The Eucharist--Just a symbol or much more?

JaumeJ · Apr 18, 2015

When Christ broke bread, He instructed us that when we do it, to do it im memory of Him. So also when we drink wine. The Bread symbolizes His Body sacrificed for our sins, provided we accept this free gift. The wine represents His Blood, the true life is in the blood, the Blood of the Lamb of God.

When we share the Word of God we are breaking the Bread from heaven and sharing it with others imparting the life from His Blood to all who will receive It. Just as Jesus shared His bread and wine for all.

He is the Bread from heaven born in "The House of Bread," for Bethlehem does translate completely as the house of Bread.

He does not expect people to become cannibals, He is teaching us to share the Bread and the Blood, His teaching and HIs Life. Another important aspect of breaking bread and sharing the wine is living the Word and Living the Life given to each of us by His awesome sacrificial gift to all who will receive It, Salvation.

Stephen63 · Apr 18, 2015

Vernon said:

The Catholic Church is not in heresy, the Catholic Church is the witness to the world that Jesus is the Son of God. No sect or cult can trace its heritage back to the apostles except through the Catholic Church. The dogmas of the christian Faith are preserved and proclaimed by the Catholic Church.
Your disagreement with doctrines of the Catholic Church is not evidence of heresy because they are based on false understanding. Condemnation of Catholicism does not justify your position of separation.
We are so blessed to have a God who is merciful and longsuffering, that he can forgive catholics and other christians for their imperfections, and not hold our sins against us, lest all perish.

Christ be with you always.

Sir, all I can say to you is to read its history...... it speaks for itself.

Stephen63 · Apr 18, 2015

crossnote said:

I agree with you about it being "not divinely inspired"..... but many of their followers do treat it as such.

Stephen63 · Apr 18, 2015

Word_Swordsman said:

The Catholics didn't "bring" the Bible to anyone but themselves, keeping it out of the hands of their own congregation fore many centuries.
They in fact spent enormous effort keeping the Bible separated from laity and even their own clergymen that didn't have a license to keep a copy (in Latin, of course)

In 1536 A.D. they burned William Tyndale at the stake after he translated the Bible to English. They dug up the bones of John Wycliffe (who in 1380 A.D. was the first to translate the Latin Bible to English), burned them in the public square, then tossed the ashes into a river. Various Councils before then prohibited anyone from possessing any translation. The result was frequent burning of precious Bibles, and severe persecution of even Christians for defying the RCC's decisions to leave reading of the Bible in the hands of priests.

Upon studying the works of those demon-inspired RCC clergymen and their scholars, you will find one of their chief fears was for laity to discover the connection between The Old Testament and the New Testament. They hated Jews and their religion so much they killed their own that would inform the people about secret knowledge (Bible) meant to stay with the Papacy. That also afforded the clergy tremendous social and political power which multiplied through the Middle Ages in the wake of the demise of the Roman Empire.

Off your side topic....The antisemitism carried by the RCC all through their history is a big part of why the world of Christians refused to challenge Hitler and the genocide of millions of Jews in the gas chambers (Holocaust). The RCC is slowly correcting the antisemitism problem, but still takes actions that keep Israel suspicious of the Holy See. For some background check out Vatican-Israel Relations - Council on Foreign Relations

Glad you brought that up. One doesn't need to bother about their medieval history...... just go back about 50-75 years. And let's not forget Rome is a little country that has a lot of political clout & speaks great things.(hint, hint)

crossnote · Apr 18, 2015

Stephen63 said:

umm, unfortunately this is so but not even the authors claimed it to be divinely inspired, otherwise they would be denying the clarion call of the Reformation...'Sola Scriptura'!

The central issue at Marburg between Zwingli and Luther over the Lord's Supper dealt with the little word "IS" (this IS my body etc.). Luther took it at face value and Zwingli took it as a simile. Amongst most Evangelicals today, Zwingli appears to have won that debate.

yogosans14 · Apr 18, 2015

RememberTheSabbathDay said:

You are so ignorant of history its actually digusting...

yogosans14 · Apr 18, 2015

I like the UMC view of the Eucharist:

we believe that the change is spiritual. They signify the body and blood of Christ for us, helping us to be Christ's body in the world today, redeemed by Christ's blood. We pray over the bread and cup that they may make us one with Christ, 'one with each other, and one in service to all the world.'"

posthuman · Apr 18, 2015

ivanc0 said:

i don't understand how you can say this.

do you know how many times the scripture of the 'old testament' is quoted in the 'new' ?
how much of the 'old' points to the 'new' ?

these are not two different gods that the book reveals to us.

valiant · Apr 18, 2015

ivanc0 said:

without the Old Testament a good bit of the New Testament is meaningless.

close? a mere 80 years at a minimum. that means two generations had passed. they were totally out of touch with what really happened. without books what would you know about the first world war? Nothing but rumour.

The Bible was preserved around the world. The RC church preserved it in LATIN. And as mentioned above they tried their best to ensure it remained in Latin lest those heretical English find out the truth. It was preserved IN SPITE OF the Roman Catholic Church BY SCHOLARS. It was also preserved in the churches which were not Roman Catholic.

,

Well Luther had certainly been a Roman Catholic and he never fully threw it off. But Luther was only a small part of the reformation. The reformation in the UK was not due to Luther. What you mean is that the reformers caused the biggest turning back to Scripture of history. Thank God.

and that is a good thing. it shows that people are thinking. it parallels the 1st and 2nd centuries AD when all churches were independent and differed from each other in secondary ideas. What does it matter how long they are from the event if they have the actual writings of the Apostles? Eighty years, fifteen hundred years, makes little difference. Thy are all depending on the Apostolic writings for truth and certainly not on the 'early fathers'. Have you read what some of these early fathers taught? They did not understand Paul at all...

Well the Roman Catholic 'universal' church only came into existence in 7th century AD on the back of political intrigue and infighting. Right from the beginning their popes were murderers, thieves and adulterers. Read THE FACTS. Before that the Roman church only controlled churches within their sphere in the West, and there was no Pope..

In the Scriptures

posthuman · Apr 18, 2015

just to think about:

But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.”
(John 4:32)

"My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work."
(John 4:34)

Then Jesus declared,
“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry,
and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty."
(John 6:35)

mikeuk · Apr 18, 2015

MarcR said:

This is my blood of the NEW and everlasting covenant.
New is what he said, so new is what we must assume he meant.

You have a habit of missing inconvenient words out that change the meaning of scripture mark.

mikeuk · Apr 18, 2015

Stephen63 said:

It does speak for itself, take all the early church fathers , those taught by the apostles and on. All believed in real presence, and they treated the Eucharist with reverence, not one of them said symbolic. Not one said only spiritual. All stated it was body and blood, which is made quite clear at Capernaum.
Until everyone played " designer Christianity " after the reformation, demanding their right to their " own interpretation" nobody doubted the real presence.

It is a slam dunk.

posthuman · Apr 18, 2015

mikeuk said:

"Elsewhere the Lord, in the Gospel according to John, brought this out by symbols, when He said: 'Eat ye my flesh, and drink my blood,' describing distinctly by metaphor the drinkable properties of faith and the promise, by means of which the Church, like a human being consisting of many members, is refreshed and grows, is welded together and compacted of both,--of faith, which is the body, and of hope, which is the soul; as also the Lord of flesh and blood. For in reality the blood of faith is hope, in which faith is held as by a vital principle."
(Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, 1:6)

posthuman · Apr 18, 2015

maybe Clement wasn't directly talking about the eucharist. but:

"The words, 'His eyes are cheerful from wine, and his teeth white as milk,' again I think secretly reveal the mysteries of the new Covenant of our Saviour. 'His eyes are cheerful from wine,' seems to me to shew the gladness of the mystic wine which He gave to His disciples, when He said, 'Take, drink; this is my blood that is shed for you for the remission of sins: this do in remembrance of me.' And, 'His teeth are white as milk,' shew the brightness and purity of the sacramental food. For again, He gave Himself the symbols of His divine dispensation to His disciples, when He bade them make the likeness of His own Body. For since He no more was to take pleasure in bloody sacrifices, or those ordained by Moses in the slaughter of animals of various kinds, and was to give them bread to use as the symbol of His Body, He taught the purity and brightness of such food by saying, 'And his teeth are white as milk.' This also another prophet has recorded, where he says, 'Sacrifice and offering hast thou not required, but a body hast thou prepared for me.'"
(Eusebius, Demonstratio Evangelica, 8:1)

posthuman · Apr 18, 2015

not taking sides.

just didn't think transubstantiation pre-reformation is as unanimous as it's being made out to be.

am not a scholar nor have been to catechism or seminary.
*shrug* maybe i'm way off.

** exits stage left **

Jeff_56 · Apr 18, 2015

posthuman said:

as yahshua praised his father yahweh out loud publicly for , as it is written IN HIS WORD (unchanged),

as you are becoming a little child in him, he delights in you and will reveal truth to you, while he is pleased

to hide it (as he has for 2000 years) from the schools, from the educated, from the scholars, from the elite(so-called/self-thought), from the rcc, from the papacy(who is on the enemy's side remember),
and so on until
yahshua
returns
when all men will see him.

in anything if you differ from the rcc heresy, you are most often correct, simply by faith in yahshua and truth in yahshua as it is written for his children.

Stephen63 · Apr 18, 2015

mikeuk said:

I don't trust a single church father after the 4th century..... & I don't think a whole lot of the first three either, just sayin'. I remember what Paul said:

Acts 20:28-30 (KJV) [SUP]28 [/SUP]Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. [SUP]29[/SUP]For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. [SUP]30 [/SUP]Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.

Isn't that exactly what the RCC (church fathers) did? For centuries? And currently?

Jeff_56 · Apr 18, 2015

Stephen63 said:

yes. the rcc always(every year, whenever they could get comesome to do it for them OR get away with it themselves; including the infamous inquisition which was entirely satanic) put to death the Jews and the goyim who would not bow down to the pope.

they do all over the world today, marketing souls, just as IT IS WRITTEN IN GOD'S WORD, and killing whomever whenever they can just to do it.(literally; as the directives have been posted several times for their destruction of men and their souls; never to heal anyone anywhere) ...

crossnote · Apr 18, 2015

Not all the Church Fathers goose stepped Rome on the Eucharist, e.g...
https://onefold.wordpress.com/early-church-evidence-refutes-real-presence/

didymos · Apr 18, 2015

yogosans14 said:

Quotes 14 churchfathers at lenght... accuses the rest of the Forum of being "puffed up."

... and no, it's just a symbol. It's "hoc est corpus meus," not "hocus pocus."

The Eucharist--Just a symbol or much more?

Senior Member

Banned

Banned

Banned

Senior Member

yogosans14

Guest

yogosans14

Guest

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

mikeuk

Guest

mikeuk

Guest

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Banned

Banned

Banned

Senior Member

didymos

Guest