CIVIL RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION: All things Christianity

[historian]

When Baptism is really just water, Bread and wine are just food and drink, then wine can easily become grape juice.

As Kevin DeYoung put it (Yes, I do read crazy Calvinist Presbyterians!), when Jesus said, "I am the gate" we don't believe that he literally has hinges and swings, so why do we go all transubstantiated?

 

[indiucky]

I found this interesting......I have followed this for years....They sent a micro camera down there one time and there was graffiti from the first century from Pilgrims visiting the tomb....Kind of neat really...

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/11/jesus-tomb-archaeology-jerusalem-christianity-rome/

 

[indiucky]

As Kevin DeYoung put it (Yes, I do read crazy Calvinist Presbyterians!), when Jesus said, "I am the gate" we don't believe that he literally has hinges and swings, so why do we go all transubstantiated?

I told Jetta one time instead of a cross we should wear a small gate that opens into astroturf around our neck....We were on here debating literal interpretation of the bible and Jetta and I were trying to point out to some non believers the rampant use of metaphors in the Bible and that it is not that unusual.....Actually very common.....

 

[T.Lex]

As Kevin DeYoung put it (Yes, I do read crazy Calvinist Presbyterians!), when Jesus said, "I am the gate" we don't believe that he literally has hinges and swings, so why do we go all transubstantiated?

This is interesting to me, because I recall some intense ... discussion when I suggested that passage might be more abstract than literal.

But, the answer to the question would include significant OT references. And faith in a mystery.

 

[JettaKnight]

I told Jetta one time instead of a cross we should wear a small gate that opens into astroturf around our neck....We were on here debating literal interpretation of the bible and Jetta and I were trying to point out to some non believers the rampant use of metaphors in the Bible and that it is not that unusual.....Actually very common.....

We, in our society, tend to try and read things in a literal way that, in the society in which it was written, would never do.



Now you got me thinking, I should replace the few crosses I have on walls with something else, a door or maybe an empty tomb.

 

[foszoe]

A cursory reading of John and Paul without prejudice would easily answer that question.

I would ask DeYoung, so when he says he is the resurrection and the life, is that literal or metaphor? Then I am fairly certain I would use his exact reasoning and apply it to the bread and the wine.

That the bread and wine become the body and blood does not require believing in transubstantiation.

Its just dependent on what the definition of "is" is.

As Kevin DeYoung put it (Yes, I do read crazy Calvinist Presbyterians!), when Jesus said, "I am the gate" we don't believe that he literally has hinges and swings, so why do we go all transubstantiated?

 

[JettaKnight]

When Baptism is really just water, Bread and wine are just food and drink, then wine can easily become grape juice.

For purposes of communion in a church, yes, it can.

However, no one would ever change the text associated with it.



As for the movie, turn all the lights on, check under the bed for R.C. Sproul, and grab that "blanket of free will" to cover your eyes during the scary parts.

 

[indiucky]

Now you got me thinking, I should replace the few crosses I have on walls with something else, a door or maybe an empty tomb.

 

[JettaKnight]

A cursory reading of John and Paul without prejudice would easily answer that question.

I would ask DeYoung, so when he says he is the resurrection and the life, is that literal or metaphor? Then I am fairly certain I would use his exact reasoning and apply it to the bread and the wine.

That's a bit of a straw man don't you think?

That the bread and wine become the body and blood does not require believing in transubstantiation.

Its just dependent on what the definition of "is" is.

Consubstantiation?

 

[historian]

Did I post this already? Doesn't matter - it's just that good.

[video=youtube_share;lM9BR55nA2U]http://youtu.be/lM9BR55nA2U[/video]

Consubstantiation?

Taaaadaaaaa

 

[rvb]

Metaphors are often used in conversation. Just not all the time. I don't literally believe Jesus is a vine. The part of communion that is critical to me is not that I believe literally "this is my body" and "this is my blood" but that I follow his direct command to do it, in remembrance of him. For the last couple years, as his body and blood are passed around, I've enjoyed opening my Bible [app] and reading some passages either about the last supper, his time on the cross, the resurrection, his ascension, etc. It's become an important few moments out of each month for me and I try not to miss those services if I can help it. Occasionally I have to help serve, and while I'm willing to, it detracts from my time of meditation and remembrance.,..

-rvb

 

[foszoe]

They are both I am statements so, no, i don't think so

That's a bit of a straw man don't you think?




Consubstantiation?

How about just is? Why does it have to be complicated. It has to be complicated so then the terminology becomes the argument not the statement.

Part of the issue centers around how His presence is related to His words of institution. All three Synoptic Gospels report Jesus as saying, “This is my body.” Historically, the question that has emerged in these controversies surrounds the word is. How must is be understood? When something is said “to be” something else, the verb to be serves as an equal sign. You can reverse the predicate and the subject without any loss in meaning. For example, if one says that “a bachelor is an unmarried man,” there is nothing in the predicate that’s not already present in the notion of bachelor in the subject. The term is in that sentence serves as an equal sign. We could reverse them and say, “An unmarried man is a bachelor.”

In addition to this use of the verb to be, there is also the metaphorical use, where the verb to be may mean, “represents.” For example, think of the “I am” statements of Jesus that are found in the Gospel of John. Jesus says, “I am the Vine, you are the branches. I am the Good Shepherd. I am the Door through which men must enter. I am the Way; I am the Truth; I am the Life.” It’s clear from any reading of those texts that Jesus is using the representative sense of the verb to be in a metaphorical way. When He says, “I am the Door,” He is not crassly saying that where we have skin, He has some kind of wooden veneer and hinges. He means that, “I am,” metaphorically, “the entrance point into the kingdom of God. When you enter a room, you have to go through the door. In the same way, if you want to enter God’s kingdom, you’ve got to come through me.”


When we arrive at the words of the institution of the Lord’s Supper, the obvious question is, how is Christ using the word is here? Is Jesus saying, “This bread that I am breaking really is my flesh and this cup of wine that I’ve blessed is my blood?” When people are drinking the wine are they actually drinking His physical blood? When they are eating the bread, are they actually eating His physical flesh? That’s what this controversy is about.

Remember, in first-century Rome, Christians were accused of the crime of cannibalism. There were rumors that the Christians were meeting in secret places such as the catacombs to devour somebodyÂ’s body and to drink that personÂ’s blood. Even that early in church history, the idea of a real connection between bread and flesh and the wine and blood had already appeared.

...

This is why Calvin and others categorically rejected the Lutheran view of the LordÂ’s Supper. Luther insisted on the corporeal presence of Jesus at more than one place at the same time. Our core beliefs concerning the nature of Christ are at stake in this, which is why the Reformed have affirmed the real presence of Jesus in the sacrament, but not in the same manner as Lutherans and Roman Catholics.

"What is the Lord's Supper: RC Sproul

RC Sproul admits the understanding of the early church. In the ellipses, he also attempts to use the Council of Chalcedon as support for the Reformed position.

This is a flaw prevalent in many Protestant arguments when attempting to argue from tradition predating the Reformationthat also plays into the metaphor argument. When picking and choosing testimony passages from either the Fathers or the Bible when convenient without accepting all of the canons/decisions of Chalcedon as a whole the question becomes why would this one conclusion be any more valid than the others which are rejected.

In the history of Christian thought, various ways were developed to try to explain how the bread and the wine become the Body and Blood of Christ in the eucharistic liturgy. Quite unfortunately, these explanations often became too rationalistic and too closely connected with certain human philosophies.

One of the most unfortunate developments took place when men began to debate the reality of ChristÂ’s Body and Blood in the eucharist. While some said that the eucharistic gifts of bread and wine were the real Body and Blood of Christ, others said that the gifts were not real, but merely the symbolic or mystical presence of the Body and Blood. The tragedy in both of these approaches is that what is real came to be opposed to what is symbolic or mystical.


The Orthodox Church denies the doctrine that the Body and the Blood of the eucharist are merely intellectual or psychological symbols of Christ’s Body and Blood. If this doctrine were true, when the liturgy is celebrated and holy communion is given, the people would be called merely to think about Jesus and to commune with him “in their hearts.” In this way, the eucharist would be reduced to a simple memorial meal of the Lord’s last supper, and the union with God through its reception would come only on the level of thought or psychological recollection.


On the other hand, however, the Orthodox tradition does use the term “symbols” for the eucharistic gifts. It calls, the service a “mystery” and the sacrifice of the liturgy a “spiritual and bloodless sacrifice.” These terms are used by the holy fathers and the liturgy itself.

The Orthodox Church uses such expressions because in Orthodoxy what is real is not opposed to what is symbolical or mystical or spiritual. On the contrary! In the Orthodox view, all of reality—the world and man himself—is real to the extent that it is symbolical and mystical, to the extent that reality itself must reveal and manifest God to us. Thus, the eucharist in the Orthodox Church is understood to be the genuine Body and Blood of Christ precisely because bread and wine are the mysteries and symbols of God’s true and genuine presence and manifestation to us in Christ. Thus, by eating and drinking the bread and wine which are mystically consecrated by the Holy Spirit, we have genuine communion with God through Christ who is himself “the bread of life” (Jn 6.34, 41).

I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh (Jn 6.51).


Thus, the bread of the eucharist is Christ’s flesh, and Christ’s flesh is the eucharistic bread. The two are brought together into one. The word “symbolical” in Orthodox terminology means exactly this: “to bring together into one.”


Thus we read the words of the Apostle Paul:


For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when He was betrayed took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said, “This is My body which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. Do this, as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death, until He comes. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread and drinks the cup in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord (1 Cor 11.23–26).


The mystery of the holy eucharist defies analysis and explanation in purely rational and logical terms. For the eucharist—and Christ Himself—is indeed a mystery of the Kingdom of Heaven which, as Jesus has told us, is “not of this world.” The eucharist—because it belongs to God’s Kingdom—is truly free from the earth-born “logic” of fallen humanity.

Father Thomas Hopko: The Orthodox Faith Vol II

As long as the discussion is carried out on a rational logical plane one side will never understand the other and that is how it played out between the Latins, Luther, and Calvin.

 

[ArcadiaGP]

For once, I can't find a GIF to post.

Was looking for something along the lines of "sucking all the fun out of the room"

 

[JettaKnight]

For Foszoe:

Man Casually Mentions He Chose Jesus, Calvinist Pops Out Of Nowhere To Argue With Him

 

[T.Lex]

So... last week I was walking to my car downtown. A guy coming toward me on the sidewalk randomly looked at me and asked, "Have you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior?"

Knowing that the Lord works in mysterious ways, I returned the eye contact and smiled, "Yes, I have." I kept walking; he kept walking.

Couldn't help but wonder if it was some sort of Christ-initiated pop quiz.

 

[Benp]

So... last week I was walking to my car downtown. A guy coming toward me on the sidewalk randomly looked at me and asked, "Have you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior?"

Knowing that the Lord works in mysterious ways, I returned the eye contact and smiled, "Yes, I have." I kept walking; he kept walking.

Couldn't help but wonder if it was some sort of Christ-initiated pop quiz.

At least you got an easy question if it was a pop quiz!

 

[ArcadiaGP]

So... last week I was walking to my car downtown. A guy coming toward me on the sidewalk randomly looked at me and asked, "Have you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior?"

Knowing that the Lord works in mysterious ways, I returned the eye contact and smiled, "Yes, I have." I kept walking; he kept walking.

Couldn't help but wonder if it was some sort of Christ-initiated pop quiz.

Oregon Shooter Asked Victims About Their Religion Before Killing Them

 

[T.Lex]

At least you got an easy question if it was a pop quiz!

Hey, like I tell my kids, there'll be enough tough questions on a test that you have to make sure you get the easy ones right.

 

[T.Lex]

Oregon Shooter Asked Victims About Their Religion Before Killing Them

So, that issue did cross my mind. I turned and watched him as he passed by a few more people without saying anything to them. I kinda wondered what would've happened if my answer had been different. But, ultimately, I figure it was just a random thing.

 

[ArcadiaGP]

So, that issue did cross my mind. I turned and watched him as he passed by a few more people without saying anything to them. I kinda wondered what would've happened if my answer had been different. But, ultimately, I figure it was just a random thing.

Heh, yeah... 99.9999% of times, that's a totally wholesome and innocent question. But you know me, my role is the party-pooper, gotta drop that 0.0001% downer on you.