Again, I take Jesus at His word. He said over and again that we must eat His body and drink His blood to have His life in us. I do not presume to understand how the bread and wine become His body and blood. But He took bread and said it was His body. Likewise, He took the cup and said it was His blood. And He told us to do the same. Paul tells us that anyone who does not discern it as His body eats and drinks unworthily.
I take it literally.
Common sense tells me that Polycarp, who adamantly argued in favor of keeping the 14 Nisan Passover meal, would not have celebrated the Eucharist in Rome if he did not discern the body and blood in the Eucharist.
Clearly we have different perspectives. So go ahead and believe based on your perspective and I will continue to believe based on my perspective.
May the peace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ be with you.
Rich
And I would assert that such reasoning is not common sense, given the FACT that serving blood or human flesh at the Passover meal would profane the very celebration. The profaning of what Jesus established is precisely opposing heresies. Jesus Celebrated The Passover Seder, in all righteousness (not violating any yot or tittle of the laws), and He showed His disciples that in this celebration of the lamb at Passover HE is the Paschal Lamb of God, Whom HE would sacrifice the next day for our sins. He did this ONCE for ALL, Forever, not needing it be repeated countless times on a catholic altar by a priest claiming to have the power to command Jesus to submit continually.
Yet throughout the Gospel of John it was believe, believe, believe, believe. IIRC the word is used close to 70 times in conjunction with what one has to do to be saved.
Peter told the people on Pentecost to repent and be baptized.
Paul wrote extensively about believing as did the other writers of the NT.
What about all of the people Jesus encountered prior to John 6, and even afterwards, when He addressed salvation in terms of belief? He did not mention having to eat and drink His blood as claimed by roman catholicism. Did He change the means of salvation mid-stream and not tell the people He encountered about this??
Which, and for the umpteenth time, would have been a violation of the Law to drink the blood, yet that doesn't seem to matter to catholics. Never in the sacrifices of the Law do you find the blood being consumed nor the flesh eaten by the one making the sacrifice. Why would Jesus now be rewriting the Law?
How does the catholic address these two issues?
If that were the case, then it would work all the time every time, therefore anyone who ate and drank would have eternal life, even the mass murderer or serial killer.
There'a a reason God sent Adam and Eve out of the garden and blocked the way to the Tree of Life. So they would not eat and live eternally beyond any chance for redemption, in a state of sin.
Jesus, as the end of His discourse in John 6 says clearly and plainly that the flesh is no help at all, the SPIRIT gives life, and that the words He spoke were spirit and life.
The prohibition of eating blood was never lifted after Pentecost. It's still in effect, even in the church age.
God CANNOT violate His own Law and principles. He cannot violate Himself.
The blood was ALWAYS for the atonement, never for consumption.
Also, Jesus said it was a ceremony of remembrance and Paul said that it was to show the Lord's death. Jesus was not a human sacrifice sent to mankind for us to offer to God for our sins. He wasn't something for us to use in religious ceremonies as an animal would have been.
HE also said some men were snakes.
How can you DENY the VERY WORDS OF JESUS in this matter?