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Date:         Mon, 16 Nov 1992 12:47:19 EDT
From:         Leo W <Leo_W@QM.CIRCA.UFL.EDU>
Subject:      Re>Second Interp. Q

Andrew asked about John 6:55.

In John 6:52 it states that Jesus was addressing "the Jews."  In verse 59 it
states that "Jesus said all these things while he was teaching in the synagogue
in Capernaum."  All of this teaching was in relation to the Jews who "are
looking for me because you ate the bread and were satisfied" (6:26).  They
challenged Him with, "Our fathers ate the manna in the desert" (6:31).  They
did not believe in Christ Jesus.  He was not referring to a Lord's Supper or a
Sacrifice of the Mass when addressing these unbelieving Jews.

Our Lord Jesus Christ told them, "He who comes to me ... He who believes in me
.. Everyone who sees the Son and believes in him has eternal life.  I will
raise him up on the last day" (6:35-40).

The point was for these folks to not work for the bread and drink that perish,
by following Christ around and demanding he miraculously make more free food
for their bellies, but that their efforts expended in following Him around
should be for getting the spiritual food He was offering them, of which the
physical miraculous food was only a type.  He said, "I am NOT like the bread
our ancestors ate ... I AM the bread that came down from heaven" (6:58).

The antitype of the bread and drink is explained to His followers when He said,
"It is not the flesh that gives a person life.  It is the spirit that gives
life.  The words I told you are spirit, and so they give life" (6:63).  Here,
when addressing His followers, not the belly-food-lusting unbelievers, was His
moment to teach about a future sacrament.  He explains that believing His
words, not eating His flesh, is the miracle that gives eternal life.

Rather than bolstering the imagination of the sacramentalist, this passage
clearly teaches the opposite.  The physical food produced miraculously by
Christ was good only for filling the belly.  The spiritual food was His words,
and it was believing/digesting them that gave eternal life.  Rather than
teaching that the physical type was the channel for receiving the spiritual
antitype, Christ taught the physical type was only a shadow of the spiritual
antitype.

Everyone who thinks that eating the flesh (body and blood) of Christ in the
form of a piece of bread and a sip of drink gives them life (from above) should
memorize this verse: "It is not the flesh that gives a person life.  It is the
spirit that gives life.  The words I told you are spirit, and so they give
life" (6:63).  Don't seek to eat miracle bread, as the unbelieving Jews did.
Seek to eat His words and believe on Him and His finished work accomplished in
His death, resurrection, and ascension.

"We have been made right with God by the blood of Christ's death.  So through
Christ we will surely be saved from God's anger.  I mean that while we were
God's enemies, God made friends with us through the death of his Son.  Surely,
now that we are God's friends, God will save us through his Son's life.  And
not only that, but now we are also very happy in God through our Lord Jesus
Christ.  Through Jesus we are now God's friends again" (Romans 5:9-11).

Yours in Christ Jesus,
Leo
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU