Trinity was also made up, even if by the early church, to describe a real thing as best they understood it. If I hold up 3 fingers, that is a trinity. Applied to God, that would be tri-theism. However, if I put tea leaves into hot water and add honey, that is a tri-unity. Applied to God, that is 3 distinct but not separate hypostases, but 1 God. If you split the 3 of the Godhead into separated persons, that is tri-theism, which I believe was rejected as heresy by the Catholics.
As for Christ being physically present in the Eucharist, in John 6, Jesus does say that to have eternal life we must eat His flesh and drink His blood, however, He explains what He means in verse 63, "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and life." The eating and drinking are not a matter of the flesh, they are a matter of the Spirit. Christ is the Spirit. The blood is in the Spirit, "If we walk in the light (the Spirit) as He is in the light...the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from every sin (1 Jn. 17). To "eat" Him, is to take Him in, first into our spirit through believing, then He makes His home in our heart as our mind is renewed with the mind of Christ.
This is gnosticism. It’s false. Jesus taught the disciples at the last supper how to prepare the passover meal from that point on and that the bread and wine was His Body and His Blood. He didn’t say “this wine represents my blood.” He said this IS my blood.
I'm not a student of gnosticism, but I believe, perhaps wrongly, that they thought that Jesus Christ did not come in the flesh. That, of course, is incorrect according to the Scriptures. In His incarnation, He had both divinity and sinless humanity complete with blood.
In Matt. 26:28, Jesus says, "This is My blood of the [new] covenant, which is being poured out for many for forgiveness of sins." This is a reference to the new covenant God said He would enact in Jeremiah 31:31-34. There, He said that in this new covenant, He would put His law in our inward parts and write it upon our hearts...for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more. The blood of animals could not take away sin, but the blood shed on the cross could. The wine foreshadowed the blood that would be shed for the forgiveness of sin. The reality was the blood that was shed on the cross. But, according to Heb. 9:14, Christ offered Himself through the eternal Spirit. And according to 1 John 1:7 (above v. 17 is a typo), the blood is now in the Spirit. And in one Spirit we are all baptized into one Body, and are given to drink the one Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13). A sister verse to the Jeremiah reference in Ezekiel 36:27 says that God will put His Spirit in us.
As for eating His flesh, remember John said, "In the beginning was the Word (v.1)...and the Word became flesh (v. 14). Jesus said, I am the living bread (Jn. 6:51). "Eat My flesh...My words are spirit and life (v. 63). The flesh profits nothing. But it is the flesh that would profit if transubstantiation were real. Peter said, "You have the words of eternal life (v. 68). We eat His flesh and drink His blood whenever we turn our heart to the Lord in the word. Then the veil is taken away, and the Lord is the Spirit. Then we can behold Him and are transformed into His image from glory to glory by the Lord Spirit (2 Cor. 3:15-18).
There are a lot of different gnostics and they had a few different heresies. One of the main unifying heresies of the gnostics was that only knowledge (gnosis)/acknowledgment was required for salvation (“faith alone”).
“The flesh profits nothing” refers to the finite nature of OUR flesh, not HIS flesh. This is obvious since he says 6 times “you must eat of my body or you have no life in you.” Obviously His flesh profits us greatly. As more and more followers walked away, He did not explain what would have been quite simple to explain: “It’s just a metaphor, come back.”
"only knowledge (gnosis)/acknowledgment was required for salvation (“faith alone”)." Knowledge is not faith. You can "know" and still reject. Faith is necessary to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 3:14). Was anything else required of the thief on the cross?
What is His flesh? In the beginning was the Word, the Word was God (Jn. 1:1) and the Word became flesh (v. 14). My words are Spirit and life, Man shall live not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out from the mouth of God. Christ is the word, even the bread, that came out from God. The reality of the flesh of Christ is the Word. He came that we might have life. His words convey His life. His flesh does not exist in the physical world anymore. The doctrine of transubstantiation was just an attempt to understand how it would be possible to eat His flesh. Had His disciples thought that He meant for them to consume His body in order to have life, Joseph of Arimethea and whoever was with him in collecting Jesus' body would have cannibalized it. That would surely be of more value than a transubstantiated flesh. And the "flesh profits nothing" because whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach goes out in the drain (Matt. 15:17).
And what is it "to eat?' It is a word that contains the thought of taking something that is outside of you into you and it becomes part of you, your constitution. Peter, in Acts 10, was shown that "eating unclean meat," was not a matter of what you put in your mouth, it was a metaphor for persons (meat) you associate with (eat). The history of the Jews was that they associated with (ate) idolaters (meat) and became idolaters. That understanding became his testimony in the house of Cornelius. And the uncleanness has to do with what is in their hearts (Acts. 15:9), as Jesus also said in Matt. 15:18-19. The "heart," of course, not being the physical pump, but the inward parts, our thoughts, feelings, will, and conscience. The physical flesh of Jesus is not consumable, but His Spirit in resurrection is consumable through faith. The Spirit conveys God in Christ as heavenly food into us. When we "eat" His flesh (the Spirit/word) by having our mind renewed with the mind of Christ, we become the Body of Christ. Taste the milk of the word and see that the Lord is good (1 Pet. 2:2-3).
The Trinity is three distinct persons in one God. When you start talking about adding honey to tea you have gone beyond your ability to convey truth. Stick to the basics: three persons: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. There is no analogy in created nature that works to describe He Who created them. The name of God is:
I agree, they are 3 distinct hypostases (the Greek word) for the one God. But they are not separate. That would be tri-theism.
God, Himself, gives analogies for us to be able to understand the spiritual realities. The Bible is full of them. He is the fountain of living waters (Jer. 2:13). He is the Bread that came down out of heaven (Jn,. 6:51), He is the Lamb which takes away the sin of the world (Jn. 1:36) and the Lamb standing as having just been slain (Rev. 5:6). He's the ladder from Jacob's dream (Jn. 1:51). He is also the water of life (Jn. 7:38-39), light (1 Jn. 1:5), and on and on.
False. First of all, John’s gospel wasn’t even written down for half a century, and in that time they had been celebrating the Eucharist and teaching the doctrine that later came to be known as transubstantiation. This bears out in the writings of John’s successors such as his immediate successor, Ignatius of Antioch.
The interpretation you put forth of those words of Christ is an interpretation that did not exist until so long after the fact of their being spoken, that you should be scratching your head at why it took the Church so long to “finally understand” what Christ meant. The truth is simpler: the newer interpretation is bunk.
The Eucharist is truly Christ. He didn’t chase after those who left saying, “no no I mean it’s just spiritual, guys come back seriously guys” He instead turned to His disciples and said “will you leave also?” They responded, “where will we go?” Meaning they also did not understand but were willing to submit even so.
The fact that the early church wrote about the Eucharist in exactly the same terms of unchanging doctrine (and by early I mean direct successors of the Apostles) should really make you think a little deeper about the bunk theology that didn’t even exist until after Luther apostatized.
Trinity was also made up, even if by the early church, to describe a real thing as best they understood it. If I hold up 3 fingers, that is a trinity. Applied to God, that would be tri-theism. However, if I put tea leaves into hot water and add honey, that is a tri-unity. Applied to God, that is 3 distinct but not separate hypostases, but 1 God. If you split the 3 of the Godhead into separated persons, that is tri-theism, which I believe was rejected as heresy by the Catholics.
As for Christ being physically present in the Eucharist, in John 6, Jesus does say that to have eternal life we must eat His flesh and drink His blood, however, He explains what He means in verse 63, "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and life." The eating and drinking are not a matter of the flesh, they are a matter of the Spirit. Christ is the Spirit. The blood is in the Spirit, "If we walk in the light (the Spirit) as He is in the light...the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from every sin (1 Jn. 17). To "eat" Him, is to take Him in, first into our spirit through believing, then He makes His home in our heart as our mind is renewed with the mind of Christ.
“To eat him is to take him in spiritually”
This is gnosticism. It’s false. Jesus taught the disciples at the last supper how to prepare the passover meal from that point on and that the bread and wine was His Body and His Blood. He didn’t say “this wine represents my blood.” He said this IS my blood.
I'm not a student of gnosticism, but I believe, perhaps wrongly, that they thought that Jesus Christ did not come in the flesh. That, of course, is incorrect according to the Scriptures. In His incarnation, He had both divinity and sinless humanity complete with blood.
In Matt. 26:28, Jesus says, "This is My blood of the [new] covenant, which is being poured out for many for forgiveness of sins." This is a reference to the new covenant God said He would enact in Jeremiah 31:31-34. There, He said that in this new covenant, He would put His law in our inward parts and write it upon our hearts...for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more. The blood of animals could not take away sin, but the blood shed on the cross could. The wine foreshadowed the blood that would be shed for the forgiveness of sin. The reality was the blood that was shed on the cross. But, according to Heb. 9:14, Christ offered Himself through the eternal Spirit. And according to 1 John 1:7 (above v. 17 is a typo), the blood is now in the Spirit. And in one Spirit we are all baptized into one Body, and are given to drink the one Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13). A sister verse to the Jeremiah reference in Ezekiel 36:27 says that God will put His Spirit in us.
As for eating His flesh, remember John said, "In the beginning was the Word (v.1)...and the Word became flesh (v. 14). Jesus said, I am the living bread (Jn. 6:51). "Eat My flesh...My words are spirit and life (v. 63). The flesh profits nothing. But it is the flesh that would profit if transubstantiation were real. Peter said, "You have the words of eternal life (v. 68). We eat His flesh and drink His blood whenever we turn our heart to the Lord in the word. Then the veil is taken away, and the Lord is the Spirit. Then we can behold Him and are transformed into His image from glory to glory by the Lord Spirit (2 Cor. 3:15-18).
There are a lot of different gnostics and they had a few different heresies. One of the main unifying heresies of the gnostics was that only knowledge (gnosis)/acknowledgment was required for salvation (“faith alone”).
“The flesh profits nothing” refers to the finite nature of OUR flesh, not HIS flesh. This is obvious since he says 6 times “you must eat of my body or you have no life in you.” Obviously His flesh profits us greatly. As more and more followers walked away, He did not explain what would have been quite simple to explain: “It’s just a metaphor, come back.”
"only knowledge (gnosis)/acknowledgment was required for salvation (“faith alone”)." Knowledge is not faith. You can "know" and still reject. Faith is necessary to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 3:14). Was anything else required of the thief on the cross?
What is His flesh? In the beginning was the Word, the Word was God (Jn. 1:1) and the Word became flesh (v. 14). My words are Spirit and life, Man shall live not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out from the mouth of God. Christ is the word, even the bread, that came out from God. The reality of the flesh of Christ is the Word. He came that we might have life. His words convey His life. His flesh does not exist in the physical world anymore. The doctrine of transubstantiation was just an attempt to understand how it would be possible to eat His flesh. Had His disciples thought that He meant for them to consume His body in order to have life, Joseph of Arimethea and whoever was with him in collecting Jesus' body would have cannibalized it. That would surely be of more value than a transubstantiated flesh. And the "flesh profits nothing" because whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach goes out in the drain (Matt. 15:17).
And what is it "to eat?' It is a word that contains the thought of taking something that is outside of you into you and it becomes part of you, your constitution. Peter, in Acts 10, was shown that "eating unclean meat," was not a matter of what you put in your mouth, it was a metaphor for persons (meat) you associate with (eat). The history of the Jews was that they associated with (ate) idolaters (meat) and became idolaters. That understanding became his testimony in the house of Cornelius. And the uncleanness has to do with what is in their hearts (Acts. 15:9), as Jesus also said in Matt. 15:18-19. The "heart," of course, not being the physical pump, but the inward parts, our thoughts, feelings, will, and conscience. The physical flesh of Jesus is not consumable, but His Spirit in resurrection is consumable through faith. The Spirit conveys God in Christ as heavenly food into us. When we "eat" His flesh (the Spirit/word) by having our mind renewed with the mind of Christ, we become the Body of Christ. Taste the milk of the word and see that the Lord is good (1 Pet. 2:2-3).
The Trinity is three distinct persons in one God. When you start talking about adding honey to tea you have gone beyond your ability to convey truth. Stick to the basics: three persons: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. There is no analogy in created nature that works to describe He Who created them. The name of God is:
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit
That is the name of God.
I agree, they are 3 distinct hypostases (the Greek word) for the one God. But they are not separate. That would be tri-theism.
God, Himself, gives analogies for us to be able to understand the spiritual realities. The Bible is full of them. He is the fountain of living waters (Jer. 2:13). He is the Bread that came down out of heaven (Jn,. 6:51), He is the Lamb which takes away the sin of the world (Jn. 1:36) and the Lamb standing as having just been slain (Rev. 5:6). He's the ladder from Jacob's dream (Jn. 1:51). He is also the water of life (Jn. 7:38-39), light (1 Jn. 1:5), and on and on.
No one said they were three separate entities.
False. First of all, John’s gospel wasn’t even written down for half a century, and in that time they had been celebrating the Eucharist and teaching the doctrine that later came to be known as transubstantiation. This bears out in the writings of John’s successors such as his immediate successor, Ignatius of Antioch.
The interpretation you put forth of those words of Christ is an interpretation that did not exist until so long after the fact of their being spoken, that you should be scratching your head at why it took the Church so long to “finally understand” what Christ meant. The truth is simpler: the newer interpretation is bunk.
The Eucharist is truly Christ. He didn’t chase after those who left saying, “no no I mean it’s just spiritual, guys come back seriously guys” He instead turned to His disciples and said “will you leave also?” They responded, “where will we go?” Meaning they also did not understand but were willing to submit even so.
The fact that the early church wrote about the Eucharist in exactly the same terms of unchanging doctrine (and by early I mean direct successors of the Apostles) should really make you think a little deeper about the bunk theology that didn’t even exist until after Luther apostatized.
So, you reject that the whole Bible is divinely inspired? You pick and choose which books are authoritative to fit your doctrine? We're done.
Nope. You have to be deliberately and maliciously misconstruing what I explicitly stated to come to that conclusion. YOU are done.