What Catholics Ignore in Their Interpretation of John 6?

What Catholics Ignore in Their Interpretation of John 6?

Description: Do key verses in John 6 actually undermine the Catholic belief in the Real Presence? In this episode, I take a careful look at common Protestant objections and see whether the details really point to a symbolic reading—or reinforce the Catholic interpretation.

 

Transcript:

Catholics, along with other Christians, argue that Jesus’ body and blood must be present in the Eucharist because in John 6 Jesus commands us to eat his flesh and drink his blood—and that he meant it literally.

 

But some Christians push back and say, “Not so fast.” They argue that Catholics are overlooking key details in the passage—details that supposedly show Jesus is speaking metaphorically, not literally.

 

So what are those details? And do they actually disprove the Catholic interpretation? Stick around—we’re gonna think through it together.

 

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Alright—So what are these “details” that are supposed to challenge the Catholic view?

I’ve examined them briefly in my episode entitled “EVERY Objection to John 6 Answered.” But here we’re going to dive a bit deeper.

 

The first one shows up earlier in the chapter, before Jesus gives the command to eat his flesh and drink his blood.

 

In verse 35, Jesus says, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.”

 

Now, Protestant apologist Robert Zins, on page 217 of his book Romanism—The Relentless Roman Catholic Assault on the Gospel of Jesus Christ, calls this verse “the controlling verse of John 6.”

 

And others build on that. For example, Protestant apologist Eric Svendsen—who’s not really around anymore in the world of apologetics—writes on page 179 of Evangelical Answers: A Critique of Current Roman Catholic Apologists:

“There can be no doubt that what Jesus meant by ‘eating’ and ‘drinking’ him was to come to him and to believe in him.”

 

For Svendsen, since Jesus is clearly speaking symbolically about hunger and thirst here, that symbolic meaning should carry over later—when Jesus talks about eating his flesh and drinking his blood in verse 54.

 

Protestant apologist James White agrees. Here’s what he says on page 170 in The Roman Catholic Controversy:

 

“‘Coming’ and ‘believing’ will become ‘eating’ and ‘drinking’ in verse 54 . . . the definitions assigned to these terms by the Lord (being spiritual and symbolic, not literal and earthly) must be carried through the rest of the text.”

 

And both White and Svendsen also point to verse 47, where Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life,” and they conclude that eating simply equals believing.

 

White puts it pretty bluntly when he comments on verse 54:

 

“The ‘eating’ here is paralleled with the ‘believing’ of verse 47—any attempt to make this a physical action misses the entire point the Lord is making. He who believes has eternal life—he who eats of the true bread from heaven will never die. Eating = believing. This is clearly the literal meaning of the text.”

 

So how should we respond?

 

Well, to start, it’s absolutely true that in verses 35–48 Jesus emphasizes the need to believe in him. No disagreement there.

 

But then something shifts.

 

In verse 51, Jesus introduces something new: his flesh. And he identifies that flesh as the bread from heaven that he will give for the life of the world. And that detail really matters.

 

Consider that earlier, in verse 41, the Jews are murmuring because Jesus says he came down from heaven. But in verse 52, the reaction escalates. Now they’re arguing specifically about his claim that they must eat his flesh. They say, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

 

Notice—the issue is no longer just belief. It’s eating his flesh.

 

So at least from the perspective of the Jews, something new has entered the conversation—something that clearly troubles them.

 

But here’s the key question: is this just a misunderstanding on their part? Or is Jesus intentionally adding something new?

 

It turns out—it’s the latter.

 

Think about it. If Jesus only meant “believe in me,” then when the Jews gets confused and disturbed, he has an easy fix. He could simply go back to the language of verse 35—coming to him, believing in him—and clear things up.

 

But he doesn’t do that.

 

Instead, he leans into the difficulty.

 

First, he doubles down with the language. From verses 54 to 58, he repeats the command to eat his flesh and drink his blood six times.

 

And not only that—the Greek language intensifies. Before verse 54, when Jesus gives the command, John uses the aorist form of the Greek verb esthíō, which is a related verb phago—a fairly generic term for eating. But starting in verse 54, the Greek word changes to trogo, which carries the idea of gnawing or chewing. That’s the opposite direction you’d expect if Jesus were speaking symbolically.

 

Now, the same dynamic shows up with the disciples.

 

In verse 60, they’re struggling with this teaching just as much as the Jews. So again, if Jesus meant this metaphorically, he could have easily cleared things up by going back to the metaphorical language in verse 35. This would have easily quelled the disciples’ fear since they already believed in Jesus. They are his disciples!

 

But once again, he doesn’t do that.

 

Instead, in verse 61, he actually makes it more challenging by pointing to his future ascension.

 

So rather than softening the teaching, he reinforces its difficulty.

 

And that helps us see something important: the earlier teaching about believing in him isn’t replacing the command to eat his flesh—it’s preparing for it. Belief in Christ comes first. Because you can only believe in the Eucharist if you already believe in Jesus.

 

There’s one more piece here that’s worth noting.

 

Jesus speaks about giving his flesh in the future. He says, “The bread which I shall give [Greek, dōsō, future tense of didōmi].”

 

That future tense is important. If “eating” just means believing, then why the delay? Why would they need to wait to believe? They shouldn’t—they should believe right then and there.

 

The future language doesn’t fit well with the idea that eating his flesh and drinking his blood equals believing.

 

So, this argument based on verse 35 doesn’t really hold up.

 

Okay—let’s move to the other detail that some think proves Catholics get Jesus wrong here.

 

Catholics often argue that since Jesus never corrects his audience’s literal understanding, he must have intended a literal meaning.

 

But some Protestants respond, “Actually, he does clarify—and he does it in verse 63.”

 

There, Jesus says: “It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”

 

Apologist Matt Slick, founder of Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry, interprets this to mean that Jesus is speaking spiritually—not literally—about eating his flesh and drinking his blood.

 

He writes that Jesus is

“stating that the words he was speaking were spiritual words when talking about eating his flesh and drinking his blood,”

 

That comes from his online article “Transubstantiation and the Real Presence.”

 

Slick then concludes,

“[Jesus] did not say they were literal words; that is, he did not say that they were his actual body and blood.”

 

So how do we respond?

 

First, this interpretation doesn’t fit with a key detail: the fact that Jesus’ disciples walk away immediately after he says his words are “spirit and life.”

 

If “spirit” means “symbolic,” then this should have made things easier, not harder. The whole point of a symbolic interpretation is to remove the difficulty. And that definitely would have made things easier for the disciples since they already believed in Jesus.

 

But the difficulty remained for them—and they left.

 

That’s a serious problem for this view.

 

Second, “spirit” doesn’t mean “symbolic.” Nor does “being spiritual.”

 

The Bible says in John 4:24 that “God is spirit,” and in Hebrews 1:14 that angels are “ministering spirits.” That doesn’t mean God and angels are symbols.

 

Paul talks about “spiritual blessings” in Romans 15:27. Those aren’t symbols either—they’re real blessings of a spiritual nature.

 

So equating “spirit” or “spiritual” with “symbolic” just doesn’t work.

 

Third—and this is really important—the argument often ignores what Jesus says about “the flesh,” and how he contrasts that to “the spirit.”

 

He says, “the spirit gives life, the flesh is of no avail.”

 

In the New Testament, “the flesh” often refers to human nature apart from God’s grace, as is the case in Romans 8:1-14. It also refers to seeing reality merely from an earthly perspective. Jesus uses the expression this way in John 8;15, when he tells the Pharisees, “You judge according to the flesh.”

 

So when Jesus says in John 6:63, “the flesh is of no avail,” he’s not saying his own flesh is useless. That wouldn’t make sense, especially since he just said he would give it for the life of the world.

 

Rather, he’s saying you can’t understand this teaching from a purely human perspective.

You need the grace of faith. And that makes sense given the radical nature of his command.

 

The need for faith is the reason why Jesus frames this whole discourse with statements like:
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (in verse 44),
and
“no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father” (in verse 65).

 

So the message in verse 63 isn’t that the teaching is symbolic. The message is that it’s supernatural—and it can only be accepted by the gift of faith that the Father and the Spirit give.

 

That’s why Jesus says, “It is the spirit that gives life.”

 

The Catholic Encyclopedia’s captures this well in its article “The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist”:

 

In the scriptural opposition of ‘flesh and blood’ to ‘spirit,’ the former always signifies carnal-mindedness, the latter mental perception illumined by faith, so that it was the intention of Jesus in this passage to give prominence to the fact that the sublime mystery of the Eucharist can be grasped in the light of supernatural faith alone, whereas it cannot be understood by the carnal-minded, who are weighed down under the burden of sin.

 

So the idea that Jesus is correcting a literal misunderstanding in verse 63 just doesn’t hold up under closer examination.

 

Alright—let’s bring it all together.

 

Jesus’ use of the metaphors of eating and drinking in verse 35 don’t prove that everything he said afterward about eating and drinking is metaphorical. In fact, he introduces something new—his flesh and blood—and shifts the focus in a way that can’t be reduced to symbolism.

 

And when he says his words are “spirit and life,” he’s not saying they’re symbolic. He’s saying they require faith—because they point to a supernatural reality.

 

So, rather than these verses causing Catholics concern, they actually support our view. Thus, there’s no need to skip over them. In fact, we need to highlight and incorporate them into our exegesis of the text.

 

Well, my friends, that’s it for today!

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