Why did jesus always speak with metaphors?

[godsent]

When i was thinking about jesus’s actual presence in the eucarist,i maybe thought he was speaking in metaphors instead meaning it liturally…

Because when jesus said"i will destroy the temple and rebuild it in 3 days"
Why didnt he just say,“if you kill me i will reserect in 3 days”?

Do you think he was always speaking metaphorically?

 

[Verbum]

Hi Godsent,

Sometimes Jesus spoke in parables, or metaphorically, and sometimes he did not.

As for the Eucharist, he certainly was not speaking metaphorically, since a great many of his disciples left him when he said that he would give his body to eat.

Jesus did explain why he spoke in parables. He wanted those who hear the word to bring a sincere and open attitude, which implies a personal effort to understand what is being conveyed. Those who do not have this attitude will misunderstand, to their own destruction.

Verbum

 

[Eden]

No. He was not speaking metaphorically in the case of the Eucharist. In fact, the idea of the transfiguration was not even questioned by anyone until the 6th century. Here are what some early Church fathers said about the Eucharist:

Source: therealpresence.org/eucharst/father/a5.html
(Read the whole article if you have time. It’s very interesting - and useful, too, if you meet a non-Catholic who denies transubstantiation.)

**ST. IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH: **“Consider how contrary to the mind of God are the heterodox in regard to the grace of God which has come to us. They have no regard for charity, none for the widow, the orphan, the oppressed, none for the man in prison, the hungry or the thirsty. They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not admit that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, the flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in His graciousness, raised from the dead.” “Letter to the Smyrnaeans”, paragraph 6. circa 80-110 A.D.

ST. IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH: “I have no taste for the food that perishes nor for the pleasures of this life. I want the Bread of God which is the Flesh of Christ, who was the seed of David; and for drink I desire His Blood which is love that cannot be destroyed.” -“Letter to the Romans”, paragraph 7, circa 80-110 A.D.

ST. IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH: “Take care, then who belong to God and to Jesus Christ - they are with the bishop. And those who repent and come to the unity of the Church - they too shall be of God, and will be living according to Jesus Christ. Do not err, my brethren: if anyone follow a schismatic, he will not inherit the Kingdom of God. If any man walk about with strange doctrine, he cannot lie down with the passion. Take care, then, to use one Eucharist, so that whatever you do, you do according to God: for there is one Flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup in the union of His Blood; one altar, as there is one bishop with the presbytery and my fellow servants, the deacons.” -Epistle to the Philadelphians, 3:2-4:1, 110 A.D.

ST. JUSTIN MARTYR: “This food we call the Eucharist, of which no one is allowed to partake except one who believes that the things we teach are true, and has received the washing for forgiveness of sins and for rebirth, and who lives as Christ handed down to us. For we do not receive these things as common bread or common drink; but as Jesus Christ our Savior being incarnate by God’s Word took flesh and blood for our salvation, so also we have been taught that the food consecrated by the Word of prayer which comes from him, from which our flesh and blood are nourished by transformation, is the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus." " First Apology”, Ch. 66, inter A.D. 148-155

ST. IRENAEUS OF LYON: [Christ] has declared the cup, a part of creation, to be his own Blood, from which he causes our blood to flow; and the bread, a part of creation, he has established as his own Body, from which he gives increase to our bodies." Source: St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, 180 A.D.:

ST. IRENAEUS OF LYON: So then, if the mixed cup and the manufactured bread receive the Word of God and become the Eucharist, that is to say, the Blood and Body of Christ, which fortify and build up the substance of our flesh, how can these people claim that the flesh is incapable of receiving God’s gift of eternal life, when it is nourished by Christ’s Blood and Body and is His member? As the blessed apostle says in his letter to the Ephesians, ‘For we are members of His Body, of His flesh and of His bones’ (Eph. 5:30). He is not talking about some kind of ‘spiritual’ and ‘invisible’ man, ‘for a spirit does not have flesh an bones’ (Lk. 24:39). No, he is talking of the organism possessed by a real human being, composed of flesh and nerves and bones. It is this which is nourished by the cup which is His Blood, and is fortified by the bread which is His Body. The stem of the vine takes root in the earth and eventually bears fruit, and ‘the grain of wheat falls into the earth’ (Jn. 12:24), dissolves, rises again, multiplied by the all-containing Spirit of God, and finally after skilled processing, is put to human use. These two then receive the Word of God and **become the Eucharist, which is the Body and Blood of Christ." **

 

[Eden]

This shows that it is not a metaphor as well:

"For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, ‘This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord."

-1 Cor. 11:23-27

​

 

[MistyF]

godsent:

When i was thinking about jesus’s actual presence in the eucarist,i maybe thought he was speaking in metaphors instead meaning it liturally…

Because when jesus said"i will destroy the temple and rebuild it in 3 days"
Why didnt he just say,“if you kill me i will reserect in 3 days”?

Do you think he was always speaking metaphorically?

Not 10 minutes ago, I was doing my bible reading, which is currently Matthew. Part of what I read tonight included the following, which may help answer the question of why he spoke in metaphors…Matthew 13:10-15

The disciples approached him and said, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” He said to them in reply, "Because knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted. To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because ‘they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.’ Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says:

‘You shall indeed hear but not understand
you shall indeed look but never see.
Gross is the heart of this people,
they will hardly hear with their ears,
they have closed their eyes,
lest they see with their eyes
and hear with their ears
and understand with their heart and be converted,
and I heal them.’
​

 

[MistyF]

Oops! Hit submit too soon.

I was going to say, that in reading the parables Jesus gave in Matthew, he explained them, both to the crowds and to his disciples. So at John 6:51, 52, where it says:

I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world."
The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?”
That shows that the Jews believed him literally. Jesus then says, in verses 53 - 56:

Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.
He made no corrections there. Then to show again that they took Him literally, verses 60, 61:

Then many of his disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?”
Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, "Does this shock you?
Then, in verse 64 it says:
“But there are some of you who do not believe.” Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him.
That indicates that Judas’ betrayal may have been started by this very thing. And verse 66 shows how many people left:
As a result of this, many (of) his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.
Would Jesus have put a stumbling block that would cause people to stop believing him Him, if it was because they misunderstood him? I don’t think so…

 

[rwoehmke]

Eden:

No. He was not speaking metaphorically in the case of the Eucharist. In fact, the idea of the transfiguration was not even questioned by anyone until the 6th century.

I think you might mean Transubstantiation rather than Transfiguration.

As to why Jesus spoke in metaphors and used a lot of parables to get His points across, we have to remember that at this point in time the message of the Gospel was not written down. It was strictly oral. If I gave you a stright up math problem to solve you would probably forget the whole thing in a short time. On the other hand if it were a story problem you would probably be able to recall it for a long time. When my wife and I were involved in Marriage Encounter we soon found out that the couples would forget most of the teaching/preaching within a fairly short time, but almost invariably they could remember the shared stories months later. Jesus was a product of His times when stories which may not have ever really happened carried His message and could be remembered and passed along. The Gospels were certainly not taken down by a scribe whenever he taught.

That being said, I do not think the necessity to eat of His flesh and drink of His blood were metaphors. Many did walk away shocked and disgusted and probably the idea was so vivid that few ever forgot it.