“A RC would get far more out of listening to some good evangelical preaching than looking for spiritual life by physically eating. “
So you have chosen the NON-Belief of JUDAS over what Jesus explicitly taught? Seems to be a major LOGIC FAIL. What part of “unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life within you” don’t you get?
Hint: If Jesus is God, and supposedly your protestant sect teaches that, then what He says is TRUE and who are you to question it?
My priest is an excellent preacher. I have no need for your silly suggestion. Why would I want to listen to another?
Sorry that should have gone to daniel1212
Sir those last couple of posts were kind of judgmental.
Jesus Christ used many similtudes to preach literal truth. Here is another one:
John 10:7-16 NASB
So Jesus said to them again, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd.
You are begging the question, assuming what is not established.
What part of “unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life within you” don’t you get?
So to be consistent with your interpretation, you must hold that those who do not believe in the "Real Presence" cannot have life within them, thus they are spiritually dead, and cannot have eternal life. Affirm or deny, and your source for the veracity of this interpretation.
Your problem is that physically eating anything is not what Scripture teaches is the means by which man obtains life in himself, but by believing God's word, which the Lord explicitly taught man was to live by, (Mt. 4:4) and thus doing His will was His "meat." Thus.
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 thus souls were made alive within by believing the gospel, (Eph. 1:13; 2:1,5; Acts 15:7-9) and live by Christ by living according to His word.
And thus, since the Lord would "ascend up where he was before." and not be physically present again until His return, then He concluded,
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 6:63)
If you want to ignore the metaphors John uses in most every chapter, and the metaphorical use of eating and drinking, then you can arrive at whatever conclusion you want . Including that of
in 2Sam. 23:15-17, wherein we read, “And David longed, and said, Oh that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem, 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 Bethlehem, 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.” Here, David equates the water obtained at the peril of the men's life (blood representing life: Lv. 17:11), with that of their lives themselves. In like use of metaphor, the Lord Jesus in the Lord's supper accounts is holding up bread and wine as a “picture”” of Himself, illustrating that just as such life physical giving substances could be broken and poured out, so would His body be “broken,” and His precious sinless blood be “poured out “ in offering a ransom for many (Mk. 10:45).
Other examples in which your literalism could be compelled include,
When the fearful Israelites exclaimed that the Promised Land was “a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof;” or when Joshua exhorted the Israelites, “Only rebel not ye against the LORD, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us” (Num. 13:32; 14:9), it is not to be supposed that the land or the Israelites would become cannibals. And when Jeremiah proclaims, Your words were found. and I ate them. and your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart" (Jer. 15:16), or Ezekiel is told, "eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel" (Ezek. 3:1), or (in a phrase most similar to the Lord's supper) John is commanded, "Take the scroll ... Take it and eat it" (Rev. 10:8-9 ), then it is not speaking of literal eating. And it is certain that cannibalism was not looked upon favorably in Israel, and is only portrayed negatively, even metaphorically, as David declared, "When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell." (Psa 27:2)