I have been a Jewish Believer and have attended a Catholic Church for several years. I continue to struggle with the issue of Transubstantiation. Did Jesus literally mean This is My Body...This is My Blood? Is it a metaphor? Remembering that Jesus was an observant Jew, and the prohibition of eating blood was paramount, how would He have literally meant this? Can anyone clarify this issue?
Thanks.
I have been a Jewish Believer and have attended a Catholic Church for several years. I continue to struggle with the issue of Transubstantiation. Did Jesus literally mean This is My Body...This is My Blood? Is it a metaphor? Remembering that Jesus was an observant Jew, and the prohibition of eating blood was paramount, how would He have literally meant this? Can anyone clarify this issue? Thanks.
Bookpondsky,
Yes, the words This is My Body...This is My Blood" are a figure of speech. The bread and the wine are not transformed into the actual body and blood of Christ as the Catholic church claims.
Jesus often spoke in metaphors and figures of speech. He said things such as “I am the true vine.” and “I am the gate.” and we know He was not literally a vine or a gate, so His words at the Last Supper must not be taken literally. In addition our Lord also said, “the flesh counts for nothing.” John 6:63 So why would He then be calling us to eat flesh and drink blood??
The words our Lord spoke at the Last Supper were primarily an announcement of what He was going to do on the Cross for us, and the introduction to the New Covenant; and secondly a call and an example for His children to follow.
Jesus Christ was not calling His children to the repetitive performance of a rite but to a Christian lifestyle of giving of one self as He did on the cross. Jesus said this more plainly in Luke 9:23:
23 Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. (NIV)
And then, literally, by example Jesus showed us what He meant by "taking up the Cross," for when He spoke the words "This is My Body...This is My Blood," Jesus didn't leave it at that. He LITERALLY went and had His body broken for us and His blood spilled. So what our Lord was calling us to do at the Last Supper was to follow His example of dying to self. And to do it in remembrance of what He did on the cross for us.
When we give of ourselves to others (in whatever way the Spirit leads us), we experience a real communion with our Lord and truly sup with Him. We see this in John 4:34: "my food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work."
In 1 Cor 11:26, Paul focuses on another aspect of the sharing of the bread and wine when he says: "you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes" In other words, we proclaim the Gospel--what the breaking of His body and the pouring out of His blood brought for all men--reconciliation to God. And that is the Good News.
The doctrine is that the Passover second Matzoh, that is hidden away, resurrected, and broken...is literally the body of Jesus after the "spiritual" sense in its consecration. The partaking of the third cup of wine is literally the blood of Jesus after the "spiritual" sense in its consecration. Remember that the wine of an earlier cup is poured onto a plate for each judgment / plague? One of those pourings is called "blood", and is ...after a spiritual sense...supposed to help you attach yourselves with your forefathers who came out of / were delivered out of...Egypt, as if you, on each Pesach, were spiritually there yourselves as well.
The Greek of Paul is clear in I Corinthians that there is a spiritual consecration and attachment that occurs in the Communion.
The earliest Church traditions and writers also confirm and bear this -- "spiritual" attachment in the communion as literally joining to Christ -- out.
It was not until 880 A.D. that Roman Catholicism went over the edge and said that the body and blood physically transformed...because the physical aspects of it do not change.
But the consecrated bread and wine of the Communion indeed becomes as if G-D breathed...a spiritual element, not previously present, enters into the host and the wine -- through prayer -- as by the illustration the exhale breath of G-D so entered into dead Adam in Genesis 2:7 and made him alive unto lives (chayyim).
Where can I study more about this? from what sources have you taken?
Thank you all for your help!!
http://bible.crosswalk.com/History/AD/Ea...chFathers/
The Ante-Nicene Fathers (too numerous to reference),
like the letters of Ignatius (e.g., to the Romans .7; to the Philadelphians .4: both in long or short versions), and Irenaeus through Against Heresies in Volume I.
In Irenaeus' fragments, you will see a referencing on how Rome readopted the Communion (lost since Sixtus in the 120s A.D.).
Mathetes to Diognetus speaks of advancing the Passover (i.e., the Communion).
JFJ has available these economical resources dealing with Christ in the Passover: http://store.jewsforjesus.org/ppp/search...submit.y=5
You can watch a Jewish brother in a more expensive Passover video go through the festival:
http://store.levitt.com/cgi-bin/perlshop...=824275347
As for the Greek of Paul in I Corinthians, that was an intensive explanatory study I did in expositing 10:16-17. But this may help:
http://bible.crosswalk.com/Commentaries/...dPictures/
Just click into book, chapter, and then verse on what you what to check out...such as I Corinthians...then chapter 10...then verse 16.
Shalom.
Jesus said " This is My Body ", thats why Catholics have believed that the bread became His Body. Catholics have believed it for 2000 years.
The Church Fathers all believed that the bread became the Body of Christ. This was the faith of all Christianity for the first 1500 years.
Jesus said " This is My Body ", thats why Catholics have believed that the bread became His Body. Catholics have believed it for 2000 years.
The Church Fathers all believed that the bread became the Body of Christ. This was the faith of all Christianity for the first 1500 years.
that's nice but the disciples knew it was just symbolic of his flesh broken for us..and the wine was symbolic for his blood shed for us nothing more...he was the passover lamb of God spoken of by Abraham.
Jesus wasn't into cannabalism like Rome is in eating all those that disagree with her....
Jesus said " This is My Body ", thats why Catholics have believed that the bread became His Body. Catholics have believed it for 2000 years.
The Church Fathers all believed that the bread became the Body of Christ. This was the faith of all Christianity for the first 1500 years.
that's nice but the disciples knew it was just symbolic of his flesh broken for us..and the wine was symbolic for his blood shed for us nothing more...he was the passover lamb of God spoken of by Abraham.
Jesus wasn't into cannabalism like Rome is in eating all those that disagree with her....
" My Flesh is real food and My Blood is real drink "
You say,
' Symbolic food and symbolic drink "
Unscriptural mate, Catholics believe Jesus Christs words, not the traditions of men that are seen in protestant sects like yours.
" He who eats me, will live because of Me "
How does Ignatius ( A direct disciple of John the Apostle) understand the Scripture.
"They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again." Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to Smyrnaeans, 7,1 (c. A.D. 110).
Why should anyone follow your opinion of Scripture ?
The Catholic Church assembled and Canonized the Bible, 1000 years before any protestant sect existed.
Sorry to break it to you mate, but you are wrong.
Justin martyr describes transubsantiation.
"For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the same flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh." Justin Martyr, First Apology, 66 (A.D. 115).
You will find all the Early Christians and Church Fathers believe that the bread and wine actually become Jesus Body and Blood.
" Unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, you will have no life in you. "
" My Flesh is real food, and My Blood is real drink "
Not symbolic food or symbolic drink.
"He once in Cana of Galilee, turned the water into wine, akin to blood, and is it incredible that He should have turned wine into blood?" Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, XXII:4 (c. A.D. 350).
"Having learn these things, and been fully assured that the seeming bread is not bread, though sensible to taste, but the Body of Christ; and that the seeming wine is not wine, though the taste will have it so, but the Blood of Christ; and that of this David sung of old, saying, And bread strengtheneth man's heart, to make his face to shine with oil, 'strengthen thou thine heart,' by partaking thereof as spiritual, and "make the face of thy soul to shine."" Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, XXII:8 (c. A.D. 350).
funny how you RC's can never seem to find a scripture to back up what you say...
" My Flesh is real food, and My Blood is real drink "
The above is found NOWHERE in SCRIPTURE....actual wording was:
Mat 26:26 ¶ And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed [it], and brake [it], and gave [it] to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body.
Mat 26:27 And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave [it] to them, saying, Drink ye all of it;
Mat 26:28 For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins
also...
Luk 22:19 And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake [it], and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.
1Cr 11:24 And when he had given thanks, he brake [it], and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.
Nowhere does it say anything about the bread becoming magically flesh..it was symbolic whether you like it or not...
false teaching is false teaching whether its form Justin Martyr who you claim was a desciple of John or Cyril.
The water into wine...scripture is clear on it
if the wine was truned to blood(which is an abomination to any Jew to drink even today) the scripture would have been equally clear.