John 6 and Eucharist?

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I don’t see how anyone can be confused about this… Christ said “unless you eat My flesh and drink My blood you have no life in you” Then at the last supper he took bread and wine and said… “Take this all of you and eat…this is My body…take this all of you and drink…this is the cup of My blood”
Add to this Paul’s instructions about properly discerning the body of Christ and warnings to those who eat unworthily…
How can anyone possibly think that eating His flesh and drinking His blood is something other than receiving Him through bread and wine? :confused:
 
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Quatsch:
I understand that, but how do you explain the part of Jn 6:63 where Jesus says, “the flesh is of no avail”? Obviously he is not saying we should not eat his flesh, but what is he talking about?

He directly contrasts the “spirit that gives life” with “the flesh is of no avail.” This means that the flesh does not give life. He then says, “the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” I understand this to mean that his words come from the spirit and not from the flesh (i.e. they are not human ideas void of divine inspiration). Since words of man, not coming from the spirit, do not give life, the flesh is of no avail.

I wish I were a little more eloquent (is there a patron saint for eloquency? :p), but that’s kind of my take on this verse. Any feedback would be much appreciated!

Blessings,

Kyle
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He refers to “my flesh” and “the flesh” separately. the former brings life; the latter is to no avail.
 
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Quatsch:
A question I’ve encountered has to do with John 6:63. Here is the context of the quote copied below:

How is this to be understood? A protestant asked, “If ‘it is the spirit that gives life’ and ‘the flesh is of no avail,’ why then would Jesus mean for us to eat his flesh, if the flesh is of no avail?”

Can anyone help me to understand what Jesus means in this quote? I’ve tried to find resources touching on it, but haven’t done so successfully.

Blessings,

Kyle
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Again, THE FLESH accomplishes nothing - it is corrupted and limited to works alone. But this is in contrast to HIS FLESH, because He is THE WORD made FLESH. To deny the significance of HIS FLESH is to deny the necessity and significance of, for example, the Crucifixion. No flesh, no crucifixion - thats where your friends logic would lead. Simply arriving at that conclusion(that the crucifixion is unnecessary) is enough to reject outright the implication of his statement - even without applying it directly to the bread of life discourse.
 
Ok -

While we all have ourselves worked up in a frenzy I thought I’d add the following which proves nothing actually, but is great circumstantial evidence!

Jesus was born in Bethlehem in a manger, right?

Who is Jesus? BREAD of Life
What does Bethlehem mean? House of BREAD
What does Manger signify? The manger is what the animals feed from, and means “to eat” as in italian “mangia” - eat.

So… we have the Bread of Life born in the House of Bread in the place of consumption.

So there! Doesn’t that just about wrap it up?!

Phil
 
Just thought I’d throw my hat into the ring with an old thread of mine. Figured since no one had mentioned Melchizedek yet, it was probably time.

God Bless,
RyanL
 
Kay Cee:
So God is incapable of existing physically anywhere else?
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Has anyone here seen Jesus Christ in the flesh walking around lately.? :confused: God Bless
?
 
Church Militant:
The passage in John 6 nowhere even implies this and I’m wondering if I’m the only one here that sees the mental and theological gymnastics SW just displayed to make the verses of the Word of God fit that interpretation. There’s just no stretch of logic that makes that right.
**
Claiming** that the Holy Spirit is guiding you personally when the church for 2,000 years has taught and believed something else and when the plain sense of the passage in no way supports an interpretation is probably one of the definitions of heresy, is it not? Only in the last 500 years has any part of Christianity sought to deny this Eucharistic truth. In fact, if one goes back to 1st Cor 11:23-30 and then compares it with the 1st letter of bishop St. Ignatius of Antioch to the church at Smyrna in 107 AD, (less than 10 years after the death of the last apostle, St John, who was also his close friend and who discipled him in the faith) you find that nothing had changed and this belief was still a very big deal among the believers. Here’s a direct quote:

CHAP. VII.–LET US STAND ALOOF FROM SUCH HERETICS.

They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer,(7) because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again. Those, therefore, who speak against this gift of God, incur death(11) in the midst of their disputes. But it were better for them to treat it with respect,(13) that they also might rise again. It is fitting, therefore, that ye should keep aloof from such persons, and not to speak of(15) them either in private or in public, but to give heed to the prophets, and above all, to the Gospel, in which the passion[of Christ] has been revealed to us, and the resurrection has been fully proved.(16) But avoid all divisions, as the beginning of evils
The whole letter is great reading

Pax vobiscum,
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If one walks and sees by the spirit,much will be revealed to them. :confused: God Bless
 
Hello again, SpokenWord. We can understand why you presently take the position you do about John 6. It is because to see otherwise is to be led in a direction you may not yet want to go.
But, do you have a Scriptural response to my Post #60?
God Bless Us All!
 
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SPOKENWORD:
Is Jesus capable of lying to us and committing a sin? God fobids man to eat human flesh and drink blood. Jesus obeyed and fulfilled the Law.
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Then imagine what a horrible thing Jesus did by speaking words that, for 1500 years, were universally understood by His Church to mean exactly that they were eating His flesh and drinking His blood. And words which are still understood by the vast majority of Christianity (Catholicism, Orthodoxy, portions of Protestantism) as having that meaning. Is such deception of His Church not also a sin?

When you speak of eating human flesh, you are ignoring that Christ is a divine person. Eating the flesh of dead humans is not the same as eating the flesh of the living God.

And when you speak of drinking blood, you ignore that we are no longer under the Law, and that scriptures give the reason for this prohibition, which is because the life is in the blood. Is it not exactly the goal of Christ to give us His divine life?
 
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SPOKENWORD:
Because they were walking in the flesh and not in the Spirit. 😉 God Bless
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Then why was this the only time that great numbers of disciples walked away? He had spoken over and over of the need to believe, so why didn’t great numbers walk away every time He spoke that way? Why did they only walk away when He spoke of eating His flesh and drinking His blood?
 
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Quatsch:
A question I’ve encountered has to do with John 6:63. Here is the context of the quote copied below:

How is this to be understood? A protestant asked, “If ‘it is the spirit that gives life’ and ‘the flesh is of no avail,’ why then would Jesus mean for us to eat his flesh, if the flesh is of no avail?”

Can anyone help me to understand what Jesus means in this quote? I’ve tried to find resources touching on it, but haven’t done so successfully.
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What I have read (and it makes sense) is that it is only by God through faith (the Spirit) that we can accept the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Our own intellect (the flesh) cannot reveal this to us. Compare with Mt 16:17:
And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.”

Notice that flesh and blood cannot reveal the truths of the Christ, but only God.
 
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SPOKENWORD:
Has anyone here seen Jesus Christ in the flesh walking around lately.? :confused: God Bless
?
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“For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

Is all of Christ with them, or just part of Him?
 
Sugar Ray:
Quatsch:

Another important point is that Jesus tells us “MY flesh is real food and MY blood is real drink”

He then says “THE flesh counts for nothing”

See the contrast? In the latter verse he was not referring to his flesh but to a worldly way of interperting his words.

Hope this helps.
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Exactly. Any time a Protestant tries to use “the flesh availeth nothing” to disprove the Eucharist, simply ask them if Christ’s flesh really availed nothing? Did the Incarnation avail nothing? Did His suffering and death, His shed blood, avail nothing? Hmmm…
 
VociMike said:
“For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

Is all of Christ with them, or just part of Him?
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I,ve always sensed His presence and His annoiting around us. It,s the Flesh that I,ve not seen. :confused: God Bless
 
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SPOKENWORD:
I,ve always sensed His presence and His annoiting around us. It,s the Flesh that I,ve not seen. :confused: God Bless
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But remember that we have no idea of the properties of His glorified body. We do know that He can be in our presence and we may not recognize Him. We know that He can appear through closed doors. Even from those few examples we can see that His glorified body is not like the bodies we posess, so it is a mistake for us to apply human “is it possible” tests to His glorified body.
 
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VociMike:
But remember that we have no idea of the properties of His glorified body. We do know that He can be in our presence and we may not recognize Him. We know that He can appear through closed doors. Even from those few examples we can see that His glorified body is not like the bodies we posess, so it is a mistake for us to apply human “is it possible” tests to His glorified body.
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When I first came to ponder the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, it was the Resurrection narratives - Emmaus, the appearance to Mary in the Garden, where she did not recognize him, the appearance to the ten on Easter night – that made it possible for me to grasp the idea that the reality of Christ in the Resurrection is more “real” than his “walking around flesh.” Otherwise how could he be present, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity on every altar of the world . . . Note that the timing of the Emmaus appearance and the appearance in the room with the ten very likely overlapped . . .
 
Spokenword, please provide some biblical arguments against the True Presence. Or just use reason. Also, reiterate any reason you can’t accept John 6.

I know you’ve already presented some stuff, but it’s been lost in the long history of this thread. Knowing your arguments I think will help make the thread more efficient.
 
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