Your comment: “Because He would have been sinning by eating blood and encouraging others to sin also”
You keep calling Jesus a sinner and a liar.
You do not accept the words of Jesus. You are entitled to your personal opinion and belief.
Why is your passion so against the intentions of Jesus and He certainly clarified that the meaning was not figurative and was literal?.
You call yourself a follower of Jesus, but your firmly reject His words and advice for your salvation.
But many more believe....
BIBLE PROVES REAL PRESENCE OF CHRIST IN EUCHARIST
Rev. Daniel Maher
In the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus promised to give us His flesh to eat and His blood to drink. To those of us who profess belief in Christ in the twentieth century, the thought that Jesus would become for us actual food and thereby enter into us to provide nourishment and refreshment to our soul is a wonderfully consoling thought.
For those Christians who profess the faith of the Catholic Church, this thought is much more than mere consolation, it is the core belief of Catholics regarding their encounter with Christ in the action termed Holy Communion.
If we project ourselves back to the time of Christ and envision ourselves as among those of a Jewish background who had been drawn by the dynamic preaching and inspiring example of Jesus of Nazareth, His promise would perhaps be seen in quite a different light. Upon Jesus’ extraordinary revelation contained in this section of the gospel, there occurs a mass exodus of followers from His camp, seeming to indicate that those who were somewhat skeptical disciples of this self-proclaimed Messiah saw those words not so much as a consolation, but as instead more of a confirmation of sorts.
The thought that one would proclaim His flesh to be food and His blood to be drink must have confirmed for many what some had no doubt always suspected, “Jesus of Nazareth is crazy!”
According to Jewish custom, the blood of a person or animal was the life force of that being and therefore sacred and incapable of being shed or drunk by a believer. It is easy to understand, but no less regrettably felt, that the fledgling faith of so many of those original disciples was shaken by words uttered by the Savior himself.
What a tragedy that the Lord who wanted to be so generous as to share His own life-force with them, as He did for us all through the outpouring of His blood from the cross, should be rejected as a sort of madman for possessing such a love for His chosen children!
Yet today still we see around us continuing rejection of Christ’s instructions that we are to eat His flesh and drink His blood in order to have life.
This decision by most Christian denominations to interpret such a key section of the Bible in a figurative way seems curious in light of the fact that flocks of disciples walked away from Jesus at the time of its proclamation. One would think that if His message had somehow been taken too literally by the disturbed crowds, and in fact He intended it in only a symbolic way, Jesus would have corrected the misunderstanding among the departing throngs, rather than let them walk away from His saving message.
The assumption that Jesus was speaking only figuratively also would seem a bit deflated by the language employed in this section of Scripture itself. The Greek language in which John’s gospel was originally written is consistent in its use of words which translate into English as “eat” and “flesh,” words which would seem rather strong if the eating intended was merely spiritual or if the flesh partaken of was meant in a spiritual sense too. Instead it seems more logical to assume that a real partaking of the flesh and blood of Christ is commended, an act of eating which produces marvelous spiritual effects.
In the Mass, Catholics believe that simple bread and wine brought to the altar as a token offering to God are marvelously changed by God’s power during the praying of the Mass into the body and blood of Christ for distribution to believers in the action of Holy Communion. God is so aflame with love and longing for His people that He will go to even seemingly crazed extremes to express that love. Holy Communion is one of those cases where God’s love is so great as to make His zealous love for His people appear mad. What a different world it would be if we strove to return God’s love with an equal passion!
(Fr. Daniel Maher is a graduate of the College of William and Mary and of St. Charles Seminary. He has served as associate pastor of St. Leo the Great Church in Fairfax, VA and as spiritual director of the Fairfax Curia of the Legion of Mary.)
No, I don't. It's Catholics who claim He was eating blood and getting the apostles to do the same.
>>You call yourself a follower of Jesus, but your firmly reject His words and advice for your salvation.<<
Once again you made a false claim. I take Jesus words as He meant them and explained them.
John 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
Still Catholics reject those words and insist that it is the flesh. Jesus wasn't talking about eating the physical flesh and blood any more the Jeremiah was eating the physical scroll. Neither does a literal river of water flow from the belly of believers.
>>In the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus promised to give us His flesh to eat and His blood to drink.<<
As I just showed He also explained that His words were spirit and that He was not talking about the literal physical flesh and blood.
>>Upon Jesus’ extraordinary revelation contained in this section of the gospel, there occurs a mass exodus of followers from His camp<<
Yes, they also took Jesus to mean literal flesh and blood and as that was specifically forbidden by God and they followed that prohibition they knew it couldn't be from God. Catholics just don't care about that prohibition. The apostles had faith enough in Jesus to stay for His explanation and then understood that He wasn't talking about the literal physical flesh and blood.
It's interesting that Catholics don't catch that the apostles later, after Jesus had ascended into heaven, reiterated the prohibition against eating blood for the New Testament believers. Catholics must believe they were double minded apostles or something. Prohibiting the eating of blood while at the same time encouraging it? Preposterous.
See here for some information on your educated ones.
One has to wonder how these authors convinced you guys that Jesus wanted those false disciples to stay...To, not leave...
But you know what's funny, after Jesus told them that, while they grumbled, they still didn't leave...You guys never mention that...Why is that??? It wouldn't be to deceive anyone, would it???
In the Mass, Catholics believe that simple bread and wine brought to the altar as a token offering to God are marvelously changed by God’s power during the praying of the Mass into the body and blood of Christ for distribution to believers in the action of Holy Communion
Even tho Jesus never told any one to change or that he would change bread and wine into anything else...And even tho Jesus never instructed any one how to affect such a change...
The Greek language in which John’s gospel was originally written is consistent in its use of words which translate into English as “eat” and “flesh,” words which would seem rather strong if the eating intended was merely spiritual or if the flesh partaken of was meant in a spiritual sense too.
It you think that command has to be a literal command to eat flesh and drink blood due to the strong language used, then this is even more literal:
Eze 3:1 Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, eat that thou findest; eat this roll, and go speak unto the house of Israel.
Eze 3:2 So I opened my mouth, and he caused me to eat that roll.
Eze 3:3 And he said unto me, Son of man, cause thy belly to eat, and fill thy bowels with this roll that I give thee. Then did I eat it; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness.
I think this shreds your evidence to pieces...
Instead it seems more logical to assume that a real partaking of the flesh and blood of Christ is commended, an act of eating which produces marvelous spiritual effects.
Now there you go again...Trying to apply human philsophy to try to understand God...And would you pick a spot, any where in the scriptures where there is a spiritual benefit by putting something into your stomach??? That's more logic I guess, eh???
And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables. And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that 'they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.'"—Mark 4
I am not saying "eat my flesh and drink my blood" was a proper parable (though in my mind it is clearly figurative), but do think the result of His saying falls in line with the judgment He spoke of in Mark above. Jesus came to Israel, His own, and His own received Him not. Tragic mistake.