Posted on 11/18/2013 3:07:47 PM PST by NYer
In my 2011 debate with Dr. Peter Barnes, a Presbyterian minister and apologist in Australia, the topic was the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and it centered on Jesus’ famous words in John 6:53: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” After about three hours of debate, I could sum up Barnes’s central objection in one sentence—a sentence which just happens to be found in the New Testament:
How can this man give us his flesh to eat? (John 6:53)
Dr. Barnes could not, and would not, deny the Lord said what he said in Scripture. His only recourse (as is the case with all who deny the real presence), ultimately, was to claim Jesus was speaking “metaphorically.” And after all, he had to be… right? I mean, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” In other words, his ultimate objection to the Catholic and biblical position is not so much rooted in the text as it is in a fundamental incredulity when it comes to the words of the text.
I argued in that debate, and I will again in this post, that if we examine the text carefully, not only is there nothing in it that indicates Jesus was speaking metaphorically, but the text itself actually points in the opposite direction.
Just the Facts
First, everyone listening to Jesus’ actual discourse 2,000 years ago believed him to have meant what he said. That is significant. This is in stark contrast to other places in the gospel where Jesus did, in fact, speak metaphorically. For example, when Jesus spoke of himself as a “door” in John 10, or a “vine” in John 15, we find no one to have asked, “How can this man be a door made out of wood?” Or, “How can this man claim to be a plant?”
Compare these to John 6. Jesus plainly says, in verse 51, “I am the bread come down from heaven and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world” (vs. 51). The Jews immediately respond, as I said above, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’” They certainly understood him to mean what he said.
Moreover, when people misunderstand Jesus, he normally clears up the misunderstanding as we see in John 4:31-34 when the disciples urge our Lord to eat and our Lord responds, “I have food to eat which you do not know.” The disciples ask each other if anyone had brought any food because they thought our Lord was saying he had to bring his own food because they had forgotten to do so. They misunderstand him. But our Lord immediately clears things up saying, in verse 34, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work.”
A Real Barnes Burner
In our debate, Dr. Barnes had a very interesting rejoinder to this point. He claimed, in essence, that in at least some cases when his listeners misunderstood our Lord, he purposely made no attempt to clear up the misunderstandings. And Dr. Barnes then cited three more examples claiming this to be a pattern in the gospels.
1. In John 3:3-4, Dr. Barnes claimed, Jesus left Nicodemus in the dark when after he declared to him, “… unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God," Nicodemus responded, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?"
Response: Even a brief perusal of John 3 and John 6 shows a substantial difference between the two. In John 6:52-53, the Jews were “disputing among themselves and saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’” That is the context in which Jesus then appears to confirm them in their thoughts and reiterates, “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.”
No matter how one interprets Jesus’ response to Nicodemus beginning in John 3:5, he doesn't come close to saying anything like, “Amen, amen I say to you, unless you climb back into your mother’s womb a second time and be born anew, you cannot have eternal life.” He says you must be “born of water and spirit… the wind blows where it will, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit (vs. 5-8).” This seems to me to be clarification that he is not speaking about climbing back into a mother’s womb. Being “born anew” is a spiritual experience that transcends literal birth from a womb.
2. In John 4:7-15, Dr. Barnes claimed, Jesus left the famous “Samaritan woman at the well” in her misunderstanding when she thought Jesus was offering her literal, physical water. But is that really what we find in the text?
Response: When Jesus asked this Samaritan woman for a drink in verse seven, she was most likely not only shocked that a Rabbi would speak to a Samaritan woman in public, but that any Jew would ask an “unclean” Samaritan to draw water for him. But in verse 10, Jesus answered her,
If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink,” you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.
The woman then responds, in verse 11, "Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep; where do you get that living water?” To which, Jesus responds, in verse 13-14,
Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
In verse 15, the woman then begs our Lord, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”
There is no doubt the Samaritan woman has it wrong here. But far from leaving her in her error, our Lord responds most profoundly, beginning in verse 16, “Go, call your husband…” And when the woman responds, “I have no husband,” in verse 17, Jesus reads her soul and tells her, “You are right… for you have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband.”
He now has her attention, to say the least. And he then turns the conversation to what he was really speaking about in terms of the “living water” he came to give that would “well up to eternal life.” In verse 23, he declares,
But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him. [24] God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.
When the woman then responds, in verse 25, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ); when he comes, he will show us all things," Jesus then tells her plainly, in verse 26, “I who speak to you am he.”
It seems clear that the woman then understood that Jesus’ words were metaphorical concerning the “living water,” because she immediately “left her water jar,” went back to her fellow countrymen and urged them to, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ” (verses 28-29)? And according to verse 39, “Many Samaritans… believed in him because of the woman’s testimony.” She came to realize Jesus was about much more than filling war jars.
3. Dr. Barnes also claimed that when Christ said “beware of the leaven of the Pharisees” in Matthew 16:6, the apostles thought he was speaking literal, which is true. But Matthew 16:11-12 could hardly be plainer that Jesus did not leave them in their ignorance:
How is it that you fail to perceive that I did not speak about bread… Then they understood that he did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
Spirit vs. Flesh
There is much more about the text of John 6 and the greater context of the New Testament in general that make a “Catholic” understanding of John 6:53 unavoidable. In our debate, Dr. Barnes and I grapple with many of those texts.
But John 6:63 is probably the most important of all to deal with as a Catholic apologist. This is a verse that is set within a context where not only "the Jews" who were listening, but specifically “the disciples” themselves were struggling with what Jesus said about "eating his flesh" and "drinking his blood." “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it” (verse 60)? It is in this context that our Lord says to the disciples: “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.”
The Protestant apologist will almost invariably say of this text, “See? Christ is not giving us his flesh to eat because he says ‘the flesh is of no avail.’”
There are at least four points to consider in response:
1. If Jesus was clearing up the point here, he’s a lousy teacher because he didn’t get his point across. According to verse 66, “many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him” immediately after this statement. They obviously still believed his earlier words about "eating [his] flesh" to be literal because these "disciples" had already believed in and followed him for some time. If Jesus was here saying, “I only meant that you have to believe in me and follow me,” why would they be walking away?
2. Jesus did not say, “My flesh is of no avail.” He said, “The flesh is of no avail.” There is a big difference! He obviously would not have said 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” (John 6:51, cf. 50-58).
“The flesh” is a New Testament term often used to describe human nature apart from God’s grace (see Romans 8:1-14; I Cor. 2:14; 3:1; Mark 14:38).
3. That which is “spiritual,” or “spirit” used as an adjective as we see in John 6:63, does not necessarily refer to that which has no material substance. It often means that which is dominated or controlled by the Spirit. For example, when speaking of the resurrection of the body, St. Paul writes: “It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body” (I Cor. 15:44). Does this mean we will not have a physical body in the resurrection? Of course not! Jesus made that clear after his own resurrection in Luke 24:39:
See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have.
The resurrected body is spiritual and indeed we can be called spiritual as Christians inasmuch as we are controlled by the Spirit of God. Spiritual in no way means void of the material. That would be a Gnostic understanding of things, not Christian.
4. In verses 61-62, Jesus had just said, “Do you take offence at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of man ascending where he was before?”
Jesus wants to ensure the apostles do not fall into a sort of crass literalism that would see the truth of the Eucharist in terms of gnawing bones and sinew. It is the Holy Spirit that will accomplish the miracle of Christ being able to ascend into heaven bodily while also being able to distribute his body and blood in the Eucharist for the life of the world. A human body—even a perfect one—apart from the power of the Spirit could not accomplish this.
Thus, Jesus words, “It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail” refers to the truth that it is only the Spirit that can accomplish the miracle of the Eucharist and it is only the Holy Spirit that can empower us to believe the miracle.
“And second, because I learned long ago not to engage in a debate with someone unable to recognize when they’ve lost.”
LOL, there’s the ticket! Come in and declare victory without even attempting it. Where were you when the Pedophile Priests were being prosecuted in court? You could have talked the Judge into dropping all charges within 20 seconds flat!
There is noel in tulip I am not a Calvinist.
shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach
“We Protestants have a different faith than you Catholics. One cannot simply decide to change his faith”
Me and Jesus got a good think going, we don’t need no stinkin’ church to tell us what’s all about.
Answer: No.
Next question.
You just don’t know when to stop digging, do you?
... The phrase also appears in Bill Waterson's comic strip Calvin and Hobbes,[6] in which Calvin inquires of Hobbes what the meaning of the phrase is. Hobbes responds that a "paper tiger" is like a "paper boy", that is, a tiger that delivers newspapers. -Wiki
You are quite obviously arguing with an unarmed participant!
So am I right or not Puny? Why won't you answer a simple question? Does your god blind people or help them see? Which is it? It makes a big difference. Did your god blind me and all the other Catholics on purpose so he could watch us burn in hell for all eternity just for the fun of it? If that's the case do you really want to be with that kind of god for all eternity watching us all burn. Does the prospect of that give you joy? If your god blinded me, why do you think you can help me and other Catholics see? Are you more powerful than your own god? Wouldn't your efforts to undo his will get him angry at you? Why do you try so hard? Maybe your god told you there is no hell, in that case what difference does it make?
I guess you are right I am not just blasphemous to the puny gospel but I am a fool as well, Ahh but then I already knew that. What is the puny punishment for my insolence oh great after dark one?
You obviously don't know who he is, and as such are similarly ignorant of the flaws with the "obvious in the original language" canard.
Further, if such august fathers felt as you present, please give the Church's official rationale for ignoring them as you must surely have done that research also.
Do you even know what the gospel is? You should. Since God has said, in Romans 2:16 "In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel." That was Paul writing through inspiration of the Holy Spirit. So there is a gospel you WILL be judged by. And Paul calls it "my gospel". Don't you think you should at least spend a little time trying to find out what it is?
God has blinded no one during this time of grace. But be warned, there IS coming a time: "And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie." (2 Thess. 2:11). WHY WOULD HE DO THIS?
"And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received NOT the LOVE OF THE TRUTH, that they might be saved." (2 Thess. 2:10). And what is the LOVE OF THE TRUTH? THE GOSPEL OF THE GRACE OF GOD. Paul calls it "my gospel".
Oh, the challenge is there, but my ego does not require me to spoon feed him an understanding of his problem.
Suffice to say the whole "big rock, little stone" nonsense comes from a desire to validate an unbiblical doctrine combined with an ignorance of Greek grammar.
And if you were wrong, how could one prove it to you?
If I was wrong, then God’s Word would have to be wrong. How do you know if you’re wrong? Your doctrines are presented to you by fallible men, dressed up as infallible, receiving revelations from God, or so they say. But where do you go to confirm that what they say is from God?
Scriptural harmony is key to understanding.
“It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” Jn 6:63
Paul to the born again (saints) at the church in Rome: “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be the Spirit of Christ dwell in you...”. Rom. 8:9
“And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever.......AT THAT DAY ye shall KNOW that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I IN YOU.” Jn 14:16-20
Holy Ghost baptism. THAT is when you REALLY have Christ in you (”the hope of glory”).
If you are literally drinking blood and eating flesh, I think the health authorities should know about it.
What is "literally drinking blood and eating flesh" mean? How is such an act "literal," and what would it's "literalness" convey and mean as opposed to some idea of non-literalness?
Can we get Food network give the Pope his own cooking show LOL!
So you are saying your doctrines are exclusively biblical?
Tell me what verses explain “God’s Word” refers to either Jesus himself, or a written book.
hahahahahahaaaa
As a student of Greek AND Hebrew, I can tell you have a lot to learn. But, I won't waste my time. I have the Holy Spirit to guide me, and you have your precious church. I have to claim to scholarship and need none. Please note in the Scripture below that Paul says to follow APOSTLES, not just one...
You chose an apt screen name, PT!
Ephesians 2: 1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
11 Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)— 12 remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
14 For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, 16 and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. 17 He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
Mr. STAPLES....hmmm....When he finished writing this did he say, “That was easy!”?? LOL
**In my 2011 debate with Dr. Peter Barnes, a Presbyterian minister and apologist in Australia,..**
Seriously, when the blind lead/(debate) the blind, both fall in the ditch.
You didn’t answer my questions. And yes, God has given us everything we need to be reconciled to Him, preach that reconciliation to others, reprove, rebuke, and exhort with doctrine He has clearly laid out. So that we may be approved as His workmen, and never be ashamed as we stand before Him. Is there a problem with this?
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