Pastor Larry said:
There is no easy or delicate way to put this. You are simply wrong on this. The eating and drinking do not explain what is meant by coming and believing. It simply isn't so.
No, my friend, you are the one who is simply wrong here. Jesus indeed proceeds from metaphor to more specific, concrete, reality, and in that progression He doesn't stop at simply "coming to" or "believing in" Him, but proceeds to clarify in a more specific way how we are to come to Him. I wonder if you assume that "coming to" Him must mean something like 'accepting Christ' as Saviour in the modern 20th century neo-evangelical sense--in that all we need to do to "come to" Him is to 'walk an aisle', make a 'personal decision' to follow Him, or to say a 'sinner's prayer' or something to that effect. (Or if, on the other hand, you might respond by trotting out the proof texts Calvinist's use to support monergism in the "coming to" and "believing in" Christ). However, Jesus's declarations to these disciples (who were already physically following Him) was that they must specifically do something else in their 'coming to' Him, and that was to eat His flesh--the
same flesh He was giving for the life of the world and that Christ declared was 'food indeed'--and drink His blood which Christ declared was 'drink indeed'.
The early Christians, of course, believed there was more to "coming to" Christ than making a one-time-decision to follow him. They believed that coming to Christ
in faith included being buried with Him in the waters of baptism as well as approaching the Lord's Table to partake of His precious Body and Blood. There was no false dichotomy between 'faith' (as in intellectual assent to certain facts) and 'trust' (as in obedient action) as there is sadly among
some modern Protestant doctrinal systems today.
Again, simply wrong. We have dealt seriously with it and that is how we can demonstrate that your position is wrong.
No, you have
not dealt seriously with this, because you continue to ignore Christ's plain explication that the bread He's about to give
is HIS FLESH, the
same that He was going to
"give for the life of the world". In context, and grammatically, the
same flesh that He identifies the bread as being, is the
same flesh He was going to give for the life of the world, and is
the same flesh that one must eat to have eternal life and to abide in Christ. If one explains away the "eating" and "drinking" statements as being only metaphor, then to be consistent one must explain away the "giving" of the
same flesh (which Christ declares we are to eat) "for the life as a world" as only metaphor as well, something that Christ meant not to be taken literally. In fact the one group in the early history of the Church who consistently interpreted both as metaphorical was the gnostic docetists, who denied both Christ's bodily death in the atonement and the real communion of His flesh and blood in the bread and wine of the Eucharist.
I agree, but you have plainly misidentified what he said. The only reason I figure for this is your unwillingness to submit to Scripture because it would require you to go against what you have always believed and against your authority in the church. That's unfortunate.
Well you would "figure"
wrong then, Larry. I grew up being taught and believing exactly as you regarding this passage, so I "always believed" the interpretation
you are expounding. (Perhaps you didn't notice I said is much in my last post, or else just chose to ignore it) However, when I decided to take the passage at face value, and to
stop submitting to the novel traditions of men (ie Zwinglian memorialism),
that was when I became willing to submit to the SCRIPTURE,
not to some Baptistic misinterpretation of the same.
Then why have you argued against it here? If you believe it, then why not simply espouse what he says instead of trying to make a case for something else?
Sadly, it is
you who is arguing against the plain meaning of Christ's words here. (There's really no other way of putting it)
Yes, and the passage declares this eating and drinking to be believing. You have simply believed wrongly on this.
Actually,
nowhere in the passage does Christ (or anyone else) declare that "eating His flesh" and "drinking His blood" is reducible to (or is merely a metaphor for) simply "believing". You have invented a 'declaration' in the passage that isn't there. That's called reading one's views
into the text.
I have not had to perform any exegetical gymnastics. You are simply wrong. As we have demonstrated. Christ said that the right response to the bread of life was to come and believe. The eating and drinking statements are part of the metaphor. It could hardly be more obvious.
Wrong. In fact, the Jews of the time were already familiar with the metaphorical use of "eating flesh" as such is found is Scripture. For example, in Micah 3:2-3 it says: "You who hate good and love evil; who strip the skin form My people, and the flesh from their bones; Who also
eat the flesh of My people..."
In other words, "eating" one's "flesh" was a metaphor for violently oppressing that one (or in similar scriptures, 'reviling' one). So it would make no sense for Jesus to speaking metaphorically here, as the disciples would have heard him saying: "In order to come to me you must revile or oppress me," or "he who reviles Me will have life". They realized then that the common metaphorical use of "eating one's flesh" didn't apply here which is why they asked how Christ could give His flesh to them to eat--they understood that He was getting more
literal in His discourse. In answer to their query, Christ didn't retreat into back metaphor, but continued to be more literal in His identification of the bread He was giving with His own flesh, the self-same He was giving for the life of the world, the self-same He declared "food indeed", and the self-same He said we must eat (even using the Greek word for "munch") to have life.
I urge you to get back to the text itself and abandon this argument that you have embarked on here.
And I urge you to do the same. The argument I am making here is supported by the text (not to mention the consensus of orthodox interpretation up until the 1500s), while yours seeks to distort the text to support your own private interpretation.
NE "bites Christ" not even the faithFUL disciples.