Someone on another forum raised the point that the "Real Presence" in the Eucharist was argued in earliest times, in the Didache. I don't think any use of that term could properly reflect later arguments regarding the "Real Presence" in the Eucharist. However, there may have been some confusion about it from the start.
For me, the Communion is just a memorial Christ prepared for us before his death. He wanted us to remember our essential connection to him in a spritual sense. And so, he devised a ritual that portrays this symbolically. The language, however, is quite literally saying that the symbols of bread and wine *are* his flesh and blood.
In my view this is just a figure of speech. The intent is to suggest the reality that these symbols present to us. We really do partake of his life, and through that the benefits of his life, which are resurrection and holiness. In participating in his spiritual life, we benefit from the legal work obtained by his death and resurrection, and so experience both his righteousness and his hope of eternal life.
Here is how I answered this brother...
I think using statements like "the Real Presence" is misleading here. The later controversies over God's spiritual presence anointing the ceremony and converting bread into "Jesus' flesh" does not seem to be the aim? Even if it was I don't think that would be determinative in the later controversies surrounding this.
Before later arguments came into being between what is "real" and what is "symbolic" I should think all agreed that the bread and wine were elements that represented participation of Jesus' *real* life? Who knows how "Real Presence" is being used in earlier times in reference to Jesus' "real flesh" or Jesus" "real life?"
Personally, I believe the elements of bread and wine remain bread and wine, and are not being "spiritually transformed," whatever that means? I do not believe in Transubstantiation or even in Consubstantiation, as I was taught growing up.
These symbols represent, for me, our real participation in Jesus' spiritual essence, or life. Unless we partake of him for real we do not have him or the benefits he brings in terms of righteousness and salvation.. It is enough for me to know that Jesus wanted us to *remember him* in this ceremony, which represented our real participation in his spiritual life. That conveys to us the legal benefits that comes with his death and resurrection to immortality.
For me, the Communion is just a memorial Christ prepared for us before his death. He wanted us to remember our essential connection to him in a spritual sense. And so, he devised a ritual that portrays this symbolically. The language, however, is quite literally saying that the symbols of bread and wine *are* his flesh and blood.
In my view this is just a figure of speech. The intent is to suggest the reality that these symbols present to us. We really do partake of his life, and through that the benefits of his life, which are resurrection and holiness. In participating in his spiritual life, we benefit from the legal work obtained by his death and resurrection, and so experience both his righteousness and his hope of eternal life.
Here is how I answered this brother...
I think using statements like "the Real Presence" is misleading here. The later controversies over God's spiritual presence anointing the ceremony and converting bread into "Jesus' flesh" does not seem to be the aim? Even if it was I don't think that would be determinative in the later controversies surrounding this.
Before later arguments came into being between what is "real" and what is "symbolic" I should think all agreed that the bread and wine were elements that represented participation of Jesus' *real* life? Who knows how "Real Presence" is being used in earlier times in reference to Jesus' "real flesh" or Jesus" "real life?"
Personally, I believe the elements of bread and wine remain bread and wine, and are not being "spiritually transformed," whatever that means? I do not believe in Transubstantiation or even in Consubstantiation, as I was taught growing up.
These symbols represent, for me, our real participation in Jesus' spiritual essence, or life. Unless we partake of him for real we do not have him or the benefits he brings in terms of righteousness and salvation.. It is enough for me to know that Jesus wanted us to *remember him* in this ceremony, which represented our real participation in his spiritual life. That conveys to us the legal benefits that comes with his death and resurrection to immortality.
