Hi Kyle, I don't see why you are sure why "the flesh" of verse 63 is not a metaphor for unbelief, as it is elsewhere.
Because of the context, as I already explained.
Moreover, we are saved literally by Christ's flesh, as verse 51 says, unless you want to say that both "bread" and "flesh" are metaphors, in which case the sentence is null, as are verses 52-56.
We are saved by trusting in His sacrificial death, which was accomplished in the breaking of His body & the spilling of His blood. We are not saved literally by eating His physical flesh. The use of multiple metaphors doesn't make Jesus' teaching null. Christ uses the eating of the bread of life as a metaphor for believing in Him. He expands this metaphor by stating that His flesh & blood are true food & drink, & says that it is necessary to eat of (believe in) His flesh & blood (His atoning death) to have eternal life. This is well-evidenced by the way in which Jesus speaks throughout the chapter. Let's compare some verses:
"Work not for the food which perisheth, but for the food which abideth unto eternal life, which the Son of man shall give unto you" (v. 27).
"This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent" (v. 29).
Jesus teaches that to work for the food which abides unto eternal life is to believe in Him.
"I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall not hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst" (v. 35).
"I am the living bread which came down out of heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever" (v. 51).
See how Jesus mixes metaphors a bit in these verses? Coming & believing result in no longer being hungry or thirsty, whereas eating results in eternal life. We see elsewhere that believing in Jesus results in eternal life. It is thus evident that to eat means to believe, & not to hunger or thirst is to live forever.
"For this is the will of my Father, that every one that beholdeth the Son, and believeth on him, should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day" (v. 40).
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth hath eternal life" (v. 47).
"He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life: and I will raise him up at the last day" (v. 54).
We see the metaphor even more clearly here. Note that in v. 54, the eating of Christ's flesh & blood takes the place of believing in Him. It is clear that this eating is a metaphor for belief. This neither the Jews nor some of His disciples grasped. They were scandalized by the metaphor, taking it literally rather than understanding its spiritual meaning. Thus He explains to His disciples that it is not the flesh that gives life, but the spirit - and His words are spirit & life, i.e., the means by which one obtains spirit-given eternal life is believing His teaching. Peter demonstrates that he has understood in vv. 68-69, not by answering that Jesus' flesh gives eternal life & that he desires to eat it, but rather by answering that Jesus speaks the words of eternal life & that he believes that He is the Christ.
I looked at the Webster article. It is inaccurate. The basic problem is that none of the fathers argued for a purely symbolic view. They saw the symbolic aspect in the offering of the bread and wine, and the appearance of bread and wine, but also the bodily transubstantiation.
I'm sorry, but it just isn't the case that all of the fathers taught that the bread & wine were transubstantiated, having only the appearance of bread & wine but now having the substance of Christ's flesh & blood. You may safely argue that a large percentage of fathers taught that Christ's flesh & blood were physically present in the Eucharist, but in itself that gets us no further than the Lutheran view. Roman Catholicism teaches that the bread & wine in substance CEASE TO BE bread & wine! This is NOT a common view among the fathers in the least.
Moreover all the fathers he mentions were Catholics who held not only to Jn 6, but to numerous ideas incompatible with protestantism, the easiest to prove being the issue of baptismal regeneration and Apostolic succession. So there is not one of these fathers that could be shown to be a forerunner of modern protestantism.
You commit a fallacy common amongst Roman Catholics, & that is to assume that all of the fathers unanimously asserted the same teachings that Rome does today with respect to her pet sacramental & ecclesiastical doctrines. In truth, the fathers are a much more diverse group than that, and in order to derive Roman Catholic teaching from the total body of the fathers' writings, one must really be previously committed to Roman Catholic doctrine. Protestants do not assume that the fathers were "forerunners of modern Protestantism," because Protestants do not invest the same authority in the fathers that Roman Catholics do. As a result, it isn't necessary for us to prove that the fathers agreed with all Protestant teachings. It is enough, on the other hand, to show that the fathers did not fully agree with Roman Catholicism to undermine the entire system of Roman Catholic doctrine.
The Clement of Alexandria chapter which Webster uses as evidence is evidence for Catholic belief: "'Eat my flesh,' [Jesus] says, 'and drink my blood.' The Lord supplies us with these intimate nutrients, he delivers over his flesh and pours out his blood, and nothing is lacking for the growth of his children" (The Instructor of Children 1:6:43:3 [A.D. 191]).
Anyone can quote. From the same chapter in
The Instructor:
"And entertaining this view, we may regard the proclamation of the Gospel, which is universally diffused, as milk; and as meat, faith, which from instruction is compacted into a foundation, which, being more substantial than hearing, is likened to meat, and assimilates to the soul itself nourishment of this kind. Elsewhere the Lord, in the Gospel according to John, brought this out by
symbols, when He said: 'Eat ye my flesh, and drink my blood;' describing distinctly by
metaphor the drinkable properties of faith and the promise, by means of which the Church, like a human being consisting of many members, is refreshed and grows, is welded together and compacted of both,--of faith, which is the body, and of hope, which is the soul; as also the Lord of flesh and blood. For in reality the blood of faith is hope, in which faith is held as by a vital principle."
Throughout the chapter, Clement is teaching that believers are spiritually nourished in faith by Christ, and he speaks of the wide variety of figures, symbols, & metaphors used in Scripture to speak of this nourishing Word.
"Thus in many ways the Word is figuratively described, as meat, and flesh, and food, and bread, and blood, and milk. The Lord is all these, to give enjoyment to us who have believed on Him. Let no one then think it strange, when we say that the Lord's blood is figuratively represented as milk. For is it not figuratively represented as wine? 'Who washes,' it is said, 'His garment in wine, His robe in the blood of the grape.' In His Own Spirit He says He will deck the body of the Word; as certainly by His own Spirit He will nourish those who hunger for the Word."
