Eastern Orthodox Apologetics - Exposing Protestantism

[alexs]

Protestants think that they understand the Gospel of John now in 21-st century better than St. Ignatius the bishop of Antioch who was the disciple of the apostol John.

[chriss]

As a former protestant and current catechumen, I really appreciate this video. Subscribed!

[coleparker]

I’m a Protestant converting to Orthodoxy, but there was a lot of hate toward your brothers in Christ in this video with your tone of voice. Although our interpretations (to an extent) separate us, we will be united in heaven. We believe in Him and keep his commandments. This era of humanity is under a grace period. We are not saved by works, so don’t say we are being damned because we don’t interpret the communion the same way you do.

[shamir]

brother Jonny, send me the link for those quotes on the true presence via messenger please.

[vigilantchristian]

Are you part of the Old Calendar Orthodox Church

[JusticeMercyHumilityM]

Historic Reformed Protestantism doesn't believe that the Lord's Supper is a mere memorial. The Heidelberg Catechism (1563) states it this way:


76. What does it mean to eat the crucified body and drink the shed blood of Christ?

It means not only to embrace with a believing heart all the sufferings and death of Christ, and thereby to obtain the forgiveness of sins and life eternal; but moreover, also, to be so united more and more to His sacred body by the Holy Spirit, who dwells both in Christ and in us, that, although He is in heaven and we on earth, we are nevertheless flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone, and live and are governed forever by one Spirit, as members of the same body are governed by one soul.


We believe in the real presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper, but it is a spiritual presence. This makes sense of the institution of the Supper. Jesus was physically in front of His disciples. His blood had not been shed yet. How could they eat His broken body and shed blood? I know you make the argument that Jesus could have transfigured Himself, but the passage doesn't say that at all. Since the gospel writers took the time to record the transfiguration and how glorious it was, why did they not describe the Institution of the Supper in a similar way? The answer is because Jesus was not transfigured at the institution of the Lord's Supper. Therefore, the Lord's Supper is for spiritual edification.


1 Corinthians 10:1-4, "Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ."


The Heidelberg Catechism also states it this way:


79. Why then does Christ call the bread His body, and the cup His blood, or the new testament in His blood; and the Apostle Paul, the communion of the body and the blood of Christ?

Christ speaks thus with great cause, namely, not only to teach us thereby, that like as the bread and wine sustain this temporal life, so also His crucified body and shed blood are the true meat and drink of our souls unto life eternal; but much more, by this visible sign and pledge to assure us that we are as really partakers of His true body and blood by the working of the Holy Spirit, as we receive by the mouth of the body these holy tokens in remembrance of Him; and that all His sufferings and obedience are as certainly our own, as if we ourselves had suffered and done all in our own person.


80. What difference is there between the Lord’s Supper and the Pope’s Mass?

The Lord’s Supper testifies to us that we have full forgiveness of all our sins by the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which He Himself once accomplished on the cross; and that by the Holy Spirit we are engrafted into Christ, who, with His true body is now in heaven at the right hand of the Father, and is there to be worshiped. But the Mass teaches that the living and the dead do not have forgiveness of sins through the sufferings of Christ, unless Christ is still daily offered for them by the priests, and that Christ is bodily under the form of bread and wine, and is therefore to be worshiped in them. And thus the Mass at bottom is nothing else than a denial of the one sacrifice and suffering of Jesus Christ, and an accursed idolatry.


I know that the Eastern Orthodox Church isn't the same as the Roman Catholic Church. This last question and answer isn't meant to be disrespectful or any other statements that I have made here. But the answer in QA 80 answers the argument you are presenting concerning the Lord's Supper. Jesus' physical body ascended into heaven; therefore, His body isn't physically in the Supper. Hebrews 1:3, "who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high."


47. But is not Christ with us even unto the end of the world, as He has promised?1

Christ is true man and true God. According to His human nature He is now not on earth, but according to His Godhead, majesty, grace, and Spirit, He is at no time absent from us.


48. But are not, in this way, the two natures in Christ separated from one another, if the manhood is not wherever the Godhead is?

Not at all, for since the Godhead is incomprehensible and everywhere present, it must follow that the same is not limited with the human nature He assumed, and yet remains personally united to it.


John 3:13, "No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven."