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John 6:53: eat my flesh and drink my blood

What Christian writers said, from about AD 206 to 1911.

50 passages · 29 writers · 9 centuries

The short answer

Matthew Henry, Wesley, and Bruce read eating Christ's flesh and drinking his blood in John 6 as believing in him, and Matthew Henry and Ryle read 'the flesh profiteth nothing' as ruling out a literal eating. Augustine and Chrysostom say the flesh must not be understood carnally and the words must be understood spiritually. Luther, Calvin, Matthew Henry, Spurgeon, and Bruce say the discourse does not refer to the Lord's Supper, Luther, Henry, and Spurgeon adding that the Supper was not yet instituted, while Denney, Edersheim, and Bayly find a reference to it. Origen says the flesh in the discourse is that of the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world, and Maclaren and David Brown connect the flesh given for the life of the world with Christ's death. Augustine and Hilary say the one who eats and drinks is in Christ and Christ in him.

Eating is believing: the Spirit quickens

21 passages · 16 writers · 200s to 1800s

Matthew Henry, Wesley, and Bruce read eating Christ's flesh and drinking his blood as believing in him, and Owen reads it as a real communication of Christ and his benefits to those who believe. Augustine says we ought not to understand the flesh carnally, and Chrysostom, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Tertullian say the hearers erred in taking the words carnally. Calvin says the bond of union with Christ is that our faith relies on his death. Ryle says the flesh of Christ, literally eaten, cannot do good to the soul, Spurgeon says the spiritual mind feeds spiritually on the emblems and not with the lips and stomach, and Barnes says the words were not meant literally. Aquinas says John 6:63 does not deny that Christ's flesh is eaten in the Sacrament, but says it is not received as ordinary flesh.

c. 206–207 · Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh (De resurrectione carnis) 37

He says, it is true, that “the flesh profiteth nothing;” but then, as in the former case, the meaning must be regulated by the subject which is spoken of. Now, because they thought His discourse was harsh and intolerable, supposing that He had really and literally enjoined on them to eat his flesh, He, with the view of ordering the state of salvation as a spiritual thing, set out with the principle, “It is the spirit that quickeneth;” and then added, “The flesh profiteth nothing,”—meaning, of course, to the giving of life. He also goes on to explain what He would have us to understand by spirit: “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” In a like sense He had previously said: “He that heareth my words, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but shall pass from death unto life.” Constituting, therefore, His word as the life-giving principle, because that word is spirit and life, He likewise called His flesh by the same appellation; because, too, the Word had become flesh, we ought therefore to desire Him in order that we may have life, and to devour Him with the ear, and to ruminate on Him with the understanding, and to digest Him by faith.

c. 350–417 · Cyril of Jerusalem, Mystagogic Catecheses 1-5 (Catecheses mystagogicae) 4.4

Christ on a certain occasion discoursing with the Jews said, Except ye eat My flesh and drink My blood, ye have no life in you. They not having heard His saying in a spiritual sense were offended, and went back, supposing that He was inviting them to eat flesh.

c. 406–421 · Augustine of Hippo, Tractates on the Gospel of John (In Iohannis Evangelium Tractatus CXXIV) 27.1

The Lord gives us His flesh to eat, and yet to understand it according to the flesh is death; while yet He says of His flesh, that therein is eternal life. Therefore we ought not to understand the flesh carnally.

1553 · John Calvin, Commentary on John, part 1 (chapters 1-11) 6.63

By these words Christ shows the reason why the Jews did not profit by his doctrine to be, that, being spiritual and quickening, it does not find ears well prepared. But as this passage has been variously expounded, it will be of importance first to ascertain the natural meaning of the words; from which it will be easy to perceive Christ’s intention. When he affirms that the flesh profiteth nothing, Chrysostom improperly, in my opinion, refers it to the Jews, who were carnal. I readily acknowledge that in heavenly mysteries the whole power of the human mind is utterly unavailing; but the words of Christ do not bear that meaning, if they be not violently tortured. Equally forced would be that opinion, as applied to the apposite clause; namely, it is the illumination of the Spirit that quickeneth. Nor do I approve of the views of those who say, that the flesh of Christ profiteth, so far as he was crucified, but that, when it is eaten, it is of no advantage to us; for, on the contrary, we must eat it, that, having been crucified, it may profit. Augustine thinks that we ought to supply the word only, or by itself, as if it had been said, “The flesh alone, and by itself, profiteth not,” because it must be accompanied by the Spirit. This meaning accords well with the scope of the discourse, for Christ refers simply to the manner of eating. He does not, therefore, exclude every kind of usefulness, as if none could be obtained from his flesh; but he declares that, if it be separated from the Spirit, it will then be useless. For whence has the flesh power to quicken, but because it is spiritual? Accordingly, whoever confines his whole attention to the earthly nature of the flesh, will find in it nothing but what is dead; but they who shall raise their eyes to the power of the Spirit, which is diffused over the flesh, will learn from the actual effect and from the experience of faith, that it is not without reason that it is called quickening.

1846 · John Williamson Nevin, The Mystical Presence: A Vindication of the Reformed or Calvinistic Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist 4.6

“It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I speak unto you they are spirit, and they are life.” This observation of the Saviour, occurring in close connection with the passage before us, and having reference directly to the offence which had been taken with it on the part of many as “a hard saying,” (John vi. 63), has been considered by some a clear intimation that all which had been spoken before was to be understood in the most common metonymical sense. They will have it that the whole of this most solemn representation, in which, over and over again, the necessity of eating Christ's flesh, and drinking his blood is urged, as that without which men can have no life—was intended only to bewilder and confound the carnal Jews; while the true meaning of it comes simply to this, that we must be joined to the Saviour, by a believing reception of his doctrine, or a simply mental correspondence with him at most in the power of his sufferings and death. But surely no exegesis could well be more poor and flat than this. It belongs itself emphatically to that very carnalism, to which it affects to be in its own way so vastly superior; for it sticks plainly in the self-same abstraction, which rendered it so difficult for the Jews of Capernaum to understand our Saviour, and by which the things of the Spirit so generally are made to appear foolishness to the mere understanding as such. The imagination that Christ by the words, The flesh profiteth nothing, intended simply to intimate that his flesh or body could do no good, and that he must be understood therefore to refer in what he had said to a purely moral communication with his person, must be pronounced well nigh as crass as the notion of an actual oral manducation of his material flesh itself. Spirit and flesh here are opposed in a quite different and far deeper sense.

Does the discourse speak of the Lord's Supper?

14 passages · 12 writers · 1500s to 1900s

Luther says John 6 says nothing about the sacrament, because the sacrament was not yet instituted and Christ speaks of faith in the incarnate Word. Calvin says the passage is improperly explained as applied to the Lord's Supper, Matthew Henry says the Supper was not yet instituted, and Spurgeon and Bruce say the discourse does not refer to it. Hodge argues that the eating in John 6 means believing in Christ and not the Lord's Supper, and Maclaren says the discourse and the rite deal with the same truths. Denney says it is not possible to deny a reference to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper in John 6, Edersheim says the primary reference is to personal faith and the secondary reference to the Holy Feast, and Bayly reads John 6:51 of the Lord's Supper. Nevin says the Supper was not yet instituted but that the idea it embodies is the same one brought into view in John 6.

1520 · Martin Luther, On the Babylonish Captivity of the Church intro

In the first place, the sixth chapter of John must be set aside altogether, as not saying a single syllable about the sacrament; not only because the sacrament had not yet been instituted, but much more because the very sequence of the discourse and of its statements shows clearly that Christ was speaking—as I have said before—of faith in the incarnate Word. For He says: “My words, they are spirit and they are life;” showing that He was speaking of that spiritual eating, wherewith he who eats, lives; while the Jews understood Him to speak of a carnal eating, and therefore raised a dispute. But no eating gives life, except the eating of faith, for this is the really spiritual and living eating; as Augustine says: “Why dost thou get ready thy stomach and thy teeth? Believe, and thou hast eaten.” A sacramental eating does not give life, for many eat unworthily, so that Christ cannot be understood to have spoken of the sacrament in this passage.

1883 · Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah 3.32

Eating the Flesh and drinking the Blood of the Son of Man, such was the necessary condition of securing eternal life. It is impossible to mistake the primary reference of these words to our personal application of His Death and Passion to the deepest need and hunger of our souls; most difficult, also, to resist the feeling that, secondarily, they referred to that Holy Feast which shows forth that Death and Passion, and is to all time its remembrance, symbol, seal, and fellowship. In this, also, has the hand of History drawn out the telescope; and as we gaze through it, every sentence and word sheds light upon the Cross and light from the Cross, carrying to us this twofold meaning: His Death, and its Celebration in the great Christian Sacrament.

The flesh given for the life of the world

15 passages · 10 writers · 200s to 1900s

Calvin says the sacrament seals the promise of John 6 that Christ's flesh is meat and his blood drink, and that Christ intended more than believing, since we are quickened by true partaking of him. Maclaren says the separation of flesh and blood indicates a violent death, David Brown says John 6:51 explicitly introduces Christ's sacrificial death, and Origen says the flesh is that of the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. Augustine says that to eat Christ's flesh and drink his blood is to dwell in Christ and have him dwell in us, and that whoever does not eat has not this life. Hilary says the flesh and blood are real and that eating and drinking them brings it to pass that we are in Christ and Christ in us, and Ambrose says the flesh and blood are sacred pledges conveying the merits and power of the Lord's death. Chrysostom says that by 'My flesh is true meat' Christ either declares that this is the meat that saves the soul or shows that it is needful to eat the Body.

c. 391 · John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of John 47.1

“For My flesh is true meat, and My blood is true drink.” What is that He saith? He either desireth to declare that this is the true meat which saveth the soul, or to assure them concerning what had been said, that they might not suppose the words to be a mere enigma or parable, but might know that it is by all means needful to eat the Body.

c. 406–421 · Augustine of Hippo, Tractates on the Gospel of John (In Iohannis Evangelium Tractatus CXXIV) 26.18

In a word, He now explains how that which He speaks of comes to pass, and what it is to eat His body and to drink His blood. “He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.” This it is, therefore, for a man to eat that meat and to drink that drink, to dwell in Christ, and to have Christ dwelling in him. Consequently, he that dwelleth not in Christ, and in whom Christ dwelleth not, doubtless neither eateth His flesh [spiritually] nor drinketh His blood [although he may press the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ carnally and visibly with his teeth], but rather doth he eat and drink the sacrament of so great a thing to his own judgment, because he, being unclean, has presumed to come to the sacraments of Christ, which no man taketh worthily except he that is pure: of such it is said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

1559 · John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 4.17.8

How little confidence can it give you, to know that the Word of God, from which you are at the greatest distance, contains within himself the fulness of life, whereas in yourself, in whatever direction you turn, you see nothing but death? But ever since that fountain of life began to dwell in our nature, he no longer lies hid at a distance from us, but exhibits himself openly for our participation. Nay, the very flesh in which he resides he makes vivifying to us, that by partaking of it we may feed for immortality. “I,” says he, “am that bread of life;” “I am the living bread which came down from heaven;” “And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (John 6:48, 51). By these words he declares, not only that he is life, inasmuch as he is the eternal Word of God who came down to us from heaven, but, by coming down, gave vigour to the flesh which he assumed, that a communication of life to us might thence emanate. Hence, too, he adds, that his flesh is meat indeed, and that his blood is drink indeed: by this food believers are reared to eternal life.

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