Replies

You cannot say that this was just bread and wine of that this is a metphor

Mat 26:26 Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, "Take, eat; this is my body."

Mat 26:27 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, "Drink of it, all of you, Mat 26:28 for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

Of course it's a metaphor. Our Lord certainly did not cut off parts of his body to give to the disciples. The disciples certainly wouldn't have construed this to be our Lord's actual body, especially while He's sitting there. The whole idea the bread and the wine are the actual body and blood is silly.

Finally, the Earliest Christians also said any consideration of this as just a metaphor was false

There is no scriptural proof. I've read the church fathers. Some of the things they said were not too impressive. In fairness to them, they were coming from pagan cultures trying to understand the scriptures. You have a lot of Christian Greek fathers saying things that were poorly understood and in which they were viewing doctrine with a pagan understanding. They were more evangelists than teachers.

Catholics tend to pick and choose what early writings they want to believe and which ones they don't. The early fathers also believed our Lord paid the penalty for sin to appease the Father's wrath for us. Heck, they believed that for 1500 years. Do you believe that?

But I'm less impressed with today's Catholics when tell me they're following the early fathers and traditions. They hide behind the magisterial who tells the folks which parts of the early fathers are right and which are wrong. They even change what the fathers originally said and was accepted by saying, "Well, we've come to a deeper understanding."; discarding what was taught. It's no different then the Pharisees, teaching traditions and changing laws and theology so they fit with whatever benefits the "Church" at the time.

So no, I'm not impressed anymore when Catholics quote me the church fathers. It's nothing more than a lie and a game.

"There is no scriptural proof."

Beyond what Christ said according to scriptures, what further "proof" would you need? We know that +Ignatius of Antioch believed in the Real Presence. We know that the 2nd century anaphorae of The Church certainly appear to teach the Real Presence. It is also apparent that there were people running around at the end of the 1st century and into the 2nd who didn't believe in the Real Presence, but that understanding of scripture seems to have faded away until after Luther. In any event, what would scripture have to say to convince you that Christ meant what he said?

"The early fathers also believed our Lord paid the penalty for sin to appease the Father's wrath for us. Heck, they believed that for 1500 years."

The Fathers did, HD? Which ones?

The Early Church reiterates these beliefs -- read Justin Marty who had to explain to the pagan Antoninus that Christians were not cannibals in eating the Body and Blood of Our Lord

he had to write a defence to the Emperor saying "Not as common bread or 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 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 flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus"

That is hardly ambiguous...