Posted on 11/06/2021 5:52:39 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
Well-known Christian pastor Francis Chan is raising questions after comments he made about the history of Holy Communion.
The pastor, preaching on the "Body of Christ and Communion," pointed out that the way Catholics view communion, a sacrament evoking Jesus at the Last Supper and part of Mass, hasn't received the same attention and devotion in Protestant churches.
Instead, it has been reduced to "just a symbol," Chan complained. Traditionally, Catholics view it as Jesus' literal body and blood, whereas Protestants view it as a symbol.
“I didn’t know that for the first 1,500 years of church history, everyone saw it as the literal body and blood of Christ,” Chan, author of "Crazy Love," remarked in a sermon posted online this week by nonprofit SermonIndex.net. “And it wasn’t until 500 years ago that someone popularized a thought that it’s just a symbol and nothing more. I didn’t know that. I thought, ‘Wow, that’s something to consider.’”
Chan wants the body of Christ -- not the pastor, pulpit or the sermon -- at the center of the church once again in the United States. He said this would unite churches once again, instead of having tens of thousands of denominations.
While Christians have disagreed on whether or not it is a symbol of Jesus’ body or the transformation of the bread into his actual flesh, they do agree it’s the cornerstone of the faith, and essential to being a believer and follower of Christ.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Ping!
Ping!
Apparently John Chapter 6 has been missing from his Bible.
I pray that Chan is on his way home.
Francis Chan Claims to Be Jesus, Heals Whole Village without the Holy Spirit
"Francis Chan has upped the theological ante recently, going from the relatively sound reformed pastor, through Bill Johnson-loving charismatic, to a full-fledged faith healer, and now to Jesus in the Flesh when he described in a recent video how he laid hands and healed a whole village in Myanmar, ostensibly without the Holy Spirit."Chan has a particularly irritating way of speaking, where his modus operandi is to consistently engage in religious performance art, not unlike Todd White who falls to his knees red-faced and weeping every three sentences or a certain baptist and pentecostal segment of preachers who insert “-ah” after every few words.
"In Chan’s case, he reads the scriptures and preaches like he has an intestinal blockage, with strained features and gasping breaths, as if he’s fighting to speak when he’s not gesticulating wildly. It’s all a show, and it’s sad that some find it convincing. View article →
I stopped listening to Chan a long time ago.
Altogether neglecting the history of an entire line of Christians from the Antiochan tradition, who had an Antiochan, Syrian, and Old Latin (150 AD) New Testament text that had never been touched by Alexandrian or Roman scholars.
Christians who never communicated or communed with a pontifical Roman church of any kind, but who went north and northwest with missionary purpose from the days of Paul; many of them ending up as far north as the British Isles, long before a single Roman priest set foot there.
Legendary Irish actor Cyril Cusack became a campaigner for conservative causes in Ireland, notably in his opposition to abortion.
Regarding his Catholic faith, he insightfully commented: “Religion promotes the divine discontent within oneself, so that one tries to make oneself a better person and draw oneself closer to God.”
SIL, renowned actor, Jeremy Irons, also a Catholic said, “The church is right, abortion is a sin”........(while affirming women’s rights for public consumption).
Irons is married since 1978 to actress Sinead Cusack.
“It is finished”
Jesus can’t continue to sacrifice his body and blood after that.
Chan is ignorant and misleading, for not only did the NT church not teach that the Lord's supper was a sacrifice for sin offered (only) by a (unscriptural) NT priest, and consuming the body of Christ as spiritual food, which is RC doctrine in its metaphysical contrivance of the Lord's supper , but even Catholicism does not teach that it is literally manifestly the same body of Christ that was crucified, but that the Catholic literal interpretation of such words as "take, eat" this is My body," and "eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood" means that,
At the words of consecration of bread and wine by the priest (and only be an ordained Catholic priest) then these hosts cease to exist, with "a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood,” thus becoming the “true Body of Christ and his true Blood,” (CCC 1376; 1381) in each and every particle of each host. Even by all material tests the bread and wine would be found to be just what they appear to be, as would the true incarnated body of Christ on earth.
"If you took the consecrated host to a laboratory it would be chemically shown to be bread, not human flesh." (RC priest Dwight Longenecker, "Explaining Transubstantiation")
Moreover, the bread and wine are only the Eucharistic christ until the non-existent hosts shows (and here visibility becomes important) corruption/decay, (CCC 1377) at which point Christ also is no longer present in the location under that appearance.
Thus, while claiming that the Eucharistic christ is “physically present,” this presence is not as that of the Biblical Christ in His incarnation, whose manifest physicality is so much stressed in Scripture, as opposed to a docetist or gnostic-type Christ who appears to be something he is not.
“And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? * Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.” (Luke 24:38-39)
“Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.” (John 20:27) “And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.” (1 John 4:3)
“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life.” (1 John 1:1) “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us..” (John 1:14)
“For verily he took not on *him the nature of* angels; but he took on *him* the seed of Abraham. (Hebrews 2:16) “This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.” (1 John 5:6)
As far as taking the words of consecration literally, Jews were familiar with the abundant metaphorical use of language in the Hebrew Scriptures, including calling men “bread,” and water “blood,” and who were solemnly forbidden to consume blood, (Lev. 17:10,11) And the very first Christians would have understood “Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you,” (1 Corinthians 11:24) and “Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” (Matthew 26:27-28) as metaphorical.
Such as,
And David longed, and said, Oh that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Beth–lehem, which *is* by the gate! 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 23:15-17)
Or where 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 (http://biblia.com/bible/kjv1900/Num.%2014.9))And therefore what we see in the only description of detail in the inspired record of how the NT understood the gospels, the understanding of the Lord's supper was that of remembering His death by sharing a meal with others who were bought by His sinless shed blood, thus showing union with Christ and each other as being "one bread," analogous to how pagans have fellowship in their dedicatory feasts, (http://www.peacebyjesus.net/The_Lord%27s_Supper.html#1Cor)
A purely literal reading of the “this is my body/blood” that is broken/shed for us said at the last supper would mean that the apostles were consuming the same literally manifest human flesh and blood of Christ which attested to His incarnation, in contrast to a Docetist-type Christ, whose appearance did not correspond to what He physically was, meaning a metaphysical meaning
Instead, it has been reduced to "just a symbol," Chan complained.
< sigh>. Depends where you hang out. The Lutherans and the Reformed have longstanding disagreements about what exactly it means, but neither says it's "just a symbol".
Chan aside, if John 6:53 means what Catholic defenders here invoke it as meaning then the apostles were preaching a false gospel. In contrast, it means that as explained here and here, "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 Christ lived by every word of God, (Mt. 4:4) with doing just that being His "meat," (Jn. 4:34) and with receiving His word being the means by which one obtains spiritual life. With the word of God being what is taught as providing spiritual nourishment, being uniquely called "milk" and "meat" (1Co. 3:2; Heb. 5:13; 1Pt. 2:2) by which believers are "nourished" (1Tim. 4:6) and built up. (Acts 20:32)
In contrast, nowhere interpretive of the gospels is the Lord's supper a sacrifice for sin as only offered by a unscriptural NT priest, and consuming the body of Christ as spiritual food.
Who's neglecting whom? The Catholic Church has always recognized the validity of the Sacrament of Holy Communion in the Orthodox churches.
Protestant pastor gets praise from Catholics for his comments on Holy Communion Published
January 9, 2020
Not exactly breaking news.
As a Bible believing Lutheran I take Jesus words at their plain meaning “this IS my body, this IS my blood.” No need for Jesus to sacrifice Himself again - it does not say that. We receive Jesus’ body and blood at the altar for the forgiveness of sins. The miraculous is real. Do not succumb to enlightenment thinking that God is not truly real and present, that miracles are not real, and Jesus could not possible give us Himself in/with and Under the bread and the wine.
“I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has risen.”
*Not because I can see it, but because by way of it, I can see everything else.” - C. S. Lewis
The Apostles of Jesus were his first priests to consecrate communion in the form of bread and wine. Schisms created breaks in the direct priesthood from the line of Melchizedek.
A meeting of the minds of various Christian denominations about this will eventually take place.
Who's talking about the Orthodox Churches?? Not me. You missed the time setting in my comments.
They understood exactly what He was saying, regardless of what Martin Luther may have presented 1500 years later.
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