Mothra said:Fre3dombear said:
Great thoughtful video challenging some tenets of the "Protestant" (depending which one you so choose) faith. Worth a listen for anyone objective and wanting to be as close to God as possible in this temporal walk
Jesus left us a church not a book
No. He left us both.
Doc Holliday said:The dilemma you're raising only works if the Eucharist is understood either as crude literal cannibalism or as mere symbolism. It's not strictly either, it's participation in Christ.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:Mothra said:Doc Holliday said:historian said:
It is silly to think the Lord God advocated a form of cannibalism! It makes much more sense to realize that Christ was speaking metaphorically when he said in the same way He was never literally a door, a vine, or a letter of the Greek alphabet. Likewise He was never a shepherd in the literal sense (but did fulfill OT prophecy) or a physician.
Several disciples left after He taught that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood to have eternal life. They found this teaching too difficult to accept, calling it a "hard saying", resulting in a mass departure of followers.
The general instruction appears twice, but the Gospel of John records Jesus repeating the concept at least six times within a single discourse to emphasize its importance. Now, if you're a disciple listening to Jesus, and you were arguing among yourselves about whether He was being literal, and this was His response what would you say? Would this clarify that He is being metaphorical?
Why would they act like that if it was just a metaphor and symbolic?
Some protestants (Lutherans) believe its a sacrament. Its only in the past couple of hundred years that people gradually started seeing it as symbolic and of not much importance. Many denominations barely even practice it.
Even if you think its symbolic, there's something very wrong with juice/cracker and then throwing it in the trash on the way out. If its only supposed to be symbolic...then discarding it in the trash is also symbolic.
Reiterating its importance, and saying that the bread and wine literally become Christ's flesh and blood, are two very different things.
I get that to you it's lost its holiness and symbolism (which seems to motivate a lot of your posts on religious topics), but that is quite a different thing than literally believing you are eating literal flesh and blood - an idea that simply isn't supported in scripture.
Both of our views are supported by scripture. It can be argued from the text in multiple ways because it doesn't explicitly say "Its symbolic" nor does it say "its literal". Scripture is also even more difficult than just specific verses, its how it harmonizes with the rest of the bible, what the cultural context was etc.
We're both engaging in hermeneutics and we're relying on an authority to dictate the truth.
Many Protestants disagree with you and claim the exact same thing you did "that other views aren't supported in scripture".
You're relying on later reformed doctrine that is schismatic from mainline Protestantism and I'm relying on Orthodox.
If the disciples understood Jesus to be talking literally - why then would they instruct Gentile believers to abstain from blood?
If you believe Jesus was being literal, then do you believe that one MUST eat his flesh in order to be saved? Wouldn't that mean, then, that despite what one believes, salvation is entirely dependent on eating a piece of bread and drinking wine from communion/the Eucharist? Do you really think that's the gospel?
The command in Acts 15 is about ordinary animal blood, not sacramental participation in Christ. You've got gentiles eating with Jews who had Torah dietary conscience. Eating blood publicly would destroy unity in the Church.
Baptism now saves you (1 Peter 3:21)
We are buried with Christ through baptism (Romans 6)
The bread is a participation (koinonia) in Christ's body (1 Corinthians 10:16)
These arent legal declarations. You're reading first century Christianity through later juridical and nominal categories.
The apostles were not making legal declarations about status before God. They were describing participation in divine life.
The ancient world did not separate symbol from reality the way modern nominalism does. This is a ancient vs modern mindset issue. Have you ever looked into this? It's a big deal, not something you can just brush off.
Ex. In the Roman world, offering incense before the emperor's statue was not seen as honoring a representation. It was honoring the emperor himself. Treaties were sealed with sacrificed animals because participants believed they mystically entered the covenant fate.
This kind of cultural assumption already existed. You have to read and understand it thought that lens. Not a different paradigm that shows up 1400+ years later.
The command in Acts does not limit it only to animal blood. They just say "blood". You're adding to their words. If eating the literal blood of Jesus was the absolute requirement of salvation (what you MUST believe if you believe in the literal interpretation), then it would behoove the apostles to make that very, very important distinction when making that command to the Gentile believers so as not to create any eternal life-altering confusion.
How can "baptism now save you", when the literal intepretation of John 6 shows that literal eating Jesus' flesh and drinking his blood is what saves you, and nothing else? You never answered this, as I've asked this repeatedly. Otherwise, you're calling Jesus a liar, when he says eating his flesh is a MUST for salvation, and that NOT eating him means "you have no life within you".
You would think that, given the absolute requirement of the practice of eating Jesus flesh for salvation, that it would have been declared in explicit terms throughout the New Testament. You would think that Peter and Paul would have mentioned it when they were asked how to be saved. You would think that the house of Cornelius, even after having been indwelled by the Holy Spirit and being water baptized, that the point would have been made that they still needed to eat literally Jesus' flesh and drink his blood, otherwise they weren't saved.
Your literal interpretation has a tremendous amount of problems. Instead of understanding it the way that Augustine said to understand it, that is, figuratively, you are left trying to scramble and twist yourself in order to keep your literal understanding. I can keep adding to your dilemma, like the thief on the cross, and how Judas Iscariot, who "ate Jesus' flesh" in the Last Supper yet who wasn't saved. It's just so obvious that Jesus' words weren't literal and that's consistent with the whole of Scripture. For God's sakes, man, Jesus himself even explained that it wasn't literal, that it was spiritual!
By the way... you agree that the symbolic interpretation is NOT a "new invention" of Protestantism, don't you?
When Jesus speaks in John 6, He's not talking about chewing biological tissue. He's speaking about participation in His life. That's why He immediately says, "It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing."
Scripture never presents salvation as a single isolated moment. The New Testament consistently speaks of one reality from multiple angles: we are saved through faith, baptized into Christ, born of water and Spirit, united to His body, nourished by His flesh and blood. These are not rival requirements.
Around AD 107, Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of the apostle John, wrote on his way to martyrdom that those who deny the Eucharist as the flesh of Christ separate themselves from the Church. This isn't a medieval development. This is within living memory of the apostles.
If the apostles taught communion as merely symbolic, how did a direct student of John speak this strongly, this early, and without controversy from the wider Church?
Either Ignatius fundamentally misunderstood apostolic Christianity only a few years after the apostles, or the early Church understood the Eucharist as real participation in Christ from the beginning.
Fre3dombear said:Mothra said:Fre3dombear said:
Great thoughtful video challenging some tenets of the "Protestant" (depending which one you so choose) faith. Worth a listen for anyone objective and wanting to be as close to God as possible in this temporal walk
Jesus left us a church not a book
No. He left us both.
Yeah, but no
Doc Holliday said:Mothra said:Doc Holliday said:historian said:
It is silly to think the Lord God advocated a form of cannibalism! It makes much more sense to realize that Christ was speaking metaphorically when he said in the same way He was never literally a door, a vine, or a letter of the Greek alphabet. Likewise He was never a shepherd in the literal sense (but did fulfill OT prophecy) or a physician.
Several disciples left after He taught that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood to have eternal life. They found this teaching too difficult to accept, calling it a "hard saying", resulting in a mass departure of followers.
The general instruction appears twice, but the Gospel of John records Jesus repeating the concept at least six times within a single discourse to emphasize its importance. Now, if you're a disciple listening to Jesus, and you were arguing among yourselves about whether He was being literal, and this was His response what would you say? Would this clarify that He is being metaphorical?
Why would they act like that if it was just a metaphor and symbolic?
Some protestants (Lutherans) believe its a sacrament. Its only in the past couple of hundred years that people gradually started seeing it as symbolic and of not much importance. Many denominations barely even practice it.
Even if you think its symbolic, there's something very wrong with juice/cracker and then throwing it in the trash on the way out. If its only supposed to be symbolic...then discarding it in the trash is also symbolic.
Reiterating its importance, and saying that the bread and wine literally become Christ's flesh and blood, are two very different things.
I get that to you it's lost its holiness and symbolism (which seems to motivate a lot of your posts on religious topics), but that is quite a different thing than literally believing you are eating literal flesh and blood - an idea that simply isn't supported in scripture.
Both of our views are supported by scripture. It can be argued from the text in multiple ways because it doesn't explicitly say "Its symbolic" nor does it say "its literal". Scripture is also even more difficult than just specific verses, its how it harmonizes with the rest of the bible, what the cultural context was etc.
We're both engaging in hermeneutics and we're relying on an authority to dictate the truth.
Many Protestants disagree with you and claim the exact same thing you did "that other views aren't supported in scripture".
You're relying on later reformed doctrine that is schismatic from mainline Protestantism and I'm relying on Orthodox.
Fre3dombear said:Doc Holliday said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:Mothra said:Doc Holliday said:historian said:
It is silly to think the Lord God advocated a form of cannibalism! It makes much more sense to realize that Christ was speaking metaphorically when he said in the same way He was never literally a door, a vine, or a letter of the Greek alphabet. Likewise He was never a shepherd in the literal sense (but did fulfill OT prophecy) or a physician.
Several disciples left after He taught that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood to have eternal life. They found this teaching too difficult to accept, calling it a "hard saying", resulting in a mass departure of followers.
The general instruction appears twice, but the Gospel of John records Jesus repeating the concept at least six times within a single discourse to emphasize its importance. Now, if you're a disciple listening to Jesus, and you were arguing among yourselves about whether He was being literal, and this was His response what would you say? Would this clarify that He is being metaphorical?
Why would they act like that if it was just a metaphor and symbolic?
Some protestants (Lutherans) believe its a sacrament. Its only in the past couple of hundred years that people gradually started seeing it as symbolic and of not much importance. Many denominations barely even practice it.
Even if you think its symbolic, there's something very wrong with juice/cracker and then throwing it in the trash on the way out. If its only supposed to be symbolic...then discarding it in the trash is also symbolic.
Reiterating its importance, and saying that the bread and wine literally become Christ's flesh and blood, are two very different things.
I get that to you it's lost its holiness and symbolism (which seems to motivate a lot of your posts on religious topics), but that is quite a different thing than literally believing you are eating literal flesh and blood - an idea that simply isn't supported in scripture.
Both of our views are supported by scripture. It can be argued from the text in multiple ways because it doesn't explicitly say "Its symbolic" nor does it say "its literal". Scripture is also even more difficult than just specific verses, its how it harmonizes with the rest of the bible, what the cultural context was etc.
We're both engaging in hermeneutics and we're relying on an authority to dictate the truth.
Many Protestants disagree with you and claim the exact same thing you did "that other views aren't supported in scripture".
You're relying on later reformed doctrine that is schismatic from mainline Protestantism and I'm relying on Orthodox.
If the disciples understood Jesus to be talking literally - why then would they instruct Gentile believers to abstain from blood?
If you believe Jesus was being literal, then do you believe that one MUST eat his flesh in order to be saved? Wouldn't that mean, then, that despite what one believes, salvation is entirely dependent on eating a piece of bread and drinking wine from communion/the Eucharist? Do you really think that's the gospel?
The command in Acts 15 is about ordinary animal blood, not sacramental participation in Christ. You've got gentiles eating with Jews who had Torah dietary conscience. Eating blood publicly would destroy unity in the Church.
Baptism now saves you (1 Peter 3:21)
We are buried with Christ through baptism (Romans 6)
The bread is a participation (koinonia) in Christ's body (1 Corinthians 10:16)
These arent legal declarations. You're reading first century Christianity through later juridical and nominal categories.
The apostles were not making legal declarations about status before God. They were describing participation in divine life.
The ancient world did not separate symbol from reality the way modern nominalism does. This is a ancient vs modern mindset issue. Have you ever looked into this? It's a big deal, not something you can just brush off.
Ex. In the Roman world, offering incense before the emperor's statue was not seen as honoring a representation. It was honoring the emperor himself. Treaties were sealed with sacrificed animals because participants believed they mystically entered the covenant fate.
This kind of cultural assumption already existed. You have to read and understand it thought that lens. Not a different paradigm that shows up 1400+ years later.
The command in Acts does not limit it only to animal blood. They just say "blood". You're adding to their words. If eating the literal blood of Jesus was the absolute requirement of salvation (what you MUST believe if you believe in the literal interpretation), then it would behoove the apostles to make that very, very important distinction when making that command to the Gentile believers so as not to create any eternal life-altering confusion.
How can "baptism now save you", when the literal intepretation of John 6 shows that literal eating Jesus' flesh and drinking his blood is what saves you, and nothing else? You never answered this, as I've asked this repeatedly. Otherwise, you're calling Jesus a liar, when he says eating his flesh is a MUST for salvation, and that NOT eating him means "you have no life within you".
You would think that, given the absolute requirement of the practice of eating Jesus flesh for salvation, that it would have been declared in explicit terms throughout the New Testament. You would think that Peter and Paul would have mentioned it when they were asked how to be saved. You would think that the house of Cornelius, even after having been indwelled by the Holy Spirit and being water baptized, that the point would have been made that they still needed to eat literally Jesus' flesh and drink his blood, otherwise they weren't saved.
Your literal interpretation has a tremendous amount of problems. Instead of understanding it the way that Augustine said to understand it, that is, figuratively, you are left trying to scramble and twist yourself in order to keep your literal understanding. I can keep adding to your dilemma, like the thief on the cross, and how Judas Iscariot, who "ate Jesus' flesh" in the Last Supper yet who wasn't saved. It's just so obvious that Jesus' words weren't literal and that's consistent with the whole of Scripture. For God's sakes, man, Jesus himself even explained that it wasn't literal, that it was spiritual!
By the way... you agree that the symbolic interpretation is NOT a "new invention" of Protestantism, don't you?
The dilemma you're raising only works if the Eucharist is understood either as crude literal cannibalism or as mere symbolism. It's not strictly either, it's participation in Christ.
When Jesus speaks in John 6, He's not talking about chewing biological tissue. He's speaking about participation in His life. That's why He immediately says, "It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing."
Scripture never presents salvation as a single isolated moment. The New Testament consistently speaks of one reality from multiple angles: we are saved through faith, baptized into Christ, born of water and Spirit, united to His body, nourished by His flesh and blood. These are not rival requirements.
Around AD 107, Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of the apostle John, wrote on his way to martyrdom that those who deny the Eucharist as the flesh of Christ separate themselves from the Church. This isn't a medieval development. This is within living memory of the apostles.
If the apostles taught communion as merely symbolic, how did a direct student of John speak this strongly, this early, and without controversy from the wider Church?
Either Ignatius fundamentally misunderstood apostolic Christianity only a few years after the apostles, or the early Church understood the Eucharist as real participation in Christ from the beginning.
Ive never understood basing one's faith on thief on the cross, an example of the least common denominator possible. Protestants bring it up all the time as their forever get out of jail free card.
Catholic catechism of Course acknowledges that even someone that puts a bullet in their own head, can make it to Heaven. Wouldn't recommend that is how one lives their life, but God works in mysterious ways and all is possible with God.
or there were circumstances clearly understood that water baptism and communion were impossible.Mothra said:Fre3dombear said:Doc Holliday said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:Mothra said:Doc Holliday said:historian said:
It is silly to think the Lord God advocated a form of cannibalism! It makes much more sense to realize that Christ was speaking metaphorically when he said in the same way He was never literally a door, a vine, or a letter of the Greek alphabet. Likewise He was never a shepherd in the literal sense (but did fulfill OT prophecy) or a physician.
Several disciples left after He taught that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood to have eternal life. They found this teaching too difficult to accept, calling it a "hard saying", resulting in a mass departure of followers.
The general instruction appears twice, but the Gospel of John records Jesus repeating the concept at least six times within a single discourse to emphasize its importance. Now, if you're a disciple listening to Jesus, and you were arguing among yourselves about whether He was being literal, and this was His response what would you say? Would this clarify that He is being metaphorical?
Why would they act like that if it was just a metaphor and symbolic?
Some protestants (Lutherans) believe its a sacrament. Its only in the past couple of hundred years that people gradually started seeing it as symbolic and of not much importance. Many denominations barely even practice it.
Even if you think its symbolic, there's something very wrong with juice/cracker and then throwing it in the trash on the way out. If its only supposed to be symbolic...then discarding it in the trash is also symbolic.
Reiterating its importance, and saying that the bread and wine literally become Christ's flesh and blood, are two very different things.
I get that to you it's lost its holiness and symbolism (which seems to motivate a lot of your posts on religious topics), but that is quite a different thing than literally believing you are eating literal flesh and blood - an idea that simply isn't supported in scripture.
Both of our views are supported by scripture. It can be argued from the text in multiple ways because it doesn't explicitly say "Its symbolic" nor does it say "its literal". Scripture is also even more difficult than just specific verses, its how it harmonizes with the rest of the bible, what the cultural context was etc.
We're both engaging in hermeneutics and we're relying on an authority to dictate the truth.
Many Protestants disagree with you and claim the exact same thing you did "that other views aren't supported in scripture".
You're relying on later reformed doctrine that is schismatic from mainline Protestantism and I'm relying on Orthodox.
If the disciples understood Jesus to be talking literally - why then would they instruct Gentile believers to abstain from blood?
If you believe Jesus was being literal, then do you believe that one MUST eat his flesh in order to be saved? Wouldn't that mean, then, that despite what one believes, salvation is entirely dependent on eating a piece of bread and drinking wine from communion/the Eucharist? Do you really think that's the gospel?
The command in Acts 15 is about ordinary animal blood, not sacramental participation in Christ. You've got gentiles eating with Jews who had Torah dietary conscience. Eating blood publicly would destroy unity in the Church.
Baptism now saves you (1 Peter 3:21)
We are buried with Christ through baptism (Romans 6)
The bread is a participation (koinonia) in Christ's body (1 Corinthians 10:16)
These arent legal declarations. You're reading first century Christianity through later juridical and nominal categories.
The apostles were not making legal declarations about status before God. They were describing participation in divine life.
The ancient world did not separate symbol from reality the way modern nominalism does. This is a ancient vs modern mindset issue. Have you ever looked into this? It's a big deal, not something you can just brush off.
Ex. In the Roman world, offering incense before the emperor's statue was not seen as honoring a representation. It was honoring the emperor himself. Treaties were sealed with sacrificed animals because participants believed they mystically entered the covenant fate.
This kind of cultural assumption already existed. You have to read and understand it thought that lens. Not a different paradigm that shows up 1400+ years later.
The command in Acts does not limit it only to animal blood. They just say "blood". You're adding to their words. If eating the literal blood of Jesus was the absolute requirement of salvation (what you MUST believe if you believe in the literal interpretation), then it would behoove the apostles to make that very, very important distinction when making that command to the Gentile believers so as not to create any eternal life-altering confusion.
How can "baptism now save you", when the literal intepretation of John 6 shows that literal eating Jesus' flesh and drinking his blood is what saves you, and nothing else? You never answered this, as I've asked this repeatedly. Otherwise, you're calling Jesus a liar, when he says eating his flesh is a MUST for salvation, and that NOT eating him means "you have no life within you".
You would think that, given the absolute requirement of the practice of eating Jesus flesh for salvation, that it would have been declared in explicit terms throughout the New Testament. You would think that Peter and Paul would have mentioned it when they were asked how to be saved. You would think that the house of Cornelius, even after having been indwelled by the Holy Spirit and being water baptized, that the point would have been made that they still needed to eat literally Jesus' flesh and drink his blood, otherwise they weren't saved.
Your literal interpretation has a tremendous amount of problems. Instead of understanding it the way that Augustine said to understand it, that is, figuratively, you are left trying to scramble and twist yourself in order to keep your literal understanding. I can keep adding to your dilemma, like the thief on the cross, and how Judas Iscariot, who "ate Jesus' flesh" in the Last Supper yet who wasn't saved. It's just so obvious that Jesus' words weren't literal and that's consistent with the whole of Scripture. For God's sakes, man, Jesus himself even explained that it wasn't literal, that it was spiritual!
By the way... you agree that the symbolic interpretation is NOT a "new invention" of Protestantism, don't you?
The dilemma you're raising only works if the Eucharist is understood either as crude literal cannibalism or as mere symbolism. It's not strictly either, it's participation in Christ.
When Jesus speaks in John 6, He's not talking about chewing biological tissue. He's speaking about participation in His life. That's why He immediately says, "It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing."
Scripture never presents salvation as a single isolated moment. The New Testament consistently speaks of one reality from multiple angles: we are saved through faith, baptized into Christ, born of water and Spirit, united to His body, nourished by His flesh and blood. These are not rival requirements.
Around AD 107, Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of the apostle John, wrote on his way to martyrdom that those who deny the Eucharist as the flesh of Christ separate themselves from the Church. This isn't a medieval development. This is within living memory of the apostles.
If the apostles taught communion as merely symbolic, how did a direct student of John speak this strongly, this early, and without controversy from the wider Church?
Either Ignatius fundamentally misunderstood apostolic Christianity only a few years after the apostles, or the early Church understood the Eucharist as real participation in Christ from the beginning.
Ive never understood basing one's faith on thief on the cross, an example of the least common denominator possible. Protestants bring it up all the time as their forever get out of jail free card.
Catholic catechism of Course acknowledges that even someone that puts a bullet in their own head, can make it to Heaven. Wouldn't recommend that is how one lives their life, but God works in mysterious ways and all is possible with God.
It appears to me you either don't understand why protestants bring it up, or more likely than not, you're just not reading or mischaracterizing.
The point of the thief is not that it's some sort of get out of jail free card. I brought it up with you because it completely turns on its head the Catholic belief that certain sacraments (i.e. baptism and the Eucharist) are necessary for salvation. The thief completely disproves that.
Mothra said:Fre3dombear said:Mothra said:Fre3dombear said:
Great thoughtful video challenging some tenets of the "Protestant" (depending which one you so choose) faith. Worth a listen for anyone objective and wanting to be as close to God as possible in this temporal walk
Jesus left us a church not a book
No. He left us both.
Yeah, but no
No, and no.
4th and Inches said:Mothra said:Fre3dombear said:Doc Holliday said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:Mothra said:Doc Holliday said:historian said:
It is silly to think the Lord God advocated a form of cannibalism! It makes much more sense to realize that Christ was speaking metaphorically when he said in the same way He was never literally a door, a vine, or a letter of the Greek alphabet. Likewise He was never a shepherd in the literal sense (but did fulfill OT prophecy) or a physician.
Several disciples left after He taught that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood to have eternal life. They found this teaching too difficult to accept, calling it a "hard saying", resulting in a mass departure of followers.
The general instruction appears twice, but the Gospel of John records Jesus repeating the concept at least six times within a single discourse to emphasize its importance. Now, if you're a disciple listening to Jesus, and you were arguing among yourselves about whether He was being literal, and this was His response what would you say? Would this clarify that He is being metaphorical?
Why would they act like that if it was just a metaphor and symbolic?
Some protestants (Lutherans) believe its a sacrament. Its only in the past couple of hundred years that people gradually started seeing it as symbolic and of not much importance. Many denominations barely even practice it.
Even if you think its symbolic, there's something very wrong with juice/cracker and then throwing it in the trash on the way out. If its only supposed to be symbolic...then discarding it in the trash is also symbolic.
Reiterating its importance, and saying that the bread and wine literally become Christ's flesh and blood, are two very different things.
I get that to you it's lost its holiness and symbolism (which seems to motivate a lot of your posts on religious topics), but that is quite a different thing than literally believing you are eating literal flesh and blood - an idea that simply isn't supported in scripture.
Both of our views are supported by scripture. It can be argued from the text in multiple ways because it doesn't explicitly say "Its symbolic" nor does it say "its literal". Scripture is also even more difficult than just specific verses, its how it harmonizes with the rest of the bible, what the cultural context was etc.
We're both engaging in hermeneutics and we're relying on an authority to dictate the truth.
Many Protestants disagree with you and claim the exact same thing you did "that other views aren't supported in scripture".
You're relying on later reformed doctrine that is schismatic from mainline Protestantism and I'm relying on Orthodox.
If the disciples understood Jesus to be talking literally - why then would they instruct Gentile believers to abstain from blood?
If you believe Jesus was being literal, then do you believe that one MUST eat his flesh in order to be saved? Wouldn't that mean, then, that despite what one believes, salvation is entirely dependent on eating a piece of bread and drinking wine from communion/the Eucharist? Do you really think that's the gospel?
The command in Acts 15 is about ordinary animal blood, not sacramental participation in Christ. You've got gentiles eating with Jews who had Torah dietary conscience. Eating blood publicly would destroy unity in the Church.
Baptism now saves you (1 Peter 3:21)
We are buried with Christ through baptism (Romans 6)
The bread is a participation (koinonia) in Christ's body (1 Corinthians 10:16)
These arent legal declarations. You're reading first century Christianity through later juridical and nominal categories.
The apostles were not making legal declarations about status before God. They were describing participation in divine life.
The ancient world did not separate symbol from reality the way modern nominalism does. This is a ancient vs modern mindset issue. Have you ever looked into this? It's a big deal, not something you can just brush off.
Ex. In the Roman world, offering incense before the emperor's statue was not seen as honoring a representation. It was honoring the emperor himself. Treaties were sealed with sacrificed animals because participants believed they mystically entered the covenant fate.
This kind of cultural assumption already existed. You have to read and understand it thought that lens. Not a different paradigm that shows up 1400+ years later.
The command in Acts does not limit it only to animal blood. They just say "blood". You're adding to their words. If eating the literal blood of Jesus was the absolute requirement of salvation (what you MUST believe if you believe in the literal interpretation), then it would behoove the apostles to make that very, very important distinction when making that command to the Gentile believers so as not to create any eternal life-altering confusion.
How can "baptism now save you", when the literal intepretation of John 6 shows that literal eating Jesus' flesh and drinking his blood is what saves you, and nothing else? You never answered this, as I've asked this repeatedly. Otherwise, you're calling Jesus a liar, when he says eating his flesh is a MUST for salvation, and that NOT eating him means "you have no life within you".
You would think that, given the absolute requirement of the practice of eating Jesus flesh for salvation, that it would have been declared in explicit terms throughout the New Testament. You would think that Peter and Paul would have mentioned it when they were asked how to be saved. You would think that the house of Cornelius, even after having been indwelled by the Holy Spirit and being water baptized, that the point would have been made that they still needed to eat literally Jesus' flesh and drink his blood, otherwise they weren't saved.
Your literal interpretation has a tremendous amount of problems. Instead of understanding it the way that Augustine said to understand it, that is, figuratively, you are left trying to scramble and twist yourself in order to keep your literal understanding. I can keep adding to your dilemma, like the thief on the cross, and how Judas Iscariot, who "ate Jesus' flesh" in the Last Supper yet who wasn't saved. It's just so obvious that Jesus' words weren't literal and that's consistent with the whole of Scripture. For God's sakes, man, Jesus himself even explained that it wasn't literal, that it was spiritual!
By the way... you agree that the symbolic interpretation is NOT a "new invention" of Protestantism, don't you?
The dilemma you're raising only works if the Eucharist is understood either as crude literal cannibalism or as mere symbolism. It's not strictly either, it's participation in Christ.
When Jesus speaks in John 6, He's not talking about chewing biological tissue. He's speaking about participation in His life. That's why He immediately says, "It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing."
Scripture never presents salvation as a single isolated moment. The New Testament consistently speaks of one reality from multiple angles: we are saved through faith, baptized into Christ, born of water and Spirit, united to His body, nourished by His flesh and blood. These are not rival requirements.
Around AD 107, Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of the apostle John, wrote on his way to martyrdom that those who deny the Eucharist as the flesh of Christ separate themselves from the Church. This isn't a medieval development. This is within living memory of the apostles.
If the apostles taught communion as merely symbolic, how did a direct student of John speak this strongly, this early, and without controversy from the wider Church?
Either Ignatius fundamentally misunderstood apostolic Christianity only a few years after the apostles, or the early Church understood the Eucharist as real participation in Christ from the beginning.
Ive never understood basing one's faith on thief on the cross, an example of the least common denominator possible. Protestants bring it up all the time as their forever get out of jail free card.
Catholic catechism of Course acknowledges that even someone that puts a bullet in their own head, can make it to Heaven. Wouldn't recommend that is how one lives their life, but God works in mysterious ways and all is possible with God.
It appears to me you either don't understand why protestants bring it up, or more likely than not, you're just not reading or mischaracterizing.
The point of the thief is not that it's some sort of get out of jail free card. I brought it up with you because it completely turns on its head the Catholic belief that certain sacraments (i.e. baptism and the Eucharist) are necessary for salvation. The thief completely disproves that.
or there were circumstances clearly understood that water baptism and communion were impossible.
I beleive catholics have specific teachings on times the baptism isnt available and that salvation is still possible
historian said:
Of course it's symbolic. Christ never advocated cannibalism. Jesus certainly did not eat His own flesh or drink His own blood when He instituted the practice! When Jesus said "take up your cross" He did not literally expect every one of His followers to be literally crucified. He often spoke in parables and symbols and it's usually pretty obvious that's what they are, even if the gospels do not explicitly say so.
I don't know of anyone who throws away the bread (or cracker) and juice (wine). They eat and drink them. That's the point of the sacrament. It's a symbolic way of publicly serving Christ. They do throw away the cup, however.
hard for me to say because Jesus himself told us to be water baptized(He began his ministry after his baptism) and The Lord was well pleased with the Son after the baptism. Yet we know of circumstances that salvation was attained without baptism.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:4th and Inches said:Mothra said:Fre3dombear said:Doc Holliday said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:Mothra said:Doc Holliday said:historian said:
It is silly to think the Lord God advocated a form of cannibalism! It makes much more sense to realize that Christ was speaking metaphorically when he said in the same way He was never literally a door, a vine, or a letter of the Greek alphabet. Likewise He was never a shepherd in the literal sense (but did fulfill OT prophecy) or a physician.
Several disciples left after He taught that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood to have eternal life. They found this teaching too difficult to accept, calling it a "hard saying", resulting in a mass departure of followers.
The general instruction appears twice, but the Gospel of John records Jesus repeating the concept at least six times within a single discourse to emphasize its importance. Now, if you're a disciple listening to Jesus, and you were arguing among yourselves about whether He was being literal, and this was His response what would you say? Would this clarify that He is being metaphorical?
Why would they act like that if it was just a metaphor and symbolic?
Some protestants (Lutherans) believe its a sacrament. Its only in the past couple of hundred years that people gradually started seeing it as symbolic and of not much importance. Many denominations barely even practice it.
Even if you think its symbolic, there's something very wrong with juice/cracker and then throwing it in the trash on the way out. If its only supposed to be symbolic...then discarding it in the trash is also symbolic.
Reiterating its importance, and saying that the bread and wine literally become Christ's flesh and blood, are two very different things.
I get that to you it's lost its holiness and symbolism (which seems to motivate a lot of your posts on religious topics), but that is quite a different thing than literally believing you are eating literal flesh and blood - an idea that simply isn't supported in scripture.
Both of our views are supported by scripture. It can be argued from the text in multiple ways because it doesn't explicitly say "Its symbolic" nor does it say "its literal". Scripture is also even more difficult than just specific verses, its how it harmonizes with the rest of the bible, what the cultural context was etc.
We're both engaging in hermeneutics and we're relying on an authority to dictate the truth.
Many Protestants disagree with you and claim the exact same thing you did "that other views aren't supported in scripture".
You're relying on later reformed doctrine that is schismatic from mainline Protestantism and I'm relying on Orthodox.
If the disciples understood Jesus to be talking literally - why then would they instruct Gentile believers to abstain from blood?
If you believe Jesus was being literal, then do you believe that one MUST eat his flesh in order to be saved? Wouldn't that mean, then, that despite what one believes, salvation is entirely dependent on eating a piece of bread and drinking wine from communion/the Eucharist? Do you really think that's the gospel?
The command in Acts 15 is about ordinary animal blood, not sacramental participation in Christ. You've got gentiles eating with Jews who had Torah dietary conscience. Eating blood publicly would destroy unity in the Church.
Baptism now saves you (1 Peter 3:21)
We are buried with Christ through baptism (Romans 6)
The bread is a participation (koinonia) in Christ's body (1 Corinthians 10:16)
These arent legal declarations. You're reading first century Christianity through later juridical and nominal categories.
The apostles were not making legal declarations about status before God. They were describing participation in divine life.
The ancient world did not separate symbol from reality the way modern nominalism does. This is a ancient vs modern mindset issue. Have you ever looked into this? It's a big deal, not something you can just brush off.
Ex. In the Roman world, offering incense before the emperor's statue was not seen as honoring a representation. It was honoring the emperor himself. Treaties were sealed with sacrificed animals because participants believed they mystically entered the covenant fate.
This kind of cultural assumption already existed. You have to read and understand it thought that lens. Not a different paradigm that shows up 1400+ years later.
The command in Acts does not limit it only to animal blood. They just say "blood". You're adding to their words. If eating the literal blood of Jesus was the absolute requirement of salvation (what you MUST believe if you believe in the literal interpretation), then it would behoove the apostles to make that very, very important distinction when making that command to the Gentile believers so as not to create any eternal life-altering confusion.
How can "baptism now save you", when the literal intepretation of John 6 shows that literal eating Jesus' flesh and drinking his blood is what saves you, and nothing else? You never answered this, as I've asked this repeatedly. Otherwise, you're calling Jesus a liar, when he says eating his flesh is a MUST for salvation, and that NOT eating him means "you have no life within you".
You would think that, given the absolute requirement of the practice of eating Jesus flesh for salvation, that it would have been declared in explicit terms throughout the New Testament. You would think that Peter and Paul would have mentioned it when they were asked how to be saved. You would think that the house of Cornelius, even after having been indwelled by the Holy Spirit and being water baptized, that the point would have been made that they still needed to eat literally Jesus' flesh and drink his blood, otherwise they weren't saved.
Your literal interpretation has a tremendous amount of problems. Instead of understanding it the way that Augustine said to understand it, that is, figuratively, you are left trying to scramble and twist yourself in order to keep your literal understanding. I can keep adding to your dilemma, like the thief on the cross, and how Judas Iscariot, who "ate Jesus' flesh" in the Last Supper yet who wasn't saved. It's just so obvious that Jesus' words weren't literal and that's consistent with the whole of Scripture. For God's sakes, man, Jesus himself even explained that it wasn't literal, that it was spiritual!
By the way... you agree that the symbolic interpretation is NOT a "new invention" of Protestantism, don't you?
The dilemma you're raising only works if the Eucharist is understood either as crude literal cannibalism or as mere symbolism. It's not strictly either, it's participation in Christ.
When Jesus speaks in John 6, He's not talking about chewing biological tissue. He's speaking about participation in His life. That's why He immediately says, "It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing."
Scripture never presents salvation as a single isolated moment. The New Testament consistently speaks of one reality from multiple angles: we are saved through faith, baptized into Christ, born of water and Spirit, united to His body, nourished by His flesh and blood. These are not rival requirements.
Around AD 107, Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of the apostle John, wrote on his way to martyrdom that those who deny the Eucharist as the flesh of Christ separate themselves from the Church. This isn't a medieval development. This is within living memory of the apostles.
If the apostles taught communion as merely symbolic, how did a direct student of John speak this strongly, this early, and without controversy from the wider Church?
Either Ignatius fundamentally misunderstood apostolic Christianity only a few years after the apostles, or the early Church understood the Eucharist as real participation in Christ from the beginning.
Ive never understood basing one's faith on thief on the cross, an example of the least common denominator possible. Protestants bring it up all the time as their forever get out of jail free card.
Catholic catechism of Course acknowledges that even someone that puts a bullet in their own head, can make it to Heaven. Wouldn't recommend that is how one lives their life, but God works in mysterious ways and all is possible with God.
It appears to me you either don't understand why protestants bring it up, or more likely than not, you're just not reading or mischaracterizing.
The point of the thief is not that it's some sort of get out of jail free card. I brought it up with you because it completely turns on its head the Catholic belief that certain sacraments (i.e. baptism and the Eucharist) are necessary for salvation. The thief completely disproves that.
or there were circumstances clearly understood that water baptism and communion were impossible.
I beleive catholics have specific teachings on times the baptism isnt available and that salvation is still possible
But does that teaching come from God? That's the question. I don't think God would present his plan of salvation with ad hoc "escape" clauses to deal with whatever inherent logical, technical, and situational difficulties that may arise. "Necessary.... but NOT necessary" isn't ever going to be a teaching coming from God.
Fre3dombear said:Doc Holliday said:The dilemma you're raising only works if the Eucharist is understood either as crude literal cannibalism or as mere symbolism. It's not strictly either, it's participation in Christ.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:Mothra said:Doc Holliday said:historian said:
It is silly to think the Lord God advocated a form of cannibalism! It makes much more sense to realize that Christ was speaking metaphorically when he said in the same way He was never literally a door, a vine, or a letter of the Greek alphabet. Likewise He was never a shepherd in the literal sense (but did fulfill OT prophecy) or a physician.
Several disciples left after He taught that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood to have eternal life. They found this teaching too difficult to accept, calling it a "hard saying", resulting in a mass departure of followers.
The general instruction appears twice, but the Gospel of John records Jesus repeating the concept at least six times within a single discourse to emphasize its importance. Now, if you're a disciple listening to Jesus, and you were arguing among yourselves about whether He was being literal, and this was His response what would you say? Would this clarify that He is being metaphorical?
Why would they act like that if it was just a metaphor and symbolic?
Some protestants (Lutherans) believe its a sacrament. Its only in the past couple of hundred years that people gradually started seeing it as symbolic and of not much importance. Many denominations barely even practice it.
Even if you think its symbolic, there's something very wrong with juice/cracker and then throwing it in the trash on the way out. If its only supposed to be symbolic...then discarding it in the trash is also symbolic.
Reiterating its importance, and saying that the bread and wine literally become Christ's flesh and blood, are two very different things.
I get that to you it's lost its holiness and symbolism (which seems to motivate a lot of your posts on religious topics), but that is quite a different thing than literally believing you are eating literal flesh and blood - an idea that simply isn't supported in scripture.
Both of our views are supported by scripture. It can be argued from the text in multiple ways because it doesn't explicitly say "Its symbolic" nor does it say "its literal". Scripture is also even more difficult than just specific verses, its how it harmonizes with the rest of the bible, what the cultural context was etc.
We're both engaging in hermeneutics and we're relying on an authority to dictate the truth.
Many Protestants disagree with you and claim the exact same thing you did "that other views aren't supported in scripture".
You're relying on later reformed doctrine that is schismatic from mainline Protestantism and I'm relying on Orthodox.
If the disciples understood Jesus to be talking literally - why then would they instruct Gentile believers to abstain from blood?
If you believe Jesus was being literal, then do you believe that one MUST eat his flesh in order to be saved? Wouldn't that mean, then, that despite what one believes, salvation is entirely dependent on eating a piece of bread and drinking wine from communion/the Eucharist? Do you really think that's the gospel?
The command in Acts 15 is about ordinary animal blood, not sacramental participation in Christ. You've got gentiles eating with Jews who had Torah dietary conscience. Eating blood publicly would destroy unity in the Church.
Baptism now saves you (1 Peter 3:21)
We are buried with Christ through baptism (Romans 6)
The bread is a participation (koinonia) in Christ's body (1 Corinthians 10:16)
These arent legal declarations. You're reading first century Christianity through later juridical and nominal categories.
The apostles were not making legal declarations about status before God. They were describing participation in divine life.
The ancient world did not separate symbol from reality the way modern nominalism does. This is a ancient vs modern mindset issue. Have you ever looked into this? It's a big deal, not something you can just brush off.
Ex. In the Roman world, offering incense before the emperor's statue was not seen as honoring a representation. It was honoring the emperor himself. Treaties were sealed with sacrificed animals because participants believed they mystically entered the covenant fate.
This kind of cultural assumption already existed. You have to read and understand it thought that lens. Not a different paradigm that shows up 1400+ years later.
The command in Acts does not limit it only to animal blood. They just say "blood". You're adding to their words. If eating the literal blood of Jesus was the absolute requirement of salvation (what you MUST believe if you believe in the literal interpretation), then it would behoove the apostles to make that very, very important distinction when making that command to the Gentile believers so as not to create any eternal life-altering confusion.
How can "baptism now save you", when the literal intepretation of John 6 shows that literal eating Jesus' flesh and drinking his blood is what saves you, and nothing else? You never answered this, as I've asked this repeatedly. Otherwise, you're calling Jesus a liar, when he says eating his flesh is a MUST for salvation, and that NOT eating him means "you have no life within you".
You would think that, given the absolute requirement of the practice of eating Jesus flesh for salvation, that it would have been declared in explicit terms throughout the New Testament. You would think that Peter and Paul would have mentioned it when they were asked how to be saved. You would think that the house of Cornelius, even after having been indwelled by the Holy Spirit and being water baptized, that the point would have been made that they still needed to eat literally Jesus' flesh and drink his blood, otherwise they weren't saved.
Your literal interpretation has a tremendous amount of problems. Instead of understanding it the way that Augustine said to understand it, that is, figuratively, you are left trying to scramble and twist yourself in order to keep your literal understanding. I can keep adding to your dilemma, like the thief on the cross, and how Judas Iscariot, who "ate Jesus' flesh" in the Last Supper yet who wasn't saved. It's just so obvious that Jesus' words weren't literal and that's consistent with the whole of Scripture. For God's sakes, man, Jesus himself even explained that it wasn't literal, that it was spiritual!
By the way... you agree that the symbolic interpretation is NOT a "new invention" of Protestantism, don't you?
When Jesus speaks in John 6, He's not talking about chewing biological tissue. He's speaking about participation in His life. That's why He immediately says, "It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing."
Scripture never presents salvation as a single isolated moment. The New Testament consistently speaks of one reality from multiple angles: we are saved through faith, baptized into Christ, born of water and Spirit, united to His body, nourished by His flesh and blood. These are not rival requirements.
Around AD 107, Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of the apostle John, wrote on his way to martyrdom that those who deny the Eucharist as the flesh of Christ separate themselves from the Church. This isn't a medieval development. This is within living memory of the apostles.
If the apostles taught communion as merely symbolic, how did a direct student of John speak this strongly, this early, and without controversy from the wider Church?
Either Ignatius fundamentally misunderstood apostolic Christianity only a few years after the apostles, or the early Church understood the Eucharist as real participation in Christ from the beginning.
Ive never understood basing one's faith on thief on the cross, an example of the least common denominator possible. Protestants bring it up all the time as their forever get out of jail free card.
Catholic catechism of Course acknowledges that even someone that puts a bullet in their own head, can make it to Heaven. Wouldn't recommend that is how one lives their life, but God works in mysterious ways and all is possible with God.
ShooterTX said:historian said:
Of course it's symbolic. Christ never advocated cannibalism. Jesus certainly did not eat His own flesh or drink His own blood when He instituted the practice! When Jesus said "take up your cross" He did not literally expect every one of His followers to be literally crucified. He often spoke in parables and symbols and it's usually pretty obvious that's what they are, even if the gospels do not explicitly say so.
I don't know of anyone who throws away the bread (or cracker) and juice (wine). They eat and drink them. That's the point of the sacrament. It's a symbolic way of publicly serving Christ. They do throw away the cup, however.
It is still so amazing that we are supposed to believe this, and yet none of the apostles instructed the new believers to do this. Some how Peter, James, John, Paul... they ALL forgot this most important part of Christianity. They gave clear instructions on so many topics, but they totally forgot about praying to Mary, Purgatory, and drinking literal blood and eating literal human flesh.
Even though Jesus told them that the Holy Spirit would remind them of everything... they somehow forgot these massively important parts? Catholics actually believe that happened??
4th and Inches said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:4th and Inches said:Mothra said:Fre3dombear said:Doc Holliday said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:Mothra said:Doc Holliday said:historian said:
It is silly to think the Lord God advocated a form of cannibalism! It makes much more sense to realize that Christ was speaking metaphorically when he said in the same way He was never literally a door, a vine, or a letter of the Greek alphabet. Likewise He was never a shepherd in the literal sense (but did fulfill OT prophecy) or a physician.
Several disciples left after He taught that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood to have eternal life. They found this teaching too difficult to accept, calling it a "hard saying", resulting in a mass departure of followers.
The general instruction appears twice, but the Gospel of John records Jesus repeating the concept at least six times within a single discourse to emphasize its importance. Now, if you're a disciple listening to Jesus, and you were arguing among yourselves about whether He was being literal, and this was His response what would you say? Would this clarify that He is being metaphorical?
Why would they act like that if it was just a metaphor and symbolic?
Some protestants (Lutherans) believe its a sacrament. Its only in the past couple of hundred years that people gradually started seeing it as symbolic and of not much importance. Many denominations barely even practice it.
Even if you think its symbolic, there's something very wrong with juice/cracker and then throwing it in the trash on the way out. If its only supposed to be symbolic...then discarding it in the trash is also symbolic.
Reiterating its importance, and saying that the bread and wine literally become Christ's flesh and blood, are two very different things.
I get that to you it's lost its holiness and symbolism (which seems to motivate a lot of your posts on religious topics), but that is quite a different thing than literally believing you are eating literal flesh and blood - an idea that simply isn't supported in scripture.
Both of our views are supported by scripture. It can be argued from the text in multiple ways because it doesn't explicitly say "Its symbolic" nor does it say "its literal". Scripture is also even more difficult than just specific verses, its how it harmonizes with the rest of the bible, what the cultural context was etc.
We're both engaging in hermeneutics and we're relying on an authority to dictate the truth.
Many Protestants disagree with you and claim the exact same thing you did "that other views aren't supported in scripture".
You're relying on later reformed doctrine that is schismatic from mainline Protestantism and I'm relying on Orthodox.
If the disciples understood Jesus to be talking literally - why then would they instruct Gentile believers to abstain from blood?
If you believe Jesus was being literal, then do you believe that one MUST eat his flesh in order to be saved? Wouldn't that mean, then, that despite what one believes, salvation is entirely dependent on eating a piece of bread and drinking wine from communion/the Eucharist? Do you really think that's the gospel?
The command in Acts 15 is about ordinary animal blood, not sacramental participation in Christ. You've got gentiles eating with Jews who had Torah dietary conscience. Eating blood publicly would destroy unity in the Church.
Baptism now saves you (1 Peter 3:21)
We are buried with Christ through baptism (Romans 6)
The bread is a participation (koinonia) in Christ's body (1 Corinthians 10:16)
These arent legal declarations. You're reading first century Christianity through later juridical and nominal categories.
The apostles were not making legal declarations about status before God. They were describing participation in divine life.
The ancient world did not separate symbol from reality the way modern nominalism does. This is a ancient vs modern mindset issue. Have you ever looked into this? It's a big deal, not something you can just brush off.
Ex. In the Roman world, offering incense before the emperor's statue was not seen as honoring a representation. It was honoring the emperor himself. Treaties were sealed with sacrificed animals because participants believed they mystically entered the covenant fate.
This kind of cultural assumption already existed. You have to read and understand it thought that lens. Not a different paradigm that shows up 1400+ years later.
The command in Acts does not limit it only to animal blood. They just say "blood". You're adding to their words. If eating the literal blood of Jesus was the absolute requirement of salvation (what you MUST believe if you believe in the literal interpretation), then it would behoove the apostles to make that very, very important distinction when making that command to the Gentile believers so as not to create any eternal life-altering confusion.
How can "baptism now save you", when the literal intepretation of John 6 shows that literal eating Jesus' flesh and drinking his blood is what saves you, and nothing else? You never answered this, as I've asked this repeatedly. Otherwise, you're calling Jesus a liar, when he says eating his flesh is a MUST for salvation, and that NOT eating him means "you have no life within you".
You would think that, given the absolute requirement of the practice of eating Jesus flesh for salvation, that it would have been declared in explicit terms throughout the New Testament. You would think that Peter and Paul would have mentioned it when they were asked how to be saved. You would think that the house of Cornelius, even after having been indwelled by the Holy Spirit and being water baptized, that the point would have been made that they still needed to eat literally Jesus' flesh and drink his blood, otherwise they weren't saved.
Your literal interpretation has a tremendous amount of problems. Instead of understanding it the way that Augustine said to understand it, that is, figuratively, you are left trying to scramble and twist yourself in order to keep your literal understanding. I can keep adding to your dilemma, like the thief on the cross, and how Judas Iscariot, who "ate Jesus' flesh" in the Last Supper yet who wasn't saved. It's just so obvious that Jesus' words weren't literal and that's consistent with the whole of Scripture. For God's sakes, man, Jesus himself even explained that it wasn't literal, that it was spiritual!
By the way... you agree that the symbolic interpretation is NOT a "new invention" of Protestantism, don't you?
The dilemma you're raising only works if the Eucharist is understood either as crude literal cannibalism or as mere symbolism. It's not strictly either, it's participation in Christ.
When Jesus speaks in John 6, He's not talking about chewing biological tissue. He's speaking about participation in His life. That's why He immediately says, "It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing."
Scripture never presents salvation as a single isolated moment. The New Testament consistently speaks of one reality from multiple angles: we are saved through faith, baptized into Christ, born of water and Spirit, united to His body, nourished by His flesh and blood. These are not rival requirements.
Around AD 107, Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of the apostle John, wrote on his way to martyrdom that those who deny the Eucharist as the flesh of Christ separate themselves from the Church. This isn't a medieval development. This is within living memory of the apostles.
If the apostles taught communion as merely symbolic, how did a direct student of John speak this strongly, this early, and without controversy from the wider Church?
Either Ignatius fundamentally misunderstood apostolic Christianity only a few years after the apostles, or the early Church understood the Eucharist as real participation in Christ from the beginning.
Ive never understood basing one's faith on thief on the cross, an example of the least common denominator possible. Protestants bring it up all the time as their forever get out of jail free card.
Catholic catechism of Course acknowledges that even someone that puts a bullet in their own head, can make it to Heaven. Wouldn't recommend that is how one lives their life, but God works in mysterious ways and all is possible with God.
It appears to me you either don't understand why protestants bring it up, or more likely than not, you're just not reading or mischaracterizing.
The point of the thief is not that it's some sort of get out of jail free card. I brought it up with you because it completely turns on its head the Catholic belief that certain sacraments (i.e. baptism and the Eucharist) are necessary for salvation. The thief completely disproves that.
or there were circumstances clearly understood that water baptism and communion were impossible.
I beleive catholics have specific teachings on times the baptism isnt available and that salvation is still possible
But does that teaching come from God? That's the question. I don't think God would present his plan of salvation with ad hoc "escape" clauses to deal with whatever inherent logical, technical, and situational difficulties that may arise. "Necessary.... but NOT necessary" isn't ever going to be a teaching coming from God.
hard for me to say because Jesus himself told us to be water baptized(He began his ministry after his baptism) and The Lord was well pleased with the Son after the baptism. Yet we know of circumstances that salvation was attained without baptism.
I am not Catholic so my response is limited.
Its curious that the Eucharist is the only time in the Bible where He doubles down on it being literal.historian said:
Of course it's symbolic. Christ never advocated cannibalism. Jesus certainly did not eat His own flesh or drink His own blood when He instituted the practice! When Jesus said "take up your cross" He did not literally expect every one of His followers to be literally crucified. He often spoke in parables and symbols and it's usually pretty obvious that's what they are, even if the gospels do not explicitly say so.
I don't know of anyone who throws away the bread (or cracker) and juice (wine). They eat and drink them. That's the point of the sacrament. It's a symbolic way of publicly serving Christ. They do throw away the cup, however.
Doc Holliday said:historian said:
Of course it's symbolic. Christ never advocated cannibalism. Jesus certainly did not eat His own flesh or drink His own blood when He instituted the practice! When Jesus said "take up your cross" He did not literally expect every one of His followers to be literally crucified. He often spoke in parables and symbols and it's usually pretty obvious that's what they are, even if the gospels do not explicitly say so.
I don't know of anyone who throws away the bread (or cracker) and juice (wine). They eat and drink them. That's the point of the sacrament. It's a symbolic way of publicly serving Christ. They do throw away the cup, however.
Its curious that the Eucharist is the only time in the Bible where He doubles down on it being literal.
In John 3, when Nicodemus misunderstands being "born again" physically, Jesus clarifies.
In John 4, when the Samaritan woman misunderstands "living water," Jesus clarifies.
In John 11, when the disciples misunderstand sleep as literal sleep, Jesus clarifies.
But in John 6…The Greek verb shifts from a more general word for eating to one meaning to chew or gnaw. He repeats the claim multiple times. Many disciples leave. And He lets them leave without explicitly claiming it was metaphorical.
Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of the apostle John, wrote on his way to martyrdom that those who deny the Eucharist as the flesh of Christ separate themselves from the Church. That's was in 107AD. The early church was 100% backing the same claim.
I guess those guys were wrong?
BusyTarpDuster2017 said:4th and Inches said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:4th and Inches said:Mothra said:Fre3dombear said:Doc Holliday said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:Mothra said:Doc Holliday said:historian said:
It is silly to think the Lord God advocated a form of cannibalism! It makes much more sense to realize that Christ was speaking metaphorically when he said in the same way He was never literally a door, a vine, or a letter of the Greek alphabet. Likewise He was never a shepherd in the literal sense (but did fulfill OT prophecy) or a physician.
Several disciples left after He taught that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood to have eternal life. They found this teaching too difficult to accept, calling it a "hard saying", resulting in a mass departure of followers.
The general instruction appears twice, but the Gospel of John records Jesus repeating the concept at least six times within a single discourse to emphasize its importance. Now, if you're a disciple listening to Jesus, and you were arguing among yourselves about whether He was being literal, and this was His response what would you say? Would this clarify that He is being metaphorical?
Why would they act like that if it was just a metaphor and symbolic?
Some protestants (Lutherans) believe its a sacrament. Its only in the past couple of hundred years that people gradually started seeing it as symbolic and of not much importance. Many denominations barely even practice it.
Even if you think its symbolic, there's something very wrong with juice/cracker and then throwing it in the trash on the way out. If its only supposed to be symbolic...then discarding it in the trash is also symbolic.
Reiterating its importance, and saying that the bread and wine literally become Christ's flesh and blood, are two very different things.
I get that to you it's lost its holiness and symbolism (which seems to motivate a lot of your posts on religious topics), but that is quite a different thing than literally believing you are eating literal flesh and blood - an idea that simply isn't supported in scripture.
Both of our views are supported by scripture. It can be argued from the text in multiple ways because it doesn't explicitly say "Its symbolic" nor does it say "its literal". Scripture is also even more difficult than just specific verses, its how it harmonizes with the rest of the bible, what the cultural context was etc.
We're both engaging in hermeneutics and we're relying on an authority to dictate the truth.
Many Protestants disagree with you and claim the exact same thing you did "that other views aren't supported in scripture".
You're relying on later reformed doctrine that is schismatic from mainline Protestantism and I'm relying on Orthodox.
If the disciples understood Jesus to be talking literally - why then would they instruct Gentile believers to abstain from blood?
If you believe Jesus was being literal, then do you believe that one MUST eat his flesh in order to be saved? Wouldn't that mean, then, that despite what one believes, salvation is entirely dependent on eating a piece of bread and drinking wine from communion/the Eucharist? Do you really think that's the gospel?
The command in Acts 15 is about ordinary animal blood, not sacramental participation in Christ. You've got gentiles eating with Jews who had Torah dietary conscience. Eating blood publicly would destroy unity in the Church.
Baptism now saves you (1 Peter 3:21)
We are buried with Christ through baptism (Romans 6)
The bread is a participation (koinonia) in Christ's body (1 Corinthians 10:16)
These arent legal declarations. You're reading first century Christianity through later juridical and nominal categories.
The apostles were not making legal declarations about status before God. They were describing participation in divine life.
The ancient world did not separate symbol from reality the way modern nominalism does. This is a ancient vs modern mindset issue. Have you ever looked into this? It's a big deal, not something you can just brush off.
Ex. In the Roman world, offering incense before the emperor's statue was not seen as honoring a representation. It was honoring the emperor himself. Treaties were sealed with sacrificed animals because participants believed they mystically entered the covenant fate.
This kind of cultural assumption already existed. You have to read and understand it thought that lens. Not a different paradigm that shows up 1400+ years later.
The command in Acts does not limit it only to animal blood. They just say "blood". You're adding to their words. If eating the literal blood of Jesus was the absolute requirement of salvation (what you MUST believe if you believe in the literal interpretation), then it would behoove the apostles to make that very, very important distinction when making that command to the Gentile believers so as not to create any eternal life-altering confusion.
How can "baptism now save you", when the literal intepretation of John 6 shows that literal eating Jesus' flesh and drinking his blood is what saves you, and nothing else? You never answered this, as I've asked this repeatedly. Otherwise, you're calling Jesus a liar, when he says eating his flesh is a MUST for salvation, and that NOT eating him means "you have no life within you".
You would think that, given the absolute requirement of the practice of eating Jesus flesh for salvation, that it would have been declared in explicit terms throughout the New Testament. You would think that Peter and Paul would have mentioned it when they were asked how to be saved. You would think that the house of Cornelius, even after having been indwelled by the Holy Spirit and being water baptized, that the point would have been made that they still needed to eat literally Jesus' flesh and drink his blood, otherwise they weren't saved.
Your literal interpretation has a tremendous amount of problems. Instead of understanding it the way that Augustine said to understand it, that is, figuratively, you are left trying to scramble and twist yourself in order to keep your literal understanding. I can keep adding to your dilemma, like the thief on the cross, and how Judas Iscariot, who "ate Jesus' flesh" in the Last Supper yet who wasn't saved. It's just so obvious that Jesus' words weren't literal and that's consistent with the whole of Scripture. For God's sakes, man, Jesus himself even explained that it wasn't literal, that it was spiritual!
By the way... you agree that the symbolic interpretation is NOT a "new invention" of Protestantism, don't you?
The dilemma you're raising only works if the Eucharist is understood either as crude literal cannibalism or as mere symbolism. It's not strictly either, it's participation in Christ.
When Jesus speaks in John 6, He's not talking about chewing biological tissue. He's speaking about participation in His life. That's why He immediately says, "It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing."
Scripture never presents salvation as a single isolated moment. The New Testament consistently speaks of one reality from multiple angles: we are saved through faith, baptized into Christ, born of water and Spirit, united to His body, nourished by His flesh and blood. These are not rival requirements.
Around AD 107, Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of the apostle John, wrote on his way to martyrdom that those who deny the Eucharist as the flesh of Christ separate themselves from the Church. This isn't a medieval development. This is within living memory of the apostles.
If the apostles taught communion as merely symbolic, how did a direct student of John speak this strongly, this early, and without controversy from the wider Church?
Either Ignatius fundamentally misunderstood apostolic Christianity only a few years after the apostles, or the early Church understood the Eucharist as real participation in Christ from the beginning.
Ive never understood basing one's faith on thief on the cross, an example of the least common denominator possible. Protestants bring it up all the time as their forever get out of jail free card.
Catholic catechism of Course acknowledges that even someone that puts a bullet in their own head, can make it to Heaven. Wouldn't recommend that is how one lives their life, but God works in mysterious ways and all is possible with God.
It appears to me you either don't understand why protestants bring it up, or more likely than not, you're just not reading or mischaracterizing.
The point of the thief is not that it's some sort of get out of jail free card. I brought it up with you because it completely turns on its head the Catholic belief that certain sacraments (i.e. baptism and the Eucharist) are necessary for salvation. The thief completely disproves that.
or there were circumstances clearly understood that water baptism and communion were impossible.
I beleive catholics have specific teachings on times the baptism isnt available and that salvation is still possible
But does that teaching come from God? That's the question. I don't think God would present his plan of salvation with ad hoc "escape" clauses to deal with whatever inherent logical, technical, and situational difficulties that may arise. "Necessary.... but NOT necessary" isn't ever going to be a teaching coming from God.
hard for me to say because Jesus himself told us to be water baptized(He began his ministry after his baptism) and The Lord was well pleased with the Son after the baptism. Yet we know of circumstances that salvation was attained without baptism.
I am not Catholic so my response is limited.
Should it really be hard to say? Would God ever make one's salvation fully contingent upon a performative act, despite one's faith?
BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Mothra said:Fre3dombear said:Mothra said:Fre3dombear said:
Great thoughtful video challenging some tenets of the "Protestant" (depending which one you so choose) faith. Worth a listen for anyone objective and wanting to be as close to God as possible in this temporal walk
Jesus left us a church not a book
No. He left us both.
Yeah, but no
No, and no.
Isn't it SO very telling when a Roman Catholic firmly believes that Jesus did not leave us his written word? YIKES. How much more obvious can this be?
4th and Inches said:or there were circumstances clearly understood that water baptism and communion were impossible.Mothra said:Fre3dombear said:Doc Holliday said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:Mothra said:Doc Holliday said:historian said:
It is silly to think the Lord God advocated a form of cannibalism! It makes much more sense to realize that Christ was speaking metaphorically when he said in the same way He was never literally a door, a vine, or a letter of the Greek alphabet. Likewise He was never a shepherd in the literal sense (but did fulfill OT prophecy) or a physician.
Several disciples left after He taught that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood to have eternal life. They found this teaching too difficult to accept, calling it a "hard saying", resulting in a mass departure of followers.
The general instruction appears twice, but the Gospel of John records Jesus repeating the concept at least six times within a single discourse to emphasize its importance. Now, if you're a disciple listening to Jesus, and you were arguing among yourselves about whether He was being literal, and this was His response what would you say? Would this clarify that He is being metaphorical?
Why would they act like that if it was just a metaphor and symbolic?
Some protestants (Lutherans) believe its a sacrament. Its only in the past couple of hundred years that people gradually started seeing it as symbolic and of not much importance. Many denominations barely even practice it.
Even if you think its symbolic, there's something very wrong with juice/cracker and then throwing it in the trash on the way out. If its only supposed to be symbolic...then discarding it in the trash is also symbolic.
Reiterating its importance, and saying that the bread and wine literally become Christ's flesh and blood, are two very different things.
I get that to you it's lost its holiness and symbolism (which seems to motivate a lot of your posts on religious topics), but that is quite a different thing than literally believing you are eating literal flesh and blood - an idea that simply isn't supported in scripture.
Both of our views are supported by scripture. It can be argued from the text in multiple ways because it doesn't explicitly say "Its symbolic" nor does it say "its literal". Scripture is also even more difficult than just specific verses, its how it harmonizes with the rest of the bible, what the cultural context was etc.
We're both engaging in hermeneutics and we're relying on an authority to dictate the truth.
Many Protestants disagree with you and claim the exact same thing you did "that other views aren't supported in scripture".
You're relying on later reformed doctrine that is schismatic from mainline Protestantism and I'm relying on Orthodox.
If the disciples understood Jesus to be talking literally - why then would they instruct Gentile believers to abstain from blood?
If you believe Jesus was being literal, then do you believe that one MUST eat his flesh in order to be saved? Wouldn't that mean, then, that despite what one believes, salvation is entirely dependent on eating a piece of bread and drinking wine from communion/the Eucharist? Do you really think that's the gospel?
The command in Acts 15 is about ordinary animal blood, not sacramental participation in Christ. You've got gentiles eating with Jews who had Torah dietary conscience. Eating blood publicly would destroy unity in the Church.
Baptism now saves you (1 Peter 3:21)
We are buried with Christ through baptism (Romans 6)
The bread is a participation (koinonia) in Christ's body (1 Corinthians 10:16)
These arent legal declarations. You're reading first century Christianity through later juridical and nominal categories.
The apostles were not making legal declarations about status before God. They were describing participation in divine life.
The ancient world did not separate symbol from reality the way modern nominalism does. This is a ancient vs modern mindset issue. Have you ever looked into this? It's a big deal, not something you can just brush off.
Ex. In the Roman world, offering incense before the emperor's statue was not seen as honoring a representation. It was honoring the emperor himself. Treaties were sealed with sacrificed animals because participants believed they mystically entered the covenant fate.
This kind of cultural assumption already existed. You have to read and understand it thought that lens. Not a different paradigm that shows up 1400+ years later.
The command in Acts does not limit it only to animal blood. They just say "blood". You're adding to their words. If eating the literal blood of Jesus was the absolute requirement of salvation (what you MUST believe if you believe in the literal interpretation), then it would behoove the apostles to make that very, very important distinction when making that command to the Gentile believers so as not to create any eternal life-altering confusion.
How can "baptism now save you", when the literal intepretation of John 6 shows that literal eating Jesus' flesh and drinking his blood is what saves you, and nothing else? You never answered this, as I've asked this repeatedly. Otherwise, you're calling Jesus a liar, when he says eating his flesh is a MUST for salvation, and that NOT eating him means "you have no life within you".
You would think that, given the absolute requirement of the practice of eating Jesus flesh for salvation, that it would have been declared in explicit terms throughout the New Testament. You would think that Peter and Paul would have mentioned it when they were asked how to be saved. You would think that the house of Cornelius, even after having been indwelled by the Holy Spirit and being water baptized, that the point would have been made that they still needed to eat literally Jesus' flesh and drink his blood, otherwise they weren't saved.
Your literal interpretation has a tremendous amount of problems. Instead of understanding it the way that Augustine said to understand it, that is, figuratively, you are left trying to scramble and twist yourself in order to keep your literal understanding. I can keep adding to your dilemma, like the thief on the cross, and how Judas Iscariot, who "ate Jesus' flesh" in the Last Supper yet who wasn't saved. It's just so obvious that Jesus' words weren't literal and that's consistent with the whole of Scripture. For God's sakes, man, Jesus himself even explained that it wasn't literal, that it was spiritual!
By the way... you agree that the symbolic interpretation is NOT a "new invention" of Protestantism, don't you?
The dilemma you're raising only works if the Eucharist is understood either as crude literal cannibalism or as mere symbolism. It's not strictly either, it's participation in Christ.
When Jesus speaks in John 6, He's not talking about chewing biological tissue. He's speaking about participation in His life. That's why He immediately says, "It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing."
Scripture never presents salvation as a single isolated moment. The New Testament consistently speaks of one reality from multiple angles: we are saved through faith, baptized into Christ, born of water and Spirit, united to His body, nourished by His flesh and blood. These are not rival requirements.
Around AD 107, Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of the apostle John, wrote on his way to martyrdom that those who deny the Eucharist as the flesh of Christ separate themselves from the Church. This isn't a medieval development. This is within living memory of the apostles.
If the apostles taught communion as merely symbolic, how did a direct student of John speak this strongly, this early, and without controversy from the wider Church?
Either Ignatius fundamentally misunderstood apostolic Christianity only a few years after the apostles, or the early Church understood the Eucharist as real participation in Christ from the beginning.
Ive never understood basing one's faith on thief on the cross, an example of the least common denominator possible. Protestants bring it up all the time as their forever get out of jail free card.
Catholic catechism of Course acknowledges that even someone that puts a bullet in their own head, can make it to Heaven. Wouldn't recommend that is how one lives their life, but God works in mysterious ways and all is possible with God.
It appears to me you either don't understand why protestants bring it up, or more likely than not, you're just not reading or mischaracterizing.
The point of the thief is not that it's some sort of get out of jail free card. I brought it up with you because it completely turns on its head the Catholic belief that certain sacraments (i.e. baptism and the Eucharist) are necessary for salvation. The thief completely disproves that.
I beleive catholics have specific teachings on times the baptism isnt available and that salvation is still possible
4th and Inches said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:4th and Inches said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:4th and Inches said:Mothra said:Fre3dombear said:Doc Holliday said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:Mothra said:Doc Holliday said:historian said:
It is silly to think the Lord God advocated a form of cannibalism! It makes much more sense to realize that Christ was speaking metaphorically when he said in the same way He was never literally a door, a vine, or a letter of the Greek alphabet. Likewise He was never a shepherd in the literal sense (but did fulfill OT prophecy) or a physician.
Several disciples left after He taught that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood to have eternal life. They found this teaching too difficult to accept, calling it a "hard saying", resulting in a mass departure of followers.
The general instruction appears twice, but the Gospel of John records Jesus repeating the concept at least six times within a single discourse to emphasize its importance. Now, if you're a disciple listening to Jesus, and you were arguing among yourselves about whether He was being literal, and this was His response what would you say? Would this clarify that He is being metaphorical?
Why would they act like that if it was just a metaphor and symbolic?
Some protestants (Lutherans) believe its a sacrament. Its only in the past couple of hundred years that people gradually started seeing it as symbolic and of not much importance. Many denominations barely even practice it.
Even if you think its symbolic, there's something very wrong with juice/cracker and then throwing it in the trash on the way out. If its only supposed to be symbolic...then discarding it in the trash is also symbolic.
Reiterating its importance, and saying that the bread and wine literally become Christ's flesh and blood, are two very different things.
I get that to you it's lost its holiness and symbolism (which seems to motivate a lot of your posts on religious topics), but that is quite a different thing than literally believing you are eating literal flesh and blood - an idea that simply isn't supported in scripture.
Both of our views are supported by scripture. It can be argued from the text in multiple ways because it doesn't explicitly say "Its symbolic" nor does it say "its literal". Scripture is also even more difficult than just specific verses, its how it harmonizes with the rest of the bible, what the cultural context was etc.
We're both engaging in hermeneutics and we're relying on an authority to dictate the truth.
Many Protestants disagree with you and claim the exact same thing you did "that other views aren't supported in scripture".
You're relying on later reformed doctrine that is schismatic from mainline Protestantism and I'm relying on Orthodox.
If the disciples understood Jesus to be talking literally - why then would they instruct Gentile believers to abstain from blood?
If you believe Jesus was being literal, then do you believe that one MUST eat his flesh in order to be saved? Wouldn't that mean, then, that despite what one believes, salvation is entirely dependent on eating a piece of bread and drinking wine from communion/the Eucharist? Do you really think that's the gospel?
The command in Acts 15 is about ordinary animal blood, not sacramental participation in Christ. You've got gentiles eating with Jews who had Torah dietary conscience. Eating blood publicly would destroy unity in the Church.
Baptism now saves you (1 Peter 3:21)
We are buried with Christ through baptism (Romans 6)
The bread is a participation (koinonia) in Christ's body (1 Corinthians 10:16)
These arent legal declarations. You're reading first century Christianity through later juridical and nominal categories.
The apostles were not making legal declarations about status before God. They were describing participation in divine life.
The ancient world did not separate symbol from reality the way modern nominalism does. This is a ancient vs modern mindset issue. Have you ever looked into this? It's a big deal, not something you can just brush off.
Ex. In the Roman world, offering incense before the emperor's statue was not seen as honoring a representation. It was honoring the emperor himself. Treaties were sealed with sacrificed animals because participants believed they mystically entered the covenant fate.
This kind of cultural assumption already existed. You have to read and understand it thought that lens. Not a different paradigm that shows up 1400+ years later.
The command in Acts does not limit it only to animal blood. They just say "blood". You're adding to their words. If eating the literal blood of Jesus was the absolute requirement of salvation (what you MUST believe if you believe in the literal interpretation), then it would behoove the apostles to make that very, very important distinction when making that command to the Gentile believers so as not to create any eternal life-altering confusion.
How can "baptism now save you", when the literal intepretation of John 6 shows that literal eating Jesus' flesh and drinking his blood is what saves you, and nothing else? You never answered this, as I've asked this repeatedly. Otherwise, you're calling Jesus a liar, when he says eating his flesh is a MUST for salvation, and that NOT eating him means "you have no life within you".
You would think that, given the absolute requirement of the practice of eating Jesus flesh for salvation, that it would have been declared in explicit terms throughout the New Testament. You would think that Peter and Paul would have mentioned it when they were asked how to be saved. You would think that the house of Cornelius, even after having been indwelled by the Holy Spirit and being water baptized, that the point would have been made that they still needed to eat literally Jesus' flesh and drink his blood, otherwise they weren't saved.
Your literal interpretation has a tremendous amount of problems. Instead of understanding it the way that Augustine said to understand it, that is, figuratively, you are left trying to scramble and twist yourself in order to keep your literal understanding. I can keep adding to your dilemma, like the thief on the cross, and how Judas Iscariot, who "ate Jesus' flesh" in the Last Supper yet who wasn't saved. It's just so obvious that Jesus' words weren't literal and that's consistent with the whole of Scripture. For God's sakes, man, Jesus himself even explained that it wasn't literal, that it was spiritual!
By the way... you agree that the symbolic interpretation is NOT a "new invention" of Protestantism, don't you?
The dilemma you're raising only works if the Eucharist is understood either as crude literal cannibalism or as mere symbolism. It's not strictly either, it's participation in Christ.
When Jesus speaks in John 6, He's not talking about chewing biological tissue. He's speaking about participation in His life. That's why He immediately says, "It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing."
Scripture never presents salvation as a single isolated moment. The New Testament consistently speaks of one reality from multiple angles: we are saved through faith, baptized into Christ, born of water and Spirit, united to His body, nourished by His flesh and blood. These are not rival requirements.
Around AD 107, Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of the apostle John, wrote on his way to martyrdom that those who deny the Eucharist as the flesh of Christ separate themselves from the Church. This isn't a medieval development. This is within living memory of the apostles.
If the apostles taught communion as merely symbolic, how did a direct student of John speak this strongly, this early, and without controversy from the wider Church?
Either Ignatius fundamentally misunderstood apostolic Christianity only a few years after the apostles, or the early Church understood the Eucharist as real participation in Christ from the beginning.
Ive never understood basing one's faith on thief on the cross, an example of the least common denominator possible. Protestants bring it up all the time as their forever get out of jail free card.
Catholic catechism of Course acknowledges that even someone that puts a bullet in their own head, can make it to Heaven. Wouldn't recommend that is how one lives their life, but God works in mysterious ways and all is possible with God.
It appears to me you either don't understand why protestants bring it up, or more likely than not, you're just not reading or mischaracterizing.
The point of the thief is not that it's some sort of get out of jail free card. I brought it up with you because it completely turns on its head the Catholic belief that certain sacraments (i.e. baptism and the Eucharist) are necessary for salvation. The thief completely disproves that.
or there were circumstances clearly understood that water baptism and communion were impossible.
I beleive catholics have specific teachings on times the baptism isnt available and that salvation is still possible
But does that teaching come from God? That's the question. I don't think God would present his plan of salvation with ad hoc "escape" clauses to deal with whatever inherent logical, technical, and situational difficulties that may arise. "Necessary.... but NOT necessary" isn't ever going to be a teaching coming from God.
hard for me to say because Jesus himself told us to be water baptized(He began his ministry after his baptism) and The Lord was well pleased with the Son after the baptism. Yet we know of circumstances that salvation was attained without baptism.
I am not Catholic so my response is limited.
Should it really be hard to say? Would God ever make one's salvation fully contingent upon a performative act, despite one's faith?
John 4:1-2
"Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than Johnalthough in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples."
Seems important that it was noted that Jesus didnt baptize but he said
John 3:5
Jesus answered, "Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit."
ACTS 2:38
"Peter replied, 'Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.'"
ROMANS 6:3
"Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?"
ACTS 8:36-37
"As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, 'Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?' And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him."
Acts 22:16
"And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name."
Matthew 7 13-14 describe the narrow gate and that not many will make it through.. perseverance of faith alone till the end may be the answer, but not many will succeed according to Jesus
I dont know if it is or not, if there is special circumstances or not.. i am not a theologeon or a person who grew up in the word, I am just a wretched sinner who hopes he has enough faith in death and resurrection of Yeshua to pass thru the narrow gateBusyTarpDuster2017 said:4th and Inches said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:4th and Inches said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:4th and Inches said:Mothra said:Fre3dombear said:Doc Holliday said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:Mothra said:Doc Holliday said:historian said:
It is silly to think the Lord God advocated a form of cannibalism! It makes much more sense to realize that Christ was speaking metaphorically when he said in the same way He was never literally a door, a vine, or a letter of the Greek alphabet. Likewise He was never a shepherd in the literal sense (but did fulfill OT prophecy) or a physician.
Several disciples left after He taught that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood to have eternal life. They found this teaching too difficult to accept, calling it a "hard saying", resulting in a mass departure of followers.
The general instruction appears twice, but the Gospel of John records Jesus repeating the concept at least six times within a single discourse to emphasize its importance. Now, if you're a disciple listening to Jesus, and you were arguing among yourselves about whether He was being literal, and this was His response what would you say? Would this clarify that He is being metaphorical?
Why would they act like that if it was just a metaphor and symbolic?
Some protestants (Lutherans) believe its a sacrament. Its only in the past couple of hundred years that people gradually started seeing it as symbolic and of not much importance. Many denominations barely even practice it.
Even if you think its symbolic, there's something very wrong with juice/cracker and then throwing it in the trash on the way out. If its only supposed to be symbolic...then discarding it in the trash is also symbolic.
Reiterating its importance, and saying that the bread and wine literally become Christ's flesh and blood, are two very different things.
I get that to you it's lost its holiness and symbolism (which seems to motivate a lot of your posts on religious topics), but that is quite a different thing than literally believing you are eating literal flesh and blood - an idea that simply isn't supported in scripture.
Both of our views are supported by scripture. It can be argued from the text in multiple ways because it doesn't explicitly say "Its symbolic" nor does it say "its literal". Scripture is also even more difficult than just specific verses, its how it harmonizes with the rest of the bible, what the cultural context was etc.
We're both engaging in hermeneutics and we're relying on an authority to dictate the truth.
Many Protestants disagree with you and claim the exact same thing you did "that other views aren't supported in scripture".
You're relying on later reformed doctrine that is schismatic from mainline Protestantism and I'm relying on Orthodox.
If the disciples understood Jesus to be talking literally - why then would they instruct Gentile believers to abstain from blood?
If you believe Jesus was being literal, then do you believe that one MUST eat his flesh in order to be saved? Wouldn't that mean, then, that despite what one believes, salvation is entirely dependent on eating a piece of bread and drinking wine from communion/the Eucharist? Do you really think that's the gospel?
The command in Acts 15 is about ordinary animal blood, not sacramental participation in Christ. You've got gentiles eating with Jews who had Torah dietary conscience. Eating blood publicly would destroy unity in the Church.
Baptism now saves you (1 Peter 3:21)
We are buried with Christ through baptism (Romans 6)
The bread is a participation (koinonia) in Christ's body (1 Corinthians 10:16)
These arent legal declarations. You're reading first century Christianity through later juridical and nominal categories.
The apostles were not making legal declarations about status before God. They were describing participation in divine life.
The ancient world did not separate symbol from reality the way modern nominalism does. This is a ancient vs modern mindset issue. Have you ever looked into this? It's a big deal, not something you can just brush off.
Ex. In the Roman world, offering incense before the emperor's statue was not seen as honoring a representation. It was honoring the emperor himself. Treaties were sealed with sacrificed animals because participants believed they mystically entered the covenant fate.
This kind of cultural assumption already existed. You have to read and understand it thought that lens. Not a different paradigm that shows up 1400+ years later.
The command in Acts does not limit it only to animal blood. They just say "blood". You're adding to their words. If eating the literal blood of Jesus was the absolute requirement of salvation (what you MUST believe if you believe in the literal interpretation), then it would behoove the apostles to make that very, very important distinction when making that command to the Gentile believers so as not to create any eternal life-altering confusion.
How can "baptism now save you", when the literal intepretation of John 6 shows that literal eating Jesus' flesh and drinking his blood is what saves you, and nothing else? You never answered this, as I've asked this repeatedly. Otherwise, you're calling Jesus a liar, when he says eating his flesh is a MUST for salvation, and that NOT eating him means "you have no life within you".
You would think that, given the absolute requirement of the practice of eating Jesus flesh for salvation, that it would have been declared in explicit terms throughout the New Testament. You would think that Peter and Paul would have mentioned it when they were asked how to be saved. You would think that the house of Cornelius, even after having been indwelled by the Holy Spirit and being water baptized, that the point would have been made that they still needed to eat literally Jesus' flesh and drink his blood, otherwise they weren't saved.
Your literal interpretation has a tremendous amount of problems. Instead of understanding it the way that Augustine said to understand it, that is, figuratively, you are left trying to scramble and twist yourself in order to keep your literal understanding. I can keep adding to your dilemma, like the thief on the cross, and how Judas Iscariot, who "ate Jesus' flesh" in the Last Supper yet who wasn't saved. It's just so obvious that Jesus' words weren't literal and that's consistent with the whole of Scripture. For God's sakes, man, Jesus himself even explained that it wasn't literal, that it was spiritual!
By the way... you agree that the symbolic interpretation is NOT a "new invention" of Protestantism, don't you?
The dilemma you're raising only works if the Eucharist is understood either as crude literal cannibalism or as mere symbolism. It's not strictly either, it's participation in Christ.
When Jesus speaks in John 6, He's not talking about chewing biological tissue. He's speaking about participation in His life. That's why He immediately says, "It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing."
Scripture never presents salvation as a single isolated moment. The New Testament consistently speaks of one reality from multiple angles: we are saved through faith, baptized into Christ, born of water and Spirit, united to His body, nourished by His flesh and blood. These are not rival requirements.
Around AD 107, Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of the apostle John, wrote on his way to martyrdom that those who deny the Eucharist as the flesh of Christ separate themselves from the Church. This isn't a medieval development. This is within living memory of the apostles.
If the apostles taught communion as merely symbolic, how did a direct student of John speak this strongly, this early, and without controversy from the wider Church?
Either Ignatius fundamentally misunderstood apostolic Christianity only a few years after the apostles, or the early Church understood the Eucharist as real participation in Christ from the beginning.
Ive never understood basing one's faith on thief on the cross, an example of the least common denominator possible. Protestants bring it up all the time as their forever get out of jail free card.
Catholic catechism of Course acknowledges that even someone that puts a bullet in their own head, can make it to Heaven. Wouldn't recommend that is how one lives their life, but God works in mysterious ways and all is possible with God.
It appears to me you either don't understand why protestants bring it up, or more likely than not, you're just not reading or mischaracterizing.
The point of the thief is not that it's some sort of get out of jail free card. I brought it up with you because it completely turns on its head the Catholic belief that certain sacraments (i.e. baptism and the Eucharist) are necessary for salvation. The thief completely disproves that.
or there were circumstances clearly understood that water baptism and communion were impossible.
I beleive catholics have specific teachings on times the baptism isnt available and that salvation is still possible
But does that teaching come from God? That's the question. I don't think God would present his plan of salvation with ad hoc "escape" clauses to deal with whatever inherent logical, technical, and situational difficulties that may arise. "Necessary.... but NOT necessary" isn't ever going to be a teaching coming from God.
hard for me to say because Jesus himself told us to be water baptized(He began his ministry after his baptism) and The Lord was well pleased with the Son after the baptism. Yet we know of circumstances that salvation was attained without baptism.
I am not Catholic so my response is limited.
Should it really be hard to say? Would God ever make one's salvation fully contingent upon a performative act, despite one's faith?
John 4:1-2
"Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than Johnalthough in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples."
Seems important that it was noted that Jesus didnt baptize but he said
John 3:5
Jesus answered, "Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit."
ACTS 2:38
"Peter replied, 'Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.'"
ROMANS 6:3
"Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?"
ACTS 8:36-37
"As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, 'Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?' And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him."
Acts 22:16
"And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name."
Matthew 7 13-14 describe the narrow gate and that not many will make it through.. perseverance of faith alone till the end may be the answer, but not many will succeed according to Jesus
I'm not sure what you're saying, you're just posting verses without telling me what you think they mean. Do you think these verses are saying that salvation is contingent upon getting water baptized, regardless of one's faith? These verses don't seem to explicitly state anything like that.
historian said:Fre3dombear said:Doc Holliday said:The dilemma you're raising only works if the Eucharist is understood either as crude literal cannibalism or as mere symbolism. It's not strictly either, it's participation in Christ.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:Mothra said:Doc Holliday said:historian said:
It is silly to think the Lord God advocated a form of cannibalism! It makes much more sense to realize that Christ was speaking metaphorically when he said in the same way He was never literally a door, a vine, or a letter of the Greek alphabet. Likewise He was never a shepherd in the literal sense (but did fulfill OT prophecy) or a physician.
Several disciples left after He taught that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood to have eternal life. They found this teaching too difficult to accept, calling it a "hard saying", resulting in a mass departure of followers.
The general instruction appears twice, but the Gospel of John records Jesus repeating the concept at least six times within a single discourse to emphasize its importance. Now, if you're a disciple listening to Jesus, and you were arguing among yourselves about whether He was being literal, and this was His response what would you say? Would this clarify that He is being metaphorical?
Why would they act like that if it was just a metaphor and symbolic?
Some protestants (Lutherans) believe its a sacrament. Its only in the past couple of hundred years that people gradually started seeing it as symbolic and of not much importance. Many denominations barely even practice it.
Even if you think its symbolic, there's something very wrong with juice/cracker and then throwing it in the trash on the way out. If its only supposed to be symbolic...then discarding it in the trash is also symbolic.
Reiterating its importance, and saying that the bread and wine literally become Christ's flesh and blood, are two very different things.
I get that to you it's lost its holiness and symbolism (which seems to motivate a lot of your posts on religious topics), but that is quite a different thing than literally believing you are eating literal flesh and blood - an idea that simply isn't supported in scripture.
Both of our views are supported by scripture. It can be argued from the text in multiple ways because it doesn't explicitly say "Its symbolic" nor does it say "its literal". Scripture is also even more difficult than just specific verses, its how it harmonizes with the rest of the bible, what the cultural context was etc.
We're both engaging in hermeneutics and we're relying on an authority to dictate the truth.
Many Protestants disagree with you and claim the exact same thing you did "that other views aren't supported in scripture".
You're relying on later reformed doctrine that is schismatic from mainline Protestantism and I'm relying on Orthodox.
If the disciples understood Jesus to be talking literally - why then would they instruct Gentile believers to abstain from blood?
If you believe Jesus was being literal, then do you believe that one MUST eat his flesh in order to be saved? Wouldn't that mean, then, that despite what one believes, salvation is entirely dependent on eating a piece of bread and drinking wine from communion/the Eucharist? Do you really think that's the gospel?
The command in Acts 15 is about ordinary animal blood, not sacramental participation in Christ. You've got gentiles eating with Jews who had Torah dietary conscience. Eating blood publicly would destroy unity in the Church.
Baptism now saves you (1 Peter 3:21)
We are buried with Christ through baptism (Romans 6)
The bread is a participation (koinonia) in Christ's body (1 Corinthians 10:16)
These arent legal declarations. You're reading first century Christianity through later juridical and nominal categories.
The apostles were not making legal declarations about status before God. They were describing participation in divine life.
The ancient world did not separate symbol from reality the way modern nominalism does. This is a ancient vs modern mindset issue. Have you ever looked into this? It's a big deal, not something you can just brush off.
Ex. In the Roman world, offering incense before the emperor's statue was not seen as honoring a representation. It was honoring the emperor himself. Treaties were sealed with sacrificed animals because participants believed they mystically entered the covenant fate.
This kind of cultural assumption already existed. You have to read and understand it thought that lens. Not a different paradigm that shows up 1400+ years later.
The command in Acts does not limit it only to animal blood. They just say "blood". You're adding to their words. If eating the literal blood of Jesus was the absolute requirement of salvation (what you MUST believe if you believe in the literal interpretation), then it would behoove the apostles to make that very, very important distinction when making that command to the Gentile believers so as not to create any eternal life-altering confusion.
How can "baptism now save you", when the literal intepretation of John 6 shows that literal eating Jesus' flesh and drinking his blood is what saves you, and nothing else? You never answered this, as I've asked this repeatedly. Otherwise, you're calling Jesus a liar, when he says eating his flesh is a MUST for salvation, and that NOT eating him means "you have no life within you".
You would think that, given the absolute requirement of the practice of eating Jesus flesh for salvation, that it would have been declared in explicit terms throughout the New Testament. You would think that Peter and Paul would have mentioned it when they were asked how to be saved. You would think that the house of Cornelius, even after having been indwelled by the Holy Spirit and being water baptized, that the point would have been made that they still needed to eat literally Jesus' flesh and drink his blood, otherwise they weren't saved.
Your literal interpretation has a tremendous amount of problems. Instead of understanding it the way that Augustine said to understand it, that is, figuratively, you are left trying to scramble and twist yourself in order to keep your literal understanding. I can keep adding to your dilemma, like the thief on the cross, and how Judas Iscariot, who "ate Jesus' flesh" in the Last Supper yet who wasn't saved. It's just so obvious that Jesus' words weren't literal and that's consistent with the whole of Scripture. For God's sakes, man, Jesus himself even explained that it wasn't literal, that it was spiritual!
By the way... you agree that the symbolic interpretation is NOT a "new invention" of Protestantism, don't you?
When Jesus speaks in John 6, He's not talking about chewing biological tissue. He's speaking about participation in His life. That's why He immediately says, "It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing."
Scripture never presents salvation as a single isolated moment. The New Testament consistently speaks of one reality from multiple angles: we are saved through faith, baptized into Christ, born of water and Spirit, united to His body, nourished by His flesh and blood. These are not rival requirements.
Around AD 107, Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of the apostle John, wrote on his way to martyrdom that those who deny the Eucharist as the flesh of Christ separate themselves from the Church. This isn't a medieval development. This is within living memory of the apostles.
If the apostles taught communion as merely symbolic, how did a direct student of John speak this strongly, this early, and without controversy from the wider Church?
Either Ignatius fundamentally misunderstood apostolic Christianity only a few years after the apostles, or the early Church understood the Eucharist as real participation in Christ from the beginning.
Ive never understood basing one's faith on thief on the cross, an example of the least common denominator possible. Protestants bring it up all the time as their forever get out of jail free card.
Catholic catechism of Course acknowledges that even someone that puts a bullet in their own head, can make it to Heaven. Wouldn't recommend that is how one lives their life, but God works in mysterious ways and all is possible with God.
No one bases their faith in the thief. Everyone who is saved is because of and based upon Jesus Christ. He is the only way for anyone to be saved (John 14:6, Acts 4:12, and many more). Some of us see the story of the thief as an illustration of that point: salvation does not require baptism, taking communion or the Lord's Supper, being the member of any church, or any other action. There is nothing any of us can do to be saved. It is only by the grace of God through the blood of Christ. Our only role is believing in Jesus (John 3:16).
Doc Holliday said:Its curious that the Eucharist is the only time in the Bible where He doubles down on it being literal.historian said:
Of course it's symbolic. Christ never advocated cannibalism. Jesus certainly did not eat His own flesh or drink His own blood when He instituted the practice! When Jesus said "take up your cross" He did not literally expect every one of His followers to be literally crucified. He often spoke in parables and symbols and it's usually pretty obvious that's what they are, even if the gospels do not explicitly say so.
I don't know of anyone who throws away the bread (or cracker) and juice (wine). They eat and drink them. That's the point of the sacrament. It's a symbolic way of publicly serving Christ. They do throw away the cup, however.
In John 3, when Nicodemus misunderstands being "born again" physically, Jesus clarifies.
In John 4, when the Samaritan woman misunderstands "living water," Jesus clarifies.
In John 11, when the disciples misunderstand sleep as literal sleep, Jesus clarifies.
But in John 6…The Greek verb shifts from a more general word for eating to one meaning to chew or gnaw. He repeats the claim multiple times. Many disciples leave. And He lets them leave without explicitly claiming it was metaphorical.
Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of the apostle John, wrote on his way to martyrdom that those who deny the Eucharist as the flesh of Christ separate themselves from the Church. That's was in 107AD. The early church was 100% backing the same claim.
I guess those guys were wrong?
Then I read 2 thess 2:15 "So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter."
If apostolic authority was meant to exist only in written Scripture, why would Paul explicitly bind Christians to oral teaching as well? Do you have any traditions not written down? They clearly exist or existed.
Is Christianity meant to be recovered primarily through private interpretation of a text, or through continuity in a visible apostolic Church that preserved both written and unwritten teaching?
The view that's is symbolic is even a departure from the reformation. Those magisterial Reformers still had liturgy, sacraments, historic creeds, episcopal or structured church order and objective ecclesiology. Now it's primarily non denominational who think everyone but them are borderline pagans.
4th and Inches said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:4th and Inches said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:4th and Inches said:Mothra said:Fre3dombear said:Doc Holliday said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:Mothra said:Doc Holliday said:historian said:
It is silly to think the Lord God advocated a form of cannibalism! It makes much more sense to realize that Christ was speaking metaphorically when he said in the same way He was never literally a door, a vine, or a letter of the Greek alphabet. Likewise He was never a shepherd in the literal sense (but did fulfill OT prophecy) or a physician.
Several disciples left after He taught that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood to have eternal life. They found this teaching too difficult to accept, calling it a "hard saying", resulting in a mass departure of followers.
The general instruction appears twice, but the Gospel of John records Jesus repeating the concept at least six times within a single discourse to emphasize its importance. Now, if you're a disciple listening to Jesus, and you were arguing among yourselves about whether He was being literal, and this was His response what would you say? Would this clarify that He is being metaphorical?
Why would they act like that if it was just a metaphor and symbolic?
Some protestants (Lutherans) believe its a sacrament. Its only in the past couple of hundred years that people gradually started seeing it as symbolic and of not much importance. Many denominations barely even practice it.
Even if you think its symbolic, there's something very wrong with juice/cracker and then throwing it in the trash on the way out. If its only supposed to be symbolic...then discarding it in the trash is also symbolic.
Reiterating its importance, and saying that the bread and wine literally become Christ's flesh and blood, are two very different things.
I get that to you it's lost its holiness and symbolism (which seems to motivate a lot of your posts on religious topics), but that is quite a different thing than literally believing you are eating literal flesh and blood - an idea that simply isn't supported in scripture.
Both of our views are supported by scripture. It can be argued from the text in multiple ways because it doesn't explicitly say "Its symbolic" nor does it say "its literal". Scripture is also even more difficult than just specific verses, its how it harmonizes with the rest of the bible, what the cultural context was etc.
We're both engaging in hermeneutics and we're relying on an authority to dictate the truth.
Many Protestants disagree with you and claim the exact same thing you did "that other views aren't supported in scripture".
You're relying on later reformed doctrine that is schismatic from mainline Protestantism and I'm relying on Orthodox.
If the disciples understood Jesus to be talking literally - why then would they instruct Gentile believers to abstain from blood?
If you believe Jesus was being literal, then do you believe that one MUST eat his flesh in order to be saved? Wouldn't that mean, then, that despite what one believes, salvation is entirely dependent on eating a piece of bread and drinking wine from communion/the Eucharist? Do you really think that's the gospel?
The command in Acts 15 is about ordinary animal blood, not sacramental participation in Christ. You've got gentiles eating with Jews who had Torah dietary conscience. Eating blood publicly would destroy unity in the Church.
Baptism now saves you (1 Peter 3:21)
We are buried with Christ through baptism (Romans 6)
The bread is a participation (koinonia) in Christ's body (1 Corinthians 10:16)
These arent legal declarations. You're reading first century Christianity through later juridical and nominal categories.
The apostles were not making legal declarations about status before God. They were describing participation in divine life.
The ancient world did not separate symbol from reality the way modern nominalism does. This is a ancient vs modern mindset issue. Have you ever looked into this? It's a big deal, not something you can just brush off.
Ex. In the Roman world, offering incense before the emperor's statue was not seen as honoring a representation. It was honoring the emperor himself. Treaties were sealed with sacrificed animals because participants believed they mystically entered the covenant fate.
This kind of cultural assumption already existed. You have to read and understand it thought that lens. Not a different paradigm that shows up 1400+ years later.
The command in Acts does not limit it only to animal blood. They just say "blood". You're adding to their words. If eating the literal blood of Jesus was the absolute requirement of salvation (what you MUST believe if you believe in the literal interpretation), then it would behoove the apostles to make that very, very important distinction when making that command to the Gentile believers so as not to create any eternal life-altering confusion.
How can "baptism now save you", when the literal intepretation of John 6 shows that literal eating Jesus' flesh and drinking his blood is what saves you, and nothing else? You never answered this, as I've asked this repeatedly. Otherwise, you're calling Jesus a liar, when he says eating his flesh is a MUST for salvation, and that NOT eating him means "you have no life within you".
You would think that, given the absolute requirement of the practice of eating Jesus flesh for salvation, that it would have been declared in explicit terms throughout the New Testament. You would think that Peter and Paul would have mentioned it when they were asked how to be saved. You would think that the house of Cornelius, even after having been indwelled by the Holy Spirit and being water baptized, that the point would have been made that they still needed to eat literally Jesus' flesh and drink his blood, otherwise they weren't saved.
Your literal interpretation has a tremendous amount of problems. Instead of understanding it the way that Augustine said to understand it, that is, figuratively, you are left trying to scramble and twist yourself in order to keep your literal understanding. I can keep adding to your dilemma, like the thief on the cross, and how Judas Iscariot, who "ate Jesus' flesh" in the Last Supper yet who wasn't saved. It's just so obvious that Jesus' words weren't literal and that's consistent with the whole of Scripture. For God's sakes, man, Jesus himself even explained that it wasn't literal, that it was spiritual!
By the way... you agree that the symbolic interpretation is NOT a "new invention" of Protestantism, don't you?
The dilemma you're raising only works if the Eucharist is understood either as crude literal cannibalism or as mere symbolism. It's not strictly either, it's participation in Christ.
When Jesus speaks in John 6, He's not talking about chewing biological tissue. He's speaking about participation in His life. That's why He immediately says, "It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing."
Scripture never presents salvation as a single isolated moment. The New Testament consistently speaks of one reality from multiple angles: we are saved through faith, baptized into Christ, born of water and Spirit, united to His body, nourished by His flesh and blood. These are not rival requirements.
Around AD 107, Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of the apostle John, wrote on his way to martyrdom that those who deny the Eucharist as the flesh of Christ separate themselves from the Church. This isn't a medieval development. This is within living memory of the apostles.
If the apostles taught communion as merely symbolic, how did a direct student of John speak this strongly, this early, and without controversy from the wider Church?
Either Ignatius fundamentally misunderstood apostolic Christianity only a few years after the apostles, or the early Church understood the Eucharist as real participation in Christ from the beginning.
Ive never understood basing one's faith on thief on the cross, an example of the least common denominator possible. Protestants bring it up all the time as their forever get out of jail free card.
Catholic catechism of Course acknowledges that even someone that puts a bullet in their own head, can make it to Heaven. Wouldn't recommend that is how one lives their life, but God works in mysterious ways and all is possible with God.
It appears to me you either don't understand why protestants bring it up, or more likely than not, you're just not reading or mischaracterizing.
The point of the thief is not that it's some sort of get out of jail free card. I brought it up with you because it completely turns on its head the Catholic belief that certain sacraments (i.e. baptism and the Eucharist) are necessary for salvation. The thief completely disproves that.
or there were circumstances clearly understood that water baptism and communion were impossible.
I beleive catholics have specific teachings on times the baptism isnt available and that salvation is still possible
But does that teaching come from God? That's the question. I don't think God would present his plan of salvation with ad hoc "escape" clauses to deal with whatever inherent logical, technical, and situational difficulties that may arise. "Necessary.... but NOT necessary" isn't ever going to be a teaching coming from God.
hard for me to say because Jesus himself told us to be water baptized(He began his ministry after his baptism) and The Lord was well pleased with the Son after the baptism. Yet we know of circumstances that salvation was attained without baptism.
I am not Catholic so my response is limited.
Should it really be hard to say? Would God ever make one's salvation fully contingent upon a performative act, despite one's faith?
John 4:1-2
"Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than Johnalthough in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples."
Seems important that it was noted that Jesus didnt baptize but he said
John 3:5
Jesus answered, "Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit."
ACTS 2:38
"Peter replied, 'Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.'"
ROMANS 6:3
"Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?"
ACTS 8:36-37
"As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, 'Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?' And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him."
Acts 22:16
"And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name."
Matthew 7 13-14 describe the narrow gate and that not many will make it through.. perseverance of faith alone till the end may be the answer, but not many will succeed according to Jesus
BusyTarpDuster2017 said:4th and Inches said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:4th and Inches said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:4th and Inches said:Mothra said:Fre3dombear said:Doc Holliday said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:Mothra said:Doc Holliday said:historian said:
It is silly to think the Lord God advocated a form of cannibalism! It makes much more sense to realize that Christ was speaking metaphorically when he said in the same way He was never literally a door, a vine, or a letter of the Greek alphabet. Likewise He was never a shepherd in the literal sense (but did fulfill OT prophecy) or a physician.
Several disciples left after He taught that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood to have eternal life. They found this teaching too difficult to accept, calling it a "hard saying", resulting in a mass departure of followers.
The general instruction appears twice, but the Gospel of John records Jesus repeating the concept at least six times within a single discourse to emphasize its importance. Now, if you're a disciple listening to Jesus, and you were arguing among yourselves about whether He was being literal, and this was His response what would you say? Would this clarify that He is being metaphorical?
Why would they act like that if it was just a metaphor and symbolic?
Some protestants (Lutherans) believe its a sacrament. Its only in the past couple of hundred years that people gradually started seeing it as symbolic and of not much importance. Many denominations barely even practice it.
Even if you think its symbolic, there's something very wrong with juice/cracker and then throwing it in the trash on the way out. If its only supposed to be symbolic...then discarding it in the trash is also symbolic.
Reiterating its importance, and saying that the bread and wine literally become Christ's flesh and blood, are two very different things.
I get that to you it's lost its holiness and symbolism (which seems to motivate a lot of your posts on religious topics), but that is quite a different thing than literally believing you are eating literal flesh and blood - an idea that simply isn't supported in scripture.
Both of our views are supported by scripture. It can be argued from the text in multiple ways because it doesn't explicitly say "Its symbolic" nor does it say "its literal". Scripture is also even more difficult than just specific verses, its how it harmonizes with the rest of the bible, what the cultural context was etc.
We're both engaging in hermeneutics and we're relying on an authority to dictate the truth.
Many Protestants disagree with you and claim the exact same thing you did "that other views aren't supported in scripture".
You're relying on later reformed doctrine that is schismatic from mainline Protestantism and I'm relying on Orthodox.
If the disciples understood Jesus to be talking literally - why then would they instruct Gentile believers to abstain from blood?
If you believe Jesus was being literal, then do you believe that one MUST eat his flesh in order to be saved? Wouldn't that mean, then, that despite what one believes, salvation is entirely dependent on eating a piece of bread and drinking wine from communion/the Eucharist? Do you really think that's the gospel?
The command in Acts 15 is about ordinary animal blood, not sacramental participation in Christ. You've got gentiles eating with Jews who had Torah dietary conscience. Eating blood publicly would destroy unity in the Church.
Baptism now saves you (1 Peter 3:21)
We are buried with Christ through baptism (Romans 6)
The bread is a participation (koinonia) in Christ's body (1 Corinthians 10:16)
These arent legal declarations. You're reading first century Christianity through later juridical and nominal categories.
The apostles were not making legal declarations about status before God. They were describing participation in divine life.
The ancient world did not separate symbol from reality the way modern nominalism does. This is a ancient vs modern mindset issue. Have you ever looked into this? It's a big deal, not something you can just brush off.
Ex. In the Roman world, offering incense before the emperor's statue was not seen as honoring a representation. It was honoring the emperor himself. Treaties were sealed with sacrificed animals because participants believed they mystically entered the covenant fate.
This kind of cultural assumption already existed. You have to read and understand it thought that lens. Not a different paradigm that shows up 1400+ years later.
The command in Acts does not limit it only to animal blood. They just say "blood". You're adding to their words. If eating the literal blood of Jesus was the absolute requirement of salvation (what you MUST believe if you believe in the literal interpretation), then it would behoove the apostles to make that very, very important distinction when making that command to the Gentile believers so as not to create any eternal life-altering confusion.
How can "baptism now save you", when the literal intepretation of John 6 shows that literal eating Jesus' flesh and drinking his blood is what saves you, and nothing else? You never answered this, as I've asked this repeatedly. Otherwise, you're calling Jesus a liar, when he says eating his flesh is a MUST for salvation, and that NOT eating him means "you have no life within you".
You would think that, given the absolute requirement of the practice of eating Jesus flesh for salvation, that it would have been declared in explicit terms throughout the New Testament. You would think that Peter and Paul would have mentioned it when they were asked how to be saved. You would think that the house of Cornelius, even after having been indwelled by the Holy Spirit and being water baptized, that the point would have been made that they still needed to eat literally Jesus' flesh and drink his blood, otherwise they weren't saved.
Your literal interpretation has a tremendous amount of problems. Instead of understanding it the way that Augustine said to understand it, that is, figuratively, you are left trying to scramble and twist yourself in order to keep your literal understanding. I can keep adding to your dilemma, like the thief on the cross, and how Judas Iscariot, who "ate Jesus' flesh" in the Last Supper yet who wasn't saved. It's just so obvious that Jesus' words weren't literal and that's consistent with the whole of Scripture. For God's sakes, man, Jesus himself even explained that it wasn't literal, that it was spiritual!
By the way... you agree that the symbolic interpretation is NOT a "new invention" of Protestantism, don't you?
The dilemma you're raising only works if the Eucharist is understood either as crude literal cannibalism or as mere symbolism. It's not strictly either, it's participation in Christ.
When Jesus speaks in John 6, He's not talking about chewing biological tissue. He's speaking about participation in His life. That's why He immediately says, "It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing."
Scripture never presents salvation as a single isolated moment. The New Testament consistently speaks of one reality from multiple angles: we are saved through faith, baptized into Christ, born of water and Spirit, united to His body, nourished by His flesh and blood. These are not rival requirements.
Around AD 107, Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of the apostle John, wrote on his way to martyrdom that those who deny the Eucharist as the flesh of Christ separate themselves from the Church. This isn't a medieval development. This is within living memory of the apostles.
If the apostles taught communion as merely symbolic, how did a direct student of John speak this strongly, this early, and without controversy from the wider Church?
Either Ignatius fundamentally misunderstood apostolic Christianity only a few years after the apostles, or the early Church understood the Eucharist as real participation in Christ from the beginning.
Ive never understood basing one's faith on thief on the cross, an example of the least common denominator possible. Protestants bring it up all the time as their forever get out of jail free card.
Catholic catechism of Course acknowledges that even someone that puts a bullet in their own head, can make it to Heaven. Wouldn't recommend that is how one lives their life, but God works in mysterious ways and all is possible with God.
It appears to me you either don't understand why protestants bring it up, or more likely than not, you're just not reading or mischaracterizing.
The point of the thief is not that it's some sort of get out of jail free card. I brought it up with you because it completely turns on its head the Catholic belief that certain sacraments (i.e. baptism and the Eucharist) are necessary for salvation. The thief completely disproves that.
or there were circumstances clearly understood that water baptism and communion were impossible.
I beleive catholics have specific teachings on times the baptism isnt available and that salvation is still possible
But does that teaching come from God? That's the question. I don't think God would present his plan of salvation with ad hoc "escape" clauses to deal with whatever inherent logical, technical, and situational difficulties that may arise. "Necessary.... but NOT necessary" isn't ever going to be a teaching coming from God.
hard for me to say because Jesus himself told us to be water baptized(He began his ministry after his baptism) and The Lord was well pleased with the Son after the baptism. Yet we know of circumstances that salvation was attained without baptism.
I am not Catholic so my response is limited.
Should it really be hard to say? Would God ever make one's salvation fully contingent upon a performative act, despite one's faith?
John 4:1-2
"Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than Johnalthough in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples."
Seems important that it was noted that Jesus didnt baptize but he said
John 3:5
Jesus answered, "Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit."
ACTS 2:38
"Peter replied, 'Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.'"
ROMANS 6:3
"Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?"
ACTS 8:36-37
"As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, 'Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?' And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him."
Acts 22:16
"And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name."
Matthew 7 13-14 describe the narrow gate and that not many will make it through.. perseverance of faith alone till the end may be the answer, but not many will succeed according to Jesus
I'm not sure what you're saying, you're just posting verses without telling me what you think they mean. Do you think these verses are saying that salvation is contingent upon getting water baptized, regardless of one's faith? These verses don't seem to explicitly state anything like that.
Fre3dombear said:historian said:Fre3dombear said:Doc Holliday said:The dilemma you're raising only works if the Eucharist is understood either as crude literal cannibalism or as mere symbolism. It's not strictly either, it's participation in Christ.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:Mothra said:Doc Holliday said:historian said:
It is silly to think the Lord God advocated a form of cannibalism! It makes much more sense to realize that Christ was speaking metaphorically when he said in the same way He was never literally a door, a vine, or a letter of the Greek alphabet. Likewise He was never a shepherd in the literal sense (but did fulfill OT prophecy) or a physician.
Several disciples left after He taught that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood to have eternal life. They found this teaching too difficult to accept, calling it a "hard saying", resulting in a mass departure of followers.
The general instruction appears twice, but the Gospel of John records Jesus repeating the concept at least six times within a single discourse to emphasize its importance. Now, if you're a disciple listening to Jesus, and you were arguing among yourselves about whether He was being literal, and this was His response what would you say? Would this clarify that He is being metaphorical?
Why would they act like that if it was just a metaphor and symbolic?
Some protestants (Lutherans) believe its a sacrament. Its only in the past couple of hundred years that people gradually started seeing it as symbolic and of not much importance. Many denominations barely even practice it.
Even if you think its symbolic, there's something very wrong with juice/cracker and then throwing it in the trash on the way out. If its only supposed to be symbolic...then discarding it in the trash is also symbolic.
Reiterating its importance, and saying that the bread and wine literally become Christ's flesh and blood, are two very different things.
I get that to you it's lost its holiness and symbolism (which seems to motivate a lot of your posts on religious topics), but that is quite a different thing than literally believing you are eating literal flesh and blood - an idea that simply isn't supported in scripture.
Both of our views are supported by scripture. It can be argued from the text in multiple ways because it doesn't explicitly say "Its symbolic" nor does it say "its literal". Scripture is also even more difficult than just specific verses, its how it harmonizes with the rest of the bible, what the cultural context was etc.
We're both engaging in hermeneutics and we're relying on an authority to dictate the truth.
Many Protestants disagree with you and claim the exact same thing you did "that other views aren't supported in scripture".
You're relying on later reformed doctrine that is schismatic from mainline Protestantism and I'm relying on Orthodox.
If the disciples understood Jesus to be talking literally - why then would they instruct Gentile believers to abstain from blood?
If you believe Jesus was being literal, then do you believe that one MUST eat his flesh in order to be saved? Wouldn't that mean, then, that despite what one believes, salvation is entirely dependent on eating a piece of bread and drinking wine from communion/the Eucharist? Do you really think that's the gospel?
The command in Acts 15 is about ordinary animal blood, not sacramental participation in Christ. You've got gentiles eating with Jews who had Torah dietary conscience. Eating blood publicly would destroy unity in the Church.
Baptism now saves you (1 Peter 3:21)
We are buried with Christ through baptism (Romans 6)
The bread is a participation (koinonia) in Christ's body (1 Corinthians 10:16)
These arent legal declarations. You're reading first century Christianity through later juridical and nominal categories.
The apostles were not making legal declarations about status before God. They were describing participation in divine life.
The ancient world did not separate symbol from reality the way modern nominalism does. This is a ancient vs modern mindset issue. Have you ever looked into this? It's a big deal, not something you can just brush off.
Ex. In the Roman world, offering incense before the emperor's statue was not seen as honoring a representation. It was honoring the emperor himself. Treaties were sealed with sacrificed animals because participants believed they mystically entered the covenant fate.
This kind of cultural assumption already existed. You have to read and understand it thought that lens. Not a different paradigm that shows up 1400+ years later.
The command in Acts does not limit it only to animal blood. They just say "blood". You're adding to their words. If eating the literal blood of Jesus was the absolute requirement of salvation (what you MUST believe if you believe in the literal interpretation), then it would behoove the apostles to make that very, very important distinction when making that command to the Gentile believers so as not to create any eternal life-altering confusion.
How can "baptism now save you", when the literal intepretation of John 6 shows that literal eating Jesus' flesh and drinking his blood is what saves you, and nothing else? You never answered this, as I've asked this repeatedly. Otherwise, you're calling Jesus a liar, when he says eating his flesh is a MUST for salvation, and that NOT eating him means "you have no life within you".
You would think that, given the absolute requirement of the practice of eating Jesus flesh for salvation, that it would have been declared in explicit terms throughout the New Testament. You would think that Peter and Paul would have mentioned it when they were asked how to be saved. You would think that the house of Cornelius, even after having been indwelled by the Holy Spirit and being water baptized, that the point would have been made that they still needed to eat literally Jesus' flesh and drink his blood, otherwise they weren't saved.
Your literal interpretation has a tremendous amount of problems. Instead of understanding it the way that Augustine said to understand it, that is, figuratively, you are left trying to scramble and twist yourself in order to keep your literal understanding. I can keep adding to your dilemma, like the thief on the cross, and how Judas Iscariot, who "ate Jesus' flesh" in the Last Supper yet who wasn't saved. It's just so obvious that Jesus' words weren't literal and that's consistent with the whole of Scripture. For God's sakes, man, Jesus himself even explained that it wasn't literal, that it was spiritual!
By the way... you agree that the symbolic interpretation is NOT a "new invention" of Protestantism, don't you?
When Jesus speaks in John 6, He's not talking about chewing biological tissue. He's speaking about participation in His life. That's why He immediately says, "It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing."
Scripture never presents salvation as a single isolated moment. The New Testament consistently speaks of one reality from multiple angles: we are saved through faith, baptized into Christ, born of water and Spirit, united to His body, nourished by His flesh and blood. These are not rival requirements.
Around AD 107, Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of the apostle John, wrote on his way to martyrdom that those who deny the Eucharist as the flesh of Christ separate themselves from the Church. This isn't a medieval development. This is within living memory of the apostles.
If the apostles taught communion as merely symbolic, how did a direct student of John speak this strongly, this early, and without controversy from the wider Church?
Either Ignatius fundamentally misunderstood apostolic Christianity only a few years after the apostles, or the early Church understood the Eucharist as real participation in Christ from the beginning.
Ive never understood basing one's faith on thief on the cross, an example of the least common denominator possible. Protestants bring it up all the time as their forever get out of jail free card.
Catholic catechism of Course acknowledges that even someone that puts a bullet in their own head, can make it to Heaven. Wouldn't recommend that is how one lives their life, but God works in mysterious ways and all is possible with God.
No one bases their faith in the thief. Everyone who is saved is because of and based upon Jesus Christ. He is the only way for anyone to be saved (John 14:6, Acts 4:12, and many more). Some of us see the story of the thief as an illustration of that point: salvation does not require baptism, taking communion or the Lord's Supper, being the member of any church, or any other action. There is nothing any of us can do to be saved. It is only by the grace of God through the blood of Christ. Our only role is believing in Jesus (John 3:16).
Its the protestant yeah but card
A lazy response to anything beyond the ultimate calvanism of just close eyes and say i believe and you good.
While those that walked with Christ were busy getting crucified upside down etc for their trouble all you gotta do is blink And think or be like the thief on the cross. If only they had had their level of discernment 2,000 years later.
Certainly seems like the best rationalization for donations to pour in till people see through it.
historian said:
Actually most people would love to earn salvation but it's impossible. God's perfect justice required us to be blameless and none of us are (Romans 6:23 & 3:23). That's why Jesus came to earth, lived a perfectly sinless life, and became the ultimate sacrifice. That's the central message of Christianity.
Turning to Christ for salvation or in resisting temptation are both acts of humility. Repenting of sin and turning from temptation requires us to acknowledge our fallen state and our need for Christ. That's humility and once again, Christ was the perfect example.
Oldbear83 said:historian said:
Actually most people would love to earn salvation but it's impossible. God's perfect justice required us to be blameless and none of us are (Romans 6:23 & 3:23). That's why Jesus came to earth, lived a perfectly sinless life, and became the ultimate sacrifice. That's the central message of Christianity.
Turning to Christ for salvation or in resisting temptation are both acts of humility. Repenting of sin and turning from temptation requires us to acknowledge our fallen state and our need for Christ. That's humility and once again, Christ was the perfect example.
Excellent post and point.
So many people ignore most of the Bible. They fail to notice how many people are depicted in the Bible as constantly failing, even including some of the great heroes of the Bible, like Jacob (who became Israel), Moses, Samson and David.
Our walk with Christ is a journey, not a short trip. And while we (oh so) slowly grow in faith and demonstrate that faith in our later works, our works are only tributes to Christ's work and have no merit on their own.
I would go so far as to warn us against taking pride in our obedience to the Law after we become Christians, as we sin far more than we realize, and so are in even more need of repentance and confession than before, lest we become proud and imagine we are better than our neighbors who have yet to accept the Lord's grace.
historian said:Oldbear83 said:historian said:
Actually most people would love to earn salvation but it's impossible. God's perfect justice required us to be blameless and none of us are (Romans 6:23 & 3:23). That's why Jesus came to earth, lived a perfectly sinless life, and became the ultimate sacrifice. That's the central message of Christianity.
Turning to Christ for salvation or in resisting temptation are both acts of humility. Repenting of sin and turning from temptation requires us to acknowledge our fallen state and our need for Christ. That's humility and once again, Christ was the perfect example.
Excellent post and point.
So many people ignore most of the Bible. They fail to notice how many people are depicted in the Bible as constantly failing, even including some of the great heroes of the Bible, like Jacob (who became Israel), Moses, Samson and David.
Our walk with Christ is a journey, not a short trip. And while we (oh so) slowly grow in faith and demonstrate that faith in our later works, our works are only tributes to Christ's work and have no merit on their own.
I would go so far as to warn us against taking pride in our obedience to the Law after we become Christians, as we sin far more than we realize, and so are in even more need of repentance and confession than before, lest we become proud and imagine we are better than our neighbors who have yet to accept the Lord's grace.
So true. Pride is the first of the 7 deadly sins (see Proverbs 6) and the first sin (leading to Luther's rebellion against God).
historian said:
John write the words spoken by Jesus. John 3:16 is part of a longer conversation Jesus has with Nicodemus. And it is His direct words. Jesus emphasis on being "born again" is another example of Christ not being literal. Nicodemus was confused because he took it literally and then Jesus explained it to him. One only needs to read the complete chapter. (Actually it is a good idea to read the entire book. The Gospel of John is filled with great wisdom and sound theology.)
