Posted on 07/09/2015 9:33:36 AM PDT by RnMomof7
A cannibal eats the flesh of its victim. That IS its substance.
I reiterate, John 6 CANNOT be a discussion of the eucharist, its was years before the Last Supper, when the sacrament was instituted.
In the early years of the Church of Jesus Christ --not the Methodist Church, or the Baptist Church or the Catholic Church, etc, the Church of Jesus, the Bride of Christ, the Body of Christ-- the breaking of bread and cup of remembrance wine was most often done in someone's home. Passover is meant to be observed in the home. The family of God will soon be in 'The Father's House'. God is coming in the Air to get all His temples and gather them to Himself and head back to His House for a really big celebration with family members.
I'm going to do that Remembrance this very evening, in the company of my little tuxedo cat. She won't know what I'm mumbling about, but I will, and more importantly GOD will.
Your reply is a joke. Jesus then goes on to say that you need the bread that God provides. The entire rest of the chapter is dedicated to eating Jesus’ body.
But you have confirmed my point for me ...
Whether it was 1 year or several years ... it was before the sacrament was instituted ... so it could have been at most a foreshadowing.
And given that John does not mention the institution during the upper room discourse (John 13-17) ... it is inconceivable that John 6 is about the eucharist.
There is no cogent explanation that I have heard from any RC why John would mention it in John 6, but then fail to mention it in John 13-17.
Given the number of times Jesus mentions 'believe' in John 6 ... I suspect that your theology has blinded you to the main point.
When we devour food we eat all of it. Both what it truly is - its substance - and also its ephemeral accidents.
The Eucharist is not an act of cannibalism - not because of accidents vs substance, but because We eat Christ.
He is not dead flesh, but uttermost, living reality. He is the true Passover Lamb.
And - like the Jews in Egypt we eat Him to save ourselves from death. We eat of our Saviour, the true Lamb of God who is prefigured in the Passover meal.
Most of those walked away mumbling were probably slaughtered by the Romans, when Titus entered Jerusalem in 70AD and killed a million Jews there. Christians, those who took the Word of Life at His Word fled from Jerusalem while the Roman legions diddled outside the city for nine months while Vespasian returned to ROME to settle the Emperor question.
Jesus had warned them during the Olivet Discourse (Mark 13 and Matthew 24) and the earlier that day discourse in the Temple (see it in Luke 21) that when they saw the armies encamped about Jerusalem to flee the city. He went on to warn later generation to expect a much more horrible fate for mankind. But He gave Christians a hint that they were not appointed to God's Wrath and that they would be removed prior to the hour of 'testing', so they would not face the actual testing.
God has not appointed His family to suffer His wrath upon the sin-drenched earth. But He is only going to snatch away HJis family before pouring out His wrath.
And what do you as a Catholic believe He brought? he did say He had come to fulfill the law, not break it or end it. What did Peter say he saw that The Christ had for he and the few who remained, in John 6?
Other than the timing, you make a most brilliant point! Sad that some will focus upon the time thing and ignore the crucial Truth you showed openly.
The Synoptics (with the exception of Luke) targeted a Jewish or mixed audience. Saint John (OTOH) was targeting a Graeco-Roman audience.
It appears that John wrote His Gospel at a time when the specifics of the Eucharistic Liturgy were kept private (not that belief in the Eucharist was secret: just the specifics of the ritual itself).
The early Christians kicked out the unbaptized halfway through Mass, before the Eucharistic Prayers. That’s why the first half of Mass is called the “Mass of Catechumens”: it was the part of the Liturgy open to the public - to 'Catechumens' who were learning about Christianity.
However the Eucharist itself - the second part of the mass - wasn't open to the public.
This seems to have been for good and sufficient reason: there was great danger of exciting blasphemy. The Roman mystery cult dedicated to Mithras created a rite imitating or parodying the Last Supper. IIRC it involved the blood of bulls.
Also there were frequent accusations that the Christians were cannibals for feasting upon the Body and Blood of our Lord.
In such a milieu it would make sense to protect the Eucharist from abuse. For remember:
So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.
So - one theory is - that while John wrote at great length on the words spoken at the last Supper, he deliberately kept the details of the ritual of the Eucharist private - to preserve it from casual blasphemy and mockery by Romans.
After all: the Christians already had the other three Gospels, describing the most important moment of the Last Supper. Any enquiring Romans would learn about Christ's words on His Body and Blood from e.g. John, and find out later what the actual form of the Eucharist was.
Bkmk
For example, taking Aquinas as the paradigmatic expositor of transubstantiation, we do not metabolize the body of Christ when we digest the thing we put in our mouth. We metabolize the accidents, the baked flour, the long chain polysaccharides of which it is made. It lost the “form” of bread once we chewed it an turned it into a bolus of flour and saliva. And once the form is gone, the substance of the indivisible Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity is no longer there, because the miracle is the change of substance while the accidents of bread remain.
(Really, the best place to get the technicalities down is the Summa. One of the sneakiest aspects of the so-called "Enlightenment" was the changing of vocabulary. "Real" now refers to accidents. "Substantial" means something like "massive," another accident.)
If I name a lamb (as I once did) “Church Picnic”, have him slaughtered, quartered, and barbecued for the fall Church picnic, We're not eating “Church Picnic.” We're eating meat — delicious meat.
(Bear with me, I'm thinking on my feet here.)
So, the superstitious may think that in eating Chief Naku Penda from the next valley they are ingesting his courage and whatnot. But they're mistaken. They're eating people meat. The chief has gone to his reward and didn't hang around to be devoured. And what is happening instead is that his flesh is metabolized and whatnot. Body to body.
Because the “him” —the self, rather than the “it” — the sirloin, is a living body, as we read in Gen 2:7.
By contrast, what we eat in the Eucharist is the real and substantial “Him,” the living body. Cannibalism, despite the superstition of the pagans, is a kind of polar opposite. Instead of the self, all they get is meat. But we, instead of meat, get the self.
The passage where Paul speaks of “Christ our Passover Lamb” isn’t in your Bible?
In all three scenes recorded in the Gospel of Matthew the Gospel of Mark (probably the dictated Gospel of Peter) and the Gospel of Luke. Jesus calls the contents of the cup Wine, never His blood but wine. He stated clearly that the wine in the cup was to be drunk in remembrance of the blood of the new covenant to be shed for them the next day on the cross, and the fourth cup was poured out. Jesus Himself when Instituting the REMEMBRANCE used the WINE as the symbol of His blood shed for them and for us. At the actual instituting of the REMEMBRANCE the Lord Himself called the contents of the cup wine.
It would not be out of line to say that Jesus, knowing what trouble the disciples and which they held as questions from the months walking with Him, would clarify something as significant as John 6. For His friends, His closest followers who were, as best they could, 'down for the struggle'. He used the PAssove meal to institute the new covenant He was going to seal with His blood the next day, and He made clear the Truth of the bread and wine discourse from John 6 by passing among them pieces of bread He instructed to be eaten as a remembrance of His body about to be offered up BY HIM on the Cross for them. And he passed the cups of wine among them instructing all of them to drink from them because that wine in those cups, those Passover remembrance cups of wine, THAT wine was the symbol of His blood about to be shed for them.
Sitting at Passover table with His Disciples Jesus OUR HIGH PRIEST would not have violated the Levitical laws the night before His sealing the new covenant with His own Perfect and Righteous, full of His Life blood.
Folks can make alkl the fables up they want to, but the scene in John 6, as dartuser has stated so concisely, was not the establishment of the REMEMBRANCE COMMUNION! It may be what catholics point to as the establishment of catholic Eucharist, but that connects their ritual immediately tot eh curse upon any who drink blood, as clearly and unequivocally commanded BY GOD in Leviticus 3 and 17. The wine was made the symbol of His blood shed for us and He even said He would not drink WINE again until He drank it with them again in His Father's Kingdom. Read the Gospel passages for yourself. What is given in John 6 is not the establishment of THE REMEBRANCE. Jesus occasionally used sarcasm to address hardened hearts. He used that same technique with the hard hearts and those who He knew would not be all in for the mission.
BUT THE LORD did clarify in the John 6 scene, for those who remained, those who declared they were sticking with Him because He had the WORDS of eternal life. To them He clarified:
John 6:61And Jesus having known in himself that his disciples are murmuring about this, said to them, ‘Doth this stumble you? 62if then ye may behold the Son of Man going up where he was before? 63the spirit it is that is giving life; the flesh doth not profit anything; the sayings that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life; 64but there are certain of you who do not believe;’ for Jesus had known from the beginning who they are who are not believing, and who is he who will deliver him up, 65and he said, ‘Because of this I have said to you — No one is able to come unto me, if it may not have been given him from my Father.’66 From this [time] many of his disciples went away backward, and were no more walking with him, 67 Jesus, therefore, said to the twelve, ‘Do ye also wish to go away?’ 68 Simon Peter, therefore, answered him, ‘Sir, unto whom shall we go? thou hast sayings of life age-during; 69 and we have believed, and we have known, that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ [Young's Literal Translation]
Squirrel!
That is severely twisted logic. There is no transubstantiation. We do not eat the literal body and blood of Christ. Cannibalism has always been, and always shall be, an abomination.
Have you ever read that whole chapter ?
The bread of life discourse ended and no one left..
Jhn 6:60 Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard [this], said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?
Jhn 6:61 When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you?
Still no one left ...So Jesus continued .....
Jhn 6:62 [What] and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?
Jhn 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.
Jhn 6:64 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him
.
Jhn 6:65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.
Jhn 6:66 From that [time] many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.
They did not like hearing that salvation had to be given them and much like the manna in the desert, it was totally a gift of the Father.
They could not do anything on their own to earn it, they only had access to it by faith ( remember the Jews could only gather enough manna for the one days meals, and for 2 days on the day before the sabbath, they had to have faith in God to provide what was necessary for their life)
. The idea that salvation was all of God and not found in law keeping was blasphemy to the law oriented Jews that felt their salvation was based on their will, their law keeping etc....
So after those left that Jesus already knew would leave.. what happened??
Did Peter ask for some of "that bread ???
No because he and the others understood what Jesus had been teaching
67 Then Jesus said to the Twelve, 'What about you, do you want to go away too?'
68Simon Peter answered, "Lord, who will we go to? You have the words of eternal life.
69 and we believe; we have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.'
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