Communion, what does it mean? What is the bread and the wine?

Neogaia777

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Communion, what does it mean? What does the bread and the wine symbolize?

I know what some of you are going to say: "The bread is the Lords body, The wine is the Blood of the new covenant... But, what does that mean, what does, or is the Lords body symbolize or represent or mean? What does, what is the blood and what does it mean or symbolize?

I want to understand this as I do not take communion yet, but want to, but not before I know what it means?


The Blood of the new covenant...

The New Covenant (that the blood and wine symbolize) is a/the promise that God makes with humanity that He will forgive sin (Does this mean no consequences for it? Do we have to confess/repent/turn away from/change our mind, about our sin) and restore fellowship (relationship, communication) with those whose hearts are turned toward Him. (who "Love", who's hearts love him and their fellow man, who have the "Love of God" in them) (Do we have to confess/repent/turn away from/change our mind, about our sin?)

But this is the new covenant (promise) I will make with the people of Israel on that day,’ says the Lord. ‘I will put my law in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. (The law of Love? Godly Love in our minds and hearts?) )I will be their God, and they will be my people’” (Jeremiah 31:31, 33).

Ezekiel 36:26–27, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” (by Godly Love perhaps) Ezekiel lists several aspects of the New Covenant here: a new heart, a new spirit, the indwelling Holy Spirit, and true holiness...

So, does the blood symbolize or mean the new covenant, new agreement, new "promise" (in bold above) between God and man, written in blood, so to speak, or a "blood oath"?


What about the Body, his body, the bread, which Jesus says is the "true bread" that comes down from Heaven and gives life to all men who feed on it...?

Is it the "Word" or "Word(s) of God", possibly his (Jesus, God's) "teaching" in it's entirety, the whole of it from beginning to end? (Spiritual food, for the Spirit) Jesus when he performed the miracle of multiplying the bread and fishes (food)(physical food, for the physical body) said to his disciples/apostles when they asked about it... "Do you not yet understand, do you not yet get the meaning of it...?"

Then he said "Watch out, for the leaven of the Pharisee's..." Then it says that they understood that it was not about the leaven of the loaves but to watch out! for the "teaching" (that act's like leaven/yeast in bread, it "puffs up" people) (makes people overly proud, arrogant, haughty, on a high horse, judgmental, condemning of others, makes them think themselves better than others, ect. ect. so on and so forth...) anyways, to "watch out!" carefully for that, the teaching/doctrine of the Pharisee's, and many do this using his own words and teachings...

But, you, when you read his Word(s) do not get "puffed-up" like them, but be level headed and even keel, and by this discern the truth, which is why the bread that symbolizes his body is "unleavened" bread, right?

And does partaking of the bread and wine, mean that you ingest and "believe in" the new covenant promise/agreement between you and God and ingest and "believe in" his "Word" or teachings in it...?

Am I beginning to understand this at all?

Comments?

God Bless!
 

Albion

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As you know, there are at least a half-dozen different ways that the Communion is understood by different church bodies. My honest conclusion is that if you are about to join a church (which you did not identify for us), you would do best to let that church and its ministers instruct you in its view of the matter.
 
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Neogaia777

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As you know, there are at least a half-dozen different ways that the Communion is understood by different church bodies. My honest conclusion is that if you are about to join a church (which you did not identify for us), you would do best to let that church and its ministers instruct you in its view of the matter.
"Why" are there so many different views? Can you tell me a few examples of what a few of them think about it, if you know them please, if you don't mind...

Much thanks if you can...

God Bless!
 
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Albion

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Roman Catholic: The bread and wine ("the elements") literally change over into flesh and blood (although still looking and tasting like bread and wine). This is accomplished when the priest, standing in the place of Christ at the altar, quotes the words Jesus said at the Last Supper.
Orthodox: The bread and wine become Christ's very flesh and blood but there isn't an explanation of how the 'mechanics' of the change work.
Lutheran: The bread and wine take on Christ's real, literal, flesh and blood but the bread and wine remain, too.
Anglican: The b & w become Christ's body and blood (as everyone above believes), but in a heavenly and/or spiritual sense only.
Reformed, Presbyterian: The b & w take on the real presence of Christ in the sense that we are spiritually lifted to heaven at Communion time to be mystically united with him as he sits on the right hand of the Father to which he ascended after the Resurrection.
Anabaptist, Baptistic, and most non-denominational and fundamentalist churches: The bread and wine symbolize Christ's body and blood and our reception of them memorializes his crucifixion, but there is no change in the elements, either physically or spiritually.

And there are others, too, but this is a quick (and simplified) rundown on the bigger and older churches.
 
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SkyWriting

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SkyWriting

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Your kidding me, right? Is this a joke? Sure seems like it... Most of these people are cannibals...

Thanks for answering me, much thanks, it's appreciated...

God Bless!

No, that is the correct rundown of the churches.
When the church says that the bread and wine is actually Jesus
they are making the point that the bread and the wine are
more than weak symbols.
 
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Neogaia777

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No, that is the correct rundown of the churches.
When the church says that the bread and wine is actually Jesus
they are making the point that the bread and the wine are
more than weak symbols.
Certainly "God's literal body" is not flesh though, right? Isn't God's body, spirit, or the Word, or something like that?

And, God's literal blood, is not like man's blood, right?

But is something else, perhaps the Blood, is God's "soul" since man's soul, which I would maybe call the "thoughts and intention(s) of the heart" is contained in his blood, and perhaps, as it pertains to God, that they/it is always good, perhaps? And, maybe God's soul is his "word", or his voice and what they/it are saying/trying to convey to us, perhaps? And, maybe his body, is his "spirit", perhaps?

I don't know, but I'd like to,

God Bless!
 
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thecolorsblend

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No, that is the correct rundown of the churches.
When the church says that the bread and wine is actually Jesus
they are making the point that the bread and the wine are
more than weak symbols.
Commemoration is a completely defensible doctrine. After all, the ancient Israelites killed the Passover lamb and then ate bread tablets and drank grape juice to commemorate the sacrifice and the Protestant definition of communion obviously fulfills that.
 
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Albion

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Certainly "God's literal body" is not flesh though, right?
Yes, that is indeed the belief with the churches indicated in my rundown (post #4).

And, God's literal blood, is not like man's blood, right?
Just like it.
 
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Neogaia777

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Yes, that is indeed the belief with the churches indicated in my rundown (post #4).

Yes, God's literal, real, actual body of a God is literally flesh, like a man's flesh, or not? Or, yes, that is what the churches believe? What is your belief...?, If you do not mind telling me...?

Just like it.

Yes, God's literal, real, actual blood of a God is just like man's blood...? Or it is not?

Thanks for replying,

God Bless!
 
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Albion

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Yes, God's literal, real, actual body of a God is literally flesh, like a man's flesh, or not? Or, yes, that is what the churches believe?
Yes, that is what the churches I indicated actually do believe (Catholic, Orthodox, and Lutheran).

What is your belief...?, If you do not mind telling me...?
As you can see, I'm an Anglican. The official Anglican position was described in that same post (#4).

Yes, God's literal, real, actual blood of a God is just like man's blood...? Or it is not?
In the belief system of the three church bodies named in the first paragraph above, it's yes.
 
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Neogaia777

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Yes, that is what the churches I indicated actually do believe (Catholic, Orthodox, and Lutheran).


As you can see, I'm an Anglican. The official Anglican position was described in that same post (#4).


In the belief system of the three church bodies named in the first paragraph above, it's yes.
Thanks for answering,

If I could please ask you one more thing, your beliefs on this subject are Angelican, correct?

Which is, from post#4: Anglican: The b & w become Christ's body and blood (as everyone above believes), but in a heavenly and/or spiritual sense only.

Can I ask you, "How do the bread and wine become Christ's body and blood in a "heavenly or spiritual sense?" What does them (the b & w) becoming the body and blood in a "heavenly or spiritual sense" mean? Doesn't in a "heavenly and spiritual sense" mean what is not "literal" in an earthly sense, or at least that what is "literal" in the earthly sense, is actually "symbolic" of what is "literal" in a heavenly or spiritual sense? And, what do you think this is?

Much thanks if you can answer,

God Bless!
 
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you have touched a sensitive nerve there.

the way different sects describes their view of communion describes their level of self-imposed delusion. zero= symbolic, 10= actually becomes body and bloody.​

Communion, what does it mean? What does the bread and the wine symbolize?

I know what some of you are going to say: "The bread is the Lords body, The wine is the Blood of the new covenant... But, what does that mean, what does, or is the Lords body symbolize or represent or mean? What does, what is the blood and what does it mean or symbolize?

I want to understand this as I do not take communion yet, but want to, but not before I know what it means?


The Blood of the new covenant...

The New Covenant (that the blood and wine symbolize) is a/the promise that God makes with humanity that He will forgive sin (Does this mean no consequences for it? Do we have to confess/repent/turn away from/change our mind, about our sin) and restore fellowship (relationship, communication) with those whose hearts are turned toward Him. (who "Love", who's hearts love him and their fellow man, who have the "Love of God" in them) (Do we have to confess/repent/turn away from/change our mind, about our sin?)

But this is the new covenant (promise) I will make with the people of Israel on that day,’ says the Lord. ‘I will put my law in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. (The law of Love? Godly Love in our minds and hearts?) )I will be their God, and they will be my people’” (Jeremiah 31:31, 33).

Ezekiel 36:26–27, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” (by Godly Love perhaps) Ezekiel lists several aspects of the New Covenant here: a new heart, a new spirit, the indwelling Holy Spirit, and true holiness...

So, does the blood symbolize or mean the new covenant, new agreement, new "promise" (in bold above) between God and man, written in blood, so to speak, or a "blood oath"?


What about the Body, his body, the bread, which Jesus says is the "true bread" that comes down from Heaven and gives life to all men who feed on it...?

Is it the "Word" or "Word(s) of God", possibly his (Jesus, God's) "teaching" in it's entirety, the whole of it from beginning to end? (Spiritual food, for the Spirit) Jesus when he performed the miracle of multiplying the bread and fishes (food)(physical food, for the physical body) said to his disciples/apostles when they asked about it... "Do you not yet understand, do you not yet get the meaning of it...?"

Then he said "Watch out, for the leaven of the Pharisee's..." Then it says that they understood that it was not about the leaven of the loaves but to watch out! for the "teaching" (that act's like leaven/yeast in bread, it "puffs up" people) (makes people overly proud, arrogant, haughty, on a high horse, judgmental, condemning of others, makes them think themselves better than others, ect. ect. so on and so forth...) anyways, to "watch out!" carefully for that, the teaching/doctrine of the Pharisee's, and many do this using his own words and teachings...

But, you, when you read his Word(s) do not get "puffed-up" like them, but be level headed and even keel, and by this discern the truth, which is why the bread that symbolizes his body is "unleavened" bread, right?

And does partaking of the bread and wine, mean that you ingest and "believe in" the new covenant promise/agreement between you and God and ingest and "believe in" his "Word" or teachings in it...?

Am I beginning to understand this at all?

Comments?

God Bless!
 
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Neogaia777

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you have touched a sensitive nerve there.

the way different sects describes their view of communion describes their level of self-imposed delusion. zero= symbolic, 10= actually becomes body and bloody.​
I didn't mean to do that... I only wish to fully understand it, to know the truth of it... Sorry if I stepped on someones (peoples, perhaps everyones) sensibilities, that was not my intention...

Sorry, everybody...

God Bless!
 
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SkyWriting

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Certainly "God's literal body" is not flesh though, right? Isn't God's body, spirit, or the Word, or something like that?

And, God's literal blood, is not like man's blood, right?

But is something else, perhaps the Blood, is God's "soul" since man's soul, which I would maybe call the "thoughts and intention(s) of the heart" is contained in his blood, and perhaps, as it pertains to God, that they/it is always good, perhaps? And, maybe God's soul is his "word", or his voice and what they/it are saying/trying to convey to us, perhaps? And, maybe his body, is his "spirit", perhaps?

I don't know, but I'd like to,

God Bless!


Jesus bridged the gap, so if Jesus says "This is my body", well...He would know and we wouldn't.
 
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Neogaia777

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Jesus bridged the gap, so if Jesus says "This is my body", well...He would know and we wouldn't.
Did he mean it (the bread) was his spirit body, or physical body, I don't know if he specified, or maybe he did, "somewhere" in what he said...

God Bless!
 
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Albion

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Can I ask you, "How do the bread and wine become Christ's body and blood in a "heavenly or spiritual sense?" What does them (the b & w) becoming the body and blood in a "heavenly or spiritual sense" mean? Doesn't in a "heavenly and spiritual sense" mean what is not "literal" in an earthly sense
That's right.

or at least that what is "literal" in the earthly sense, is actually "symbolic" of what is "literal" in a heavenly or spiritual sense?
No. Not merely symbolic or representational.

We take the Scriptural evidence to heart, which is to say that it IS Christ's body and blood in some sense. We see no reason to believe the Medieval Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation, however. "Real" does not necessarily mean literal or carnal, and we believe all sorts of things that are incorporeal or non-physical to be real--the soul, angels, etc.

So also can Christ become really present in the Communion elements but them remain physically bread and wine.
 
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You have to do it in Passover, to even begin appreciating it. My quest started with noting that the Catholics and Protestants disagree on what the body of Christ is, yet both are sick in equal numbers. I Cor. 11:29 tells us that if we do not acknowledge the body of the Lord correctly, we will become sick. The only possible conclusion is that both are wrong.

Here is my answer after all the research and experience: We are the loaf of bread served to a hungry world (as the Didache teaches). We are gathered from many hillsides, winnowed in the wind of the Spirit blowing across a void of the emptiness of God in the world around us, ground together, risen with the leaven of the Holy Spirit, united, kneaded together by the hand of God, broken and available to those needing true spiritual food. We drink the wine of joy, and the blood of Jesus shed from the cross flows through us. Again, like grapes, gathered from many vineyards in many seasons, at different levels of maturation, trod under for the sake of the gospel, mixed together and allowed to mature and to ripen together to wisdom. The cup and the bread are symbols of who and what Jesus in us is making us to be in the days to come after we leave our church celebration. And by eating together, we agree to be part of His plan.

So each new communion celebration is our promise to be part of this wonderful meal that Jesus is serving. The third cup of Passover repeated, each time is a new beginning of new discovery of tHis truth of our today (the afikomen, the middle bread of the stack -of the present- hidden before the meal for later dessert), the cup of redemption as God brings us from another piece of slavery in a spiritual Egypt into a new desert, so we may reach a new promised land, where we may build houses for Him instead of for Egyptian slave-masters. The meal changes our past into our future by celebrating Jesus in us in the present. When Jesus says "this is my body", he uses the wrong Greek form of "this". If He meant the bread, He would have used masculine, or feminine for the cup. Instead He uses the neuter pronoun, referring to the act of celebrating itself.
 
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You have to do it in Passover, to even begin appreciating it. My quest started with noting that the Catholics and Protestants disagree on what the body of Christ is, yet both are sick in equal numbers. I Cor. 11:29 tells us that if we do not acknowledge the body of the Lord correctly, we will become sick. The only possible conclusion is that both are wrong.
I believe that the scripture you're alluding to also says;

1CO 11:29 For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. 30 That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.

And last time I looked, I see 'death' having a 100% tally on both sides of the Catholic/Protestant division aisle. That leads me to assume another 'possible conclusion'? ;) Are you saying that you, or your family, or your church never get sick and no one has died? I'm just curious as to how far your conclusions go based on that verse?

As for my own studies, I have been led to another understanding concerning the OT Passover connection so prevalent in the church today. To begin with, the word for 'bread' at the last supper or NT Passover wasn't unleavened bread, but leavened.

MAT 26:26 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread/artos, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body.
Strongs #0740 artos: bread (as raised) or a loaf

The apostles didn't believe they were celebrating Passover.

JOH 13:1 Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world...

After Jesus himself makes this statement above, the fact is further substantiated by the apostles themselves a few verses later.


JOH 13:29 Some thought that, because Judas had the money box, Jesus was telling him, "Buy what we need for the feast";


The "feast" they were thinking about celebrating, not knowing Jesus would be dead by then, was the OT Passover. Which, I assume they'd celebrated the last couple of years with Jesus.

When Jesus says "this is my body", he uses the wrong Greek form of "this". If He meant the bread, He would have used masculine, or feminine for the cup. Instead He uses the neuter pronoun, referring to the act of celebrating itself.
I've heard before how in the Greek the article, pronoun, and adjective have to be in agreement with the gender of the noun,. And I've come to the same conclusion you note above. That it is the 'act of celebrating' communion together, symbolic of the whole loaf which 'we' are and which Jesus is 'the head' of, that is so symbolically significant. And it is 'the cup' we bless which is the correct 'gender', not the wine.

1CO 10:16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?

Indeed, the rebuke of the Corinthians communion practices by Paul, was based upon this same principle...some eating everything and drinking the communion wine, (til they were drunk), before everyone (the body of Christ) had even showed up. Some of which got nothing.
 
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