Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Yet Another Go at John 6

After reading Fr. Peter Berg's fine treatment of it in the forthcoming issue of Gottesdienst (Christmastide 2012; you can still subscribe to receive this issue HERE), I thought we'd have yet another go at John 6 here and bring some things not covered in Fr. Berg's piece.

It's no secret that John's Gospel is utterly Jewish. It begins with the creation account. It follows the Jewish liturgical calendar (which, incidentally, should give us pause in quoting John 4:23 as reason for worshipping in any way we so choose). Thus, John's Gospel demonstrates that our Lord is the fulfillment of every major feast. He is the Passover Lamb of God, the Bread of Heaven, the Light of the World, the Word of the Lord--the perpetual ordinance and everlasting covenant--the tabernacle and the temple of God in the flesh.

So why is it that we somehow forget this when we get to John 6? Why is it that when our Lord says His flesh is true meat and His blood true drink, we suddenly get skiddish and talk in abstraction as if our Lord was telling us to do something else, something different? John's Gospel is concrete and that is why he uses signs. The sign doesn't point beyond itself. The sign carries the message. The sign is the message. This is how we are to read the whole of John's Gospel.

Jesus is the Lamb of God. He is the Passover sacrifice. He is the Bread of Life come down from heaven. His flesh is meat. And it gives life to those who eat it at His Word.

The Passover lamb was to be roasted and eaten. The Passover bread was to be eaten (Exod 12). The manna and quail were to be eaten (Exod 16). The flesh (BHS: בָּשָֽׂר) of the sacrifice were to be eaten by the Levites, the priests, as a provision of holy food for them from the Lord's table (Lev 6-7). The lamb and the quail were the flesh (BHS: בָּשָֽׂר) that the Lord provided to His people to give them life: Life from out of death in the idolatrous slavery to the Egyptian gods and life out of death as they wandered the wilderness. They ate flesh (BHS: בָּשָֽׂר). They ate it at the Lord's command with the Lord's promise. It was the flesh of the sacrifice (Exod 12; 16; Deut 12:20-28; Deut 16). But it was dead flesh (LXX: κρέα, which always refers to dead flesh, flesh that has no life in it). They could eat the flesh (LXX: κρέα), but they could not eat living flesh (σὰρξ), flesh with the blood in it because the life was in the blood (Deut 12:23). And so they ate the flesh provided by the Lord, they ate the Passover lamb, the manna and quail, the holy flesh of the sacrifices to make them holy. They ate dead flesh and they died.

But the flesh that Our Lord Jesus gives us is no dead flesh (κρέα). The flesh He gives is His living flesh (σὰρξ, which has a wider range of meaning that includes both living and dead flesh like that of the Hebrew בָּשָֽׂר). The flesh He gives is His living, life-giving, risen flesh. It's the same flesh that He took on when the Word, the everlasting covenant and perpetual ordinance of the Father, became flesh to tabernacle among us (John 1:14). And He gives it to us with the promise that it will give life, and not just life to live another day, another week, or another year, but life eternal (John 6:53-58).

So in John 6, Jesus tells us that His living, life-giving, risen flesh is to be eaten. He tells us that His sacrificial flesh offered upon the cross and roasted in the Father's wrath against sin is to be eaten to give us life. Where is this eaten but in the Lord's Supper? Where do we eat at the Lord's table, the holy food that He gives to make us holy and give us life but in the Lord's Supper? Where do the holy priests of the Lord eat the flesh of the sacrifice but in the Lord's Supper?

11 comments:

  1. G.K. Chesterton noted in his book "Everlasting Man" that if a child were to simply look at what evidence we have of primitive man, without knowing all of the scholarly theories about evolution, he might just come to the right conclusion, namely, that primitive man was just as intelligent and artistic as modern man is. Just judging by the actual existing evidence.

    I wonder if this same principle doesn't apply here. My catechism kids know nothing of the arguments that negate a sacramental reading of John 6. But when they hear the words, when they just look at the words in their child-like simplicity, they cannot help but think of the Sacrament. Perhaps this is a case where we just need to ignore the scholarly theories, and just look at the words as they are. Just my $.02.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't disagree with you. But for the sake of those children who will be led away from that initial understanding, I think we need to answer the scholars too.

      Delete
  2. I think the answer is pretty easy. Although Jesus spoke the words prior to the institution of the meal, they were words that were "brought to remembrance" by the Holy Spirit (John 15:26) and recorded by John after. I know it sounds simplistic, but if there was no reference intended, I don't understand why the Holy Spirit would lead us into such confusion by inspiring John to make the signs line-up so closely.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I also view John's as a very "mature" Gospel. By that I mean that, written in last decade of the first century, the Church of Christ had already been celebrating the sacrament for a generation or two. It is a Gospel for a sacramental community gathered around Word, Water, Body and Blood (not that the synoptics aren't!).

    So yeah, I don't think you receive the precious Body and Blood of Christ from the Apostle's hand, and then hear him teach the words of our Lord in John 6 and say, "No way."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Take also into consideration the context of John 6--specifically the inclusion of the feeding of the 5,000. Now, John doesn't use the complete "took, gave thanks, broke, gave" formula of the synoptics, but he does still use "took, gave thanks, gave.

      So also, Jesus made a habit of teaching His disciples about what was going to happen before it happened, and the disciples generally didn't understand what was going on at the time. John specifically points this out in 2:22 and 12:16, not to mention the number of times that Jesus explicitly and plainly spoke about His upcoming crucifixion. Just because they might not have understood it at the time or just because what Jesus had spoken about at the time hadn't actually happened yet, it doesn't make His teachings any less true.

      And all of this actually works to resolve Rev. Weedon's concern about "whoever eats...has life." This was not written to say that anyone can come on forward and eat and have life. Rather, it was written as an assurance to those in the Christian community who were eating--reminding them that they were receiving life through what they were doing together.

      Does John 6 institute Holy Communion? Certainly not. But does it describe Holy Communion? You betcha.

      Delete
  4. I think we have to deal with a crucial problem: in John 6 our Lord proclaims that "WHOEVER eats my flesh and drinks my blood HAS ETERNAL LIFE." Yet St. Paul teaches that it is possible to receive the Eucharist not for life, but for judgment. Hence I think that Krauth's treatment is the absolute best:

    In quoting the sixth chapter of John, as bearing on the Lord's Supper, it may be well, once for all, to say that it is quoted not on the supposition that it speaks of the Lord's Supper specifically, but that in stating the general doctrine of the life-giving power of Christ's flesh and blood, it states a doctrine under which the benefits of the sacramental eating comes a species. If we come into supernatural, blessed participation of Christ's body and blood, in the act of faith, without the Lord's Supper, a fortiori, we have a blessed participation of them in the act of the Lord's Supper. The sixth chapter of John treats of the grand end of which the Lord's Supper is the grand means. We partake of Christ's body and blood sacramentally, in order that we may partake of them savingly. Of the latter, not the former, the sixth of John speaks. -- C. P. Krauth, *The Conservative Reformation* p. 598

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't know. . . I just don't think we are even having this conversation if Luther didn't go out on a limb on this one. Krauth ties himself in a knot here to try to keep Luther in the right and John 6 about the Supper (which it obviously is). I suppose that's fine, but as you know, I'm very willing to just say "Luther dropped the ball." Ask Philip and the rest of the Smalcaldic League about Luther's record on ball dropping. . .

      +HRC

      Delete
    2. I have no problem noting with a fallible Luther; I do have a problem with asserting that WHOEVER eats the flesh and drinks the blood of Christ in the Supper HAS eternal life, when in fact such a person may be eating and drinking judgment upon themselves. Does not the tension between 1 Cor. 11 and John 6 suggest that John 6 taken at face value is not exclusively speaking of the Holy Eucharist?

      Delete
    3. As Paul noted, the same language is used of Baptism in John 3. It's the flip side of baptism being necessary but not absolutely necessary. Or again, in I Pt 3 it says "Baptism now saves you." Even if I don't have faith? Of course not. Analogia Scripturae. Same here: whoever eats the flesh and drinks the blood of Christ is saved. Even if I don't have faith...of course not. . .

      +HRC

      Delete
  5. You know, if John 6 cannot be taken in a sacramental sense, then John 3 cannot be taken to refer to baptism, but merely just "believing." The same language is used: "Unless you are born from above by water an the Spirit...you cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3); "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man...you cannot have eternal life" (John 6). Scaer points this out nicely in an essay in the festschrift for some guy whose name escapes me right now.

    ReplyDelete

Comments are moderated. Neither spam, vulgarity, comments that are insulting, slanderous or otherwise unbefitting of Christian dignity nor anonymous posts will be published.