Posted on 05/28/2008 1:33:50 PM PDT by Manfred the Wonder Dawg
Unless You Eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and Drink His Blood You Have No Life In You
Are these words of Jesus from John 6:53 to be taken literally or figuratively? The Roman Catholic Church teaches the context of John chapter six and the above headlined verse 53 are literal. Thus Jesus is giving absolute and unconditional requirements for eternal life. In fact, this literal interpretation forms the foundation for Rome's doctrine of transubstantiation -- the miraculous changing of bread and wine into the living Christ, His body and blood, soul and divinity. Each Catholic priest is said to have the power to call Jesus down from the right hand of the Father when he elevates the wafer and whispers the words "Hoc corpus meus est." Catholics believe as they consume the lifeless wafer they are actually eating and drinking the living body and blood of Jesus Christ. This is a vital and important step in their salvation and a doctrine they must believe and accept to become a Catholic.
If priests indeed have the exclusive power to change finite bread and wine into the body and blood of the infinite Christ, and if indeed consuming His body and blood is necessary for salvation, then the whole world must become Catholic to escape the wrath of God. On the other hand, if Jesus was speaking in figurative language then this teaching becomes the most blasphemous and deceptive hoax any religion could impose on its people. There is no middle ground. Therefore the question of utmost importance is -- Was the message Jesus conveyed to the Jewish multitude to be understood as literal or figurative? Rome has never presented a good argument for defending its literal interpretation. Yet there are at least seven convincing reasons why this passage must be taken figuratively.
Counterfeit Miracle
There is no Biblical precedent where something supernatural occurred where the outward evidence indicated no miracle had taken place. (The wafer and wine look, taste and feel the same before and after the supposed miracle of transubstantion). When Jesus changed water into wine, all the elements of water changed into the actual elements of wine.
Drinking Blood Forbidden
The Law of Moses strictly forbade Jews from drinking blood (Leviticus 17:10-14) A literal interpretation would have Jesus teaching the Jews to disobey the Mosaic Law. This would have been enough cause to persecute Jesus. (See John 5:16)
Biblical Disharmony
When John 6:53 is interpreted literally it is in disharmony with the rest of the Bible. "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you," gives no hope of eternal life to any Christian who has not consumed the literal body and blood of Christ. It opposes hundreds of Scriptures that declare justification and salvation are by faith alone in Christ.
Produces Dilemma
It appears that the "eating and drinking" in verse 6:54 and the "believing" in verse 6:40 produce the same result - eternal life. If both are literal we have a dilemma. What if a person "believes" but does not "eat or drink"? Or what if a person "eats and drinks" but does not "believe?" This could happen any time a non-believer walked into a Catholic Church and received the Eucharist. Does this person have eternal life because he met one of the requirements but not the other? The only possible way to harmonize these two verses is to accept one verse as figurative and one as literal.
Figurative In Old Testament
The Jews were familiar with "eating and drinking" being used figuratively in the Old Testament to describe the appropriation of divine blessings to one's innermost being. It was God's way of providing spiritual nourishment for the soul. (See Jeremiah 15:16; Isaiah 55:1-3; and Ezekiel 2:8, 3:1)
Jesus Confirmed
Jesus informed His disciples there were times when He spoke figuratively (John 16:25) and often used that type of language to describe Himself. The Gospel of John records seven figurative declarations Jesus made of Himself -- "the bread of life" (6:48), "the light of the world" (8:12), "the door" (10:9), "the good shepherd" (10:11), "the resurrection and the life" (11:25), "the way, the truth and the life" (14:6), and "the true vine" (15:1). He also referred to His body as the temple (2:19).
Words Were Spiritual
Jesus ended this teaching by revealing "the words I have spoken to you are spirit" (6:63). As with each of the seven miracles in John's Gospel, Jesus uses the miracle to convey a spiritual truth. Here Jesus has just multiplied the loaves and fish and uses a human analogy to teach the necessity of spiritual nourishment. This is consistent with His teaching on how we are to worship God. "God is Spirit and His worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth" (John 4:24). As we worship Christ He is present spiritually, not physically. In fact, Jesus can only be bodily present at one place at one time. His omnipresence refers only to His spirit. It is impossible for Christ to be bodily present in thousands of Catholic Churches around the world.
When Jesus is received spiritually, one time in the heart, there is no need to receive him physically, over and over again in the stomach.
Scholastic logic was a re-discovery of aristotle as applied to theology. Hence the Roman Catholic compulsion to categorize the eucharist in terms of essence and accidents etc. Prots tend to say the Lord spoke neither of essence nor accidents and RC tend to say the essence is really Christ but the accidents are not.
It is perfectly logical to approach these problems from a hebraic mindset where the dissection of the essence of a thing is not the heart of wisdom.
That statement is equivalent to calling Jesus Christ a total fiction.
No Christ, no Eucharist. No Eucharist, no Christ.
"I am the living bread."
You know what the words mean, why do you squirm?
Papist doctrine is pagan and Pharisaical, and humanist.
But that comes out of your imagination. The scriptures are the authority. Man is fallible. (take the current Pastoral sexual misbehavior scandals running through the entire church)
Uhmm,..let’s see...how about the “every man his own authority”
But that comes out of your imagination. The scriptures are the authority. Man is fallible. (take the current Pastoral sexual misbehavior scandals running through the entire church)
If that were the case, then something must be amiss with Scripture as there seem to be several thousand Protestant denominations each of whom seem to be the authority on ...what is the word, class....SCRIPTURE!! At least be cogent in your condescension and if that is too tough at least try intellectual honesty.
What’s amiss is in your head.
An imagination like that is a terrible thing to waste.
“What’s amiss is in your head.
An imagination like that is a terrible thing to waste.”
My wife would agree on both points! You seem to have a pattern to your replies...if you can’t respond to the point made, then you resort to semi-personal jabs. So let’s try this using short words....where in Scripture does it say it is the authority? This is important as if you can prove this, then you have single handedly brought down the Catholic Church, something no mere mortal has been able to do for 2000 years. So, we are on the verge of history today as we wait for your reply.
1Jn 5:13 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.
Had you been standing in front of John the Apostle, he would have said, 'These things have I 'said' unto you~~~~~thay you may know...
John's not here so he wrote to you what he has said to others...This written word has the same weight as the spoken word...The scripture has the authority of the person who spoke the authoratative word...
And don't get on the crazy kick that YOUR church preserved the scripture, or wrote the scripture and decided the canon...
Your church didn't do a single thing that God didn't allow, good or bad...Once again for posterity...
1Jn 5:13 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life.
That's authority...That's the ultimate authority...
And what are the "these things?"
1Jn 5:1-12
Context is inescapable.
What you can point to are documents that make this claim...Whether they have been forged or not, we don't know...It's public record that many of your church documents that proclaim authority have been forged and some are still being used today...
One good example is the writings of Ignatius, I believe it is...There exist two sets of the same documents from Ignatius...One set says absolutely nothing about Rome or Romish ideas...The other set is full of Rome...It's been suggested by some researchers that Eusibius was the author of the set containing the references to Rome...
Intersting response. I will beleive your saying it is figurative if you show me 1 instance in the early churches where they believed communion and the eucharist were not the real presence - just one exampl before say 400 a.d.
Wouldn't be any such material...But some of the writing of the earliest fathers do not mention the Eucharist...Likely because it didn't exist...If the Eucharistic sacrifice existed, EVERY church father would have focused on it...And like I said, no one knows what has been forged for certain, only that known forgeries exist...
Wouldn’t be any such material...But some of the writing of the earliest fathers do not mention the Eucharist...Likely because it didn’t exist...If the Eucharistic sacrifice existed, EVERY church father would have focused on it...And like I said, no one knows what has been forged for certain, only that known forgeries exist...
Because some of the early writings do not mention it - it does not exist? How about the many, many who do mention it. Do you not think that such a statement if untrue, would be a scandalous statement and would then touch off a bunch of debate about whether or not the body and blood are the real presence?
There are a multitude of examples of early fathers of the church talking about the real presence. For example:
Justin Martyr
“We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration [i.e., has received baptism] and is thereby living as Christ enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus” (First Apology 66 [A.D. 151]).
Irenaeus
“If the Lord were from other than the Father, how could he rightly take bread, which is of the same creation as our own, and confess it to be his body and affirm that the mixture in the cup is his blood?” (Against Heresies 4:33–32 [A.D. 189]).
“He has declared the cup, a part of creation, to be his own blood, from which he causes our blood to flow; and the bread, a part of creation, he has established as his own body, from which he gives increase unto our bodies. When, therefore, the mixed cup [wine and water] and the baked bread receives the Word of God and becomes the Eucharist, the body of Christ, and from these the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can they say that the flesh is not capable of receiving the gift of God, which is eternal life—flesh which is nourished by the body and blood of the Lord, and is in fact a member of him?” (ibid., 5:2).
Clement of Alexandria
“’Eat my flesh,’ [Jesus] says, ‘and drink my blood.’ The Lord supplies us with these intimate nutrients, he delivers over his flesh and pours out his blood, and nothing is lacking for the growth of his children” (The Instructor of Children 1:6:43:3 [A.D. 191]).
Tertullian
“[T]here is not a soul that can at all procure salvation, except it believe whilst it is in the flesh, so true is it that the flesh is the very condition on which salvation hinges. And since the soul is, in consequence of its salvation, chosen to the service of God, it is the flesh which actually renders it capable of such service. The flesh, indeed, is washed [in baptism], in order that the soul may be cleansed . . . the flesh is shadowed with the imposition of hands [in confirmation], that the soul also may be illuminated by the Spirit; the flesh feeds [in the Eucharist] on the body and blood of Christ, that the soul likewise may be filled with God” (The Resurrection of the Dead 8 [A.D. 210]).
Hippolytus
“‘And she [Wisdom] has furnished her table’ [Prov. 9:2] . . . refers to his [Christ’s] honored and undefiled body and blood, which day by day are administered and offered sacrificially at the spiritual divine table, as a memorial of that first and ever-memorable table of the spiritual divine supper [i.e.,
the Last Supper]” (Fragment from Commentary on Proverbs [A.D. 217]).
Origen
“Formerly there was baptism in an obscure way . . . now, however, in full view, there is regeneration in water and in the Holy Spirit. Formerly, in an obscure way, there was manna for food; now, however, in full view, there is the true food, the flesh of the Word of God, as he himself says: ‘My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink’ [John 6:55]” (Homilies on Numbers 7:2 [A.D. 248]).
Cyprian of Carthage
“He [Paul] threatens, moreover, the stubborn and forward, and denounces them, saying, ‘Whosoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily, is guilty of the body and blood of the Lord’ [1 Cor. 11:27]. All these warnings being scorned and contemned—[lapsed Christians will often take Communion] before their sin is expiated, before confession has been made of their crime, before their conscience has been purged by sacrifice and by the hand of the priest, before the offense of an angry and threatening Lord has been appeased, [and so] violence is done to his body and blood; and they sin now against their Lord more with their hand and mouth than when they denied their Lord” (The Lapsed 15–16 [A.D. 251]).
Council of Nicaea I
“It has come to the knowledge of the holy and great synod that, in some districts and cities, the deacons administer the Eucharist to the presbyters [i.e., priests], whereas neither canon nor custom permits that they who have no right to offer [the Eucharistic sacrifice] should give the Body of Christ to them that do offer [it]” (Canon 18 [A.D. 325]).
Aphraahat the Persian Sage
“After having spoken thus [at the Last Supper], the Lord rose up from the place where he had made the Passover and had given his body as food and his blood as drink, and he went with his disciples to the place where he was to be arrested. But he ate of his own body and drank of his own blood, while he was pondering on the dead. With his own hands the Lord presented his own body to be eaten, and before he was crucified he gave his blood as drink” (Treatises 12:6 [A.D. 340]).
Cyril of Jerusalem
“The bread and the wine of the Eucharist before the holy invocation of the adorable Trinity were simple bread and wine, but the invocation having been made, the bread becomes the body of Christ and the wine the blood of Christ” (Catechetical Lectures 19:7 [A.D. 350]).
“Do not, therefore, regard the bread and wine as simply that; for they are, according to the Master’s declaration, the body and blood of Christ. Even though the senses suggest to you the other, let faith make you firm. Do not judge in this matter by taste, but be fully assured by the faith, not doubting that you have been deemed worthy of the body and blood of Christ. . . . [Since you are] fully convinced that the apparent bread is not bread, even though it is sensible to the taste, but the body of Christ, and that the apparent wine is not wine, even though the taste would have it so, . . . partake of that bread as something spiritual, and put a cheerful face on your soul” (ibid., 22:6, 9).
Ambrose of Milan
“Perhaps you may be saying, ‘I see something else; how can you assure me that I am receiving the body of Christ?’ It but remains for us to prove it. And how many are the examples we might use! . . . Christ is in that sacrament, because it is the body of Christ” (The Mysteries 9:50, 58 [A.D. 390]).
Theodore of Mopsuestia
“When [Christ] gave the bread he did not say, ‘This is the symbol of my body,’ but, ‘This is my body.’ In the same way, when he gave the cup of his blood he did not say, ‘This is the symbol of my blood,’ but, ‘This is my blood’; for he wanted us to look upon the [Eucharistic elements] after their reception of grace and the coming of the Holy Spirit not according to their nature, but receive them as they are, the body and blood of our Lord. We ought . . . not regard [the elements] merely as bread and cup, but as the body and blood of the Lord, into which they were transformed by the descent of the Holy Spirit” (Catechetical Homilies 5:1 [A.D. 405]).
Augustine
“Christ was carried in his own hands when, referring to his own body, he said, ‘This is my body’ [Matt. 26:26]. For he carried that body in his hands” (Explanations of the Psalms 33:1:10 [A.D. 405]).
“I promised you [new Christians], who have now been baptized, a sermon in which I would explain the sacrament of the Lord’s Table. . . . That bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the body of Christ. That chalice, or rather, what is in that chalice, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ” (Sermons 227 [A.D. 411]).
...
“What you see is the bread and the chalice; that is what your own eyes report to you. But what your faith obliges you to accept is that the bread is the body of Christ and the chalice is the blood of Christ. This has been said very briefly, which may perhaps be sufficient for faith; yet faith does not desire instruction” (ibid., 272).
Vague fears and imagined conditions are not facts.
"where in Scripture does it say it is the authority?"
Perhaps the Papists have excised Matthew chapter 15 from their Bible?
"Mat 15:1 Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying,This is but one of many places that the Lord condemns traditions in favor of the written word. It is only logical; traditions can change for convenience, but the written page remains true.
Mat 15:2 Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread.
Mat 15:3 But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?
Mat 15:4 For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.
Mat 15:5 But ye say, Whosoever shall say to [his] father or [his] mother, [It is] a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me;
Mat 15:6 And honour not his father or his mother, [he shall be free]. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.
Mat 15:7 [Ye] hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying,
Mat 15:8 This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with [their] lips; but their heart is far from me.
Mat 15:9 But in vain they do worship me, teaching [for] doctrines the commandments of men. "
Many "mere mortals" have, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, pointed out the apostacy of the RC church, since it was founded in the 4th century. The light shines into that darkness constantly, but the darkness comprehends it not!
Your example IS your multitude...Pretty small multitude...Do you have two people at the same time in different locations claiming the Eucharist is legit??? NO???
So what's that mean??? The second person on your list is repeating the first one...The fifth one is repeating the fourth one...SO WHAT??? What's that prove other than one is leading the next one into the ditch???
Did you walk into a bank of fog??? Context has nothing to do with the issue...It's not about context...It's about the authority of the written word...
John said something and then he wrote it down...And we can know that something 'for certain' because it is written down and that writing is the authoritative truth...And that applies to 'all' of scripture...
Whether you understand what is written is an entirely different matter...
Please do not make this personal.
Context has nothing to do with the issue...It's not about context...It's about the authority of the written word...
False dichotomy.
It's about the context of the written word. You want to pull 1Jn 5:13 out of the text and have it stand alone. Yet that verse refers back to the verses before it ("...these things...").
John is referring back to 1Jn 5:1-12. That is context and it is means everything.
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