The Eucharist

[hyperdulia again]

I wrote:

Welcome to Phatmass Mustbenothing!

1. In John 6:51-56, Jesus states repeatedly that whoever eats his flesh and drinks his blood has eternal life. He was speaking literally and was so adamant about this point that many of his followers objected and left him (John 6:52, 60, 66). St Paul seems to agree with him, in 1 Corinthians 11:27, where he states that thoose taking Communion "unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord."

NOTHING in the last supper passages suggests that Jesus was speaking symbolically when he saidof the bread that he held in his hands "This is my body," and over the wine, "This is my blood." Remember Luke's account of the disciple's encounter with the risen Lord on the Emmaus road? The disciples didn't recognize Our Lord until he took the bread blessed it and gave it to them. Later when they report to the Apsotles what they have witnessed, they tell "how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread"(Luke 24:35).

I would ask you to prove to me why I should believe the Lord isn;'t present in the Eucharist?

I will answer your other statements as I am able.

Mustbenothing wrote:

Why think He was speaking literally? I would agree that the elements can be included in a secondary interpretation. However, the focus of the passage is on converting to Christ for salvation. The statements about His followers leaving Him proves this:

John 6:60-65

60 When many of his disciples heard it, they said, "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?"

61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, "Do you take offense at this?

62 Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?

63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is of no avail. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

64 But there are some of you who do not believe." (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.)

65 And he said, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father."

The "hard saying" (60) is "that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father" (65). He's got unconditional election and effectual calling in mind. Read earlier in the passage:

John 6:35-44

35 Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.

37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.

38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.

39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.

40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day."

41 So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven."

42 They said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, 'I have come down from heaven'?"

43 Jesus answered them, "Do not grumble among yourselves.

44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

Some do not believe (36) because one must be given to Christ by the Father in order to believe (37) -- one must be drawn in order to believe, and all drawn will be saved (44). The hard teaching here is that God chooses who to save, who to draw, and so on -- it is not up to us.

[hyperdulia again]

Mustbenothing wrote:

Me) I completely agree that the Lord is present -- this can be seen plainly both in the Scriptures and the teachings of the early Church fathers. I just don't agree that the bread and the wine is physically transmuted into Christ's body and blood. Christ refers to the elements as His body and blood, but also refers to them as actually being the elements (Matthew 26:29; Mark 14:25; Luke 22:18 -- it's all the same statement, not three separate statements). So, if we want to be "literal" regarding the Last Supper, as you suggest, we would have to conclude that the win is still present post-consecration.

Additionally, the Definition of Chalcedon states that Christ's pre-glorified body was life ours in every way. Rome requires that we partake of Christ's pre-glorified body in the Eucharist (as it's all one sacrifice, and His glorified body can't be sacrificed). Yet, that is clearly not like our bodies at all -- we cannot look like bread and wine, and we do not appear in little pieces all across time and space.

[hyperdulia again]

The first thing taht leaps out at me is your statement about the hard saying being that Christ is the bread of life the listeners leave after Our Lord says that his flesh must be eaten and his blood must drunk by his followers. There is nothing in the first three or four centuries of Christian writing (including the Bible) to support your interpretation of those verses.

I'm away from my Bible at the momennt so I can't brush up on the passages in question, but if I remember correctly, Jesus' emphatic statement is on his presence in the bread and wine. That is when most of the listeners leave, the Lord turns to the Apostles and says "Will you leave me as well," to which St Peter responds, "To whom shall we go Lord? You have the words of eternal life."

Christ is not present alongside the bread and wine. The bread and wine cease to be bread and wine, anything less than that is watering down the passage, bending Scripture to the human will. Trying to rationalize what was indeed a very, very "hard saying" by saying, "No he didn't mean exactly what he said he meant it symbolically."

[hyperdulia again]

bump

[hyperdulia again]

A Couple of Quick Points:

The Sacrifice is not happening over and over again, God only exists in the now. It is still as present today as it was then.

We are not recieving in the Eucharist bits and pieces of Our Lord's body, each Consecrated Host is completely and on its own the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ.

[Anna]

John 6

47

Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.

48

I am the bread of life.

49

Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died;

50

this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die.

51

I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world."

52

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?"

53

Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. 54

Whoever eats 19 my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. 55

For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.

56

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.

57

Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. 58

This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever."

59

These things he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

60

20 Then many of his disciples who were listening said, "This saying is hard; who can accept it?"

61

Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, "Does this shock you?

62

What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 21

63

It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh 22 is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

64

But there are some of you who do not believe." Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him.

65

And he said, "For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father."

66

As a result of this, many (of) his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.

67

Jesus then said to the Twelve, "Do you also want to leave?"

68

Simon Peter answered him, "Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.

69

We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God."

19 [54-58] Eats: the verb used in these verses is not the classical Greek verb used of human eating, but that of animal eating: "munch," "gnaw." This may be part of John's emphasis on the reality of the flesh and blood of Jesus (cf John 6:55), but the same verb eventually became the ordinary verb in Greek meaning "eat."

20 [60-71] These verses refer more to themes of John 6:35-50 than to those of John 6:51-58 and seem to be addressed to members of the Johannine community who found it difficult to accept the high christology reflected in the bread of life discourse.

21 [62] This unfinished conditional sentence is obscure. Probably there is a reference to John 6:49-51. Jesus claims to be the bread that comes down from heaven (John 6:50); this claim provokes incredulity (John 6:60); and so Jesus is pictured as asking what his disciples will say when he goes up to heaven.

22 [63] Spirit . . . flesh: probably not a reference to the eucharistic body of Jesus but to the supernatural and the natural, as in John 3:6. Spirit and life: all Jesus said about the bread of life is the revelation of the Spirit.

Edited July 28, 2003 by Anna

[hyperdulia again]

*kisses the lady's hand* thank you! I've been looking through my notebooks and searching desperately for an online bible to find those verses!

Edited July 28, 2003 by hyperdulia again

[littleflower+JMJ]

anna is one cool rocking CaThoLic!!

:)

[hyperdulia again]

Goodness, it's even stronger than I remembered it.

Here we have Jesus' listeners convinced that he is inciting them to eat him. They get offended and leave. Jesus doesn't make any attempt to correct them. What does he do? He turns to the Apostles, and asks them if they want to leave. THIS is why I am Catholic.

If the truth of Christ's full presence in the Eucharist, which is something that is plainly and simply stasted in Scripture caan be missed by Protestantism, I can't help but wonder what else they're missing.

[Anna]

anna is one cool rocking CaThoLic!!

Naw, it's Our Church that rocks...In fact, it's built (by Jesus) on the ROCK!

It's all RIGHT HERE. Even footnotes.

Pax Christi. <><

Edited July 28, 2003 by Anna

[Dave]

Hey Hyper, if I may, I'd like to add something:

Mustbenothing commented that for the first several centuries of the Church, transubstantiation wasn't taught. Well, that statement is false. True, it was several centuries before the Church starting to use and define that term, but the Real Presence was believed by ALL Christians ever since the beginning. Defining the change from bread and wine into the Real Presence as transubstantiation took place centuries later, but that's only because as the years progress, the Church comes to understand its doctrines more fully and gains new insights into them. However, it NEVER understands them to mean the opposite of what they once meant. What the Church teaches now, it taught back then too, although it may not have had the same kind of knowledge and understanding about certain teachings as it does today.

Any Christian writer who wrote about Communion believed in the Real Presence. In fact, you can not find any Christian writing in the first eight centuries of Christianity opposing the Real Presence. In 110 AD (less than 90 years after the death and resurrection of Christ and about 20 years after the death of the Apostle John), Ignatius of Antioch wrote, "They hold aloof from the Eucharist and from services of prayer because they refuse to admit that the Eucharist is the flesh of our savior, Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in his goodness, raised up again" (Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle of Ignatius to the Smytneans). Irenaeus (around the end of the second century) wrote, "The Eucharist becomes the body of Christ" (Irenaeus, Against Heresies). The interesting thing about Irenaeus is that he was a disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of John the Apostle. The same Apostle who walked with Jesus and was present at the Last Supper! Polycarp learned first hand from John and passed on this teaching to Irenaeus. It is unlikely that Irenaeus was taught an incorrect doctrine by someone who spent time with John the Apostle. In 150 AD, Justin Martyr wrote, "For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food for which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nourished, is both the blood of that incarnate Jesus" (Justin Martyr, First Apology). These are just a few of the many examples of early Christian writers expressing their belief in the Real Presence. It is unreasonable to assume that these people were in error so soon after Christ’s death and resurrection. A brief study of Christian history will reveal that the early Christians believed in the Eucharist presence of Christ. Early Christians who were taught by apostles. Early Christians who were martyred for their faith during the persecutions of the first few centuries. Early Christians who authoritatively decided which books would make up the New Testament. All of these Christians believed in the Real Presence.

[Dave]

And another thing--

Another reason why Jesus couldn't have been speaking figuratively is because the figurative phase "to eat the flesh" or "drink the blood" was a phrase commonly used by the Jews during that time to mean "to betray and persecute" (for example, see Isaiah 49:26, Micah 3:3, and Rev 17:6,16). For the listeners to understand Christ figuratively, they would have understood him to say, "He who betrays and persecutes me has eternal life." This interpretation, of course, reduces John chapter 6 to complete nonsense.

[cmotherofpirl]

Also the verb used means to munch, chew and gnaw on something. That is definitely not symbolic!

[mustbenothing]

(hyperdulia again) Welcome to Phatmass Mustbenothing!

(Me) Thank you

(hyperdulia again) The first thing taht leaps out at me is your statement about the hard saying being that Christ is the bread of life the listeners leave after Our Lord says that his flesh must be eaten and his blood must drunk by his followers. There is nothing in the first three or four centuries of Christian writing (including the Bible) to support your interpretation of those verses.

(Me) Whether or not you are correct that none of the Early Church Fathers supported this, following the passage through will quickly lead to this interpretation. I'll just present a little bit of context, but please read the entire chapter:

John 6:26-35

26 Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.

27 Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal."

28 Then they said to him, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?"

29 Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent."

30 So they said to him, "Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform?

31 Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.' "

32 Jesus then said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.

33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."

34 They said to him, "Sir, give us this bread always."

35 Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

Clearly, He contrasts the normal bread that they had just eaten (26) and Himself as the true bread (27). He's saying that they need the true bread, which is found in Him; indeed, it is him. Continuing:

John 6:36-40

36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.

37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.

38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.

39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.

40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day."

He had just been talking about their coming to Him (35), and now He goes into more depth. Specifically, He says that they need to be given to Him by the Father in order to come to Him (37). When they come to Him, they will look on the Son and believe in the Son, and have eternal life (40). For a later parallel on seeing and believing, we have eating and drinking:

John 6:53

So Jesus said to them, "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.

These people need to eat and drink of His blood, which comes through seeing and believing. The focus of the overall passage is salvation by partaking of Christ's once-for-all sacrifice -- Communion is not primarily in view. So, we turn again:

John 6:60-65

60 When many of his disciples heard it, they said, "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?"

61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, "Do you take offense at this?

62 Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?

63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is of no avail. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

64 But there are some of you who do not believe." (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.)

65 And he said, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father."

I think my earlier statements on this passage in this thread and others were not long enough, so I'll need to provide a further explanation.

The "hard saying" in view is nothing less than the Gospel itself: through seeing and believing the truth, they partake of Christ, the true bread, and thereby are raised up on the last day (saved from judgment). And yet, some will not believe (64), and thus not partake of that flesh and blood, and thus not be saved; this is because man is incapable of coming to God apart from God's efficacious grace (65).

(hyperdulia again) The Sacrifice is not happening over and over again, God only exists in the now. It is still as present today as it was then.

(Me) I actually used this belief as a premise in my argument against transubstantiation

(hyperdulia again) We are not recieving in the Eucharist bits and pieces of Our Lord's body, each Consecrated Host is completely and on its own the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ.

(Me) This doesn't change the argument: I cannot hold my body in my own hands, nor does my body look like bread. Following Chalcedon's definition, then, Jesus would not have been able to hold Himself in His own hands at the Last Supper, Jesus' body couldn't look like bread, and so on.

(Anna) 20 [60-71] These verses refer more to themes of John 6:35-50 than to those of John 6:51-58 and seem to be addressed to members of the Johannine community who found it difficult to accept the high christology reflected in the bread of life discourse.

21 [62] This unfinished conditional sentence is obscure. Probably there is a reference to John 6:49-51. Jesus claims to be the bread that comes down from heaven (John 6:50); this claim provokes incredulity (John 6:60); and so Jesus is pictured as asking what his disciples will say when he goes up to heaven.

22 [63] Spirit . . . flesh: probably not a reference to the eucharistic body of Jesus but to the supernatural and the natural, as in John 3:6. Spirit and life: all Jesus said about the bread of life is the revelation of the Spirit.

(Me) This seems to confirm my own position.

(hyperdulia again) If the truth of Christ's full presence in the Eucharist, which is something that is plainly and simply stasted in Scripture caan be missed by Protestantism, I can't help but wonder what else they're missing.

(Me) Historic Protestantism affirms that Christ is really present and really eaten.

(davejc29201) Mustbenothing commented that for the first several centuries of the Church, transubstantiation wasn't taught. Well, that statement is false. True, it was several centuries before the Church starting to use and define that term, but the Real Presence was believed by ALL Christians ever since the beginning.

(Me) The Real Presence was, sure. I affirm the Real Presence. I just reject transubstantiation.

(davejc29201) Another reason why Jesus couldn't have been speaking figuratively is because the figurative phase "to eat the flesh" or "drink the blood" was a phrase commonly used by the Jews during that time to mean "to betray and persecute" (for example, see Isaiah 49:26, Micah 3:3, and Rev 17:6,16). For the listeners to understand Christ figuratively, they would have understood him to say, "He who betrays and persecutes me has eternal life." This interpretation, of course, reduces John chapter 6 to complete nonsense.

(Me) Sure, these can be used in such a manner, but they also can in modern English. This is, then, no proof against my view, as the context (as you have well shown) makes the idiomatic interpretation you present untenable.

[Dave]

(davejc29201) Mustbenothing commented that for the first several centuries of the Church, transubstantiation wasn't taught. Well, that statement is false. True, it was several centuries before the Church starting to use and define that term, but the Real Presence was believed by ALL Christians ever since the beginning.

(Me) The Real Presence was, sure. I affirm the Real Presence. I just reject transubstantiation.

If you believe in the Real Presence, then how can you reject transubstantiation? I don't understand.

(davejc29201) Another reason why Jesus couldn't have been speaking figuratively is because the figurative phase "to eat the flesh" or "drink the blood" was a phrase commonly used by the Jews during that time to mean "to betray and persecute" (for example, see Isaiah 49:26, Micah 3:3, and Rev 17:6,16). For the listeners to understand Christ figuratively, they would have understood him to say, "He who betrays and persecutes me has eternal life." This interpretation, of course, reduces John chapter 6 to complete nonsense.

(Me) Sure, these can be used in such a manner, but they also can in modern English. This is, then, no proof against my view, as the context (as you have well shown) makes the idiomatic interpretation you present untenable.

Sorry, but I don't understand what you're saying here. It's late, and my mind isn't working so clearly. Could you please clarify? Thanks.