Audio only:
Protestants raise serious challenges to the Catholic reading of Jesus’ Bread of Life Discourse in chapter 6—but do they actually overturn it? In this episode, I tackle ten of the most common objections head-on with roughly ninety second responses, showing why the literal interpretation of Jesus’ Bread of Life discourse remains the most compelling and consistent reading of the text.
TRANSCRIPT:
Protestants raise a lot of objections to the Catholic interpretation of John 6—and some of them are actually pretty good. Today we’re going through ten of the most common ones, and we’re going to answer each one in roughly ninety seconds.
So stay with me, because by the end of this video, you’ll have a clear, confident ready response to each of them.
>>>>>>
Hey guys! Welcome back to the channel—I’m really glad you’re here. If you haven’t done so already, make sure to subscribe and hit that bell notification so you don’t miss any new videos.
And if this podcast has been helpful for you, I’d love for you to consider supporting us over on Patreon at doctorkarlo.com—with “doctor” spelled out. And if you’re already a patron—thank you. Seriously. I’m deeply grateful, because without your support, I couldn’t keep doing this podcast.
>>>>>>
Alright—let’s dive in.
The first objection we’ll consider goes like this: “Catholics aren’t consistent—they don’t take ‘gate’ or ‘vine’ literally in John 10:9 and 15:5, so why do they take ‘eat my flesh’ literally in John 6?”
Well, here’s the key: the door and vine passages are fundamentally different from John 6. When Jesus says “I am the gate” or “I am the vine,” nobody in the audience takes him literally. Nobody asks, “Wait—how can this man be made of wood?” or “How can this man be a plant?” The metaphors are obvious, the audience gets it, and no clarification is needed.
John 6 is completely different.
Both the Jewish crowd and Jesus’ own disciples understand him literally—and Jesus never corrects them. In fact, he doubles down. In response to the Jews, he repeats the command to eat his flesh and drink his blood six times in six verses. And the Greek for “eating” intensifies—it shifts from the generic word phagēte to trōgō, which literally means to gnaw, to bite, to audibly chew. That’s not the language you use when you’re trying to soften a teaching with metaphor.
For his disciples in verse 61, he affirms their difficulty and appeals to his ascension as something else that’s difficult to believe. That’s not the approach you take if you’re trying to dismiss the difficulty.
Compare that to how Jesus elsewhere handles misunderstood teachings for his disciples. In Mark 4, for example, we’re told he privately explained everything to them when they didn’t understand. Here? He doesn’t explain the meaning behind the alleged metaphor. Rather, he lets his disciples walk away. And then he turns to the Twelve and says, “Do you also wish to go?” That’s not how Jesus handles a misunderstood metaphor when it comes to his disciples.
So the consistency charge just doesn’t stick—Catholics are being consistent. We read the “eat my flesh” and “drink my blood” language literally because the text demands it, unlike the gate and vine passages, where the context demands the opposite.
A second objection is that Catholics assume Jesus would have clarified the literal thoughts of his audience. But that’s not necessarily true. In John 2:15-21, Jesus leaves the Jews in the darkness of their misunderstanding when he spoke about the temple of his body. Perhaps that’s what Jesus is doing in John 6.
The problem here is that the Jews aren’t the only ones that struggle with the command to eat his flesh and drink his blood. His disciples struggled as well. And since Jesus clarified misunderstood teachings for his disciples throughout his ministry, it’s reasonable to expect that he would do so in John 6. But he doesn’t.
Now, some Protestants will say that Jesus does in fact offer clarification in verse 63, when he says, “The Spirit gives life, the flesh is of no avail. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” There, it’s argued, Jesus teaches that the eating is meant to be taken symbolically. This constitutes a third objection.
There are three problems here.
First: If verse 63 was a clarification that resolved the difficulty, why do the disciples still leave immediately after? The whole point of interpreting something as a metaphor is that it removes the difficulty. If “eat my flesh” just means “believe in me,” the disciples—who were already believers—would have had no reason to leave. So, the supposed clarification didn’t work. That strongly suggests Jesus wasn’t giving a clarification.
Second: the objection assumes that “spiritual” means “symbolic.” But that’s a mistake. God is spirit in John 4:24. Angels are ministering spirits according to Hebrews 1:14. Paul speaks of spiritual blessings shared between Jews and Gentiles in Romans 15:27. Nobody reads those as mere symbols. “Spiritual” in the New Testament means something that transcends ordinary physical reality—not something that is merely figurative or symbolic.
Third: The phrase “the flesh” is a New Testament idiom that Jesus uses elsewhere—John 8:15—to refer to making a judgment from an earthly perspective. So Jesus is saying: you can’t analyze this command to eat my flesh from a purely human standpoint. The eyes of faith are required. That’s exactly why Jesus bookends the passage with: “No one can come to me unless the Father draws him” (in verses 44 and 65). It’s not that the command to eat is symbolic—it’s that accepting the miraculous reality of what he’s saying requires divine grace.
Alright! On to objection 4: In verse 35, Jesus uses eating and drinking as metaphors for belief—so later references to eating his flesh and drinking his blood must also be metaphorical.
It’s true that in verses 35 through 48, Jesus uses eating and drinking as images for believing in him. But something changes in verse 51. Jesus no longer speaks of eating and drinking generally speaking. He’s talks about eating his flesh. That’s something new.
And the crowd immediately notices the shift. They stop murmuring about Jesus claiming to come from heaven—that had been the controversy—and they start quarreling specifically about eating his flesh. Belief in Jesus is no longer the issue. Eating his flesh is.
Now here’s the decisive question: if Jesus just meant “believe in me,” why didn’t he go back to the language of verse 35 and calm everyone down? He could have said, “Relax—I simply mean believe in me, just like I said earlier.” That would have ended the dispute in an instant.
But he doesn’t do that.
Instead, he intensifies things—he reiterates the need to eat his flesh and drink his blood six times in six verses, uses more graphic language, and then lets his disciples walk away. If all he meant was “believe,” he had the easiest out in the world to eliminate the difficulty. Yet, he never took it. That silence is one of the strongest arguments for the literal reading.
Now we come to objection 5. In John 6:27, Jesus says, “Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life.” Some Christians argue this signals a shift from physical to spiritual thinking—and that this distinction is the basis for reading Jesus’ later words about eating his flesh figuratively, not literally. If the Eucharist contains Jesus’ physical body and blood—material things—then it would fall under the category of perishable food, which Jesus explicitly tells us not to labor for. So the Real Presence, the argument goes, contradicts Jesus’ own words.
There are two problems with this objection.
First, it assumes Jesus’ body in the Eucharist is perishable. But that’s not the case given what Catholics claim about Jesus’ body and blood in the Eucharist. Consider that Jesus’ resurrected, glorified body transcends physical limitations: he passed through locked doors, appeared and disappeared at will, and is incorruptible. Catholics hold it’s that same glorified body—with its supernatural qualities—that Jesus gives in the Eucharist. Jesus’ Eucharistic flesh is precisely the imperishable food he’s pointing toward. And it’s still our spiritual food because it feeds our spiritual life—the life of grace in the soul.
Second, as I’ve mentioned, the Greek text moves in the opposite direction of what the objection claims and becomes more graphic. You don’t reach for the more graphic, physical word when you’re trying to communicate something purely spiritual and symbolic. The language pushes us toward the literal, not away from it.
Here’s a sixth objection: The disciples left because of Jesus’ teaching in verse 65 that no one comes to him unless the Father draw him—not because of his command to eat his flesh and drink his blood.
This argument rests on the Greek phrase ek toutou in verse 66, which can mean either “because of this” (a causal reading) or “after this” (a temporal reading). Many Bible translations actually go with “after this”—meaning John is simply recording what happened next, not necessarily pointing to verse 65 as the specific cause.
But here are some reasons why the causal reading doesn’t hold up.
First, the disciples were already following Jesus. For them, a teaching about the Father drawing people to him would be cause for gratitude, not offense. They’d naturally think, “Well, I must be one of those the Father has drawn—thank God.” That’s not a reason to leave.
Second, Jesus made the exact same statement about the Father earlier in verse 44. Yet, no disciples left. No one took offense. If that teaching didn’t drive them away the first time, it’s unreasonable to say it drove them away the second time.
Third, Jesus repeatedly defends his teaching about eating his flesh and drinking his blood—but he never defends his teaching about the Father. That indicates that none disputed it.
For these reasons, we can conclude that the disciples leave due to the Eucharistic teaching, not the teaching on the Father’s initiative with the grace of faith.
Objection 7: John 6 has nothing to do with the Eucharist—different Greek words are used: sarx for flesh in John 6 versus sōma for body at the Last Supper.
First, there’s no reason to think sarx and sōma refer to different things, because they’re used interchangeably throughout the New Testament. Paul uses both in the same breath in 1 Corinthians 6:16 and 2 Corinthians 4:10-11—switching back and forth to refer to the exact same reality. Bodies are made of flesh. When there’s no indication a distinction is intended, we’re justified reading them as equivalent. Jesus says nothing at the Last Supper to preclude us understanding “body” as including flesh.
Second, and perhaps the stronger point. Both John 6 and the Last Supper are the only places in the entire New Testament where Jesus speaks of drinking his blood. That’s not a coincidence—that’s a connection.
Now we move to objection 8: Leviticus 17 prohibits drinking blood—so Jesus can’t mean it literally.
One problem here is that the objection assumes the prohibition to drink blood is something that can never change. But that’s not true. The dietary laws of the Old Covenant—including the prohibition on consuming blood—were not rooted in the permanent moral law. They were disciplinary regulations governing Jewish ritual purity, temporary in nature.
Moreover, the New Testament is explicit that they passed away. For example, Jesus declares all foods clean in Mark 7:18-19. Peter receives a vision in Acts 10 commanding him to eat what was formerly forbidden. Paul tells the Colossians in Colossians 2:16 that no one should judge them regarding food and drink.
Finally, if the prohibition on consuming blood were a permanent moral law, and Jesus’ language was meant as a figure of speech, then Jesus would be using sinful behavior as his figure to convey the real meaning of belief in him. That’s not befitting of the all-holy Son of God who cannot sin.
So the precept from Leviticus was disciplinary in nature, not something rooted in the natural moral law. And it has been superseded by Christ’s command for the New Covenant. Far from undermining the Catholic reading, the objection from Leviticus actually confirms something important: the Old Covenant restriction has given way to a new and greater reality that Jesus himself inaugurates.
Alright! Two more to go.
Here’s objection 9: If Catholics take ‘eat my flesh’ literally, they should also take ‘never hunger or thirst’ literally, which, in verse 35, Jesus associates with the images of ‘eating’ and ‘drinking.’ Yet, we all still get hungry and thirsty.
This objection actually backfires for the Protestant. Most who make it interpret Jesus’ words—”come to me and never hunger, believe in me and never thirst”—as referring to real, literal faith, not symbolic faith. So according to the logic of the objection, if literal eating requires the physical effect of never getting hungry, literal believing should require the same effect. Why would one demand a physical outcome for literal eating but not for literal believing?
Our Protestant friend can’t escape the parallel. Either he concedes the same absurd conclusion for his own view, or he allows the Catholic interpretation to stand without an absurd conclusion. Either way, his argument fails.
But there’s a deeper problem with the objection. There’s nothing incoherent about a physical act producing a spiritual effect. Paul warns in 1 Corinthians 11:27-29 that eating the Eucharist unworthily brings spiritual judgment. If a physical act of eating can cause spiritual harm, surely it can cause spiritual life.
Finally, in a very real sense, we will literally never hunger or thirst—in our glorified bodies after the resurrection. Jesus promises in the very passage of John 6: “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
And so we come to objection 10: If Jesus intended us to eat his flesh in the Eucharist with a physical act of eating, like Catholics says, then Catholics would never die upon eating the Eucharist, since Jesus said in verses 50-51 that those who eat the bread from heaven will never die.
The problem with this objection it rests on an interpretative principle that’s never defended—that if the cause of eternal life is a physical act, like eating Jesus’ flesh, then the effect must be physical too, meaning our current bodies would never die.
But consider this: Protestants who make this argument, believe that faith in Christ—which can involve the very physical act of verbal confession—is what causes eternal life. Yet he doesn’t conclude that believers should therefore never physically die. If a physical act of faith doesn’t require perpetual biological preservation, why would a physical act of eating? He can’t have it both ways.
Moreover, we know that by “life” Jesus isn’t primarily referring to the continuation of biological life. If he wanted to express that, the Greek word bios would have been used. But that’s not the case. Instead, the Greek word used for “life” is zōē, which means a deeper, divine quality of life, one that comes from sharing in God’s own life.
So, the demand for physical continuation of life just doesn’t follow from our interpretation that eating Jesus’ flesh in the Eucharist involves a literally act of eating.
There’s one last response: I do think we can say—in a secondary sense—that “life” refers to biological continuation at the end of time in the bodily resurrection. Jesus explicitly connects eating his flesh to the resurrection on the last day in verse 54.
So, even if we were to concede for argument’s sake that a literal act of eating Jesus’ flesh in the Eucharist demands perpetual physical life, it wouldn’t put Catholics in a bind because that everlasting physical life does come in the bodily resurrection on account of our eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood.
So there it is—then objections, ten ready responses.
The bottom line is this: when you consider the details of the Bread of Life Discourse carefully—the audience’s reaction, Jesus’ response to both Jews and disciples, the Greek language, the pattern of how Jesus handles misunderstanding elsewhere—the literal interpretation of John 6 is not just defensible. It’s the most natural reading of the passage.
Well, my friends, that’s it for today!
If you found this video helpful, make sure to like it, comment below, and share it with someone who might benefit. And don’t forget to subscribe if you haven’t already.
For more resources, check out catholic.com and my personal website karlobroussard.com.
If you’d like me to speak at your event, visit catholicanswersspeakers.com.
And please consider supporting this work on Patreon. For just $5 a month, you’ll get early access, ad-free viewing, and access to my six-hour course How to Talk About Morality in an Age of Moral Relativism. You can sign up at doctorkarlo.com—with “doctor” spelled out.
Thanks for hanging out—and I’ll see you next time. God bless.