As we approach Holy Week, the question naturally arises: does it matter that Christians agree on all the various teachings Jesus left us? Isn’t it sufficient that we all “love” Jesus, and the rest is just details? Let me focus on one aspect in particular: The Eucharist.
In John 6, Jesus says a stunning 13 times in nine verses, in one form or another: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.” This is not just “details,” but an issue that is at the heart of salvation! If true, wouldn’t this be one of the greatest reasons to be Catholic?
Now most Protestants insist that Jesus wasn’t speaking literally here. But ironically, Martin Luther and fellow reformer Ulrich Zwingli would dispute bitterly over this exact point, Luther insisting Jesus was speaking literally, and Zwingli adamantly opposing him.
When some further argued that Jesus was also speaking symbolically when he said, “this is my body,” at the Last Supper, Luther severely criticized them: “Who but the devil, hath granted such a license of wresting the words of the holy Scripture? Who ever read in the Scriptures, that ‘my body’ is the same as ‘this is a sign of my body’? Or, that ‘is’ is the same as ‘it signifies’? What language in the world ever spoke so?”
Returning to John 6, closer examination of this passage simply does not admit a symbolic interpretation, and on several levels.
First, the context. Jesus has just miraculously fed over 5,000. Not good enough. The Jews want a greater sign to confirm he is the Messiah: “what sign do you do, that we may … believe you? … Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness.”
Jesus’ reply: “I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna … and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die.”
Now if Jesus’ answer here is simply a symbolic talk about “eating” his body, that is not a very convincing “sign” when compared to Moses’ feeding of over a million Jews in the desert for decades.
But this is not symbolic talk. Jesus is literally saying that if they eat his actual body and blood, they will live forever. And the Jews get that. The Jews grumble, and Jesus knows why. They are taking him literally. Rather than backing off and saying, “hold on, just using figures of speech here,” he intensifies his language. He becomes more insistent, and the Greek words he uses become more graphic, more visceral – literally to chew and gnaw. Not remotely the flowery language of symbolism.
Finally, many leave. Jesus knows exactly why they are leaving, and he lets them go. Clearly, he meant exactly what he said.
Interestingly, in places where Jesus does use symbolic bread language and his disciples misunderstand – like Matthew 16:5-12, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees” – Jesus immediately sets them straight. He doesn’t do this in John 6.
Another objection involves John 6:63: “the spirit … gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” Some suggest this is evidence that Jesus was indeed talking symbolically all along. But nothing could be further from the truth!
For starters, something that is a spiritual reality is as true as anything gets. For example: God himself (who John 4:24 tells us “is spirit”), heaven, and the angels. Saying that something has a spiritual understanding doesn’t remotely suggest symbolism – on the contrary, nothing could be more real!
Additionally, when Jesus says, “the flesh is of no avail,” he is absolutely not talking about his flesh. He’s talking about “the flesh,” St. Paul–style. Again, he’s talking about a “fleshly” or natural/earthly understanding of the spiritual realities he has just revealed. A “fleshly” understanding cannot possibly comprehend these truths.
St. Paul clarifies this perfectly in 1 Corinthians 2:12-15: “we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might understand … spiritual truths ... The unspiritual (i.e., fleshly) man … is not able to understand them.”
Perhaps you still think a symbolic interpretation of John 6 is possible. So what if we could ask someone who knew St. John intimately and find out exactly what he meant here – maybe one of his best friends, or his finest disciple?
In fact, we can: St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch – one of the greatest Christians of the early Church!
In his letter to the Romans (AD 110), he exclaims: “I desire the Bread of God, which is the Flesh of Jesus Christ … and for drink, I desire His Blood.” In his letter to Smyrna, he warns: “Take note of those who hold heterodox [heretical] opinions … they do not confess that the Eucharist is the Flesh of our Saviour, Jesus Christ.” Wow!
The testimony from the first centuries of Christianity does not end there. St. Justin Martyr (AD 150), considered the greatest second-century defender of the Christian faith, writes: “the invocation having been made, the bread becomes the body of Christ and the wine the blood of Christ.” He then adds that “the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer … is both the Flesh and the Blood of … Jesus.”
St. Irenaeus – arguably the greatest theologian of the post-Apostolic period, and a student of St. John’s disciple St. Polycarp – would teach: “He (Jesus) has declared the cup, a part of creation, to be His own Blood … and the bread … His own Body” (Against Heresies, AD »195).
St. Athanasius, the great defender of Christian Trinitarian orthodoxy, would write: “when the great and wondrous prayers have been recited, then the bread becomes the Body and the cup the Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ … the Word descends on the bread and the cup, and it becomes his body.”
In fact every Church Father who wrote on this subject believed in Jesus’ Real Presence in the Eucharist.
Stunningly, it would be Martin Luther himself who would give testimony to this unanimous belief of the early Church: “Not one of the Fathers, though so numerous… ever said, ‘It is only bread and wine’; or, ‘the body and blood of Christ is not there present’ … Certainly in so many Fathers … the negative might at least be found in one of them had they thought the body and blood of Christ were not really present: but they are all of them unanimous.”
Profound words from the father of Protestantism about the early Church’s constant belief and teaching about the Real Presence. Stay tuned for Part 2 and some stunning truths and insights from the early Church in my next column.