What did Jesus mean when he said, "This is my body" instead of "This represents my body"?

Question

Was Jesus just making poetry, or was he creating a new sacrament for Christians to encounter him in a new and life-changing way?

Credit to Deirdre H for the question.

Answer 1

No poetry going on there.

Our Lord Himself gives us two basic rules to resolve this dilemma.

Rule number one: When Our Lord spoke figuratively but was taken literally He always corrected the mistake of His listeners immediately.

Example (a): "Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees" (St. Matt. 16, 5).

The Apostles understood these words literally and began to argue among themselves about the fact that they had no bread. Then Our Lord said, "How is it that you fail to perceive that I did not speak about bread…Then they understood that he did not tell them to be aware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees" (vv. 11-12).

Example (b): "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awake him out of sleep" (St. John 11, 11).

The Apostles again took Our Lord literally and said, "Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover" (v. 12). Immediately came the correction, "Lazarus is dead" (v. 14).

Example (c): "…unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (St. John 3, 3).

Nicodemus automatically took these words literally and replied, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?" (3, 4). Our Lord’s answer immediately dispelled Nicodemus’ error, showing that He meant a spiritual, not physical, rebirth: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God" (3, 5).

Rule number two: When Our Lord spoke literally, and those who heard Him understood Him correctly but refused to accept what He said, He reasserted the literal meaning again more forcibly.

Example (a): "Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven" (St. Matt. 9, 2).

The Scribes at hearing these words were greatly disturbed and said among themselves, "This man is blaspheming" (9, 3). However, Christ did not try to water down or explain away His words but reasserted His claim to forgive sins by miraculously healing the paralytic before all.

Example (b): "Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day" (St. John 8, 56).

The Jews correctly understood Our Lord literally but rejected Him asserting, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?" (8, 57). Our Lord’s solemn reply, which brought forth the immediate wrath of the Jews, was, "Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was, I am" (8, 58). Christ not only reiterated His literal meaning but also did so at the risk of being stoned to death (8, 59).

"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: "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 all 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 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 even 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. 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).

A final Protestant appeal is also made to St. John 6, 63: "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." We are told that these words mean that the eating of flesh is of no spiritual value, only faith can profit one unto eternal life. That being the case, Christ could not have meant to eat His flesh in order to have life. The Catholic response is that Christ was in reality making an appeal to His listeners to trust Him on faith rather than try and rationalize His words in order to find their true meaning. In the previous verse (v. 62) Christ infers that His listeners would have had no problem accepting His words if they had seen Him as He was before He came down from heaven, that is, as the Son of God equal to the Father, for then His words would obviously be the words of God rather than the words of man - words of "spirit and life."

Answer 2

The Christian tradition holds and the Catholic faith will always uphold that the first Eucharist was the Last Supper. At that moment Christ changed the bread that they ate and the wine that they drank into his body and blood respectively. It is fitting that it is named Eucharist which means thanksgiving (Greek) for it was a sacrifice; Christ's perfect sacrifice for all of us. The institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper can be found in Matthew 26:26-28, Mark 14:22-24, Luke 22:19-20 and 1 Corinthians. 11:23-26.
Before it is consecrated it is just a wafer, but after the priest re-enacts the Last Supper then it is truly the body and blood of Jesus Christ. This is also known as the Real Presence. The Church has maintained since the time of the apostles that the bread that is broken and the wine that is poured becomes the actual body and blood, not that Jesus is present with the bread and the wine, nor that they are merely a symbol. In the Eucharist Christ is truly, wholly, and substantially present. The two clearest expressions of the real Presence in Scripture is in 1 Corinthians 10:14-17 and John 6:22-69.

John 1:29,36; Acts 8:32; 1 Peter 1:19 - Jesus is described as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. The Lamb must be sacrificed and eaten.

Matt. 26:26-28; Mark. 14:22,24; Luke 22;19-20; 1 Cor. 11:24-25 - Jesus says, this IS my body and blood. Jesus does not say, this is a symbol of my body and blood.


In John 6, Jesus' disciples did ask about His literal speech (that this bread was His flesh which must be eaten). He confirmed that His flesh and blood were food and drink indeed. Many disciples understood Him and left Him.

John 6:64,70 - Jesus ties the disbelief in the Real Presence of His Body and Blood in the Eucharist to Judas' betrayal. Those who don't believe in this miracle betray Him.

Answer 3

If you actually look up the cross reference to the scripture at John 18: 6 you will notice it points to John 7:46 where it states "The officers replied: “Never has [another] man spoken like this.” They knew he was the "Christ" which is Greek for Messiah. It says nothing about Him being God. Along similar lines, we could read Philippians 2:9, where the apostle Paul describes what God did after Jesus died and was resurrected. The verse says: "God exalted him [Jesus] to a superior position and kindly gave him the name that is above every other name." If Jesus was God or equal to God before he died and God later exalted him to a higher position, would that not put Jesus above God? Yet how could anyone become superior to God? And if he was God before he died, how can God die? There is no "mystery" here. Jesus is the Son of God. Also, God always referred to Jesus as his son, and Jesus always referred to God as his father, showing that God was older and had more authority. He also said that he came to do God's will and not his own, showing two wills; his father and his. Two separate wills. If you want to go on believing that God has three heads, then you must have three too, since you were created in his image!

Answer 4

First, let me preface my answer with an admission. I am not a Christian. I used to be Catholic. I've read the Bible many times. I've studied it. I probably don't know it as well as many, but I likely know it better than most. I've found that many who call themselves Christian really don't know any more than what they hear on Sunday, and believe themselves saved because they said some prayer and "invited Jesus into their hearts" at some revival or street corner, or when answering an altar call.

I first asked this question because I wanted to know what people thought. (I actually asked it along with others.) Fortunately, this time it's received a few more answers, but none that can really explain why Jesus said things the way he did.

The argument that "it's something like describing an accident and saying (of a hand) This was the blue car" truly fails. One does not ask another to eat a car.

Jesus said "This Is my Body" and "This is my blood". In the Gospel of John, he said "Amen, amen, I say to you. Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life in yourselves."

Had Jesus said this only once, one might conclude that he was speaking figuratively. The problem is that he said it more than once; it was a theme of note. People reiterate concepts when they are important. This particular one, eating flesh and drinking blood, was notable, shocking to those who heard it, and was NEVER explained in scripture, to the shocked listeners as anything other than literal.

If one is a Christian, and wishes to explain this away, especially in the light of the 6th chapter of John, where Jesus says those who do not eat his flesh do not have life within them, I really don't see how they can call the Bible literal, or themselves fundamentalists relying solely on the word of God. Truly, if you are interpreting scripture based on how you would describe an automobile accident, rather than taking it as literally as Jesus seems to have implied, are you not practicing isegesis?

Many Christians claim that the Bible is the literal word of God. This to me seems to be one area where Catholics stick to the literal (and seemingly intendedly literal) word of Christ. He never said "this is a story", "This is my virtual flesh", "This represents my flesh" or "pretend this is my flesh". He said "this is my flesh", he repeated it. He knew people were perplexed and reiterated "My flesh is food". There was no ambiguity. There was no sense of symbolism.

According to the Bible, unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man, you shall not have life within you. Obviously, this flies squarely in the face of Sola Fide. Then again, the words of Christ are in the Bible. The words "Sola Fide" are not.

Then again, I'm not a Christian, so what would I know?

Answer 5

In the first chapter of the Gospel of John, when John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him, he said to the crowd, "behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world".

At the Last Supper, when Jesus instituted the Eucharist, he and the disciples were observing the feast of Passover -- commemorating the first Passover as told in Exodus 12 during which a lamb was slain ... and its flesh eaten. Not symbolically, not poetically, but actually consumed.

His intention for the new sacrament is unmistakable, unless one tries very hard not to see it.

Those who insist that this is a symbolic remembrance also insist on limiting God to doing only what they can understand, or perceive with their senses. How is it that Christ cannot possibly be with us sacramentally in body, blood, soul and divinity in the Eucharist? Can He not do as He wishes with His own creation -- bread and wine, or anything else? "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?"

Answer 6

Jesus meant it literally when He earlier commanded the eating of His flesh and blood. Many of His followers left Him because it was too hard a saying. Instead of calling them back to explain what He really meant, He insisted and repeated it again. He did not water down His statement just to bring back His followers. Without any further explanation, He even asked the remaining followers if they planned to leave Him also. No punches here. He meant what he said. "This is my Body" was a follow through of that earlier incident.

Answer 7

Humans relate well to symbolisms; we are made this way. Women are more sensitive to this than men. (Give a girl you desire a single rose and she will see MUCH more than you do !)
In religious contexts, symbolism is utilized to the full. The problem occurs when a denomination will literalize what is not meant to be literalized. For example: Jesus said "I am the door". Do you see hinges on him?? Of course not. In the same way, too many literalize the 'anti-christ' and have been calling everyone from Nero to Hitler this person (without realizing is the one who is literalizing that is closer to being the antichrist).
Just as we eat bread to sustain life, so we must eat spiritual bread to stay alive. The host does not represent Christ as much as the symbolism of eating signifies Life. The concept was to show that to experience Life we must actively eat (or ingest) The Life.
If one just sees this as a representation, s/he could eat all the bread in the world and still miss out on The Life.

Answer 8

You are now into the main difference between the catholic and protestant ritual. The host at the catholic mass is not a representation of the body of Christ, it is the body of Christ. The catholic mass is called a sacrifice and that is probably the reason.

Answer 9

Because it signified what was about to happen. Jesus's body was about to be metaphorically broken for all of man kind and His blood will pour out and wash the sins away of man kind. ( No bone was broken however to match with the prophesy of Scripture) the other two thieves had their legs broken after Jesus died and His side was pierced , also just as the prophesy said.

Answer 10

Jesus knew what he was doing when he said, "This is my body." He was creating the ritual uniting many generations to come and knowing fully well that it would also bring about discourse as we have about religious differences and keeping his name "alive and well."