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Yes I do continually eat this flesh over and over, but not because I am not assured that I will live forever, but because, believing as I do, that this is the body and blood of Jesus Christ, I am greedy for it! I desire it more and more! Again, it is not like the manna which was food from heaven to nourish the body. this is food to nourish the soul.
If you eat, you will NEVER HUNGER. so why do you hunger?
Jesus compaired this with eating regular food, or manna which you eat over and over because that food dies, and you hunger, this food you can eat oince and never need to eat again.
You said "This is what Jesus meant", you should have said "This is what I believe Jesus meant".
I agree about ingesting as much of the word of God as is possible, but that's metaphorical. Jesus did not say anything about it being a metaphor or a representation when he said the words "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood...",
although you think that what he said in other places in Scripture draw this conclusion, Jesus still said what he said. Another problem I have is that the Eucharist was the food of the early Church, it isn't a modern doctrine, so it was instituted, in terms of time, closer to Christ than us, but that's just a thought with no real elaboration...
which again leads us to context. context says believe and eating are the same, and both give you eternal lif.e and you will never hunger. you admit you still hunger for it. thus you admit it is not the flesh jesus spoke of. because if it was you would never hunger, JUST AS JESUS PROMISED.