Real Presence vs. Symbolism

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How do Protestants explain John 6:48-58 when defending their belief that Jesus was not referring to his real presence in the Eucharist. He explains himself at least 3 times and never once says it is to be symbolic.
48I am the bread of life. 49Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. 50But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. 51I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."
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52Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"
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53Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. 57Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever." 59He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. **Many Disciples Desert Jesus**
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60On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?"
61Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? 62What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! 63The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. 64Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. 65He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him.”
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66From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
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67"You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve.     68Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.
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P.S. -I know this has probably been the subj. of a gazillion threads, but now it’s a gazillion and one threads. 🙂
 
In my more Protestant days, this is how we dealt with it in a Bible study I led: we moved on to John 7. :whistle:

Thank God for Truth, so that this passage actually makes sense now!
 
Why don’t you know. The flesh is worthless. V 63. That makes it obvious doesn’t it. That who incarnation thing and his human flesh hanging from a cross was all worthless. Just one arguement I have heard. The other is that John 6 has nothing to do with the last supper. Of course that is very unlikely since it occured exactly 1 year before the last supper (v. 6:4), Jesus said “the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world” which ties it directly to the crusifixion story, and John says “My flesh is true food…my blood is true drink” parrellel to Matt 26:This is my body…This is my blood…

Blessings
 
My huge Prot. family just holds to the verse “do this in remembrance of me”.

And they hold to Matthew 16:18-20 as merely being that it was only “Peter’s Profession of Faith” upon which the church was founded, not actually upon Peter, the Rock, the Shepherd.

Don’t you think these 2 things pretty much sum it up?
 
John 6:53-58, Revised Fundamentalist Version
53 Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, if you think you are eating the flesh of the Son of Man and drinking his blood, you are an idolater, and you have no life in you.
54 “Whoever recognizes that I’m speaking figuratively here, even though I could not possibly have chosen a more misleading way to phrase it, is a true disciple, and he has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
55 “For the bread is not my flesh and the wine is not my blood.
56 “Whoever avoids this heresy remains in me, and I in him.
57 “Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the father, so the one who believes in me will live because of me.
58 “This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who believes in me will live forever.” (RFV).
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catholicoutlook.com/rpv.php#john
 
Today, 07:44 PM

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Re: Real Presence vs. Symbolism

John 6:53-58, Revised Fundamentalist Version

Quote:

53 Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, if you think you are eating the flesh of the Son of Man and drinking his blood, you are an idolater, and you have no life in you.
54 “Whoever recognizes that I’m speaking figuratively here, even though I could not possibly have chosen a more misleading way to phrase it, is a true disciple, and he has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
55 “For the bread is not my flesh and the wine is not my blood.
56 “Whoever avoids this heresy remains in me, and I in him.
57 “Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the father, so the one who believes in me will live because of me.
58 “This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who believes in me will live forever.” (RFV).

catholicoutlook.com/rpv.php#john
I write sometimes: the thousandth monkey.

That’s totally a revised verse of the Gospel of John. I have the Catholic Bible which does state that Jesus is the Bread of Life.

Joey
 
Here’s the Protestant comments:

If you want to read a good, reformed, anti-catholic, study of John chapter 6 I heartily recommend Bishop J C Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on John. He was 19th century and used any excuse to moan about Rome. And Augustine. I loved those books but they’re not (I don’t think) available online and free.

Here’s Barne’s Notes on verses 48, 51-54 which are available freely. I had to miss out the rest for length reasons.

Joh 6:48 My doctrines and the benefits of my mediation are that real support of spiritual life of which the manna in the wilderness was the faint emblem. See Joh_6:32-33.

Joh 6:51 - **The bread that I will give is by flesh - **That is, his body would be offered as a sacrifice for sin, agreeably to his declaration when he instituted the Supper: “This is my body which is broken for you,” 1Co_11:24.

**Life of the world - **That sinners might, by his atoning sacrifice, be recovered from spiritual death, and be brought to eternal life. The use of the word world hero shows that the sacrifice of Christ was full free ample, and designed for all men, as it is said in 1Jo_2:2, “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” In this verse Jesus introduces the subject of his death and atonement. It may be remarked that in the language which he used the transition from bread to his flesh would appear more easy than it does in our language. The same word which in Hebrew means “bread,” in the Syriac and Arabic means also “flesh.”

Joh 6:53-55 In these verses Jesus repeats what he had in substance said before.
**Except ye eat the flesh … - **He did not mean that this should be understood literally, for it was never done, and it is absurd to suppose that it was intended to be so understood. Nothing can possibly be more absurd than to suppose that when he instituted the Supper, and gave the bread and wine to his disciples, they literally ate his flesh and drank his blood. Who can believe this? There he stood, a living man - his body yet alive, his blood flowing in his veins; and how can it be believed that this body was eaten and this blood drunk? Yet this absurdity must be held by those who hold that the bread and wine at the communion are “changed into the body, blood, and divinity of our Lord.” So it is taught in the decrees of the Council of Trent; and to such absurdities are men driven when they depart from the simple meaning of the Scriptures and from common sense. It may be added that if the bread and wine used in the Lord’s Supper were not changed into his literal body and blood when it was first instituted, they have never been since.
The Lord Jesus would institute it just as he meant it should be observed, and there is nothing now in that ordinance which there was not when the Saviour first appointed it. His body was offered on the cross, and was raised up from the dead and received into heaven. Besides, there is no evidence that he had any reference in this passage to the Lord’s Supper. That was not yet instituted, and in that there was no literal eating of his flesh and drinking of his blood. The plain meaning of the passage is, that by his bloody death - his body and his blood offered in sacrifice for sin - he would procure pardon and life for man; that they who partook of that, or had an interest in that, should obtain eternal life. He uses the figure of eating and drinking because that was the subject of discourse; because the Jews prided themselves much on the fact that their fathers had eaten manna; and because, as he had said that he was the bread of life, it was natural and easy, especially in the language which he used, to carry out the figure, and say that bread must be eaten in order to be of any avail in supporting and saving men. To eat and to drink, among the Jews, was also expressive of sharing in or partaking of the privileges of friendship. The happiness of heaven and all spiritual blessings are often represented under this image, Mat_8:11; Mat_26:29; Luk_14:15, etc.
 
And here’s Adam Clarke on some of the passage:

**Joh 6:53 **Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man - **Unless ye be made partakers of the blessings about to be purchased by my blood, passion, and violent death, ye cannot be saved. As a man must eat bread and flesh, in order to be nourished by them, so a man must receive the grace and Spirit of Christ, in order to his salvation. As food in a rich man’s store does not nourish the poor man that needs it, unless it be given him, and he receive it into his stomach, so the whole fountain of mercy existing in the bosom of God, and uncommunicated, does not save a soul: he who is saved by it must be made a partaker of it. Our Lord’s meaning appears to be, that, unless they were made partakers of the grace of that atonement which he was about to make by his death, they could not possibly be saved. Bishop Pearce justly observes that the ideas of eating and drinking are here borrowed to express partaking of, and sharing in. Thus spiritual happiness on earth, and even in heaven, is expressed by eating and drinking; instances of which may be seen, **Mat_8:11; Mat_26:29; Luk_14:15; Luk_22:30; and Rev_2:17. Those who were made partakers of the Holy Spirit are said by St. Paul, 1Co_12:13, to be made to drink into (or of) one Spirit. This, indeed, was a very common mode of expression among the Jews.

**Joh 6:54 - **Hath eternal life - **This can never be understood of the sacrament of the Lord’s supper.
  1. Because this was not instituted till a year after; at the last Passover.
  2. It cannot be said that those who do not receive that sacrament must perish everlastingly.
  3. Nor can it be supposed that all those who do receive it are necessarily and eternally saved.
    On the contrary, St. Paul intimates that many who received it at Corinth perished, because they received it unworthily, not discerning the Lord’s body: not distinguishing between it and a common meal; and not properly considering that sacrifice for sin, of which the sacrament of the Lord’s super was a type: see **1Co_11:30.
 
Methodists, along with Anglicans & Lutherans do believe in the real presence. However, we do not interpret it in exactly the same way.

I have never understood how anyone could read these verses, & then say it is symbolic…
 
I believe he was joking 🙂
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JPhoenix75:
Today, 07:44 PM

Sgt Sweaters vbmenu_register(“postmenu_664921”, true);

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Join Date: March 4, 2005

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Re: Real Presence vs. Symbolism

John 6:53-58, Revised Fundamentalist Version

Quote:

53 Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, if you think you are eating the flesh of the Son of Man and drinking his blood, you are an idolater, and you have no life in you.
54 “Whoever recognizes that I’m speaking figuratively here, even though I could not possibly have chosen a more misleading way to phrase it, is a true disciple, and he has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
55 “For the bread is not my flesh and the wine is not my blood.
56 “Whoever avoids this heresy remains in me, and I in him.
57 “Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the father, so the one who believes in me will live because of me.
58 “This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who believes in me will live forever.” (RFV).

catholicoutlook.com/rpv.php#john
I write sometimes: the thousandth monkey.

That’s totally a revised verse of the Gospel of John. I have the Catholic Bible which does state that Jesus is the Bread of Life.

Joey
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Zooey:
Methodists, along with Anglicans & Lutherans do believe in the real presence. However, we do not interpret it in exactly the same way.

I have never understood how anyone could read these verses, & then say it is symbolic…
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Correction if I might. Only symbolic. At least from my view point it is symbolic (i.e. the grains crushed to form one loaf as we are crushed to form one body) but the meaning is not limited to the symbolic for as the fathers understood the symbolic becomes reality.
 
I would caution Catholics on this thread that you be careful in explaining the real prescence to Protestants. I have seen too many times where a Catholic will say “it’s not symbolic it’s real”. The problem is not the symbolic view but the denial of the real prescence. One protestant author quoted above states

**Except ye eat the flesh … - **He did not mean that this should be understood literally, for it was never done, and it is absurd to suppose that it was intended to be so understood.

Actually this is true (though not absurd). We don’t partake of physical flesh that takes like a piece of Christ’s arm for the prescence of Christ is sacramental. Yet he is really and truly present, body, blood, soul, and divinity.

The issue with Protestants isn’t symbolic vs. real prescence or remeberence vs. real prescence. It is rather the denial of the real prescence.
We need to embrace the symbolic aspects of the Eucharist. It is in rememberence of Christ and what he did for us. But we also acknowledge the deepest reality that it is actually him in what was bread and what was wine but is now him. This understanding will help in reading some of the Church fathers such as Augustine, Tertullian, and Clement of Alexander.

Blessings
 
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