If you missed Part I, check it out here: http://www.happylittlehomemaker.com/2011/04/the-4th-cup-part-i/
So going back to John 6, many protestants use v.32-34 to prove that the eating of Christ is symbolic. The discourse, however, does not end there. It goes on to say “49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died.” (John 6:49, New International Version, ©2011).
So Jesus tells them that the Living Bread is GREATER than the Manna. If you eat the Living Bread, you will live forever. If you eat the manna, you will die. The Living Bread and manna are both from Heaven (Exodus 16:4), but the Living Bread is greater in some way. If the Eucharist was truly a symbol, it would be of the Earth, not of heaven.
Another way of looking at this is to think of it as a math equation. Jesus said (essentially), that the bread = flesh. Whatever you do to one side of the equation, you must do to the other. If one is a symbol, they are both symbols. If one is literal, they are both literal. Jesus had SEVERAL opportunties to clarify his thoughts to the disciples and followers. But he didn’t. In John 6:53-59, he said SIX TIMES that we will eat his flesh and drink his blood.
Yet he was adamant about it and the crowd was kind of horrified (John 6:52). If you look at the Greek, the common language in which this was originally written, it uses the words “trogo” which means to gnaw or chew and “serx” which means “soft tissue of the body.” There is no question that he was VERY clear that he mean his actual body and his actual blood.
On the flipside, if you would like to look to see if his aim was to mean it figuratively, you can look at passages in Isaiah, Psalms and Micah (I WISH I had written down the particular verses but I can’t locate them). Anyway, each of these books refers to eating of flesh by enemies and it is a persecution and assault on their person. You can’t substitute persecution and assault for flesh and have it make sense.
In addition, it is also again Jewish law. It was shocking to the Jews because they understood that he meant it literally, not spiritually. And everyone begins to leave him (in John 6:66, incidentally…food for thought).
Check out Part III tomorrow.
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