Transubstantiation

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friend of

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I think I believe in transubstantiation despite being Protestant.

Is that bad?
 
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farouk

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I think I believe in transubstantiation despite being Protestant.

Is that bad?
We should rely on the finished work of Christ (John 19.30; Hebrews chapters 9 and 10); not on symbols ('this do in remembrance of Me', 1 Corinthians 11) supposedly becoming the very thing that they represent.
 
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Robert Gwin

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I think I believe in transubstantiation despite being Protestant.

Is that bad?

All people have beliefs sir, bad or good they are still beliefs. The Bible doesn't indicate that anything more than bread or wine was offered at the last supper however, Jesus pointed out that they represented his flesh and blood that would be given in their behalf later that day.
 

GRACE ambassador

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RedFan

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I think I believe in transubstantiation despite being Protestant.

Is that bad?

Are you sure it is transsubstantiation (the essence/substance of bread and wine are displaced by the essence/substance of Christ) and not consubstantiation (the elements retain a dual essence/substance) that you believe in? Both would acknowledge the Real Presence. I've never seen the point of going further than that.
 

RedFan

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Depends, do you believe in religious cannabalism?

Please Be Very RICHLY Encouraged And Edified In Him, And
In HIS Word Of Truth, Rightly Divided!:
GRACE and Peace...

Not sure what you mean by religious cannabalism, but consider how this ties in to Israel’s historic practice of consuming the flesh of sin offerings. The same God who demanded sacrifice as the price of forgiving sin also prescribed that the flesh be consumed, Lev. 6:29―not because He couldn’t see perfectly good meat going to waste, but because it was a means of communion for His chosen people.

It still is. God still holds to the original insistence that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin (Heb. 9:22). The difference now is that His injunction against consuming that blood (Gen. 9:4, Deut. 12:23) has been partly lifted; He now enjoins the opposite on us when it comes to the blood of Christ (John 6:53). Blood was sacred to God because it contained the victim’s life essence (Lev. 17:10-13). And that is precisely why we are commanded to drink the blood of Christ, which contains the victim’s eternal life essence. Only if Christ is really present in these elements will this be fulfilled. Say that it’s just wine, that the meal is commemorative only, and this benefit is lost.

Or so I muse . . .
 
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Ronald Nolette

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I think I believe in transubstantiation despite being Protestant.

Is that bad?

Yes! Jesus is not present in the Eucharist. He is in heaven ever living to make intercession for us! Catholicism calls this the perpetual sacrifice of th emass and that means they are constantly recrucifying Jesus at the mass.

The bible calls it a remembrance we do to show forth His death until he returns.
 
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RedFan

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Yes! Jesus is not present in the Eucharist. He is in heaven ever living to make intercession for us! Catholicism calls this the perpetual sacrifice of th emass and that means they are constantly recrucifying Jesus at the mass.

The bible calls it a remembrance we do to show forth His death until he returns.

John 6:55-58 may suggest otherwise, Ronald.

But to me it is the evidence from the early Church Fathers which is compelling on this point. Within the first two centuries after Calvary, we find the testimony of Ignatius, Letter to the Smyrnians ch. 7 (“They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ. . .”); Justin Martyr, First Apology, ch. 66 (“For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh”); Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book IV, ch. 18 § 5 (“Then, again, how can they say that the flesh, which is nourished with the body of the Lord and with His blood, goes to corruption and does not partake of life? . . . For as the bread, which is produced from the earth, is no longer common bread, but the Eucharist, consisting of two realities, earthly and heavenly; so also our bodies, when they receive the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, having the hope of resurrection to eternity”); Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book V, ch. 2 § 3 (“When, therefore, the mingled cup and the manufactured bread receives the Word of God, and the Eucharist of the blood and the body of Christ is made, from which things the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can they affirm that the flesh is incapable of receiving the gift of God, which is life eternal, which [flesh] is nourished from the body and blood of the Lord, and is a member of Him?”).

Such was the currency of the doctrine two centuries before Chalcedon, a millennium before Aquinas. I am not prepared to be dismissive of this history. Are you?
 
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Ronald Nolette

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John 6:55-58 may suggest otherwise, Ronald.

But to me it is the evidence from the early Church Fathers which is compelling on this point. Within the first two centuries after Calvary, we find the testimony of Ignatius, Letter to the Smyrnians ch. 7 (“They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ. . .”); Justin Martyr, First Apology, ch. 66 (“For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh”); Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book IV, ch. 18 § 5 (“Then, again, how can they say that the flesh, which is nourished with the body of the Lord and with His blood, goes to corruption and does not partake of life? . . . For as the bread, which is produced from the earth, is no longer common bread, but the Eucharist, consisting of two realities, earthly and heavenly; so also our bodies, when they receive the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, having the hope of resurrection to eternity”); Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book V, ch. 2 § 3 (“When, therefore, the mingled cup and the manufactured bread receives the Word of God, and the Eucharist of the blood and the body of Christ is made, from which things the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can they affirm that the flesh is incapable of receiving the gift of God, which is life eternal, which [flesh] is nourished from the body and blood of the Lord, and is a member of Him?”).

Such was the currency of the doctrine two centuries before Chalcedon, a millennium before Aquinas. I am not prepared to be dismissive of this history. Are you?

confidently, yes I am! Why?

Because Jesus celebrated a Jewish Passover Seder. Teh bread He chose was a specific bread at teh seder table. Teh cup of wine He chose was also a specific cup of wine from the table.

The bread was the middle loaf from a trifolded napkin. Teh loaf or pita, had to be unleavened, striped and pierced. He split it, put half back and passed around the other loaf as was custom for Passover. He explained what this bread symbolized! Just like all the other foods on the table had an allegorical meaning, so didn't the bread.

Teh cup was the cup of redemption. there were four cups drank at Passover (sometimes 5 in honor of Elijah) and Jesus took the cup of redemption to show its meaning!

While history is important, when it veers off course it also can be deadly!

During the second century, as the gentiles were the majority of the church and Jewish thought was quickly fading, the church had to battle Grecian heresy and false doctrine creeping in from the pagans being converted and becoming church fathers(yes they had their problems like we do).

Among these was a concept of god being incorporated into bread and wine. This concept had been around since OT times. Jews were forbidden to offer cakes to the queen of heaven.

So having learned the meaning of the meal Jesus atre with His disciples and the fact that we do this to show forth his death until he returns, I cannot (even being a former Catholic) accept transubstantiation as biblical.
 
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Philip James

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Such was the currency of the doctrine two centuries before Chalcedon, a millennium before Aquinas. I am not prepared to be dismissive of this history. Are you?

Hi RedFan,

Nice post. I have always found the 2000 year old living witness of the Church in Rome and the Church in Alexandria to be compelling.. That there is NO apostolic community that does not hold that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist equally compelling..

'every planting not of My Father will be uprooted'

Pax et Bonum
 
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Enoch111

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I think I believe in transubstantiation despite being Protestant. Is that bad?
Of course it's bad. Do you understand what the Eucharist is all about? It is definitely NOT the Lord's Supper.

Also, non-Catholics are not automatically "Protestants". Protestants are associated with Reformed, Presbyterian, Methodist, Anglican, Episcopalian or Lutheran churches.
 

Bob Estey

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I think I believe in transubstantiation despite being Protestant.

Is that bad?
I never gave it much thought. I wonder if the Catholics give it much thought. I'm more into the purpose of Communion than trying to define its aspects.
 

friend of

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Blood was sacred to God because it contained the victim’s life essence (Lev. 17:10-13). And that is precisely why we are commanded to drink the blood of Christ, which contains the victim’s eternal life essence. Only if Christ is really present in these elements will this be fulfilled. Say that it’s just wine, that the meal is commemorative only, and this benefit is lost.

Right that's exactly what I'm thinking. Thanks for your post.
 

Dropship

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I had to look up the dictionary definition of "transubstantiation"-

Transubstantiation
CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY: the conversion of the substance of the Eucharistic elements into the body and blood of Christ at consecration, only the appearances of bread and wine still remaining.


But I still haven't a clue what it means, is it a catholic thing or what?..:)
 

RedFan

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I had to look up the dictionary definition of "transubstantiation"-

Transubstantiation
CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY: the conversion of the substance of the Eucharistic elements into the body and blood of Christ at consecration, only the appearances of bread and wine still remaining.


But I still haven't a clue what it means, is it a catholic thing or what?..:)

It is indeed a "Catholic thing," although some non-Catholics do subscribe to it. It's simply a theory of explaining the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharistic elements.

I happen to agree with the Real Presence of Christ in the consecrated bread and wine, although I am a "consubstantiation" rather than a "transubstantiation" theorist.