Posted on 02/03/2015 5:32:17 PM PST by 9thLife
The "Real Presence" of Jesus in the Eucharist is rooted in Christ's own teachings.
When Jesus taught about the Eucharist, he spoke with a profound realism. At the Last Supper, he didn't say, "This is a symbol of my body." He said, "This is my body…" And when he gave his most in-depth teaching on the Eucharist, he spoke in a very realistic way — in a way that makes clear that the Eucharist is not just a symbol of Jesus, but is his flesh and blood made sacramentally present.
Let's enter into that dramatic scene, known as "The Bread of Life Discourse" in John's Gospel chapter six. Jesus had just performed his greatest miracle so far, multiplying loaves and fish to feed 5,000 people. The crowds are in awe. They declare him to be the great "prophet who is to come" and want to carry him off to make him king (John 6:14-15).
But the very next day, Jesus says something that sends his public approval ratings plummeting, something that makes those same raving fans now oppose him. Even some of his own disciples will walk away from him. What does Jesus say that was so controversial? He taught about partaking of his body and blood in the Eucharist. Jesus first says, "I am the bread of life…the true bread come down from heaven" (John 6:35). And he makes clear that he is not bread in some vague, figurative sense. He concludes, "…and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh" (John 6:51).
The people are shocked at this. They say, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" (John 6:52).
The Jews listening that day don't take Jesus as speaking metaphorically, as if we are to somehow only symbolically eat of his flesh. They understand Jesus very well. They know he is speaking realistically here, and that's why they are appalled.
Now here's the key: Jesus has every opportunity to clarify his teaching. But notice how that's precisely what he doesn't do. He doesn't back up and say, "Oh wait…I'm sorry…You misunderstood. I was only speaking metaphorically here!" He doesn't soften his teaching, saying "You just need to nourish yourself on my teaching, my wisdom, my love." Jesus does just the opposite. He uses even more graphic, more intense language to drive his point home: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you" (John 6:53). And he goes on to underscore how essential partaking of his body and blood is for our salvation.
"He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him" (6:54-55).
In fact, Jesus now uses a word for "eat" that has even greater graphic intensity — trogein, which means to chew or gnaw — not a word that would be used figuratively here!
This is not the language of someone speaking metaphorically. Jesus wants to give us his very body and blood in the Eucharist. In fact, Jesus now uses a word for "eat" that has even greater graphic intensity — trogein, which means to chew or gnaw — not a word that would be used figuratively here!
So challenging is this teaching that even many of Christ's disciples are bewildered, saying "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?" (John 6:60). Indeed, Christ's words on the Eucharist were too much for some of them to believe. Many of his disciples rejected Jesus over this teaching and left him (John 6:66). And Jesus let them go. He didn't chase after them, saying, "Wait! You misunderstood me." They understood quite well that Jesus was speaking about eating his flesh and blood, and they rejected this teaching. That's why Jesus let them go.
So it's clear that Jesus wants to give us his Body and Blood in the Eucharist. But we still must ask, why? In the Jewish, Biblical worldview of Jesus' day, the body is an expression of the whole person and the life is in the blood. So by giving us his Body and Blood in the Eucharist, Jesus is giving his very life to us, and he wants to unite himself to us in the most intimate way possible. He wants to fill us with his life and heal us of our wounds, strengthen us in his love change us to become more and more like him. That's the life-transforming power of the Eucharist in our lives. In Holy Communion, we have the most profound union with Our Lord Jesus Christ that we can have here on earth.
I’m a little confused here. The Lord saw me raised in a Baptist church and He has never pressed upon my spirit that this church was performing the Communion inadequately. Are you saying that because it was not an ordained Catholic priest giving the Communion that it was not Holy and therefore I could die tomorrow without having truly (symbolically truly in a different way I guess?) eaten the Lord’s flesh and drank his blood and thus not get to heaven?
I believe it is as you say. I don’t get some Catholics. They make something into this mystical thing, something that was meant as spiritual allegory they want to put an actual physical meaning to and then since it’s not possible to do physically they inject this mystical thing wherein it becomes physical IF attended over by one of the priests. At the houses of worships I attended as a youth they had the same thing only it’s called communion and we ate wafer and drank wine in remembrance of Christ, it sure sound to me here that some think as if their priests have the power to save.
Christianity is not a democracy ...
Hey, you left out about 55 of the relevant verses of scripture...You built your religion on less than a handful of verses, taken out of context...The entire Catholic bible is about 2 pages long...Small bible...
If you were a true follower of Jesus,Why wouldn’t you want to physically be in the presence of Jesus Christ and receive Him in Communion and receive His graces?
Why don't we ever see a Catholic set one of them wafers next to him in the pew??? Spend a little time with Jesus...Get to know him...
Biblically however, Jesus doesn't reveal himself physically...He reveals himself spiritually...He communicates with us spiritually...And we Christians are in the presence of Jesus 24 hours a day, 7 days a week...
Apparently you guys don't experience that spiritual presence...If you did, you would look at that wafer as what it really is, just a wafer...
So many verses talk about the one-time sacrifice, the sufficiency, how his blood was better than that of lambs/etc that had to be offered over and over again. But posting verses doesn't matter. These things can not be discussed because our languages are different. To some, what the bible has to say on the issue isn't as substantial as the collection of man's writings over the past 2000 years. I don't understand it, but if I would just learn it, I wouldn't spend time trying to pit the word of god up against tradition.
As I understand it, the catholic church sees the constant (24/7/365 for the past 2000 years) sacrifice of jesus as crucial to his good news. Based on my reading of the bible, I just find it cringeworthy.
Most protestants don’t know about Luther and his debate with Zwingli, nor do they know that Zwinglis view of communion was not shared by Calvin and most of the other early reformers.
“Yeahhhh, he also said ‘I am the door’. You think he was a 6 panel wooden door?”
Must we mock and be sarcastic to our fellow Christians?
Revelations 4:1 - Christ’s body became a literal door when he opened heaven.
Christians have always celebrated the literal eucharist, the flesh and blood of our Lord as he instructed. St. Justin Marty, an early bishop, writing in the famous passage from The First Apology of Justin Martyr only 55 years after the New Testament was written, writes that “so also the food that our flesh and blood assimilates for its nourishment becomes the flesh and blood of the incarnate Jesus by the power of his own words contained in the prayer of thanksgiving.”
The eucharistic prayer of Hippolytus was written in 215 A.D. The literal eucharist has always been part of the ancient Christian worship.
Why did it take 1,500 years to determine that this way of worship is wrwong? Luther’s opinion?
Are you REALLY unaware that Scripture speaks about Satan visiting God in heaven? It is the essence of two chapters which are the foundation of an entire book. This book is a major teaching on the sovereignty and character of God. And you don’t know this is in Scripture, much less WHERE?
Wow. And I thought the RC taught the ENTIRE bible!!
Your homework assignment, should you chose to accept it is to find that major book. Hint: it isn’t a small book.
There's quite a difference between us...We KNOW we have eternal life, right now...You will never know until it's too late to make a difference...
You claim you have to literally drink human blood to have eternal life, maybe...In spite of the scriptures telling you not to drink blood of any kind...
That's a real contrast on the one scripture you claim commands you to drink that blood so that maybe, some day, you might make it to heaven...
Seems it would behoove you to research a little as to which of those conflicting scriptures is the real deal...Your future depends on it...
“...John 6 has nothing to do with the Lord’s Table?”
Whose opinion is this? Absurd statement and flies in the face of centuries of scriptural exegisis from both the west and the east.
Scripture can’t contradict scripture, and the Last supper is clearly referred to in all the gospels.
1 Cor. 11:23-29
“...you left out 55 verses of scripture...”
And protestants leave out and ignore even more - at least 95 - there is a whole book written on this subject.
Luther built his religion on a handful of verses that he used to deconstruct the proper way of worship that had been going on for 1,500 years and has been ongoing in an unbroken manner (eucharist) by all the eastern and western churches except the followers of the reformation.
You mean the majority of professing Christians??? The ones who wear the long pious looking robes???
In other words, those professing Christians who put their trust in Religious scholarship instead of the scriptures???
Mat_7:14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
I'm going to avoid THAT ecumenical group at all costs...
Perhaps because we Christians, whether Catholic or Orthodox or Evangelical or Lutheran or Anglican or Baptist or Methodist call Jesus Christ our Lord, GOD and savior.
On that count, Dr. Thorme, 9thlife, ravenwolf, dartuser and I believe the same.
Now go away and leave us Christians to debate among ourselves.
Martin Luther was addressing your Catholic religion here...Protestants don't do Postills and Homilies...Not that I'm aware of...
After three days of hotly debating with Martin Luther in Marburg the nature of the Eucharist, Huldreich Zwingli, the Swiss Reformer, gripped Luther’s hands and said: “Here we’re fighting. Doctor Martinus, but, thank God, one nice day we both will be dead and then in Heaven we shall know the Truth, walking with the great sages, with Socrates, Plato, Aristotle . . .”
“Doctor Zwingli,” Luther interrupted him rudely, “They were pagans; they were not baptized; they are roasting in the everlasting fires of Hell.”
Again, Luther was addressing the Catholic religion...It is your religion that is based on the pagan wisdom of men...Philosophers...
The first 3 years of the Catholic priesthood is based on the study of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle to learn their pagan wisdom...
But heh, nice try...
please note Kelly, that you have not been given the right information. it’s not “some Catholics” who believe in the Real presence of Christ in the Eucharist — it’s all Catholics and all Orthodox and all Lutherans and all Copts and many Anglicans and Methodists.
Nope, but it is a belief that has held since Apostolic times and now is not only a Catholic belief but a Lutheran one as well as an Orthodox one.
and Mo promised raisins not virginians. ha ha
This is supposedly a quote from Luther’s Collected Works, Wittenburg Edition, no. 7 p, 391
Can't seem to find a link to this collection of works on line...Would you be so kind as to provide a link to these works???
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