<<The mystery is how and why otherwise intelligent people take figurative speech literally.>>
Actually, the mystery is how and why otherwise intelligent people take literal language figuratively. Well, maybe not so much a mystery; they just don't want to believe Jesus meant what He said just like the many disciples who quit following Him after he told them that they had to eat His flesh and drink His blood in order to have eternal life. (John 6:66)
(Curious how that chapter and verse number worked out, eh?)
Here's the passages plus some early comments:
MT 26:26 While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take and eat; this is my body."
MT 26:27-28 Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
MK 14:22 While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take it; this is my body."
MK 14:23-24 Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, and they all drank from it. "This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many," he said to them.
LK 22:19 And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me."
LK 22:20 In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.
In John 6 with 13 bold statements, Jesus first declared that He is the bread of life. (This is a metaphor. Obviously Jesus was not a talking loaf of bread.) Then he explained the meaning of the metaphor by stated that His flesh is the bread; and that it is necessary to eat His flesh and drink His blood to have eternal life. There are no other examples of a similar extended metaphor in any of Jesus’ sayings. The language, rather than being a metaphor, is more a driving home of a point which is difficult to accept. (Which is the precise reaction of many of those who heard His words; they could not accept them.) It is of note tht Jesus did not attempt to explain any parabolic or metaphoric meaning to the disciples as He had done in other instances. Indeed, the apostles do not even question Jesus as to the meaning of His words. This lack of questioning suggests that they did not receive His words a metaphor or parable which would require that the symbols be explained in order to understand the meaning of the speech. It suggests that they understood them to be words plainly spoken and having no hidden or symbolic meaning.
JN 6:35 Then Jesus declared,
THE BREAD OF LIFE – the metaphor
(1) "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.
48 (2) I am the bread of life. 49 Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died.
50(3) But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die.
51(4) I am the living bread that came down from heaven.
(5) If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.
THE BREAD IS MY FLESH – the metaphor explained
(6) This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."
JN 6:53 Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth,
(7) unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
54(8) Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
55 (9) For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.
56(10) Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. (See John 15.)
57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so
(11) the one who feeds on me will live because of me.
THE BREAD OF LIFE – the lesson summarized
58(12) This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but
(13) he who feeds on this bread will live forever."
Paul’s words concerning the Eucharist confirm that the bread and wine are the actual Body and Blood of the Lord rather than a symbol or a prop in a ritual of recalling.
1CO 10:16 Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?
1CO 11:23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me." 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me."
1CO 11:27 Therefore, 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. 28 A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. 29 For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself.
Now apply what Paul has told us at 1CO 4:6, “Now, brothers, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, "Do not go beyond what is written." Then you will not take pride in one man over against another”
How then can it be said that the bread and wine are merely symbols when there is no mention of symbols anywhere in scripture, but rather, the repeated statement “This is my body” and “This is … my blood” and, , JN 6:53"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. JN 6:54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. JN 6:55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. JN 6:56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. JN 6:57 Just 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.”?
IF they are symbols, is "eternal life" also a symbol?
Where is there an indication that any of Jesus’ words should be taken as meaning, “This is a symbol of my body” or “this is a symbol of my blood”?
Early attestation to the Eucharist being the actual Body and Blood of the Lord.
Ignatius of Antioch (30-107 A. D. A disciple of the apostle John and Bishop of Antioch) in his Epistle to the Smyrnaens, Ch. VII: “Let Us Stand Aloof from Such Heretics” states; “They (the heretics) abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins,..”
He was taught by the John, the beloved disciple of Christ and, in this statement, he affirms the teaching of the apostles and Christ that the bread is Christ’s body.
Justin Martyr, the church’s first apologist, wrote in the first half of the 2nd century in his “The First Apology of Justin”, in Chapter LXVI.—Of the Eucharist. In it he reports what he was taught as a new Christian by the church. That would mean that the teaching he received was already established in the church. It is not some later innovation by the Roman church but was a part of the teaching of the apostles who taught what they learned from Jesus. It is God’s inspired teaching to the church by His Son, through the apostles to the church. And here it is:
“And this food is called among us Eucaristiva [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Savior, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, “This do ye in remembrance of Me, this is My body; ”and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, “This is My blood; ”and gave it to them alone.”
Irenaeus (120-202 A.D.), in his book Against Heresies,
Book IV Chapter XVIII.—Concerning Sacrifices and Oblations, and Those Who Truly Offer Them.
4…………..But how can they be consistent with themselves, [when they say] that the bread over which thanks have been given is the body of their Lord, and the cup His blood, if they do not call Himself the Son of the Creator of the world, that is, His Word, through whom the wood fructifies, and the fountains gush forth, and the earth gives “first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.”
5. Then, again, how can they say that the flesh, which is nourished with the body of the Lord and with His blood, goes to corruption, and does not partake of life? Let them, therefore, either alter their opinion, or cease from offering the things just mentioned. But our opinion is in accordance with the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn establishes our opinion. For we offer to Him His own, announcing consistently the fellowship and union of the flesh and Spirit. For as the bread, which is produced from the earth, when it receives the invocation of God, is no longer common bread, but the Eucharist, consisting of two realities, earthly and heavenly; so also our bodies, when they receive the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, having the hope of the resurrection to eternity.
Chapter XXXIII.—Whosoever Confesses that One God is the Author of Both Testaments, and Diligently Reads the Scriptures in Company with the Presbyters of the Church, is a True Spiritual Disciple; And He Will Rightly Understand and Interpret All that the Prophets Have Declared Respecting Christ and the Liberty of the New Testament.
2. Moreover, he shall also examine the doctrine of Marcion, [inquiring] how he holds that there are two gods, separated from each other by an infinite distance. Or how can he be good who draws away men that do not belong to him from him who made them, and calls them into his own kingdom? And why is his goodness, which does not save all [thus], defective? Also, why does he, indeed, seem to be good as respects men, but most unjust with regard to him who made men, inasmuch as he deprives him of his possessions? Moreover, how could the Lord, with any justice, if He belonged to another father, have acknowledged the bread to be His body, while He took it from that creation to which we belong, and affirmed the mixed cup to be His blood?
Book V, Ch. II. 2 states, “He (Jesus) has acknowledged the cup (which is a part of the creation) as His own blood, from which He bedews our blood; and the bread (also a part of the creation) He has established as His own body, from which He gives increase to our bodies.”
3. When, therefore, the mingled cup and the manufactured bread receives the Word of God, and the Eucharist of the blood and the body of Christ is made, from which things the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can they affirm that the flesh is incapable of receiving the gift of God, which is life eternal, which [flesh] is nourished from the body and blood of the Lord, and is a member of Him?—even as the blessed Paul declares in his Epistle to the Ephesians, that “we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones.” He does not speak these words of some spiritual and invisible man, for a spirit has not bones nor flesh; but [he refers to] that dispensation [by which the Lord became] an actual man, consisting of flesh, and nerves, and bones,—that [flesh] which is nourished by the cup which is His blood, and receives increase from the bread which is His body.
Chapter XXXVII
……………. And therefore the oblation of the Eucharist is not a carnal one, but a spiritual; and in this respect it is pure. For we make an oblation to God of the bread and the cup of blessing, giving Him thanks in that He has commanded the earth to bring forth these fruits for our nourishment. And then, when we have perfected the oblation, we invoke the Holy Spirit, that He may exhibit this sacrifice, both the bread the body of Christ, and the cup the blood of Christ, in order that the receivers of these antitypes may obtain remission of sins and life eternal.
Tertullian; On Prayer, Chapter XIX: “Of Stations.”
Similarly, too, touching the days of Stations, most think that they must not be present at the sacrificial prayers, on the ground that the Station must be dissolved by reception of the Lord’s Body. Does, then, the Eucharist cancel a service devoted to God, or bind it more to God? Will not your Station be more solemn if you have withal stood at God’s altar? When the Lord’s Body has been received and reserved each point is secured, both the participation of the sacrifice and the discharge of duty. If the “Station” has received its name from the example of military life—for we withal are God’s military —of course no gladness or sadness chanting to the camp abolishes the “stations” of the soldiers: for gladness will carry out discipline more willingly, sadness more carefully.
I wonder by what authority and for what reason these teachings of the very early church and the teaching of Paul and the very words of Jesus are refuted in order to say the bread and wine are merely symbols of His body and blood?
