[OBW]

One of the errors that Lee pulled was to over-emphasize the "eat" part. It is a very meaningful metaphor. But like a lot of other similes, metaphors, etc., if we get hung up on the terminology of the metaphor, we miss what it is actually talking about.

And when we read the whole passage, it is clear that even at that time many had no idea what he was talking about and quit following over it. He seemed so explicit. Yet not a single one of us has ever actually eaten Jesus' flesh or drank his blood. It is metaphorical. And when Jesus said it, he knew that it would be too extreme even as a metaphor, and the tagalongs would leave.

But if Lee just wants to throw around the "eat Jesus" terminology and say it over and over, then his goal is not to help anyone actually engage in the kind of diligence in the word and prayer to follow Jesus. It is to make his followers excited about saying controversial things and driving a wedge between them and the greater part of the body of Christ. He published a story about "Hunky and Dory in the Land of Food" in the old Stream magazine to make a big deal that the Bible is to eat, not for learning, prayer, and action. And then that song that talked constantly about eating Jesus and the chorus of "We'll masticate Jesus." (to the tune "More, More About Jesus") All shock and awe to condition his followers to extremes and keep driving that wedge.

And in doing this he makes the metaphor the emphasis and ultimately the goal. Nothing practical for living. Just a crazy metaphor without the thing it is intended to draw us toward.

aron:

I don't think the important thing is some equivalency of Jesus eating the Father like we eat Jesus. The only reference to the Father in the John 6 passage is that Jesus lives because of the Father, and that we will live because of Him. Yes, there is the reference to eating. But it does not actually say that we will live because of the flesh and blood we consume, except metaphorically. The importance is a spiritual supply, not the overlay of eating. And the eating is not automatically presumed to apply to the relationship between the Father and Son just because it says it with respect to us and the Son. I think that the parallel is that Jesus lives because of the Father and we live because of the Son. The reference to eating is important to us because our physical living is accomplished because of eating. Not sure there is an equivalency in that.