****Of course, in addition Jesus said He was the door and the vine. Please explain why Catholics don’t take that literally.... Should He not be made of wood or leaves? Or was He lying there as well?****
Show me the Scripture where Jesus held up a door or a vine and said, “This is my body”.
So you do believe the waver is really God?
If you take the whole discourse literally, that leaves you with problems, such as......
verse 29: Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
Why don't Catholics accept this? Why do they add conditions and works to salvation?
verse 35: 35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.
Jesus said He was bread. Is He made out of wheat or bread dough? That IS literal.
Do those who take communion in the form of the eucharist ever get hungry or thirsty again? He said they wouldn't if they ate His flesh? Why isn't that taken literally? Why have to repeat communion regularly? Don't Catholics believe what Jesus said? Why the repeat eating?
verse 37: All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.
Imagine that, the security of the believer. Then why do Catholics doubt that they'll make it to heaven and won't find out if they're saved until they get there? Was Jesus lying?
verse 39-40: 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
Salvation by faith, simply believing. Do you take that literally or not? Or was Jesus lying here, too? Didn't He mean what He said?
OK, literally here again......
verses 47-51: 47 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
Do Catholics die? They claim they eat the literal flesh and blood of Christ based on this passage. Then they must also believe that they must literally never die. Not just spiritual death and truth, but since they think they eat the literal, physical body of Jesus, then must, in order to be consistent and interpret literally, believe that they will never die, physically and literally.
Period.
If someone interprets this passage as revealing spiritual realities, speaking of spiritual truthes, that the feeding on the flesh of blood of Christ is done in a spiritual sense, not a literal, physical sense, none of these questions is an issue. The interpretation can be consistent within the passage and consistent with the rest of the written word of God that FORBIDS the eating of blood.
John 6:63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
The SPIRIT gives life. Not the eucharist. The flesh, the physical, is no help at all.