Don’t see John 6 as referring to Eucharist

[lagerald24]

That may be the case but we should keep in mind that the Jews and the Apostles didn’t recognize that they would be eating the Glorified Body and Blood of Jesus, not the actual, bloody flesh. They didn’t quite comprehend what Jesus was getting at. Jesus was indeed talking about His nature AND He was saying how we must partake in Him through a great miracle, namely the Eucharist.

 

[John_Martin]

I’m saying that Peter understood that Jesus is divine.

You also said this:

Disciple(s) started out asking for a sign, one like manna in the exodus. Jesus tells them that he is the bread of life (manna). The Jews listening to him would have understood what he meant when he said that he was the bread of life and they needed to eat him. What they are asking is - how can he do this, isn’t he the son of Joseph, a mere mortal man. How can we eat a mortal man’s flesh. They didn’t believe that he was divine, hence, they left.

You said the Jews thought Jesus was a mere human so they could not eat his flesh.
You said Peter understood Jesus came from God therefore the conclusion from your words is that Peter believed he could eat Jesus flesh, which is the Eucharist.

The fact is John 6 was about eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of Man even if no one understood it until after the resurrection.

 

[chessnerd321]

I’m starting to feel like we’re talking in circles. Please explain the exact passage I quoted (John 6:52-54). I don’t think anything you’ve said has. What you’ve said can maybe explain what comes before but no that.

The disciples would have understood Jesus to be say something about His nature.

But this is clearly not what they understood!! Read verse 52!!!

 

[1Lord1Faith]

But this is clearly not what they understood!! Read verse 52!!!

Go and find out what a Jew would have understood the word “eat” to mean in this context. Likewise, the word “flesh” in this context. Once you understand the richness of those words in that context, the rest of the chapter falls into place. All of it.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

You said Peter understood Jesus came from God therefore the conclusion from your words is that Peter believed he could eat Jesus flesh, which is the Eucharist

This is what you are saying, not me.

The implication that you are drawing, and attributing to me, is a logic leap. It’s not something that can be found in the text, but it’s a conclusion that you seem to have drawn.

 

[John_Martin]

You said Peter understood Jesus came from God therefore the conclusion from your words is that Peter believed he could eat Jesus flesh, which is the Eucharist

It was you who said the Jews would not eat just a mortal man’s flesh, like Jesus - they wanted someone from Heaven; you said the only reason they left him, rather than eating his flesh, was because he was a mortal man, not Divine:

The Jews listening to him would have understood what he meant when he said that he was the bread of life and they needed to eat him. What they are asking is - how can he do this, isn’t he the son of Joseph, a mere mortal man. How can we eat a mortal man’s flesh. They didn’t believe that he was divine,

No logic leap, you are not remembering what you said in one post when you write the next post.
Peter did the opposite of the Jews, and you provided both sets of data about the Jews not believing and about Peter believing in Jesus:

They would not eat his flesh because he was not divine in their understanding of Jesus.
Peter could eat his flesh because he knew Jesus was the Son of God, and knew he would eat it whenever Jesus gave it to him to eat.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

The logic leap comes if you would say that Peter understood that the Eucharist was the body of Christ after he heard the Bread of Life Discourse. I thought that’s what you said earlier because you mentioned the Eucharist was synonymous with ‘eating Jesus’ flesh’ in Jn 6. I do not see them as synonymous at the time of the discourse. I don’t think Peter did either. At that moment I think Peter grasped that Jesus was divine, and Peter said so too.

Peter could eat his flesh because he knew Jesus was the Son of God, and knew he would eat it whenever Jesus gave it to him to eat.

What did Peter understand Jesus to mean when Jesus said ‘eat my flesh’. I don’t think Peter understood that he should eat Jesus. Later at the Last Supper Discourse I think Peter understood something more in depth when Jesus said ‘this is my body’. Furthermore, I think this distinction in meanings was done purposely by Jesus in order to gradually bring understanding of who He was and what His sacrifice meant.

I think Peter and the disciples would have understood the one form of “eat” (trogo) to mean that Jesus really was the bread of life, not just a metaphor for the bread of life. This would imply that Jesus was divine, not merely a prophet. The deeper meaning of “this is my body” during the Last Supper Discourse would have deepened Peter’s understanding of what else “the bread of life” meant.

 

[Cathoholic]

1Lord1Faith.

The Bread of Life Discourse in John 6 IS referring to Jesus in the Eucharist.

I understand that many others do not see this.

Many others do.

But perhaps more to the point, HOW do you think
the Jews who were in that Synagogue at Capernaum
took those words of Jesus?

God bless.

Cathoholic

 

[Cathoholic]

Thom18 . . . .

Jesus said that the flesh is of no avail, not His flesh

I’d give you several “likes” for a point such as this if I could Thom18. Just excellent.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

But perhaps more to the point, HOW do you think
the Jews who were in that Synagogue at Capernaum
took those words of Jesus?

Read my posts that I’ve already posted. I’ve said how I thought they took those words.

 

[edward_george1]

In Semitic languages, from the Aramaic of Jesus’s day, to the modern Arabic and Hebrew spoken in the Middle East today, “to eat one’s flesh” means to insult or revile them in the worst way possible. So if Jesus is meant to be taken figuratively, with “eat my flesh” meaning “insult me, revile me, drag my name through the dust,” then what he’s saying makes no sense. We have to insult him to have eternal life?

So the crowd hears this and realizes they must take him literally. We must eat his flesh to have eternal life. Some hear this as cannibalism, entirely scandalous to human sensibilities, much less Jewish ones, and they walk way. Those who follow in faith still don’t quite understand, but they follow anyway. At the Last Supper, he reveals how we are to fulfill his command here, to eat his flesh and drink his blood, by revealing the Eucharist to his disciples. It’s like the many times he says he must rise from the dead; they don’t know what that means. But then he rises from the dead, and everything they’ve experienced walking with Jesus comes into focus and begins to make sense.

-Fr ACEGC

 

[Cathoholic]

Cathoholic . . .

But perhaps more to the point, HOW do you think
the Jews who were in that Synagogue at Capernaum
took those words of Jesus?

.

1Lord1Faith . . .

Read my posts that I’ve already posted. I’ve said how I thought they took those words.

From initial post from 1Lord1Faith . . .

He goes on to say that he is like the manna, which was understood by his disciples to be supernatural. He is implying that he is not earthly, but supernatural.

Of course, such a cryptic statement of divinity caused the Jews to murmur. I believe this is what led some disciples to walk away. It was Jesus’ cryptic statement of his divinity . . .

OK.

I think the first step would be for us to actually look at the Bread of Life dicourse. At least the segment of John 6:50 and following. (And MORE for deeper context later in the thread).

JOHN 6:50-66 50 This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; 54 he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. 56 He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever.” 59 This he said in the synagogue, as he taught at Caper′na-um.
60 Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” 61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at it, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? 62 Then what if you were to see the Son of man ascending where he was before?
63 It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64 But there are some of you that do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who those were that did not believe, and who it was that should betray him. 65 And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”
66 After this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him.

Notice the passage explicitly tells us what the Jews thought. (They are taking Jesus LITERALLY. And in so doing, they are taking Jesus correctly.)

 

[Cathoholic]

Notice the passage explicitly tells us what the Jews thought. (They are taking Jesus LITERALLY. And in so doing, they are taking Jesus correctly.)

I think you are on to something, but it is a PARTIAL truth 1Lord1Faith.

JOHN 6 :52 52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

Not JOHN 6 :52 52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this not earthly claimant be like manna and be supernatural?"

.

He goes on to say that he is like the manna, which was understood by his disciples to be supernatural. He is implying that he is not earthly, but supernatural.

Of course, such a cryptic statement of divinity caused the Jews to murmur. I believe this is what led some disciples to walk away. It was Jesus’ cryptic statement of his divinity . . .

He is implying that he is not earthly,

In a sense, Jesus IS earthly but not MERELY earthly.

Yes Jesus is God too and is thus supernatural.

“Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true Man!”

So Jesus wouldn’t claim to . . . NOT be earthly . . . at least in the sense of denying His humanity.

.

The Jews understood Jesus correctly leading them to ask one another . . . "How can this man, give us his flesh to eat?"

 

[Techno2000]

How is this wrong?

“It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”
John 6:63

The flesh (Human Reason) is of no avail in trying to understand the Supernatural spiritual things like the Eucharist.

You are trying to understand something Supernatural through the lens of the carnal flesh mind which is of no avail.

And this is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The natural man does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
1 Corinthians 2:14

 

[RealisticCatholic]

Of course John 6, nearing John 6:50 onward, refers to the Eucharist.

There are several reasons to think so.

1. You have mostly been talking about the immediate words of John 6 itself. Now, others have been making important points here. However, beyond this, connect these words to the following points as well:
2. John doesn’t have an institution narrative (of the Last Supper) in his Gospel. But the other three gospels do not record these words of Jesus, here, either. Put the pieces together: John is often a commentary and spiritual development of the other gospels, as he wrote last. The Christians of the late first century would have precisely understood Jesus’ words here as Eucharistic words.
3. How else do we know the early Christians understood John like this? Take it from a disciple of John himself: Ignatius of Antioch. Ignatius wrote in the early 100s and explicitly taught the real presence, even in graphic terms as much as John himself did: it is the very “flesh” of Christ and the “medicine of immortality.”
4. The greater consensus of the early Church. The early Church read John 6 as Eucharistic. That’s a fact. There are other ways of reading it, as the Alexandrians loved to find the moral and spiritual meanings behind the texts of Scripture as well. But this is ultimately based in the historical words of Christ, which were always understood as meaning the Eucharist is truly his flesh and blood.
5. The practice of keeping the “secret” for the insiders in the Church: The mysteries of the Christian Faith were often kept hidden from the outside secular world. Notice how the pagan Romans mistook the Eucharist to be cannibalism! It appears John 6 is a high example of something that would be understood by Christians to be the Eucharist, but hidden to the outside world.
6. …Which again relates to the fact that Scripture was FOR Church, not the other way around. The living Christian community took in the Scripture as commentary for what they were already doing. The Eucharist as sacrifice and real presence were well-established by the late first century. Again, see Ignatius. Also read Didache, Clement, and then into second and third century we see others just as clearly speak of the real presence (like Irenaeus and Justin Martyr).
7. Even though your issue is mainly with John 6 and not the doctrine of the Eucharist itself, still keep in mind that the Catholic Church and all other apostolic churches maintain the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. That’s very telling. And, additionally, they readily see John 6 as referring to it.

Who are the ones that tend to reject John 6 as Eucharistic? When were their traditions and churches founded? Are they apostolic? Is this significant to you?

 

[hope]

Jesus said

and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world

Notice that it is future tense. The disciples did not understand they were confused but they knew there was no where else to go. Jesus would reveal what He meant in the future at the last Supper. It was revealed than that they would receive Jesus in the bread and wine. That those elements were truly Jesus. I disagree with your statement Jesus’ flesh was still real, although glorified, the disciples did not attempt to eat Jesus. They did not only attempt but did eat and drink Jesus in the breaking of the bread as they called it.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

In Semitic languages, from the Aramaic of Jesus’s day, to the modern Arabic and Hebrew spoken in the Middle East today, “to eat one’s flesh” means to insult or revile them in the worst way possible.

Thank you for chiming in. I’d love to read more about the phrase “to eat one’s flesh” and it’s meaning. Do you have any links handy? Or any books to recommend?

 

[edward_george1]

Actually, there’s a book cited in the Catholic Answers article about this that might be worth checking out:

But there is a problem with that interpretation. As Fr. John A. O’Brien explains, “The phrase ‘to eat the flesh and drink the blood,’ when used figuratively among the Jews, as among the Arabs of today, meant to inflict upon a person some serious injury, especially by calumny or by false accusation. To interpret the phrase figuratively then would be to make our Lord promise life everlasting to the culprit for slandering and hating him, which would reduce the whole passage to utter nonsense” (O’Brien, The Faith of Millions , 215). For an example of this use, see Micah 3:3.

The book may be had here for a few dollars.

 

[Cathoholic]

1Lord1Faith . . .

Thank you for chiming in. I’d love to read more about the phrase “to eat one’s flesh” and it’s meaning. Do you have any links handy?

I’ll try to get by a computer (right now I am only on my tablet) and post salient elements of this for you 1Lord1Faith.

 

[Mintaka]

Jesus gives the Bread of Life discourse, talking about an impossible food and drink, and people ask how this could happen. And He refers them to Himself being God, Who made the world by the performative power of His Word, the breath of Spirit from His mouth.

This follows a pattern. He tells Nicodemus about an impossible birth, Baptism, back in Chapter 3, and also refers Nicodemus back to His divine powers and to His Spirit. (And then He takes off with His disciples and baptizes people, so it is definitely about Baptism.)

After Chapter 7, Jesus does not immediately go off to His Passion, because it is the Feast of Tabernacles and His “time had not yet come.” But the narrative moves in that direction, as we are told that people start leaving Him and wanting to kill Him, from then on.