From the conversation we had, I\u2019m not particularly sure whether or not you still believe in Jesus\u2019 Real Presence in the Eucharist, so in case you do, I\u2019ll be brief.\u00a0 Denial of Jesus\u2019 Real Presence in the Eucharist is a very common teaching among many Protestant denominations (but as always, not universally).<\/p>\n
Scripture<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The Eucharist was a central part of life for the Apostles (Acts 2:42<\/a>) yet in most Protestant churches Holy Communion is pretty rare.\u00a0 If the Eucharist is only symbolic, why is unworthy reception of the Eucharist (1 Cor 11:27-30<\/a>) spoken of in such strong, sacrilegious, life-and-death terms?\u00a0 Scripture records Jesus saying in John 6:35-70<\/a>\u00a0that we must eat His body and drink His blood.\u00a0 If he was only speaking symbolically why did he lose so many followers that day?<\/p>\n Church History<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Outside of Scripture, something that you will find without exception among the Early Church Fathers is the belief that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist.\u00a0 The Eucharist is one of the central topics examined in the Didache<\/a> (70-90 AD), probably the earliest Christian writing not to be included in the canon of the Bible. This First Century document calls the Eucharist\u00a0a\u00a0“sacrifice”<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n As you may have now read, St. Ignatius of Antioch (96 AD) described the Eucharist as \u201cthe medicine of immortality<\/em>\u201d<\/em><\/strong> and described the Gnostics as those who \u201cabstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that\u00a0the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ<\/span>, flesh which suffered<\/span> for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up<\/span> again. They who deny the gift of God<\/span> are perishing in their disputes.\u201d<\/em><\/strong> – Letter to the Smyrnaeans\u00a06<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n The historical witness for this doctrine is undeniable. Absolutely undeniable.<\/p>\n Whilst I was still in my rather anti-Catholic phase I heard someone say \u201cIf you say you\u2019re not being fed in the Catholic Church then you clearly don\u2019t know who<\/span> you\u2019re eating\u201d<\/em>.<\/strong>\u00a0 As much as this sounded arrogant and as much as it irritated me, it did prompt me to really examine the teaching of the Eucharist because, if it was true, to miss out would be a tragedy.<\/p>\n I was looking through some old emails I wrote several years ago to a friend who was leaving the Catholic Church. Here’s the short section I wrote about the Eucharist… The Eucharist From the conversation we had, I\u2019m not particularly sure whether or not you still believe in Jesus\u2019 Real Presence in the Eucharist, so in case you do, I\u2019ll<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[1385,1573,1572],"class_list":["post-484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","tag-bread-of-life","tag-st-ignatius-of-antioch","tag-the-eucharist"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51132,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484\/revisions\/51132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"last](\"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/last-supper.jpg\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"