On Sat, 9 Apr 2005 10:47:06 -0600, "Thaddeus" <No mail!> wrote:
>Cardinal Francis Arinze - Pope Benedict XVI?
>
>http://www.catholicplanet.com/articles/article41.htm
>
I came across this page myself just the other day.
As an ex-Evangelical Protestant it makes me feel funny reading it.
This gentleman names dates. He also seems to follow the end times
scenario that those like Grant Jeffery, Hal Lindsay, etc. are
constantly chirping about.
I am not sure of how inspired this information is.
--
Gordie
Question: A Baptist friend put a new twist on John 6. He said that the
disciples who left when
Christ spoke of eating his flesh and drinking his blood took him
literally while the others who
stayed knew he was being symbolic. He Jesus didn't explain himself
because He knew that
saying "This is my body and blood" would make the unfaithful leave, which
they did.
Answer: Two words: Judas Iscariot. He didn't leave. But beyond this,
the fact remains that your
friend is arguing from silence. We don't know what the apostles who
stayed thought because the
text doesn't say. We do, however, get the strong impression that their
faith was shaken. Peter,
after all, does not say "We knew you were just kidding around." He says,
with a sort of
desperation, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal
life." Peter stays,
not because he knows Jesus is being "symbolic" but because, whatever
Jesus means and no
matter how weird and frightening it is, there's no place else to go.
The problem with your friend's theory is that it takes the whole passage
out of the context of the
rest of the life and faith of the early Church. Jesus doesn't just say
this weird thing. He says
other weird things which the disciples don't understand, such as "The Son
of man will be crucified
and rise from the dead" and "Beware the leaven of the Pharisees." Mark
tells us (Mark 4:34) that
Jesus always explained his figures of speech to his apostles. The only
time he doesn't is when
he's not using a figure of speech. Significantly, neither in John 6 nor
when he predicts his death
does he tell his apostles what he "really" means. Instead, he follow up
his strange words in John 6
with equally strange words at the Last Supper: "This is my body." His
disciples strain to
understand both his words about his death and resurrection and his words
about the Eucharist.
When he dies and rises, is it so strange to think they concluded his
words were meant literally
about the Eucharist, just as they were meant literally about the Passion?
Especially since there is
not a shred of evidence from the New Testament that the later Church took
them as "symbolic".
Paul says the bread and cup are a participation in the body and blood of
Christ (1 Cor. 10:16).
He says we can sin against the Eucharist (1 Cor 11:23). The later
Church follows suit and
repeatedly emphasizes that the Eucharist is not merely a symbol but the
flesh and blood of Christ.
In fact, nobody for the first thousand years of the Church speaks of it
as merely a symbol.
It is passing the bounds of credibility that the whole of the Church
could have, to a man, so
badly misunderstood the apostles on such an elementary point. Imagine
yourself, for instance,
hearing somebody describe the Bible as the "word of God" and concluding
that, since John calls
Jesus the "Word", then the Bible must be Jesus Christ. Now imagine
everybody in the whole
Church making the same dumb error of logic. Now imagine no teacher in
the whole Church
stepping forward to say, "That's not what I mean when I call Scripture
the 'word of God.'"
That is something like the stupidity alleged of the early church, if they
really did confuse a
"simple symbol" with the Incarnate God himself. The burden of proof is
not on the Catholic
here, but on the innovator who must show why the whole of the early
Church formed the
distinct impression that the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Jesus
Christ himself.
http://www.catholicexchange.com/css/answers.asp?quest=243
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