You're proposing that Jesus was speaking figuratively. My example was one of hyperbole. Regardless, the context makes quite clear that Jesus was speaking literally in John 6.
•The Jews leave in disgust. Jesus makes no effort to explain that he's speaking figuratively.The Real Presence•The disciples say, "this is a hard saying. Who can accept it?" The question does not correspond to a figurative interpretation of the passage.
•The disciples leave in disgust. Jesus makes no effort to explain that he's speaking figuratively.
•Jesus asks the Apostles, "will you leave me also?" They do not answer. Peter speaks for the twelve saying, "Lord you have the words of eternal life." He answers with a statement of faith. He doesn't indicate that Jesus is speaking figuratively.
•A figurative interpretation contradicts other Scriptures:
•All related Scriptures indicate a literal meaning:The impossibility of a figurative interpretation is brought home more forcibly by an analysis of the following text: "Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed" (John 6:54-56). It is true that even among the Semites, and in Scripture itself, the phrase, "to eat some one's flesh", has a figurative meaning, namely, "to persecute, to bitterly hate some one". If, then, the words of Jesus are to be taken figuratively, it would appear that Christ had promised to His enemies eternal life and a glorious resurrection in recompense for the injuries and persecutions directed against Him. The other phrase, "to drink some one's blood", in Scripture, especially, has no other figurative meaning than that of dire chastisement (cf. Isaias 49:26; Apocalypse 16:6); but, in the present text, this interpretation is just as impossible here as in the phrase, "to eat some one's flesh". Consequently, eating and drinking are to be understood of the actual partaking of Christ in person, hence literally.
It is but natural and justifiable to expect that, when four different narrators in different countries and at different times relate the words of Institution to different circles of readers, the occurrence of an unusual figure of speech, as, for instance, that bread is a sign of Christ's Body, would, somewhere or other, betray itself, either in the difference of word-setting, or in the unequivocal expression of the meaning really intended, or at least in the addition of some such mark as: "He spoke, however, of the sign of His Body." But nowhere do we discover the slightest ground for a figurative interpretation. If, then, natural, literal interpretation were false, the Scriptural record alone would have to be considered as the cause of a pernicious error in faith and of the grievous crime of rendering Divine homage to bread (artolatria) — a supposition little in harmony with the character of the four Sacred Writers or with the inspiration of the Sacred Text. Moreover, we must not omit the important circumstance, that one of the four narrators has interpreted his own account literally. This is St. Paul (I Cor. 11:27 sq.), who, in the most vigorous language, brands the unworthy recipient as "guilty of body and of the blood of the Lord". There can be no question of a grievous offense against Christ Himself unless we suppose that the true Body and the true Blood of Christ are really present in the Eucharist. Further, if we attend only to the words themselves their natural sense is so forceful and clear that Luther wrote to the Christians of Strasburg in 1524: "I am caught, I cannot escape, the text is too forcible" (De Wette, II, 577).•A figurative interpretation is illogical:
For figures enhance the clearness of speech only when the figurative meaning is obvious, either from the nature of the case (e.g. from a reference to a statue of Lincoln, by saying: "This is Lincoln") or from the usages of common parlance (e.g. in the case of this synecdoche: "This glass is wine"), Now, neither from the nature of the case nor in common parlance is bread an apt or possible symbol of the human body. Were one to say of a piece of bread: "This is Napoleon", he would not be using a figure, but uttering nonsense. There is but one means of rendering a symbol improperly so called clear and intelligible, namely, by, conventionally settling beforehand what it is to signify, as, for instance, if one were to say: "Let us imagine these two pieces of bread before us to be Socrates and Plato". Christ, however, instead of informing His Apostles that he intended to use such a figure, told them rather the contrary in the discourse containing the promise: "the bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world" (John 6:52), Such language, of course, could be used only by a God-man; so that belief in the Real Presence necessarily presupposes belief in the true Divinity of Christ. The foregoing rules would of themselves establish the natural meaning with certainty, even if the words of Institution, "This is my body — this is my blood", stood alone, But in the original text corpus (body) and sanguis (blood) are followed by significant appositional additions, the Body being designated as "given for you" and the Blood as "shed for you [many]"; hence the Body given to the Apostles was the self same Body that was crucified on Good Friday, and the Chalice drunk by them, the self same Blood that was shed on the Cross for our sins, Therefore the above-mentioned appositional phrases directly exclude every possibility of a figurative interpretation.•A figurative interpretation would result in an inferior type. By definition, Old Testament types are inferior to what they foreshadow in the New Testament:
Cardinal Bellarmine (De Euchar., I, 3), moreover, calls attention to the fact, and rightly so, that if in Christ's mind the manna was a figure of the Eucharist, the latter must have been something more than merely blessed bread, as otherwise the prototype would not substantially excel the type.
It is quite clear in John 6 that Jesus is speaking literally of faith and is using the analogy of eating food to indicate how completely and thoroughly the blessings and benefits of his sacrifice become ours. The believer does fully and completely participate in all the spiritual blessings Christ has for us (Eph 1). But these are ours by faith, not by the mouth.
You have not answered how the human body of Christ can be everywhere present. That is a very strange concept of the human body. It destroys the physicality of the new immortal, incorruptible spiritually enable body of the resurrection at the last day when our bodies will be made just like Christ's body. Furthermore, acc. to Romans 8 the physical stuff of all creation will participate in our adoption, the redemption of our bodies at the last day. If our bodies are not localized but everywhere present then all creation could also be everywhere present.
•A figurative interpretation contradicts other Scriptures:---Assumed - not proven.
•All related Scriptures indicate a literal meaning:----Assumed - not proven.
•A figurative interpretation is illogical:----Human conjecture - assumed and not proven.
It is clear that we have very different concepts of created reality which includes our bodies.
•The Jews leave in disgust. Jesus makes no effort to explain that he's speaking figuratively.•The disciples say, "this is a hard saying. Who can accept it?" The question does not correspond to a figurative interpretation of the passage.
•The disciples leave in disgust. Jesus makes no effort to explain that he's speaking figuratively.
•Jesus asks the Apostles, "will you leave me also?" They do not answer. Peter speaks for the twelve saying, "Lord you have the words of eternal life." He answers with a statement of faith. He doesn't indicate that Jesus is speaking figuratively.
This representation of the passage in question conveniently leaves out (and even denies) the fact that JESUS did provide an explanation for His words in verse 63 ...
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.It is to this explanatory statement by JESUS that Peter refers to when he later says, when the apostles are asked if they will leave also ...
John 6:68 Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.69 And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.