Question: John 6

[GhostKid]

After readubg this how do Protestants deny thie real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist?

 

[princess_ballet]

I've asked some myself. The only answer I get was that Jesus was just using it as a metaphor....

Talk about reading between the lines...

 

[GhostKid]

I'm just wondering what others things that seem so INCREDIBLY straight forward that has been interupted by people?

 

[hsilgne]

You may want to ask this question in a protestant forum.

I believe in the Real Presence and I agree, it's as clear as day. Matter of fact, the first protestant believed in the Eucahrist.

Anywho... I would imagine there are many protestants at CF most willing to share their thoughts on this with you.

 

[Angeldove97]

Because they're able to interpret the words as they feel God has led them to and have found it to mean that they're just remembering the Sacrifice--- instead of reliving it during Mass.

 

[hsilgne]

I'm just wondering what others things that seem so INCREDIBLY straight forward that has been interupted by people?

There are many, many. That`s what happens when we attempt to interpret scripture without taking into account the Traditions handed to us directly from the Apostles. That was their job. Simply put, that's why Jesus left us the Church. To keep us on the right path.

 

[david01]

I heartly second the idea that posting this question in a Protestant forum will provide some answers for you. As a Protestant, I have no need to find any answer to this question than what the Lord Jesus Himself gave in the context of the chapter. John 6:60-65. Read it for yourselves.

 

[selfintercession]

In today's society and culture it's easier for people to accept metaphors and symbolism than it is for them to accept the supernatural -- even if it's right there in front of them. The thing is, it's already (sadly) becoming a stretch to believe in God these days We do have a lot of work to do and we're way behind schedule.

 

[JoabAnias]

I'm just wondering what others things that seem so INCREDIBLY straight forward that has been interupted by people?

What I have found is pretty much every doctrine the CC has been handed down in relation to explicit and literal translation is rejected by someone.

The seven Sacraments are the most common explicitly Scriptural doctrines that are rejected but there are also many Scriptures that OSAS, and Sola Fide for example disregard. There is little alternative but to do so without valid ordination, secession and historical tradition. It becomes rather irrational though when one honestly admits Gods word is binding.

Selective theology to further a bias or agenda is blatant disregard of Gods word that carries into ignorance and indoctrinations which may or may not remain culpable. St. Paul warns about departing from whats handed down in the beginning of the Church as well as admonishing fallen away Christians and the luke-warm. We can protest Gods word and will all we like but it will not change Gods mind because God changes not. It is we who must change.

I would recommend Karl Keating's book on Fundamentalism or any talk by Dr. Scott Hahn.

 

[WarriorAngel]

Not only is scripture clear...
BUT every ECF after revered the Eucharist.

Its only a modern day 'hypothesis' that Him stating
'Eat my flesh' could be figurative like
when He calls Himself the vine and the Gentiles
and so forth are grafted in.

O yea, they think He was using metaphor.

ALTHO the question is....
WHY would He??

 

[InTheCloud]

Not all Protestants deny the Real Presence, Lutherans, most Anglicans and many Methodists do believe in the Real Presence even if they explain that in a different way that Catholics.
The Memorialist Lord Supper was created by Zwingli, and is a hallmark of most evanglical low church protestants today.
However the historican evidence of both Essene Judaism, the Early Church Fathers, especially those that were disciples of the man that wrote (or most likely dictated) John 6 says John 6 was literal.
I fact as Bruce Childs, a Episcopalian expert in the "Historical Jesus" states in Rabbi Jesus, Jesus words in John 6 might have been the reason what Judas and other disciples betrayed him and why Caiphas wanted Him dead. Is hard to believe things would have gotten so serious if Jesus words have been only symbolic as the memorialists say. Remember drinking blood was a major sin in Judaism. Just ask the Jehova Wittnesses.

This is one of the thing that puzzles more about Evangelicals, and the main reason I will never be one. They often insist people take Genesis 1 to 11 literaly despite the huge evidence in science against doing that and despite there was no consensus in the Early Church. Neither St Augustine and Origen were YEC.
In the other hand, John 6 is symbolic despite the general consensus in the Early Church to the contray position and despite historical evidence that that might have been the real reason for the Cruxifiction.

 

[JoabAnias]

Not all Protestants deny the Real Presence, Lutherans, most Anglicans and many Methodists do believe in the Real Presence even if they explain that in a different way that Catholics.
The Memorialist Lord Supper was created by Zwingli, and is a hallmark of most evanglical low church protestants today.
However the historican evidence of both Essene Judaism, the Early Church Fathers, especially those that were disciples of the man that wrote (or most likely dictated) John 6 says John 6 was literal.
I fact as Bruce Childs, a Episcopalian expert in the "Historical Jesus" states in Rabbi Jesus, Jesus words in John 6 might have been the reason what Judas and other disciples betrayed him and why Caiphas wanted Him dead. Is hard to believe things would have gotten so serious if Jesus words have been only symbolic as the memorialists say. Remember drinking blood was a major sin in Judaism. Just ask the Jehova Wittnesses.

This is one of the thing that puzzles more about Evangelicals, and the main reason I will never be one. They often insist people take Genesis 1 to 11 literaly despite the huge evidence in science against doing that and despite there was no consensus in the Early Church. Neither St Augustine and Origen were YEC.
In the other hand, John 6 is symbolic despite the general consensus in the Early Church to the contray position and despite historical evidence that that might have been the real reason for the Cruxifiction.

I think you would really appreciate Dr. Scott Hahn. Have you listened to any of his stuff?

 

[narnia59]

In answer to the original question, it's a puzzle to me, but the general defense of their position is found in verse 63 of that chapter -- "The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life." They use this to therefore prove that Jesus wasn't speaking literally, because if "the flesh counts for nothing" then Jesus couldn't have been speaking literally.

The biggest problem with this (besides from being incorrect) is Jesus has been speaking about his own flesh all throughout this chapter and how we must eat it. If you therefore conclude that he didn't mean this literally because he then says "the flesh counts for nothing" and here he is also talking about his flesh (which you must eat) you must also conclude that the flesh of Jesus counts for nothing. Since his flesh and his blood poured forth on the cross as sacrifice for our salvation, my feeling is when he said "the flesh counts for nothing" he was speaking about our flesh, not his. His focus at that point had shifted to the disciples and their problem with belief.

I personally would not want to have to present my defense to him on judgment day that I professed that his flesh counted for nothing. Which in my view, when one uses that verse to justify he isn't speaking literally about his own flesh, this is what they are actually saying. They have to be.

 

[InTheCloud]

I have read Scott Hann's The Lambs Supper and Hail Holy Queen. But on John 6 I rely on the Bible read with historical evidence at hand.
Sola Scriptura, with I do not believe (maybe Prima Scriptura but not Sola) falls in the falacy that a text can be interpreted alone without a cultural context. As any student of Linguistics and Semilogy knows, that is a logical fallacy. You will end puting your own ideas and saying that the Holy Spirit did.
On John 6 literality. Another evidence comes from the Early Christians pagan enemies. Roman hisptorian Plinius who was critical of Nero Ceasar, said that Nero was a bad person who did bad things but that he was right in persecuting the Christians becasue they were cannibals, they ate the flesh and blood of a executed leader.
I doubt he would have said that if the Early Christians did not took John 6 in a literal way.

 

[david01]

The great conundrum is that if John 6 is to be taken quite literally, one must be eating literal flesh and blood. As has been pointed out in other threads here, much current theology revolving around the doctrine of transubstantiation takes an Aristotelian view of the bread and wine such that the "accidents" (i.e. the bread and the wine) remain unchanged (as is easily proven by a simple scientific test of these things before and after consecreation) but that the bread and the wine are really and actually transformed into flesh in blood in a metaphysical sense only. Thus, one partakes of physical bread and wine and not literal flesh and literal blood, although both are indeed flesh and blood in a metaphysical sense.