Before we get to 6:63, the verb "eats" of "eats my flesh" in 6:54-58 is not the Greek verb used to denote human eating, but instead the gnawing of animals - why would Jesus go out of the way to emphasize physical eating if He meant merely "spiritual feasting" on His words? Just to confuse or scare away His disciples?
"It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life." John 6:63
This references John 3:6 - "What is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of spirit is spirit." Peter and the rest remained because they were not afraid of His WORDS - the words were eat my body. It was a command. Yes, they were not afraid of such a command because they recognized the Christ, the "Lamb of God" (John 1:29), and they knew that they must eat the Lamb, as their forefathers did at Passover.
In Luke 22:18, in the very act of instituting the Lord's Supper, Jesus said, "For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come." Jesus clearly says it was "fruit of the vine", and He gave it to them while He was yet living
You're mistaken here. This is part of the Passover celebration - the Jewish ritual required 4 cups of wine. Jesus, as a Jewish Rabbi, ceased the ritual sacrifice with the third cup. Ask a Jew you know what it would mean if they stopped their Passover celebration with only 3 cups - it borders near sacrilege. Jesus' ceasing demonstrates the sacrificial nature of his death - the Passover sacrifice he celebrated was not complete until the Lamb was slain. "It is finished" marks the completion of the Passover celebration.
John 22:19-20 is the institution of the last supper. Then he took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me." And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you." Yes, He is giving the Apostles His Body and Blood before He died - this supports my position, since His Sacrifice exists outside time. It is the interplay between Kairos and Chronos. God exists outside of time, as does His sacrifice. The "do this in remembrance of me" is a rough translation - a more proper one is probably "offer this as my memorial offering." The sacrifice of the Lamb is one in perpetuity which we are called to take part of - that is the entire reason for the Mass.
The other major place in the NT besides the Gospels where the Lord's Supper is dealt with is in I Corinthians 11. In this passage, again, Catholics like to pull a verse out of context (in this case v. 26 - "For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come."), while ignoring the surrounding context and the lexical analysis. I've seen Catholic apologists point to this verse and argue that the act of "shewing" the Lord's death till He comes means that the act is occurring again and again in the transubstantiated Eucharist. I've seen Catholic apologists point to this verse and argue that the act of "shewing" the Lord's death till He comes means that the act is occurring again and again in the transubstantiated Eucharist. Of course, this is not what "shew" (Gk. kataggelo) means. the words actually means "to proclaim, announce, report, or publish",
The words of the Mass are "when we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim your death, Lord Jesus Christ," so I'm not sure where these Catholics you speak of struggle with the translation. But you need also look at 1 Cor. 11:28-29
A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself
The Greek word for "examine" translates better as "test and find true" - part of that examination requires discerning the body of Christ in the Eucharist.
Because what Jesus was doing in this passage is pointing to Himself as the Word, and using allusions to the Old Testament to do so. Granted, I think we all can agree that Jesus is the Word - John's Christology, as it saturates his Gospel, makes that plain enough. One thing Jesus did before the verse in question was to point to Himself as the bread of life (vv. 32, 35, 48), as the true fulfillment of that typology taught by the giving of the manna to their fathers in the wilderness (vv. 49-51). Essentially, Jesus is saying, look, you want bread, well *I* am that bread - but I am bread that satisfies your SPIRITUAL need, rather than your physical hunger - He was directly referring back to the people's error in seeking Him because He fed the 5,000, and telling them not to seek Him to have physical needs met, but to have their spiritually lost condition changed (cf. v. 27). In other words, that is the "set up", the context for what we see later in the chapter, which is usually ignored by Catholic apologists.
Jesus' allusion to Himself as the bread of life fits right in with His role as the Word, and fits nicely with Matthew 4:4,
"But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
Same concept as we see in John 6 - He cites Deut. 8:3 in refuting satan's temptation, a passage in Moses which also refers to the manna in the wilderness. So, Jesus, as the Word, is the true bread of life which sustains a person's life and soul. Now, did He mean it literally? Was He saying to literally eat His flesh and drink His blood? Of course not. He was instead alluding to Jeremiah 15:16,
"Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O LORD God of hosts."
"Eating" God's Words means to internalise them mentally and spiritually to such a degree that they become a deep, inner part of you. That's what Jesus was telling His disciples they needed to do with Him - move away from a surface acceptance of Him as great teacher who provides a lot of free food, and instead learn and understand that He, as the Messiah, as the Word of God, must be "internalised" to such a degree that serving and living for Him becomes the very reason they live. Incidentally, the Hebrew word translated as "eat" in that verse is 'akal, which is ALSO a word used to describe the devouring of food as an animal would. Hence, when Jesus uses the same type of word in Greek, He is, again, referring back to this concept of devouring/eating God's Word by giving full heed to it.
Near the start of His discourse, He more or less laid it out plainly that His words were not meant to be taken woodenly literally, but that they had a spiritual import instead, when He said,
"I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." (v. 35)
Notice the Hebrew parallelism. Though the Gospel is written in Greek, Jesus and His audience were Jews - they thought like Jews, acted like Jews, and spoke like Jews. Jesus uses a classic example of the "poetic parallel" so common in Jewish poetry and wisdom literature (the latter of which John 6 can arguably be said to be a representative). He parallels "coming to Him to never hunger" with "believing on Him to never thirst". Coming to Him and believing on Him are paralleled - believing on Him is the whole point. Clearly, He has NO intention in this passage of telling His audience that they actually, truly, literally were to eat Him.
Just to confuse or scare away His disciples?
Actually, yes. It's common enough in the Gospels for Jesus to use hyperbolic language so as to force His listeners to make a decision about Him or something He has said. Usually, He does so as part of the "true disciples have their eyes and ears open to the true meaning, while false disciples will get offended by not understanding the true meaning, and leave" motif. This is what we see happening here - the people who didn't "get it", who still had their minds on filling their bellies, the people who were still thinking carnally, were the ones who took His words in a woodenly literal fashion, thought He was saying to actually eat Him, and left.
This references John 3:6 - "What is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of spirit is spirit." Peter and the rest remained because they were not afraid of His WORDS - the words were eat my body. It was a command. Yes, they were not afraid of such a command because they recognized the Christ, the "Lamb of God" (John 1:29), and they knew that they must eat the Lamb, as their forefathers did at Passover.
Peter and the rest knew that His Words were of a spiritual, rather than literal, intention. Jesus clearly is speaking figuratively in this passage, just as He was speaking figuratively each and every other time where He made a declarative "I am the ______" statement. Surely you don't believe that Jesus was really and truly a flat, wooden board with an iron bar across Him, just because He said "I am the door", do you? You don't think He was a green, leafy plant because He said "I am the true vine", do you?
Your argument from John 3:6 doesn't really seem to apply in any sense. If anything, those born of the flesh but not yet born of the Spirit (i.e. those who were unregenerate) would be the ones who would understand His words in a fleshly, literal way on this point, which actually goes against your argument.
You're mistaken here. This is part of the Passover celebration - the Jewish ritual required 4 cups of wine. Jesus, as a Jewish Rabbi, ceased the ritual sacrifice with the third cup. Ask a Jew you know what it would mean if they stopped their Passover celebration with only 3 cups - it borders near sacrilege. Jesus' ceasing demonstrates the sacrificial nature of his death - the Passover sacrifice he celebrated was not complete until the Lamb was slain. "It is finished" marks the completion of the Passover celebration.
This argument has no merit. The four cups ceremony which you describe was actually institued very late - it's doubtful that it was widely practiced at the time of Jesus, and even if it were, the Jewish sources themselves are very clear that it was a "rabbinic tradition" (a term which itself suggests a post-70 AD origin), not sanctioned by the Scriptures themselves. Given Jesus' disdain for Pharisaical (the folks who more or less "became" the later rabbinate after the destruction of the Temple and the Diaspora) innovations to Scripture, it's not likely that He even engaged in this ritual at all - since the OT never mentions it. The New Testament certainly doesn't say that He did - it says nothing about how many cups of wine He drank/offered period, other than the one He used when instituting the Lord's Supper.
Yes, He is giving the Apostles His Body and Blood before He died - this supports my position, since His Sacrifice exists outside time. It is the interplay between Kairos and Chronos.
That's exactly the point, however. Suggesting that Jesus' sacrifice "exists outside of time" is pagan, as pagan as going in to a Phoenician temple prostitute to re-enact fertility rites to Ba'al to ensure the rains come in.
God exists outside of time, as does His sacrifice.
That is a non-sequitur. Yes, God exists outside of time, by virtue of His being the Creator and being GREATER than time. However, the Scripture clearly says that Jesus' sacrifice came at one, specific point in time, and that it's economy was centred about that one specific moment. The Scripture positively denies your "sacrifice exists outside of time" argument.
"But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;" (Hebrews 10:12)
He offered one sacrifice, a singular sacrifice which has efficacy "for ever". Further, the sacrifice is treated punctiliarly - it had a point in time, which was sequentially antecedent to His sitting down at the right hand of God. Further, the verb "to offer sacrifice" (prosphero) is in the aorist tense, indicating one-time action.
"For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." (Hebrews 9:26)
Again, this verse indicates that the sacrifice offered by Christ had not occurred until that one, single incident at "the end of the world" (lit. aeon, age, the transition between the OT and the NT). He did it once, and it's importance was met at one, singular instance in time. It's efficacy, true, is from the beginning of the world, but not its ACTIVITY, which is where you are in error. Hebrews 7:27 makes the same point as well.
The "do this in remembrance of me" is a rough translation - a more proper one is probably "offer this as my memorial offering."
Completely untrue. Actually, "this do in remembrance of me" is a very clear translation of the phrase touto poieite eis ten emen anamnesin. Touto = this, poiteite = do (present active imperative), eis = of, ten emen = me (accusative), and anamnesin = remembrance. Perhaps a more modern sounding translation would be "Do this in my remembrance", but there is nothing in the actual Greek text to suggest "offer this as a memorial offering" as any sort of a valid translation.
The sacrifice of the Lamb is one in perpetuity which we are called to take part of - that is the entire reason for the Mass.
And that is a lot (though not all) of the reason why the mass represents (no pun intended) a pagan syncretisation into Christianity.
The words of the Mass are "when we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim your death, Lord Jesus Christ," so I'm not sure where these Catholics you speak of struggle with the translation. But you need also look at 1 Cor. 11:28-29
A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself
The Greek word for "examine" translates better as "test and find true" - part of that examination requires discerning the body of Christ in the Eucharist.
Which has nothing to do with whether or not the elements of the Supper actually turn into the body and blood of Christ, or are just symbols. What Paul is referring to when He tells them to examine themselves, and that eating unworthily means they are not discerning the Lord's body looks back to the earlier parts of the chapter, when Paul had to take the Corinthians to task for their abuse of the Lord's Supper - getting drunken, eating everything up before the poor and others had a chance to get any, etc. (which, interestingly, seems to suggest that the Lord's Supper was much more than just the "eat a wafer and drink a little wine/grape juice as we sit in the pews" that is common to Catholics, Protestants, and Baptists alike). The discerning going on here is that which understands the importance of the ordinance. Treating it lightly is to basically treat the sacrifice which Christ made for us lightly. There's nothing in vv. 28-29 which specifically or even alludingly refers to the actual nature of the elements.