This article should be read in conjunction with my main
article about the catholic eucharist and their mass in general.
At the very heart of Roman Catholicism is the mass. For catholics worldwide, this is 'sacred ground' and woe be to anybody who dares come along and query its legitimacy on Biblical grounds (2 Tim. 2:15).
For my part, I only consider it to be a symbolic event, much like that of baptism. However for me to say this openly, like I am now, I risk being consigned to eternal Hell by the so-called ecumenical and seeker-friendly church, for which my father and I were members for decades.
The following quote, taken from the council of Trent, speaks for itself:
"If any one denieth, that, in the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist, are contained truly, really, and substantially, the body and blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and consequently the whole Christ; but saith that He is only therein as in a sign, or in figure, or virtue; let him be anathema."
As a Bible-believing Christian, now set free from organized religion and saved by my faith in the precious blood of Christ, Rome can retain her medieval and bigoted curse (there are 124 others too), because as far as I am concerned, I believe the folly of the mass to be a religious hallucination, but if you want to believe it, that's your business; for I am all for the freedom of conscience, unlike like the church of Rome's 600 bloody years of wicked and cruel inquisition (please see my
articlearticle on this monumental crime against humanity). But what gives this Baal inspired priesthood the right to dish out curses to millions of children of God that don't hold to this nonsensical doctrine!
(During the 1960s second Vatican council each of the rulings from the council of Trent were upheld).
The following 10 points are as unbiased as possible, when it comes to detailing the major and sensible facts of what John 6 is actually speaking about, not what the catholic church privately thinks it says.
10 quick points about John 6
- Verse 29: Believe He is the Christ in order to be saved (Rom. 10:9).
- Verse 41: Unbelieving Jews murmur because He claims to be deity, i.e., came down from Heaven, and later on, some of them try to kill Him (John 10:32-33).
- Verse 47: Re-affirms faith alone in Him for salvation (Acts 16:30-31).
- Verse 51: The metaphor of Him being the bread of life is not only a reference to His deity, but it is also synonymous with His flesh and work on the Cross; for it is faith in each of these things that saves a sinners, i.e., His flesh/body hung on the cross (1 Cor. 15:13-14).
- Verse 60: The unbelieving Jews again complain about His requirements of them and others.
- Verse 61: Jesus finally confronts their moaning, for up till now He has been testing them to see who would stay and who would leave. This is later demonstrated, when after a 3-year ministry, in which tens of thousands have thronged Him and followed His every move, when push came to shove, they all fell away, with only 120 found to have lasted the course in the Upper Room. This is a picture of the very few who will be saved on Judgment Day (Matt. 7:13-14).
- Verse 63: Christ makes it crystal clear that His words are only spiritual, i.e., figurative - the Holy Spirit does the work of regeneration (1 Cor. 12:13; Eph. 4:4-6), never human endeavours (Rom. 4:4; Eph. 2:8-9).
- Verse 66: Unbelieving Jews depart from Him, because they weren't prepared to be identified with Him in such a personal way.
- Verse 68: Peter correctly understands that Jesus' words are eternal life, and that only faith in Him warrants eternal life, not keeping the eucharist (Acts 4:12).
Conclusion
The fact of the matter is, whether a person believes in the hoax of transubstantiation (the bread and wine changing into the literal body and blood of Christ), is immaterial: because the Bible repeatedly teaches that faith in Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection is what saves a sinner from his sins, (1 Cor. 15:17), not church attendance, good works, or other man-made activities and traditions (Gal. 3:2-3).
I would also like to add, that there are many other occasions in the Bible, when Jesus spoke to those around Him in metaphorical language, and nearly every time they failed to understand that He was speaking to them spiritually, not literally. And never once did He correct their ignorance; He simply left them in spiritual darkness (Jer. 5:21-23).
"Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up [spiritually speaking about His body being the Jewish temple.] Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? [literal understanding.] But he spake of the temple of his body" (John 2:18-22).
On this occasion, the ignorant Jewish people totally failed to understand what He was speaking to them about, and He didn't correct their ignorance. He simply left them in darkness and under judgment.
"But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life [spiritually language.] The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw" [literal understating] (John 4:14,15).
The lady at the well, from the above account, also mistook His figurative language, but on this occasion Jesus continued to allow her to question Him, even though she didn’t understand what He was speaking to her about, until He, like He did with Nicodemous (see John 3:3-7) cut through their blindness, and explained the need for the new birth, resulting in both parties going on to be born again.
"It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life" (John 6:63).
And this final piece of John 6 makes is about as clear as can be that one's flesh (meaning what a person does, like eating or drinking) doesn't benefit you, but that listening and applying His words (meaning to believe on Him) is what saves a sinner.
By now, one might hope that the average person could differentiate between taking a passage literally and spiritualising it. One can only wonder why Rome for so long, has failed to do this?
Ex-Catholics For Christ - Spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ
This is an ex-catholic of 50 years speaking btw.
