[blue-duncan]

"Salvation by sacrament, yes. This is what the verse says."

No, that's not what the verse says. If you look at the context, Jesus is explaining that belief on Him and His words bring eternal life.

John 6:29, "Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent."

35, "And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst."

40, "And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day."

47, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life."

69, "And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God."

Jesus used bread and His body and blood as metaphors explaining that His words are life and to be taken in and digested as necessary food and drink that bring life, unlike physical food.

John 6:27, "Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed."

63, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life."

68. "Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life."

One would think that if this "salvation by ritual sacrament" was so important to salvation like belief is that it would be mentioned by the other writers or mentioned again by John, however this is the only place in scripture it is mentioned and not until around 85-90 A.D. when John's Gospel was written. John does not even think communion is important to salvation since he does not mention the specifics of the Last Supper as do the synoptic writers, however John, being consistent with his understanding of what Jesus means by "bread" and "flesh" writes extensively about the "words" of Jesus at the Last Supper.

1 Cor. 11:23-26, Paul has the same understanding of what Jesus meant about "bread", His "body" and His "blood" when he says the bread and cup are memorials of who Jesus is and what Jesus accomplished by His death and our celebration at His table is is not salvific but a proclamation of His having paid the penalty for sin.

It would seem that the idea of "salvation by ritual sacrament" falls into the same error of understanding that those who thought Jesus was speaking of His physical body and blood were repulsed since it was a violation of the Law and later the letter to the Gentile churches from the Jerusalem church. It is also illogical to think that Jesus meant His physical body as there is no evidence the disciples partook while Jesus was with them or that they could since Jesus was still in His physical body and still subject to physical death. there is no mention by John that this "eating and drinking" was to be postponed until some later time. Jesus is speaking in the present and the people understood that as evidence of their repulsion.

The key to understanding this is in John 6:37-39, "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day."

John 6:45, "It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me."

John 6:65, "And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father."

[Mad Dawg]

Wow! Nice post! "Meaty" if I may say so int he context and all heh heh heh. Seriously, nice post.

If you look at the context,

Ah, the wonderful chamaeleon, the mirror in which every one of us looks and reports seeing his own face looking back. One man's context is another man's irrelevancy.

Can anything be proved from Scripture? Real question. I'm a skeptic on it. But can we convey the context by choosing verses 29,35,40,47, and 69? What gematria tells us that these verses and these alone provide what we need for accurate interpretation? It's an epistemological question, and I've never seen a good answer.

Jesus used bread and His body and blood as metaphors

Did Jesus intend to deceive? Elsewhere He says, the kingdom of God "is like ...". Here and at the Last Supper He does not say "like". What's up with that? And if they are just metaphors, what's in them to winnow out so many, so that even the twelve seem to be thinking it over ...

One would think that if this "salvation by ritual sacrament" was so important to salvation like belief is that it would be mentioned by the other writers or mentioned again by John... And the rest of the paragraph. Certainly it is question why John does not give an account of the last supper. But it is not a slam dunk to conclude that he does not think it important. Would you say he does not think the Lord's prayer important?

Even in my Protestant days I thought that maybe John's gospel was a mystagogical document, and now I see that it is certainly used that way. John cloaks and lets glimmers show through. I think, but this is a conjecture I admit, he meant to rely precisely on tradition to flesh out (so to speak heh heh heh) what he wrote. For a while there, the Lords prayer and the Sacrament were (i am told ) considered by some to be mysteries NOT to be discussed frankly before the uninitiate. ("The doors, the doors!" Identify that reference and win two weeks in Byzantium)

So that conjecture serves to explain John's reticence. In this reading it's not that it's too unimportant to mention, it's that it's WAY too important to mention.

Of course the nature of the body described is sufficiently problematic that I would hesitate to use the word "physical" to denote what IHS was talking about. I liek your "tense" argument, but hasten to say that the wiggle room is provided by the weird nature of tenses in Hebrew. Does anybody here know how tense is handled in Aramaic?

t is also illogical to think that Jesus meant His physical body as there is no evidence the disciples partook while Jesus was with them

Okay, I'm confused. Are the acocunts of the last supper not evidence?

Thanks again, minnows: nice post.

[annalex]

Two general comments. "Salvation by sacrament" should not be understood in isolation of the need to obey the Church in all she teaches, and that is before all else, the need to imitate Christ in the way we live our lives. Otherwise, the sacrament is onto condemnation rather than onto salvation, as St. Paul explains. Second, what you offer is at best, your personal interpretation of the scripture, that you attempt to stack against the literal interpretation that the Church of 2000 years has held. There is no doubt that if not in this particular case then in many others the personal interpretations that are heretical do logically exist. It is not my job or pleasure to tear down your beliefs, no matter how wide they wander off the Catholic norm. Let me now explain why the Catholic Church does not consider your interpretation of value.

If you look at the context, Jesus is explaining that belief on Him and His words bring eternal life.

This is not the entire context, but indeed this is part of the context. The episode, in fact, concludes with the confession of St. Peter "thou hast the words of eternal life. And we have believed and have known, that thou art the Christ, the Son of God". This is not, however, all that is being discussed, because the controversy is stated by the Jews in v. 53: "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?". We do not have a disagreement with your view as regards the life-giving words of Christ; we disagree with both you and the Jews of v. 53 on that particular score, regarding the literal eating of the body and blood of Christ.

Jesus used bread and His body and blood as metaphors explaining that His words are life and to be taken in and digested as necessary food and drink that bring life, unlike physical food.

You do not offer anything scriptural to support his view. You cite vv.27, 64 (your 63) and 69 (68). You nearly omit the entire discourse that is the focus of our disagreement, that starts by the question in v 53: "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?", and ends in v. 67 when some of the disciples leave. This is the part that most directly addresses the disciples' question, that you do not comment about:

54 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. 55 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day. 56 For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed. 57 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him.

Here we see that the Eucharist is an actual food, not a metaphor, strange as it sounds. John expresses the Lord's intent to avoid a metaphorical interpretation by choosing "o trogon mou ten sarka", literally, "he who gnaws at my flesh", in lieu of the previously used "sarka fagein", "flesh to eat".

The context serves to explain a difficult passage. The context cannot be used to avoid the difficulty. You appeal to context simply diverts us from what Christ said with such emphasis in vv 54-57. This is not what the Mother of God told you: "Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye", a few chapters before.

But what of vv. 27, 64 and 69 that you do cite? V. 27 refers to the perishable nature of the loaves: "26 Jesus answered them, and said: Amen, amen I say to you, you seek me, not because you have seen miracles, but because you did eat of the loaves, and were filled. 27 Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth unto life everlasting, which the Son of man will give you". This passage indeed speaks of the entirety of Christ's teaching that gives everlasting life. However, the disciples ask for a miraculous sign ("What sign therefore dost thou shew, that we may see, and may believe thee?"), and Christ responds by descriving the Eucharist as such sign, or as we would properly call it, sacrament: a visible sign of grace.

V. 64 indicates that the Eucharist, while physical food, as already established, feeds the spirit, unlike ordinary food that "profits" the flesh. Nothign un-Catholic here.

V 69 we already discussed. St. Peter has heard the words and they are "hard saying"; but he accepts them on faith, in their entirety, and so should you.

One would think that if this "salvation by ritual sacrament" was so important to salvation like belief is that it would be mentioned by the other writers or mentioned again by John, however this is the only place in scripture it is mentioned and not until around 85-90 A.D. when John's Gospel was written. John does not even think communion is important to salvation since he does not mention the specifics of the Last Supper as do the synoptic writers, however John, being consistent with his understanding of what Jesus means by "bread" and "flesh" writes extensively about the "words" of Jesus at the Last Supper.

By the way, "ritual sacrament" is like "edible food", a redundancy. Being something visible, a sacrament by definition involves a ritual.

There is no dichotomy between the sacramental life of the Church and discipleship. The Church does not teach that the Eucharist somehow bypasses obedience to the Word. You are raising a strawman. Likewise, the relationship between the Gospel of St. John and the synoptic Gospels is complementary; one must not use one gospel to preach against another gospel. On the Real Presence there is a complete agreement anyway: the synoptic gospels do describe the bread and wine of the Last Supper as Christ's body and blood, and St. Paul again teaches Real Presence in 1 Corinthians:

the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread. 24 And giving thanks, broke, and said: Take ye, and eat: this is my body, which shall be delivered for you: this do for the commemoration of me. 25 In like manner also the chalice, after he had supped, saying: This chalice is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as often as you shall drink, for the commemoration of me. 26 For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall shew the death of the Lord, until he come. 27 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. 28 But let a man prove himself: and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice. 29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord.

Here we have everything: the real presence of the Sacred Body in v 24 and 29; the sacrifice of the Mass in v. 26, and the connection to virtuous life of discipleship in v. 27.

Did St. John the Theologian somehow miss the sacramental nature of the Eucharist despite faithfully recording the words of Christ that define it in chapter 6? No, because we have a similar treatment of baptism as a birth of physical water and the Holy Ghost in John 3:5.

1 Cor. 11:23-26, Paul has the same understanding of what Jesus meant about "bread", His "body" and His "blood" when he says the bread and cup are memorials

See above. Memorials they are -- they connect to the same Golgotha -- , but it is not all they are.

It is also illogical to think that Jesus meant His physical body as there is no evidence the disciples partook while Jesus was with them or that they could since Jesus was still in His physical body and still subject to physical death

Just like a Mass today is a connection across time to the sacrifice of Christ, so was the Last Supper such connection.

The key to understanding this is in John 6:37-39

There is nothign in John 6:37-39 that the Catholic Chruch does not teach, along with the Real Presence.