Wormwood
Chaps
Thank you wormwood for your thoughtful input. I agree with you that we need Jesus to sustain us. That is why He said, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Further saying This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” Which means the bread we eat at communion, that came down from heaven, is NOT bread, it is Jesus. If it is just a symbol, it won't sustain us.
1 Cor. 10:16–17 says it is the communion of the blood and body of Christ. Do you believe what the early Christians believed?
The early Christians also called communion Holy. Do you believe what they believed?
Ignatius, a student of the Apostle John, said that the bread is the flesh of Jesus, the cup is His blood. Is Ignatius wrong or are the people who believe it is a symbol wrong?
IHS....Mary
Mary,
The passage you are citing from Ignatius says:
The prince of this world would fain carry me away, and corrupt my disposition towards God. Let none of you, therefore, who are [in Rome] help him; rather be ye on my side, that is, on the side of God. Do not speak of Jesus Christ, and yet prefer this world to Him. Let not envy find a dwelling-place among you; nor even should I, when present with you, exhort you to it, be ye persuaded, but rather give credit to those things which I now write to you. For though I am alive while I write to you, yet I am eager to die for the sake of Christ. My love has been crucified, and there is no fire in me that loves anything; but there is living water springing up in me,4 and which says to me inwardly, Come to the Father. I have no delight in corruptible food, nor in the pleasures of this life. I desire the bread of God, the heavenly bread, the bread of life, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became afterwards of the seed of David and Abraham; and I desire the drink, namely His blood, which is incorruptible love and eternal life.
Ignatius of Antioch, “The Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans,” in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 77.
I think it is a real mistake to argue that the "bread of God" and "blood" is Eucharist. Clearly he is yearning throughout these entire chapters to be with Christ. He wants to die and be in Christ's presence and desires nothing of the world other than to know and be with Christ. I think it is very contextually inaccurate to say he is talking about wanting to take communion when clearly he is speaking of death and wanting no desire in the world to be in him as he prepares for martyrdom.
Do I believe communion is holy? Yes. I believe Christians are holy too. I also believe the Scriptures are holy. Holy simply means to be set apart. What we do when we remember Christ is a special time. No, it is not ordinary bread and juice/wine. But what makes it unordinary is not that the elements mysteriously change, but because they mean something more. The same is true with Scripture. Scripture is just letters on a page like any other book. However the meaning of those words, when understood and applied to our lives, has immense meaning. So, its not the molecules of the page or the bread or the water in baptism that make those things holy and powerful. It is the recognition of what they mean and "remembering" God's promises associated with them that causes those things to be unique.