Theistic Evolution vs. the Real Presence

[Martyrs44]

I think that is a quote from Ignatius, but I was referring to this quote:

Oh, I see! So the people who heard Jesus preach that day (John 6) actually did eat his flesh off of his bones and they actually did practice vampirism by drinking his literal blood right out of his veins. Right?

Never mind the fact that the church was told that blood drinking was forbidden. Acts 15:20.

BUT YOU NEVER ANSWERED MY QUESTION: Did they really eat Jesus?

So John 3:16 is not enough and believing in Christ by simple faith is not enough...even though He said it was. Hmm.

1. You did not site your source.
2. I strongly suspect that the Catholic church fabricated that quote because the Lord's Supper is never called 'eucharist' in scripture and if Ignatius was truly a disciple of John then he didn't get that corrupt idea from him.
3. Even if the quote were truly historical and Ignatius said it, the truth is that scripture, God's Word is the final arbiter of eternal truth.
4. You deliberately ignored what Jesus said,

"...it is the spirit that quickeneth(*makes alive), the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." John 6:63

It is trust in Jesus Christ (the Word) that saves a soul and not that horrible abomination you call 'the eucharist'. Christians can only truly partake of Christ's broken body and shed blood by believing on Him by faith and remembering Him at the Lord's supper.

I've said my last here on this issue.

 

[Standing_Ultraviolet]

Oh, I see! So the people who heard Jesus preach that day (John 6) actually did eat his flesh off of his bones and they actually did practice vampirism by drinking his literal blood right out of his veins. Right?

People were deeply disturbed by what Jesus said, and He did absolutely nothing to correct their literal interpretation of His words. All of His disciples stated that it was "a hard teaching". After some of them left, He asked His apostles why they chose to stay, and their response was to say that He was the Messiah, and that He had the words of eternal life. They didn't suggest that they believed what He said was a metaphor, and it's clear they didn't. Afterward, He did nothing to correct them.

Never mind the fact that the church was told that blood drinking was forbidden. Acts 15:20.

This was not a universal, eternal requirement. At the same council, the Christians were forbidden from eating food sacrificed to idols, and St. Paul later described eating such food as acceptable, given that it wasn't harmful to others in any way. The prohibition on eating blood was probably to ease transition for Jews into the early Christian Church.

1. You did not site your source.

It's in the Epistle to Smyrnaeans, in chapter 6.

2. I strongly suspect that the Catholic church fabricated that quote because the Lord's Supper is never called 'eucharist' in scripture and if Ignatius was truly a disciple of John then he didn't get that corrupt idea from him.

There is no reason to suspect that the quote was fabricated, other than theological disagreement. Given the fact that the Early Church Fathers were unanimous in their statements regarding the Eucharist, there's no reason to suspect that Ignatius of Antioch would have been the lone exception to the rule. Justin Martyr said, 40 years later in his First Apology (from apologetics):

Not as common bread or common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nourished, . . . is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus.

No similarly early reference from a Trinitarian group suggests that the Eucharist is not the body and blood of Christ.

Historically, the Eucharist has been almost entirely an unquestioned doctrine. The people whom Ignatius of Antioch was writing to believed that Jesus did not actually possess a body, which was their reason for rejecting the Eucharist (since they believed that it couldn't possibly the "nonexistent" body of Christ). Outside of schools of thought like that, along with a handful of other groups that you and I would probably both agree were heretics, acceptance of the Eucharistic doctrine was widespread.

Also, Eucharist is a Koine Greek word literally meaning something along the lines of "good gift". For St. Ignatius of Antioch to have used it to describe the gift of Christ isn't unusual, even if the term wasn't yet the only word used to describe communion. The Didache (an even earlier text, possibly dating to the late first century) also refers to the communion host and wine as the Eucharist. It's similar to St. Ignatius' choice of the word "catholic" for the Church. While the term developed into a name, to draw contrast against groups like the Gnostics, at the time it just meant "universal" (hence the small "c" in the last sentence).

3. Even if the quote were truly historical and Ignatius said it, the truth is that scripture, God's Word is the final arbiter of eternal truth.

I gave Scriptural examples that suggest that receiving the Eucharist without being properly disposed is a sin against the body and blood of Christ. St. Paul explicitly said that. Considering that, along with the fact that the symbolic view of the Eucharist is entirely absent in the writings of the early Church (with only groups we would both agree were heretical holding opposing views), there is an extreme burden of proof for any counterargument.

4. You deliberately ignored what Jesus said,

"...it is the spirit that quickeneth(*makes alive), the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." John 6:63

When Jesus refers to the words He had just spoken, He is referring to the "hard teaching" that He is implicitly accepting is hard. By saying that the flesh profits nothing, Jesus is saying that thinking carnally and refusing to accept a hard teaching does not give life.

I've said my last here on this issue.

I hope that the strength of the Biblical and historical witness to the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist will convince you of its truth, if not now, then in the future.

 

[Knee V]

If the Eucharist is cannibalism and vampirism, then belief in the Trinity is tritheism. Neither of those is true.

 

[SQLservant]

If the Eucharist is cannibalism and vampirism, then belief in the Trinity is tritheism. Neither of those is true.

I remember PaladinValer in another thread proudly declaring "I shall be a cannibal and a vampire all my life" in response to that very accusation... I always thought that would make a great bumper sticker, myself.

 

[Martyrs44]

People were deeply disturbed by what Jesus said, and He did absolutely nothing to correct their literal interpretation of His words.

That is not the truth.

He did correct their thinking: "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. John 6:63

Proof: the people there that day DID NOT eat Jesus flesh right off his bones nor did they drink His literal blood out of His veins.

Had they done that He would have died years before He was to die on the cross...and a long time before He instituted the Lord's Supper.

To partake of Christ's body and blood is to believe His words by faith. That bread and that blood He spoke of were spiritual and symbolical, nothing more. There isn't any other way to heaven but by faith in Jesus Christ.

8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
Eph. 2:8-9

 

[SQLservant]

the flesh profiteth nothing

I've always wondered this, but for people who cling onto this clause, what was the purpose of Christ's death? If the flesh profiteth nothing, then why go through the Crucifixion and so on?

 

[Martyrs44]

I've always wondered this, but for people who cling onto this clause, what was the purpose of Christ's death? If the flesh profiteth nothing, then why go through the Crucifixion and so on?

You did...not...answer...the question.

Did they or did they NOT eat Jesus the day He preached that sermon?

Yes/no?

 

[Martyrs44]

But not avoiding your question, the answer is given in scripture:

1Pe 3:18 ¶ For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:

Christ came in the flesh and died in the flesh that He might conquer death and provide salvation for us in the spirit. When a Christian dies his body goes to the grace but his spirit goes to heaven.

2Co 5:6 Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:
2Co 5:8 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

 

[Skarl]

You did...not...answer...the question.

Did they or did they NOT eat Jesus the day He preached that sermon?

Yes/no?

You didn't even ask a question in the post e responded to...

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[SQLservant]

But not avoiding your question, the answer is given in scripture:

1Pe 3:18 ¶ For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:

Christ came in the flesh and died in the flesh that He might conquer death and provide salvation for us in the spirit. When a Christian dies his body goes to the grace but his spirit goes to heaven.

2Co 5:6 Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:
2Co 5:8 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

But if His flesh profits nothing, what does the death of that flesh profit? How do those verses square up with your previous one? Does "nothing" actually mean "nothing," or does it mean something else?

 

[SQLservant]

You did...not...answer...the question.

Did they or did they NOT eat Jesus the day He preached that sermon?

Yes/no?

And not to avoid your question...

They did not, but that is beside the point. You would agree that they understood Him, for better or for worse, to be speaking literally, correct? That's why they were scandalized about it and walked away. The question is whether or not they were right in the way they understood it.

 

[Martyrs44]

And not to avoid your question...

They did not, but that is beside the point.(???) You would agree that they understood Him, for better or for worse, to be speaking literally, correct? That's why they were scandalized about it and walked away. The question is whether or not they were right in the way they understood it.

"The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

They obviously had at least more common sense understanding than do modern Roman Catholics who believe they MUST eat the flesh of Jesus and drink His literal blood. Not even his true followers (the 12 disciples) ever ate his literal flesh and blood...on that day or any other day.

But you started with 'They did not...'

So I rest my case.

 

[Martyrs44]

But if His flesh profits nothing, what does the death of that flesh profit? How do those verses square up with your previous one? Does "nothing" actually mean "nothing," or does it mean something else?

Those scriptures answered your question quite succinctly. It was conquering the flesh....not partaking of it...that accomplished our salvation. Had His eternal Spirit not ascended to heaven after his flesh was put to death then the dying in the flesh would have done nothing.

 

[Martyrs44]

You didn't even ask a question in the post e responded to...

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You obviously haven't read the whole thread. I have posed that question more than once.

Example:

BUT YOU NEVER ANSWERED MY QUESTION: Did they really eat Jesus?

 

[SQLservant]

You obviously haven't read the whole thread. I have posed that question more than once.

Example:

BUT YOU NEVER ANSWERED MY QUESTION: Did they really eat Jesus?

That's the third time you posted that picture. What are you trying to do with it? Enrage us into submission? Are you just trolling? That sort of behavior shows that you either misunderstand the Real Presence completely, or that your idea of apologetics is "blaspheme until they see how stupid their sacred cow is."

We have answered your question several times. They did not "eat Jesus" in the way that you insist they must have (who are "they", anyway? The Apostles? The larger crowd whom you seem to identify with?), but their response, their failure to run up and take a chunk out of His arm, does not mean that they understood Him wrong. No, they were striving among themselves because they understood His words literally, and their response was exactly like yours.

Did the faithful followers "eat Jesus" at another time? Yes, when He gave them the proper (and lawful) means to do so at the Last Supper, when He said "take this, all of you, and eat it; this is My Body." The Apostles were there when He said "unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man..." and they would have remembered the confusion of it all. They understood Him right then, and at the Supper it was revealed how they were supposed to do what He said.


Also, how did we get to yet another Real Presence fight from a discussion of how the Institution narratives are different from the Creation narratives? If you believe that they are not different, why not just say so and explain why, rather than use it as an opportunity to launch into a Jack Chick tirade on the evils of "Catholicism?"