do we not have his real presence? We do. Really.
(Romans 8:9)
The Protestants are like the followers in the Bible (John) that didn’t believe the words of Jesus and stopped following Jesus.LOL. Nice try, but the crowd in John 6 that disbelieved Jesus were the literalists. Protestants/evangelicals are the ones actually following the example of Peter, who grasped what the metaphor was teaching about our utter dependence on Christ, our need to have faith in Him, to receive Him as Messiah and Son of God, if we would have eternal life, and all our spiritual hungers and thirsts satisfied.
Just because you and others say so, doesn’t make it the Truth.The first thing you've said that I totally agree with. We do not survive by feeding on the opinion of man, whether it be you, me or anybody else, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Kudos to you for the observation. Now apply it to the inventors of your transubstantive opinion, the 9th Century monk Radbertus, or Aquinas, or any of the other late-comers who have tried to convert a blessed memorial of Christ's love for us into neoplatonic magic that enhances the power of their priesthood at the expense of divine truth.
It must make you uncomfortable to say that you follow Jesus, except for God’s gift of His Body and Blood among other teachings.Be assured, we are already possessors of the gift of His body and blood, which He gave for us so long ago. So far from discomfort it is the supreme joy of every believer that we have forgiveness, acquittal from certain judgment, through His offering for our sin by the killing of His body and the shedding of His blood. This is something so critical that the literalists miss:
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.This is an expression of the Hebraic exchange of life principle. Our old, sinful self has been crucified with Christ. He has taken our sin as if it were His own, and given us His own life, as if it were ours, an exchange of lives. This is what feeds us, according to the teaching of John 6, faith in Jesus who gives us His life, like life-sustaining bread, like thirst-quenching drink. All that we have, we have because He gave His body and His blood so that we could be made new creations in Him.
(Galatians 2:20)