John 6:26 Jesus answered them and said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. 27Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.” [ Jesus is about to emphasize a contrast between the carnal understanding and the spiritual meaning. He is about to contrast eating physical bread from Heaven and the Spiritual Mana of GOD's Grace through the incarnate Christ bringing Spiritual Life.]28 Then they said to Him, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?”
29Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.”[ Jesus made it so simple, yet even Martin Luther could not shake the mischaracterization you labor under as your religion focuses upon the carnal, not making the connection to the spiritual, EVEN THOUGH JESUS HIMSELF clarified it to those who were now demanding a sign!]
32Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” [[ife to the world! Not just a religion asserting you must carnally ingest the flesh and blood, He gives life to the whole world ... ending the curse stemming from the initiating sin into the world. And HERE is where Jesus makes it clear to those who know what He has previously commanded Hebrews NOT DO regarding the flesh and blood of man, but your religion has twisted it out of truth into a great blasphemy. The ones who turned away could not receive HIS truth except in a carnal perspective, but He was trying to shift their focus to the spiritual.
34 Then they said to Him, “Lord, give us this bread always.” [Their focus was stuck on the carnal, the physical wheat or barley or oat or mana bread.]
35 And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen Me and yet do not believe. 37All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. 38For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. 39This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. 40And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day [Did you catch it? Jesus says everyone who sees and believes. So if we are to receive eternal life two thousand years after He stated it, how do we 'see' the Son of Man? This is the clue Catholicism and old Martin miss: we must 'see' spiritually, not with photon energy, with spiritual awakening as God's Spirit whispers to our spirit that the Spiritual Bread is being offered, to be received spiritually by our believing on Whom God sent for our deliverance from SPIRITUAL DEADNESS].”
So the listeners who turned away could only focus upon the carnal application, just as those who blaspheme by believing they can do works such as eating His flesh and ingesting His blood in a ritual are ingesting His soul and spirit as well. Yes, doing this pagan ritual over and over, DOING WORKs to obtain eternal life is anathema to the Gospel of God's Grace received by faith not working or striving. But some did not turn away at this 'hard saying' because they knew there must be spiritual meaning, so Jesus clarified it all for them, and us:
John 6:63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.
Count how many times Jesus emphasizes 'believing in Him to obtain eternal life throughout the passage in John 6, and connect it to what Jesus explained to Nicodemus in John 3 ... even giving an illustration of how it works by citing for Nic the snake in the desert, a passage which is found in the Old Testament yet was not explained to us until JESUS explained it to Nicodemus! It is BELIEVING the Promise of God that ushers in life to the spirit in man/woman.
A man or woman does not receive eternal life by physically eating something their religion claims is transmogrified by a pedophile, homosexual priest into the real flesh and blood and soul and divinity of The One Whom God sent for our deliverance from our spiritual deadness. The Jews who knew the commands of God to not eat the blood turned away because they could not get beyond the carnal. Catholicism does something more blasphemous, it teaches its adherents that they must defy the commands given by God regarding the blood and carnally eat it!
[41] The Jews therefore murmured at him, because he had said: I am the living bread which came down from heaven. [42] And they said: Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How then saith he, I came down from heaven? [43] Jesus therefore answered, and said to them: Murmur not among yourselves. [44] No man can come to me, except the Father, who hath sent me, draw him; and I will raise him up in the last day. [45] It is written in the prophets: And they shall all be taught of God. Every one that hath heard of the Father, and hath learned, cometh to me.As you clearly see the literal view of[46] Not that any man hath seen the Father; but he who is of God, he hath seen the Father. [47] Amen, amen I say unto you: He that believeth in me, hath everlasting life. [48] I am the bread of life. [49] Your fathers did eat manna in the desert, and are dead. [50] This is the bread which cometh down from heaven; that if any man eat of it, he may not die.
[51] I am the living bread which came down from heaven. [52] If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world. [53] The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying: How can this man give us his flesh to eat? [54] Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. [55] He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day
[56] For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed. [57] He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him. [58] As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me. [59] This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead. He that eateth this bread, shall live for ever. [60] These things he said, teaching in the synagogue, in Capharnaum.
Very explicitly - believe in Jesus as Lord, GOD and Savior, repent, be baptised and eat of His body and drink of His blood.