The supposed impossibility of Holy Communion

Pastory Larry points out that the Communion service is a "memorial" refering to Christ's own words "Do this in REMEMBERANCE of Me"

To which Chemnitz responds

Indeed - both statements are true. However Chemnitz needs to ignore one of them.

The opposing view (by contrast) ACCEPTS that "this is done in REMEMBERANCE " as a memorial AND that Christ "IS the DOOR" and that "Christ IS the VINE" and that the cup represents His blood - etc.

In Christ,

Bob

 

And so we see an appeal to the text --

"DO this in REMEMBERANCE of Me" Luke 22:19

"As often as you eat this BREAD and drink this CUP you do show the Lords' DEATH".
1 Cor 11:26

It does not say "you do continue to put the Lord to Death" nor does it say "you do continue to show the DEAD LORD".

In Christ,

Bob

 

Certainly in the "real" sense of "IF I go away I WILL COME AGAIN" speaking of the second coming - then we are now at a time when Christ is gone into heaven for us.

But in another REAL sense we see

"Wherever two or three are gathered in My name THERE I AM in their midst".

And the REAL sense of "Christ In you the hope of glory" Col 1.

These are the remaining REAL cases of Christ's presence today.

In Christ,

Bob

 

I am. I am trying to get you to. You are taking a very unnatural reading of the words. The normal reading is plainly metaphorical or symbolic.

No, not at all. The opposite is true. I am insisting that Jesus meant what he said.

The fact that they ate it. If they had believed in "real presence" (something completely foreign to their way of thinking) they would never have eaten inasmuch as it would have been virtual cannibalism..

I think you need to do some study on this. I don't have time to get into here, but the text will not support your view.

 

Why not quote something I actually posted and show what you disagree with instead?

in Christ,

Bob

 

In going with the "unnatural" you are not trusting Jesus. You are contradicting him.

Luther wasn't right on this. The exegetical problems are not able to be overcome. I insist on a normal reading of the text.

At this point nothing new is being said. You are not interacting with Scripture and thus there is no much of a point to continue. Furthermore, this has all been said before and if you weren't convinced then, I doubt you will be now.

 

Again, at the risk of pointing out the obvious, when Jesus held up bread and said "This is my body," it was plainly obvious that it was bread, not his body, and there is nothing in the words of Jesus that would lead us to conclude that he was "in, under, and with" the bread. You have to go outside the words of Jesus to get that, and therefore are not taking Jesus at his word.

 

He did not need to say it. He was holding up the Passover meal. He was not holding up any normal loaf of bread. The Passover meal already has meaning when he held it up, the people he was talking to already knew its meaning. To understand the Lords Supper you have to understand what the Passover meal reprisented to the people Jesus was talking to.

The Passover is a type of Christ. The Passover feast is a memorial to the passover. When Jesus held up the Passover feast, he was saying I am the Passover, I am the fulfilment of this Old Testament type. The Passover feast is a memorial to Christ. It reprisents Gods salvation of His people.

Notice it says several times in chapter 12 that this is an everlasting ordinance. It is continued today in the Lords Supper.

 

Think about the Passover. A lamb was slaughtered and the blood was panted on the door to save Gods people.

The Passover feast reprisented God saving His people by the slaughter of that lamb and its blood.

Jesus is saying I am that Lamb that this bread reprisents.

Not only that but the NT often uses things we eat and drink to reprisent things. Jesus says He is the Living Water.

I have never heard anybody take that litteral and have a cup of water that they say contains Jesus.

If you take this as literal bread, then you have to say that whoever takes communion will never be hungery. This must be figurative speech.

And if the Lords Supper is not the Passover Feast, then what is the everlasting ordinence.

 

That's very convenient. However, to admit it's "not in the text" means you did not get this view from Scripture but from somewhere else. And that substantiates my original point, that you have to go outside of Scripture to get it.

Actually, it's a lot different. I can go to Scripture and show undeniably the truth of the Trinity. You cannot even begin to make a case for "real presence" from Scripture.

 

To add to that. I have made the case useing scripture that the Lords Supper/Communion is a continuation of the Passover Feast. The Passover Feast is clearly a memorial.

When something like this is confusing, it helps to take it in context. The context of the Lords Supper is the Passover Feast, since that is what Jesus was holding up when He said this is my body.

He did not do that with the loafs and fishs while feeding the people. It was only the Passover bread.

If you want to understand the Lords Supper, study the Passover and Feast. See just how closely they line up. When you understand just how many types are in the Passover and how Jesus fulfilled each one you will see where Communion and Passover Feast line up together.

 

Jesus is not a piece of wood when He says "I am the DOOR" John 10
Jesus is not a plant when he says "I am the Vine" John 15.

Jesus is not BREAD when he says "I am the bread that came down from heaven" John 6.

Jesus was "serious" when he argued that the disciples took "too literally" his symbol of BREAD in Matt 16.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Originally Posted by BobRyan
Ok fine - I will post the unnanswered point again -

The communion service is a "symbol" of the broken body and spilled blood of Christ, Just as in John 10 "I am the DOOR" just as in John 15 "I am the VINE" -- Christ is not a plant nor even a piece of wood.

In Matt 16 Christ warns the disciples NOT to take things too literally when symbols are being used ESPECIALLY when the symbol is BREAD.

6 And Jesus said to them, ""Watch out and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.''
7 They began to discuss this among themselves, saying, ""He said that because we did not bring any bread.''
8 But Jesus, aware of this, said, "" You men of little faith, why do you discuss among yourselves that you have no bread?
9 ""Do you not yet understand or remember the five loaves of the five thousand[/b], and how many baskets full you picked up?
10 ""Or the seven loaves of the four thousand,[/b] and how many large baskets full you picked up?
11 ""How is it that you do not understand that [b]I did not speak to you concerning bread?[/b] But beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.''
12 Then they understood that He did not say to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

In John 6 Christ said he WAS the BREAD that came down out of heaven.

Again - these are all symbols.

And in the case of Christ as bread - it is Christ as "The Word" that became flesh and dwelt among us - for as God teaches the lesson of manna is "Man shall not live by bread alone but by every WORD that proceeds from the mouth of God".



"DO this in REMEMBERANCE of Me" Luke 22:19

"As often as you eat this BREAD and drink this CUP you do show the Lords' DEATH".
1 Cor 11:26

The RCC also belives that bread literally turns into God but Lutherans simply stop there and claim they don't know how this happens or what they are saying. Instead of doing that - the RCC says "oh no here is how it happens" and in describing it they admit to the obvious point that this has to be a continual sacrifice if it really is a continual presentation of the real body and blood of Christ.


However the text of scripture in 1Cor 11 does NOT say "you do continue to put the Lord to Death" nor does it say "you do continue to show the DEAD LORD".

 

I have a related question about this.

What would be the purpose of eating God's human flesh? People in the OT were saved without eating God.

Do believers in transtibulation (sp?) believe this is the way to salvation?

 

In John 6 Christ brings this discussion up and states clearly that eating literal flesh is "pointless" he argues that it is the WORD of God that has true "spirit and Life".

In Christ,

Bob

 

Close, but not quite. The Lord's Supper, in conjunction with the one time Sacrifice of Christ who is the true Paschal Lamb, is the fulfillment of the Passover feast.

Christ is the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world (John 1:29) by His death on the Cross, and our eating the bread and drinking the wine is our literal participation in ("communion of") the Body and Blood of Christ (1 Cor 10:16). (Notice the comparison in 1 Cor 10 of the Lord's Table/Supper not only with the altar/sacrifices with the Jews but also with that of the pagans)

Similarly, Christ, and our participation in Him in the Eucharist, is also the fulfilment of another OT type--manna (the bread from heaven). However, in contrast to eating the manna (in which the eaters thereof still died), those who eat the bread Christ gives will live forever (John 6:50, 54, 58). Christ specifically identifies this bread with His flesh (not with his "words", as another poster alleges), declaring that the bread HE gives is His flesh which He gives for the "life of the world" (John 6:51)--which He did on the cross--and that His flesh is food indeed and His blood is drink indeed (John 6:55), and that we must eat His flesh and drink His blood to abide in Him and have eternal life (John 6:53, 56). No wonder the early church fathers such as Ignatius (who was martyred at the beginning of the 2nd century) called the Eucharist "the medicine of immortality", because when we partake of the Lord's Supper we partake of Christ Himself. In fact, the consensus of the early Christians was that Christ's Body and Blood were truly present in the forms of the bread and wine of the Eucharist. The idea that the bread and wine were merely figures (in the modern sense) or metaphors without any real connection to Christ's Body and Blood is only found very late in church history.

The Passover Feast was indeed type and shadow of the reality that was to come--that is, the Sacrifice of the Paschal Lamb, and our partaking of His Body and Blood--which He gave for us on the Cross--in the bread and wine of Holy Communion. That the Eucharist is indeed a remembrance of Christ's passion does not mean that is merely a mental recollection of past events, as the word for remembrance ("anamnesis") carries with it the stronger idea of "making present" what is being "remembered". (Even the Jews in celebrating the Passover feast spoke in terms conveying a more present tense, ie "This night...). Paul clearly states that our partaking of the bread and wine is our partaking in the Body and Blood of Christ.

The New Testament writers consistently use realistic language when describing the Holy Communion--the bread and wine are Christ's Body and Blood, He declares; his flesh and blood are food indeed and drink indeed; and we must eat and drink His flesh and blood if we want His life in us; the bread is the communion of (participation in) the body of Christ, and the cup is the communion of (participation in) the blood of Christ. The common rejoinder, of course, is that since Christ calls Himself "the vine" and "the door", and that He is speaking so metaphorically, we can simply dismiss the realistic language ascribed to the Eucharist as likewise being merely metaphorical. However, there are some problems with this, especially when one analyzes the difference between the "vine" and "door" language, and that used of Communion:

(1)Although Jesus says "I am the vine" and "I am the door", he never later points to a literal growing vine or a literal wooden door and says, "See that's Me.". With the Eucharist, Christ who earlier said that, not only was HE the bread of Life, but that (more specifically) His flesh was food indeed and His blood is drink indeed (and that we must eat and drink His flesh and blood to have life), later at the Last Supper specifically identifies His body and blood with the bread and the wine which we are to literally eat and drink.

(2)Although Paul specifically identified the bread and wine as the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ respectively, he never described or alluded to a similar ritual involving affixing oneself to vegetation or walking through a wooden door as somehow a "communion of (participation in)" Christ "the Vine", or Christ "the Door" respectively.

(3)Nowhere in Church history do we see any evidence of early Christians observing any ritual or ordinance involving the physical joining of themselves to literal vines or the physical walking through literal wooden doors, let alone that they interpreted Christ's words in these passages as anything other than metaphor. However, the same cannot be said of Holy Communion as the consensus taught that Christ's Body and Blood were truly present somehow in the literal bread and wine which they physically ate and drank. These early Christians, in other words, could distinguish between the metaphors of "the vine" and "the door" from the realism of the Eucharist.

Yet the OT priests ate of the sacrifices of the altar--sacrifices which were types of the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ. Whereas, the OT animal sacrifices could never take away sins (they were only types and shadows of the reality to come), Christ's sacrifice was efficacious for that purpose. At the Last Supper Christ declared the Cup was the NEW Covenant of HIS blood, blood which earlier He had said was "drink indeed" and that we must drink to have life in us. Incidentally, this is why in the OT they were forbidden to drink blood, since the "life is in the blood"--and the only One whose life avails to conquer sin and defeat death is CHRIST. (Also, lest one miss the priestly implications of bread and wine, check out what the priest Melchizedek--another OT type of Christ--brought out in Genesis 14:18)

Hope this helps.

 

Actually He said His words (plural) are "spirit and life" (not 'symbol' and 'metaphor') as opposed to "flesh "(referring to carnality, not physicality). These words (ie the words He just finished telling them) include His specific identification of the bread He gives with HIS flesh which He literally was about to give for the life of the world, and those words also include that HIS FLESH is "food indeed" and HIS BLOOD is "drink indeed" and that we are to eat and drink His flesh and blood to have His life in us. His point is that we are to eat and drink His body and blood, not by carnally ripping the flesh off His bones or drinking His blood from His veins (as the unbelivers were imagining) but in a spiritual (not 'metaphorical') manner (the specifics of which He finally revealed to the faithful disciples in the upper room).

Now Christ of course meant that the "flesh profits nothing" in the sense, that the unbelievers carnal (after the 'flesh'), cannibalistic way of thinking was profitless, not that HIS physical flesh profitted nothing. Christ's physical flesh was given for the world and avails for our salvation. To deny the efficacy of Christ's physical sacrifice of His physical body is to be a gnostic or Manichaean dualist, not an orthodox Christian. And just as God can use this physical sacrifice to objectively accomplish the work of our redemption, He is also entitled to use other physical objects such as water, oil, bread, and wine to subjectively apply the benefits of this redemption to the individual believer.