THE HOLY EUCHARIST: John 6 The Bread of Life Discourse By Harold Blando

On the Eucharist: John 6 Eucharistic Discourse.

Have you been wondering why many followers of Christ left Him? Precisely, they cannot accept the fact that we should eat (trogon, as in chewing like how animals eat) His flesh and drink His blood. Get ready guys… Let us examine John 6. But first… —- Who is Jesus? He is the good Shepherd (John 10:11), Jesus gave a new law or He is the law-giver (John 14:34-35) and Jesus is the bread of life and the manna who came down from heaven (John 6:33-35).

Jesus is the good Shepherd, the Law-giver and the manna. Well, what’s its significance? Turn your Bible in Hebrew 9 and you will see what were inside the Ark of the Covenant —-Heb 9:3 “Behind the second veil there was a tabernacle which is called the Holy of Holies, 4having a golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold, in which was a golden jar holding the manna, and Aaron’s rod which budded, and the tables of the covenant; “

Did you see? Inside the Ark were the rod symbolizing the Pastorship of God, jar of manna symbolizing the food that God gave the Israelites and the Covenant which God gave to the people of Israel. Did it ring a bell? All these things are attributed to Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Good Shepherd (John 10:11, Psalm 23 with a rod), Jesus is the law-giver as He gave us a new commandment to love one another (John 14:34-35) and Jesus is the manna, the bread of life who came down from heaven (John 6:33-35).

That is why the Early Church Fathers called Mary as the ark of the New covenant (will not be discussed here).

Understand this first and you will understand John 6 as I am formulating my discussion in my own. I’ll edit this post later after I have finished. —-

In John 6:30-31 the people asked the Jesus to give them the bread that their ancestors ate in the desert. And then in John 6: 35 Jesus said “I am the bread of life”. He reiterated this claim in John 6: 51I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

You see how clear the explanation was? The bread that i will give is my flesh! Oopps… Our Jewish friends did not like what they heard so they grumbled among themselves (John 6:52) “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

And Jesus emphasized it again in John 6: 53Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. We could go on and on and the Jews still did not believe Jesus. John 6: 54Whoever eats* my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. John 6: 55 “For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.” says it all. It is true food, it is not symbolic. And as the Protestant friends would ask John 6:60 “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” and because of this John 6:66 “As a result of this, many his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.”

In John 6: 63 “It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” It is the flesh and not My flesh.

1. If the disciples did not understand it, Jesus could have explained it to them as He did to other parables but it turns it the Eucharistic discourse is not a parable.

2. If the disciples understood to be symbolic they could have not grumbled among themselves. In Matthew 5:27-30 Jesus said if your eyes causes you to sins plucked it out or cut your arms if it causes you to sin but no one contested Jesus because they understood it as symbolic. But in John 6, it is what it is there was no explanation needed, many followers couldn’t understand thus they left Jesus.

3. If you will go to the Apostles of the apostles of Christ, St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Irenaeus, St. Justin Martyr, Pope St. Clement I, St. Polycarp, you won’t find them teaching that the Eucharist was symbolic.

4. If it is only symbolic and meant “believe in Jesus Christ”, St. John will not make this long discourse because John had said that already in John 3:16. St. John wrote this Gospel against the gnostics who denied the Eucharist. this is attested to by St. Ignatius when he said “They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes” (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2–7:1 [A.D. 110]).

Still remember Hebrew 9:4? In the Ark of the Covenant, the bread was an ordinary bread, in the New Covenant, the bread was not ordinary bread but the flesh and blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.