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On the Literal Interpretation of John 6

 

What did Jesus mean by “Whoever eats my flesh 

and drinks my blood has eternal life”?

 

Gary Hoge

 

The Jews also misinterpreted Christ’s words too literally:

 

51“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

 

52Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

 

53Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

 

54Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.

 

55For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.

 

56Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.

 

57Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.

 

58This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever.”

 

59He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

 

60On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”

 

61Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you?

 

62What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before!

 

63The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life” (John 6:51-63).

 

Christ was still in possession of both His real body and blood when He instituted the Eucharist, therefore it is impossible that these are the actual and real body and blood of Christ.

 

It was also impossible for him to walk on water or through walls. I guess you don’t believe those things either?

 

They are symbols. Any child can reason that out. That grown ups accept Jewish misinterpretation when Christ emphatically denied such nonsense is a marvel, absolutely incredible.

 

What is incredible to me is how easily you dismiss the very words of Christ just because you don’t understand them and can’t believe them. And if “any child can reason that out,” did you ever wonder why it never occurred to the people to whom Jesus was speaking to assume that he was using a metaphor? It turns out, there’s a good reason, a reason that’s easily overlooked by speakers of modern English.

 

If I said to you that someone was “pulling my leg” or “twisting my arm,” you would know exactly what I meant, because these are common figures of speech. You would know that I meant that someone was joking with me, or that they were trying to pressure me. But if I said to you, “eat my flesh” and “drink my blood,” you wouldn’t know what I meant, because these phrases have no meaning for us (apart from the literal meaning). They are not common figures of speech in our language. But they were established figures of speech in Jesus’s culture. They meant “attack” or “revile.” We see this in Scripture:

 

When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell. (Psalm 27:2, KJV).

 

“Why do you pursue me as God does? Will you never get enough of my flesh?” (Job 19:22).

 

For this reason at that time certain Chaldeans came forward and brought charges against the Jews. (Dan. 3:8) [The footnote in the NASB says that the phrase “brought charges against” is literally, “ate the pieces of”]

 

The king then gave orders, and they brought those men who had maliciously accused Daniel (Dan. 6:24). [Again, the footnote in the NASB say that the phrase “had maliciously accused” is literally, “had eaten the pieces of”]

 

“Then I said, ‘Listen, you leaders of Jacob, you rulers of the house of Israel. Should you not know justice, you who hate good and love evil; who tear the skin from my people and the flesh from their bones; who eat my people’s flesh, strip off their skin and break their bones in pieces; who chop them up like meat for the pan, like flesh for the pot?’” (Micah 3:1-3).

 

These will hate the harlot and will make her desolate and naked, and will eat her flesh (Rev. 17:16, NASB).

 

I suppose the closest thing we have to this in our language is when we use the phrase “chew someone out” to mean, “speak harshly to someone.” In any event, in the language of the Bible, to eat someone’s flesh is to attack him. That’s why the crowd didn’t think Jesus was speaking metaphorically. In this context, and in this language, it couldn’t have been a metaphor. They concluded that Christ must be speaking literally (“eat”) because in their language the metaphorical interpretation (“attack”) would have been nonsense. If Christ were speaking metaphorically, he would be saying,

 

“I tell you the truth, unless you attack the Son of Man and villify him, you have no life in you. Whoever blasphemes me and curses me has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

 

The crowd appears to have ruled out the metaphorical interpretation immediately, and no wonder! It would have made no sense. But if Jesus meant to introduce some new metaphor, different from the one already in common use, and if he didn’t bother to tell the crowd what he was doing, then he was not only being obtuse, but downright deceptive. And to then let the crowd abandon him and march off to eternal damnation (“whoever denies me before men . . .”) over a misunderstanding caused by His own deliberately misleading use of a common Semitic idiom, well, that is more than I can accept.

 

Also, your interpretation ignores the flow of this whole passage. Remember, this all started when the people challenged Jesus to give them a miraculous sign, and reminded him that Moses gave the people manna in the desert (John 6:30-31). Jesus responded by comparing himself figuratively with the manna:

 

“For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. … I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. … Here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.”

 

Now, up to this point, Jesus was indeed speaking metaphorically, and now he explains the metaphor: “This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” This is our Lord’s own interpretation of the metaphor. “Bread” equals “flesh.” The bread that comes down from heaven is his flesh, which a man may eat and not die.

 

Once Jesus explained the metaphor, “the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’” Now, at this point, if your interpretation were correct, and the “bread of heaven” was a metaphor for Christ’s flesh, which in turn was a metaphor for something else, Jesus should have said, “You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about eating my flesh? Do you still not understand? How is it you don’t understand that I was not talking to you about eating my actual flesh?” (loose paraphrase of Matt. 16:8-11).

 

But Jesus didn’t do that, did he? Instead, he became even more graphic: “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” Something that’s lost in our English translations is the fact that in verse 54, Jesus emphasizes the literal force of His statement by switching from the Greek word φάγητε, which means simply “eat,” to τρώγων, which is a more graphic word, meaning “to crunch, eat, chew.”

 

The people took Jesus literally, and they were right to do so, but they did misunderstand him in one sense. They apparently thought he was going to hack off an arm and toss it to them to eat. So he said, “Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before?” In other words, “You will eat my flesh and drink my blood, but this body you see with your eyes will be in heaven, so it isn’t going to happen the way you think.” That was as much of a correction as Jesus was willing to make, but still the people wouldn’t accept it, and they left.

 

Would you have left with them?