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Wednesday, February 21, 2018

"My Flesh is True Food": Realist Nuances in John 6

[Firstly, I invite you to read the sixth chapter of the Gospel of St. John, specifically verses 22-71, and go over it on your own. I imagine most translations will do. Secondly, to follow along with me here.]

Those who hold to a Transubstantianist (that is, a true change of substance) view, who hold the most adamant form of a "real presence" doctrine concerning the Holy Eucharist, (Catholics and Orthodox, some Anglicans) are often scoffed at because, to the mind of the Protestant, they take but one statement from the Lord Jesus, who very frequently employed the use of symbolic language in his teaching, and somehow decided that in this particular episode, his words were no mere symbol. (Humorous examples can be found all along YouTube comments: "Christ also said He was the door -- do you think He's a door?") It is essentially an accusation of a superstitious ineptitude.

However, it is odd that the Scripture would devote this much detail, this many statements within such an intense dialogue, around one teaching of Christ's, that should ultimately only be read along the same lines of His other statements. A discussion this dense is not given around His "being the door of the sheepfold", or His being "the vine", or around his command to "turn the other cheek." The sheer acknowledgement that the Evangelist has dedicated so much writing in presenting us with this teaching, should likewise inform us that it would behoove us to pay attention to it.


The Competency of His Hearers:

If one holds to a strictly symbolic view of the Eucharist, as many Evangelicals do, it is incredibly easy (I would say de facto) to think of the crowd as somehow dense, unreasonable, or unenlightened. After all, He often spoke to the crowds in parables, so that only those with "ears to hear" would understand Him. But this is too hasty a rendering; their own words reveal that they are capable of understanding to when He is speaking metaphorically and when He is speaking with an assertive realism. Such can be demonstrated:
Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”
Christ statement contains two parts: "I am the living bread | which came down from heaven." He is, of course, not literally bread, but it can be legitimately said that He came down from heaven -- it is from this fact from which the metaphor draws its inner truth.

How does the gathering reply? “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” (John 6:42) Notice, then, that Christ's audience has dissected which parts of his statements were realist, and which were symbol. They raise objection, not to His saying "I am bread", but to "I came down from heaven." These Jews are not dense; they have caught on just fine as to what Christ was implying. Christ's words contain both realism and symbolism, but it is only their realism that is met with skepticism. They will not cede that He has in fact descended from the heavenly realm. In other words, they take issue not with Christ calling himself bread, but by his saying that he came down from heaven -- the part of His statement that is not metaphor, but actual.

The same can be said for when Christ further extrapolates his words "I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh." (Jn. 6:51)
Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
Having vouched for this crowd's intellectual aptitude, let it be asked: if Christ were just speaking in figure about the necessity of consuming his flesh and blood, would they have taken offence at it? Why would they have found it a difficult teaching, a hard saying? Have they not already shown themselves competent enough to see where He was speaking in figure and where He was not? Just as they were scandalized by His implying that He came down from heaven -- something which is very true and that they grasped just fine -- they are now scandalized that He should tell them to eat His flesh.
The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.
His hearers have voiced and evidenced their hesitancy, yet the Lord only becomes more assertive than before. Before, He says "the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh." Now, "Very truly, I tell you... my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink." He explains His reasoning for making such a statement: Christ has his spiritual life from the Father, and by partaking of His flesh and blood, His disciples share in that same life which He has in the Father. That spiritual life is something He experiences in His humanity, that spiritual life from the Father which is capable of raising those who possess it from the grave. Those who would eat his flesh and drink his blood would live in Him just as He lives in the Father, and consequently be raised gloriously from the dead just as He would be.

Some of His statements are augmented to be rather intense; the Savior emphasizes his previous remarks so as to make it personal. While continuing to say "eat my flesh," he also expresses this truth by emphatically including, "whoever eats me." He utilizes the word "true", as is His wont as the enlightener of the human race, when he says "Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life within you" and "for my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink." How often has He at other times employed such claims to veracity? "Truly I tell you, you must be like little children to enter the Kingdom of Heaven" (Mt. 18:3)  "Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." (Jn. 12:24)

Yes, much of the Lord's language is spiritual in its nature, but evidently, no one in this able crowd seemed inclined to take the contemporary Protestant approach of simply understanding the words about eating His flesh and blood along the same lines as the rest of His sermon. When doubt is initially expressed, He only reinforces this line of speech and progresses it in its assertiveness.
When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, “Does this offend you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But among you there are some who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.” 
The text tells us it not merely His casual hearers, or those with some loose association with him, who are bothered by these words. Rather, it informs us that it is His disciples -- those who have already walked with Him -- who own up to having a problem. They admit to their reservations. "This teaching is difficult, who can accept it?" Yet the Lord does not choose to blunt the edge his words. Rather, he directly challenges their hesitation: “Does this offend you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?"

His begging question which He uses as a follow up to his teaching is, of course, very realist: the Son of Man is going to ascend to where he was before (this happens at the Ascension, as recorded at the end of Luke and in the beginning of Acts.) This is not a mere rhetorical device, but a driving guarantee. It would seem very odd that He would intimidate the crowd's hesitation towards a metaphorical statement with one that is not metaphorical at all. If His claim that He down from heaven, and that He will ascend back to His Father, is credible, why is not His command to eat His flesh and drink His blood?

"The Flesh is useless?"

It is sometimes objected that Jesus, with one fell swoop, eliminates any realist understanding when He utters "It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life." There are some who would latch on to "the flesh is useless" and utilize it to dismiss that idea that there could be any spiritual benefit in taking into oneself the literal flesh and blood of Christ.

This is quite an unsound interpretation to think that when He says "the flesh is useless", that this would include His own flesh and blood. How regularly does the New Testament attribute Christ's blood with the work of Redemption? Thus says St. Paul, "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace" (Eph. 1:7) And in Revelation, "you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation" (Rev. 5:9) No, His flesh is precious, as He offered it to His Father in a holy oblation which proved conducive towards the salvation of the human race.

Rather, in accordance the more Scripturally consonant understanding, in this particular instance, He is using this word "flesh" not in the sense of physical and tangible flesh, but rather, in the sense of man's lower, carnal mind. In such a way, He spoke to the Apostle Peter "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven." (Mt. 16:17)

Turning to Those Closest to Him
Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
It isn't fair to assert that those He was preaching to were simply among the uninitated. The text tells us many of His disciples no longer walked with him. It was his followers who were scandalized; not merely the casual hearers and those who had ulterior motives.

When the crowds turn away, Jesus turns to the Twelve. Though Christ had many disciples, this group of men had a privilege which no others shared -- namely, that when Christ spoke in parables in public, He would do them the service of explaining them in private. “With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples." (Mk. 4:33-34) Or as they are actually addressed: “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given." (Mt. 13:11) The twelve received the most direct instruction. Yet, when the crowd which included many of His followers departs, He offers them no explanation to his words. Rather, he only leaves them with harrowing question:

Do you also wish to go away?

If the Apostles had special access for unpacking His teachings which are more or less verbal illustrations, and in light of this most hard saying, no interpretation is thus given, it seems to follow that He was, in fact, not using a mere metaphor at all.


Let us close with this: one who would deny the realist implications of His words would have to in some way or another, admit:
  • that Christ's audience generally had well developed enough reasoning to discern when He was using metaphor and when he was not, yet somehow made an obvious error in their assessment of His instruction to eat His flesh and drink His blood.
  • that the Lord's disciples , who had greater familiarity with Him than others, were the ones who called it "a hard teaching", and were the ones needlessly scandalized over a metaphor, over which they ultimately left Him.
  • that He challenged them needlessly, and did not even explain His words to His intimates in this scenario 
  • that one of the Gospel accounts devotes so much time in explaining a teaching of Christ which is just as much a metaphor, simile, hyperbole and parable as His other statements.
  • that it also takes so much time in explaining this teaching, comparable to other discourses like ones where He says that He is the Son of God
  • that aside from proclaiming Himself the Son of God and for condemning the Pharisees of infidelity, no other statements of His illicit such negative reactions amidst His hearers.
That's quite a lot to ascribe to being a mere metaphor and to consign to relative regularity in the greater scheme of His teachings.


Wednesday, February 7, 2018

Deus Fit Homo Ut Homo Fieret Deus

The Transfiguration of Jesus Christ


And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.  
2 Corinthians 3:18

Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature. 
2 Peter 1:4  

Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. 
1 John 3:2 

One of the doctrines of the Early Church is also one not commonly addressed or adhered to in contemporary Western Christianity. It is, however still part of Catholic and Orthodox teaching. The Eastern Churches calls it "Theosis", while the West calls it "Deification", and Aquinas uses the term "becoming Deiform."

Ranking among the greatest of all Christian mysteries is the idea that God descended from His heavenly throne to become one of us, taking the form of a lowly servant. Or, as it's commonly stated: God became man. If this mystery is true, there's a flip-side to it, which is seldom contemplated in mainstream Christianity: if God became man, then man also became God.

This is truly significant. Jesus says "no one has seen the Father except the One who is truly from him." (John 6:46). Moses, a human being, could not look upon the face of God, and yet Jesus, also a human being, could, on account of his simultaneously being divine. Jesus later says "anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." (John 14:6) Jesus thus offers himself as the means for man to finally see God. He gives man an ability that innately only belongs to the Trinity: the ability to look upon the Face of God. Being the mediator between God and man (2 Tm. 1:5), he thus bridges the two parties, and allows both to assume each other's inner experience.

How does this apply to us? God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying "Abba, Father!" In other words, we call out to God as Father just as Christ calls out to God as Father, for it is His Spirit within us. We are, not figuratively, but literally, adopted into the Divine Family! We are, by sharing in Christ's eternal sonship, participating in the inner life of God. If we are truly sons via adoption, then we are truly heirs as well (cf. Rm 8:15), meaning what the Father has is being passed on to us.

Hence, here lies the explanation for the verses up above. By being made "partakers in the divine nature", it entails a host of things: it enables us to share in God's holiness, which sanctifies us and makes us holy; to experience His internal life, which is everlasting, and it will culmination to actually being able (to some extent) to look upon the face of our Creator. Therefore, "when he is revealed, we shall be like him, for we will see him as he is." It says "we will be like him!" It says we are progressing "from glory unto glory," reflecting God's glory as in a mirror.

It could be summed up in a simple sentence: Deus fit homo it homo fieret deus. God became man that man might become God.

This is not to be understood that we become who God is, nor is it to be understood in a Mormon-esque way and believing ourselves to become our own gods -- God alone is God, and He is one. We are not, and shall never be, gods unto ourselves. Yet, this is to be understood as more than just being made righteous and even more than just living forever in and of themselves. Essentially, it means that we will experience in our lives certain qualities that by their very nature only belong to God: perfect sanctity, everlasting life, consummate happiness. Thus, we experience God's own life, partaking in the divine nature.

Through the loving Grace which God offers us through his Son, Jesus' command "be ye therefore perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" should no longer be seen as an impossible achievement -- for what is impossible for man is possible for God, and He has made it that our humanities may have true union with His divinity. This is ultimately what the life of Christ accomplished for us. As active Christians, we are literally becoming the righteousness of God (2 Cr. 5:21), being conformed to the image of His Son (Rm. 8:29).

And this concept of theosis, of "Deus fit homo it homo fieret deus", is the consistent testimony of the ancient church, as is demonstrated from these ancient voices:

"The Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through His transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself."
- Irenaeus of Lyon (130-202), Against Heresies, preface to book 5

"If he [man] should incline to the things of immortality, keeping the commandment of God, he should receive as reward from Him immortality, and should become God..."
- Theophilus of Antioch (d. 183), to Autolycus, book II, 27

"The Word of God became man, that you may learn from man how man may become God"
 - Clement of Alexandria (150-215), Exhortations to the Heathen 1

"The Father of immortality sent the immortal Son and Word into the world, ...begetting us again to incorruption of soul and body, breathed into us the breath (spirit) of life, and endued us with an incorruptible panoply. If, therefore, man has become immortal, he will also be God."
- Hippolytus of Rome (170-235), discourse on the Holy Theophany 8

"Certainly He is not man only who gives immortality, which if He were only man He could not give; but by giving divinity by immortality, He proves Himself to be God by offering divinity, which if He were not God He could not give."
- Novatian (200-258), treatise on the Trinity 15

"This is our God, this is Christ, who, as the mediator of the two, puts on man that He may lead them to the Father. What man is, Christ was willing to be, that man may be what Christ is."
- Cyprian of Carthage (200-258), Treatises 6:11

"For He was made man that we might be made God ; and He manifested Himself by a body that we might receive the idea of the unseen Father; and He endured the insolence of men that we might inherit immortality."
- Athanasius of Alexandria (297-373), On the Incarnation 54

"But the Incarnation is summed up in this, that the whole Son, that is, His manhood as well as His divinity, was permitted by the Father's gracious favour to continue in the unity of the Father's nature, and retained not only the powers of the divine nature, but also that nature's self. For the object to be gained was that man might become God."
- Hilary of Poitiers (310-367), On the Trinity 9:38

"Since the God who was manifested infused Himself into perishable humanity for this purpose, viz. that by this communion with Deity mankind might at the same time be defied."
- Gregory of Nyssa (335-395), Great Catechism 38

"While His inferior Nature, the Humanity, became God, because it was united to God, and became One Person because the Higher Nature prevailed ... in order that I too might be made God so far as He is made Man."
- Gregory Nazianzen (329-390), The Third Theological Oration 29:19

"Today Godhead sealed itself upon Manhood, that so with the Godhead’s stamp Manhood might be adorned."
- Ephraim the Syrian (306-376), Hymns on the Nativity 1

"He therefore descended that we might ascend, and, while remaining in His own nature, became a sharer in our nature, so that we, while remaining in our own nature, might become sharers in His nature; but not in the same way, for He did not become worse by sharing in our nature, but we become better by sharing in His"
- Augustine of Hippo (354-430), Letters 140:4