This Is My Body

Tree of Life said:

John the Baptist also said of Jesus that he is "the lamb of God". This does not mean that Jesus is literally or physically a lamb. Jesus said: "I am the bread that comes down from heaven". This does not mean that Jesus is literally a loaf of bread. Jesus said: "I am the true vine". This does not mean that Jesus is a literal or physical vine.

If a literal or physical interpretation of these words ends up being absurd then we must consider alternative meanings.

Since no perceptible (physical) change occurs in the elements, it's highly likely that Jesus meant something else when he said: "this is my body".

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Did John point to a lamb and say "that's Jesus"?
Did Jesus take a vine and say "that's Me"?

Nope.

But He did take bread and wine and say, "This is Me".

-CryptoLutheran

Tree of Life said:

Well as we know from logic, linguistics, and philosophy the order doesn't matter. When you've got a subject and predicate which are both nominative joined by a "to be" verb then you've essentially got two interchangeable subjects.

"I am the vine" is equivalent to saying "The vine is me".
"This one is the lamb of God" is equivalent to saying "the lamb of God is this one."
"This is my body" is equivalent to saying "my body is this".

The order is immaterial.

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So Jesus wasn't telling us to eat bread and drink wine, must just using metaphors for His body and blood. After all if He was just making a metaphor, like where He says "I am the vine" or where John says "Behold the Lamb of God", we don't have actual vines and lambs involved, "vine" and "lamb" are word-pictures here as part of the metaphor. Thus no concrete bread or wine here, Jesus was making a metaphor speaking of His body as bread and His blood as wine.

We're asking: what does Jesus mean by "is". Both the transubstantial and consubstantial route don't make sense. They claim that the meaning is physical, but this is easily falsified. So is it too crazy to suggest that the meaning is spiritual? The bread is spiritually speaking the body of Christ. Just like Jesus is spiritually speaking the true vine in which we must abide.

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Since I neither believe in transubstantiation or consubstantiation I can't speak for either. But that the claim is physical isn't falsified, because the comparison between "I am the vine" and "This is My body broken for you" is non-existant. It's a false comparison--regardless of "word order". Jesus wasn't offering a metaphor to describe His body as bread, He took bread, broke it, distributed it to His followers and said "This is My body broken for you". And then Paul, in 1 Corinthians 10, says "The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Consider the people of Israel; are not those who eat the sacrifices partners in the altar?" And again the Apostle says, "Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord."

This is more than just some colorful metaphor, it's the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

-CryptoLutheran

Tree of Life said:

John the Baptist also said of Jesus that he is "the lamb of God". This does not mean that Jesus is literally or physically a lamb. Jesus said: "I am the bread that comes down from heaven". This does not mean that Jesus is literally a loaf of bread. Jesus said: "I am the true vine". This does not mean that Jesus is a literal or physical vine.

If a literal or physical interpretation of these words ends up being absurd then we must consider alternative meanings.

Since no perceptible (physical) change occurs in the elements, it's highly likely that Jesus meant something else when he said: "this is my body".

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Being literal doesn't mean you take it word for word, it means that you understand what the speaker was saying. But the part where Jesus said to his disciples "Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you." is what I was talking about. It says that many of his disciples left him and went back to their former lives at this pronouncement. Jesus meant what he said, because he didn't ask them to come back, you misunderstood me.
Let's look at another example, though. How do we know Jesus restored the sight to the blind? How do we know it wasn't 'something else'? It's because the gospels state that Jesus did it. We trust the Gospels in what they're saying. Literally.

ViaCrucis said:

So Jesus wasn't telling us to eat bread and drink wine, must just using metaphors for His body and blood. After all if He was just making a metaphor, like where He says "I am the vine" or where John says "Behold the Lamb of God", we don't have actual vines and lambs involved, "vine" and "lamb" are word-pictures here as part of the metaphor. Thus no concrete bread or wine here, Jesus was making a metaphor speaking of His body as bread and His blood as wine.



Since I neither believe in transubstantiation or consubstantiation I can't speak for either. But that the claim is physical isn't falsified, because the comparison between "I am the vine" and "This is My body broken for you" is non-existant. It's a false comparison--regardless of "word order". Jesus wasn't offering a metaphor to describe His body as bread, He took bread, broke it, distributed it to His followers and said "This is My body broken for you". And then Paul, in 1 Corinthians 10, says "The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Consider the people of Israel; are not those who eat the sacrifices partners in the altar?" And again the Apostle says, "Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord."

This is more than just some colorful metaphor, it's the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

-CryptoLutheran

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Two other things: Paul said in 1 Corinthians (I think) "He who eats the flesh and drinks the cup unworthily..." IF it's just bread and wine, how could someone eat and drink unworthily?
Also, in John 6, Jesus used the word for "gnaw", not just 'eat'. When the disciples walked away, he doubled down, using a word to tear flesh away from bone.
We also know from the early followers, second generation, that they knew it was really the body and blood, substantially, of Jesus that they were consuming.

Tree of Life said:

Well as we know from logic, linguistics, and philosophy the order doesn't matter. When you've got a subject and predicate which are both nominative joined by a "to be" verb then you've essentially got two interchangeable subjects.

"I am the vine" is equivalent to saying "The vine is me".
"This one is the lamb of God" is equivalent to saying "the lamb of God is this one."
"This is my body" is equivalent to saying "my body is this".

The order is immaterial.

We're asking: what does Jesus mean by "is". Both the transubstantial and consubstantial route don't make sense. They claim that the meaning is physical, but this is easily falsified. So is it too crazy to suggest that the meaning is spiritual? The bread is spiritually speaking the body of Christ. Just like Jesus is spiritually speaking the true vine in which we must abide.

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Sounding a little like Bill Clinton "It depends on what the meaning of is is..."

Tree of Life said:

For those of you transubstantiationists and consubstantiationists...

What do you mean when you say that the elements become the body and blood of Christ. Surely you cannot mean this in a physical sense, since nothing physically changes in the elements after consecration or upon consumption. So what do you mean?

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Tree of Life

First of all, to believe in Transubstantiation you must have FAITH! FAITH, to believe in what Christ said of Himself: "THIS IS MY BODY" "THIS IS MY BLOOD" and at this moment you do not have this FAITH in Jesus Christ, that He can do all things for nothing is impossible for him. Pray for this FAITH and no doubt you will become Catholic.

Protestants do not have this Faith, if they had it, there would not be protestantism. This is My Body, This is My Blood is the Eucharist the Center Focus of our Faith the Catholic Church. Amen

Root of Jesse said:

That you cannot see it doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

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Forget what it looks like. What does it taste like? The tongue is an amazing chemist.

Albion said:

I am sure that you do not believe that you are consuming the very body he "wore" when on Earth, those particular arms and toes, etc., or else there wouldn't be enough of it to go around, century after century, and on tens of thousands of altars around the world every Sunday.

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How then, did a few loaves of bread feed 5000?

prodromos said:

How then, did a few loaves of bread feed 5000?

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Was the claim ever made that there were going to be five loaves and only five loaves?

As I recall, there were five and Christ ordered that the bread by distributed. So there is no parallel in this event to the discussion we were having over the meaning of "This is my body."

On the other hand, if you DO think that, at the Eucharist, the communicant eats the very arm or eyelid of Jesus...I feel you owe us an explanation about how that can be and whether or not your church agrees.

Albion said:

Was the claim ever made that there were going to be five loaves and only five loaves?

As I recall, there were five and Christ ordered that the bread by distributed. So there is no parallel in this event to the discussion we were having over the meaning of "This is my body."

On the other hand, if you DO think that, at the Eucharist, the communicant eats the very arm or eyelid of Jesus...I feel you owe us an explanation about how that can be and whether or not your church agrees.

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Albion, there have been miracles re the Eucharistic Host. It is not an arm of Christ or an eye lid of Christ as you just say to poke fun of the Body because you do not have what St. Paul stated "Discernment the Body" The Eucharist, is the heart of Jesus Christ the Myocardium, etc... (the wall of the Heart of Jesus Christ)



Albion, now that you know this truth, you can not say, when you come before Christ, that you did not know this truth, Christ will say unto you: you were shown this truth, but you did not believe in my Words, many of my disciples left me because of this truth in scripture and so did you. Believe!

Remember, you are not only hurting yourself for not believing, most of all you are hurting Christ.

Christ is ALIVE in the Eucharist! AMEN AMEN

Tree of Life said:

For those of you transubstantiationists and consubstantiationists...

What do you mean when you say that the elements become the body and blood of Christ. Surely you cannot mean this in a physical sense, since nothing physically changes in the elements after consecration or upon consumption. So what do you mean?

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It means we take Jesus at his word.

prodromos said:

Two different attempts to explain the unexplainable, how Christ's flesh and blood are truly present in the consecrated gifts.

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FWIW, we do not teach "consubstantiation", that is the term the Reformed used to describe our doctrine. Lutherans traditionally described a sacramental union. How exactly Jesus is present is not something we believe we can explain as human beings, however, it is something that is seen by faith.

FireDragon76 said:

It means we take Jesus at his word.



FWIW, we do not teach "consubstantiation", that is the term the Reformed used to describe our doctrine. Lutherans traditionally described a sacramental union. How exactly Jesus is present is not something we believe we can explain as human beings, however, it is something that is seen by faith.

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Fire, yes many times it is seen by FAITH. And there is times that God uses miracles to show proof visibly like that of the miracle of Luciano, and others.

Tree of Life said:

The Reformed confessions also use the terminology "sacramental union". However we specify that we believe that Jesus is spiritually present in the sacrament and not physically present. Nothing in the physical element changes. The bread and wine is the body and blood of Jesus in a spiritual sense and those who receive them faithfully truly receive Christ in a spiritual sense.

I think that the Reformed view is correct. Its virtue is that it simply clarifies the doctrine whereas the Catholic view and Lutheran view are inscrutably unclear. It's hard to know what they even mean.

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We don't believe in separating Christ's divinity from his body. It sounds to us too much like Nestorianism.

The Reformed theology of presence is so weak that it is effectively a "real absence". B.B. Warfield and the gang at Princeton successfuly destroyed the last remnant of Reformed sacramental theology by insisting on rationalism.

Reception of Christ is purely passive. Our minds don't have to go up to heaven, as some of the Reformed fancy in the sacrament, as if this were some kind of secret inner work of the elect. We hold Christ in our hands, he comes to us, not we to him. Faith takes hold of the gifts of God himself and eats and drinks according to his ordinance. Justification is something that happens extra nos, from the outside, and justification ordinarily is alongside some physical means.

Albion said:

On the other hand, if you DO think that, at the Eucharist, the communicant eats the very arm or eyelid of Jesus...I feel you owe us an explanation about how that can be and whether or not your church agrees.

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This is not what the Orthodox Church teaches. I thought you were better informed than this.

Tree of Life said:

I suppose this is the nub of the disagreement. We think it's only possible to receive Christ by faith. In your view, a person could receive Christ without understanding anything about him or about his atoning sacrifice.

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That's how kids are baptized in our church, without understanding. But intellectual understanding isn't necessary for faith. I went into the Lutheran church without much understanding, but I had faith that was where God was leading me. In a similar ways, babies lack understanding but God grants them faith and they grow into that faith according to their capabilities. Just as he grants faith to the mentally incapacitated or those otherwise incapable of understanding.

We don't think of faith as an intellectual assent. Faith is trust.

In our particular congregation (ELCA), the pastor will merely bless the children until they are old enough to understand that the sacrament is a sacred meal, usually around age 7 or so, similar to Catholics. But in some other Lutheran congregations, they commune children who desire to receive the sacrament. It's completely up to the local congregation. Personally, I prefer communing anybody that is old enough to physically receive the sacrament and desires to do so.

I don't think anybody fully understands sin or Jesus' sacrifice.

I realize a certain beauty in Lutheran praxis that is absent in other evangelical churches. My partner was adopted and came from what was probably a horrible living situation as an infant. She struggled for a long time with God, even though she had faith. Especially feeling abandoned.

At the Lutheran church, we can realize that as much as we don't understand why God allows things like that to happen, God adopts us and cares for us in physical ways. And we can see this mediated through the Word and through the community gathered around that Word: it is really God's love mediated sacramentally. We don't have to work out our relationship with God on our own. This sacramentalism extends not only to the sacraments of the Gospel, but to all of our lives as we grow in faith.

I'm sure Catholics and Orthodox would also share many of those sentiments. It's part of what having a sacramental faith is about.

PanDeVida said:

Albion, there have been miracles re the Eucharistic Host.

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There may have been, but this doesn't affect the issue one way or the other. There could have been miracles if Transubstantiation or Consubstantiation or some other version of the doctrine of Real Presence were the right way to look at it.