Sunday, January 11, 2009

Argument against Literal Communion Elements

So I was spending time with the Lord this morning and I opened up today's entry to Jon Courson's devotional A Day's Journey and he made a really good argument against the Catholic belief surrounding communion.

According to the Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiaion the bread and the wine actually transform into the actual material blood and body of Christ. Personally I do not believe this and I think there are a number of great arguments against it. However, in this blog I will detail only one of them.

This isn't the only time people have confused Christ's words for something material when they were supposed to be spiritual. Jon Courson writes:
In John 3, Jesus said, "You must be born again."

"How does a man enter into his mother's womb the second time?" asked Nicodemus. Jesus was speaking spiritually, but Nicodemus was trying to figure it out physically.

In John 4, Jesus said, "I have water to give you which if you drink you shall never thirst again."

"Give me this water," said the woman at the well, "so I won't have to keep drawing water from the well." She was thinking materially, but Jesus was speaking about the water of the Spirit internally.

In John 6, Jesus said, "Unless you eat of My body and drink of My blood, you can have no part of Me."

The crowds, thinking He was talking about cannabalism, began to turn away from Him. Again, He was speaking of the spiritual realm, but the people couldn't see past the material realm.

This seems to be our nature to generally not comprehend what Jesus is talking about unless the Holy Spirit tells us.

6 comments:

K.C. said...

I thought he was an actual door???????

...I guess that verse isn't literal after all....

Jacob said...

Yeah, of all the Catholic beliefs, that is the one that I really don't get. I at least understand where they are coming from with praying to saints, and I kind of get pergatory. But, you are really eating His flesh and drinking His blood? What?

Sixty Bricks said...

What the heck? Eating Jesus? Drinking HIS blood? Poppycock and balderdash.

Archana said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Archana said...

Catholic never claims that they eat and drink Christ body and blood as a cannibal. They eat and drink purely in spiritual term. Do not make a mess.You can blame their other gentile traditions like pray to saints etc...

alyssamarieh said...

let faith be faith. Life isn't something we should be trying so hard to understand. In the Catholic faith, that part of mass is a reinactment because Jesus himself said at the last supper "This is my body, and this is my blood", and as believers Jesus wants us to "do this in remembrance of me" which is why Catholics beleieve that. Faith isn't something that will always be so logical and understood, but yes Eucharist is the body and blood of Jesus Christ.