Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.
Is that not definitive? Whoever believes has eternal life. Short, simple, to the point. And it precedes your verse as well...;)
If anything I think this further confirms that Jesus spoke in parables and metaphors. Eating His flesh and drinking His blood means to take His words and Spirit inside ourselves. To become a new creation through Him. We must accept Jesus within to get eternal salvation.
I'm done answering your questions. Here's a quote:
By pulling a single phrase out from the entire lesson of the Lord you can corrupt the meaning of that phrase.
I see this thread has now turned to the Eucharist. I think my post [#677], it is somewhat long, gives the Eucharistic Theology of the Catholic Church, and links the Catechism with respect to Scripture and its interpretation as understood by the Church and early Church Fathers (e.g Typology).
For the record, you will not find one Church Father or Early Council of the Church [Nicea 325 AD; Constantinopile 381; Ephesus 431 or Chalcedon 451] that interpreted the Eucharistic passages the way you all are doing and it was the Fathers of the Church and the Councils of the 4th century that settled the biblical canon.
With respect to the Church Fathers, Pope Benedict Notes in PRinciples of Catholic Theology: Building Stones for a fundamental Theology (p.148) “Tge canon of Holy Scripture can be traced to them, or, at least, to the undivided Church [he is speaking of undivided Latin West and Greek East] of the first centuries of which they were representatives. It is through their efforts that precisely those books that today we call “New Testament” were chosen as such from among a multitude of other available literary texts, that the Greek caon of the Jewish Bible was joined to them as “Old Testament”, that it was interpreted in tersm of them and that, together, the two Testaments came to be known as “Holy Scripture”.
And again, there are no Church Fathers that interpret the Eucharist with the theology that you are suggesting. Rather, the theology of the Eucharist of the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church is supported by Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, as expressed by the Church Fathers and Councils of the early Church.
Pax et bonum