glorydaz
Well-known member
Second, how is the drinking and eating of Christ's body and blood, symbolic? As with any good argument or point, you need to bring sufficient evidence to such a claim.
Now here is where the pitchforks will appear. Take the Last Supper, in context, with John 6. Christ, talking to a multitude, says "Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will have no inheritance with me." And the people pondered and began to murmur. Why? Because, they understood His words to mean a literal consumption of His literal body and blood! But rather than correct them, since He knew their ponderings, He stated the same thing two more times. "Unless you eat my body and drink my blood...." At no point does Christ correct the people's thinking. Any time, in all of Scripture, there was a misunderstanding, or a parable, it is clearly addressed, or stated as such. So why, would John, the author who lived with Christ, not add clarification here? Why would Christ, when the people left Him, not correct them, since they had just "misunderstood" Him?
The logical rationale would be that they did not misunderstand Him. That He was speaking literally. Combine that with the Last Supper, and you get a literal Communion, as the RCC holds.
Actually, Jesus made it very clear, and repeated Himself. It's impossible for it to be any clearer. Those who believe are those who eat and drink of the body and blood which He gave for the life of the world. It's the believing that gives life. The Jews didn't get it because they didn't believe.
John 6:32-35KJV Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. 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.
John 6:47-51 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.