Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
That is not the reaction to a metaphor. This is the stark, amazed, horrified reaction to Christ's command that His disciples must eat His Body and drink His Blood.
Many of His disciples could not bear this hard teaching. They demurred: but Christ stood by His words. He did not retract or clarify them.
And then they left Him, unable to reconcile themselves to His stark and obvious meaning. Again, why would they do that if the command to eat His Body and drink His Blood was mere metaphor?
Right or wrong, they believed that Christ wasn't speaking in metaphor. His teaching shocked them into leaving. They could not accept it.
Do you believe that Christ was somehow hinting at metaphor?
If that were true, why then did so many disciples leave? Did Christ just not do a very good job of explaining His meaning?
Let's look at His words. Remember that He responds to the stark unbelief of his audience not once but twice.
Christ said this to the disciples:
I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
And the Jews argued among themselves saying:
“How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
Then Jesus said to them
Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.
Does that sound like metaphor? For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink?
Carrying on to the second statement of unbelief:
On hearing it, many of his disciples said,
This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?
Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them,
Does this offend you? Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words that I have spoken unto you, they are Spirit, and they are Life
Christ backs up His words by saying that they are Spirit and they are Life.
At this point his audience could only have understood that Christ was standing behind his earlier words. Jesus made no changes to His words, no clarifications - because none were needed.
Are you saying that his faithful disciples were able to parse Christ's words - realizing that when He stated that His words were 'Spirit and Life' and that "His flesh was real food and His blood was real drink" that this meant that they didn't have to take them seriously?
But the unfaithful disciples left - because why? Because they didn't understand that He was speaking metaphorically? Did Christ let them walk away without explaining His meaning?
I hope that this is not what you believe. That would be insane. Christ is not some kind of divine Clinton whose words are not supposed to be taken literally, especially when He most insists on them.
Christ stood by His words. He declared them to be Spirit and Life. He declared that His flesh was real food and His blood was real drink.
No-one who heard Him was in any doubt that He meant what He said. His disciples left Him because He wasn't speaking metaphorically.
There are simply no other ways to take the John 6 narrative. Like those people in Capernaum we must accept that Christ literally means for us to eat His Flesh and drink His Blood.
And again - how could it be possibly against the Levitical law for Christ to perfectly fulfill the Passover? Christ is the Passover Lamb.
He is what all those centuries of Passovers and sacrifice were all about - they reached towards His Death and His Resurrection - His Living Sacrifice - at the center of all history.
Try to look at what Jesus told His disciples, the real disciples who did not leave when he used sarcasm on them, what He told them when He actually instituted the Communion of remembrance. If you insist on seeing only the John 6 scene, you will affirm the cannibalizing and be in spiritual violation of the Levitical command to NEVER eat the blood. If you look at the Upper Room scene you will read that Jesus called the contents of the REMEMBRANCE CUP wine, wine to be consumed in REMEMBRANCE of His blood to be shed for them the next day on the cross.
Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
That is not the reaction to a metaphor. This is the stark, amazed, horrified reaction to Christ's command that His disciples must eat His Body and drink His Blood.
John Chapter 3
3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again[b] he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.[c] 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You[d] must be born again.’ 8 The wind[e] blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
9 Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?
Was Nicodemas reacting to a metaphor?