Hi everyone, welcome back to logical Bible study. This is where we take a look at the Gospel reading from today's Catholic Mass, and we give you the tools to do an exegesis on the text. What might the the literal sense of the text be? What's the author trying to communicate to the original audience? And that's where we always want to start as Catholics, because that's where the true original meaning is.
And today we're looking at a really interesting text which has generated a lot of discussion and informs Catholic teaching a great deal. So we're looking today at John chapter 6, verses 51 to 58. Jesus said to the crowd, I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever, and the bread that I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world. The Jews started arguing with one another, How can this man
give us his flesh to eat? Jesus replied, I tell you most solemnly, If you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you. Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life, and I shall raise Him up on the last day, for my flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink.
He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me, and I live in Him. As I, who am sent by the living Father myself, draw life from the Father, so whoever eats me will draw life from me. This is the bread come down from heaven. Not like the bread our ancestors ate, they are dead. But anyone who eats this bread will live forever. So this is part of the great bread of life discourse, and there's a whole lot going on in this discourse and it spans about 30 verses, and we're right
in the heart of it here. So prior to this, Jesus has been talking to the Jews about the manner in the wilderness because they placed a high value on that manner in the wilderness and they saw it as bread that God himself had provided from heaven, which is true. But now Jesus uses that to make a new point. Verse 51 I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will
live forever. So Jesus here says that unlike the Manor, to eat the Son of God as the one that has come down from heaven will give one eternal life, whereas the Manor couldn't. So Jesus here says I am the living bread, whereas the Manor was not really living bread. What does it mean to eat this bread? This is an interesting question, and of course we're going to see more of this as the teaching develops today.
In today's passage to eat the bread, while on one level it could refer to Jesus as taking Jesus in in a spiritual nourishment way, feeding on Jesus in a spiritual way. It could be that however, the words that Jesus uses in the coming verses, he kind of amplifies it a bit and it suggests that it's a much more literal kind of eating that Jesus has in mind. Notice Jesus says here, whoever eats this bread will live forever.
Now that's probably deliberately a reference to the tree of life in the Garden of Eden. The only other time we see this phrase about eating in order to get eternal life is in reference to the Garden of Eden. So Jesus opens up the way to immortality, which was lost in the Garden of Eden, and he now tells people that once again there is a way to enter eternal life and it's by feeding on him. Now Jesus gets a bit more specific in the second-half of verse 51.
The bread that I shall give is my flesh. So notice this, the bread from heaven isn't Jesus in general. It is his flesh that is the bread from heaven. So, so far Jesus has said to achieve eternal life one must eat his flesh. And he then says the flesh that I will give for the life of the world. When does Jesus give his flesh for the life of the world? Well, the obvious answer is through his death on the cross. That was a substitutionary sacrifice where Jesus gave his
life for the world. However, that flesh that Jesus used to die on the cross, that can't easily be eaten. We can't really eat Jesus flesh on the cross as such. So Jesus probably has in mind here a different event that's closely connected to his death on the cross, but which does enable us to eat his flesh. And that would be the Eucharist. We see this obviously unpacked more at the Last Supper when Jesus says this is my body given for you.
And that is, think about it. That's what Jesus says at the Last Supper. This is my body. It's the same kind of language here. Jesus here says I will give my flesh for the life of the world. And at the Last Supper he says this is my body. In fact, at the Eucharist, the same Greek word is used for this is my body given for you? It's an interesting Greek word,
therefore, for. And so perhaps the implication here is that when Jesus says I will give my flesh for the life of the world, there's a deliberate connection here to the Eucharist. He knows that he's going to institute the Eucharist. So perhaps Jesus here intends to teach that the way we partake in his flesh is through the Eucharist. And that is certainly the Catholic Church's understanding of this passage.
So that prompts the crowd now listed here as the Jews, sort of the crowd who's interested in believing in Jesus. They start arguing with each other because he has just said you need to eat my flesh. The Greek here. For them, arguing is literally fought. It's quite an aggressive fight amongst the people. There's a big disagreement. And they're probably interpreting what he said in different ways.
So the thing they're arguing with each other about is this phrase, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? And that is a fair question. What do they mean by this? Well, there's two possible meanings here. They could be saying, how can he physically give us his flesh to eat, as in it's a physical science question. Or it could mean something like this. Why would he want to give us his flesh to eat?
Because to the Jews, some of them would be quite appalled by this idea that Jesus would want people to eat his flesh. Because according to the Jewish law set out in the Torah, Jews are not allowed to eat flesh or blood, or particularly flesh that has blood in it. And that's specified in Leviticus 17 and 19. So to the Jews, eating flesh of a human would be unthinkable. Jews would not do that. So they're just not sure why Jesus would suggest such a
thing. Now they're, if that's what they're thinking of, they're thinking of it in terms that are quite cannibalistic. Now, that's not what Jesus is teaching. Jesus is not saying whatever he's saying. He's certainly not saying you need to physically eat my physical flesh that you see right in front of you. He's not saying that. And as we go on to see, Jesus is talking about a different kind of eating and in particular he refers to himself as living
bread. So it's not a cannibalistic thing where the person is dead and you're eating their dead flesh. Jesus flesh is constantly living. He's the living bread. There's some other interesting things about this though that's worth looking at. Jesus doesn't correct them. He doesn't if they have misunderstood, he doesn't correct them. So when they say how can this man give us his flesh to eat if they had misunderstood, this would be his opportunity to correct them, which he does do
in other places. In fact, two chapters earlier in John chapter 4, verse 32 to 34, Jesus is talking about bread and they misunderstand what kind of bread he's talking about and he actually corrects them here. He doesn't correct the crowd. He seems to think that what they're saying is basically right. Their assumption that Jesus is trying to give his flesh for them to eat is correct and he doesn't. He doesn't try to correct them there, but he doesn't answer their question either.
How can this man give us his flesh to eat? He doesn't really answer that in this discourse. He only answers that in the Last Supper. And certainly at the Last Supper, a lot of the people that were there would have been here in this scene as well. So in the Last Supper they would have looked back on John chapter 6 and realised that the Last Supper is the fulfilment of what He promised about giving them His flesh.
Verse 53 He says, I tell you most solemnly, which means he's about to say something quite serious if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood. Now let's pause here Jesus adds in a new element that hasn't been in there before. So not only do people need to eat His flesh to inherit eternal life, they need to drink His blood. Notice the the physicalness of it. The object of the eating is His
actual flesh and blood. If you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you will not have life in you. So that means they won't have God's divine life if they don't eat His flesh and drink His blood. Now Jesus clearly here can't be teaching cannibalism because he's talking, as we know from other places in the Gospel of John. He's talking about divine life. He's not talking about physical immortality. He's talking about divine life,
living forever in eternity. That's the kind of eating that people can derive from his flesh and his blood. So it's not cannibalism. Anyone who does eat my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. So on the other hand, if you do eat his flesh and blood, you do have eternal life. Now, what does it mean to say eating Jesus flesh and blood? And this is the real question. There's two possible interpretations.
It could mean something spiritual, as in it's meditating on and following Jesus, recognising his identity, believing in him, following him. That's one interpretation. Or it could mean that Jesus is being a bit more literal here and Jesus is saying you need to literally eat his literal flesh and literal blood, something like that. Is there a way that we can work out which of the two he means?
There's arguments for both views and we want to look a bit about the pros and cons of each because this is such a an important text in understanding Catholic teaching. In fact, Catholic teaching on the Eucharist is based largely on John chapter 6 here. And so in this podcast where we look at the literal sense, the very words of the text, we want to talk about the fors and against of different ways of
understanding this text. So the first interpretation is that his medi he means meditating on and following him in a spiritual way. That's what it means to feed on Jesus. The biggest argument for this interpretation is, well, firstly because any physical interpretation might suggest cannibalism. I think we've dealt with that if we understand Jesus words correctly, he's not implying cannibalism.
But the other argument for suggesting that this might be a spiritual meaning that Jesus is intending is the context of what he's said so far up until this point in the sermon. His sermon has been about believing in him, believing that he's the Son of man and that will give you eternal life. So there is a strong case there. If he's continuing with the same
theme, that would make sense. But there's also some strong arguments to suggest that Jesus here on the literal level, when we look at what Jesus is trying to communicate, he is talking in some sense about literally eating his actual flesh and blood. So let's look at some arguments for that. So the Greek here suggests that Jesus is going for something a bit more physical than just a
spiritual eating of his flesh. The reason we say that is because the word that's used for eat here is trogos, and that has actually changed from the word he used earlier. Earlier in the sermon he used a very general word for eating when he was talking about the manner in the wilderness. But now at this point, from about verse 53 onwards, he
actually switches verbs. So his original hearers are certainly John's Original readers who read the Greek would have noticed a shift in Jesus meaning here. Trogos, the the verb that's used here for eat, is a very physical word. So the fact that he's changed verbs suggests that Jesus has actually shifted the conversation to a deeper level. Trogos is a very graphic word and it means to gnaw or chew. So very graphic kind of chewing
language. We know from other writings that in this time period, trogos was used to describe how animals eat. It's what animals look like when they're eating. So that would suggest that Jesus is communicating to his audience that he's referring to a
physical eating of some kind. Another argument that would suggest that he's talking here about physical eating is because if you follow the conversation up till this point, although it's true that he's been talking about following him up till this point, it seems that by this time most of the crowd that are still there already believe in Jesus. They believe that he is the Son of God, but it's this additional teaching that he's presenting about eating his flesh and blood
that they're struggling with. So they, it seems that a lot of the crowd doesn't have a huge problem with believing his identity. Now that might not be correct, but that's one thing to consider here. Another interesting point, and I think that this is quite convincing actually, is that if we want to say that when Jesus says you need to eat my flesh and drink my blood, that that
has a metaphorical meaning. The problem with that is we know that at that time period, the phrase to eat flesh and drink blood already had a metaphorical meaning to the Jews. In fact, if you look at the Old Testament, the phrase to eat flesh and drink blood is used in a metaphorical way, but it describes going to war. It describes the physicalness of going to war as in killing people, leaving blood in the
streets. We see that in Deuteronomy chapter 32, verse 42 and Ezekiel chapter 39 verses 17 to 18. So that is the Jewish metaphorical meaning at the time of Jesus of eating flesh and drinking blood. But that meaning doesn't make sense in this context. So I think that is a pretty strong indicator that we should rule out that the original readers would have understood this metaphorically. And then the last argument to make about this is the way that this is later understood in the
Bible itself. So later in the Old, in the New Testament, Paul explicitly says that communion meal is a participation in the body and blood of Christ. So that's in one Corinthians 10, verse 16. And then in one Corinthians 11, the next chapter, he gets even more explicit and emphatic about communion. He says that if you don't eat communion properly, you're guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. That's one Corinthians 11, verse 23 to 29.
So certainly Paul understood at least the Last Supper, when we do communion at the Last Supper, that that is in fact about Jesus flesh and blood. And so there is a reasonable connection between Paul's teaching and Jesus own words here. If Jesus mentions flesh and blood in John chapter 6, and then Paul mentions flesh and blood in one Corinthians 11, it probably means they're both thinking of the Last Supper. I think that's a strong argument
to make here. So if we add in all those different factors, it does seem that on the literal level, Jesus is talking about some sort of physical, literal feeding on his flesh and blood, though not in a cannibalistic way. And that latter interpretation, that it's a physical eating, is the Catholic teaching. The Catholic teaching, as most of you would know, is that Jesus really is talking about the Eucharist here. That's the Catholic teaching.
Jesus offers his flesh and blood on the cross, but then his body is resurrected to glory and it's his glorified flesh after he's resurrected and gone to heaven. That's the flesh that's given to us in the Eucharist. So in the Eucharist we're not eating Jesus bloody flesh on the cross. We're actually consuming in a sense when it's probably understood we're consuming his body that has been resurrected
and glorified. So it's the real substantial presence of Christ. And the Catholic phrase for the Eucharist that's often used to describe it is it's the source and summit of the Christian life. So Jesus finishes by saying that if you eat my flesh and drink my blood, I shall raise him up on the last day. And that's been discussed in previous days when Jesus used that same phrase, verse 55 for my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. So Jesus is probably contrasting
this food with the manner. The manner in the wilderness wasn't perfect and in a sense it's not real food and drink. Whereas Jesus flesh and blood is real food and drink. It's the true source of eternal life. On the other hand, it could be that Jesus here by using the word real, he's emphasizing that his body and blood really are food and drink. Verse 56, He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in Him. So this is quite a deep theological teaching.
Jesus is saying that for those who choose to eat his flesh and drink his blood, whatever that means it mean it brings about a real divine communion between themselves and Jesus. Not a fake communion, not just a spiritual nice idea. Someone who chooses to eat his flesh and blood actually brings about a real communion between themselves and Jesus. The word therefore remain, remains in me and I in Him, is
meno. In Greek and in John's Gospel, that word meno designates this mutual indwelling of the Father and the Son, this eternal relationship between the Father and the Son which people are invited to be a part of. We see similar language when Jesus talks about the vine. I'm the vine, your other branches remain in me. So that's a very similar language. And what we see here in John chapter 6 is a similar thing, but it actually takes it further.
It's Jesus saying that to remain in me, you must consume the Eucharist. That's how we put all this theology together. Verse 57. As I, who am sent by the living Father myself, draw life from the Father, so Jesus as the Son, the second person of the Trinity, derives all of his energy and his teachings. And in fact, his very life comes from the Father. So whoever eats my, whoever eats me, will draw life from me. Now that's a pretty radical claim.
Jesus says that through participating in his flesh and blood in the Eucharist, people will actually draw divine life from Jesus in the same way that he draws it from the Father. So it's like passing on that divine life down to us. That's brought out later in John chapter 17, verse 26, when he said Jesus says the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them. So that's what Jesus wants.
He wants us to be a part of this communion that he already has with the Father. We can say that This is why the Father instituted the Eucharist in the 1st place. It wasn't just a nice idea. God the Father actually wants all believers to have real physical access to this divine life. That's their inheritance. That's our inheritance as Christians, as his sons and daughters, to have this access to the to the divine life.
And he's instituted the Eucharist so that we can have regular access to that, to the very flesh and blood of Jesus. Verse 58, This is the bread come down from heaven. Not like the bred our ancestors ate, they are dead. But anyone who eats this bread will live forever. So Jesus is summarising his entire discourse. He's finishing up now and he sums it up by returning to the opening scriptural text. You remember this whole conversation started by talking about the manner in the
wilderness. And so Jesus returns to that here. Jesus main point is that unlike the manner in the wilderness, as good as it was, it could not give people everlasting life, even though it was bred from heaven. Whereas Jesus flesh is the true bread from heaven and it can bring eternal life. Notice that phrase here. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever. That will live forever phrase sounds like a kind of a fairy tale phrase. It's not used very often in the Bible.
It only occurs three times, twice in this discourse in John chapter 6, and one other place is in Genesis chapter 3 verse 22 in connection with the tree of life. Anyone who eats from the tree of life will live forever. The fact that that's the only place where these are mentioned implies a strong connection to the tree of life. So the tree of life originally bore fruit to the broad about
physical immortality. And the bread of life, according to Catholic tradition, is called the medicine of immortality. That's what the Eucharist is. It brings about divine, supernatural, eternal life. So I want to include this quote now from the Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture for the Gospel of John, which I think sums up this teaching on the Eucharist really well. It says the Holy Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life.
It is the real substantial presence of Christ among us, the Body and Blood, together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore the whole Christ is truly, really and substantially contained. According to the Council of Trent, at every Mass, Jesus gift of Himself to the Father on the Cross is made present again sacramentally in the Eucharist and offered to us as our food
for eternal life. Not only does the Eucharist unite believers to Christ, it also unites us to one another. As Henri du Lebak writes, the Eucharist makes the Church. If the Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church, the Eucharist is its beating heart, pumping Christ's blood through the members of His Body, the Church. If we are to grow in holiness and love, we must make the Eucharist the centre of our lives, because in doing so we make Christ the centre of our
lives. If we receive Christ worthily in the Eucharist and worship Him in Eucharistic Adoration, He will fill us with His grace and enlarge our hearts to love and serve more perfectly. Eucharistic worship and adoration does not detract from works of love. On the contrary, it is what enables us to do them.
In the 1st place, consider these words of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta. If we truly understand the Eucharist, if we make the Eucharist the central focus of our lives, if we feed our lives with the Eucharist, we will not find it difficult to discover Christ, to love him and to serve him in the poor. So that's an extended quote and it brings together Church teachings and various quotes there, but I think it summarises the Catholic teaching on the
Eucharist very well. So obviously, because this is such a central text in helping us understand the Catholic teaching on the Eucharist, as you would expect, there's a lot of catechism references which talk about it. So I just want to talk about a few of the ones you may not have heard before or possible connections to this verse that maybe aren't as obvious or that we haven't talked about in the
previous days. So let's start with paragraph 2837, and this is a commentary on the line from the Our Father, which says give us this day. Our Daily Bread, daily epiusios occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. Taken in a temporal sense, this word is a pedagogical repetition of this day to confirm us in trust without reservation. Taken in the qualitative sense, it signifies what is necessary for life, and more broadly every good thing sufficient for
substance. Taken literally, epiusios is super essential. It refers directly to the bread of life, the body of Christ, the medicine of immortality, without which we have no life within us. So that's a really interesting one that in, if you look at whether our Father is given by Jesus, the word that's used for that's translated daily is epiusios in Greek. And there's some discussion
about what that word means. And one of the legitimate connections that's been made because it basically means it's super abundant bread. It could be a reference to the Eucharist. And so that paragraph links it here to John chapter 6, where it says without if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of man, you do not have any life in you. So that's an interesting one. Paragraph 1406. This is a summary of the teaching on the Eucharist. Jesus said I am the living bread that came down from heaven.
If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and abides in me, and I in him. And that's the entire paragraph. It's just a quote from John chapter 6. And the Church sees that as a great way of summarizing the Catholic teaching on the Eucharist. Paragraph 1524 is about Vyadicum, which is a special kind of Eucharist that's given to people just before they die.
So that paragraph says in addition to the anointing of the sick, the Church offers those who are about to leave this life the Eucharist as Vyadicum. Communion in the body and blood of Christ received at this moment of passing over to the Father, has a particular significance and importance. It is the seed of eternal life and the power of resurrection. According to the words of the Lord. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
The sacrament of Christ, once dead and now risen, the Eucharist is here, the sacrament of passing over from death to life, from this world to the Father. So the Church says the most appropriate thing you can do just before someone passes away is to give them the Eucharist so that they have eternal life as Jesus says here and can be raised up at the last day. Paragraph 787 talks about that phrase in John chapter 6 about he lives in me and I in Him.
Jesus spoke of a still more intimate communion between him and those who would follow him. Abide in me, and I in you. I am the vine, You are the branches. And he proclaimed a mysterious and real communion between his own body and ours. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. And then in paragraph 1391, we'll finish with this one. This talks about what taking Communion actually does for us
in our life. Holy Communion augments our union with Christ. The principle fruit of receiving the Eucharist in Holy Communion is an intimate union with Christ Jesus. Indeed, the Lord said he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him. Life in Christ has its foundation in the Eucharistic banquet as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. So a whole lot of really interesting stuff there.
And there's some more paragraph references. I'll include all of those in the show notes. Thanks for listening. I hope you learned something new about this really pivotal passage in John Chapter 6. Please continue to share this podcast around, keep this ministry in your prayers. And if you believe it's a ministry worth supporting, please consider becoming a financial supporter. And there's details for that in
the show notes. And there's heaps of information there about all the awesome benefits you can get if you do decide to become a monthly giver. Thanks for tuning in to our exploration of the key part of the Bread of Life discourse. Tomorrow we'll look at something a little different. But if you're interested in going through the entire Bread of Life discourse systematically all through John chapter 6, verse by verse, the best time to do that is in week 3 and week four of Easter Tide.
So the third and 4th week after Easter. And we've done that in our podcast. So if you'd like to go through that systematically, go back and have a look through the podcast archives for Easter Tide week three and four, and you should find it there. Thanks. And we'll see you tomorrow.