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And I think you also are missing the participatory element of the Passover. The commandment is "In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste." The Lord says "then your children will ask, 'What does this ritual mean?' you shall say 'It is the sacrifice of the Passover of Yahweh.'" What is the rite? "This day shall before your a memorial day."

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Why do you think they called it a "sacrifice"? There was no priest or altar.

I'm sorry I don't understand the question. Who is they?

The Israelites. The people who respond "It is the sacrifice of the Passover of Yahweh."

Zobel said:

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I know you had a winky face because you think this is a cute point, but I'm going to answer it and steelman it, even, as if it were serious.

One, the form of the assertion I made was not "St Augustine taught this therefore it must be true". It was that in addition to the real presence and change of the gifts to the Body and Blood being the clear witness of the Church, many church fathers explicitly addressed the question of - if they're Body and Blood, how do we understand them still tasting like wine, still being chewed like bread? St Augustine is one of them, offered as an example.
That's not contingent upon me agreeing with everything he said, and if he was wrong about literally everything else, his witness in consensus with the whole host of ancient sources would still be valuable.

Next you might say - how can we trust the church fathers if we know that sometimes they're wrong about things? Or what do we do when they disagree? This isn't a new question, and it is actually a whole lot older than the Reformation. St Vincent of Lerins wrote about this in 434 AD. He said - I have asked very many holy and educated men how can we determine the true universal faith from falsehood. In almost every instance they said if you want to remain sound and complete in that universal faith, strengthen your belief by the authority of scripture first, and then by what is passed down by the universal church.

To the first, you say - but people interpret scripture in all kinds of different ways, including people who are heretical. Scripture "seems to be capable of as many interpretations as there are interpreters." This is why it is necessary - because of there being so many ways to err - that the rule is in accordance with how the church interprets it. The test for this is to take all possible care to hold the faith that has been believed "everywhere, always, by all." This is the truest sense of "catholic" (universal, according to the whole).

You will be "catholic" if you check by "universality, antiquity, consent."

Universality if you confess that the one faith that the church throughout the world confesses is true.
Antiquity if we do not depart from the interpretations of scripture that were demonstrated and famously held by our holy fathers and ancestors.
Consent if in antiquity itself we follow the "definitions and determinations of all, or at least of almost all priests and teachers".

The interpretation of the Eucharist passes the test of universality, antiquity, and consent as well as being literally and explicitly from the scriptures.

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BRAVO!

When the first Passover happened the family patriarch was still acting as priest. The Leviticus priesthood hadn't happened yet. The loss of that patriarchal priesthood happened because of the idolatry at Sinai.

But it was always a family meal. Even after the establishment of the Levitical priesthood. Or are you saying it was originally a sacrifice, but not after?

Most sacrifices were eaten by the people making the offering, with a portion going to the priest. So most sacrifices are meals.

However, the killing and offering of the lamb, and the disposal of the blood at the altar, was done by the priests and Levites (2 Chron 35, Ezra 6).

It certainly is symbolic in protestant churches, but it is the "hidden manna" talked about in Revelation in the Catholic Church. Manna was supernatural bread from heaven in the OT. The NT comparison means the Eucharist is also supernatural bread from heaven. In the Greek, it is epiousias, or supersubstantial bread, per St. Jerome. It has changed my life, for sure...

Thaddeus73 said:

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It certainly is symbolic in some evangelical/non-denom churches, but it is the "hidden manna" talked about in Revelation in the Catholic Church. Manna was supernatural bread from heaven in the OT. The NT comparison means the Eucharist is also supernatural bread from heaven. In the Greek, it is epiousias, or supersubstantial bread, per St. Jerome. It has changed my life, for sure...

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FIFY.

AgLiving06 said:

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Thaddeus73 said:

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It certainly is symbolic in some evangelical/non-denom churches, but it is the "hidden manna" talked about in Revelation in the Catholic Church. Manna was supernatural bread from heaven in the OT. The NT comparison means the Eucharist is also supernatural bread from heaven. In the Greek, it is epiousias, or supersubstantial bread, per St. Jerome. It has changed my life, for sure...

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FIFY.

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if by "some" you mean the overwhelming majority of evangelical/non-denomination Protestant Churches (but you know that).

The female "Bishops" in the Anglican and Lutheran Churches introduces a whole new can of worms for the meaning of literal vs. symbolic view.


ETA: it is interesting that right now we are witnessing a major schism of the Anglican Church and with only a passing interest. The heart of the schism comes back to the Eucharistic theology and proper understanding. Real vs. symbolic.

Faithful Ag said:

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AgLiving06 said:

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Thaddeus73 said:

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It certainly is symbolic in some evangelical/non-denom churches, but it is the "hidden manna" talked about in Revelation in the Catholic Church. Manna was supernatural bread from heaven in the OT. The NT comparison means the Eucharist is also supernatural bread from heaven. In the Greek, it is epiousias, or supersubstantial bread, per St. Jerome. It has changed my life, for sure...

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FIFY.

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if by "some" you mean the overwhelming majority of evangelical/non-denomination Protestant Churches (but you know that).

The female "Bishops" in the Anglican and Lutheran Churches introduces a whole new can of worms for the meaning of literal vs. symbolic view.


ETA: it is interesting that right now we are witnessing a major schism of the Anglican Church and with only a passing interest. The heart of the schism comes back to the Eucharistic theology and proper understanding. Real vs. symbolic.

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I don't mean that at all.

There is nuance to what the various groups believe, but the true Protestant groups do not generally hold to a symbolic view. Lutherans, Calvinists, Methodists, etc.

That's the distinction that must be made. Thaddeus generalization was incorrect.

Your comment on female bishops is a red herring. The ELCA doesn't represent Lutheranism...although it is always a little ironic that Rome is probably more in communion with that group than true Lutherans are. LCMS/WELS/AALC, etc are not in fellowship with them.

I'm well on record here as saying the ELCA is not evangelical, not Lutheran, not a Church, but they do organize in America.

Simply because a group uses a name, does not mean they accurate represent that which they claim...Or I'd simply say there is no active Pope because the Sedevacantists say so.

Zobel said:

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It is not an irrelevant question, you just don't like the answer. It is evidence of what Christians were teaching - i.e., that it was the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus. There is no way to misunderstand a baptist service as cannibalism; they don't say anything that can be misconstrued in that way. Obviously the early Church was.

We don't confess the Eucharist becomes God in that way. But even so, this kind of reductionist thinking leads you away from God, not towards Him. Do you believe the Creator of the Universe became a little child? Do you believe God Himself died? If you trip over one, why do you excuse the other?

They didn't say the calf was Yahweh, they made an idol of Yahweh like the pagans had and worshipped it. Not unironically, what did Moses make them do with the gold from their idol?

How is the interpretation of people who lived with the Apostles, which has objective historical evidence for being maintained throughout centuries "modern"?

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It is irrelevant. How is an unsourced quote about pagans view of Christianity any sort of authority on what Christians believed? Are you aware that early Christians had theological disputes? For example some of Jesus' very own disciples were teaching gentiles had to be circumcised.

So if I be very disciples of Jesus held bad theology in what world are pagan observers any sort of authority? Seculars today say Christianity is hateful. Is it? No. Why not? Because non believers aren't an authority

Not to mention many many pagans converts had to be regularly written to by early church fathers for their incorrect theology.

And yes I believe Jesus became flesh. John tells us the Word BECAME flesh. It doesn't say the Word continually becomes your wafer/bread and wine.

And Yes I believe Jesus God incarnate died. Because that's what scripture teaches.

Now Jesus says during the last supper the bread is His body broken and the wine His blood poured out. IF you interpret that to be literal fine. What He DOES NOT say is Everytime you take communion your communion elements become His Body and Blood. He says do THIS ritual in REMEMBRANCE of Him. Not continual redoing. Just like Passover. The ORIGINAL Passover lamb was sacrificed to save. All the proceeding ones did NOT save but were done in remembrance.

Furthermore we can see in Hebrews Jesus died ONE time. He body was BROKEN ONE TIME. HIS BLOOD POURED ONE TIME. His body and blood are not broken and poured out every time you take the Eucharist. His body and blood sit at the right hand of God.

Furthermore. We can demonstrably prove the Eucharist is bread and wine. Not human flesh and blood. So to say otherwise honestly makes a mockery of Christianity. Which I don't think I have anything to repent for not believing Jesus flesh and blood are my communion I take like you said I should.

But wait there's more. Your early father quote you are taking literal. Which even begs the question if Jesus should be taken literal. And also many many many early fathers had flawed theology. They were collectively working out theology. So to take one random quote as some proof but denying basic logic and scripture is quite the endeavor.

And lastly you make an interesting connection between what Mosses made the Israelites do. They had to eat and poop their idol showing how little value it really was to believe what they MADE was actually God.

One final nail here. If you esteem early church doctrine so high consider Jesus' own rebuke to 5/7 early churches in the book of Revelation.

One final edit haha: I have a tremendous amount of respect for you and church history. I by no means mean for this to come across in any negative manner. I believe it is merely a discussion of theology. I have absolutely zero ill will towards you. You provide this board an innumerable amount of value. We just disagree on this particular point.

Sorry - I tend to lump all protestants together. I know there are different denominations all believing different things, but I don't believe that any protestant denominations believe in transubstantiation. True?

I didn't say it was authoritative, I said it was evidence of something. That something being "something which can be construed as cannibalism".

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Not to mention many many pagans converts had to be regularly written to by early church fathers for their incorrect theology.

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I already addressed this. Aside from being a bad argument (did the church fathers stop correcting? the same fathers who unanimously support the orthodox view of the Eucharist?)

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Now Jesus says during the last supper the bread is His body broken and the wine His blood poured out. IF you interpret that to be literal fine. What He DOES NOT say is Everytime you take communion your communion elements become His Body and Blood

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Jesus says literally and repeatedly that His flesh is true food and His blood is true drink. He tells His disciples that the Eucharist is His Body and Blood. Christians have continuously and unanimously taught this, the Eucharist has always been the criteria for whether or not you were a Christian. You don't accept this because reasons?

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He says do THIS ritual in REMEMBRANCE of Him. Not continual redoing. Just like Passover. The ORIGINAL Passover lamb was sacrificed to save. All the proceeding ones did NOT save but were done in remembrance.

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I already addressed this (bad) argument about the word anamnesis. And eating the Passover is what made you an Israelite, forever - just like it made the first Israelites Israelites. Everyone who ate the Passover was an Israelite, both for the first in Egypt and thereafter. St Paul says the Christ is our new Passover Lamb. They did not crucify the lamb. They did eat it. How else can we understand what St Paul wrote?

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Furthermore we can see in Hebrews Jesus died ONE time. He body was BROKEN ONE TIME. HIS BLOOD POURED ONE TIME. His body and blood are not broken and poured out every time you take the Eucharist. His body and blood sit at the right hand of God.

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It seems like you missed an entire post about this. You're arguing against a made up theology that is not orthodox. The church does not teach what you're saying.

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Furthermore. We can demonstrably prove the Eucharist is bread and wine. Not human flesh and blood. So to say otherwise honestly makes a mockery of Christianity. Which I don't think I have anything to repent for not believing Jesus flesh and blood are my communion I take like you said I should.

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Again. This is a really bad understanding, arguing against things the church doesn'tt each.

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But wait there's more. Your early father quote you are taking literal. Which even begs the question if Jesus should be taken literal. And also many many many early fathers had flawed theology. They were collectively working out theology. So to take one random quote as some proof but denying basic logic and scripture is quite the endeavor.

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What? They were not 'working out theology'. Christ says the Spirit would lead the Apostles into all truth. The scriptures say the faith was delivered once for all to the saints. I am not taking one random quote as "proof". The Church in history is unanimous on this point. There are mountains of patristic quotes to that effect.

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One final nail here. If you esteem early church doctrine so high consider Jesus' own rebuke to 5/7 early churches in the book of Revelation.

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this is a strawman fallacy. the claim that the early church has correct doctrine and teaching is not addressed here. instead a new misrepresentation of the claim that all early Churches were perfect is introduced and countered. nevermind the fact that following the "one church per city" model outliend in the scripture there were dozens of churches by the end of the first century, not seven. galatia, corinth, rome, antioch, thessalonica, colossae...? by your kind of logic i could say all of the churches but 5 were perfect.

And - to say 'we just disagree on this particular point' essentially makes you practice another religion than me. this is not a disagreement about some minute point.

Denying the eucharist is to deny the scriptural means of unity.

It is in the one loaf that we become one body, because we partake of the one loaf.

The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?

If you do not partake of the same loaf - and you do not claim to do so, and in fact openly reject it - we are not of the same body. You are saying tat you are not participating in the blood of Christ, or the body of Christ.

And Christ says that if you do not eat His flesh or drink His blood, there is no life in you.

I hope you can pray about this and repent. It is a very grave thing you are saying.

Maybe I don't understand your position correctly. When you say the Eucharist is the Body and blood of Jesus what specifically do you mean? I understand it the orthodox position is it becomes the literal body and blood of Jesus. Is that inaccurate?

What do you mean by literal?

That it is physically his body, flesh and not bread. And that the wine is blood and not wine. Literally His body and blood..

You're making a materialist argument. The Christian faith is not compatible with materialism.

It is literally and truly His body and blood. It also is bread and wine.

Hebrews 9:2527 (ESV): 25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, 26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,

Hebrews 9:28 (ESV): so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time,

Hebrews 10:914 (ESV): Behold, I have come to do your will." He does away with the first in order to establish the second. 10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
11 And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 13 waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. 14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

It's clear Jesus was offered ONE time.

If you are literally eating His body and drinking His blood you are saying you are continually breaking His body. You are continually pouring out His blood.

But scripture clearly teaches this happened ONE time and Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God. Not in our bellies.

And Jesus tells us to take the Eucharist to REMEMBER Him. Not to repeat the breaking and pouring out.

Exodus 32:45 (ESV): 4 And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!" 5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, "Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord."

If you bake bread and make wine and then say this is the flesh of Jesus and blood of Jesus you are repeating the above. What we make will never be God.

Brother you're ignoring where I've already addressed this, and against things I don't believe.

Zobel said:

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I hope you can pray about this and repent. It is a very grave thing you are saying.

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Do you mind clarifying this? I am interpreting that due to our "misunderstanding" of the Eucharist it is so serious that it will keep us separated from Christ in an eternal sense?

Martin Q. Blank said:

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Your link is broken or something. It's like a google search that doesn't show any results.

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Buddy, this was not the test you wanted to fail and then post about.

Yeesh.

God can save whom He will, I can judge no one. So don't read this as "if you don't hold the correct doctrinal view on the Eucharist you are going to be condemned" because that isn't in my purview.

However, you cannot separate the Eucharist from ecclesiology, praxis, and soteriology. It's right there at the center of the life in Christ, it is the foundation of our worship... it is our worship, it's why we do the divine liturgy. It is the receipt of grace par excellence.

St Paul says that it is in the Eucharist that we are one Body. The unity of the faithful is not through intellectual assent or confession. If you think about the church as a pyramid or a structure where the people are on one level and Christ is above, the unity doesn't happen at the person-to-person level. It happens by first going up to Christ, then through Christ back to each other. And this unity is in the one loaf. Again, "the cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all share the one bread." What this means is, in the Eucharist, the one bread, we become one - so without that, we are not. At least on in the same way.

I don't wish to be cut off from you, but right now I am, because we do not share one loaf. And the people who deny the Eucharist are - in our faith - not only cutting themselves off from us, but also from Christ.

You're struggling under an understanding of the Eucharist that is not what the church teaches, so you're leveraging Hebrews 9 and 10 against it. Clearly we read the scriptures, so clearly we agree - there was a once for all sacrifice.

We are not continually breaking His body or pouring out His blood. We don't confess that. We aren't re-sacrificing or repeating the once for all offering of Christ on the cross.

So, again, this is a kind of strawman argument.

As for "what we make will never be God" we are not saying that the bread becomes an idol. This is kind of a fundamental misunderstanding of idolatry anyway. The pagans didn't think the idol was itself the god, it was a kind of physical means to embody a god as a way interact, placate, ingratiate, manipulate the relationship. They believed there was a spiritual reality (the spiritual being that is the god) above and outside the material means of interaction (the idol itself). People interacted with idols by making sacrifices to them.

We are not making an idol of the bread and wine, we do not offer sacrifices to it. We are not saying "we worship bread" or "this bread is the God of the universe". Quite the opposite, in fact. We bring ordinary bread, ordinary wine as an offering to our God, like children bringing their fingerpainting artwork. Our God knows He gave these things to us - it is His own good things He has given us that we offer back to Him. This pleases Him.

He sends down His Holy Spirit upon those ordinary gifts and makes them into His Body and His Blood, changing them by His Spirit, and through His grace - not our own efforts - we receive grace, forgiveness of sins, life everlasting. Christ Jesus as our great High Priest is both the one offering and the offering itself, the one who receives and the one who is given.

Ultimately it is not our bread and wine which is the offering, but the very Body of Christ, the very Blood of Christ, offered by Christ Himself. In this all of the events of Christ's sacrifice - the Incarnation, the Cross, the Grave, the Resurrection, and the Ascension - are not repeated, but are made present. This is what anamnesis, remembrance, means.

Thanks for the further detail

I personally believe that when Jesus says, "My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink", he means spiritually, which is what is eternal and of far greater value than this temporal world we live in.

Do you have scripture that teaches the Holy Spirit comes down and transforms the bread you make into Jesus' body? I've never read one.

I can't remember who exactly but there is a preserved story in the church of a saint during liturgy, seeing the heavens open up and the angels singing while bringing down a baby jesus to the cup, cutting up the baby jesus into clean parts, and then returning upwards with a whole, unblemished, unharmed, happy baby jesus being lifted up from the cup as well and going back into heaven.

So yeah the eucharist is a holy mystery. Christ wants us to understand that we are receiving a real sacrifice because he is the sacrifice to end all sacrifices. This is how to the Torah sacrifice practices are filled full. There are things going on in the spiritual world that we cannot learn about just by diving harder into materialism and secularism (i.e. heart cells and stomach inspections of the eucharist.')

When I see navel gazing about the exact process of transubstantiation it just misses the whole point. There is synergism going on while performing the sacraments. Things are actually happening in the spiritual world that we cannot see, but the priests are faithfully participating in. I consider it synergistic because my belief is that if you don't believe in the spiritual participation of God during a sacrament, why should God participate? You lack reverence and holy appreciation.

Your approach is so far has been materialist and modernist, so we are going to have some discontinuities in how we understand things. There may be some major impasses. You're asking for me to accept your premise (a kind of sola scriptura) to show how this mechanistically works, neither of which are part of my tradition.

This, like much of our faith, is a mystery received by the revelation of Jesus Christ, transmitted to us through the Holy Apostles, the holy Scriptures, maintained faithfully and continuously through holy tradition. What I wrote above is a summary of the prayers and words of the Divine Liturgy, which we have been using in its current form since the 4th century, and with minor changes much further back than that (we have evidence of word-for-word prayers in the late second century from St Hippolytus of Rome).

The Holy Spirit is how we understand God's activity to occur in the world within the broader Trinitarian framework - the Spirit of Truth who is in all places and fills all things - mediating God's presence. The Spirit is the active presence of God that animates the Church. We understand the Holy Spirit to be involved in all of the working of the Church, and we call upon the Holy Spirit in all of our services, and as far as I know as a part of all of our holy mysteries (baptism, marriage, and so forth).

To answer your question more directly, rather than asking for a specific scripture, I would just point you back to the broader witness of scripture and the Church's ongoing, living tradition as we can see it today and continuously in history. In John 6 the Lord says the bread that He will give is His flesh, at the Last Supper He says, this is my body. He doesn't say "this symbolizes." The Apostles say the Eucharist is a participation in His Body and Blood. In the service we call upon God to send down His Holy Spirit upon us and upon the gifts to change them, to make the bread and wine the Body and Blood of Christ. We don't pin down the mechanics, the Scholastic / Aristotlean transubstantiation doctrine is a Roman Catholic medieval teaching. It is a mystery, like the Incarnation itself (how can God be truly a Man?). The Spirit makes Christ present, and we receive Him in faith, not because we have kind of figured out how this works, but because He promised it, because the Apostles taught it, because the Church has always lived this reality, and we continue it today in faithfulness.

one MEEN Ag said:

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So yeah the eucharist is a holy mystery. Christ wants us to understand that we are receiving a real sacrifice because he is the sacrifice to end all sacrifices.

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we received a real sacrifice because he was the sacrifice to end all sacrifices

"It is finished"
-John 19:30

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You lack reverence and holy appreciation.

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Respectfully, you come off as a pharisee when you say things like this.

Yes - Christ Jesus offered Himself as a paschal lamb, St Paul says He is our new paschal lamb.

What did they do with the Paschal lamb?

How do you receive the sacrifice? I mean you personally. How do you participate in the Body of Christ like St Paul says?

10andBOUNCE said:

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one MEEN Ag said:

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So yeah the eucharist is a holy mystery. Christ wants us to understand that we are receiving a real sacrifice because he is the sacrifice to end all sacrifices.

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we received a real sacrifice because he was the sacrifice to end all sacrifices

"It is finished"
-John 19:30

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You lack reverence and holy appreciation.

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Respectfully, you come off as a pharisee when you say things like this.

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Buddy, a nondenom guy calling me a pharisee for plainly establishing that A) the priest class is necessary and B) you and whoever is administering the sacraments have to value sacraments for sacraments to hold value is gonna make me pat myself on the back here. You think a unitarian universalist church breaking bread is actually the full sacrament of communion?

And the pharisees weren't wrong by the way, proud but not wrong. Their rejection of the Sadducees corrupt temple practices and deciding to set themselves apart and live by the Torah brought about the Messiah. The faithful remnant brought about the Messiah. Jesus didn't say the pharisees lacked authority, just that they were hypocrites. 'They sit in the seat of Moses, do as they say but not as they do for they are hypocrites.'

This is the silliest part of evangelicals to me. Pharisees did proper sacraments with pride in their hearts. So evangelicals point to every sacrament as an opportunity to throw the sacrament out instead of...doing the sacraments without pride in their hearts.

Buddy of mine goes to a very nice nondenom church in the woodlands. Head pastor gets up there and says communion and baptism are purely symbolic.

Okay, then why are we here, and why participate if nothing is being done?

By the way, that nondenom church has to say they are purely symbolic. They have no priest class, liturigicon, or church tradition passed down to them to administer any sacraments sacramentally.

Yukon Cornelius said:

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Do you have scripture that teaches the Holy Spirit comes down and transforms the bread you make into Jesus' body? I've never read one.

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Do you have scripture that teaches everything must be explicitly found in Scripture?

Do you have scripture that tells us explicitly and exclusively what is scripture?