Certain near-Christian and pseudo-christian catholics, episcopalians, anglicans, eastern or russian orthodox, and others are obsessed with blood sacrifice they call "eucharist."
Such abomination smacks of the canaanite lust for the ritualistic blood sacrifices the LORD called detestible and resulted in exterminating such barbarians.
Why are catholic types so hung up on their own or hierarchally-administered eucharistic self-sacrifice? Is their declared sacrificing of what they questionably call "Christ's body" (actually and merely ritualistically-"blest" manufactured unleavened edible wafers and ritualistically-"blest" store-bought bottled wine) presumed to atone for their own sins and the sins of other nibblers and sippers? Is it even that the daily, weekly, or monthly ingesting of a few grams of chewable wafers and God-knows-exactly-how-much tablespoon-equivalents of wine a necessary redemptive supplement to Christ's one-time redemptive sacrifice of Himself on a cross to atone for sins?
Why is the stated high-point culmination of catholic-type church services ingesting the eucharistic niblets as their own supreme self-sacrifice? Does that take away their sins? Is that
When the Biblical author implored us to "present our bodies as a living sacrifice acceptable to God" is that presentation supposed to atone for our sins? What then is the true and real purpose of such sacrifice? Clearly instead it is for us to allow the Lord to utilize us in His service even up to and including our giving up our all and our lives for Him and His divine purposes.....but NEVER to think such atones for our sins!
As we note that NONE of the Old Testament prophets and saints nibbled wafers and sipped eucharistic wine, nor the penitent dying thief on a cross who made it into Paradise and not "purgatory," where did religious sectarians come up with their concocted eucharistic self-sacrificial notions? We find only one epistolic very-short reference to what seems to be non-gluttonous non-drunkenness eucharistic activity in a few verses of First Corinthians chapter 11:
18 For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there are divisions among you, and I partly believe it.
19 For there must be also heresies among you, that those who are approved may be made manifest among you.
20 When ye therefore come together into one place, this is not to eat the Lord’s Supper.
21 For in eating, every one taketh his own supper ahead of another, and one is hungry and another is drunken.
22 What? Have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? Or despise ye the church of God, and shame those who have not? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I praise you not!
23 For I have received from the Lord that which also I delivered unto you: that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread;
24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of Me."
25 In the same manner also He took the cup when He had supped, saying, "This cup is the new testament in My blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of Me."
26 For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death until He come.
27 Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.
28 But let a man examine himself, and then let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup.
29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.
30 For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.
31 For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.
32 But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.
33 Therefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another.
34 And if any man hunger, let him eat at home, that ye come not together unto condemnation. And the rest will I set in order
Several observations should be made about the previous passage.
First, the quantity of what is taken to be the communion elements must be quite small, so as to not involve gluttony or drunkenness.
Second, Paul alludes to a one-time command Jesus gave only to His Twelve apostles at a only-once-occurring Last Supper for whatever specific purposes for them alone which He had in mind. Note that bread can literally be eaten, but "drinking the cup" would be physiologically impossible, being that the solid metal, ceramic, or earthen cup cannot be literally drunk. Perhaps Christ was too ashamed to tell them to "drink the blood." Even Paul understandably infers that we "drink the cup" instead of "drink the blood." The idea that eating bread and drinking solid cups "shows the Lord's death until He comes" is something Paul contrived (though note that I did not state that Paul was the only one who made it up). That is followed by a severe damn-you-to-hell-if-you-do-not-do-this-or-that death threat. Next, Paul brings in the new idea of nibbing and sipping in order and not in a helter-skelter mad rush, as if that was now related to the previous and following repeated dire death threat.
Next, what is meant by "unworthily?" So who qualifies? Maybe this dangerous [eucharistic] practice should be only done once a year during Holy Week, if that!
What is Paul alluding to?
In the gospel of Matthew, we read:
26 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed it and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, "Take, eat; this is My body."
27 And He took the cup and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, "Drink ye all of it;
28 for this is My blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
29 But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine until that Day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s Kingdom."
In that passage, Jesus first seems to call on His disciples to possibly choke with dry non-moistened throats on broken bread He weirdly calls "His body" (ISH!) and then calls a metal or earthen cup His "New-Testament" blood (YUCK!) which He then somehow relates to "being shed for many for the remission of sins." [Ever wonder why in restaurants they first ask what you would like to drink and then bring that before they bring you the food? Of course, drinking wine on an empty stomach can really hit a person hard.] Keep in mind that He had not shed real blood on a cross yet, but was in fact calling drunk wine shed blood supposed to remit sins]. Christ does get real when He calls the wine not his blood but instead "this fruit of the vine" (which obviously would be more tasty than blood).
We're talking about the same Jesus (i.e. The Door [not necessarily
wooden] a.k.a. The Good Cowboy, who lays down His life for the cattle)
who made Merlot/Zinfandel-type fine wine at Cana but not Marlboro/Camel cigarettes nor Playboy/Penthouse porn magazines for the people.
Transubstantiation?
According to the Biblical record, the 12-year-old girl and Lazarus were not dead but rather sleeping?
Oh yeah.
Maybe they took too much Sominex.
Took more than a good shot of strong coffee to wake them up!
That wasn't the first time that the Lord confused and sickened non-fasting overweight people with shock-talk allusions to [cannibalistically?] eating flesh and drinking blood. In the gospel of John He is said to have said:
51 I am the living Bread which came down from Heaven. If any man eat of this Bread, he shall live for ever; and the Bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."
52 The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"
53 Then Jesus said unto them, "Verily, verily I say unto you, unless ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.
54 Whoso eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the Last Day.
55 For My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed.
56 He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood dwelleth in Me, and I in him.
57 As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me.
58 This is that Bread which came down from Heaven, not as your fathers ate manna and are dead; he that eateth of this Bread shall live for ever."
59 These things said He in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum.
60 Many of His disciples therefore, when they had heard this, said, "This is a hard saying; who can hear it?"
61 When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples murmured at it, He said unto them, "Doth this offend you?
62 What if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where He was before?
63 It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
Well, amidst the disgusting cannibalistic-like references to eating human flesh and drinking human blood, Christ admittedly did qualify his screwy semantics by understandably declaring that His words were merely "spirit and life" and so hopefully NOT to be taken literally. Had they been meant to be taken literally, perhaps Peter might have retorted:
"WHAT the HELL are you SAYING? You know DAM well that GOD in the Old Testament commanded us to NEVER drink BLOOD! WHY the DUCE are You so noxiously and disgustingly contradicting HIM? Are You NUTS? Do we need to call the Roman insane-asylum guards in white robes to escort Your crazy carcass to Herod's funny farm?"
Some catholic types presume that their self-appointed "priests" can trace their laid-on-with-hands ordination commissionings back to the original 12 apostles and Christ Himself. They have concocted the ridiculous term: apostolic succession to describe their bizarre and non-realistic fantasy. They misconsider laying on of hands something magical as if the Spirit is of necessary conveyed to and upon someone handled with such human actions, and also presume that Christ appointed apostles who then appointed priests to impose such hands-on contagious succession. But Paul in one of his epistles instead reminds us:
28 And God hath set some in the church: first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracle workers, then those with gifts of healing, helpers, administrators, and those with diversity of tongues.
29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles?
11 And He appointed some to be apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers,
12 for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry, and for the edifying of the body of Christ,
"Priests" were a phenomenon of the OLD Testament, and even yet there are those who in no-knowledge-of-Christ-our-HIGH-Priest do the duties of priest who can never take away nor atone for sins [even on humanly-presumed "divine authority"].
The book of Hebrews puts it this way:
1 Now of the things of which we have spoken, this is the sum: We have such a High Priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens,
2 a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man.
3 For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices; therefore it is of necessity that this Man have something also to offer.
4 For if He were on earth, He should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests who offer gifts according to the law,
5 and who serve unto the copy and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished by God when he was about to make the tabernacle. For, "See," saith He, "that thou make all things according to the pattern shown to thee on the mount."
6 But now hath He obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also He is the Mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.
4 for it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.
5 Therefore when He cometh into the world, He saith, "Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not have, but a body hast Thou prepared for Me.
6 In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou hast had no pleasure.
7 Then said I, ‘Lo, I come (in the volume of the Book it is written of Me) to do Thy will, O God.’"
8 Above when He said, "Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings, and offering for sin Thou wouldest not have, neither hadst pleasure therein" (which are offered in accordance with the law),
9 then said He, "Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God," He taketh away the first, that He may establish the second.
10 By this will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
11 And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering time and again the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.
12 But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down at the right hand of God,
13 from henceforth expecting until His enemies be made His footstool.
14 For by one offering He hath perfected for ever those who are sanctified.
15 Of this the Holy Spirit also is a witness to us; for after he had said before,
16 "This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;
17 and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more."
18 Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.
Obviously, then, there is no valid hocus-pocus conveyance of the Spirit through laying on of anyone's hands on anyone else, unless the Lord calls that one to serve Himself as the reverend bishop, deacon, elder, minister, or pastor of a flock (i.e. congregation) of a church of some kind.
And even then such clergy types can never atone for sins themselves, whether by eucharist or whatever - even in the name of God - which blasphemous action would bypass direct redemption on the redeemed by the one and only Lord Jesus who gave HIMSELF ONCE as THE perfect sacrifice for the sins of His penitent....despite the silly shenanigans of wafer-cracking cup-raising "priests" who presume themselves pious pompass-ass primadonnas to those who bow before them at communion rails.