In John 6, Christ informs the crowd at Capernaum that eternal life is predicated upon eating his flesh and drinking his blood. For instance, in John 6:51-54, we read the following:
I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. The Jews strove among themselves saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
Numerous Catholic apologists, such as Karl Keating, Tim Staples, and Robert Sungenis have argued that the standard “response” by opponents of the historical Catholic interpretation of John 6 is an impossibility, as eating one’s flesh and drinking one’s blood were metaphors of reviling, cursing, and/or harming one’s opponent, so the “literalistic” interpretation (a la the Catholic dogma of Transubstantiation) is to be preferred. Brant Pitre in his recent book on the Eucharist writes the following which is reflective of such views:
Although the imagery of eating human flesh and drinking human blood can be used metaphorically in the Old Testament, it is never used as a metaphor for accepting someone’s teaching or believing in that person. Consider the following parallels:
When evildoers assail me, to eat up my flesh, my adversaries and foes, they shall stumble and fall. (Ps 27:2)
The Lord of hosts will protect them [the sons of Zion], and they shall devour and treat down the slingers; and they shall drink their blood like win . . .(Zech 9:15)
So I [Zechariah] said, “I will not be your shepherd. What is to die, let it die; what is to be destroyed, let it be destroyed; and let those that are left devour the flesh of one another. (Zech 11:9)
As for you, son of man, thus says the Lord God: Speak to the birds of every sort and to all beasts of the field, “Assemble and come, gather from all sides of the sacrificial feast which I am preparing for you, a great sacrificial feast upon the mountains of Israel, and you shall eat flesh and drink blood. You shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth—of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bulls all of them fatlings of Bashan. And you shall eat fat till you are filled and drink blood till you are drunk, at the sacrificial feat which I am preparing for you. And you shall be filled at my table with horses and riders, with mighty men and all kinds of warriors, says the Lord God. (Ezek 39:17-20)
. . .[The imagery of eating one’s flesh and drinking one’s blood] is never used as a metaphor for “believing” in them. (Brant Pitre, Jesus and the Last Supper [Grand Rapids, Mich. Eerdmans, 2015], 206-07).
For Latter-day Saints, there is no "either-or" approach on this issue; historically and in modern times, LDS commentators have understood Christ's words to refer to both the Eucharist (simply the "sacrament" in LDS nomenclature) as well as trusting in, and believing in Christ.
For instance, in vol. 1 of his 3-volume Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, Bruce McConkie wrote the following:
How Men Eat the Flesh and Drink the Blood of Jesus
How do men eat the Lord's flesh and drink his blood? Is this literal or figurative? Does it have reference to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper or to something else?
In these words about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, Jesus reaches the climax of his great discourse on the Bread of Life. Since he is the Bread of Life (meaning the Son of God), which came down from the Father, and since men must eat this spiritual bread in order to gain salvation, it follows that eternal life is gained only by eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of God, or in other words, eternal life is gained only by accepting Jesus as the Christ and keeping his commandments.
To eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of God is, first, to accept him in the most literal and full sense, with no reservation whatever, as the personal offspring in the flesh of the Eternal Father; and, secondly, it is to keep the commandments of the Son by accepting his gospel, joining his Church, and enduring in obedience and righteousness unto the end. Those who by this course eat his flesh and drink his blood shall have eternal life, meaning exaltation in the highest heaven of the celestial world. Speaking of ancient Israel, for instance, Paul says: They "did all eat the same spiritual meat; And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ." (1 Cor. 10:3-4.)
In the waters of baptism the saints take upon themselves the name of Christ (that is, they accept him fully and completely as the Son of God and the Savior of men), and they then covenant to keep his commandments and obey his laws. (Mosiah 18:7-10.) To keep his saints in constant remembrance of their obligation to accept and obey him—or in other words, to eat his flesh and drink his blood—the Lord has given them the sacramental ordinance. This ordinance, performed in remembrance of his broken flesh and spilled blood, is the means provided for men, formally and repeatedly, to assert their belief in the divinity of Christ, and to affirm their determination to serve him and keep his commandments; or, in other words, in this ordinance—in a spiritual, but not a literal sense—men eat his flesh and drink his blood. Hence, after instituting the sacramental ordinance among the Nephites, Jesus commanded: "Ye shall not suffer any one knowingly to partake of my flesh and blood unworthily, when ye shall minister it; For whoso eateth and drinketh my flesh and blood unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to his soul; therefore if ye know that a man is unworthy to eat and drink of my flesh and blood ye shall forbid him." (3 Ne. 18:25-29.)
52. How can this man give us his flesh to eat?] This querulous, unbelieving attitude on the part of the Jews was, not only wholly unwarranted, but from Jewish lips it bordered on absurdity. Probably no people in all history understood better or had made more extensive use of symbolical and figurative language than they had. Further, Jesus had just taught them the doctrine of the Bread of Life. For them to pretend not to know that eating the flesh of Jesus meant accepting him as the Son of God and obeying his words could only mean that they were wilfully closing their eyes to the truth. Their lack of spiritual understanding was comparable to that of modern sectarians who profess to find in our Lord's statements, about eating and drinking his own flesh and blood, justification for the false doctrine of transubstantiation.
In substance and effect Jesus then said to the Jews:
53. 'Solemnly and soberly I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of God, and drink his blood, by accepting me and my mission and obeying my gospel, ye have no spiritual life in you, but rather are spiritually dead and are not born again.'
54. 'Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood—by accepting me, keeping my commandments, and enduring unto the end—shall have eternal life; and I will raise him up in the resurrection of the just to an inheritance of exaltation in my Father's kingdom.'
55. 'For my flesh is spiritual meat indeed, and my blood is spiritual drink indeed.'
56. 'He that spiritually eateth my flesh by accepting me as the Son of God, and spiritually drinketh my blood by keeping all my commandments, by the power of the Holy Spirit, he shall dwell in me and I in him; yea, we shall then be one, in that we are perfectly united in character, perfections, and attributes; we shall then have the same mind and the same judgment in all things.' (1 Cor. 1:10; 2:16.)
57. 'As the living Father, who himself hath spiritual and eternal life, hath sent me; and as I have spiritual life and shall have eternal life because I keep my Father's commandments; so he that spiritually eateth me by keeping my commandments, even he shall gain spiritual life and eternal life because of me and my atoning sacrifice.'
58. 'These things which I have told you are the true doctrine of the Bread of Life, that bread which came down from heaven. This true bread from heaven is not, as you falsely supposed, that manna which your fathers (who are dead) ate to sustain themselves temporally, for he that eateth of this true bread from heaven shall have spiritual and eternal life forever.'
LDS scholar, John A. Tvedtnes, ties the words of Christ in John 6:54 to the Lord's Supper:
There is real symbolism in the bread and wine used at the last supper to represent Christ’s body and blood. The heb word for bread is לֶחֶם lechem, which originally denoted animal flesh, as it still does in heb’s cousin language, Arabic. So when Jesus offered the bread and said it symbolized his flesh, etymologically that was true. Significantly, Christ, the “true bread” (John 6:32), was born in a town named Beth-Lehem, meaning “house of bread. (Footnotes to the New Testament for Latter-day Saints vol 1: The Gospels, ed. Kevin L. Barney, p. 526 footnote d.)
For Latter-day Saint interpreters, there is no issue if Christ was indeed speaking of the Eucharist/Sacrament which would later be instituted after the discourse at Capernaum.
Pitre is wrong, however, in stating that the Jews of the time would have only understood such terms to be about reviling an opponent, and it comes from the Jews' own reaction to Christ's words in John 6 itself, where they believe he is stating, not to revile him or cause harm to him, but to engage in an act of cannibalism, as seen in John 6:52.
Another attempt to foist, not just the Eucharist, but Transubstantiation, into the words of Christ in John 6 revolves around the shift from the verb εσθιω to τρωγω in John 6:54, 56, 57-58. This has been addressed in a previous post, so I will not rehash the faulty linguistic issues about this popular Catholic argument.
Finally, Michael Taylor, in responding to the arguments of Karl Keating et al. which mirror Pitre's arguments, wrote the following which is a propos for our discussion:
Let us suppose for the sake of argument that Jesus’ hearers would have understood both eating flesh and drinking blood as negative metaphors, and that no other metaphorical use is possible. If so, then such a metaphorical reading of John 6:53-57 would lead to several absurd propositions. For example, Jesus would be saying, “Unless you revile me, you have no life in you” (John 6:53); “He who reviles me has eternal life” (verse 54); “He who reviles me abides in me” (verse 56); “He who reviles me will also live because of me” (verse 57). Admittedly, such propositions are absurd when viewed prospectively. But when viewedretrospectively, each one of those propositions contains an ironic ring of truth. In the Old Testament, eating flesh and drinking blood metaphorically connoted both physical harm and psychological harm (i.e., slandering or mocking someone). In the passion according to John, Jesus is both physically reviled (John 18:23, 19:1, 18) and psychologically reviled (John 18:40; 19:2-3, 14, 19, 24). It is therefore possible thateating flesh and drinking blood allude to the cross.
But if such metaphors can allude to the passion, then why not the eucharist as well? The answer is that they can. We should not exclude the possibility that the eucharist may also be in view. In fact, there very well may be secondary sacramental allusions throughout John’s gospel. But the case for such allusions has to be argued, not presumed. What we can safely say is that there are no direct references to the eucharist in John 6 or anywhere else in John’s gospel. John has taken pains to leave out the institution of the eucharist. While there are ample allusions to the cross, there is nothing that is unambiguously allusive to eucharist.
Protestants sometimes object that the eucharist cannot be in view in John 6, because it had not yet been instituted. Catholic apologists reply that by that logic, the cross could not be in view either, since Jesus had not yet died. But there is one crucial piece of evidence that Catholics apologists should keep in mind: Throughout John’s gospel, Jesus has been alluding to his impending death: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). Jesus has even alluded to the cross itself: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up” (John 3:14, see also 8:28; 12:32). The same cannot be said of the eucharist. After all, John’s gospel actually has a crucifixion in it—but it takes pains to leave out the eucharist! Therefore, with all of the clear allusions to his death on the cross—and no unambiguous allusions to the eucharist—it would be most natural to understand the “flesh and blood” of John 6 as primarily an allusion to Jesus’ death on the cross. (Michael Taylor, "Eating Flesh and Drinking Blood: Metaphors of Reviling or Metaphors of Belief?")
In another article, The Sniper Who Couldn’t Aim: Taylor Replies to Pacheco, Taylor also noted:
Why Jesus
Probably Would Not Correct the Misunderstanding of Unbelievers
Instead of correcting unbelievers, it is far more likely that
Jesus would not have corrected them. After all,
unbelievers are “already condemned” (John 3:18), whereas believers already
possess eternal life (John 5:24). Why, then, would Jesus need to
explain himself to those who are already condemned? Catholic
apologists sometimes argue as if Jesus had a moral obligation to speak
plainly. But Jesus did not come to explain himself to
unbelievers: “For judgment I came into the world, so that those
who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind” (John
9:39). And again, “For this reason they could not
believe, for Isaiah said again, ‘He has blinded their eyes and he hardened
their heart, so that they would not see with their eyes and perceive with their
heart, and be converted and I heal them’” (John 12:40). Unbelievers in
John’s gospel do not understand because they cannot understand. They
have been blinded by the very revelation they reject, which is why they
frequently take his metaphors literally, missing the spiritual meaning of his
words.
Furthermore, we know it was Jesus’ preference to use “figurative
language.” And we know that the meaning behind Jesus’ figurative
language was never intended to be obvious. “These things I have
spoken to you in figurative language; an hour is coming when I will no longer
speak to you in figurative language, but will tell you plainly of the Father”
(John 16:25). If we consider the fact that both the events and
discourse of John 6 take place chronologically before Jesus’
“hour,” then we should expect Jesus to be speaking more often in “figurative language”
than “plainly.”
Consider the ultimatum in John 6:53: “Truly, truly, I say
to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you
have no life in you.” Catholic apologists sometimes argue
that “truly, truly,” precludes figurative language. Yet the parable
of the Good Shepherd also begins with the words “Truly, truly” (John 10:1), and
is clearly not to be taken liteally: “This figure of speech Jesus
spoke to them, but they did not understand what those things were which he had
been saying to them” (John 10:6). John 6:53, which
likewise begins with “truly, truly,” is in all probability, a “figure of
speech” as well.
To read, not the Eucharist per se, but the much later concepts of Eucharistic Sacrifice of the Catholic Mass and Transubstantiation into John 6 and the words of Jesus is to engage in, not meaningful exegesis, but eisegesis.
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