“Cultural idiom” just means familiar expressions used among a particular group of people. Were it not for “cultural idioms,” no human communication could occur at all.
The ‘real’ problem is what does ‘real’ mean. Physical? Not necessarily. Love is real. Agreed? God is Spirit. God is real. I know astute Catholics who recognize that ‘real presence’ does not mean physical. ‘Real presence’ is a Catholic “cultural idiom.” No one seems to know what it ‘really’ means. As I have watched these debates, for many years now, it seems mainly to be used as a way for Catholics to divide themselves from other followers of Jesus Christ. I believe this is grave error.
So the entire argument begins from a position of weakness, because the definition of the most contested term is unclear. But the idea that the communion meal could not be abused unless the elements were this special, undefined sort of ‘real’ is defeated by well known principles that all ordinary Catholics would probably accept.
Take for example the Ark of the Covenant. It contained the tablets of the law, and the budding branch of Aaron. It could not be touched, lest one die, and Uzzah did die for touching it. So what was the ark? It was real wood, real gold. But it was not God. God’s word established what it was, and how it served His purposes. But it was only a physical representation of a spiritual reality. Yet what power God gave it, by the power of His command.
Furthermore, we do not have this by guesswork. We know from the writer of Hebrews that the earthly pattern of things given to Moses for the worship of God were but copies and shadows of the Heavenly pattern. This is the apostolic view, and it supports the idea that even these copies may be a cause of great offense to God when they are abused and disrespected.
In fact, Christ spent the bulk of His earthly ministry revealing the spiritual realities that lay behind all the formalities of worship that Israel had come to take for granted. All of the law and the prophets hang on the entirely spiritual principle of love. Everything tangible in the worship of God in Israel was grounded in intangible love.
So reaching a conclusion that John 6 is a continuation of that pattern of showing spiritual truth through physical representations is entirely consistent with how God spoke to us every other place in His revealed word to us.
This does not discount physical things. God did institute the physical temple, did command the construction of the physical Ark of the Covenant, did physically kill Uzzah for touching it, and did come to us as the God-man, a physical and spiritual reality, did physically rise from the dead, and will come in His physical person on the last day such that every eye will see Him. All of this every Christian accepts.
But God has nowhere commanded anyone to act as His agent by infusing the bread and wine of the communion meal with a form of ‘realness’ that has no affirmative definition, but is mainly defined by NOT being a metaphor, and therefore a cause of division among those who should be brothers and sisters to each other. God is not the author of confusion. The clear command we DO have from Jesus is to take the bread and wine as a remembrance of the sacrifice He made on our behalf. The love we have for Jesus at the moment of that remembrance is more real than anything ever contemplated by medieval alchemists, and it will outlast the memory of any of the naïve theories men have imagined about it. The love of God in Christ for us is as real as anything will ever get for all time and eternity.
Peace,
SR
‘Real presence’ is a Catholic “cultural idiom.”
Indeed, and this priest (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/standingonmyhead/what-do-we-mean-by-the-real-presence) even found that "the term ‘real presence’ has–from the start–been used as an alternative to the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation." He found that "real and actual presence" first appeared in the writings of the Dominican theological John of Paris (in tentatively advancing propositions contrary to the doctrine of transubstantiation, and subsequently Latimer and Ridley (put to death by RC "bloody Mary) and John Wycliffe also used the term "real presence," perhaps without the "actual," leaving the precise term "real presence" to be Anglican .
Take for example the Ark of the Covenant. It contained the tablets of the law, and the budding branch of Aaron. It could not be touched, lest one die, and Uzzah did die for touching it. So what was the ark? It was real wood, real gold. But it was not God. God’s word established what it was, and how it served His purposes. But it was only a physical representation of a spiritual reality. Yet what power God gave it, by the power of His command.
Very good. The Holy of Holies and its Ark was the "real presence;" more precisely the mercy seat covering of the Ark, between the two cherubims, was God's localized throne where He would meet with the priests:,
And thou shalt put the mercy seat above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee. And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel. (Exodus 25:21-22)
And David arose, and went with all the people that were with him from Baale of Judah, to bring up from thence the ark of God, whose name is called by the name of the Lord of hosts that dwelleth between the cherubims. (2 Samuel 6:2)
Of course, in their never-ending propensity to think of mortals far above that which is written, (cf. 1Co. 4;6) Catholics make their Mary into being the Ark, which they crown with gold, and which was not to be touched upon pain of death (though actually qualified men did without dying), meaning Joe maybe died because he tried to get intimate with his wife (as Scripture says to do)
But in Scripture while people would have to come to Israel to find the Ark, like as Mary was an instrument for Christ, yet people came to Christ to met with God, and Christ is whom the Ark best represents, taking on the common “wooden” body of man, and with its gold representing His glory, as Christ is the brightness of God's glory, and the express image of His person, (Heb. 1:3) and who contained the law and the words of life, and the rod of God as did the Ark. (Heb. 9:4)
And having ascended, the closest thing to the incarnated Christ is not disguised bread and wine but His church, which the Lord calls His body, and thus Paul was actually persecuting Him by attacking its members, and Corinthians were not effectually recognizing it by ignoring and shaming them that have not while supposing they were taking part in the Lord's supper.
So reaching a conclusion that John 6 is a continuation of that pattern of showing spiritual truth through physical representations is entirely consistent with how God spoke to us
You mean (among other things ) David really did not believe that water was the blood of men, and the Canaanites were not really "bread" for Israel, and one is really not literally born by actually drinking water, so that they become a fountain, and their work is not actual "meat?."
You Prots need to take Scripture literally!
Thank you for yet another beautifully expounded post. ... I collect these, don’tchaknow. They are like ammunition in the belt pouch for reloading to apply on target.
It is impossible to read this passage and pretend to misunderstand Christ’s meaning, without malicious intent.
“The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.
The The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying: How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say unto you: except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.
He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood, hath everlasting life; and I will raise him up in the last day.
For my flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed.
He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him.
As the living Father has sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eats me the same also shall live by me.
This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead. He that eats this bread shall live forever.”
“Many therefore of his disciples, hearing it, said: This saying is hard,’ and who can hear it?
But Jesus, knowing in himself, that his disciples murmured at this, said to them: Doth this scandalize you?
If then you shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?
It is the spirit that quickens: the flesh profits nothing. The words that I have spoken to you, are spirit and life.
But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning, who they were that did not believe, and who he was, that, would betray him
And he said: Therefore did I say to you, that no man can come to me, unless it be given him by my Father.
After this many of his disciples went back; and walked no more with him.
Then Jesus said to the twelve: Will you also go away?