Posted on 02/20/2008 4:47:37 PM PST by NYer
LOL...seriously.
Pipeorganman, I understand where you're coming from but this is a dicussion forum, and there are plenty of folks on here who are up for a reasonable discussion. I hardly think it's fair to characterize all of them as...well...what that parable implies! :)
Proof is found every day in your own circles because the magisterium and the church fathers that the magisterium revere quote the scriptures religiously as authoritative justification for the things they write about and speak about. They may not understand all those scriptures but they all realize that they are inspired by God and pepper their writings with them in hopes that the inspiration will fall off and dust their own words, uninspired as their own words may be. But thanks for asking --
But he does say you are eating the body and blood of the Lord. Verse 27 says whoever eats and drinks unworthily “will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord”. And go to verse 29...”For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves.”
On the second coming argument, you make an interesting point, but one doesn’t exclude the other. Surely you’ve noticed in the Gospel this “tension” about the Second Coming that academics and liberals love to point out. That the Christian community believed Christ was coming soon—within “this generation”? That “tension” is largely an academic fiction IMHO, and results directly from academics not recognizing that Christ was believed in the earliest days to be coming at the end of the world *and* was held to be coming at evey divine liturgy. This is somewhat speculative on my part, but I think recognizing the Eucharistic sensibilities of the early Christians largely solves the “problem” of the Second Coming that all the academics love to rave about. There was no problem at all. Christ did come in the form of the Eucharist within that very generation, and he will come Himself without the sacramental veil at the end of time. I believe both comings are touched on by Paul in 1 Cor 11:26.
Show me anywhere at all in the church father’s writing where the real prescence is denied. Just one example in the first 3,4, or 500 hundred years after our Lord’s crucifixion. Just one little teensy example.
I can show you many, many examples (including Jesus’ own words) where it IS His body and blood.
I can see how this passage can be thought to support consubstantiation ala the Lutheran understanding, but certainly not a wholesale rejection of the Body and Blood. That's just not supported.
Very good points. I might add that Paul also demonstrated the importance Christians placed on the Eucharist more than two decades AFTER the Resurrection. They understood that it truly is the Body and Blood of the Lord.
Also, as I mentioned in another thread, in John 6, the Lord makes it clear that the Eucharist is the Bread of Life and how much greater it is than the Manna the Israelites received from Heaven. However, the Manna REALLY DID feed the Israelites, how can a tiny wafer be greater than that unless it is truly the Body of Christ?
There are approximately 2.1 billion Christians in the world, of those there are 1.05 billion Catholics, 240 million Eastern Orthodox, 73 million Anglicans, 70 million Methodists and 64 million Lutherans ALL of whom accept (to varying degrees), the Real Presence in the Eucharist. This means that nearly three quarters of Christians accept what the Lord said, the small minority that rejects the Bread of Life should ask themselves why they are rejecting Him.
But I thought the Bible was full of errors and contradictions, NYer. After all, it says the universe was created in six days less than six thousand years ago. For that matter, so did your church fathers, though I notice you choose to reject them on this. So why not reject their teaching on the "eucharist" as well?
Once again, the validity of spiritual truth is inversely proportional to the number of words needed to relate it. ;)
“This is my blood.”
Do this in remembrance of me.”
All the proof I need from the Bible.
Salvation, you're a sweet person, but I hope--I truly, honestly hope--you can see how infuriating it is to read Catholics saying "the Bible says it, therefore it must be so" when they want to subject the words of Genesis to a withering rationalist/modernist critique.
Are you aware that NYer, who started this thread, has said that the Bible is full of contradictions and you can't go by what it says? What right does she have then to turn right around and start "Bible-thumping" to prove anything???
To the best of my knowledge, all scholars (Catholic and Protestant) are in agreement that Paul wrote his the First Epistle to the Corinthians somewhere between 53 and 57 AD, BEFORE any of the Gospels had been written. Protestants seem to operate under the assumption that all Christians have always had a Bible handy at all times, this did not happen until at least the Sixteenth Century.
Furthermore, if he is in the bread that you are eating, then he has already come. So what's to show ??? He's clearly not in the bread otherwise Paul could not and would not have written this.
Paul clearly did say this, he called it the Body of the Lord.
Again I will ask, how can the Body of Life be greater than Manna from Heaven if it is nothing more than a wafer while Manna provided actual nourishment?
As the Fathers are minim, it's neither here nor there to you, but at least I want to minimize any internal inconsistency that you are seeing. :)
This Body. This Blood. Do this.
But if the body is the body in front of them that they are getting ready to partake of, then why didn't he say so??? Instead he says you are eating bread.
Furthermore, which "body" was given for the forgiveness of sins??? The one that hung on the cross or the one that the church is supposedly eating??? discerning or discernment requires the ability to distinguish between things, like the difference between that which was offered once and for all time and that which is done daily in remembrance of that which was offered once and for all time.
Remember the Lord's Supper was a Passover Supper. The Passover was [and still is] celebrated annually for thousands of years, but only the first Passover had any efficacious effect for the children of Israel back in Egypt. Every other Passover since that first one was and still is a REMEMBRANCE ceremony of that once and for all time event.
The are the same Body.
Are they really??? How many times does Jesus have to die for the forgiveness of sins???
Is this the Gospel or isn't it???
"Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand. By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures." [I Corinthians 15:1-4]
Note that "died" is past tense --
Note also that phrase "if ye keep in memory". What did Jesus say??? "Do This In MEMORY of Me". The remembrance aspect of the Lord's Supper was an aide to helping the church "keep in memory" that "Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures" -- a past tense and one time event.
Only once.
Note that "died" is past tense --
Of course it was. And no, NONE of Paul's Epistles are Gospels.
You are operating under some sort of misconception that Christ is currently dead and that the Mass somehow "kills" Him.
This is quite erroneuos and as I've pointed out at odds with nearly three-quarters of Christians worldwide.
Again, I note your unwillingness to address how a wafer which is not the Body of Christ and is really nothing more than a "memory aid" can be considered greater than Manna from Heaven.
Christ died once for all. We agree with you 100% on that. But there is a distinction we are making between the bloody sacrifice of Calvary and the unbloody sacrifice of the Mass.
In other words, Catholic teaching holds that the sacrifice and the victim is the same—it is only the manner of offering that changes. And that is what Paul is getting at when he says that Christ “is a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek”.
He is a priest forever because His sacrifice of Himself continues forever—but it is not a crucifixion again, it is the Melchizedek style of sacrifice—the offering of bread and wine.
Incidentally, as you mentioned Passover...many scholars believe that Christ refused the fourth cup of the Passover meal—”until I am come into my kingdom”. He took the cup, effectively, on the cross right before he died—that’s really when that Passover ended for him—”it is finished”. So the Last Supper and Calvary were all part of His Passover. They were fused into one act for Him, and they are fused into one act for us as well.
Ping for later. Thanks, Claud.
Monarchist?
When reading an article posted to the forum, it's always good practice to read it through in its entirety. The very next paragraph reads:
In the previous chapter the apostle wrote, "The blessing-cup that we bless is a communion with the blood of Christ, and the bread that we break is communion with the body of Christ" (1 Cor. 11:16). His words are clear. The only possible meaning is that the bread and wine at the consecration become Christ's actual body and blood. Evidently Paul believed that the words Christ had said at the Last Supper, "This is my Body," meant that really and physically the bread is his body. In fact Christ was not merely saying that the bread was his body; he was decreeing that it should be so and that it is so.
The misunderstanding is in the comand, “Do this in remembrance of me.” He had previously explained that he had conferred upon them the powers necessary to do certain things miraculous. The “Do this” refers to the sacremental authority to perform the transubstantiation. What it isn’t is a mere instruction to eat bread and drink wine in his memory.
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