[redleghunter]

Understand your point and I hope I was clear in my previous post. Back in the day when someone said they interpreted the Bible literally, immediately people told them, "well when are you going to cut off your hand and pluck out your eye as Jesus tells you to do." No one in their right mind who truly understands literal interpreting would suggest to do so. They would say "we take the Words of Jesus literally when He is literal." Knowing well that Jesus as Rabbi used teaching methods familiar to the culture and time. This included what we call similtudes, parables, types/shadows etc. HOWEVER, each one of these similtudes, parables et al. teach us a literal truth.

The literal truth of the John 6 passage is what Jesus says in verse 29: "“This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” After that the people still don't believe Him and want a sign. Then Jesus uses the sign of manna from Heaven to teach the literal truth of verse 29 in terms the people are fixated on...which is eating because He fed them earlier on.

[Campion]

Fine as far as it goes.

Except that what he was saying, and the way he was saying it, was profoundly offensive. "Eat my flesh and drink my blood" ... he then changes Greek verbs to something that translates more like "Munch my flesh like a pig and chug my blood" (just to increase the offense).

(Eating human flesh and drinking human blood is only used in Scripture as a metaphor for overwhelming military defeat -- the kind of thing that causes people to resort to cannibalism. It's also a well-known Middle Eastern expression for reviling someone viciously.)

So Scripture records that many of his followers murmured "this is a hard teaching, who can accept it," then left him. He doesn't try to explain his "metaphor". He goes to the Apostles and says plaintively, "Do you also want to leave?"

Why the offense? Why the ugly imagery? And why did he happen to pick this particular theme for his preaching on Passover, exactly a year before the Last Supper?

[smvoice]

AMEN. Yes, I understood your post. Why cannot all people see this?

[boatbums]

The literal truth of the John 6 passage is what Jesus says in verse 29: "“This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” After that the people still don't believe Him and want a sign. Then Jesus uses the sign of manna from Heaven to teach the literal truth of verse 29 in terms the people are fixated on...which is eating because He fed them earlier on.

Amen, and he also said that with the bread he would give them they would NEVER hunger again! Just like the "water of life" meant they would never thirst again. How can these NOT be figurative of a SPIRITUAL reality?