Sometimes familiar passages hit one with renewed significance. Reading yesterday’s Epistle, 1 Corinthians:17-26,33, I was struck by what Paul had to say about two things: the nature of the community there; and the importance of tradition.
For those who hold to the more modern view of ‘once saved, always saved’, the Church at Corinth must pose a puzzle. He is a group of Christians whom St Paul himself had brought to Christ and yet, like all churches any of have experience of, rather than all being born again and knowing the voice of the Shepherd and doing his will, they, like us, argue and get things wrong, and, like us, they have factions within. Yes, that sounds like the Catholic Church we know and love. In its own way this is almost reassuring; if those converted by the Spirit through Paul were this fallible, perhaps we should not beat ourselves up quite as badly as we do sometimes? That doesn’t meant that, like the Corinthians, we shouldn’t heed Paul’s words and try to be better, of course, but it does mean we should not be surprised at our fallibility.
Paul reprimands them for their actions with regard to the ‘Lord’s Supper’. Whatever they were up to (and scholars don’t quite agree on what that was) what is clear is that their claims to be doing what Jesus did in having some kind of fellowship meal did not meet what Paul had been told. We can see how accurately Paul had been told about the events we call the Last Supper; he even quotes the words of Jesus. If, as we think, this letter was written about twenty to twenty-five years after the death and resurrection of Christ, then it is plain that even by that stage, these words and their significance were an old tradition. We know from the Didache and other sources that this practice of meeting to celebrate the Lord Supper was the most ancient tradition of all. There is no argument about whether this memorial is just that, Paul accepts, as the Church continues to, that Jesus meant what he said – the bread is his body, the wine is his blood; those unable to accept this walk away now, as they did even from Jesus himself. But that is how it was, is, and will be until he comes again in glory to judge both the living and he dead.
So, although, like the Corinthians, divided and somewhat fractious at times, we meet as they did, mindful of what Paul says. Because we know we are drinking his blood and eating his body, we know, too, that to do so unworthily is to eat damnation upon ourselves, so we ensure, as far as we can, that we eat and drink after having purged ourself of our sins; the first Christians did, and we do as they did for the same reason. We do not do it exactly as they did – public confession was the fashion at the beginning – but we do it all the same. This is one example of what we mean when we say that we follow the tradition of the Church founded by Jesus.
The Corinthians were adding things to salvation. Some were turning Christs grace into rituals. They had pockets of petty holier than thou men who led their little petty group. Anyone born again would be led away from this sort of proto religion.
In these groups of new believers you have born again folks and folks who like what they see but aren’t born again but claim they are….they must be because they did some ritual or said some prayer. Im surprised how few people get born again. Even then the Spirit bumps us into each other.
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Your problem here Bosco is simple – these people were all ‘born again’, but they don’t fit your views, which shows how unbiblical your concept of ‘saved’ is.
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How do you know every man jack of them were born again? don’t TAKE THIS AS an attack my brother, but…..do you know whats it is to be born again? One has to be born again to know what its like. Thenone can see if others are also born again. Its hard to put into words. One thing you can rest assured in….the born again don’t eat out of the hands of costume holymen. Well, let me qualify that. If a born again were invited to a catholic service and he went, he most likely take the wafer…no big problem there. What I mean is the born again doesn’t believe in costume holymen. He doesn’t believe in religions. The born again have supped with Jesus. They have no need for anything else. Costumes are for those who go to the pit. All we can do is warn them.
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So, St Paul, who in the passage I cite, ate the bread and wine, knowing they were the body and blood of the Lord, was not born again, and the same was true of those whom he converted? That seems to be your view. Perhaps you are the only person ever saved Bosco?
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Good brother Paul was born again when the brothers prayed for him and he regained his sight.
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And he said the bread and the wine were the body and blood, and those who ate unworthily would be damned. Just like the Church Jesus founded says. But not like Calvary chapel says. Try joining Jesus’ Church not your own religion.
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“Paul accepts, as the Church continues to, that Jesus meant what he said – the bread is his body, the wine is his blood; those unable to accept this WALK AWAY NOW, AS THEY DID EVEN FROM JESUS himself.”
‘C’ I somehow doubt you mean this as it could be taken by those of us that do not take Christ words literally in this matter. We have no intention of following the example of those who deserted Christ in John 6. Indeed many with a variety of views on this matter have remained faithful to even to death in their witness to Christ. I think your prose ran away with you a bit there. Or would you like to elaborate on your meaning. Caps to emphasis a portion (not shouting).
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I simply fail to understand why anyone needs to gloss Christ’s words. I don’t doubt the witness, I just wonder about the need to gloss what he says.
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Indeed, He said what He said. Nothing more, nothing less. Nor do I discount the witness, but anything else is simply unBiblical.
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We can, of course, disagree on how the bread and wine are his body and blood, but that they are seems clear enough – and did until the ‘reformers’ started finding reasons to doubt what had been believed for 1500 years.
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Quite so, we can. If I recall old Luther said it was a mystery, and left it at that. That is good enough for me, and it was quite the divisor in John as well, if I recall.
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It was. The Orthodox term. ‘Real presence’ seems to me to get it right for all of us – Catholics can have our own explanation in more detail. of course 🙂 – with, as ever, added nuance 🙂
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Yes, one thing you Catholics do, is explain things, in great detail and nuance! 🙂 No harm in it, just doesn’t always seem necessary. 🙂
I too, like the term, ‘Real Presence’.
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I can understand how that can seem a little over precise about what is a mystery 🙂
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Yes, and I can understand the wanting for an explanation. 🙂 One of the strengths of Christianity, I think, is that one can have either.
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I think so – and it is a standing challenge to those who argue that somehow there is no intellectual content to the Faith.
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Quite. If there is another subject with more intellectual content than the Faith… well I’ve not run across it. Part of why it is so endlessly fascinating.
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Quite so, and it is one of the reasons people like Dawkins have credibility only with those who know as little as they do!
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Indeed, I found him badly lacking in credibility, and that was long before I knew very much at all about the Faith, not least because of AATW!
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Glad to know we’ve helped Neo 🙂
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That you all have 🙂 The advice is to follow up, often here we short cut things, because we’ve covered it before. 🙂
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Very true.
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🙂
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Real presence. “Oh, ours is real…..yours is fake.”
Another claim.
Have you guys ever noticed I never use words like…truly saved, or true believers? That’s because all fake religions use those terms. ” Oh, our religion is the true religion”
Either youre saved or youre not. And its impossible to fool a saved person for very long. I wasn’t fooled by the 7th Dayers, but I watched them expecting to find the hook….and I found it, al be it about 2 weeks later. At first I thought they were spirit filled. Something nagged at me. I didn’t even know they were 7th Dayers. Then I got the hook. They are Adventists and the true church of God. They sounded good. But eventually a born again will sniff you out.
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So why did Jesus found a church, or indeed, bother being incarnated if all he needed to do was appear to each of us individually?
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Good question.
He doesn’t appear to us. He gives us a new spirit that was created in heaven, and that new spirit knows Jesus. The spirit we are born with was created on earth and is carnal.
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Well Bosco, if that’s all that was need, why bother hanging on a Cross in agony. I don’t think your theology makes any sense of the Incarnation or Resurrection. If Jesus was as smart as you, he could just have given us all a new spirit without bothering with that messy stuff. As he did bother, he did for a reason. You seem to have no idea of what that reason was.
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We both know why he hung on the cross….to pay the bill for our sins.
Why doesn’t he just give everyone a new spirit? ….I don’t know. But His ways are higher than ours. I guess its the free will thing. He didn’t make robots to love, he wants an equal to love. Humans are in his image. Its my firm belief that performing a ritual isn’t evidence of a contrite spirit or a desire to meet Jesus.
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Did anyone say it was?
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