The Grammatical Structure of "This is my body."

[Ain't Zwinglian]

Within Christendom, the words “This is my body” has been interpreted mainly three different ways: literally, symbolically, and/or metaphorically. Which one is correct?

I shall argue for the literal meaning Jesus’ words, using the grammatical argument (the copula) along with a proper understanding of the usage of Figures of Speech.

Understanding how figures of speech gives meaning to language is fairly straight forward as taught in any college class in Semantics. Semantics is the study of how language derives and gives meaning to the listener/reader.

The function of a figure of speech is divided into two distinct categories. Either they are ornamental or they expand meaning of a word or concept. Examples of ornamentation are rhyming words, words with similar sound but difference sense, redundancy, exaggeration, alliteration, parallelism, etc. Examples of expansion of the meaning of a word would be metaphor, simile, synecdoche, analogy, allegory, metonymy, etc.

In order to understand what figure of speech is operative in “This is my body” we need to know to copula-grammatical structure of Jesus’ words.

A copula is a non-action verb. The copula’s function is to connect the subject and the predicate nominative or predicative adjective of a sentence. Most often, the copula is the verb “to be” but more complex copular constructions, use copular based verbs such as grow, stay, feel, sound, etc.

The usage of the copula fulfills one of the most basic functions of language. It allows people by simple and ordinary means to describe their world and experiences in a direct way.

The function of the copula only does two and only two things. It either describes or renames the subject of the sentence.

Examples of copula-predicate nominatives which renames the subject of the sentence.
▪ The baby is a boy.
▪ The car is a Ford.
▪ The grass species is dichondra.
▪ Les Misérables is a novel by Victor Hugo.

Examples of copula-predicate adjectives which describe the subject.
• The baby is sickly.
• The car is green.
• The grass is dying.

Recognizing metaphors within the copula grammatical construction is easy. Metaphors are ALWAYS found in the predicate nominative. The metaphor expands the meaning of the subject of the sentence.

• Herod is a fox.
• The seed is the Word.
• I am the door.
• The Lord is my shephard.
• The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hid in a field.
• You are the salt of the earth.
• We are the clay, You are the potter

When Jesus said, “This is my body” he is using a copula-predicate nominative construction. The “body” renames the personal pronoun “this” for bread. However, this is not a metaphor as Jesus is not trying to expand the meaning of the word “body.’ The correct figure of speech Jesus is using is a synecdoche (substituting a part of the whole). The bread which is a part, is substituted for the whole body of Christ. This is how I come to the literal meaning of Jesus’ words.

A word substitution from “is” to “represents” or “symbolic” by definition destroys the copula. A predicate nominative can only exist with the verb “to be.” If someone were to state “This represents my body” the word “body” is turned grammatically into a direct object, and therefore does not and can not rename the subject.

Affirming the literal meaning via synecdoche, allows for Jesus' copulative grammatical construction to exist naturally without re-interpretation, even though His words are very difficult to understand.

 

[Chesterton]

In the gospel of John, every English translation has something like this:

For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
For My flesh is real food, and My blood is real drink.
For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink.​

And verse 66 tells us that originally there were more than twelve disciples. Because of the hardness of this truth, "From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him." Christ would not let men walk away from Him based on this type of misunderstanding. Believing He would makes Christ inept and irresponsible.

 

[Ain't Zwinglian]

Whether John 6 is eucharistic is an open question for me. There are good arguments on both sides on this issue. I am not sure. It has been many years since I studied John 6, and at my age forgot most of the main arguments or the components of the argument.

 

[HTacianas]

Whether John 6 is eucharistic is an open question for me. There are good arguments on both sides on this issue. I am not sure. It has been many years since I studied John 6, and at my age forgot most of the main arguments or the components of the argument.

John 6 is the lengthiest exposition on the Eucharist found in the new testament. John is in agreement -again- with Philo of Alexandria in that the Logos is, and was, that "soul nourishing" and "incorruptible food" that nourishes. Your OP is something of a lengthy discussion explaining how "this is my body" means "this is my body". "This is my body" is the summation of John 6. Paul was also in agreement when he said:

1Co 10:16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?

He asks rhetorically, "is it not...the body of Christ"? Which is the same as to say "this is [his] body".

 

[prodromos]

"Eat my flesh" as a figure of speech has a particular symbolic/metaphorical meaning in Hebrew culture. To eat someone's flesh means to destroy them, so if we claim Jesus was not speaking literally it leaves us with a serious problem in interpreting Jesus' words.

 

[Roymond]

The literal meaning is prefigured at the very start of Jesus'/Yehu's ministry:

[John declared] "“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! "

The Passover lamb was the core of Israel's identity, the festival established around it a rehearsal of how Israel came to be a nation: death passed over, and they were kept safe. Every Jew knew the essential thing about the Passover lamb, right down to the child who asks, "Why is this night different?": the lamb is to be eaten. Cooked, the lamb had no blood, it was just the meat, the flesh; the blood had been used to mark their doors for protection from Death. So when John proclaimed that Jesus was the Lamb of God, that God's people would be eating His flesh was an inevitable conclusion.
Then John adds that this Lamb "takes away the sin of the world". Every Jew knew how sin was taken away: by the shedding of blood. So John tied together the lamb that provided deliverance from death with the blood that takes away sin, and with both of these he indicates that Jesus is the One who won't just cover sins, as the sacrifices had done for so long, but take sin away.
The Body and the Blood, right there at the start.

 

[The Liturgist]

Indeed, John 6 ought to be enough to dispel Zwinglianism and Memorialism, but the strange thing is the reluctance of people to take our Lord at his word. Indeed, Richard Hooker, an early Anglican theologian who was relatively high church for the 16th century said something to the effect that “surely it is impossible to love our Lord while eating Him bodily.” But that is precisely what Christ tells us to do.

 

[Roymond]

Indeed, John 6 ought to be enough to dispel Zwinglianism and Memorialism, but the strange thing is the reluctance of people to take our Lord at his word. Indeed, Richard Hooker, an early Anglican theologian who was relatively high church for the 16th century said something to the effect that “surely it is impossible to love our Lord while eating Him bodily.” But that is precisely what Christ tells us to do.

Luther argued Jesus wasn't talking about the Eucharist at that point because the Eucharist hadn't been instituted yet, and that Jesus was talking abut something in the context, i.e. connecting to Jesus in faith.
'"There is not a letter in it that refers to the Lord's Supper. Why should Christ here have in mind that Sacrament when it was not yet instituted? The whole chapter from which this Gospel is taken speaks of nothing but the spiritual food, namely, faith. When the people followed the Lord merely hoping again to eat and drink, as the Lord himself charges them with doing, he took the figure from the temporal food they sought, and speaks throughout the entire chapter of a spiritual food. He says: "The words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life." Thereby he shows that he feeds them with the object of inducing them to believe on him, and that as they partook of the temporal food, so should they also partake of the spiritual.'

And further:
'The whole New Testament treats of this spiritual supper, and especially does John here. The Sacrament of the Altar is a testament and confirmation of this true supper, with which we should strengthen our faith and be assured that this body and this blood, which we receive in the Sacrament has rescued us from sin and death, the devil, hell and all misery'

So to Luther these are words about faith and trust in Jesus for spiritual food which eventually find their fulfillment in the Lord's Supper but aren't directly talking about it.
Zwingli's problem was that he was a humanist first and a Christian second, so he forced the words of Jesus to be spiritualized, not just here but also at the Lord's Supper itself.

As for Hooker, I've never been impressed with him as a theologian, so that flippant remark doesn't surprise me.

Of course today many Christians take John 6 as pertaining to the Eucharist because John wrote late when the Eucharist was well-established and scholars see this as putting words in Jesus' mouth to explain the developing theology of the Sacrament. I would offer another view: that given the heavy evidence in John that the writer was privy to things the Lord said that the other Gospel writers didn't get or record, this is just another instance where Jesus shared with John a lesson that for whatever reason the other Gospel writers weren't moved to write about (there is sound evidence that the John of the Gospel was not the brother of James but a much younger disciple who lived in Jerusalem).

Just a final note: a professor at Concordia Senior College in Fort Wayne once said of the John 6 discourse that it was not directly about the Eucharist, but was an arrow shot at that target so that when after Jesus' death when the disciples gathered for a new celebration of that same Supper the arrow landed in the center of that celebration and thus raised the level of understanding of both sets of our Lord's words. That's seemingly a take-off from Luther's position, and one I find fits the whole situation well.

 

[PsaltiChrysostom]

Just a final note: a professor at Concordia Senior College in Fort Wayne once said of the John 6 discourse that it was not directly about the Eucharist, but was an arrow shot at that target so that when after Jesus' death when the disciples gathered for a new celebration of that same Supper the arrow landed in the center of that celebration and thus raised the level of understanding of both sets of our Lord's words. That's seemingly a take-off from Luther's position, and one I find fits the whole situation well.

Dr. Kurt Marquart of blessed memory?

 

[Roymond]

Dr. Kurt Marquart of blessed memory?

Actually Dr. Waldemar Degner

Gerhard Waldemar Degner

Gerhard Waldemar Degner, American Theology educator. Ordained to ministry Lutheran Church, 1950. Fulbright scholar, 1960. Board of directors Park Center, Fort Wayne, since 1986. Member Society Biblical Literature, American Institute Parliamentarians (board directors), 356 Registry Club.

prabook.com

http://www.ctsfw.net/media/pdfs/waldemardegner.pdf

 

[BillMcEnaney]

In examining the later doctrine of the eucharist it will be convenient, as in Chapter VIII, to begin with the ideas currently entertained about the Lord's presence ih the sacrament. Eucharistic teaching, it should be understood, at the outset, was in general unquestioningly realist, i.e. the consecrated bread and wine were taken to be, and were designated as, the Saviour's body and blood (Kelly 440).

Kelly, J.N.D. Early Christian Doctrine. Peabody: Prince Press, 2003.

 

[Roymond]

Kelly, J.N.D. Early Christian Doctrine. Peabody: Prince Press, 2003.

Kelley is one of the books I kept on my shelves when it became necessary to put 98% of my library into storage.

 

[BillMcEnaney]

Kelley is one of the books I kept on my shelves when it became necessary to put 98% of my library into storage.

It's excellent and easy to read. You might enjoy Paulist Press's translations of early-Church documents. For example, a volume includes the First and Second Apologies by St. Justin Martyr.