Posted on 02/23/2016 8:17:35 AM PST by Salvation
The bread and the wine of the Eucharist, for example, are spoken of as literal body and blood of Christ and also “food indeedâ€
Awwww! Now you've gone and rammed your figurative head right into a logical brick wall again, in both cases. The Kingdom of Heaven--the visible churches--is very real. And the bread and wine of the Remembrance Supper are still very real food, symbols not only of Jesus' body and blood given for the remission of sins, but anticipatory of the Wedding Feast of The Lamb, yet to come.
Now that you have understood the paradigm of a very real cross as a metonymy for Calvary and all it means, yet refused the way out of the totally illogical transubstantial tangle, and gone right back into nonsense, you have no excuse. You were given a crystal clear irrefutable example of the relationships, and made the right choice. Now you've taken yourself right back into irrationality.
It's plain for every Bible student to see, yet you reject common sense. There is none more blind than those who are engaged in neurotic determined irrational hysteria, rejecting the plain sense of Jesus' teachings and the biblical context.
One day the fragile bubble of your false confidence will burst, and then where will you be?
Don't think you will have an excuse . . . now who is an enemy of the gospel of the cross? (rhetorical, please)
The Eucharist is not a symbol. Nowhere in the scripture is is called symbol. Now, a picture of the Eucharist, or perhaps some grapefruit and cracker snack in some heretical communities of faith, — these are symbols, just like the Mount Soledad cross is a symbol.
This brings me great sorrow for you, but not respect for your approach to theology.
This is the sad end of the lesson, and you do not seem to have learned by it.
So long . . .
I believe in what the Holy Scripture says, not in your “lessons”. Drop the Protestant lies and you, too, may be saved.
I wish you did, but you don't. The problem is that either (1) you are not aware that you don't believe in the message carried by the written Word, or (2) you deliberately ignore the lessons brought to you by them.
. . . not in your "lessons".
Jesus taught, taught His disciples to teach, and commanded them to recruit students (disciples), to formally induct them as permanent servants of The Christ, and to teach them how to make disciples who can also themselves effectively teach yet more disciple-students, using the same spiritual teaching methods that Jesus used, employing both literal and figurative-literal language as He did, when promulgating and interpreting Scripture.
This is called "the great commission" and is the only method which Jesus Messiah authorized to initiate and build His Church through every age. This was to be carried out, individual by individual, disciple by disciple, generation by generation, age to age, millennium to millennium, until He comes to wrap up this process, cause it to cease, and sequester the group of true believers, living and dead, to join Him in administering His Kingdom of Righteous and Peace.
However, this church-building process is still going on amongst His true called believers. It is the way I was recruited, saved, baptized, and trained to teach, using the Holy Scripture truths to personally instruct truth-seekers. I gave you a lesson using unassailable scriptural methods with scriptural references, and you refused the lesson as well as the teacher. Others, observing, have not. They are Bereans. You are of the mindset of the Thessalonikans or worse, doubting, and with a closed mind of rejecting Bible truth. Nevertheless, let's continue:
Crowds came to hear Jesus, among whom were His selected students (Mt. 13:1-2). He gave them all a lesson on the transmission of The Faith, using the parable of the sower, seed, and seedbed (Mt. 13:3-8). All listened with their physical ears, but none heard with their spiritual "ears." though He abjured them:
"Who hath ears to hear, let him hear" (v. 9).
His disciples perceived that he had used a parable, and asked why. So He took them aside, and instructed them in the concept of figurative symbolisn, and how to use it in effectively and efficiently teaching a Bible principle, a Holy Truth of The Faith.
In this training session, the use of the figurative-literal parable is explained to the prospective future discipler-teachers. The "sower" is equated with (symbolizes) a man whose task is to announce the imminence of the Kingdom of Heaven as a herald; "sowing" represents making the announcement; "the seed" is equated to (symbolizes, represents) the Word (logos, doctrine) of the Kingdom; "ground" stands for the mind and heart upon which the seed--the logos of the Word --"falls"; "rocks" represents the dull sterile surface that does not sustain germination of the "seed"; the "birds" represents the agents of the Adversary who snatch away, eat, digest, defecate, and fertilize the soil with a corrupted form of the "seed," (like oats going through a horse); "soil" speaks of an open fertile mind and heart upon which the "seed" can "germinate" (be heard and understood) and begin to grow; and "thorns" identifies the worldly busyness and materialism that completely occupy the "hearers," choking out the impact of doctrine and preventing further growth.
But furthermore, and most important to the value of the "sowing" process, is that the "seed" fall on "good ground" (an open mind and heart that searches the scriptures daily to see if it be so, then absorbs and integrates it if the seed is good), grows (becomes spiritually viable), and matures into replicating itself in "fruit" (Mt. 13:23) "more fruit" (Jn. 15:2), and "much fruit" (Jn. 12:24; 15:5,8). As a prototype of the many lessons, and of the methods of teaching those lessons, Jesus made His disciples thoroughly conversant in adopting those methods, and understanding the use of figurative-literal language to illustrate the meaning of the culture of the New Covenant, as he was preparing its future Teacher/Apostle/Disciple-makers (Mt. 13:11-33). Jesus made it clear there, and in Luke 8, that those who do not, or will not hear, will not be a part of the Kingdom of God. None understood, not being accustomed to the use of figurative speech as the vehicle, and not given God's gift of "hearing," no matter who is speaking the Audible Word--the hrema--of God, the Sword of the Spirit, by which The Faith creates more faith. But for those who are Bereans, who do have an open mind, who do hear and understand the parables of Jesus and apply them, these hearers are educable. Jesus capitalized on this.
"All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them: That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world" (Mt. 13:34-35 AV).
From this training saturated with rich figurative illustrations, it was so utterly obvious to his chosen, intimate disciples that when He referred to Himself as the Bread from Heaven (Jn. 6:32-36), the use of "bread" is a figurative-literal term in which ,interpreted literally, He is the Spiritual Food, personified, which for all time satisfies spiritual hunger for the Word of God. For the spiritually hungry one, coming to Jesus (for redemption, fellowship, and service) is a an act of symbolically being spiritually fed and hence filled for all time. Similarly, the decision to utterly and completely trust Him is the same as symbolically having one's spiritual thirst forever slaked (Jn. 6:35).
Thus to His own disciples later on in John 6, as well as at the Last Supper, eating of His Flesh and drinking of His Blood was absolutely of the nature of symbolic figurative-literal meaning and interpretation. The peripheral wannabe sensation-seeking disciples whose minds were closed, who did not hear and understand, and who thus mistook His words to be literal in the eating and drinking of Him, walked no more with Him (Jn. 6:66) on the basis of misapplication of Jewish law; and therefore remained under condemnation (Jn. 3:18).
And so it is today. Those who still insist that those words of Jesus were literal and of no symbolic significance, are of the same class as those who heard and heard and did not understand, who saw and saw and did not perceive; lest they would listen, view and without saving faith try to escape God's wrath that will be visited upon faithless humans.
And after being shown this from a saving, Scriptural viewpoint, you still have the arrogant gall to incriminate me as a prevaricator and heathen:
"Drop the Protestant lies and you, too, may be saved."
First of all, I am not a Protestant or Reformer. I am a believer in the Person, Work, Doctrine, and Shed Blood of Jesus of Nazareth, Who is the Jewish Messiah and LORD of both Jews and Gentiles as defined in the New Testament. I am a discipled Herald (click here) of the Life-Giving Gospel of Christ. Peter, and Paul.
From what I see, FRiend, your statements strongly intimate that you might be of the class of spiritually deaf and blind, who cannot grasp the deep things of the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 2:14), to whom what I have just told you is foolishness, who cannot discern spiritual things, and who reject God's gracious offering of salvation by faith alone. I would not have it that way but, of course, the choice is up to you.
I pray that God will give you the gift of faith, and the ability to understand the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of God, which the ravens have snatched away from you and defecated on.
Beware, my FRiend, beware. And be a little humble.
Concur, Hallelujah and God Bless.
All these generalities about occurrences of allegorical speech in the Holy Scripture do not negate the fact that The Eucharist is spoken about in the scripture as radically not allegorical.
Keep up the good work bro.
Yes, Anna, we understand the Catholic take on it and that it isn’t the same as evangelical takes on it (I say takes, since there is the Lutheran doctrine of consubstantiation).
But please don’t set up a strawman. Evangelicals take the act of partaking in communion as metaphorical. That isn’t quite the same as allegorical. Even if we disagree, we can at least be as honest as possible about what we are disagreeing about.
Maybe I’m a crypto-Lutheran, going mostly to Baptist churches, because I think there’s something to the consubstantiation theory. That somehow, Christ heightens His own presence in a special way at and around the presence of the Holy Communion. I used to be relatively insensitive to Holy Communion but over the years it grew and grew on me. Yes it is a metaphor; no, taking it is to do something more than display a metaphor, it is somehow to imbibe the spirit of Christ afresh as well.
Consubstantiation makes the most sense to me. A lifelong conservative Lutheran, we have always been taught that IN WITH and UNDER the elements of bread and wine, the Body and Blood of Christ are truly present. When He instituted His supper and said This is my Body, the is would be implied in the greek and not necessary to specifically add. However the disciple that wrote the Gospel specifically added the IS for emphasis.
Transubstantiation leads to errors - my body and digestive tract receive bread and wine and handle them as any other bread and wine. Anyone with intact senses can see and taste that bread and wine are still present after the elements are consecrated. We do not worship or adore the elements, although they are treated with respect.
However we fully believe what Christ says about His Supper - that He physically touches us and nourishes us in His Supper with His own Body and Blood. How can this be? I do not know, but I don’t need to know how a radio works to use it either. I would not expect to fully comprehend one of God’s greatest gifts to us.
But to say it is merely metaphorical or allegorical I think is to lose some of the richness of the Sacrament.
Frankly... I think Protestants should be bold to be Protestants even if Catholics “damn us to hell.” I don’t hide behind terminology. What in heaven’s name is going on here at the Communion... we ought to at least try to answer that.
And I have arrived — if somewhat uncomfortably because there is no theological home for it other than taking the biblical description as a double meaning, a divine pun — at something close to what Luther believed. There’s both a metaphor AND a solid connection of some kind to Christ going on here. It could be the most important point of all is missed, however; just DO it and let it be what God has made it to be. God never asked us to make people jump through theological hoops. Maybe we can trust Him enough to do it right if we do what He asked us to do.
And the most interesting thing to me is, we don’t need to preach any doctrine beyond what the bible says. We just need to do it with the intent that we are carrying out the Lord’s instructions. The Lord takes care of the rest.
Christ unto us is spiritual food, and He remains so whether or not we are gathered in a place to worship. Somehow there seems to be an extra measure of this present at the communion, and the perception of this has grown on me over the years. To say that this is not intended by the Lord would be, to me, a mistake.
I don’t know who Anna might be. Ann is my wife, but she rarely reads FR.
The Catholic view, based on the uninterrupted patristic teaching and on the Holy Scripture, is that the Eucharist contains, as a miracle, the real presence of Christ in it. In that it is different from other holy objects such as crosses, icons, or pictures of the Eucharist, or, for example, non-consecrated elements a seminarian might manipulate in order to train.
That is the fundamental distinction. So far as splitting hairs between symbolic or allegorical or metaphorical, I am not game, for it is neither. If these shades of counter-biblical heresy are important to you, discuss among yourselves.
That is because the words of Christ recorded during the Last Supper, or anticipating the gift of the Eucharist in John 6, or explanations of St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 11, or recognition of Christ in the “breaking of the bread” on the road to Emmaus all point to a miraculous reality that needs to be discerned, rather than allegory, metaphor, or symbolism, which all Christ employed when teaching through parables or using idiomatic language.
It sounds like so much theological gymnastics to me.
Maybe the most telling sign that it is theological gymnastics, is that you say the priest administering it has to declare not just “this is His body” but an actual transubstantiation, otherwise you don’t have a valid communion. The making of this extra claim is a step absent from the bible narrative.
Patristic writings are often very devout, but they have never equaled scripture in status and often appear distorted so as to exalt the churchmen.
Amen to your post.
And loosen up a bit. Anna is of course a nickname for annalex. I’ve been called Red and don’t get all gnarled up about it.
I agree. If that is your views, them's the views. I can at least respect a firm conviction. At the same time, I realize that there are multiple distinctions in the Protestant domain, but for us Catholics (I include Orthodox) they are minor and we cannot be expected to keep track of them.
Since you mention damnation, let me clarify. The Catholic view is that declarative faith alone does not save. If a Muslim or an Atheist imitates Christ in his works, then he can be saved, no matter what theories he has in his head. Certainly a Protestant can even more so be sanctified through his works and through the love of the Holy Scripture. It's the heart not the label that matters to Christ, Who in His sovereign will can save anyone. People should convert to the Catholic or Eastern Orthodox Church not because it automatically would give them salvation, but because they will be in more frequent company of Christ and that will shape their soul for the better, and prepare them better for their eventual judgment.
The spiritual danger of Protestantism is that it is based in many parts on denial of Christ. He comes across in the Protestant teaching as someone Who does not mean what He says, always evasively allegorical, failing to build up His Church till 1500 years after the Descent of the Holy Ghost on the disciples. The denial of the historical continuity of the Catholic and Orthodox churches is denial of the productive work of the Holy Spirit, a serious blasphemy. It is not the opinions, it is the spirit of opposition to the authentic Churches of antiquity that is wicked. Not all Protestants suffer from it, but many do.
I believe in an “acceptive faith.” It’s the only kind that makes sense.
Now, sooner or later this is going to produce a declaration. Either this side of glory or the next one. But I don’t put the cart before the horse and say that the declaration produces the faith. And actually, neither do serious Protestant reformers. Please avoid strawmen here.
Your thesis is interesting because I’ve been inching up on the gospel to a group of Hindus, who are actually more spiritually aware than a lot of nominal Christians I have met. My plan, inasmuch as there is one, is to show the blessings of God and then reveal Jesus Christ as the source. They sure do not refuse the blessings, and have seemed to show interest in my account of the origin.
Oh, also it is on account of my Protestant beliefs that I can accept that people in Catholic and Orthodox congregations can be believers.
But we don’t soft pedal it when we say a lot of them are just believing in men, not in Christ. And we aren’t being hypocrites here because that’s a big problem in the evangelical segment of Christendom too. Baptists, Methodists, etc. will freely tell you there are going to be congregants who miss heaven because of failing to put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
I believe in going where the Lord has sent me, not based on worries about the pontifications of Orthodox or Catholic. I have no problems accepting any bible based congregation as authentic, even if you don’t, because this is the personal message of the Founder of the faith.
Visit a Catholic Mass one day. The Eucharistic prayer is, of course, a prayer that is spoken on behalf of the faithful present and has a few variations. However, the Eucharist is consecrated by a close paraphrase of the words of Christ:
Take this, all of you, and eat of it:
for this is my body which will be given up for you.
Take this, all of you, and drink from it:
for this is the chalice of my blood,
the blood of the new and eternal covenant.
which will be poured out for you and for many
for the forgiveness of sins.
Do this in memory of me.
Surely you recognize the scripture behind each word.
Transubstantiation is a theory favored by Catholics, but it is not itself the doctrine of the Real Presence. Transubstantiation is one way to explain how what is bread and wine according to every physical test is nevertheless the Presence of Christ. The Orthodox don't explain the Real Presence at all; Lutherans offer a variation called co-substantiation. The transubstantiation is based on the medieval, even Aristotelian concept that things have substance and they have appearance (called more precisely in medieval philosophy "accidents"). Usually, the appearance follows substance, but there is nothing that by logical necessity ties accidents to substance. "Transubstantiation" is simply a way to say that in the Eucharist the appearance of bread and wine do not change, but the substance change. This is supported by the Emmaus episode when Christ breaks bread and then the disciples see Him.
The early Church did not teach transubstantiation but it taught Real Presence. St. Paul teaches Real Presence in 1 Cor. 11:29. Transubstantiation is a way to explain a miracle in rational terms. Maybe a next generation's Stephen Hawkins comes up one day with something in string/multiverse/quantum entanglement theory that explains how one thing becomes another internally but not externally, perhaps gradually the Church will accept that explanation as she accepted St. Thomas'. That will change very little, if it happens.
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