I have had RC apologists explain theer view of the LS with John 6:51. How does one go about refuting that idea that the bread really becomes Jesus flesh in regard to this passage?

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Joseph F Scibbe
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Ephesians 1:4-7, 1 Thessalonians 2:8, Romans 12:1-2
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The verse does not say the bread 'becomes' Jesus' body, it says that it already is. Their argument would be a great deal stronger if Jesus actually said, "This bread 'becomes' My body." Or, if He had said, "This which was in the past bread, is now My body."

How can that substance which He just identified as bread, also 'be' His body?

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Right. Is Jesus now (i.e. at the moment he spoke these words) the living 'bread' as in true, physical bread before the institution of the Lord's Supper? (i.e. the consecration of the host)

Different passage, same principle: As Calvin points out, no one says that Christ was a rock in the most literal sense of being a rock (1 Corinthians 10:4). If this is so, why is it not the same with the Lord's Supper? (1 Corinthians 10:16; 11:24)

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Rev. Daniel Kok
Pastor of Grace Reformed Church (URCNA)
Leduc, Alberta CANADA

"What sort of pledge and how great is this of love towards us! Christ lives for us not for himself!"
John Calvin, Commentary on the Hebrews (7:25)

Nor is Jesus a Door.

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Josh Hicks, Chloë's Dad
Christ Covenant Reformed Presbyterian Church, RPCGA
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It is God that multiplies our sorrows.... God, as a righteous Judge, does it, which ought to silence us under all our sorrows; as many as they are, we have deserved them all, and more: nay, God, as a tender Father, does it for our necessary correction, that we may be humbled for sin, and weaned from the world by all our sorrows; and the good we get by them, with the comfort we have under them, will abundantly balance our sorrows, how greatly soever they are multiplied. - Matthew Henry

I would say that the meaning of the passage is set out at the beginning, where the Lord says that whoever comes to him and believes in him partakes of the bread of life (v.35). It is not meant literally that we eat his flesh. As Augustine said, "for to believe on him is to eat the living bread. He that believes, eats."

Likewise in v.47 the Lord says, "whoever believes has eternal life" and in v.54 he says, "whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life". The two statements are parallel and mean the same thing. He is the bread of life, as he is also the light, the temple, the living water, the vine. All of these are metaphors.

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Louis DiBiase
Louisville, KY

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Paul
No denomination, affiliated with FIEC
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"They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation" - Peter

The context of Jesus' statements is not the Lord's Supper. We are a year or two from that event. Jn.6:4 says it was Passover season, so what was on people's religious mind? The whole Exodus experience.

But rather than focusing on Passover itself, a pre-Exodus or precipitating event for Exodus (which is the more in view on the occasion of the Last Supper), Jesus focuses on the wilderness (which approximates the desolate setting of his and the 5000). Instead of the passover bread, Jesus points to the manna.

Rome does exegetical gymnastics to force all this multivalent typology together into one message that supports their sacramentology. But the logic is so interconnected, if you reject a single piece of it as "wishful thinking" the whole thing collapses.

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Rev. Bruce G. Buchanan
ChainOLakes Presbyterian Church, CentralLake, MI


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