This Is My Body?

Question

I'm a bit confused. I grew up believing that the Eucharist is the literal body and blood of Christ. It seems obvious, especially after the events of John 6. Jesus didn't try to correct anyone's misconceptions, but only hammered his point home all the harder, even striking at His own disciples. Hardly a group deserving of His scorn! Yet non-Catholics for the most part reject this idea as a possibility. How can ANYTHING be impossible for an omnipotent God? Nevertheless, protestants are adamant that it is merely symbolic. Why?

Atheists, please bow out on this one, unless you can be nice. This is the kind of question that SHOULD be asked in this forum. Tolerance is appreciated. Smart alecs will be reported.

Jonjon, I said smart alecs would be reported. I have no problem with posts like yours.

Answer 1

Anything _is_possible for God, since He is omnipotent. As a protestant, I have always considered that the bread and 'wine' are symbols of Christ's body and blood.

"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." Luke 22:19

The key word here, which seems to make the communion elements a symbol, is 'remembrance'.

Answer 2

I am in total agreement with you. It is the literal Body & Blood of Christ...that's why I feel sometimes, I don't deserve the Eucharist. Many protestents believe the Word to be Literal...but when it comes to this and the annointing of oil they say it's symbolic. I have been to many to different churches throughout my life, and I find that most of the people and churches that condemn the Catholic church have never even attended one or studied Catholism. It's like the blind leading the blind....

Answer 3

I often times 'assign' myself logical projects. One year, I decided to start on January 1 with only, "Yshua est Messiah, Christos."

By the end of the year, starting only with that one axiom, I had proofed every single aspect of the common Catholic Faith (some of the Roman/Eastern/Greek/Russian schisms I couldn't quite get at, but the common Catholic issues of faith were well in reach).

Protestantism is not a logical conclusion of the Bible or of Jesus being Messiah.

I wish I had kept all that documentation, but seeing as I was Roman Catholic at the time, it was preaching to the choir so I discarded it.

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gtah: You are in error. The greek word that is translated 'rememberance' has this meaning: "do this in such a way that the two become one, make the new as the old and the old as the new, so that there is no distinction between the two." Transubstantiation is not a re-sacrifice, but a return to the one singular sacrifice on Golgotha.

I have often used the analogy of the Altar being a time machine, that the consecration returns the spiritual substance of the bread and wine to the one Crucifixion for all times, joining Catholics to that one singular sacrifice.

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beta_fish: The Eucharist would only be ritual cannibalism if Jesus was man and man alone. Since Christian dogma is that he was Divine, it is not cannibalism, because Jesus was not of the one substance of man, but of two substances, Man and God (God from True God, Light from True Light, True Man from True God). It is relevant that the bread and wine physically remain of one substance while the spiritual substance becomes that of the Divinity of Jesus.

This is not cannibalism.

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Morning Star: Science acknowledges that it is incapable of answering questions of the spirit or supernatural. Thus, while I do not agree with the possibility, it is possible for the spiritual nature of a thing to be transubstantiated even though its physical 'species' remains the same.

Answer 4

Does it really matter? We know that when you partake of it, it tastes, looks and smells like whatever liquid and solid it is. If it's changed as you eat it or it's symbolic, you are still honoring Christ's wishes. Believing one way or the other doesn't change a thing. The part where Catholics honor/genuflect before the consecrated host would to me appear to be a "man made" custom, but again does no harm to do nor not to do.

Just this atheist's opinion.

Answer 5

Jesus Institutes the Eucharist / More Proofs of the Real Presence

Matt. 26:26-28; Mark. 14:22,24; Luke 22;19-20; 1 Cor. 11:24-25 - Jesus says, this IS my body and blood. Jesus does not say, this is a symbol of my body and blood.

Matt. 26:26; Mark. 14:22; Luke 22:19-20 - the Greek phrase is "Touto estin to soma mou." This phraseology means "this is actually" or "this is really" my body and blood.

1 Cor. 11:24 - the same translation is used by Paul - "touto mou estin to soma." The statement is "this is really" my body and blood. Nowhere in Scripture does God ever declare something without making it so.

Matt. 26:26; Mark. 14:22; Luke 22:19 - to deny the 2,000 year-old Catholic understanding of the Eucharist, Protestants must argue that Jesus was really saying "this represents (not is) my body and blood." However, Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke, had over 30 words for "represent," but Jesus did not use any of them. He used the Aramaic word for "estin" which means "is."

Matt. 26:28; Mark. 14:24; Luke 22:20 - Jesus' use of "poured out" in reference to His blood also emphasizes the reality of its presence.

Exodus 24:8 - Jesus emphasizes the reality of His actual blood being present by using Moses' statement "blood of the covenant."

1 Cor. 10:16 - Paul asks the question, "the cup of blessing and the bread of which we partake, is it not an actual participation in Christ's body and blood?" Is Paul really asking because He, the divinely inspired writer, does not understand? No, of course not. Paul's questions are obviously rhetorical. This IS the actual body and blood. Further, the Greek word "koinonia" describes an actual, not symbolic participation in the body and blood.

1 Cor. 10:18 - in this verse, Paul is saying we are what we eat. We are not partners with a symbol. We are partners of the one actual body.

1 Cor. 11:23 - Paul does not explain what he has actually received directly from Christ, except in the case when he teaches about the Eucharist. Here, Paul emphasizes the importance of the Eucharist by telling us he received directly from Jesus instructions on the Eucharist which is the source and summit of the Christian faith.

1 Cor. 11:27-29 - in these verses, Paul says that eating or drinking in an unworthy manner is the equivalent of profaning (literally, murdering) the body and blood of the Lord. If this is just a symbol, we cannot be guilty of actually profaning (murdering) it. We cannot murder a symbol. Either Paul, the divinely inspired apostle of God, is imposing an unjust penalty, or the Eucharist is the actual body and blood of Christ.

1 Cor. 11:30 - this verse alludes to the consequences of receiving the Eucharist unworthily. Receiving the actual body and blood of Jesus in mortal sin results in actual physical consequences to our bodies.

1 Cor. 11:27-30 - thus, if we partake of the Eucharist unworthily, we are guilty of literally murdering the body of Christ, and risking physical consequences to our bodies. This is overwhelming evidence for the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. These are unjust penalties if the Eucharist is just a symbol.

Acts 2:42 - from the Church's inception, apostolic tradition included celebrating the Eucharist (the "breaking of the bread") to fulfill Jesus' command "do this in remembrance of me."

Acts 20:28 - Paul charges the Church elders to "feed" the Church of the Lord, that is, with the flesh and blood of Christ.

Matt. 6:11; Luke 11:3 - in the Our Father, we ask God to give us this day our daily bread, that is the bread of life, Jesus Christ.

Matt. 12:39 – Jesus

Answer 6

I have always found this a bit odd and confusing. In general, we Catholics are more symbolic and the Protestants are more literal. When it comes to the Eucharist, it is the other way around.

Answer 7

First, you can't tell people not to answer this question based on their beliefs or lack thereof. You get what you get here on Yahoo Answers. Go ahead and report (censor) people; but "tolerance" is an all-way street.

Transsubstantiation is good old garden-variety magic. You take a common substance and ritually imbue it with the Divine Afflatus, then consume it so as to "commune" with that divinity. It's an idea as old as the world, certainly older than Christianity, which is merely a late Alexandrian syncretic hotch-pot of pagan mythology and ritual.

Catholicism, of course, as the "original" orthodoxy to coalesce out of the various competing sects of Christianity in the early centuries EV, maintains the closest affinity with its pagan roots. Magical ideas abound in its ritual. The literal transmutation of bread and wine into flesh and blood is emphasized in early legends such as that of St Gregory. Once the words are pronounced over the gifts of the Eucharist, the bread and wine vanish and the flesh and blood appear. If the people receiving Communion still perceive it to be ordinary bread and wine, it is evidently to be regarded as due to their lack of faith (in spite of the "literal" change). Most Catholic theologians have refused to bend on the matter.

But some form of the idea of transsubstantiation occurs in other post-Reformation sects of Christianity as well. Luther, hedging a little, insisted that the bread and wine remain bread and wine while ALSO representing the flesh and blood of Christ; this he referred to as "consubstantiation." It was a sort of capitulation to the obvious fact that few devotees ever found their mouths to be full of bleeding flesh after receiving the sacrament.

It's interesting that you mention John 6 - presumably the section in which Jesus says "I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall not hunger: and he that believeth in me shall never thirst," etc. Interesting because John has actually omitted the "Institution of the Eucharist" from his account of the Last Supper, replacing it with Jesus' bewitchment of Judas with the dipped sop - and that in spite of the fact that he devotes something like 20% of his entire gospel to that supper!

(P.S. Thanks for the additional remark. I try not to engage in petty name calling, but I DO frequently get "reported" for my answers purely because religious types object to my objections. And Yahoo, of course, just docks you based on how many people complained, without ever looking at the actual "controversy.")

Answer 8

I have a non-resident Pastor out of Texas. My "church" is a non-denominational Bible teaching church.My Pastor teaches from the original languages.
I participate in Communion through a DVD.
My Pastor teaches that this is the only ritual
that is commanded.
Jesus stated" Keep on doing this in remembrance of me".
I understand that Communion is a time of remembering Jesus and his saving work on the cross.
In Matthew it states" With God all things are possible".
Peace out.

Answer 9

So Christianity is really about cannibalism?

I disagree. It was clearly symbolic of accepting Jesus's teachings and His sacrifice for us, similar to all the other symbolic parables that He taught throughout His ministry (the teaching of the "Living Water" to the Samaritan woman by the well comes to mind)

Answer 10

When a person accepts Jesus as ther personal Savior, they recieve upon their own invitation to Jesus, His living inside them from that moment on. Through this their own body no longer belongs to them to do with as they choose, because once Jesus lives inside you thorugh Salvation, your body becomes the Temple of the Lord, the Holy Ghost.

1 Corinthians 6:19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?