Posted on 10/12/2002 1:43:32 PM PDT by fortheDeclaration
The Presence of Christ at the Lord's Supper Is Christ really, truly, personally present with us in the sacrament? Do we therein covenant and commune with him in person, touch to touch, immediately and really; or is this only a show, a symbol of something absent and different from what it seems?
The gross perversions of the Romanists and Ritualists, who have made it altogether a question of the local presence of Christ's flesh and blood, have occasioned much confusion of thought and many prejudices on the subject. Nevertheless, as a matter of fact, every believer knows that Christ is present in the sacrament - that he has, as a matter of fact, experienced his presence. If he is not present really and truly, then the sacrament can have no interest or real value to us. It does not do to say that this presence is only spiritual, because that phrase is ambiguous. If it means that the presence of Christ is not something objective to us, but simply a mental apprehension or idea of him subjectively present to our consciousness, then the phrase is false. Christ as an objective fact is as really present and active in the sacrament as are the bread and wine, or the minister or our fellow-communicants by our side. If it means that Christ is present only as he is represented by the Holy Ghost, it is not wholly true, because Christ is one person and the Holy Ghost another, and it is Christ who is personally present. The Holy Ghost doubtless is coactive in that presence and in all Christ's mediatorial work, but this leads into depths beyond our possible understanding. It does not do to say that the divinity of Christ is present while his humanity is absent, because it is the entire indivisible divine-human Person of Christ which is present.
When Christ promises to his disciples, "LO, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world-age," and, "Where two or three are met together in my name, there am I in the midst of them," he means, of course, that he, the Godman Mediator they loved, trusted, and obeyed, would be with them. His humanity is just as essential as his divinity, otherwise his incarnation would not have been a necessity. His sympathy, his love, his special helpful tenderness are human. He is able to be our perfect High Priest, "being touched with the feeling of our infirmities," because he "was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin" (Heb. 4:15).
But what do we mean by "presence" ? It is a great mistake to confuse the idea of "presence" with that of nearness in space. This may be a condition of presence, or it may not, but it is never "presence" itself. If you walk abroad at noonday in the tropics, the most overwhelmingly present thing to you in the universe is the intolerable sun, although it is ninety-three millions of miles distance. If another person is only one foot distant, but separated from you by a wall which cuts off sight and sound, he is as absent as if in the center of a distant star. But if the same person, a hundred feet from you in an audience-room, sees you face to face, and hears every vibration of your voice, he is as truly present as if he touched you at every point. When Whitefield's preaching was fully heard and its power felt across the Delaware River, he was present really and truly wherever was heard and his matchless eloquence felt. "Presence," therefore, is not a question of space; it is a relation. Personal presence is such a relation of persons that they are conscious of each other as immediate objects of perception and sources of influence. We know nothing as to the ultimate nature of the union our souls and bodies, yet we are no less certain of the fact. So we need not speculate how it is that Christ, the whole God-man, body, soul, and divinity, is present in the sacrament, but we are absolutely certain of the fact. He has promised it. We have hundreds of times experienced it. We can neither see his face, nor hear his voice with our bodily senses; nevertheless, when we exercise faith, he, the whole Christ, speaks to us, and we hear him; we speak to him, and he hears us; he takes all we give him, he gives us and we receive all of himself. This is real, because he is present. And this is not confined to the sacrament. He makes manifest to our faith the reality of his presence with us, and communicates the same grace to us, on many other occasions and at other times, here and now and in this breaking of bread we have a personal appointment to meet our Lord. And he never disappoints those who thus seek him with faith and love.
` A.A. Hodge
Gee, what a shock!
Might you quote a work that contradicts what Vine stated?
The interpretations of many words are laced with the same demonic pre-conceptions that your exegesis abounds in.
And when I say something harsh about your idol worship, you will begin crying about 'anti-Catholic' bigotry.
I would love to know what you have in there for "anamnesis".
'The recalling of things past'?
"The so-called differences between the different Greek words are not significant for the interpretation of that passage." One of our brothers posted an excellent refutation of this charge way back - I think it was Claud. But you carry on in your blindness and fleshly thinking....
Well, maybe you dig it up.
I always enjoy a good laugh.
Let the Roman Catholics who post to these treads renounce Trent and its curses.
It is no game..it is the heart of Rome
A liar calling someone else a coward?
Who the hell is going to believe you, a damned liar, who fabricates stories about dying friends invoking Mary and who designs convolutions about keeping consecrated hosts in his house?
I relish belonging to the Catholic Forum, and I am probably among the more progressive of that group. (Hell, I'd be considered the MOST progressive of that group.)
I will leave it to those who would dare speak in my defense as to whether or not I am a coward.
Meanwhile, you've been exposed as a pervert, as one who toys with the very Body of the Lord.
What demon drives your cold heart to ridicule the beliefs of Catholics? What kind of satanic desire leads to the orgasmic quivering you've manifested in blaspheming the Divine Christ?
YES or NO? Oh, to be powerful enough to unleash or hold the psycho Woodkirk!
You belong in a cage.
What a cheap shot. But is that really the best you can do -- post a lie like that?
Clearly your moral compass has demagnitized.
Baptism ( a work) gives you a clean slate ..from then on its yours to earn or lose...You have to keep the law (a work)..If you sin you can not go to God for forgivness you have to go to the church to confess ..but even they do not dispense the forgiveness of God ..you have to complete that with your act of penance(a work)
Now if you miss the train you have to finish what the blood of Christ could not do and burn your own sin off in purgatory (the final work)...Poly it is all about works..Good works to earn Gods favor and works to earn forgivness .
How much is God Poly 25% 50% ..how much is 'GODS UNMERITED FAVOR"? I say 100% I am a pathetic loser....how much do you think is your fair share?
I ask this cause I want you to think about it poly... I ask it beacuse I care...
Sinkspur's no liar. But you on the other hand are much worse.
Luk 24:16 But their eyes were holden that they should not know him.
Luk 24:25 Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken:
Luk 24:26 Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?
Luk 24:27 And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
But even then they really did not understand ...they were blinded by God ..they heard the plan of salvation as God had planned it...but it did nothing untill their eyes were opened.
Luk 24:30 And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed [it], and brake, and gave to them.
As He broke the bread they saw something that had been hidden from theior sight...His nail scared hands as he broke the bread....THEN They had ears to hear..
Luk 24:32 And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?
When a man sees His sin and sees the cost to Jesus His eyes are open Colleen....
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