It was not responded to properly. The responses are pretty much a bunch of knee-jerk reactionary Catholic-bashing. I believe she is quite right to take note of the Scriptural support for the Communion bread and wine actually becoming Christ's Body and Blood, because I'm quite convinced that this is orthodox Christian doctrine.
Seems to me her interlocutors need to take another good, hard look at those Scripture references she provided...
Thank you for sharing as you did - as I thought the responses seemed a good bit off and out of line with Church history. When I actually started to respond further on the ways that Byzantine and Coptic culture are often ignored in the debate, the individual mocking her started to do the same to me - and ignored dealing with Patristics in seeing what the Church Fathers actually said.
It was ironic to see their claims - as Reformers - when actually considering what those in the Reformed heritage actually noted. Martin Luther
admitted the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. ..
although he taught that the glorified Body of Christ is present in the Eucharist along with the bread and wine - something many others did not like even though the idea of partaking of the BODY/Blood of Christ in fullness was something that was already taught in the early body of believers repeatedly. Of course, although both acknowledge the dogma of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, Luther rejected the doctrine concerning the conversion of the earthly gifts (bread and wine) as a philosophical explanation, which has nothing to do with revelation. At the end of the year 1519, Luther still maintained the doctrine of transubstantiation intact. In his
Ein Sermon von dem hocwurdigen Sakrament des heiligen wahren Leichnams Christi und von den Bruderschaften, he taught that there is a change of the substance of the bread and wine but emphasizes that it is symbolical of our union with the spiritual body of Christ. ..and this change must be interpreted not only sacramentally but spiritually and is aimed at the change of the natural man by a common life with Christ. Later on, Luther had some changes in thought - and when Luther saw in Zwingli a further threat to the true doctrine of the real presence, he replied in a number of sermons issued under the title
Sermon von dem Sakrament des Leibes und Blutes Christi, wider die Schwarmgeister (1526).
It was important to some of the Reformers to maintain understanding how the Lord can be at all places at once is one of the things the early body of believers understood when it came to the Eucharist/COMMUNION and partaking of the Body of Christ - as they knew that it wasn't an issue for believers around the world, in all times and places/eras (from the 1st century to the 17th century to the 21st century) to partake of the ONE Sacrifice that Christ made in light of the fact that the Lord is not bound nor limited by time itself...a temporary construct.
One of the most beautiful ways in which we commune with the whole Christ is in the Lords Supper (1 Cor. 11:1734). And even for others arguing that Jesus has a human body with all its limitations and therefore his body does not become omnipresent and distributed around the world in the elements, there are still ways of seeing the reality of how we all partake of His body nonetheless whenever we have Communion.
As it is, for the standard argumentation that Christ cannot be present around the world due to how others see his limitations while on Earth, the reality of the matter is that GOD is GOD - and He HAs no limits, nor does Jesus in the present. Christ is not limited to being in Heaven in ONE place only since He has regained all the abilities He had BEFORE He rose from the Grave. ..rising with ALL Power ( Romans 1:4, Matthew 28:18, Ephesians 2:6, Colossians 1-2, etc. )
As Jesus Christ rose from the dead, where is He? Scripture tells us precisely where He is: He is seated at the right hand of God (Hebrews 10:12). It also informs us exactly what He is doing: when we pray, He intercedes with the Father on our behalf (Hebrews 7:25/iRomans 8:28) - EVERY SINGLE human soul on the planet and who was in existence
- and we see this, for brief example, in the myriad of ways the Lord has appeared to many in the Muslim world via dreams...thousands coming to Christ every year when the Lord appears to His people in places where the Gospel has been denied. It's not as if the Lord in His resurrected Body needs to somehow take a break/catch his breath
For His abilities are without limit . Moreover, we know from John 14 that Jesus is preparing a place for you and me in heaven and that one day we will be with Him there (verses 2-3). In the meantime, He is arranging all the events necessary for His return.
The Spirit of Christ was no more physically confined to His human body during the incarnation than He is now. Remember that at His ascension He rose bodily and is seated at the right hand of God the Father. From thence He shall comebodilyto judge the quick and the dead. In other words, He has not abandoned His humanity, even now that He is glorified. And yet He is present wherever two or three are gathered together in His Name (Matthew 18:20). He is "with [us] always, to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:20). And He has promised never to leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). Scripture expressly affirms that Christ is omnipresent...for when He assumed a human nature He did not have to give up that (or any other) aspect of His divine nature. The reality is that the incarnation was a miracle of addition, not subtraction...as Jesus took on humanity but He did not divest himself of deity.
As Peter Lewis noted best:
We must be very careful here not to imagine, as some have done, that at the incarnation our Lord "left behind" something of his Godhead or its attributes. God exists in the perfection of his attributes. Take away any of his perfections and you no longer have God. You cannot have reduced Godhead. There is God and there is not-God: but there is nothing in-between! . . . In respect of his divine nature our Lord continued even during his incarnate life to fill the heavens and the earth with his power and presence. [The Glory of Christ, 233.]
IMHO, Understanding how the Lord can be at all places at once is one of the things the early body of believers understood when it came to the Eucharist/COMMUNION and partaking of the Body of Christ - as they knew that it wasn't an issue for believers around the world, in all times and places/eras (from the 1st century to the 17th century to the 21st century) to partake of the ONE Sacrifice that Christ made in light of the fact that the Lord is not bound nor limited by time itself...a temporary construct. One of the most beautiful ways in which we commune with the whole Christ is in the Lords Supper (1 Cor. 11:1734). And even for others arguign that Jesus has a human body with all its limitations and therefore his body does not become omnipresent and distributed around the world in the elements, there are still ways of seeing the reality of how we all partake of His body nonetheless whenever we have Communioon.
As
John Calvin explained:
[Although] the Word in his immeasurable essence united with the nature of man into one person, we do not imagine that he was confined therein. Here is something marvelous: the Son of God descended from heaven in such a way that, without leaving heaven, he willed to be home in the virgin's womb, to go about the earth, and to hang upon the cross; yet he continuously filled the world even as he had done from the beginning! [Institutes, 2:13:4.]
As Calvin noted in his view we are raised to heaven, where we feed on the whole Christ in His humanity and in His deity. And therefore, we should not neglect the sacrament and the grace it offers.
For THE sacrament of the Lord's supper is a testimony of CHRIST power over the grave. As Paul originally didn't write with Chapter/verse (as that was added later), his writings were originally one flowing document that connected one thought to the next - and it's easy to take what He said in I Corinthians 11 and divorce it from what he noted later on when pointing out the centrality of Christ in the final chapters of I Corinthians. I Corinthians, Chapter 15 is devoted to the Apostle Paul's persuasive argument in favor of Jesus' triumph over death: "Now if Christ be preached that He rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain: and your faith is also vain" (I Corinthians 15:12-14). In addition to this passage, verses 19 through 21 of the same chapter bring more clarification: "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead."
But after the first generations of Reformers passed on, the later generation rose up - and the later generation did not view Eucharist favorably - and from there came evolution of what we see in the MAJORITY of the Protestant world today when it comes to thinking of Eucharist as a negative/disconnected from the Bible. More of this was discussed elsewhere (
here,
here,
here and
here).
Seems to me her interlocutors need to take another good, hard look at those Scripture references she provided
These are some of the other things that've been shared with the individual:
The early church settled this issue at the first council, Acts 15. No blood drinking...there is no way, not even considered as a thought that they taught they were drinking the "real literal blood" of Jesus, since they are clear, stay away from blood and the apostles do not offer any discussion on the "blood of Jesus" permitted at communion. Only a few of the OT laws restated clearly and it is in reference to blood. Why? Because the apostles taught, to drink the "fruit of the vine" as Jesus called it, in "remembrance" of Him, there is no way they believed anyone was blood drinking........Again, Scripture makes it very clear, there were no blood drinking ceremonies in the early church.....Acts 15: 22 Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them to send to Antioch with Paul and BarnabasJudas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brethren, 23 and they sent this letter by them,
How would you address some of the arguments? I was curious, as I have already responded recently - but I was wondering what your approach would be.
In fact, I went through every quote you originally posted and responded point-by-point. If you're interested, shoot me a PM.
