I learned something new today... Catholicism and Lutheranism are pretty much the same, with a few minor twists with the Lords Supper. Catholicism believes in Transubstantiation which means, they are actually sacrificing Christ over and over each time, Actually, eating and drinking Literal flesh and blood of Christ Jesus. Eastern Orthodox such as, Lutherans believes in Consubstantiation Means, they are actually sacrificing Christ over and over each time, Actually, eating and drinking Christ flesh and blood, BUT... You cant see it, or taste it. Its *Spiritually* transforms. Both believe that they are required for salvation and means of Grace. I would love to see scripture to support their beliefs on this. Their belief is like, when the tank is low, stop and fill it back up... Makes no sense. Wheres the Faith in Christ alone without works? Ephesians 2:9 Not of works, lest any man should boast. Lord Jesus said, Do this in *Remembrance* of me. But, lets look at this further. Catholics and Lutherans – might say, “But you are ignoring one of the most powerful New Testament passages in support of the real presence in the body and blood of Jesus, namely John 6. You haven’t said anything about John 6.” Well, that is right because I don’t think that this is a Eucharistic passage. I don’t think this has anything to do with the celebration of the Eucharist. This is Jesus’ discourse on the bread of life and his telling people that he is the bread of life and that one must therefore eat of this bread(believe and have faith) in order to experience eternal life. Let’s turn to John 6 and look at this passage. John 6 beginning in verse 35 and then we will pick up at 41-42 and then 48-51. (John 6:35) And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. (John 6:41-42) The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven? . . (John 6:48-51) I am that bread of life. 49 Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. 50 This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. Notice here that Jesus isn’t talking about the Eucharist. The context here is not the Last Supper. This is a discourse that Jesus gives during the period of his ministry. The context is not the Last Supper. And we have many other examples in John of where Jesus uses symbols like “the bread of life;” symbols which his hearers misunderstood by taking them too literally. So, for example, look at John 3:3-7, Jesus’ discourse on the new birth. Speaking to Nicodemus, (John 3:3-7) Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.4 Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mothers womb, and be born? 5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. Here Nicodemus’ literalism prevented an understanding of what Jesus was talking about – spiritual rebirth. He thought he was talking literally. Or, turn the page over to John 4:10-12. This is when Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the city well: (John 4:10-12) Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. 11 The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? 12 Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? Again, she is interpreting what he is saying literally – “How can you draw from the well when you don’t have a bucket? Where are you going to get this living water” It was her literalism that prevented her from truly understanding what Jesus meant. Similarly in John 4:31-34: (John 4:31-34) In the mean while his disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat. 32 But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of. 33 Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him ought to eat? 34 Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. They thought he was talking literally again. They said, “Who brought this guy something to eat? We’re not aware that anybody has given him anything to eat.” Jesus is talking about a different kind of food – a spiritual sustenance as we see in verse 34. One more example. John 11:11-12. It is interesting how these are in the Gospel of John, isn’t it? This is before departing to Lazarus’ grave site: (John 11:11-12) These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep. 12 Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. No need to risk your life going to Bethany. If he is just asleep he’ll be fine. (John 11:13-15) Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep. 14 Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead. 15 And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him. So I think you can see that Jesus frequently will use symbols or parables to express deeper spiritual truths. This eating and drinking motif that we find in John 6 is plausibly part of this – “eating the bread of life” and “drinking his blood.” In fact, in the Jewish intertestamental literature in the book of Sirach 24:19-21 we have a kind of parallel to this: “Come to me, you who desire me, and eat your fill of my fruits. . . . Those who eat of me will hunger for more, and those who drink of me will thirst for more.” Here we have the idea of eating and drinking of the Lord. So it is not unusual that Jesus would employ this kind of symbolic imagery to talk about a kind of spiritual feasting upon Christ. This is, I think, the case if these words were actually uttered by Jesus. They are not in a Eucharistic context. These are in the ministry of Jesus. He seems to be speaking here symbolically. In fact, the use of the title “the Son of Man,” I think, suggests that this is not later Johannine theology. The Son of Man was Jesus’ favorite self-designation. Some eighty times in the Gospels he refers to himself as the Son of Man. But only once outside the Gospels (in the book of Acts) do you find Jesus referred to as the Son of Man. This was not a church title. This wasn’t a title employed in later Christian theology. So that suggests that we are dealing here with a tradition that comes out of Jesus’ ministry and should not be interpreted Eucharistically but simply as a kind of symbol of feasting spiritually upon Christ and imbibing the life that he gives. In any case, even if this were a Eucharistic passage, the question is still to be settled – is it to be taken literally or metaphorically? Does eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ mean this in a literal sense or is it to be taken metaphorically? So even this passage interpreted at face value I don’t think settles the debate in terms of transubstantiation. So I don’t think that there is good biblical evidence for thinking that in the Lord’s Supper the bread and the wine are literally transformed into the body and blood of the Lord. In fact, I want to here press an objection to this point of view. And that is that it confuses the resurrection body of Christ. It seems confused with respect to Christ’s resurrection body. Christ’s resurrection body is a physical, corporeal, humanoid organism that the disciples could see and touch and that has now departed from our space time universe but someday he will personally come again. We shouldnt think of the resurrection body of Christ as some sort of immaterial, spiritual reality. This is to depreciate and fail to understand the physical, corporal nature of the resurrection of the dead, both in Jewish thinking and in early Christian theology. So when you really understand that the body of Christ is his resurrection body, I think you can see that this is obviously not being eaten and his blood drunk by Christians all around the world. For one thing, it wouldn’t be large enough to feed all the persons who are taking the Lord’s Supper at any time in the world. The resurrection body of Christ is a finite, physical, humanoid body, and to spiritualize it away is to fail to do justice to the doctrine of the resurrection. So I have difficulty with this doctrine, not only because of its lack of biblical support, but because I think it fundamentally runs up against the proper understanding of Christ’s resurrection body. So I am not persuaded that transubstantiation is a correct view. What about consubstantiation? The same objections that I’ve just shared would apply to consubstantiation as well. We are not literally drinking the blood and eating the body of Christ. But in addition to that, I would also press a further objection against consubstantiation, namely, it confuses the two natures of Christ. There is one Christ in two distinct natures; one person in two natures. You must not divide the person so you get two persons. But you must not confuse the natures so that they become confounded together. That seems to me to be exactly what happens in Lutheran theology with respect to the communication of the attributes saying that the attributes of invisibility, immateriality, and ubiquity are communicated over to the human nature of Christ. This confounds the natures and so is unacceptable Christologically. Biblical, It is an ordinance. It is a memorial celebration in which we remember Christ’s death on our behalf, we examine ourselves to see if we are holding to the faith, we confess our sins, and we commune with Christ spiritually as he is spiritually present among us. We who hold to the view of the Last Supper as an ordinance wouldnt deny the spiritual presence of Christ. Of course we would say that he is present. But, we would also say that he is present not in his human nature (which is ascended to heaven and will not come again until the return of Christ) but he is present in his divine nature – his omnipresent, spiritual, immaterial, divine nature. So in celebrating the Lord’s Supper, we commune with Christ in his divine nature, or through the Holy Spirit, but his physical human nature is not present because that is arisen and ascended and will not return until the Second Coming I cannot see that Christ is present in his resurrection body in the Lord’s Supper. Whether in the bread, or wine. When Paul talks about discerning the body, as he says, and how important this is, I would think of this as reflecting the importance of what we are doing symbolically there. I am identifying with Christ and his shed blood and his body given for me. This isnt something to be done lightly or cavalierly. So please don’t understand me to be depreciating the significance of the Lord’s Supper. I think when we undergo this act, just as when we undergo baptism (which I don’t take sacramentally), this is deadly serious. We are identifying with Christ in his death and resurrection, we are remembering him, and we are examining ourselves. To do that in a cavalier or unworthy manner I would say is a serious sin because of what you are symbolically doing. But I am not persuaded that that requires us to say that this involves a real physical presence of Christ’s body and blood.
Posted on: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 22:07:39 +0000
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