The Myth of Scriptural Literalism

[ViaCrucis]

In Heaven, where Jesus took it and placed it on the Heavenly altar.

That's why He told Mary not to touch Him.

John 20:17 Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.

He hadn't taken His precious blood to Heaven yet.

Later, after coming back, His disciples even held His feet.

Matthew 28:9 And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him.

And where can you drink His blood and eat His flesh? He tells you where. Do you believe Him?

He took bread and said "This is My body" and He took wine and said "This is My blood".

You trying to explain it away as a "metaphor" isn't going to change the words He spoke. He said what He said, and meant what He said. You have the choice to believe Him or not.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Jipsah]

Jipsah, I noticed you agreed with this post.

Is it because you once were, but left those denominations for some reason?

I know I'm asking you a lot of questions that, frankly, aren't any of my business; but you intrigue me.

What is it that you found dissatisfying with:

1. Roman Catholicism

Jipsah, I noticed you agreed with this post.

Is it because you once were, but left those denominations for some reason?

I know I'm asking you a lot of questions that, frankly, aren't any of my business; but you intrigue me.

What is it that you found dissatisfying with:

1. Roman Catholicism
2. Lutheranism
3. Baptists

And what made you settle in as an Anglican?

 

[Jipsah]

Is it because you once were, but left those denominations for some reason?

No, it's because we're in essential agreement on most things, including, most importantly, the Real Presence in the Eucharist.

I attend a Lutheran (Danish state church) with my daughter's family when I'm in Denmark, and I'm allowed to take communion there. I also occasionally attend RCC and Coptic churches with friends here in middle Tennessee. Since church is so central to so many Korean Americans, I also end up in different ones of them a few times a year, usually the Baptists, Methodists, or Presbyterians.

The Korean dynamic is important there. Koreans are often less concerned with denominational labels than most Americans. The order of worship in most Korean Protestant churches is Presbyterian, because that's considered normal. Most Korean churches use the same hymnal. The Catholics don't visit other churches much for obvious reasons, but the Episcopalians do. The fringies like the SDAs and JWs pretty much do their own things.

One of the net effects of that is that Korean Protestants tend to "church hop", which is apparently so frowned upon in American Protestantism, because they don't attach nearly as much importance to denominational labels. They do, however, tend to stay in Korean churches, because, as I mentioned, church tends to be the center of Korean-American social life.

What is it that you found dissatisfying with:

1. Roman Catholicism
2. Lutheranism
3. Baptists

RCC - My problems are with Papal Infallibility, and the Immaculate Conception and the Assumpion of the Blessed Virgin as dogma.

Lutheranism - I don't have any serious disagreements with the Lutherans at all.

Baptists - The sole of purpose of the church seems to be not going to hell. You're there to be saved. Once you're saved, nothing else is necessary, you're going to Heaven, end of.

And what made you settle in as an Anglican?

The liturgy, the prayers, the sense of awe at the majesty of God, the overall fell of "This is Important, this is Real, this is What We're About, this is Transcendent." It's above and beyond our mundane lives, not simply an adjunct.

 

[Jipsah]

That would also then, include your stated religion with its religious traditions passed on for Generations, Yes?

Said so, didn't I?

So then you and Bob are the same

In that respect, yeah, to some extent. But Bob is a lot readier to completely ignore verses of Scripture that poke holes in SDA dogma, and he'll "really means" any he can't simply ignore as though the Scripture was written that way. My personal aversion to the "really means" device keeps me from making as free with it as most, or at least I like to think so.

The only difference between you, is the religious sect you adopted.

I like to think that I'm less likely to abandon intellectual honesty in defence of a dubious doctrine.

Wasn't Abraham also born in a land in which religions existed? And Jesus too? And Zacharias, Simeon, the Wise men, Peter, etc.? It seems they were called out of this world's religions. Is it different today?

Your point being? If you're trying to make a case for universalism you've come to the wrong shop.

I don't think God needs me to join a religious business to know Him, or keep His Commandments, or to, as Paul teaches, "Yield myself" servants to obey Him.

Is this one one of these "go out and commune with nature" deals? If so, hey, you gotta do what seems best to you.

 

[rturner76]

Genesis 37:9 And [Joseph] dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me.

Acts 11:5 I was in the city of Joppa praying: and in a trance I saw a vision, A certain vessel descend, as it had been a great sheet, let down from heaven by four corners; and it came even to me:

How are we to discern weather these dreams should be taken literally as prophesy or if they are the imagining of what could be any dreamer?

 

[Studyman]

Said so, didn't I?

In that respect, yeah, to some extent. But Bob is a lot readier to completely ignore verses of Scripture that poke holes in SDA dogma, and he'll "really means" any he can't simply ignore as though the Scripture was written that way. My personal aversion to the "really means" device keeps me from making as free with it as most, or at least I like to think so.

I certainly get that, there is a lot of "Ya but it doesn't really mean that" going on in the various religious sects and franchises of this world God placed me in. But doesn't there have to be "Some" of "this is what it really means" to come to grips with, given it is written that God speaks to us sometimes in parables? I mean, do you really drink the Blood of Jesus? I was just thinking of Paul in 1 Cor. 9.

9 For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? 10 Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope.

Anyway, thanks for the reply.

I like to think that I'm less likely to abandon intellectual honesty in defence of a dubious doctrine.

Your point being? If you're trying to make a case for universalism you've come to the wrong shop.

Not even sure what the label you posted means, and don't really care I guess. I was just making an observation regarding a common thread throughout the Faithful in the Bible, regarding repentance and change.

Is this one one of these "go out and commune with nature" deals? If so, hey, you gotta do what seems best to you.

No, Lol. I was simply pointing out another observation regarding the difference between what the scriptures teach, and popular religious traditions of men.

 

[Jipsah]

I mean, do you really drink the Blood of Jesus?

Yes.

 

[ViaCrucis]

I mean, do you really drink the Blood of Jesus?

Not addressed to me, but I absolutely do drink the Lord's blood. The very true and real blood of Christ "in, with, and under" the wine as the Lutheran Confessions phrase it.

That's what the Bible says. That's what the Christian Church has always believed.

"Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?" - 1 Corinthians 10:16

"But consider the heterodox with respect to the grace of Christ which has come unto us, how opposed they are to the will of God. They have no regard for love; no care for the widow, or the orphan, or the oppressed; of the slave or of the free; of the hungry, or of the thirsty. They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again." - St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans, 6-7

"And this food is called among us Eucharist, of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Savior, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise we have been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation is nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh." - St. Justin Martyr, First Apology, 66

"To communicate each day and to partake of the holy Body and Blood of Christ is good and beneficial; for He says quite plainly: 'He that eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood has eternal life.' Who can doubt that to share continually in life is the same thing as living abundantly? We ourselves communicate four times each week: on the Lord's Day, Wednesday, Friday, and the Sabbath, and on other days if there is a commemoration of any saint." - St. Basil the Great, Epistle 93, To the Patrician Caesaria

"When the Lord says: 'Unless you shall have eaten the flesh of the Son of Man and shall have drunk His blood, you shall not have life in you,' you ought to so communicate at the Sacred Table that you have no doubt whatever of the truth of the Body and Blood of Christ. For that which is taken in the mouth is what is believed in faith, and it is vain for them to respond 'Amen' who dispute that which is taken." - St. Leo the Great, Homily 91.3

"What is the Sacrament of the Altar?

-Answer: It is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, under the bread and wine, for us Christians to eat and to drink, instituted by Christ Himself." - Martin Luther, Small Catechism, On the Sacrament of the Altar

This is merely a tiny sampling of examples, offered here only to demonstrate that from Paul to Luther there is an unbroken common faith in the real body and real blood of Jesus Christ in the Lord's Supper.

Even John Calvin accepted a kind of presence of the Lord in the Supper, though he did deviate from the biblical teaching on this. It isn't until Ulrich Zwingli that things go completely off the rails, and now there are millions of Christians who don't even know what they're missing.

For here, in these simple gifts of bread and wine, is Jesus Christ our Lord Himself.

CryptoLutheran

 

[The Liturgist]

Beautiful posts @Jipsah and @ViaCrucis. I love your contributions to the forum and admire you both greatly.

 

[Jipsah]

Beautiful posts @Jipsah and @ViaCrucis. I love your contributions to the forum and admire you both greatly.

Right back atcha, brother. I wish I had a 10th of the knowledge you have.

 

[The Liturgist]

Right back atcha, brother. I wish I had a 10th of the knowledge you have.

And likewise. The more one knows, the more one is humbled by the knowledge of others.

When it comes to theological matters, I wish my Greek and Syriac were better, so that I could efficiently translate liturgical texts into English, and I wish I knew Classical Armenian, Sahidic Coptic and Bohairic Coptic, and the ancient Ethiopian language of Ge’ez, once more for the purpose of liturgical translation (thankfully the entire Byzantine and Coptic Rite liturgy, in their present form, has been translated, but of the Armenian, the propers, divine office and Directory, analogous to the Typikon, have not, nor have the 12 anaphorae they used to use before these fell out of use around the same time their liturgy experienced strong Byzantine and then Latin influence, and in the case of the various East and West Syriac rites and especially the Ethiopic Rite, huge amounts of the liturgy in current use are untranslated and only exist in Classical Syriac or Ge’ez respectively). Now with the Syriac material and the Greek material I am not completely out of luck, but it is slow and arduous and reading Estrangela Syriac script is exhausting given the lack of vowels and punctuation, although it does look awesome as ancient writing systems go, probably the coolest looking Semitic text.