Why John 6:47-58 Does Not Refer to the Lord’s Supper
47 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
48 I am that bread of life.
49 Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.
50 This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.
51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
52 The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
53 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.
54 Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
55 For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
56 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.
57 As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.
58 This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.
The Lord here draws from the Old Testament miracle of manna coming down from heaven. If the Lord’s Supper were on his mind, the proper analogy would have been the Passover not the manna from heaven. The Lord’s Supper was instituted on the night of the Passover. The above statement is preceded (vv. 47-48) and followed by the analogy of the manna from heaven (v. 58).
“As the Living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.”
The words “AS…I live by the Father, SO…”
shows a direct parallel between how the
Son lives by the Father and how the believer lives by the Son. If Jesus meant
that believers had to LITERALLY eat the Son to live then this direct parallel
would demand that Jesus had to LITERALLY eat the Father to live because they
are to live off of Him exactly how the Son lived off the Father.
How does the Son “live by the Father”? He lived His life in complete DEPENDENCE on
the Father just as the physical body lives by complete dependence upon food.
The analogy of “eating” and “drinking” Christ means the same thing. As physical
life is completely DEPENDENT upon eating and drinking literal food and liquids,
so, spiritual life is completely DEPENDENT upon PARTAKING of Christ by
faith. The use of words like this are
common in the Old and New Testaments and are not meant to be understood literal:
“Blessed are they that
HUNGER and THIRST after righteousness”
“Thy words were found,
and I did eat them” – Jer. 15:16
“eat the bread of sorrow”
– Psa. 127:2
“eat the bread of
wickedness and drink the wine of violence” – Prov. 4:17
“Desire the sincere milk
of the word” I Pet. 2:2
“Drank of that spiritual
rock that followed them” – I Cor. 10:4
“If any man thirst let
him come unto me and drink…he spake of the Holy Spirit” – Jn.
7:37-38
All of these reference are spiritual
analogies that are not to be understood literally. If Jesus has wanted us to understand what He said concerning
“eating” and “drinking” of Himself literally, then, His direct parallel “So…AS”
would mean that He too literally eat and drank of His Father. However, if that
direct parallel was explanatory of what He intended for us to understand by “eating” and “drinking” then, He was
merely using this common analogy to mean we ought to live DEPENDENTLY upon Him
as He lived DEPENDENTLY upon the Father
and just as the body lives DEPENDENTLY upon food by “eating” and “drinking” so
we are to live DEPENDENTLY upon Him by partaking of Him by faith.
Does Jesus
Command us to Violate the Law of God?
Leviticus 17:14 For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof: therefore I said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh: for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off.
Acts 15:20 But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.
If Christ means for us to understand His
words in a literal sense, then He would be commanding us to violate what the
Law of God clearly forbids both in the Old and in the New Testament.
Those who rejected Christ in this very
context, rejected Him due to the fact that they chose to understand His words
literally and were offended because they knew that such a command violates the
Law of God. What was Jesus’ response to their offense?
“It is the spirit that
quickeneth: th eflesh profiteth nothing: the WORDS that I speak unto you, they
are SPIRIT, and they are life” – Jn. 6:63
His closing parallel analogy with the
Father demonstrated clearly that what He was saying was to be understood
SPIRITUALLY not LITERALLY. His clear explanatory remarks to their response “the
WORDS that I speak are SPIRIT” shows that He never intended them to understand
Him in a literal sense.
Would
Jesus Command the Impossible?
By
using the present tense, the Lord commands them to “eat” and “drink” of Him at
the time He is speaking. This tense shows that Christ expected them to obey him
at that very moment.
How was such a command possible if
understood LITERALLY without killing Him on the spot and cannibalizing Him? However,
if by “eating” and “drinking” He merely was using figurative language to call
them to partake of Him by faith just as the body partakes of food by eating and
drinking, then, this was something they could do immediately.
Furthermore, the Lord’s Supper had not
even been instituted yet. If this referred to the Lord’s Supper then there is
no way they could understand what He was talking about or obey it as it would
be impossible for them to do either.
Moreover, when He did institute the Lord’s
Supper there is no possible way that the Supper could be understood this way
simply because Jesus partook with them and His blood was not yet LITERALLY shed
nor His body LITERALLY sacrificed. The only way the Lord and the disciples
could have partaken of His blood and body when He instituted it was by
REPRESENTATION rather than by LITERALISM.
“This REPRESENTS my
blood…This REPRESENTS my body…”
Those who are considered authorities by all
parties in the use of metaphorical language tell us that the very essence of a
metaphor is the use of “to be” verbs
such as “is” and “are” as well as “am.”
“I AM the door” – He REPRESENTS a door
“I AM the true vine” – He
REPRESENTS a vine
“You ARE the salt of the
earth” You REPRESENT salt
“You ARE the light of the
world” – You REPRESENT light
“I AM the light of the
world” – He REPRESENTS light
“I AM the bread of life” – He REPRESENTS
bread
“This IS my body” – Bread
REPRESENTS His body
“This IS my blood” – Wine
REPRESENTS His blood -
The only possible application of His
language at the time He was speaking in John 6 is spiritual rather than
literal. The only possible application of His language at the time He
instituted the Lord’s Supper was metaphorical rather than literal. Any attempt
to demand a LITERAL sense in either case makes it impossible for those hearing
to obey.
Would
Jesus Teach more than One way of Salvation?
If the language Jesus uses in John 6 is to
be understood literally and is to be applied to the Lord’s Supper than the
conclusion must be that there can be no “eternal life” apart from partaking of
the Supper:
Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you,
Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life
in you.
Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life;
and I will raise him up at the last day.
Paul says very clearly there is but ONE
GOSPEL of salvation and that anyone who preaches another is ACCURSED (Gal.
1:6-9). Paul claims that His gospel is the SAME gospel preached by all the Old
Testament Prophets (Acts 26:22-23; Heb. 4:2) which is BY FAITH. Peter claims that his gospel is the same
preached by all the Old Testament prophets (Acts 10:43) which is BY FAITH.
Jesus claimed that all of the Old Testament prophets preached salvation in Him
BY FAITH (Lk. 24:44-46; John 5:39,46). However, there was no Lord’s Supper
before Matthew 26
Before the Lord instituted the Supper He
preached that eternal life was BY FAITH in Him (Jn. 3:16) and offered such
salvation before the Supper was ever instituted. Jesus said long before He
instituted supper that “I am the way the truth and the life, no man cometh to
the Father but by me” (Jn. 14:6).
In the disputed text before us (Jn. 6) each
time before He spoke about “eating” or “drinking” He clearly explained that
such words were metaphorical of BELIEVING in Him rather than literally eating
or drinking Him:
“Then said they
unto him, Lord give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of
life: he that COMETH to me shall never hunger; and he that BELIEVETH on me
shall never thirst.” – Jn. 6:34-35
“Verily, verily, I
say unto you, He that BELIEVETH on me HATH EVERLASTING LIFE. I am the bread of life.” – Jn. 6:47-48
Those who would add baptism or the Supper
to the gospel of salvation cannot possibly be preaching the same gospel that
the Old Testament prophets preached as the church and its ordinances did not
exist. However, the gospel of Christ, Paul, Peter and all the Apostles was the
SAME gospel preached by all the Old Testament Prophets. They simply pointed the
faith of the hearer FORWARD to the cross whereas we point BACK to the cross but
the same faith in the same Savior by the same way.
Just like the Old Testament ordinances
“that could never take away sins” LITERALLY (Heb. 10:1-4) so likewise the
ordinances of the church take sins away only figuratively (2 Pet. 3:21).
Would
Christ be Offered Up More than Once?
Hebrews 10:10 - By
the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ once for all.
Hebrews 9:26 - For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
Heb. 10:12 - But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;
If the words of Christ are taken
LITERALLY in John 6 and applied to the Supper, then, Christ is being LITERALLY offered up countless of times to take
away sin. However, if these words in John 6 as well as the words uttered in the
Supper are taken figuratively then there is perfect harmony between the gospel
and John 6 and the gospel and the Supper. The Supper is simply a MEMORIAL that
looks back at the finished sacrifice and helps remember the cost of our
salvation. The writer of Hebrews says that those who would crucify Christ AGAIN
put him to “open shame” (Heb. 6:6) as such repeated sacrifices are nothing less
than repudiations of the sufficiency of His first death.
The
Conclusion of those Who did Not Leave Him
Those disciples who chose to understand
His words LITERALLY all forsook the Lord (Jn. 6:60-61,66). However, those who
continued to follow Him concluded that His “words” were intended to mean they
were to PARTAKE of Him BY FAITH:
“Then said Jesus
unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to
whom shall we go? Thou hast the WORDS OF ETERNAL LIFE. And WE BELIEVE that thou
art that Christ, the Son of the Living God.” –
Jn. 6:67-69
The entire context of chapter six deals
with the nature of saving faith (Jn. 6:29, 35,37-40,47,64-65,68-69). Saving
faith is described a number of metaphorical ways (eating, drinking, coming,
drawing).
Those who choose to take His words
literally involve themselves in such absurdities as cannibalism, eating the
Father, denying the gospel, re-sacrificing Christ over and over again,
demanding the impossible and ignoring the common use of such metaphorical
language. However, if you understand these metaphors and analogies to simply
teach that you must PARTAKE of Christ through faith then the Bible harmonizes
completely and there is no such absurdities to deal with.