Exactly. Exactly! And that's what makes it so striking--- no, stunning, shocking --- when Jesus says, "Eat my body, drink my blood." Not just once, but at least half a dozen times. And when people start to object, He doubles down on it. (Ref: John 6, toward the end of all three Synoptics, and Corinthians).
The Jews knew very well that this is forbidden in Mosaic law, and that is why so many of them took offense and stopped following Him. Why? Because they didn't care for His metaphors? No, but because they couldn't tolerate the shocking realism of what He was saying. What a gripping way to proclaim that His Blood, and His alone, is to be drunk: for that is His very life, and ours.
For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him... Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?
When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you? ... From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life."
Exactly a point that gets lost in these debates. I don't know why others don't see it.
Some claim in John 6:63 Jesus claimed exactly that: that He was only speaking in metaphor and not in a literal sense. But these same people seem to forget that it was AFTER Jesus (supposedly) "explained Himself" in John 6:63, that virtually all His followers left him!
Why? Was it so difficult to accept He was teaching in a metaphor? Were the people back then somehow different than us? Were they stupid and couldn't grasp the concept of a metaphor?
WHY would a group of people who just before wanted to crown Him king suddenly leave Him because He started speaking in metaphors? HE TAUGHT BEFORE IN PARABLES AND NO ONE LEFT HIM THEN!
It makes ZERO sense, to try to claim a metaphor would be so offensive. Such a claim only makes sense to those who want or NEED to believe that "explaination". It makes ZERO sense otherwise.
And that's what makes it IMPOSSIBLE for Jesus to command anyone to break the Law.
He CAN'T do that.
He came to fulfill the Law, not abolish it. Until heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or tittle of the law will pass away. His word is established forever in heaven.
It would be impossible for Jesus to command people to break the Law He handed down at Mt.Sinai.
And yet the GENTILES were told...
You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality.
Houston - we have a problem.
No it wasn’t. It was because they were taking Jesus words literally to mean they had to eat His literal human flesh just like the Catholics do now. It’s just that the Catholics don’t care. All the others understood it was a spiritual thing not physical.
metmom, is it your contention that the Blood of Jesus is equivalent to the blood of sacrificed animals?
The life is indeed in the blood and we are never to partake of the blood of anything other than Jesus for our eternal life. We do not want to take on the life of any animal or other living thing for they are not our savior. Jesus and Jesus alone is our Savior.