Best Biblical arguments that Jesus is in Eucharist bread

[rakovsky]

In the modern scientific, materialist mindset, Jesus is not in Eucharist bread, because it would be an anti-materialistic "miracle" or anomaly. But in the ancient mindset, supernatural miracles do occur.

So often what began happening at least in the late renaissance period is that once Calvin and Zwingli decided that Rome's tradition was not a crucial (not to mention infallible) authority for them anymore, they took a different, independent, more naturalistic look at the Eucharist food than what the traditions had been saying to them in their era. They were disillusioned with Catholic incidents of Eucharist wine on rare occasion turning into observable physical "blood". So when they went back to read the passages, Calvin and Zwingli decided that the communion food could not have Jesus specifically in it, because that's impossible. But the Lutherans, "high church" Anglicans, Orthodox, and Catholics proposed that Jesus was directly and specifically in the Eucharist bread, and that his body actually was on the church altar table. This is not to get into the Transubstantiation vs. Consubstantiation debate, nor does this prove that in the real world the bread actually has Jesus' carnal body in it.

The problem with Calvin's logic is that back in the 1st century, Christians were believing in supernatural miracles and phenomena that mainstream Protestants in the modern period have begun to be much more skeptical about (eg. "real" demon and angel beings).

So what are the best arguments that could be made from the text alone that Jesus is specifically in the Communion food according to the early Christians' beliefs?

1. Jesus said to have the communion ritual in his memory, and remembrance in 1st century Judaism/Christianity meant to mystically make something present.

2. The Bible said that it was his body, but never specified that it was only meant symbolically.

3. When he says "this is my body", he is pointing to a specific, real object, not just talking theoretically giving names for things, like Jesus being called symbolically a "rock" or "lamb". When he spoke of the restoration of the temple and meant his body, he was indicating his body and did not use his body's restoration symbolically. Nouns like lamb, rock, or vine might be symbolic, but the verb "is" does not mean "signifies. This was Luther's similar reasoning, saying that the word "is" does not mean "signfies".

4. In John 6 Jesus repeated that disciples would have to eat his body, but never added that it was just a metaphor. And many disciples argued with him about this and left him over it, but he didn't stop them by saying that it was just a metaphor. He could have stopped his disciples from leaving if they had the wrong idea, but he didn't.

5. In 1 Cor 10-11, Paul says "Judge(KRINATE) what I say... Is not the bread the communion of Christ's body?" Then in the next chapter he repeats Jesus' words that what he gave to the disciples is his body, then Paul says that people suffer if they don't discern(KRINATE) the body. By using the same word Krinate, it shows that he is talking about the same thing in what needs to be judged. Paul was complaining that people were not actually seeing the food as the body or communion of the body.

6. Jesus said "This is my body", not "This bread is my body". Why the omission unless it is inferring the miracle change in the food?

7. Paul wrote in 1 Corr 11 that failing to take the body unworthily brought on real harm, like sickness. But in the Calvinist view (Receptionism) or memorial-only view, only a person who takes it with faith achieves communion with Jesus' body that in the Calvinist view is only up in heaven. In the Calvinist view, the body is not on the table and is not actually eaten in the mouth. But if Receptionism is correct, how is it that the person who takes it unworthily could suffer sickness, if they never actually made contact with Jesus?

8. It says that if the person takes it unworthily they are guilty of Jesus' body and blood. If Receptionism were correct, how could that be true, since unbelievers would not make contact with Jesus' body?

9. If the bread is only a symbol, then it what way do unbelievers fail to discern it? Even an unbeliever can tell that in the ritual the bread is treated as a symbol of Jesus' body, just like they can tell that the Christian cross on a wall is a symbol of Jesus' cross.

10. Theoretical possibility: Luther's explanation was that if Jesus was in the wall or passed through it in John 20, then Jesus was impaned in the bread in the same way. He proposed that Jesus' body was there in spirit form. Jesus' body had gone through transformation / transfiguration to where this was possible. The idea of bilocation was also conceivable to the mystical mindset, whereby Jesus' body could be in two places at once. Einstein proposed that matter could bilocate. And in Corinthians, Paul talked about Christians getting a post-resurrection spirit body.

11. Jesus' use of the word chew in John 6:

What you DON’T notice when reading the passage above [John 6] is that when Jesus talks about eating, he is actually using two separate verbs. At first, he uses the Greek word “phagon” which is the normal Greek word for “to eat.” Part way through the passage, however, he suddenly switches to the word “trogon,” which literally means to crunch or gnaw.

Jesus wasn’t telling them to “partake” or “consume.” He was saying they literally had to crunch, gnaw or chew. (Kind of hard to “crunch” on a symbol… but you can try!) Furthermore, the tense of the word “trogon” implies that this is an action that will take place continuously over time–not as a one-time event.

http://equippinggodlywomen.com/faith/is ... ment-14933

12. If as Reformed say, the phrase in John 6:63 is (the flesh profits nothing) literal about the flesh, then earlier in John 6 "the flesh" is literal, when it repeats many times things like "4 Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life".

13. When people couldn't handle the thought of eating Jesus and they left Jesus over it, Jesus' conclusion was that they wouldn't believe in a miracle like the ascension either. This reflects that the nature of their objection was materialistic and that they, in their materialism, would not accept the Ascension either, as it went against materialism in the same way.

He goes on to state that these people who witnessed his many miracles, even if they see Him rising to the Father at His ascension, they would not believe. "What if you see the Son of Man ascend where He was before!" Miracles do not guarantee belief.

http://www.catholicfaithandreason.org/a ... arist.html

Can you think of more arguments from the text?

Objections
1. A common objection is that Jesus added in John 6 that "the spirit gives life but the flesh profits nothing". But if 1 Cor 11 is read to teach the real presence in the food, then this verse in John 6 would be in agreement: 1 Cor 11 says that eating the communion food did not necessarily profit, it was only when done so worthily. Unworthy eating of the bread, he said would not profit one and indeed would be harmful. Thus, the spirit directly benefits the person, but the bread itself was not profiting, it would be only when eaten worthily that the bread with Jesus in it could lead to benefit. Just eating the physical food or flesh does not profit, it's when done so in faith and with right spirit. Further, John 6 never says that Jesus' body or flesh doesn't profit people, because in Christian thinking, Jesus' flesh actually does profit them in the Atonement. Therefore, the verse in John 6 above can't be read categorically.



'So what?'
If it's true that the Bible says that Jesus is specifically in the bread, this calls into question much of the Reformed "early modern", "realistic" approach to reading the Bible. One approach is to say that the stories about demons and angels and miracles are only meant as metaphors. Zwingli's idea that the Eucharist was only a metaphor is a good example of how this approach started. If someone doesn't believe that angels are real beings or that Jesus can be in the bread, then the temptation exists to read these as only metaphors. However, it looks like in the Bible times, people really did believe in these kinds of phenomena as both conceivable and realistic. Just because under "early modern"/late renaissance 16th science this would not occur does not meant that it was intended this way.

It looks like what happens is that Reformed Protestants find it impossible to conceive that Jesus could actually be in the bread, therefore they conclude that the text did not say this. Calvin called it "incredible" and others tell me that it goes against the very definition (as they conceive of it) of a "body". However, if it could be proven that the text does say this, would that create a dilemma for them?

[rakovsky]

“Writing to the church at Smyrna, a major Christian center in Asia Minor, Ignatius condemned heretics who denied that Christ had an actual physical body… To refute them, Ignatius wrote “They [the heretics] even absent themselves from the Eucharist and public prayers [cf. Acts 2:42], because they will not admit that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ which suffered for our sins and which the Father in his goodness afterwards raised up again.”

http://equippinggodlywomen.com/faith/is ... ment-14933

Ignatius lived in the time of the Apostles and was the Church's leader in Antioch, maybe the second main center of Christianity after Jerusalem in that time. For Reformed, this quote will not be considered a strong proof I think, because it's not in the Bible.

[Ulan]

Any discussion of this topic without looking at the Aristotelian ideas of essential and accidental properties and later Platonic treatments thereof will not get to the ground of this question. As Platonism has run its course, most people don't really understand this way of thinking about the natural world anymore. Anyway, I'd suggest to look into that.

In principle, many of the Christian dogmas, like the Trinity, hang on this idea, and the end of the Platonic world view has left them hanging without their basis.

[rakovsky]

Any discussion of this topic without looking at the Aristotelian ideas of essential and accidental properties and later Platonic treatments thereof will not get to the ground of this question. As Platonism has run its course, most people don't really understand this way of thinking about the natural world anymore. Anyway, I'd suggest to look into that.

I understand - the "spirit vs the body" dynamic.

Still, I would most like to have something more direct in the text.

[MrMacSon]

“Writing to the church at Smyrna, a major Christian center in Asia Minor, Ignatius condemned heretics who denied that Christ had an actual physical body… To refute them, Ignatius wrote “They [the heretics] even absent themselves from the Eucharist and public prayers [cf. Acts 2:42], because they will not admit that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ which suffered for our sins and which the Father in his goodness afterwards raised up again.”

http://equippinggodlywomen.com/faith/is ... ment-14933

Ignatius lived in the time of the Apostles and was the Church's leader in Antioch, maybe the second main center of Christianity after Jerusalem in that time. For Reformed, this quote will not be considered a strong proof I think, because it's not in the Bible.

It is asserted that "Ignatius lived at the time of the Apostles", but it's not really clear which 'Apostles'. or exactly when.

or where - it is also asserted that Antioch was the 'second main center of Christianity' during early Christianity, but it is never clear which Antioch - there were several then, especially Antioch of Pisidia.

[GakuseiDon]

Just to add into the mix: Cicero criticised the idea that god was in corn and bread. From his "On the nature of the gods": http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/cicer ... f-the-gods

• Book 2, Chapter 12
  
  But there are many other divinities to which on account of their great services a status and a name have been given, not without reason, both by the wisest men of Greece and by our own ancestors, for they thought that whatever conferred great advantage upon the human race did not come into existence except by divine benevolence towards men. And so they used sometimes to describe the object produced by the god by the name of the god himself, as when we speak of corn as Ceres, and wine as Liber...
  
  Book 3, Chapter 16
  
  For you reckon each single constellation as a god, and call these gods by the names either of animals, as the Goat, the Scorpion, the Bull, the Lion, or of inanimate things, as the Argo, the Altar, and the Crown.) But even if we grant this, how can what remains be, I do not say granted, but in any way understood? When we speak of corn as Ceres, and of wine as Liber, we use, it is true, a customary mode of speech, but do you think that any one is so senseless as to believe that what he is eating is the divine substance?
  
  And as for those whom you assert to have attained from the human state to the divine, it is for you to give an explanation of how that could have happened, or why it has ceased to happen, and I shall be glad to be informed. In my present mind I do not see how he to whose body, as Accius says, “torches were laid on Mount Oeta,” made his way from that conflagration “to his sire’s eternal home,” and in fact Homer represents him as being met in the under world by Ulysses just as the other dead were. At the same time I should certainly like to know which Hercules in particular we are to worship, for the investigators of the more profound and recondite accounts tell us of several...

[iskander]

Early Christianity did not believe in the real presence .

The Rise of Christianity Paperback – 1 Jan 2010
by W.H.C. Frend (Author) Paperback: 1048 pages, Publisher: Augsburg Fortress (1 Jan 2010), ISBN-10: 0800619315
Page 407ff

Mr. Frend commenting on the Liturgy in the 3rd century says of Hippolytus:
"The institution of the Eucharist itself was commemorated in the words o Paul's letter to the Corinthians and the offering of the loaf and the cup in thankful remembrance, there followed the invocation of the Holy Spirit (Epiclesis)"

[Corinthians ( 1 Cor 11:24-25, , 24and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for* you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ 25In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ ]
Frend adds,


"In North Africa, however , a new element was being introduced. The strongly sacrificial nature of the church there... was affecting the interpretation of the Eucharist."

Cyprian defined the act of the priest as an imitation of the sacrifice of Christ in which he offered a full and real sacrifice in the church to God the Father. This change of emphasis was to be very important .

In the medieval Latin church greater stress would be laid on the sacrificial rather than the purely spiritual and recalling element of the Eucharist"

[rakovsky]

Early Christianity did not believe in the real presence .

The Rise of Christianity Paperback – 1 Jan 2010
by W.H.C. Frend (Author) Paperback: 1048 pages, Publisher: Augsburg Fortress (1 Jan 2010), ISBN-10: 0800619315
Page 407ff

Mr. Frend commenting on the Liturgy in the 3rd century says of Hippolytus:
"The institution of the Eucharist itself was commemorated in the words o Paul's letter to the Corinthians and the offering of the loaf and the cup in thankful remembrance, there followed the invocation of the Holy Spirit (Epiclesis)"

[Corinthians ( 1 Cor 11:24-25, , 24and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for* you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ 25In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ ]

There are four things just in the passage above that show sacrificial elements.
First, the concept of "offering." The sacrifice was a sacrificial "offering" in Judaism. When a person puts money in the "offering" plate, he is "sacrificing" his money.
Second, I don't know why there is an asterisk above, but what it should say is THIS IS MY BODY THAT IS _BROKEN_ FOR YOU. The brokenness of the bread brings to mind the brokenness of Jesus' body.
Third, there is the mention of covenant. To make a covenant was called "cutting" a covenant in Hebrew. A covenant sealed in blood of an animal traditionally. Jesus' death was the seal. For the cup to be the covenant in blood, it suggests again the idea of sacrifice.
Fourth, there is the mention of blood. Blood was put on the altar in Jerusalem.

All of these are sacrificial elements in the Eucharist ritual itself.

Frend adds,


"In North Africa, however , a new element was being introduced. The strongly sacrificial nature of the church there... was affecting the interpretation of the Eucharist."

Cyprian defined the act of the priest as an imitation of the sacrifice of Christ in which he offered a full and real sacrifice in the church to God the Father. This change of emphasis was to be very important .

In the medieval Latin church greater stress would be laid on the sacrificial rather than the purely spiritual and recalling element of the Eucharist"

Cyprian lived in 200 – September 14, 258. This is still pretty early for Christianity and we don't have a TON of "official" church documents from 40-200 AD. We don't find Church fathers before him DENYING that there is a sacrificial aspect to the Eucharist. Silence is not an argument to the contrary.

Good example: The infant baptism controversy that showed up in Protestantism 1500 years after Jesus.
We don't have proof directly whether the Christians in 40-150 AD were baptizing infants. Anabaptists use such silence as proof against infant baptism. We just have documents from 150-250 AD advocating infant baptism. OK, the silence about infant baptism and the sacrificial aspects aren't proof that this was only a later invention.

FINALLY, even if the concept of sacrifice was not part of the Eucharist ritual, this does not say whether Jesus was spiritually present in the bread or not, as in Christianity Jesus had already undergone sacrifice himself.

[iskander]

That Jesus died is accepted by all Christian churches. That the bread is the flesh of the man Jesus is not and that the wine is the blood of the man Jesus is not accepted by all Christian Churches either.
Frend says that early churches did not accept it,

Bread and wine is given out at communion as being only bread and wine , in memory o0f the sacrifice of the man Jesus,

The advent site says this,
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05573a.htm


"The term transubstantiation seems to have been first used by Hildebert of Tours (about 1079). His encouraging example was soon followed by other theologians, as Stephen of Autun (d. 1139), Gaufred (1188), and Peter of Blois (d. about 1200), whereupon several ecumenical councils also adopted this significant expression, as the Fourth Council of the Lateran (1215), and the Council of Lyons (1274), in the profession of faith of the Greek Emperor Michael Palæologus. The Council of Trent (Sess. XIII, cap. iv; can. ii) not only accepted as an inheritance of faith the truth contained in the idea, but authoritatively confirmed the "aptitude of the term" to express most strikingly the legitimately developed doctrinal concept."

This Catholic site says that the term transubstantiation was first used in about 1079!!
Some seem to have liked it !! and adopted by several ecumenical councils??!! Finally the council of Trent accepted??? …etc

[rakovsky]

That Jesus died is accepted by all Christian churches. That the bread is the flesh of the man Jesus is not and that the wine is the blood of the man Jesus is not accepted by all Christian Churches either.
Frend says that early churches did not accept it,

The advent site says this,
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05573a.htm


"The term transubstantiation seems to have been first used by Hildebert of Tours (about 1079). His encouraging example was soon followed by other theologians, as Stephen of Autun (d. 1139), Gaufred (1188), and Peter of Blois (d. about 1200), whereupon several ecumenical councils also adopted this significant expression, as the Fourth Council of the Lateran (1215), and the Council of Lyons (1274), in the profession of faith of the Greek Emperor Michael Palæologus. The Council of Trent (Sess. XIII, cap. iv; can. ii) not only accepted as an inheritance of faith the truth contained in the idea, but authoritatively confirmed the "aptitude of the term" to express most strikingly the legitimately developed doctrinal concept."

This Catholic site says that the term transubstantiation was first used in about 1079!!
Some seem to have liked it !! and adopted by several ecumenical councils??!! Finally the council of Trent accepted??? …etc

Medieval transubstantiation Aristotelian R.Catholic theory is one thing, the shared Orthodox/ Lutheran/Catholic / Oriental Orthodox / high Anglican idea of real presence is in the church fathers like Ignatius from the 2nd c. Cyprian is the early 3rd cent.

Oriental Orthodox split off back in c.450 AD and they still hold to the real presence.

In 1550 Calvin and Zwingli couldn't mentally handle the idea of real presence in the bread so they imagined retroactively that it was a metaphor.

Problem is, people in 40 AD didnt believe the same stuff about science that they did in 1550.