Posted on 03/31/2015 2:42:14 PM PDT by RnMomof7
If priests indeed have the exclusive power to change finite bread and wine into the body and blood of the infinite Christ, and, if indeed, consuming His body and blood is necessary for salvation, then the whole world must become Catholic to escape the wrath of God. On the other hand, if Jesus was speaking in figurative language, then this teaching becomes the most blasphemous and deceptive hoax any religion could impose on its people. There is no middle ground. (Eat My Flesh and Drink My Blood. by Mike Gendron)
“There is no indication in the biblical accounts of the Last Supper that the disciples thought that the bread and wine changed into the actual body and blood of Christ. There simply isn't any indication of this. Should we say that the disciples who were sitting right there with Jesus, actually thought that what Jesus was holding in his hands was his own body and blood? That would be ridiculous...
...The Mass is supposed to be a re-sacrifice of Christ. Therefore, the body and blood represented in the Mass become the broken body and shed blood of Christ. In other words, they represent the crucifixion ordeal. But how can this be since Jesus instituted the Supper before He was crucified? Are we to conclude that at the Last Supper, when they were all at the table, that when Jesus broke the bread it became His actual sacrificial body -- even though the sacrifice had not yet happened? Likewise are we to conclude that when Jesus gave the wine that it became His actual sacrificial blood -- even though the sacrifice had not yet happened? That would make no sense at all”. (Matthew Slick Transubstantiation and the Real Presence.
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Is John 6:66 Evidence of Transubstantiation?
Jason Engwer
"Jesus said to them, 'I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall not hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst....It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life." - John 6:35, 6:63
Catholics often claim that John 6 is a passage about the eucharist, and that Jesus was teaching transubstantiation by telling people to "eat His flesh and drink His blood". Typical is the April 22, 1998 edition of Mother Angelica Live, a television program on the Roman Catholic network EWTN. The guests on the program, Bob and Penny Lord, argued that Jesus wouldn't have let people leave Him, as some did in John 6:66, if His statements about "eating My flesh and drinking My blood" were not to be taken as actual eating and drinking of flesh and blood. Supposedly, Jesus allowing those people to leave Him is evidence that He was teaching transubstantiation, and that He was unwilling to compromise that teaching in order to have more followers. Surely He would have explained to the people in John 6:66 what He really meant if He wasn't referring to actual eating and drinking of flesh and blood, right?
Actually, there are some problems with the Roman Catholic interpretation of John 6. In verse 35, Jesus identifies what the "eating and drinking" are. They represent coming to Him and believing in Him. Trusting in Christ, not participation in Roman Catholic mass, eliminates a person's hunger and thirst. Throughout John 6, statements about faith in Christ are interspersed with the statements about "eating and drinking" (verses 29, 35, 36, 40, 47, 64). As Jesus often did, He was using an analogy to illustrate a point. In this case, He was illustrating a true faith, a faith that involves a person coming to Christ, believing in Him, and then never hungering or thirsting again as a result. This is why Jesus told people that He is the bread of life, and that they are responsible for eating His flesh and drinking His blood. He said these things before the Last Supper. People were just as responsible for eating His flesh and drinking His blood before the eucharist was instituted as they were after.
Not only does the Catholic interpretation of John 6 miss the theme of the passage, but it also rests on some bad assumptions. Did Jesus really let the people in John 6:66 leave Him without a clarification of what He meant? No, He didn't. In verses 35 and 63, Jesus reveals that He isn't referring to actual eating and drinking of flesh and blood. If some who heard Him missed or forgot what He was saying in those verses, that was a problem with them, not with Jesus.
And was it even the concept of actual eating and drinking that motivated the people in John 6:66 to leave Jesus? Possibly not. The immediate context of their departure is Christ's teaching about His own foreknowledge and predestination (John 6:64-65). Catholic apologists often overlook the verses immediately before verse 66, and go back to what Jesus was saying earlier in the passage. Why should we do that? We really don't know all of what was motivating the people in John 6:66. For all we know, they may have left because what Jesus said in verses 64-65 convicted them that they didn't truly believe in Him.
It's also possible, of course, that they did think Jesus was referring to actual eating and drinking of flesh and blood. Does it follow, then, that Jesus would have tried to keep those people from leaving Him if He really wasn't referring to actual eating and drinking? No, it doesn't. He knew that these people had never really believed in Him (John 6:64). And contrary to what Catholic apologists suggest, Jesus didn't always clarify His teachings to those who rejected Him. In Matthew 13:10-17, Jesus explains that He purposely kept some people from understanding what He was teaching. In John 2:19-22, Jesus refers to His body as a "temple", which many people misunderstood as a reference to the actual temple in Jerusalem. He didn't explain to these people what He really meant. We read in Mark 14:56-59 that some people, long after Jesus had made the statement in John 2:19, were still thinking that He had referred to the actual temple in Jerusalem. And in John 21:22-23, we read of another instance of Jesus saying something that was misunderstood by some people, with the misunderstanding leading to the false conclusion that the apostle John wouldn't die. Yet, Jesus didn't clarify the statement. It was John who clarified it decades later in his gospel. (Any suggestion that John didn't clarify chapter 6 in his gospel only begs the question. How do Catholics know that passages such as John 6:35 and 6:63 aren't clarifications of what Jesus meant?) When Catholic apologists claim that it would be unprecedented for Jesus not to further clarify His message to the people in John 6:66, if He wasn't referring to actual eating and drinking, they're mistaken. He could have been following the same pattern we see in Matthew 13:10-17, John 2:19-22, and John 21:22-23. To this day, people continue to disagree about what Jesus meant by some of the parables in Matthew's gospel, for example.
Catholic apologists sometimes argue that the metaphorical concept of eating somebody's flesh and drinking his blood always had a negative connotation among the Jews. They point to passages of scripture like Psalms 27:2 and Revelation 16:6. Therefore, if Jesus was using such terminology in a metaphorical way, He would have been telling His listeners to do something negative. Since Jesus wouldn't have done that, He must not have been speaking metaphorically. The problem with this Catholic argument is that it's erroneous in its first claim. While metaphorically eating flesh and drinking blood did sometimes have a negative connotation, it also sometimes had a positive connotation (http://www.christian-thinktank.com/hnoblood2.html#john6). And since Jesus gave us a positive definition in John 6:35, there's no need to look for any other definition.
We're told by Jesus and the apostle Paul that the bread and wine of the eucharist remain bread and wine even after consecration (Matthew 26:29, 1 Corinthians 11:26-27). The Roman Catholic view of communion is filled with errors, some of them undermining fundamental doctrines of scripture. Citing John 6, or citing John 6:66 in particular, doesn't change that.
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I don't think that it's the same thing. When God formed the first man out of the dust of the earth (of which He created from nothing in the first place) and breathed into him the breath of life and man became a living soul, this was God creating something totally new, not taking something of one substance and changing it into a completely different substance. I recall reading about how our physical bodies are remarkably like the dust of the earth in mineral content. We ARE carbon life forms after all.
I realize these don’t have the actual transubstantiation in them, nevertheless, they are miracles involving both bread and wine.
Why shouldn't non-Catholic Christians be able to post about and discuss their beliefs on the tenets of the Christian faith? There are a great many threads posted by Roman Catholics daily on the Religion Forum about the Catholic view of the Christian faith and often there is "venom" towards Protestants/Evangelicals because they don't see it the same way. Roman Catholic Freepers have said many times that Catholicism is the one, true church Jesus established and they alone can define and determine what is the truth of Christianity. Anyone who disagrees or disobeys this "settled" truth is in danger of hell unless they convert. A few have said recently that no one can be saved UNLESS they ate the flesh and drank the blood of Jesus in the Catholic Eucharist.
Isn't it equitable that non-Catholics be allowed to say why we disagree without being accused of attacking Catholics and being anti-Catholic bigots? These Catholic threads you see where we are "attacking people on those threads", is it individuals that are being personally attacked or their beliefs that are being disputed? The former is wrong and isn't supposed to go on. The latter is just part of what an OPEN Religion Forum thread should expect. Debate and discussion is actually healthy as it solidifies ones beliefs and helps them to not only know what they believe but why they believe it. Scripture calls it "iron sharpening iron". The key is to not take things personally. For those who can't help but take disagreements of their faith personally, it's better that they skip these kinds of threads all together or at least until they develop a thicker skin.
I hear ya! Mercy is God not giving us what we deserve. Grace is God giving us something we don’t deserve. Happy Easter!
Well, I think you think wrong! One could say all the anti-Protestant bigots on Free Republic are really left-wing phonies trying to create division amongst Conservatives and Freepers, but it wouldn't make it true.
This is My Body
Jesus Christ, 33ad
Obvious direct metaphor: A is B. And your point is?
Peace,
SR
No, actually what's funny is that Ignatius was disputing the Docetists and Gnostics who denied Jesus even HAD a physical body! He wasn't defending the Platonic concept of reality where the most “real” things were those grasped by the mind and the least “real” things were those things that were sensed. Seeing the bread and wine as a memorial - as Jesus SAID we should - is the true faith the early Christians were taught and believed. The term "transubstantiation" didn't even enjoy official Roman Catholic sanction until the thirteenth century at the Forth Lateran Council. To presume Ignatius, a second century Christian was referring to this is ludicrous.
And just where have you been all these years on the RF in which i have been a regular, when RCs were posting threads attacking Prot. beliefs, which promoting Rome as the one true church also does?
Frankly, i find i rather duplicitous.
What about the Wedding at Cana?
That miracle was not that of bread and wine being changed into flesh and blood for someone to physically consume before they were saved, as no spiritual benefit was linked to it. Meanwhile likening it to transubstantiation is a common mistake
. For as with all miracles of physical change, this not the same as transubstantiation, as the wine looked, tasted and would chemically test to be real wine, while since this does not occur with the Cath. wafer and wine, a novel Aristotelian type explanation had to be devised.
From a RC monk and defender:
Neoplatonic thought or at least conceptual terms are clearly interwoven with Christian theology long before the 13th century...
The doctrine of transubstantiation completely reverses the usual distinction between being and appearance, where being is held to be unchanging and appearance is constantly changing. Transubstantiation maintains instead that being or substance changes while appearance remains unchanged. Such reversals in the order of things are affronts to reason and require much, not little, to affirm philosophically. Moreover, transubstantiation seem to go far beyond the simple distinction between appearance and reality. It would be one thing if the body and blood of Christ simply appeared to be bread and wine. But I don’t think that is what is claimed with “transubstantiation.”
Aristotle picked up just such common-sense concepts as “what-it-is-to-be-X” and tried to explain rather complex philosophical problems with them. Thus, to take a “common-sense” concept like substance–even if one could maintain that it were somehow purified of Aristotelian provenance—and have it do paradoxical conceptual gymnastics in order to explain transubstantiation seems not to be not so anti-Aristotelian in spirit after all...
That the bread and wine are somehow really the body and blood of Christ is an ancient Christian belief—but using the concept of “substance” to talk about this necessarily involves Greek philosophy (Br. Dennis Beach, OSB, monk of St. John’s Abbey; doctorate in philosophy from Penn State; http://www.praytellblog.com/index.php/2010/05/30/transubstantiation-and-aristotle-warning-heavy-philosophy)
Edwin Hatch:
...it is among the Gnostics that there appears for the first time an attempt to realize the change of the elements to the material body and blood of Christ. The fact that they were so regarded is found in Justin Martyr. But at the same time, that the change was not vividly realized, is proved by the fact that, instead of being regarded as too awful for men to touch, the elements were taken by the communicants to their homes and carried about with them on their travels. (Hatch, Edwin, 1835-1889, "The influence of Greek ideas and usages upon the Christian church;" pp. 308-09 https://archive.org/stream/influenceofgreek00hatc/influenceofgreek00hatc_djvu.txt)
In Sacred Games: A History of Christian Worship, Bernhard Lang argues that, “When in late antiquity the religious elite of the Roman Empire rethought religion and ritual, the choice was not one between Mithraism and Christianity (as Ernest Renan suggested in the 19th century) but between pagan Neoplatonism and Neoplatonic Christianity.”
“In the third century CE, under the leadership of Plotinus, Plato’s philosophy enjoyed a renaissance that was to continue throughout late antiquity. This school of thought had much in common with Christianity: it believed in one God (the “One”), in the necessity of ritual, and in the saving contact with deities that were distinct from the ineffable One and stood closer to humanity. Like Judaism and Christianity, it also had its sacred books–the writings of Plato, and, in its later phase, also the Chaldean Oracles. In fact, major early Christian theologians–Origen, Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysus–can at the same time be considered major representatives of the Neoplatonic school of thought.” - (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/cosmostheinlost/2014/04/08/early-churchs-choice-between-neoplatonism)
Taken to it's "logical" conclusion, Jesus' body is made of bread and His blood is made of wine. When you receive the Eucharist, do you chomp on LITERAL human flesh and blood or is it by faith that you see these elements as representing the flesh and blood of Christ? The word "literal" does have a meaning, you know.
Clement of Alexandria wrote,
Further release from evils is the beginning of salvation. We then alone, who first have touched the confines of life, are already perfect; and we already live who are separated from death. Salvation, accordingly, is the following of Christ: For that which is in Him is life. John 1:4 "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that hears My words, and believes in Him that sent Me, has eternal life, and comes not into condemnation, but has passed from death to life." John 5:24 Thus believing alone, and regeneration, is perfection in life; for God is never weak. For as His will is work, and this is named the world; so also His counsel is the salvation of men, and this has been called the church. He knows, therefore, whom He has called, and whom He has saved; and at one and the same time He called and saved them...
As nurses nourish new-born children on milk, so do I also by the Word, the milk of Christ, instilling into you spiritual nutriment..."Wherefore also I have given you milk to drink," he says; meaning, I have instilled into you the knowledge which, from instruction, nourishes up to life eternal. But the expression, "I have given you to drink" (ἐπότισα), is the symbol of perfect appropriation. For those who are full-grown are said to drink, babes to suck. "For my blood," says the Lord, "is true drink." John 6:55 In saying, therefore, "I have given you milk to drink," has he not indicated the knowledge of the truth, the perfect gladness in the Word, who is the milk?
And to this meaning we may secondly accommodate the expression, "I have given you milk to drink, and not given you food, for you are not yet able," regarding the meat not as something different from the milk, but the same in substance. For the very same Word is fluid and mild as milk, or solid and compact as meat. And entertaining this view, we may regard the proclamation of the Gospel, which is universally diffused, as milk; and as meat, faith, which from instruction is compacted into a foundation, which, being more substantial than hearing, is likened to meat, and assimilates to the soul itself nourishment of this kind.
Elsewhere the Lord, in the Gospel according to John, brought this out by symbols, when He said: Eat my flesh, and drink my blood; John 6:34 describing distinctly by metaphor the drinkable properties of faith and the promise, by means of which the Church, like a human being consisting of many members, is refreshed and grows, is welded together and compacted of both—of faith, which is the body, and of hope, which is the soul; as also the Lord of flesh and blood. For in reality the blood of faith is hope, in which faith is held as by a vital principle. And when hope expires, it is as if blood flowed forth; and the vitality of faith is destroyed. ” (Clement of Alexandria, The Paedagogus, Book I; http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/02091.htm)
And Augustine on "Rule for Interpreting Commands and Prohibitions" states,
24. If the sentence is one of command, either forbidding a crime or vice, or enjoining an act of prudence or benevolence, it is not figurative. If, however, it seems to enjoin a crime or vice, or to forbid an act of prudence or benevolence, it is figurative. "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man," says Christ, "and drink His blood, you have no life in you." John 6:53 This seems to enjoin a crime or a vice; it is therefore a figure, enjoining that we should have a share [communicandem] in the sufferings of our Lord, and that we should retain a sweet and profitable memory [in memoria] of the fact that His flesh was wounded and crucified for us. Augustine On Christian Doctrine (Book III, cp. 16) — http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/12023.htm
What about Cana or the feeding of the 5000? Did I deny Jesus performed miracles?
So?
But nowhere in Scripture is literally eating anything physical the means of obtaining spiritual life, but which is actually pagan.
Supposing one gains spiritual life by literally eating human flesh and blood is akin to pagan endocannibalism, and is not Scriptural and the Scriptural gospel.
Alpers and Lindenbaum’s research conclusively demonstrated that kuru [neurological disorder] spread easily and rapidly in the Fore people due to their endocannibalistic funeral practices, in which relatives consumed the bodies of the deceased to return the “life force” of the deceased to the hamlet, a Fore societal subunit. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_%...9#Transmission
he custom of eating bread sacramentally as the body of a god was practised by the Aztecs before the discovery and conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards."
The May ceremony is thus described by the historian Acosta: “The Mexicans in the month of May made their principal feast to their god Vitzilipuztli, and two days before this feast, the virgins whereof I have spoken (the which were shut up and secluded in the same temple and were as it were religious women) did mingle a quantity of the seed of beets with roasted maize, and then they did mould it with honey, making an idol...all the virgins came out of their convent, bringing pieces of paste compounded of beets and roasted maize, which was of the same paste whereof their idol was made and compounded, and they were of the fashion of great bones. They delivered them to the young men, who carried them up and laid them at the idol’s feet, wherewith they filled the whole place that it could receive no more. They called these morsels of paste the flesh and bones of Vitzilipuztli.
...then putting themselves in order about those morsels and pieces of paste, they used certain ceremonies with singing and dancing. By means whereof they were blessed and consecrated for the flesh and bones of this idol. This ceremony and blessing (whereby they were taken for the flesh and bones of the idol) being ended, they honoured those pieces in the same sort as their god....then putting themselves in order about those morsels and pieces of paste, they used certain ceremonies with singing and dancing. By means whereof they were blessed and consecrated for the flesh and bones of this idol. This ceremony and blessing (whereby they were taken for the flesh and bones of the idol) being ended, they honoured those pieces in the same sort as their god...
And this should be eaten at the point of day, and they should drink no water nor any other thing till after noon: they held it for an ill sign, yea, for sacrilege to do the contrary:...and then they gave them to the people in manner of a communion, beginning with the greater, and continuing unto the rest, both men, women, and little children, who received it with such tears, fear, and reverence as it was an admirable thing, saying that they did eat the flesh and bones of God, where-with they were grieved. Such as had any sick folks demanded thereof for them, and carried it with great reverence and veneration.”
...They believed that by consecrating bread their priests could turn it into the very body of their god, so that all who thereupon partook of the consecrated bread entered into a mystic communion with the deity by receiving a portion of his divine substance into themselves.
The doctrine of transubstantiation, or the magical conversion of bread into flesh, was also familiar to the Aryans of ancient India long before the spread and even the rise of Christianity. The Brahmans taught that the rice-cakes offered in sacrifice were substitutes for human beings, and that they were actually converted into the real bodies of men by the manipulation of the priest.
...At the festival of the winter solstice in December the Aztecs killed their god Huitzilopochtli in effigy first and ate him afterwards. - http://www.bartleby.com/196/121.html
There are some differences, but these have far more in common with the Cath idea of the Eucharist than anything seen in Scripture interpretive of the words of the last supper.
Time for bed now.
Churches in Union with Rome as of the Year 2000
At another link they accept the Anglican church as in partial union. They believe in the real presence.
The Lutheran church I don't see, but they believe in consubstantiation so I learned in Western Civ in college. That means they believe that the sacrament is bread and wine and body and blood at the same time.
Eucharist means thanksgiving or giving thanks.
How could all the churches be wrong? If they are, who was responsible for introducing the error long, long ago?
I am grateful for scholars like yourself who invest in time consuming searches for documentation and references and present them here for our edification and learning. Thank you.
Now, because they thought His discourse was harsh and intolerable, supposing that He had really and literally enjoined on them to eat his flesh, He, with the view of ordering the state of salvation as a spiritual thing, set out with the principle, “It is the spirit that quickens;” and then added, “The flesh profits nothing,”— meaning, of course, to the giving of life. He also goes on to explain what He would have us to understand by spirit: “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” In a like sense He had previously said: “He that hears my words, and believes in Him that sent me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but shall pass from death unto life.” John 5:24 Constituting, therefore, His word as the life-giving principle, because that word is spirit and life, He likewise called His flesh by the same appellation; because, too, the Word had become flesh, John 1:14 we ought therefore to desire Him in order that we may have life, and to devour Him with the ear, and to ruminate on Him with the understanding, and to digest Him by faith.See how he dispenses with the misunderstanding in the Bread of Life discourse. They thought what Jesus said was harsh because they misunderstood Him, which misunderstanding Jesus undertakes to correct, not by confirming their literalist error, but by practically beating them over the head with the spiritual nature of the transaction. He then goes on to show the manner of consumption is not at all literal, but hearing the word of Christ is what leads to eternal life, that we "devour Him with the ear, and ruminate (chew) on Him with the understanding, and digest Him by faith. Tertullian gets it.
On the Resurrection of the Flesh, Chapter 37, available here: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0316.htm
John 6:35 And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.So Jesus did not hide His meaning from His listeners at all, but it is hidden in plain sight from those who are fighting the lesson of the metaphor. The fault is not in the Teacher but in the student.
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For the reader who has not studied hermeneutics, here is an example:
Let's get down to brass tacks, by getting the hermeneutics right.
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In what I just wrote, the whole sentence, normally interpreted, means "Let's examine the basics, the accepted rules for interpreting a passage." The phrase "Let's get down to brass tacks" is figurative-literal language. The literal interpretation of that is "Let's examine the basics."
The phrase "getting the hermeneutics right" is literal language The plain literal interpretation of the phrase is "accepted rules for interpreting a passage."
The rules used to avoid problems are as follows:
A. Normal interpretation is the basic starting point of decoding a passage.
What you read is to be taken as it was written. Unless there is an indication to take it some other way, don't try to find another meaning. The normal interpretation of a Bible passage is the plain literal or obvious interpretation. Confusion arises if something other than what is written is read into it. This makes clear communication impossible. The Bible does not do this.
B. Literal interpretation is normal
The sense of a sentence is the maning of that sentence in ordinary normal conversation or writing. Now, get this: literal interpretation contains both plain literal language and figurative-literal . Unwary people confuse the terms literal language with literal interpretation.
Figurative and/or allegorical interpretation is not normal. (But this abnormal method is what the Catholic traditions are based upon.)
C. Only One Primary Interpretation
. . 1. Scripture has but one meaning. There is only one interpretation to which all context lends itself.
. . 2. It applies directly to those addressed, at some time indicated, and must have a specific meaning for them.
. . 3. With this in view, it can be applied to us under similar conditions which exist relative to those conditions prevailing in the context.
. . 4. There may be several secondary applications that agree, but there is only one primary interpretation--one specific, intended meaning.
Examples:
Exodus 15:26 only applies to the Hebrews at the time of the Exodus, not to Christians today, despite common misapplication.
2 Chronicles 7:14 only applies to Israelites in the Holy Land during the Mosaic Covenant, not to Christians in America today under the New Covenant.
D. One Single Sense:
Every statement of Scripture has only one sense (Isa. 53:5 vs 1 Pet. 2:24):
"But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed" (Isa. 53:5 AV).
"Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed" (1 Pet. 2:24 AV). (This is not about getting over a cold, cancer, or automobile accident. It is about being freed from the power of sin and its guilt, the sin-sickness of the unsaved human.)
"When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense" (Dr. David L. Cooper).
"The grammatical sense, in (Karl A. G.) Keil's understanding is the simple, direct, plain, ordinary, and literal sense of the phrases, clauses, and sentence" (Walter C. Kaiser, Jr.). "Thou shalt understand, therefore, that the Scripture hath but one sense, which is the literal sense. And that literal sense is the root and ground of it all, and the anchor that never faileth, whereunto if thou cleave, thou canst never err nor go out of the way. And if thou leave the literal sense, thou canst but go out of the way" (William Tyndale).
E. Make a distinction between plain literal language and figurative-literal language
. . 1. If the language is plain literal, seek to find out what the word denotes or indicates plainly (Eph. 6:4, provoke not your children to wrath).
. . 2. If the language is figurative-literal, seek to learn what the word or passage connotes or implies (Eph. 6:14, having on the breastplate of righteousness).
. . 3. What is the interpretive key suggested by the image or likeness so vividly portrayed? (John 10:7-10; Jesus = shepherd = door).
F. Expect an abundance of figurative language (not figurative interpretation unless indicated)
Do not be overwhelmed by this, but when it occurs, wind out what the words or the passage means.
G. The Literal Method is Correct because:
. . 1. The Bible passage does not lie to or misdirect the reader
. . 2. It is logical, not nonsensical.
. . 3. The Bible makes sense throughout when interpreted this way.
. . 4. If the interpretation is not literal, it is impossible to communicate or agree on what the passage means.
. . 5. Personal experience bears out the normal interpretation through better understanding of God's mind, God's Ways, and lives spiritually changed.
. . 6. The Lord Jesus Christ interpreted Scripture that way (Mt: 22:43,44) . . 7. Paul interpreted Scripture that way (Heb. 7:17 cf Ps. 110:4; Heb. 8:8-13 cf. Jer. 31:31-34; 1 Tim. 5:18 cf Deut 25:4 and Lk. 10:7)
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Now, Jesus educated His disciples to discern figurative language by taking them aside to illustrate His figures of speech in the parables (sower and the seed) and other teaching (David's son being his Lord). By the time He got to the moments described in John 6, they were accustomed to it. So when He said as in the 35th verse moment, ". . . he that cometh to me shall never hunger . . ." Jesus is equating "coming to him" (to follow Him for Spiritual comfort and to be taught Spiritual truths that satisfy our longing for knowledge of Him and His heart) with "not hungering" (that is, He is figuratively spiritual bread, man doth not live literally by bread alone but also by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of Jesus/God, taken into the soul and spirit for spiritual nourishment) which is the same figuratively as "eating My flesh."
That is normal, literal interpretation of figurative-literal language.
This whole literal approach is denied, disdained, and decried by adherents of the allegorical approach to interpretation of what a Bible passage means, from which comes the inescapable disagreements seen on this forum between the Romanists and the evangelicals.
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The above is my adaptation of the treatment of hermeneutics in Lesson 3 of Dr. Fred Wittman's book "Here's How The Bible Can Make Sense To You Today," (click here to see) freely available from Happy Heralds, Inc.
Using the methods contained in this book will help one escape the logical but irrational and unspiritual arguments employed by the followers of Origen and the Alexandrian school of false unbiblical theologians since the end of the second century AD until now.
>> . . .(Walter C. Kaiser, Jr.).
"Thou shalt understand, . . . <<
>> Do not be overwhelmed by this, but when it occurs, wind find out what the words or the passage means. <<
>> . . 6. The Lord Jesus Christ interpreted Scripture that way (Mt: 22:43,44)
. . 7. Paul interpreted Scripture that way (Heb. 7:17 cf Ps. 110:4; Heb. 8:8-13 cf. Jer. 31:31-34; 1 Tim. 5:18 cf Deut 25:4 and Lk. 10:7) <<
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