What did Jesus mean when he taught that, in order to have eternal life, a man must eat the flesh of Jesus and drink his blood? Who is more likely to have understood those words correctly than St. Paul, the other apostles, and the generation who were taught directly by the apostles?
To believe this means that Christ is contradicting Himself on more than occasion when He speaks of believing in Him for eternal life.
Note John 6:40...for this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the son and believes in Him may have eternal life; and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.
Jesus makes the same promise in 6:54 when he states..."...I will raise him up on the last day.
Again in 6:44 Jesus notes "...I will raise him up on the last day."
All of these refer to having belief in Christ. That is what John 6:26-71 is all about...having faith/belief in Christ. I guess Peter didn't get that message about having to eat the flesh and drink the blood, which btw would violate the prohibitions about doing so.
Acts 2:37-38 37Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?” 38Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Paul must have missed it also.
Acts 16:30-31 and after he brought them out, he said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
We are saved through believing in Christ.
To "eat" and "drink" are figurative uses of these words. Else we have to literally drink blood and eat flesh which would go against the Law. Christ would not be contradicting the Law.
If this passage is kept in context, and again, context is key to understanding the Gospel, we see in John 6 that Christ is referring to belief in Him for eternal life. That Jesus is the bread of life is made abundantly clear in this chapter.
On more than one occasion He refers to Himself as the bread of life. Can we live without bread? No and neither can we live eternally if we haven't the Bread of Life in us. We acquire this bread through faith in Him.
His blood is what sustains us. We have eternal life when we believe His blood cleanses us from all sin.
Did the disciples drink actual blood at the Passover meal? Of course not!
If we think these words in John 6:53-58 are literal commands then we have to take as literal the words that Christ spoke regarding cutting off the hand that causes you to sin or gauging out the eye that causes you to sin.
These were clearly understood in the proper context. How do we know this? I don't see many maimed believers walking around today. If these were to be literal we'd have a bunch of blind and handless believers running around.
Christ doesn't call on us to mutilate ourselves as some beliefs do.
You work from a false premise that because someone was close to the apostles means they could be without error. This completely overlooks the issues Paul was addressing in the early church. A lot of false teaching was already creeping in. Paul had to admonish Peter about not eating with the Gentiles for example....and he's supposed to be the first pope according to catholicism.
It is why today we must examine all teaching, catholic and non-catholic, against the Bible to see if they contradict or go against the Word. The false teachings that do, we should cast out so they can be burned up as chaff.
If Christians would do this, we'd all be better off.
Nowhere else in the scripture is "eating flesh and drinking blood" used as some sort of metaphor or symbol of faith. The expression is used in a couple of places in the OT as a symbol of utter military defeat, as in "beaten so badly you'll resort to cannibalism". It's also a colloquial expression in some Semitic cultures for reviling someone.
When the Jews recoil in disgust from Jesus' teaching, he doesn't say "Hey, it's okay, I'm just talking about faith". No, he ratchets it up ... "for my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink". Then, after the crowds leave, he doesn't corner the disciples and say, "You guys understand I'm just talking about faith, right?" No, he says, "Will you, too, go away?"
And it's not a coincidence that this whole episode happened at Passover, exactly a year before the Last Supper.
I guess Peter didn't get that message about having to eat the flesh and drink the blood, which btw would violate the prohibitions about doing so.
Did you read what those prohibitions actually say? Lev 17:11 ... "for the life of a creature is in the blood". Isn't that exactly the point? Don't you *want* to partake of the life of Jesus? Isn't that true life, as opposed to the death bequeathed to you by Adam? "I came that the world might have life, and have it abundantly ...", remember that?
take this all of you and eat it...'THIS IS MY BODY"....Take and drink of this, "THIS IS MU BLOOD"...doesn't sound figurative to me.
unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink of His blood, you shall not have life within you.......Figurative????? I don't think so, but good luck with your theory.