The 6th Chapter of John has always
been a strong witness in favor of the Catholic Dogma of
Transubstantiation. Many non-Catholics, including James White,
have found this Catholic Dogma hard to accept. On his website,
White writes:
John 6:35 Then Jesus
declared, "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." Jesus says that He is the bread of life. Obviously,
as we will see, this is connected with what comes later in
regards to the manna in the wilderness. On an apologetic
basis, we need to remember the importance of this passage in
dealing with Rome's misuse of the passage. That is, Rome
tries to make John 6:50ff to present transubstantiation.
However, the key to the entire passage is right here: the
first reference to eating and food is CLEARLY spiritual.
Mr. White is partially correct.
Jesus IS speaking spiritually in verse 35 when He
speaks of Himself as the OBJECT of faith under the image
of food and drink. Using food in a figurative sense to signify
the nourishment received from doctrines was common in the Old
Testament and therefore easily comprehended by His listeners.
Proverbs 9:5: "Come, eat my
bread, and drink the wine which I have mingled for you."
Ecclesiasticus 15:3:
"With the bread of life and understanding, she shall
feed him, and give him the water of wholesome wisdom to
drink: and she shall be made strong in him, and he shall not
be moved"
In fact, from verse 26 through
verse 51, the necessity of believing in Him is the main point of
Jesus' teaching. But here is what Mr. White and many other
Protestants miss. When these terms are used figuratively as we
just saw in verse 35, they are used in relation to
"food" given by THE FATHER.
32 Then Jesus said to them:
Amen, amen I say to you; Moses gave you not bread from
heaven, but my FATHER GIVETH YOU THE TRUE BREAD from
heaven.
66 And he said: Therefore did
I say to you, that no man can come to me, unless it be given
him BY MY FATHER.
Faith in Christ is necessary to
have eternal life and we can only receive this gift from the
Father.
Matthew 16:16 Simon Peter answered
and said: Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God. 17
And Jesus answering, said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon
Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to
thee, but my Father who is in heaven.
Starting in verse 48, we see a
critical transition though from a figurative sense to a literal
sense when speaking of this bread from heaven. When we reach
verse 52, we notice that now Jesus speaks about food which HE
WOULD GIVE.
52 If any man eat of this
bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I WILL
GIVE, is my flesh, for the life of the world.
This distinction in gift givers
naturally means a difference in gifts or it would be pointless to
make the distinction in the first place. It is here where Christ
begins speaking literally about giving and consuming his body and
blood and even uses a different and much stronger verb meaning to
munch or gnaw in order to emphasize this fact. It is also here
where some of his followers leave him. James White, along with
others, have followed along with these first protesters. The
Catholic Church on the other hand has followed Peter's example
and repeats with him:
"Lord, to whom shall we
go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we have believed
and have known, that thou art the Christ, the Son of
God."
