Posted on 03/31/2015 2:42:14 PM PDT by RnMomof7
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. (Eat My Flesh and Drink My Blood. by Mike Gendron)
“There is no indication in the biblical accounts of the Last Supper that the disciples thought that the bread and wine changed into the actual body and blood of Christ. There simply isn't any indication of this. Should we say that the disciples who were sitting right there with Jesus, actually thought that what Jesus was holding in his hands was his own body and blood? That would be ridiculous...
...The Mass is supposed to be a re-sacrifice of Christ. Therefore, the body and blood represented in the Mass become the broken body and shed blood of Christ. In other words, they represent the crucifixion ordeal. But how can this be since Jesus instituted the Supper before He was crucified? Are we to conclude that at the Last Supper, when they were all at the table, that when Jesus broke the bread it became His actual sacrificial body -- even though the sacrifice had not yet happened? Likewise are we to conclude that when Jesus gave the wine that it became His actual sacrificial blood -- even though the sacrifice had not yet happened? That would make no sense at all”. (Matthew Slick Transubstantiation and the Real Presence.
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Is John 6:66 Evidence of Transubstantiation?
Jason Engwer
"Jesus said to them, 'I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall not hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst....It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life." - John 6:35, 6:63
Catholics often claim that John 6 is a passage about the eucharist, and that Jesus was teaching transubstantiation by telling people to "eat His flesh and drink His blood". Typical is the April 22, 1998 edition of Mother Angelica Live, a television program on the Roman Catholic network EWTN. The guests on the program, Bob and Penny Lord, argued that Jesus wouldn't have let people leave Him, as some did in John 6:66, if His statements about "eating My flesh and drinking My blood" were not to be taken as actual eating and drinking of flesh and blood. Supposedly, Jesus allowing those people to leave Him is evidence that He was teaching transubstantiation, and that He was unwilling to compromise that teaching in order to have more followers. Surely He would have explained to the people in John 6:66 what He really meant if He wasn't referring to actual eating and drinking of flesh and blood, right?
Actually, there are some problems with the Roman Catholic interpretation of John 6. In verse 35, Jesus identifies what the "eating and drinking" are. They represent coming to Him and believing in Him. Trusting in Christ, not participation in Roman Catholic mass, eliminates a person's hunger and thirst. Throughout John 6, statements about faith in Christ are interspersed with the statements about "eating and drinking" (verses 29, 35, 36, 40, 47, 64). As Jesus often did, He was using an analogy to illustrate a point. In this case, He was illustrating a true faith, a faith that involves a person coming to Christ, believing in Him, and then never hungering or thirsting again as a result. This is why Jesus told people that He is the bread of life, and that they are responsible for eating His flesh and drinking His blood. He said these things before the Last Supper. People were just as responsible for eating His flesh and drinking His blood before the eucharist was instituted as they were after.
Not only does the Catholic interpretation of John 6 miss the theme of the passage, but it also rests on some bad assumptions. Did Jesus really let the people in John 6:66 leave Him without a clarification of what He meant? No, He didn't. In verses 35 and 63, Jesus reveals that He isn't referring to actual eating and drinking of flesh and blood. If some who heard Him missed or forgot what He was saying in those verses, that was a problem with them, not with Jesus.
And was it even the concept of actual eating and drinking that motivated the people in John 6:66 to leave Jesus? Possibly not. The immediate context of their departure is Christ's teaching about His own foreknowledge and predestination (John 6:64-65). Catholic apologists often overlook the verses immediately before verse 66, and go back to what Jesus was saying earlier in the passage. Why should we do that? We really don't know all of what was motivating the people in John 6:66. For all we know, they may have left because what Jesus said in verses 64-65 convicted them that they didn't truly believe in Him.
It's also possible, of course, that they did think Jesus was referring to actual eating and drinking of flesh and blood. Does it follow, then, that Jesus would have tried to keep those people from leaving Him if He really wasn't referring to actual eating and drinking? No, it doesn't. He knew that these people had never really believed in Him (John 6:64). And contrary to what Catholic apologists suggest, Jesus didn't always clarify His teachings to those who rejected Him. In Matthew 13:10-17, Jesus explains that He purposely kept some people from understanding what He was teaching. In John 2:19-22, Jesus refers to His body as a "temple", which many people misunderstood as a reference to the actual temple in Jerusalem. He didn't explain to these people what He really meant. We read in Mark 14:56-59 that some people, long after Jesus had made the statement in John 2:19, were still thinking that He had referred to the actual temple in Jerusalem. And in John 21:22-23, we read of another instance of Jesus saying something that was misunderstood by some people, with the misunderstanding leading to the false conclusion that the apostle John wouldn't die. Yet, Jesus didn't clarify the statement. It was John who clarified it decades later in his gospel. (Any suggestion that John didn't clarify chapter 6 in his gospel only begs the question. How do Catholics know that passages such as John 6:35 and 6:63 aren't clarifications of what Jesus meant?) When Catholic apologists claim that it would be unprecedented for Jesus not to further clarify His message to the people in John 6:66, if He wasn't referring to actual eating and drinking, they're mistaken. He could have been following the same pattern we see in Matthew 13:10-17, John 2:19-22, and John 21:22-23. To this day, people continue to disagree about what Jesus meant by some of the parables in Matthew's gospel, for example.
Catholic apologists sometimes argue that the metaphorical concept of eating somebody's flesh and drinking his blood always had a negative connotation among the Jews. They point to passages of scripture like Psalms 27:2 and Revelation 16:6. Therefore, if Jesus was using such terminology in a metaphorical way, He would have been telling His listeners to do something negative. Since Jesus wouldn't have done that, He must not have been speaking metaphorically. The problem with this Catholic argument is that it's erroneous in its first claim. While metaphorically eating flesh and drinking blood did sometimes have a negative connotation, it also sometimes had a positive connotation (http://www.christian-thinktank.com/hnoblood2.html#john6). And since Jesus gave us a positive definition in John 6:35, there's no need to look for any other definition.
We're told by Jesus and the apostle Paul that the bread and wine of the eucharist remain bread and wine even after consecration (Matthew 26:29, 1 Corinthians 11:26-27). The Roman Catholic view of communion is filled with errors, some of them undermining fundamental doctrines of scripture. Citing John 6, or citing John 6:66 in particular, doesn't change that.
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Don't know; but I'd say the ones that came after them were few in number.
Amen and Amen!
Yes. The Eucharist is worship. Not sure anyone would have an issue with worshiping a Holy God.
Frankly, my dear, I have reached an age where I do not care what others think. I am old enough to know what I have been most of my life and they do not matter. I just feel sorry for them for not realizing what a treasure I am. : ) I was in high school when a fake 1960 election was held. I voted for Nixon when Republican was a very dirty word in my area. It is odd that most of the people from back then are Christian Conservatives today. Have a blessed day.
Exodus 32:4-6 And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. (5) And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to the LORD. (6) And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.So even though Aaron tried to paper it over as a "feast to the LORD," it was still idolatry, and it was still punished by God as idolatry. There are some things God just does not want us to do, no matter how good we think our intentions are. Why folks tempt Him in that area is beyond me. The wafer is not God. No one should give it homage. God rules from His throne in Heaven, and the resurrected, corporeal Jesus is there with Him, at His right hand, not located in any number of monstrances designed after the pattern of sun worship. Worship directed to anything less than the one true God, no matter how well intended, is the worst of sins. We have an issue with that.
I hope that such proclamation of truth and discrediting of falsehood will be sober. More people would take the Religion Forum more seriously if the conversation were more serious and less angry, sarcastic, barbed, and vengeful.
Do you, reader, oppose indifferentism? Take care that what you post in the Religion Forum differs from the brawling of the world. (The Religion Moderator profile isn't full of regulations just for fun. I have been tempted to misquote "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.") If your faith doesn't seem to make much difference in your posting and thus in your life, a lurker just may conclude interesting things about your faith or your God.
So they took the bull which was given them, and they prepared it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even till noon, saying, "O Baal, hear us!" But there was no voice; no one answered. Then they leaped about the altar which they had made. And so it was, at noon, that Elijah mocked them and said, "Cry aloud, for he is a god; either he is meditating, or he is busy, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is sleeping and must be awakened." (1 Kings 18:26-27)Seeing Elijah outright mocks the prophets of Baal, we understand that mocking idolatry is a valid style of criticism. So I'm not willing to say that any particular style is inherently wrong. There are plenty of examples in Scripture of not pulling punches, like Jesus clearing out the temple, calling the Pharisees vipers, Paul openly hoping the judaizers would injure themselves, etc. Not that we are in a position to copy everything they do. Just that the style can't be inherently wrong if they used it.
AT ALL??
utterly removes
Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which is of God, and ye are not your own>" (1 Cor. 6:19 AV)
ye/you/your = plural
body = singular
Has nothing to do with a building
Oh!
I quite agree!!
But some folks find it hard to agree on what actually constitutes worship in some instances.
If you take the axe (of Scripture) to someone's dressing table (ill-thought-out response) he/she might consider it a wound to one's vanity.
Oh!
I hear ya!!!
Luke 18:9-14 (NIV)
9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
Or a wafer...
Happy Good Friday....eve
Yup
So I'm not willing to say that any particular style is inherently wrong. There are plenty of examples in Scripture of not pulling punches, like Jesus clearing out the temple, calling the Pharisees vipers, Paul openly hoping the judaizers would injure themselves, etc. Not that we are in a position to copy everything they do. Just that the style can't be inherently wrong if they used it.
I'd agree to a certain point (though maybe our precise interpretations don't exactly align--for a number of reasons, I don't see Paul as "openly hoping" but instead using what we may call a particularly "pungent" phrasing).
That "certain point" isn't to contradict anything that you've actually said but to contradict something that goes beyond what you said, namely an idea that the normative Christian ideal would be using the "pungent" indiscriminately.
A silver lining of my noticing what goes on in the Religion Forum is that I've reviewed some parts of the Bible, particularly the New Testament letters, concerning speech and related conduct.
It's interesting to compare these passages to certain posts around here. For example, Paul told the Phillippians (4:5), "Let your moderation be known unto all men [newer translations usually use a wording related to 'gentleness']." I notice this verse especially in light of what reputation the Religion Forum has acquired among some members of this site, a reputation that I would say is not fully undeserved. How do outsiders (as in lurkers on the site or people who avoid the Religion Forum) "know" the forum?
I'll respond to your last paragraph later, when I have a little more time.
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