I was referring to the word ‘profits’ and the negation which follows it in the Greek text, indicating that the ‘thing’ flesh benefits nothing. The inference is back to what He had said about eating His flesh, and He was correcting the possible misunderstanding that may have left with His steadfast followers. The way many read the sentence they believe Jesus is saying the flesh gets no benefit/profit from eating Him. It is not the way the Greek sentence is constructed. The construction indicates the flesh is the thing that either gives the benefit or not. In this case the ‘not’ is indicated with the flesh ‘not profits nothing’ ‘ouk ophelei ouden’. Jesus goes on to point to what does profit or benefit the believer: “The words that I speak to you spirit are, and life they are.” This then refers us back to what does not profit, what is not spirit and not life. Catholicism truns that meaning on its head, just as those who ceased to follow Him had done in the carnal perspective of thinking He had commanded them that they must eat His flesh for spirit and life.
Τὸ πνεῦμά ἐστιν τὸ ζωοποιοῦνas contrasted with ...
The Spirit is the giving life [thing]
ἡ σὰρξ οὐκ ὠφελεῖ οὐδένwhere the double negative isn't a positive but an emphatic negation of "profit" applied to the direct object "no one." We know ouden ("no one/nothing") is the direct object because it is in the accusative. This means "flesh" is the subject and "profits" is the transitive verb, the verb whose action is sent from the subject to the direct object. So the movement is from left to right. The flesh fails to provide the benefit that the spirit does provide, which is to give life, to make alive, which is a participle here, and further cements the contrast between flesh as inert and spirit as the superior, active principle of the discussion. Any attempt to invert this must be done in vigorous rejection of ordinary Greek grammar.
the flesh [emphatically] profits no one (or perhaps "accomplishes nothing")