ViaCrucis
Confessional Lutheran
- Oct 2, 2011
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I like your description of what the Eucharist means. But surely the Bible is often speaking in very symbolic/metaphoric/poetic/mythic language?
For example, I don't think Genesis necessarily mean that that World was created in 6 literal days. I think the author wrote in a poetic language. And Jesus clearly didn't mean he was a door, or a tree and we the branches in a literal sense. But in a metaphorical sense it is true spiritually and therefore real. Jesus really is the door, the way and life in which we enter. And I just interpret John 6 the same way, because it just seem like all the rest of his spiritual teachings. It just seem absurd to me, that one has to believe that we eat Jesus. As you say not in a literal sense, in that it's his bloody flesh or his ear. But you still say it's his flesh, so in that way I can't see how you escape interpreting it in a literal sense? Something's in the Bible are mysteries, and perhaps I should leave it at that.
So when Jesus is saying He is a door. Do you take it at same face value as the bread you eat is Jesus?
It seem natural to me, that when He said this is my flesh, in the context of those thousand hungry people, and His reference to the Mana God gave in the dessert, He is saying that the bread He gives will never make you hunger again like real food. His Word, Faith in Him, His sacrifice on the cross (his flesh and blood) is what He is trying to communicate to the people, and us.
Again, I'm still trying to learn so I will think about what you said above.
- Mathias
I agree with you, Scripture employs a lot of different kinds of language, including mythological language.
When it comes to statements like, "I am the door" or "I am the true vine", these are similes, Jesus compares Himself to a door, to a vine, etc.
This is also true when Jesus calls Himself the bread and water of life.
But at the Last Supper Jesus took bread, broke it and didn't say, "I am the bread broken for you", He takes that bread and says, "This is My body".
Jesus never took a door and said, "This [door] is Me", He didn't point to a vine and say "This [vine] is Me". But He did take bread and say "This is My body" and He took wine and said, "This is My blood".
That's the difference. And it's one that has always been understood in Christianity.
In 1 Corinthians ch. 10 Paul writes that by the bread and wine we are partaking of Jesus' body and blood (1 Corinthians 10:16), and in this way we are partaking of Christ's perfect sacrifice (1 Corinthians 10:18).
And here is what St. Ignatius, a student of John the Apostle and who succeeded Peter and Paul as chief pastor of the Church in Antioch, has to say,
"They [the heretics] 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, Epistle to the Smyrnaeans, ch. 7, (circa 107 AD)
Ignatius is talking about certain heretics who existed at the time who denied Christ was truly flesh and blood, who suffered death, and raised up bodily. The heretics in question were probably Docetists, the Docetism was an early heresy that denies Jesus came in the flesh (it's what is being condemned by St. John in his epistles when he talks about "antichrists" who are claiming Jesus did not come in the flesh). These early heretics denied Christ's body, and so they rejected His Supper.
That the Lord's Supper is the real body and blood of Jesus has simply always been what Christians have believed, from the time of the Apostles until the present day.
Until the Protestant Reformation the only ones who denied the Real Presence in the Eucharist were out-and-out heretics, like the Docetists of old. And even in the Reformation, the Evangelical Reformers (Luther and co.) all explicitly confessed what had always been believed: This is the real and true body and blood of Jesus.
Rejection of this only really begins with Ulrich Zwingli, a Swiss reformer whose theology was a major contributor to the Reformed branch of Protestantism.
The reason why so many Protestants today don't believe in the Real Presence is because they inherited the doctrines of Zwingli; hence we term this view Zwinglianism. Zwinglianism teaches that the Eucharist is a purely symbolic memorial.
Which is why this isn't a Catholic vs Protestant issue. It's an all of Christianity vs. Zwinglianism issue.
-CryptoLutheran
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