consumption of blood (Lev. 17:14): “Many of his disciples, when they
heard it, said, This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” (v. 60). But
knowing their murmuring, Christ again did not retreat or explain away His
words, rather He implicitly asserted His own divine authority and future
glorification: “Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see
the Son of man ascending where he was before?” (v. 62).
By now this was too much for the Jews who “drew back and no longer
went about with him” (v. 66). Christ had now lost most of His long-time
and closest followers but he allowed them to go even though He had earlier
declared “that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me” (v. 39). Is
it reasonable to believe that He would have allowed such a catastrophe over
a simple misunderstanding, particularly in light of His established habit of
correcting past misunderstandings? He went further still and challenged the
Apostles themselves: “Do you also wish to go away?” (v. 67). Christ was
prepared to lose all human support rather than deny the literal truth of His
words.
This was the first apostasy from the Body of Christ recorded in history, an
apostasy which even claimed one of the Apostles: “For Jesus knew from
the first who those were that did not believe, and who it was that would
betray him” (v. 64). This apostasy continues in the denials of Protestantism,
which since the sixteenth century has repeatedly said of Catholic belief in
the Real Presence, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” Catholics,
on the other hand, profess the faith of Simon Peter who, though not having
full understanding himself, answered “Lord, to whom can we go? You have
the words of eternal life” (v. 68).
Most Fundamentalist authors claim that they can prove that Christ was
speaking only metaphorically by comparing His words in St. John 6:35 (“I
am the bread of life”) to verses such as St. John 10:9 (“I am the door”) and
St. John 15:1 (“I am the true vine”). The problem with such an argument,
however, is that there is no connection between St. John 6:35 and these
latter verses. Furthermore, St. John 10:9 and 15:1 make sense as metaphors
while, as we shall see, St. John 6:35 does not. In addition, Our Lord
Himself takes St. John 6:35 beyond symbolism by repeating four times the
injunction “to eat my flesh and drink my blood” and saying “for my flesh is
food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed” (v. 55).
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