Our Lord quickly clears up the point using concise, unmistakable language in verse 34: “My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work” (see also Matthew 16:5-12). This most profound question from our Lord echoes down through the centuries, calling all followers of Christ in a similar fashion. 6 Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), 2 and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs(B) he had performed by healing the sick. Several obscure figures in the Old Testament bore this name, and it grew in popularity once borne by the high priest Johanan (fl. After seeing the Jews and the disciples struggling with the radical nature of his words, our Lord says to the disciples and to us all: “It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” It is the Holy Spirit that will accomplish the miracle of Christ being able to ascend into heaven bodily while being able simultaneously to distribute his body and blood in the Eucharist for the life of the world. Trogo is a decidedly more graphic term, meaning “to chew on” or to “gnaw on”—as when an animal is ripping apart its prey. 6:65). The cannibal kills his victim; Jesus does not die when he is consumed in Communion. . Thus, we could conclude that Jesus’ words, “It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail” have essentially a twofold meaning. With St. Peter, those who hear the voice of the Shepherd respond: “Lord, to whom shall we go? It often means that which is dominated or controlled by the Spirit. What is the importance of the Lord’s supper / Christian Communion. In verse 51, he plainly claims to be “the living bread” that his followers must eat. The apostles, in fact, did see Jesus literally ascend to where he was before (see Acts 1:9-10). (John 6:14-15 RSV) That is a remarkable statement of a proper conclusion, followed by a terribly wrong response. 11 Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks,(H) and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. One thing we do not want to do as Christians is to fall into the trap of believing that because Christ says his words are “spirit and life,” or “spiritual,” they cannot involve the material. The natural mind—or the one who is in “the flesh”—will never be able to understand this great Christian truth. 3 Then Jesus went up on a mountainside(C) and sat down with his disciples. Jesus’ Jewish audience would never have thought he was saying, “Unless you persecute and assault me, you shall not have life in you.” Jesus never encouraged sin. For millions of non-Catholic Christians, Jesus was using pure symbolism in John 6:53 when he declared to his followers, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” The reasons non-Catholics give can usually be boiled down to these: First, a literal interpretation would make Christians into cannibals. 4) That which is spiritual does not necessarily equate to that which has no material substance. Moreover, when we consider the language used by John, a literal interpretation—however disturbing—becomes even more obvious. 1) If Jesus was clearing up the point, he would have to be considered a poor teacher: Many of the disciples left him immediately thereafter because they still believed the words of our Lord to mean what they said. 407 BC) and especially by king John Hyrcanus (d. 104 BC). 5 When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip,(E) “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” 6 He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do. After Jesus feeds the 5,000 with five loaves and two fish, He tells them "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst" (John 6:35). He did the same with the fish. Does this mean we will not have a physical body in the resurrection? For example, Christ said to the apostles in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Mk 14:38). And he says in no uncertain terms that “the bread which I shall give . Then what if you were to see the Son of man ascending where he was before?” (61-62). So the non-Catholic claims Jesus is using metaphor in John 6, just as he does elsewhere in the Gospels. Spiritual in no way means void of the material. In verse 54, John begins to use trogo instead of phago. Then, in verse 61, it is no longer the Jewish multitudes, but the disciples themselves who are having difficulty with these radical statements of our Lord. 2) Most importantly, Jesus did not say, “My flesh is of no avail.” He said, “The flesh is of no avail.” There is a rather large difference between the two. Context will help us understand what He is saying. 21:25). According to Paul, if we are in “the flesh,” we are “hostile to God” and “cannot please God” (cf. Finally, our Lord turns to the twelve. When spirit is used, e.g., “God is spirit” in John 4:24, it is then referring to that which is not material. No one, it is safe to say, would have believed he meant my flesh avails nothing because he just spent a good portion of this same discourse telling us that his flesh would be “given for the life of the world” (Jn 6:51, cf. As we consider everything that Jesus said and did in John 6, the meaning of His words becomes clearer. 50-58). 6:2 Note the reference to other signs again, not mentioned elsewhere by John (cf. John 6:1-15 New International Version (NIV) Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand. 4 The Jewish Passover Festival(D) was near. In Psalm 27:1-2, Isaiah 9:18-20, Isaiah 49:26, Micah 3:3, and Revelation 17:6-16, we find these words (eating flesh and drinking blood) understood as symbolic for persecuting or assaulting someone. He is not giving us his flesh to eat because he says “the flesh is of no avail.” How do we respond? He doesn’t say, “Hey guys, I was misleading the Jewish multitudes, the disciples, and everyone else, but now I am going to tell you alone the simple truth: I was speaking symbolically.” Rather, he says to them, “Will you also go away?” (v. 67). Earlier in the chapter, Jesus fed the 5,000 (John 6… Why is the real presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper such a controversial issue? 3) On another level very closely related to our last point, Christ said, “It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail,” because he wills to eliminate any possibility of a sort of crass literalism that would reduce his words to a cannibalistic understanding. The name John is a theophoric name originating from the Hebrew name יוֹחָנָן ‎ (Yôḥānān), or in its longer form יְהוֹחָנָן ‎ (Yəhôḥānān), meaning "YHWH has been gracious". Second, Jesus claims to be a “door” in John 10:9 and a “vine” in John 15:5. Catholics receive him in the form of bread and wine. This may well be another reason why the Jews took Christ at his word. John 6:63 is the one verse singled out by Protestant apologists to counter much of what we have asserted thus far. Reasoning from the Scriptures with Catholics by Ron Rhodes. So to what was he referring? The charge of cannibalism does not hold water for at least three reasons. John the Baptist introduced our Lord as the “Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29, see also verse 36). The confusion here is most often based upon confusion between spirit—a noun—and the adjective spiritual. NIV Reverse Interlinear Bible: English to Hebrew and English to Greek. John 6:63 is the one verse singled out by Protestant apologists to counter much of what we have asserted thus far. Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. 6:3 eij" toV o[ro" … This phrase does not necessarily refer to a particular mountain or hillside, but may simply mean “the hill country” or “the high ground,” referring to the high country east of the Sea of Galilee (well known today as the Golan Heights). Copyright © 2019 by Zondervan. Surely, if he were speaking symbolically, he would clear up the difficulty now among his disciples. New International Version (NIV), “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?”, “Gather the pieces that are left over. The cannibal eats part of his victim, whereas in Communion the entire Christ is consumed—body, blood, soul, and divinity. Let nothing be wasted.”. After seeing the Jews and the disciples struggling with the radical nature of his words, our Lord says to the disciples and to us all: “It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” Protestants claim Jesus here lets us know he was speaking symbolically or “spiritually” when he said “the spirit gives life, the flesh is of no avail.” See? 7 Philip answered him, “It would take more than half a year’s wages[a] to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”, 8 Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother,(F) spoke up, 9 “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”(G). In John 6:50-53 we encounter various forms of the Greek verb phago, “eating.” However, after the Jews begin to express incredulity at the idea of eating Christ’s flesh, the language begins to intensify. Do Catholics believe they must pluck a leaf from Jesus the vine or oil the hinges on Jesus the door to get into heaven? As Jesus himself said both before and after this “hard saying”: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (Jn 6:44, cf. Let nothing be wasted.” 13 So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten. What he does not say to them is perhaps more important than what he does say. . You have the words of eternal life” (v. 68). The cannibal sheds the blood of his victim; in Communion our Lord gives himself to us in a non-bloody way. The bread of life is not physical bread, but the bread of spiritual renewal found in … When we examine the surrounding context of John 6:53, Jesus’ words could hardly have been clearer. Indeed, he is not changed in the slightest; the communicant is the only person who is changed. However, the adjective spiritual is not necessarily referring to the absence of the material; rather, it is referring to the material controlled by the Spirit. When speaking of the resurrection of the body, Paul wrote: “It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body” (1 Cor 15:44). Only the Spirit can accomplish the miracle of the Eucharist, and only the Spirit can empower us to believe the miracle. If Jesus was speaking in purely symbolic terms, his competence as a teacher would have to be called into question. What is the spiritual presence view of the Lord’s Supper? John 6:1-13 - NIV: Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs he had performed by healing the sick.

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