(moved) Can the Philosophical Approach of "Reformed" Protestantism lead out of Christianity?

[Citizen of the Kingdom]

Yes, That is my point.
Reformed Protestants do not agree with the Lutheran or Catholic views of a real presence of Christ in the Eucharist food, and my first question is whether early Christian writings support the Reformed position against the Lutheran and Catholic views.

In your reply, you listed church fathers' writings, which are the kind of thing I am looking for. But the website only purported those quoted by the fathers to be against the Catholic position of physical flesh in the Communion meal. This leaves open the question of whether any early Christian writings support the Reformed Protestants in their disagreement with the Lutherans, who took a more traditional position that Christ's body was spiritually present in the meal.

Well your not going to get anything but scripture to prove any point from a reformer view ... take it or leave it ... seriously what you are looking for is better obtainable in the TT forum to get the answers you are specifically looking for. I posted scripture to defend spiritual communion but you say that is not what you want.

 

[Job8]

In your reply, you listed church fathers' writings, which are the kind of thing I am looking for.

While the Lord's Supper is called the Eucharist (Gk. giving of thanks) in the Didache (mid to late first century), it was observed as non-Catholics observe it today.

THE DIDACHE
9 Concerning the Eucharist

9:1 Concerning the Eucharist, give thanks this way.

9:2 First, concerning the cup: We thank you, our Father, for the holy vine of David your servant, which you made known to us through Jesus your servant. To you be the glory forever.

9:3 Next, concerning the broken bread: We thank you, our Father, for the life and knowledge which you made known to us through Jesus your servant. To you be the glory forever.

9:4 Even as this broken bread was scattered over the hills, and was gathered together and became one, so let your church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into your kingdom. To you is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ forever.

9:5 Allow no one to eat or drink of your Eucharist, unless they have been baptized in the name of the Lord. For concerning this, the Lord has said, "Do not give what is holy to dogs."

14 On the Lord's Day

14:1 On the Lord's day, gather yourselves together and break bread, give thanks, but first confess your sins so that your sacrifice may be pure.

 

[rakovsky]

There is really very little to go on that proves that the beginning of the church was more catholic in thought than protestant thought. But that really is the issue when it comes down to the insults being slung at Protestants as this thread sets out to do. As far as I can see is that Protestant thought was more prevailant from the beginning so it really is a silly argument that can stem only from pride.

Hello, Cassia.
There are ways in which early Christian thought was closer to Catholicism. It was very important that the first two generations of Christians held fast to their holy tradition from 33 AD to 120 AD as the Bible books were written. This is because the Bible itself was made as part of that tradition. If the gospel writers handed down the traditions and stories from Jesus wrong, the Bible would be wrong too. This is why they had to believe in the importance of getting their traditions right and stickiing to them and passing them down. To say that the only thing that counts for doctrines is the Bible would not make sense in early Christian thought because they hadn't even written the Bible yet. It wasn't until a few centuries later that the Bible even got decided on by the Church. So in this way the Catholics are much closer to the early Christian way on deciding what doctrines to follow. Catholics have alot more unanimity than Protestants, who split up over doctrines easier (like the Eucharist).

But forgive the digression, please, because this thread is not about Catholics vs. Protestants, it's about how different/similar the early Christian beliefs on the Eucharist from/to "Reformed" Protestants like Calvin and the Baptists. The Lutheran/Anglican Protestants and Reformed Protestants would disagree with each other over whose viewpoint matched the early Christians'.

You wrote:

This is probably not the same Clement as mentioned above but shall include anyway
Clement of Alexandria (150-215) says the comunion wine is called wine.
Clement of Alexandria (150-215) said the bread and wine were symbols, metaphor.

Maybe you did not notice, but I already responded to this. My Orthodox church agrees that the wine was a symbol, but it says that it is not "only" a symbol because the wine goes through a "transformation". So calling it a symbol is not a problem for us, it is only a problem when one claims that the Communion meal "only" symbolizes Christ's body and lacks it spiritually.

I don't see these passages in conflict with the Lutheran sense that Christ is present in the food elements of the Communion meal

Again what does the Lutheran form of Christ's communion have to do with all Protestants, it is not in anyway a representation of whom the thread is addressed to.

some of the same authors elsewhere do endorse Christ's presence in the Eucharist..

Rest assured they don`t

I have quoted some passages where they teach either the Lutheran or Catholic versions of the idea of Christ's body being in the Eucharist. (See eg. http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/father/a5.html)
The Lutheran form of communion is important here, Cassia, because Lutherans teach Christ's presence in the Eucharist.

 

[Citizen of the Kingdom]

The Didache or The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, a brief early Christian treatise, dated by most scholars to the mid to late first century. The first line of this treatise is "Teaching of the Lord to the Gentiles by the Twelve Apostles" clearly says the Lord's Supper was performed as the Protestants perform it now, not as the Traditionists do as Job 8 has pointed out in the above post. Really what more do you want? What the Lutherans teach is of no concern to anyone but the Lutherans and those who wish to confront them about it. To play ___ in the middle this way is getting nowhere.

 

[rakovsky]

Are you comparing Christ with the Spirit? Do you think Christ's body enlarges or moves about?

I think it's hard to claim that Christ is strictly confined in space in heaven. Is Christ's body in heaven in our physical realm literally sitting on the clouds where Stephen was described as perceived Him in Acts? It seems not. Our satellites ans astronauts haven't photographed Him, have they?

And if Christ really is sitting on the clouds in a literal way as Stephen perceived Him, then he has no real obstacle in moving. In Revelation, Jesus appeared to John and touched John even before John was taken up into heaven. And for Jesus to touch John, doesn't this imply a bodily act?

It seems rather that to say that Jesus' body cannot be present outside heaven or move is to make him a kind of confined "hostage" and to interpret the status of his body in a modern naturalistic way, rather than the spiritual way that Paul talked about bodies after they undergo spiritual transformation.(1 Corinthians 15:44)

This strong naturalistic view is really the kind of thing that leads me to my third main question in the OP.

 

[rakovsky]

Dear Cassia,

Of course anyone who partakes of communion in a worthy manner includes the spiritual aspect of partaking in His flesh and blood as scripture specifies.

Yes, but according to Calvin as I cited in the first post, the flesh is not in the food spiritually or physically.

When Christ rose bodily the Holy Spirit was given for an indwelling. That is not to say that the flesh of Jesus is separate from the Spirit because there is too much scripture to say otherwise. But John 6 has the emphasis on the belief of Christ as to His death burial and ressurrection, not in the eating according to the flesh but in the assimmulation of all that He is into our spirit/ new nature for us to worship in spirit and in truth. For flesh is flesh and that which is spirit is spirit.

He is also in some way in our flesh for it to become transformed, as you yourself cited from Clement:

"The Blood of the Lord, indeed, is twofold. There is His corporeal Blood, by which we are redeemed from corruption; and His spiritual Blood, that with which we are anointed. That is to say, to drink the Blood of Jesus is to share in His immortality. The strength of the Word is the Spirit just as the blood is the strength of the body. Similarly, as wine is blended with water, so is the Spirit with man. The one, the Watered Wine, nourishes in faith, while the other, the Spirit, leads us on to immortality. The union of both, however, - of the drink and of the Word, - is called the Eucharist, a praiseworthy and excellent gift. Those who partake of it in faith are sanctified in body and in soul."​

 

[Wgw]

The Didache or The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, a brief early Christian treatise, dated by most scholars to the mid to late first century. The first line of this treatise is "Teaching of the Lord to the Gentiles by the Twelve Apostles" clearly says the Lord's Supper was performed as the Protestants perform it now, not as the Traditionists do as Job 8 has pointed out in the above post. Really what more do you want? What the Lutherans teach is of no concern to anyone but the Lutherans and those who wish to confront them about it. To play ___ in the middle this way is getting nowhere.

Actually there is nothing in the Didache that contradicts a traditionalist interpretation of the Eucharist, or traditional Orthodox, RC or high churc Anglican/Lutheran liturgics.

 

[Citizen of the Kingdom]

Yes, but according to Calvin as I cited in the first post, the flesh is not in the food spiritually or physically.
He is also in some way in our flesh for it to become transformed, as you yourself cited from Clement:

"The Blood of the Lord, indeed, is twofold. There is His corporeal Blood, by which we are redeemed from corruption; and His spiritual Blood, that with which we are anointed. That is to say, to drink the Blood of Jesus is to share in His immortality. The strength of the Word is the Spirit just as the blood is the strength of the body. Similarly, as wine is blended with water, so is the Spirit with man. The one, the Watered Wine, nourishes in faith, while the other, the Spirit, leads us on to immortality. The union of both, however, - of the drink and of the Word, - is called the Eucharist, a praiseworthy and excellent gift. Those who partake of it in faith are sanctified in body and in soul."​

Why did you add dear cassia to my quoted post ? ... kinda against rules to interfere with my post to make it sound like your post when it's not.

Drinking wine refers more to the old wine of the prophets while drinking the new wine of Christ is in living water.

Revelation 7:17
For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.​

God here is Trinity. Spirit is the nature. To worship God Who is Spirit we must worship with our human spirit, which has been awakened to the same nature as He. Jesus' urging the Samaratan woman to contact God the Spirit with her spirit to drink the living water (which is Christ Himself) so as in drinking she could render real worship to God.

Ephesians 2:22
In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.
1 Peter 2:5
Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.​

Christ is truth and the fountain of the life water, the life giving Spirit

John 4:26
Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.​

This word Jesus gave her to believe that she would have eternal life. Believing she told others.
The Samaritans had little learning but the harvest was ripe for those who had done no sowing.
I think that's God's food is satisfying the sinner with the living water.

The eucharist itself is from John 6 and isn't believed as an actual eating of the flesh of the risen Lord by other denominations

John 6:35
Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.​

His flesh is life. As the lamb of God He feeds and redeems, before the fall as the tree of life he was just for feeding on. Then in dying for us He gave His flesh so that we could have life. Blood is also necessary for redemption. Separating the flesh and blood in John 6:54 clearly means His death.

John 6:47
Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life.
John 1:12
Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—​

John 6:56 is the resurrected life of those who believe in Him.
By eating we are taking Him in as nourishment for the new creation for the new way of life.

John 14:19-20
Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.​

John 6:62 involves His ascention which followed redemption as proof His work had been completed.

Hebrews 1:3b
... After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.​

Wherefore He has now become the Spirit in John 6:63 who gives life and speaks in spirit and life.

1 Corinthians 15:45
So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.​

As the Spirit He is the life supply. Recieving (believing) Him as the crucified and resurrected savior, the lifegiving Spirit comes into us to impart eternal life. We recieve (believe) the Lord Jesus but we get the Holy Spirit who gives us life.

Ephesians 3:17-19
that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the fulness of God.

 

[rakovsky]

The Didache or The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, a brief early Christian treatise, dated by most scholars to the mid to late first century. The first line of this treatise is "Teaching of the Lord to the Gentiles by the Twelve Apostles" clearly says the Lord's Supper was performed as the Protestants perform it now, not as the Traditionists do as Job 8 has pointed out in the above post. Really what more do you want?

Where does the Didache say they follow the "Reformed" Protestant way of John Calvin and the Evangelicals, not traditional way of Lutherans or Catholics?

The Didache says: "Let no one eat and drink of your Eucharist but those baptized in the name of the Lord; to this, too the saying of the Lord is applicable: 'Do not give to dogs what is sacred'".

In contrast to keeping the Communion bread away from animals, Reformed Protestants could just throw it away after church:

• Reformed/Presbyterian:
• This view holds that the elements may be disposed of without ceremony, as they are not changed in an objective physical sense and, as such, the meal directs attention toward Christ's "bodily" resurrection and return. Actual practices of disposing of leftover elements vary widely.
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_presence_of_Christ_in_the_Eucharist

What the Lutherans teach is of no concern to anyone but the Lutherans and those who wish to confront them about it.

Of course what Lutherans/Anglicans teach here is a major concern. That is because there are three views:
Catholic: Transubstantiation - the food is physically Jesus' body
Lutheran/Anglican: Consubstantation - the food has Jesus' spiritual presence inside
"Reformed" Protestant/Calvinism: the food is only a symbol of Jesus' body, not a "real presence" of his body.

Just because CARM's website says that the Catholic view is wrong doesn't automatically make the Reformed view right according to the Church fathers, because there is still the Lutheran view.

 

[rakovsky]

Well your not going to get anything but scripture to prove any point from a reformer view ... take it or leave it ... seriously what you are looking for is better obtainable in the TT forum to get the answers you are specifically looking for. I posted scripture to defend spiritual communion but you say that is not what you want.

Yes. I am looking for some early Christian writing that supports the Reformed view that Communion food is only a symbol of Jesus' body and doesn't have his body spiritually present in it.
As you said "your not going to get anything but scripture to prove any point from a reformer view". So this becomes self-evident- the Reformed view does not base itself on Christian writings outside the Bible. They created their ideas in the modern Enlightenment Age instead of caring much about the early Christian explanations of the Bible's teachings if the Christian explanations didn't make it into the Bible.

 

[rakovsky]

While the Lord's Supper is called the Eucharist (Gk. giving of thanks) in the Didache (mid to late first century), it was observed as non-Catholics observe it today.

THE DIDACHE
9 Concerning the Eucharist

9:1 Concerning the Eucharist, give thanks this way.

9:2 First, concerning the cup: We thank you, our Father, for the holy vine of David your servant, which you made known to us through Jesus your servant. To you be the glory forever.

9:3 Next, concerning the broken bread: We thank you, our Father, for the life and knowledge which you made known to us through Jesus your servant. To you be the glory forever.

9:4 Even as this broken bread was scattered over the hills, and was gathered together and became one, so let your church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into your kingdom. To you is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ forever.

9:5 Allow no one to eat or drink of your Eucharist, unless they have been baptized in the name of the Lord. For concerning this, the Lord has said, "Do not give what is holy to dogs."

14 On the Lord's Day

14:1 On the Lord's day, gather yourselves together and break bread, give thanks, but first confess your sins so that your sacrifice may be pure.

I don't see anyplace here where it supports the Reformed position that the bread is only a symbol and does NOT have Jesus' spirit present in it, unlike the Lutheran teaching that it does.

It says Jesus or his body is the "holy vine of David", not that the wine is a symbol only of Jesus.

Reformed Protestants don't care very much what happens to the Bread after the Communion meal that doesn't get eaten, so it basically gets thrown away. That doesn't seem to follow very well the teaching "Do not give what is holy to dogs."

Also, do Reformed Protestants require confession before taking communion like the Didache says? It seems they are not very strict about this either.

 

[rakovsky]

Why did you add dear cassia to my quoted post ? ... kinda against rules to interfere with my post to make it sound like your post when it's not.

I fixed it, thanks Cassia.

Drinking wine refers more to the old wine of the prophets while drinking the new wine of Christ is in living water.

Revelation 7:17
For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.​

God here is Trinity. Spirit is the nature. To worship God Who is Spirit we must worship with our human spirit, which has been awakened to the same nature as He. Jesus' urging the Samaratan woman to contact God the Spirit with her spirit to drink the living water (which is Christ Himself) so as in drinking she could render real worship to God.

Ephesians 2:22
In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.
1 Peter 2:5
Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.​

Christ is truth and the fountain of the life water, the life giving Spirit

John 4:26
Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.​

This word Jesus gave her to believe that she would have eternal life. Believing she told others.
The Samaritans had little learning but the harvest was ripe for those who had done no sowing.
I think that's God's food is satisfying the sinner with the living water.

None of those verses states that the term of Christ's "wine" means his "living water".

The eucharist itself is from John 6 and isn't believed as an actual eating of the flesh of the risen Lord by other denominations

What about Lutherans' view that it is an actual eating of the flesh in spiritual form inside the bread? Maybe they are right and the Reformed are wrong?

John 6:35
Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.​

His flesh is life. As the lamb of God He feeds and redeems, before the fall as the tree of life he was just for feeding on. Then in dying for us He gave His flesh so that we could have life. Blood is also necessary for redemption. Separating the flesh and blood in John 6:54 clearly means His death.

John 6:47
Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life.
John 1:12
Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—​

John 6:56 is the resurrected life of those who believe in Him.
By eating we are taking Him in as nourishment for the new creation for the new way of life.

John 14:19-20
Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.​

John 6:62 involves His ascention which followed redemption as proof His work had been completed.

Hebrews 1:3b
... After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.​

Wherefore He has now become the Spirit in John 6:63 who gives life and speaks in spirit and life.

1 Corinthians 15:45
So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.​

As the Spirit He is the life supply. Recieving (believing) Him as the crucified and resurrected savior, the lifegiving Spirit comes into us to impart eternal life. We recieve (believe) the Lord Jesus but we get the Holy Spirit who gives us life.

Ephesians 3:17-19
that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the fulness of God.

Great. I don't see any clear statements there that when it comes to the Eucharist, the Last Supper (eg. 1 Cor 15), and Jesus' words that the food he physically handed his disciples was his body that Jesus did not mean this spiritually or physically.

 

[rakovsky]

Cassia you did a good job trying to show from CARM's quote your disagreement with the Roman Catholic position based on early Christian quotes.
Let's please move on to Question 2:

(2) Does Protestantism have a real, direct basis in early Christian writings to reject the special respect and claimed miraculous properties of holy relics?

 

[Citizen of the Kingdom]

None of those verses states that the term of Christ's "wine" means his "living water".

It was a scriptural explaination

None of those verses states that the term of Christ's "wine" means his "living water".

I guess you didn't see the correlation of scripture to Clement that you posted and that I was responding to .. you probably never will .. scripturally I thought it was spot on.. nice chatting with you

rakovsky said He is also in some way in our flesh for it to become transformed, as you yourself cited from Clement:
"The Blood of the Lord, indeed, is twofold. There is His corporeal Blood, by which we are redeemed from corruption; and His spiritual Blood, that with which we are anointed. That is to say, to drink the Blood of Jesus is to share in His immortality. The strength of the Word is the Spirit just as the blood is the strength of the body. Similarly, as wine is blended with water, so is the Spirit with man. The one, the Watered Wine, nourishes in faith, while the other, the Spirit, leads us on to immortality. The union of both, however, - of the drink and of the Word, - is called the Eucharist, a praiseworthy and excellent gift. Those who partake of it in faith are sanctified in body and in soul."

Drinking wine refers more to the old wine of the prophets while drinking the new wine of Christ is in living water.

Revelation 7:17
For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.​

God here is Trinity. Spirit is the nature. To worship God Who is Spirit we must worship with our human spirit, which has been awakened to the same nature as He. Jesus' urging the Samaratan woman to contact God the Spirit with her spirit to drink the living water (which is Christ Himself) so as in drinking she could render real worship to God.

Ephesians 2:22
In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.
1 Peter 2:5
Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.​

Christ is truth and the fountain of the life water, the life giving Spirit

John 4:26
Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.​

This word Jesus gave her to believe that she would have eternal life. Believing she told others.
The Samaritans had little learning but the harvest was ripe for those who had done no sowing.
I think that's God's food is satisfying the sinner with the living water.

The eucharist itself is from John 6 and isn't believed as an actual eating of the flesh of the risen Lord by other denominations

John 6:35
Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.​

His flesh is life. As the lamb of God He feeds and redeems, before the fall as the tree of life he was just for feeding on. Then in dying for us He gave His flesh so that we could have life. Blood is also necessary for redemption. Separating the flesh and blood in John 6:54 clearly means His death.

John 6:47
Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life.
John 1:12
Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—​

John 6:56 is the resurrected life of those who believe in Him.
By eating we are taking Him in as nourishment for the new creation for the new way of life.

John 14:19-20
Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.​

John 6:62 involves His ascention which followed redemption as proof His work had been completed.

Hebrews 1:3b
... After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.​

Wherefore He has now become the Spirit in John 6:63 who gives life and speaks in spirit and life.

1 Corinthians 15:45
So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.​

As the Spirit He is the life supply. Recieving (believing) Him as the crucified and resurrected savior, the lifegiving Spirit comes into us to impart eternal life. We recieve (believe) the Lord Jesus but we get the Holy Spirit who gives us life.

Ephesians 3:17-19
that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the fulness of God.

 

[Job8]

Also, do Reformed Protestants require confession before taking communion like the Didache says? It seems they are not very strict about this either.

You are seeing only what you want to see. It does not say "confess your sins to a priest" or other cleric. All Christians are required to examine themselves before partaking of the Lord's Supper, which means confession of sins to God. There is also no mention of the bread being the "real" body and the cup being the "real" blood. Not too long after, the Catholic idea of the Eucharist began to take old in the churches.

 

[Albion]

Protestant theologians would have normally professed to be in accordance with scripture, but this is not really necessarily true any more.

I disagree. Sure, you can find almost any theory or slant somewhere among some Protestant community or another, but I can't see generalizing from that.

But the "scriptural" position is not necessarily the conservative Protestant position either, since Conservative Protestants disagree among themselves about the meaning of scripture, and so to say that the Protestant position is the scriptural one creates a kind of subjective tautology, whereby the scriptural position on which their position rests is in turn determined by them.

Certainly no moreso than the situation with "Tradition" which means all sorts of different things among Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholics. As I've noted before, there are no two "Catholic" churches that have the same doctrines, based upon either Scripture OR Tradition, yet they all claim that those two are their guides.

 

[Standing Up]

I think it's hard to claim that Christ is strictly confined in space in heaven. Is Christ's body in heaven in our physical realm literally sitting on the clouds where Stephen was described as perceived Him in Acts? It seems not. Our satellites ans astronauts haven't photographed Him, have they?

And if Christ really is sitting on the clouds in a literal way as Stephen perceived Him, then he has no real obstacle in moving. In Revelation, Jesus appeared to John and touched John even before John was taken up into heaven. And for Jesus to touch John, doesn't this imply a bodily act?

It seems rather that to say that Jesus' body cannot be present outside heaven or move is to make him a kind of confined "hostage" and to interpret the status of his body in a modern naturalistic way, rather than the spiritual way that Paul talked about bodies after they undergo spiritual transformation.(1 Corinthians 15:44)

This strong naturalistic view is really the kind of thing that leads me to my third main question in the OP.

I'm not sure what your point is now. I thought you argued that Jesus' body is present in some fashion in the bread/wine. But now you're staying He's located in heaven? Are you thinking Jesus somehow disassemblies into millions of pieces of bread and then reassembles?

 

[Albion]

At bottom, about all that can be "proven" from the writings of the first hundred years after Christ is that the doctrine of the Real Presence was believed.

Which particular version of that is impossible to establish, even though just about every denomination that believes anything other than the representational POV seems to think that its view is supported by the surviving documents.

 

[MennoSota]

R.C. Sproul provides a good overview of the differing views of communion. It is worthy of review.
http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/battle-table/

 

[MennoSota]

It is important to understand that Yesua, Jesus, was having the seder meal with his disciples. Therefore, before the RC or the Orthodox Church, Anglican, Reformed, etc..., we have Jewish understanding of the passover. Yeshua performed the seder meal with his disciples, but he changed the meaning of some of it to reflect his coming work of atonement. This article helps layout the meaning of the sacrament within the context of Yeshua's Jewish heritage. In that light, I believe it takes precedence over gentile understanding of communion.
http://www.jewsforjesus.org/publications/newsletter/march-2002/mystery