John chapter 6 is confusing

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I m aware that we are suppposed to take John 48-51 literally.
48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

The problem is that Catholics who practice the faith in fact do die. Jesus said that those who ate the Man a died but people who went to Communion also died.
If Jesus really did mean that faithful Catholic wouldnt die why do the die???
Or do we get to choose which part of His message we want to understand litererally? Death is not to be understood literally but flesh?
Do I miss something about the Hebrew way of using both literally and figuratively in the same sentence or sentences?
 
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Remember that His kingdom is not of this world. And we are not truly residents here - we are pilgrims, journeying toward heaven. Since none of us has actually died, we do not know what that experience is like. I think it is passing through a door which says “death” on our side, but “Life” on the other side, once it’s opened.
 
The saints in heaven are more alive even than we are, and all those who persevere in the faith will share in the divine life.
 
jesusmademe said:
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All those the die are resurrected, however not all are glorified. To be glorified is for those that have attained heaven, they are those that live forever (in glory).

Rom 6
21 But what profit did you get then from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been freed from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit that you have leads to sanctification, and its end is eternal life.
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jesusmademe said:
The problem is that Catholics who practice the faith in fact do die.
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We experience human bodily death, but Jesus is talking about the eternal life of Heaven.
Whenever Jesus talks about eternal life or us not dying, etc. he means the eternal life with his father in Heaven.
 
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Jesus it saying they died in their sins. Christ had not yet offered the sacrifice on the Cross yet. So they had not yet risen to eternal life.
 
Yes yea but…why are we to choose that when Jesus was talking about death it is only figuratively and that eating His flesh is very much meant literally???
How can He be both literal and figurative in the same sentence.
Is this just a “weird” Hebrew way of speaking?
What is going on?
“Don’t die” is only in a spritual sense but “eat my flesh” is both spiritual and literal.
He has a way of speaking that I would never use at all. It is “weird” to me as a person who only grew up with a modern western way of speaking.
Please explain.
 
Some food for thought:

To the jews in those days, hearing someone say “eat my flesh and drink my blood” would have been SHOCKING, more so than it is nowadays. This is because they were forbidden from drinking blood at all costs. Such a thing would have been scandalous. Yet why, under such a context, would he have kept pushing the point that “Yes, my flesh is true food, and my blood true drink” he repeats it many many times as if trying to make himself very clear of what he meant here. If he meant so in a symbolic sense, it would seem redundant to keep honing in on this theme, quite graphically, in fact. The Greek word used for “eat” my flesh is not the word used for normal, human eating, but a more animal “gnaw” “munch”.

I’m sure someone more learned than I could add to this 🙂
 
We don’t die. We go from one life to another life. We live here on earth in a very limited form of life and then we live in heaven truly with God. It is a transition not a death as such, we only call it death because it can appear and feel like death because the parting is so painful. In the past (like in Jesus times) when a family member left home, like in the parable of the prodigal son, people would consider him dead as he was not seen again as they did not have a postal system as such or any form or communication, I mean if someone went far away, that’s why the father says his son has come back from the dead. So it is like this when we think of someone as dead, they are just beyond our physical reach temporarily and in fact the stronger our faith is the less they seem beyond our reach as we know they are closer to us than they ever were in their earthly life, both physically and spiritually and we are sure we will see them again.
 
The words of Jesus are words of eternal Truth - they are spoken “in the Spirit”, and must be heard and understood “in the Spirit” to understand them.

In the Catechism section on interpretation of Scripture (which begins at CCC 101), we find this:
CCC 111 - But since Sacred Scripture is inspired, there is another and no less important principle of correct interpretation, without which Scripture would remain a dead letter. “Sacred Scripture must be read and interpreted in the light of the same Spirit by whom it was written.”
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This is why Catholics do NOT depend on their own private interpretations of Scripture! We depend on the discerned Truth of Christ entrusted to His Church, led as promised by the Holy Spirit - sent by Jesus to guide us in all the truth:
John 16:13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
John 16:14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
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fide said:
The words of Jesus are words of eternal Truth - they are spoken “in the Spirit”, and must be heard and understood “in the Spirit” to understand them.
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Respectful opinion only…Jesus motto was I am The Way, The Truth and The Life…Truth…Spiritual Truth…his living Word…nourishes us…eat (gnaw) chew upon his word maybe? Those who live by his eternal living word?

Obey the Commandments if one wants to enter the Kingdom, his instructions, to know right from wrong…teach us a way of Life and what gift of Life was meant to be and to…live by my…Living Word…believing in his word…that will nourish us…nourish our hearts, souls and minds, maybe?

We know our flesh, our physical body returns to the physical root or matter from which it came and is made of right? …We die physically and we are buried right?
So what enters the Kingdom?

Our Spiritual being will it not return to the spiritual eternal Creator…our root from which it came also? I knew you before I placed you in your mothers womb… is this not written?

1st Commandment…Love me with your whole heart, soul and mind make up what our?
We cannot hold theses and gaze upon them in our hands can we?
We are not judged by our physical being maybe but we will be judged by our hearts, souls and mind would this be true?

Speaks through our conscious, mind? Let your ears hear what the Holy Spirit says…?

Written right? There is the …
Father of Truth, his living word that nourishes us, told it is our living shield, his eternal living word leads us to eternal Life … vs father of lies, his word that sets out to deceive, weaken, sets out to steal souls, heart, souls and minds etc etc?

St Peter tells us does he not…you are still sipping milk, cannot speak to you about spiritual matters, while you are still thinking with your carnal minds…is this not written?

Just pondering on this is all 🤭 Peace
 
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Man is born spiritually dead, not knowing or having relationship with God. . This is the state known as Original Sin. Its sometimes called the “death of the soul” and is the reason man must be “born again” or “born from above”. This rebirth entails God residing within us; man was made for communion with God.

The sacrament of the Eucharist acknowledges and accomplishes, in a physical way that we can act out, this spiritual need for regular, consistent partaking of and nurturing from God and participation in His life. We receive Christ. We must examine our consciences regularly in order to determine if we’re receiving Him worthily (1 Cor 11:27). This places us in a dynamic that serves to make the working on and working out of our relationship with God a consistent and obvious and immediate one, towards the forefront of our lives, to the extent that we take it at all seriously to begin with.

A main difference between the Old and New Covenant is that, in the new, God is recognized to be necessary in man’s life intimately and directly, where He can do a work in us, of molding us into His own image, a union that we’re dead without. We can’t even truly be who we’re created to be without it. This is man’s first and primary need; this is the relationship that Adam dismissed in Eden, this necessarily comes before obedience to the law or commandments, because He’s the only One who can bring them to fulfillment in us anyway. The Eucharist or Holy Communion recognizes and addresses this truth.

The relationship begins with Baptism as our first formal public profession of faith. It’s then continuously nurtured with the regular receiving of our Lord with the Eucharist. If relationship or communion is broken by serious (mortal) sin, “sin that leads to death” (1 John 5:16), then the Sacrament of Reconciliation or Confession has the purpose of restoring that communion again, so that the Body & Blood may be received worthily.
 
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Pondering is good… Mother Mary, careful to receive all that our Lord taught in words and deeds, gives beautiful witness to holding these things in her heart. Wisdom comes alive and grows in such a way.
 
Everyone will experience the first death, the destruction of their body on this earth, which is temporary, until the bodily resurrection of the dead at Christ’s second coming. So, when Jesus said that those who eat his flesh will not die, he was thinking bigger picture and meant they will not die the second death (Revelation 2:11; 20:6,14; 21:8), i.e., the destruction of both body and soul in hell (Matthew 10:28), eternal punishment. (Matthew 25:46; 2 Thessalonians 1:9; Jude 1:7)
 
If I come home from the store and say “it is a zoo in there!” would you think they had lions and elephants in the grocery? No, you would know that I meant it was chaotic and crammed full of people.

And look there, where I said “crammed full”, you know that I meant that there were many people there, you did not even think I meant that somehow someone had literally forced as many people as they could into the square footage of the store.
 
There are two types of death - physical and spiritual. The Children of Israel were lead out of bondage/slavery. They ate mana, but continued in sin. Christ’s death and resurrection frees us from the bondage of sin. His body is what give us eternal life.
 
This is why I find the Bible a bit problematic. I am supposed to understand the language used way back then. I am dont even know if I would ubdeestand how people spoke 200 yeara ago. We need commentaries whereas the Jews did not really need it. They already knew their own way of speaking. Jesus expects a person living ca 2000 years later to understand his way of speaking. It is a bit weird reading the NT without a commentary.
Why not juat have Jesus speaking to us in our way of speaking? Wouldnt that better.
What are we to think of this?
 
We don’t die. When we go to heaven, we’re more alive than we were on Earth.
 
Well firstly, with respect it’s not the Bible that’s the problem it is us. Remember when you say that the Bible is the Word of God, it is not static words written down like a history book, it is alive and so the word of God. It lives and so when read in conjunction with the Holy Spirit which lives in us it will spark and be understood so the reading of the Bible is a prayer in itself. So ask the Holy Spirit to enliven his gift of understanding in you before reading/listening to the Bible and then you will understand it. Also listen to those in authority such as the Church and her priests. Do not expect the Word of God to change for you, but instead change for Him. Listen better, pay more attention and be humble in your approach to this great gift we have… the Word of God. God sent His Word once and that was all that was needed, we are blessed enough to recognise this as Christians.
 
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