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we can See the blood is what Saved them from death The angel of The death.

The bread was there life source they did not have a lot of food.


The cup of wine which is Jesus blood is symoblic of His actual Blood that was to be spilled while on the cross.


The bread is symbolic of His flesh that was going to be ripe apart from the romans.


so The bread and wine itself is symbolic But it leads us to remember a event that was literal when jesus body and blood was spilled for us.

just to add I think it was one of the fathers who knew John that said jesus was 50 when he died.


no one is perfect even the onnes that knew The apostles can be in error.

Ripley’s said: The early church also thought our solar system was earth-centric. Men make mistakes.
I say:  Common, Jesus was a carpenter not an astronomer.  Had he taught about the solar system, there would be no mistake.  The fact that all of the writings of the early church point to a physical presence and NONE point to a spiritual presence is strong evidence of what Jesus taught and what the Apostles handed down.

Sugarman said: WK do you think because church fathers said it it makes it true?
I say:  I think the physical presence is quite clear from scripture but still people walk away.  Are the writings of the ECF always true? No.  But when there is an overwhelming consensus of belief among so many prominent leaders so early on in church history, and when there is an astonishing lack of evidence to the contrary, and when it is in complete agreement with scripture, it becomes very difficult to deny.  Compare with “the Rapture” and “dispensationalism”.  Absolutely nothing from the ECF, originating mostly from one man (Darby), and not surfacing until the 1800s.

Sugarman said: Do your re-search wine and bread is nothing new jews been doing it for over 3000 thousand years which pre-date the church fathers.
I say: I’ve already done this.  The bread and wine offered by the mysterious priest/king Melchizedek was a “Todah” (Eucharist in Greek) offering.  Passover was celebrated with the sacrifice of a lamb of which God’s people were commanded to eat and with the afikomen (bread) and 4 cups of wine.  In one of his miracles prefiguring the Eucharist, Jesus took bread and miraculously multiplied it, changing it to be more in substance than it was originally.  Jesus celebrated a great wedding feast, another prefigurement of the Eucharist, by taking water and miraculously changing it into something it was not previously - wine.  After the resurrection, on the road to Emaus, the disciples didn’t recognize their companion was Jesus until immediately after he “broke bread” with them.

wk~



We don't have ALL the writings of the early church. We have SOME. So it is 100% proof of some views.

Is it *your view* that those of us who don't hold to transubstantiation are not really taking communion and haven't truly partaken of Him?

“We don't have ALL the writings of the early church. We have SOME. So it is 100% proof of some views.”
You don’t find it at all puzzling that there are absolutely no writings that support a “spiritual” presence and absolutely no writings that oppose a real physical presence?

“Is it *your view* that those of us who don't hold to transubstantiation are not really taking communion and haven't truly partaken of Him?”
It is my view that your version of communion is what you say it is.  You are in an assembly where two or more believers are gathered so Christ is spiritually present.  You are remembering the death and resurrection of the Passover Lamb through a symbolic act.  You have spiritually “partaken of Him” and I’m sure this is very pleasing to Him.

But the Incarnate God is more than spirit.  The Resurrection was/will be more than spirit.  God has always manifest himself in real physical ways and Immanuel continues to do so through the Eucharist.  To partake of the Eucharist is to extend a spiritual reality into a physical reality: the spiritual Body of Christ into the Flesh of the Passover Lamb, the spiritual blood of salvation into the Blood of the Sacrifice that is literally sprinkled upon our physical tabernacles, the Perfect Sacrifice made into a present reality.  Ponder this as you read John 6:48-58.

Admittedly, the Real Physical Presence is difficult to believe – “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Left to my physical senses, touch, taste, smell, sight, and my own reasoning, I cannot believe it.  But at the same time, left to my own senses and reasoning, an All Mighty God humbling himself to be in our presence, to be born of a poor virgin, mercilessly beaten, rejected, crucified, all to show his love for us, and then rising from the dead, is likewise difficult to believe.

Without getting too esoteric, because I am more of a Thomas who prefers to "handle" facts, it is my opinion that this reality is the shadow and the REAL REALITY *is* spiritual.

The battles here, we are told, are really in the spiritual realm. (Principalites and powers.) Satan wanted to sift Peter like wheat. Etc...we don't see what's going on, we see the effects.

So, with all that said, I will maintain that we partake/consume/eat spiritually, everyday all day, 24/7/365, and THAT is more "real" than eating the bread and drinking the wine that we do once in awhile.




Not so puzzling when one understands the power at that time of the one denomination, who kept the "history", and quashed dissent...I know you don't like that answer.

WK what do you think of these quotes?


1. Justin Martyr (150 AD):


Now it is evident, that in this prophecy [Isa 33:13-19] to the bread which our Christ gave us to eat, in remembrance of His being made flesh for the sake of His believers, for whom also He suffered; and to the cup which He gave us to drink, in remembrance of His own blood, with giving of thanks." (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, ch 70)


. Irenaeus (180 AD):

Irenaeus refutes the Gnostics on the basis that the Lord would not use "evil material things" like bread and juice in the Lord's Supper. Had Irenaeus argued that the bread and juice Transubstantiated (changed) into something different from what they appear, the Gnostics would have agreed, saying this change was essential because Jesus did not have physical flesh either!

    "Irenaeus has the realist terminology but not the realist thought. There is no conversion of the elements. Indeed, if there were any change in the substance of the elements, his argument that our bodies-in reality, not in appearance-are raised would be subverted." (Early Christians Speak, Everett Ferguson, 1981, p 114)


3. Tertullian (200 AD):

Tertullian comes right out and states that the bread is a mere symbol of the body of Christ and specifically refutes the Gnostics on this basis:

    "Taking bread and distributing it to his disciples he made it his own body by saying, "This is my body," that is a "figure of my body." On the other hand, there would not have been a figure unless there was a true body." (Tertullian, Against Marcion IV. 40)

continue

. Cyprian (200 AD):

Augustine as late at 400 AD, quotes Cyprian as saying that the juice is offered in remembrance as a type and foreshadow of the blood of Christ:

    ""Observe" he (Cyprian) says, in presenting the cup, to maintain the custom handed down to us from the Lord, and to do nothing that our Lord has not first done for us: so that the cup which is offered in remembrance of Him should be mixed with wine. For, as Christ says, 'I am the true vine,' it follows that the blood of Christ is wine, not water; and the cup cannot appear to contain His blood by which we are redeemed and quickened, if the wine be absent; for by the wine is the blood of Christ typified, that blood which is foreshadowed and proclaimed in all the types and declarations of Scripture." (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, book 4, ch 21, quoting Cyprian)

    The same situation prevails in the writings of Tertullian and Cyprian: ... both men when they speak with precision distinguish the symbol from what it represents. The bread was a "figure" of the body. But Tertullian turns the word figura against the Docetism of Marcion (IX.6). The language of symbolism does not help those who deny a real body to Jesus. The bread would not be a figure unless there was first a true body of which it was a figure. There is no shadow without a substance to cast the shadow. Similarly, for Cyprian, literal language about drinking Christ's blood is balanced by language of "remembrance" (X.5) and "representation" (IX.7). Both symbolism and realism are present in the thought of Cyprian and Tertullian. The symbolism concerns bread and wine as signs. (Early Christians Speak, Everett Ferguson, 1981, p 115)



4. Hippolytus (200 AD):

Hippolytus speaking of the Lord's Supper as an antitype based upon Prov 9:1:

    "And she hath furnished her table: "that denotes the promised knowledge of the Holy Trinity; it also refers to His honoured and undefiled body and blood, which day by day are administered and offered sacrificially at the spiritual divine table, as a memorial of that first and ever-memorable table of the spiritual divine supper. (Hippolytus, Fragment from Commentary on Proverbs 9:1)

    For Hippolytus, too, the bread and wine are the antitypes or likenesses of the reality portrayed. His consecration prayer (VIII.5) contains both the words of institution and petition for the Holy Spirit. But there is no suggestion of a change in the elements. (Early Christians Speak, Everett Ferguson, 1981, p 115)

http://www.bible.ca/ntx-communion-transu...iation.htm


i wonder why when Catholics quote The fathers they only do in part and not in full on what they  are saying.


http://www.bible.ca/ntx-communion-transu...iation.htm

At first (100-200 AD) the church merely began to emphasize to the Gnostics, that the symbols of the Lord's Supper were based upon a literal flesh of Christ. In time, however, between 225 and 300 AD, the church began to counter the Gnostic theology in a new way. Whereas before, they had argued that the symbols of the bread and juice must be based upon a literal body, they suddenly began to emphasizing the literalistic language Jesus: "this is my body" against the Gnostics. Although this new line of reasoning that began no sooner than 225 AD, was successful, it required an abandonment of the orthodox arguments used the century before, which were all directly based upon the symbolic view. But now the Devil had succeeded in getting the church to use one false doctrine (Transubstantiation) to defeat another: Gnosticism. Refuting one false doctrine with another is quite common in theological debates and the reader needs to be aware of this. For example, Seventh-day Adventists convert all kinds of Catholics to Saturday worship because Catholics mistakenly call Sunday the Sabbath. The Adventist correctly points out that the 7th day Sabbath is Saturday, but completely overlooks the fact that the Sabbath law itself was abolished. Thus Adventist false doctrine merely converts the Catholic from one false doctrine to another. In like manner, the church between 225 - 300 AD defeated the Gnostic false doctrine with the false doctrine of Transubstantiation.

E. Transubstantiation is a close cousin to Gnosticism:

While the Gnostics claimed the literal body and blood of Jesus Christ on the cross was different than what it appeared to be, so too the church began to claim that the bread and juice were not what they appeared to be. Transubstantiation, therefore, is a close cousin to Gnostic theology because both false doctrines claim that "things are not what they appear".


http://www.bible.ca/ntx-communion-transu...iation.htm

The reality of our faith is that it is INCARNATIONAL, a union of the divine with the physical.  What other religion makes the claim that their God actually came to visit them in the flesh?  Immanuel really did come in the flesh to visit his people.  Jesus Christ physically rose from the dead.  These are physical realities that cannot be separated from the spiritual realities.  “Spiritual only” is for Buddhists and Hindus.  “God With Us” (whether it be in the burning bush, the pillar of smoke, the incarnate God, or the Eucharist) is for Christians.

Regarding celebrating communion “once in a while” …
Protestants do this only once in a while because it is only “symbolic” to them.  The life, death, resurrection, and Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist has been replaced by entertaining worship bands and long-winded charismatic preachers.  Liturgy (a very Jewish form of worship) has been abandoned.  St. Justin Martyr describes the liturgy of the early Christian worship service.  It is divided into two parts: the Liturgy of the Word, and the Liturgy of the Eucharist.  The celebration focused on Jesus Christ present in word through scripture and physically present in the Eucharist.  The Eucharist was celebrated at least every Sunday (likely more often), not monthly, quarterly, or “when led by the spirit”. Today, the Eucharist is celebrated throughout the world every day.  Accounting for time zones, that’s  24/7/365.





I was wondering how long it would take you to claim a Roman Catholic conspiracy.  Writings showing that the early church professed the Real Physical presence start as early as 110 A.D. by the Bishop of Antioch.  Is it your claim that the Roman Catholic church goes that far back in to history?  Remember too that it was not only the Christians that wrote about the Real Presence.  Secular historians also described Christians as a Jewish sect who participated in cannibalism.   Do you have anything better to offer than Roman Catholic conspiracy theories?