PneumaPsucheSoma

hope things are well with you

It was sudden. He was only 66, way too young, but he told me his health was not good and that he'd not be here much longer.

I'd love to see your input on THIS THREAD.

Thank you!

I thought you might like this thread:

http://theologyonline.com/showthread.php?132665-THE-CREDENCE-OF-JESUS-CHRIST-AS-A-DEISTIC-DESCENDANT-OF-JEHOVAH-IS-DISCREDITED-BY-SHO

I also would be much interested (to say the least) in ANY videos/pictorials/books/podcasts etc. that you may publish/post to aid my understanding of what you have brought to TOL. As previously stated elsewhere, your revelation of the difficulties in translation to the English language has opened my eyes and brought a new-found, long overdue, personal quest to dig deeper into the available Greek texts.

Hey - its at

I would appreciate your input.
You also know I value critical comments from people I admire. But if it is lengthy, you can contact me at
I will delete this message after about 24 hours because I don't want it visible to most on TOL.

And I would very much like to be kept in mind to view your podcasts.

Best,
George

Hi PPM

It's good to know that you are around. Hope you and your wife are doing well.
I know what you mean about interaction here and overt pride. Differences are not handled well at all.
No one really learns anything.
I wondered if you had started putting some of your ideas on a blog. I would be very interested in following that. I have started to do it on a very limited basis.

George

Yes, I indeed meant views that abuse His Person and attributes. I hope we’re not talking past each other, but possibly so.

Bread, underlied by Christ. Anything less or else would be some gradient of Nestorianism.

I took "not subject to abuse" to mean views that abuse His Person and attributes. You take it to mean that if blood and body are not discerned that is abuse. What is in the mouth?

I agree with that last paragraph. There should never be any notion that would hint we are summoning the Lord back to earth to be re-crucified all over again.

Among the Reformed, I hold in highest regard the Sacramentarians; and virtually everyone else is heterodox to whatever extent or degree. I’ve drastically changed my tone, and want to inform you of my repentance of how I’ve condescended to you in times past. It was the product of my zeal, but without respect or consideration for God’s holy vocations for you in the Body.

Yes, I’m aware of the Sacramentalist/Sacramentarian/Symbolism opposing views of the Altar; and I suppose I had mistakenly remembered Zwingli as a Sacramentarian rather than a pure Symbolist.

I use different internal theological terminology, so some of this expression is new to me. It’s one of the fallouts of self-study rather than seminary structure.

I see an unavoidable and undeniable gradient of Nestorianism in the Sacramentarian position; and this all goes back to my position on God’s multi-phenomenality (which I contend has never been addressed, and that lack is the source for all these divisions).

Read from the bottom up.

"What is in the mouth?" is a good diagnostic question. The Reformed view, consistent with Calvin et al, is "Bread in my mouth; Christ in my heart." The Lutheran avows, "Christ in my mouth."

Zwinglians, or those who hold to a simple memorial view do not understand the imparting of any spiritual gift in virtue of the meal; it is a mere commemorative occasion. For them all that is present is bread, period.

Christ's banners stream in glory, proclaiming his victory; but they are (on account of their public placement) open to abuse. So, an attack upon his sign is a proxy attack upon his throne, and Person, and is no minor thing. But this view is incomprehensible to the Lutherans. The Reformed do not have carnal mode of partaking, and therefore they partake not at all in the Supper sacrament, a meal they do not spread for their members.


Closed-communion Lutherans will not admit one to their Table who does not confess the carnal (in, with, under) eating of the Lord's body and blood; for to deny it is to misunderstand the true nature of the sacrament (as they own it); and lacking discernment, so eat and drink condemnation. They would say it is mercy.

Indeed, the Lutherans do not believe (what we confess) that faithless participation in the bread and cup (offense against the sign alone) is enough to confirm the Apostle's testimony that these "eat and drink condemnation to themselves," by offending against "the body and blood of the Lord," 1 Cor. 11:27-29. To Lutherans, if Christ is not actually eaten by the unworthy, then they are not capable of "guilt" respecting the Lord's body and blood.

But we do confess they ARE most guilty, being offenders against the sign, since they are only capable of despising and trampling the Lord "in effigy.". It is gross contempt, and they assuredly DO make themselves as guilty of his body and blood as those unrepentant priests, scribes, and Pharisees which crucified our Lord.. These late offenders join them to the former, and are both disgusting, and ridiculous, because their appalling mockery is flung against the signs of our Lord's salvation (the most they can get their hands on).

The Lutheran insistence on the carnal mode of eating—besides, as Calvin said, such a mode which both Lutherans and Rome make of the sacrament, being a dragging of Christ's flesh again out of heaven (see H.C. Lord's Day 18); and creating a confusion of the two natures which were and are forever distinct but not changed, divided, or separated (see Def. of Chalcedon)—puts the flesh of Christ again, literally, into the hands of his enemies to abuse it again.

The Belgic Confession states (art.35), "As certainly as we receive and hold this sacrament in our hands and eat and drink the same with our mouths, by which our life is afterward nourished, we also do as certainly receive by faith (which the the hand and mouth of our soul) the true body and blood of Christ our only Savior in our souls, for the support of our spiritual life."


The Lutherans confess (according to their Book of Concord) that this assertion is a subtlety; the Reformed are sneaky "sacramentarians" (as opposed to the blatant kind); and frankly, we neither have nor celebrate the Lord's Supper. Why? Because we deny that we partake of the Supper in two modes, both spiritually (which they aver is true of themselves) and carnally. What may be obtained by this mysterious carnal eating different from a purely spiritual eating remains unstated; but as Lutherans see it, to deny the second is to lose the first.

The Lutheran view differs from the (true) Calvinist view, partly as it pertains to the mode of communion. The Calvinist insists on only a spiritual feeding; while the Lutheran insists on not only a spiritual feeding, but also (in a way that is largely indescribable, but uses the language "in, with, under") a carnal feeding.

Sometimes this difference is expressed thus: Lutherans speak of Christ in the mouth and in the heart; Calvinists speak of bread in the mouth, Christ in the heart. The latter view makes a deliberate and clear distinction between the sign (bread) and the thing signified (Christ), along with the mode of Personal communion.

We Reformed exegetes do not adhere to the "Zwinglian" or "memorialist" view. That view is that the supper is merely reflective. It is an invitation to meditation, not a true "means of grace," as the Reformation churches understand that term. There is no room for divine communication to men here; the direction of the activity is from the man (his mind) up to God.

That's a far cry from the understanding that Christ comes to us, or brings us to himself, and makes possible our spiritual sustenance from his actual, living Person. God feeds His people spiritual nourishment, analogous to a mother being the source of her infant's formula.