Posted on 11/30/2016 2:41:47 PM PST by SeekAndFind
In John 6 the Jews turned away because they took His words too literally and clung to the laws rather than find the spiritual TRUTH. We see the Catholicism doing the same thing, ignoring the spiritual truth in order to empower their human strivings. This MOCKS GOD.
Very nice work.
“Cultural idiom” just means familiar expressions used among a particular group of people. Were it not for “cultural idioms,” no human communication could occur at all.
The ‘real’ problem is what does ‘real’ mean. Physical? Not necessarily. Love is real. Agreed? God is Spirit. God is real. I know astute Catholics who recognize that ‘real presence’ does not mean physical. ‘Real presence’ is a Catholic “cultural idiom.” No one seems to know what it ‘really’ means. As I have watched these debates, for many years now, it seems mainly to be used as a way for Catholics to divide themselves from other followers of Jesus Christ. I believe this is grave error.
So the entire argument begins from a position of weakness, because the definition of the most contested term is unclear. But the idea that the communion meal could not be abused unless the elements were this special, undefined sort of ‘real’ is defeated by well known principles that all ordinary Catholics would probably accept.
Take for example the Ark of the Covenant. It contained the tablets of the law, and the budding branch of Aaron. It could not be touched, lest one die, and Uzzah did die for touching it. So what was the ark? It was real wood, real gold. But it was not God. God’s word established what it was, and how it served His purposes. But it was only a physical representation of a spiritual reality. Yet what power God gave it, by the power of His command.
Furthermore, we do not have this by guesswork. We know from the writer of Hebrews that the earthly pattern of things given to Moses for the worship of God were but copies and shadows of the Heavenly pattern. This is the apostolic view, and it supports the idea that even these copies may be a cause of great offense to God when they are abused and disrespected.
In fact, Christ spent the bulk of His earthly ministry revealing the spiritual realities that lay behind all the formalities of worship that Israel had come to take for granted. All of the law and the prophets hang on the entirely spiritual principle of love. Everything tangible in the worship of God in Israel was grounded in intangible love.
So reaching a conclusion that John 6 is a continuation of that pattern of showing spiritual truth through physical representations is entirely consistent with how God spoke to us every other place in His revealed word to us.
This does not discount physical things. God did institute the physical temple, did command the construction of the physical Ark of the Covenant, did physically kill Uzzah for touching it, and did come to us as the God-man, a physical and spiritual reality, did physically rise from the dead, and will come in His physical person on the last day such that every eye will see Him. All of this every Christian accepts.
But God has nowhere commanded anyone to act as His agent by infusing the bread and wine of the communion meal with a form of ‘realness’ that has no affirmative definition, but is mainly defined by NOT being a metaphor, and therefore a cause of division among those who should be brothers and sisters to each other. God is not the author of confusion. The clear command we DO have from Jesus is to take the bread and wine as a remembrance of the sacrifice He made on our behalf. The love we have for Jesus at the moment of that remembrance is more real than anything ever contemplated by medieval alchemists, and it will outlast the memory of any of the naïve theories men have imagined about it. The love of God in Christ for us is as real as anything will ever get for all time and eternity.
Peace,
SR
Thanks be to God for what is good.
And Jesus let them go away, which is consistent with His use of metaphorical or allegorical language in other places in which the Lord used such in order to require further pursuit of Truth, and to separate true seekers from the carnal.
This is especially manifest in John, such as Jn. 2 in which the Lord said "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up," (John 2:19) without interpreting it at all, leaving the carnally-minded to believe that He was speaking of the physical temple that stood by them, and which He was charged with in His indictment.
In Jn. 4, beside a well of physical water, the Lord spoke to a women seeking such water of a water which would never leave the drinker to thirst again, which again was understood as being physical. But the meaning of was subtly inferred to the inquirer who stayed the course, but which is only made clear by reading more of Scriptural revelation.
And in Jn. 3:3, the Lord spoke in such an apparently physical way that Nicodemus exclaimed, "How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?" (John 3:4)
And in which, as is characteristic of John, and as seen in Jn. 6:63, the Lord goes on to distinguish btwn the flesh and the Spirit, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit," (John 3:6) leaving Nicodemus to figure it out, requiring seeking, rather than making it clear. Which requires reading more than that chapter, as with Jn. 6, revealing being born spiritually in regeneration. (Acts 10:43-47; 15:7-9; Eph. 1:13; 2:5)
And thus we see the like manner of revelation in Jn. 6, in which the Lord spoke to souls seeking physical sustenance of a food which would never leave the eater to hunger again. Which again was understood as being physical, but which was subtly inferred to be spiritual to the inquirers who stayed the course. But which is only made clear by reading more of Scriptural revelation.
In so doing the Lord makes living by this "bread" of flesh and blood as analogous to how He lived by the Father, "As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me." (John 6:57)
And the manner by which the Lord lived by the Father was as per Mt. 4:4: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." (Matthew 4:4)
And therefore, once again using metaphor, the Lord stated to disciples who thought He was referring to physical bread, "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work." (John 4:34)
And likewise the Lord revealed that He would not even be with them physically in the future, but that His words are Spirit and life:
What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. (John 6:62-63)
And as with those who imagined the Lord was referring to the physical Temple, the Lord left the protoCatholics to go their own way, who seemed to have yet imagined that the Lord was sanctioning a form of cannibalism, or otherwise had no heart for further seeking of the Lord who has "the words of eternal life" as saith Peter, not the flesh, eating of which profits nothing spiritually.
The Council of Jerusalem understood this also.
‘Real presence’ is a Catholic “cultural idiom.”
Indeed, and this priest (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/standingonmyhead/what-do-we-mean-by-the-real-presence) even found that "the term ‘real presence’ has–from the start–been used as an alternative to the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation." He found that "real and actual presence" first appeared in the writings of the Dominican theological John of Paris (in tentatively advancing propositions contrary to the doctrine of transubstantiation, and subsequently Latimer and Ridley (put to death by RC "bloody Mary) and John Wycliffe also used the term "real presence," perhaps without the "actual," leaving the precise term "real presence" to be Anglican .
Take for example the Ark of the Covenant. It contained the tablets of the law, and the budding branch of Aaron. It could not be touched, lest one die, and Uzzah did die for touching it. So what was the ark? It was real wood, real gold. But it was not God. God’s word established what it was, and how it served His purposes. But it was only a physical representation of a spiritual reality. Yet what power God gave it, by the power of His command.
Very good. The Holy of Holies and its Ark was the "real presence;" more precisely the mercy seat covering of the Ark, between the two cherubims, was God's localized throne where He would meet with the priests:,
And thou shalt put the mercy seat above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee. And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel. (Exodus 25:21-22)
And David arose, and went with all the people that were with him from Baale of Judah, to bring up from thence the ark of God, whose name is called by the name of the Lord of hosts that dwelleth between the cherubims. (2 Samuel 6:2)
Of course, in their never-ending propensity to think of mortals far above that which is written, (cf. 1Co. 4;6) Catholics make their Mary into being the Ark, which they crown with gold, and which was not to be touched upon pain of death (though actually qualified men did without dying), meaning Joe maybe died because he tried to get intimate with his wife (as Scripture says to do)
But in Scripture while people would have to come to Israel to find the Ark, like as Mary was an instrument for Christ, yet people came to Christ to met with God, and Christ is whom the Ark best represents, taking on the common “wooden” body of man, and with its gold representing His glory, as Christ is the brightness of God's glory, and the express image of His person, (Heb. 1:3) and who contained the law and the words of life, and the rod of God as did the Ark. (Heb. 9:4)
And having ascended, the closest thing to the incarnated Christ is not disguised bread and wine but His church, which the Lord calls His body, and thus Paul was actually persecuting Him by attacking its members, and Corinthians were not effectually recognizing it by ignoring and shaming them that have not while supposing they were taking part in the Lord's supper.
So reaching a conclusion that John 6 is a continuation of that pattern of showing spiritual truth through physical representations is entirely consistent with how God spoke to us
You mean (among other things ) David really did not believe that water was the blood of men, and the Canaanites were not really "bread" for Israel, and one is really not literally born by actually drinking water, so that they become a fountain, and their work is not actual "meat?."
You Prots need to take Scripture literally!
Thanks so much for expounding this deep and beautiful Truth. Would that our Catholic fellows would read and then devour the truth, to nourish their spirits. ‘To be carnally minded is death’
Thank you for yet another beautifully expounded post. ... I collect these, don’tchaknow. They are like ammunition in the belt pouch for reloading to apply on target.
It is impossible to read this passage and pretend to misunderstand Christ’s meaning, without malicious intent.
“The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.
The The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying: How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say unto you: except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.
He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood, hath everlasting life; and I will raise him up in the last day.
For my flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed.
He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him.
As the living Father has sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eats me the same also shall live by me.
This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead. He that eats this bread shall live forever.”
“Many therefore of his disciples, hearing it, said: This saying is hard,’ and who can hear it?
But Jesus, knowing in himself, that his disciples murmured at this, said to them: Doth this scandalize you?
If then you shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?
It is the spirit that quickens: the flesh profits nothing. The words that I have spoken to you, are spirit and life.
But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning, who they were that did not believe, and who he was, that, would betray him
And he said: Therefore did I say to you, that no man can come to me, unless it be given him by my Father.
After this many of his disciples went back; and walked no more with him.
Then Jesus said to the twelve: Will you also go away?
You mock GOD and accuse those who will not join you in that wickedness of having malicious intent. Do you even realize how that fits the methodology of an evil one who hates humans and God?
Well,,, they just forgot to tell them it was OK if it did not look like blood. Like as Paul forgot to add the qualifier "except in the Lord's supper" in statements like,
But meat commendeth us not to God: for neither, if we eat, are we the better; neither, if we eat not, are we the worse. 1 Corinthians 8:8
No, I defend the word of Christ as He gave it to us and has been taught for 2000 years.
John 6:52. The Jews understood Christ to be speaking literally and not figuratively, for they say among themselves, “How can this man give us His Flesh to eat?
John 6:53. If Christ were talking in a figure of speech, in a metaphor, it would have been His duty not only as the Son of God, but as a teacher, to correct the Jews.
May GOD have mercy on your soul ... you are of a carnal mind as evidenced by your stubborn rejection of the spiritual meaning.
Are we to believe that your definition of “spiritual meaning” is superior to these?:
St. Augustine (354-430) writes: “That which is seen on the table of the Lord is bread and wine; but this bread and this wine, when the word is added, becomes the Body and Blood of the Logos.”
St. Cyril writes: “As a life-giving Sacrament we possess the sacred Flesh of Christ and His Precious Blood under the appearance of bread and wine. What seems to be wine is not wine, but Christ’s Blood. “
St. Basil (331-379) prays in these words of his liturgy, “Make this bread into the Precious Body of our Lord and God and Redeemer Jesus Christ, and this chalice into the Blood of Our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ, which was shed for the life of the world.”
Or, Perhaps your understanding is superior to St. Paul?
St. Paul wrote (eight years after St. Matthew wrote his Gospel) a letter to the Christian converts at Corinth: 1Cor. 10:16, “The chalice of benediction, which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? And the bread, which we break, is it not the partaking of the body of the Lord?”
1Cor. 11:23- 29, “For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread, And giving thanks, broke, and said: Take ye, and eat: this is my body, which shall be delivered for you: this do ye, as often as you shall drink, for the commemoration of me. For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall shew the death of the Lord, until He come. Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord. But let a man prove himself: and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord.”
No doubt you believe that is what you are doing. I submit you are defending your denominational conditioning. Of course, I understand that is a two-edged sword, and each of us must be cautious about our own conditioning. But I try to give everyone a presumption of sincerity.
The fact of the matter is, though you claim it is impossible to honestly read the text any way but your way, i.e., literally (which means who knows what), I and many others see it exactly the opposite way. We truly do not understand how anyone can read John 6 and honestly believe it was meant in some physical or quasi-physical sense. That strikes us as so head-in-the-sand we have a hard time accepting that any intelligent, honest persons could arrive at such a conclusion. The passage is full to overflowing with clues it is meant in a metaphorical sense. Who could miss all that?
However, I do recognize there are conditions of the mind that inhibit comprehension of metaphors. Please understand. I do not mean what I am saying as an insult to you or anyone else. I am merely pointing out a reality, that sometimes metaphorical language escapes certain listeners, for any number of reasons. For example, it is apparently true that persons on the autism spectrum can have serious problems picking up on metaphors. In fact, sometimes it strikes them that the person using the metaphor is engaged in a lie. If I tell them, 'get the lead out,' they wonder where the lead is, and if there is no actual lead, why am I representing that there is lead? Is that not a falsehood? The phenomena has a striking similarity to your own response to the assertions here that some of us truly see John 6 in a metaphorical frame of reference. I believe you sincerely believe it is impossible for us to believe what we really do believe. And you are sincerely wrong about us in that respect.
Which gets us back to a more basic point. These conversations can be enlightening and helpful, or they can be tools of division, to further fragment the communion of those who are serious about following Jesus. One of the best ways to make these conversations helpful rather than hurtful is to avoid attribution of motive. You have no idea the extent to which one poster or another is being sincere. Everybody comes to the table with something different. We try. We hope for the best. There are clues. But God alone knows the heart. It is best to leave that to him.
Which is why I like the forum rule in force here, supposedly. We are not supposed to attribute motive. It is counterproductive. It is a way into darkness, not light. It's a good rule.
As for your arguments, they are standard objections to the metaphoric interpretation of the passage, and have been debunked bazillions of times. Bazillion, BTW, is a metaphor. :)
1. As to what the Jews understood:
A. There was conflict among the Jews. The greek suggests an intense argument among themselves. They did not know what to make of his statements. If I recall correctly, they had a metaphor in rabbinic texts that Messiah would bring a bounty of food, and that in some sense eating that food would be like eating him. See John Gill on the subject. So their misunderstanding was not uniform.
B. Even if we go against the text and say they all had exactly the same understanding, that hardly demonstrates they were correct. The testimony against Jesus at His trial was that he was planning to tear down the temple and raise it again on the third day. Hint. Temple was metaphor for body. They didn't get it. Their misunderstanding does not control the interpretation.
2. The supposed duty to correct:
You assume Jesus had a duty to correct, but you make no apparent effort to prove it, and the Gospels clearly contradict your assumption. When Jesus told his parables, he typically only told His disciples the true spiritual meaning behind the metaphor. The Pharisees were most often left in the dark, to grope around in their self-made misconceptions. Jesus even justified this practice based on the prophecy in Isaiah, saying they have eyes but do not see, and ears but do not hear, lest they turn and be converted. God was playing hardball with these guys.
Bottom line, you have no justification for suggesting Jesus had to correct their misunderstanding. He didn't have to do a thing. And yet, for those in his inner circle, those willing to hear it, he does offer a clarification, in that the flesh is not what profits, but His words are spirit, and they are life. The life of the believer does not come from what they put in their mouth. It comes from the One in whom they believe and put their trust. It is not what goes into a man that cleanses him, but what comes from his heart.
Peace,
SR
Selah
And which the Lord did,, disallowing any presumption that eating the flesh actually benefited them spiritually, but that the Spirit gives life, that being, as Peter perceived after the carnally-minded proto-Catholics left, by His words, which are spiit and life.
And which, as said, is the only interpretation that conflates with the rest of Scripture, in which spiritual life is NEVER obtained by literally physically eating anything, but by believing the gospel message, and the Christ of it.
But that the Lord had to plainly correct misapprehensions of the carnally-minded is an ignorant premise, for instead the Lord purposely not only spoke "in parables: that seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand" (Mark 4:11-12) as a judgment against them, but He also often spoke enigmatically so that true seekers would pursue the understanding of His puzzling sayings.
And which is what we see so much of in John, in which the "plain speaking" Catholics presume is the meaning was instead not what was being taught, as seen in the light of further revelation, as is also the case in Jn. 6.
In John 2, the Lord plainly stated right after cleaning out the Temple "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up," (John 2:19) which the Jews understandable understood as plainly declaring that the Lord would rebuild the Temple that took 46 years to build.
Yet here there is no manifest effort by the Lord to correct them, and that He claimed He would rebuild the temple in 3 days was a charge at His indictment (adding that He would first destroy it: Mt 26:60,61).
Next, in John 3, the Lord speaks of being born again, which is thus understood by His learned hearer as inferring one must:"enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born." (Jn. 3:4)
Then in response the Lord speaks of the necessity of being being born of water and the Spirit, which still does not explain what He meant. And next in this short discourse the Lord speaks of two kinds of birth, the flesh and the spirit - which a typical contrast in John, but only later is it connected, if not explained, to believing on the Lord Jesus.
In the next chapter the Lord speaks of water He gives that forever quenches thirst, which is understood as being actual water. Which is later connected to Jesus being the promised Messiah, but how He gives this water is not explained.
Next, the Lord tells His disciples that He has "meat" that they do not know of, and which, true to form, they speculate that maybe someone brought Him food.
But to them He states that His "meat" or food is to do the will of His Father, for He taught that man "lives" by every word of God. And in John 6:57 He likens how He lives by the Father to how believers live by Him, and in both cases it is never by physically eating the flesh of the Father or the Son.
And consistent with John, in the next chapter the Lord states that the dead who shall hear the voice of the Son of God shall live, and which is what we read of in Acts onward, with those who believe on the Lord Jesus receiving the Holy Spirit, and living by His word, which is called "milk, and "meat" which "nourishes" and "builds up" believers..
And which as said, conflates with Jn. 6:63-68, in which the Lord once again explains the puzzling language which nowhere agrees with the rest of the rest of Scripture as the means of obtaining spiritual life, and living by Christ as per the literal understanding.
And which is not what the language at the Lord's supper - which John nowhere mentions - literally teaches either (not that Catholicism takes it plainly literal, as shown).
Rather than teaching that consuming the "real" body and blood of Christ is the means, or a means of obtaining spiritual life, Peter ("thou hast the words of eternal life" nowhere even mentions the Lord's supper in Acts or his epistles, but preached that "To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins." (Acts 10:43) And hearing the word of the gospel, and believing resulted in God giving them "the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith." (Acts 15:8-9)
Paul preaches the same, and only describes the Lord's supper in one of his 13 epistles, and as shown , censures Christians for not recognizing the church as being the body of Christ.
James never mentions the Lord's supper either, nor John in his 3 letters, or even the words "take eat..." found in the synoptics, which is an incongruous omission if he was teaching on the Lord's supper in chapter 6.
Nor does John mention the Lord's supper in the entire book of Revelation,
This absence is contrary to the the status and doctrine of Catholicism, in which the Eucharist is said to be "the heart and summit of the Christian life...by this sacrifice he pours out the graces of salvation on his Body which is the Church." (CCC 1407) “the medicine of immortality, the antidote for death, and the food that makes us live for ever in Jesus Christ," (CCC 1415) "a kind of consummation of the spiritual life, and in a sense the goal of all the sacraments," (Mysterium Fidei, Encyclical of Pope Paul VI, 1965) through which “the work of our redemption is carried out,” (CCC 1364) with the offering of which being the primary function of her clergy, and around which all else in Catholicism essentially revolves. The Eastern Orthodox likewise state that "the very center of our spiritual lives is the liturgical celebration of the Eucharist. (http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/twopaths.aspx)
But which is consistent with the hearing and believing the word of God being the means of obtaining and doing what Jn. 6 speaks of, with the word being milk, meat and nourishment. Thus once again Catholicism stands in stark contrast to the NT church of Scripture.
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