The Diving Board, Episode 12

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I this episode we review Cameron Bertuzzi's shifting views on John 6 and the institution narratives.

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And this is very significant. Not one, not even one of those Eastern bishops disputed or questioned the
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Pope's authority. I mean, the
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Eucharistic, let's just say this, the Eucharistic abuses are abuses to Jesus' DNA, his body and blood.
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As I continued to study my early church father, older brothers and sisters, I started to realize that God had a plan for me that was bigger than any plan that I'd ever had for myself.
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And before you know it, it turned to the Catholic Church. When I made that decision to become
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Catholic, everything began to fit. It was like a puzzle with the four sides that I put together with the papacy and the
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Blessed Mother and tradition in the Eucharist. Let's say there's a person watching this program right now from where you were.
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Why should they make the same journey home that you made? I would say investigate the history for yourself because the famous line from Cardinal Newman is to be deep in history is to cease to be
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Protestant. And that's pretty much what happened to me. So I would say take the Catholic Church's claims, investigate them, and as my father always told me, go wherever Jesus leads you.
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And maybe it would end up in the Catholic Church. Hello, everyone. This is your host,
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Timothy F. Kaufman, and you're listening to Episode 12 of The Diving Board, The Conversion of Cameron Bertuzzi, Part 1.
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The Diving Board focuses on the testimonies of Protestants who convert to Roman Catholicism thinking that to be deep in history is to cease to be a
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Protestant. But getting deep in history is something a Roman Catholic cannot do because Roman Catholicism itself is a novelty 300 years removed from the
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Church of the Apostles and their followers. Its roots do not go back any further than the end of the fourth century.
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And as we continue to show in each episode, those Roman Catholics who think they are getting deep in history are actually very, very shallow in it, embracing a late fourth century and medieval novelty as if it were the church
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Jesus Christ founded. It most certainly is not. In this episode, we hear and examine the conversion of Cameron Bertuzzi of recent notoriety because of his high profile
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Capturing Christianity blog and podcast, which is dedicated to an intellectual defense of Christianity.
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Cameron does not claim to be deep in history. And in fact, he freely concedes his doctrinal and historical ignorance on many points and is very eager to learn.
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His main objective with Capturing Christianity is apparently to foster dialogue on matters related to Christian apologetics.
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That approach, coupled with a very, very charismatic background, in his words, and little devotion to or interest in Sola Scriptura makes him very vulnerable to unreliable methods of discerning the truth of God.
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Sola Scriptura was never a sticking point for me. I eventually came to reject Sola Scriptura, but it wasn't like a linchpin or like something that really made me see the truth of Catholicism.
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So I never used that as an argument for Catholicism. Over the course of the last year, he has been very transparent about his conversion, including podcast episodes like Yes, I Nearly Became Catholic in August of 2022 and his
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Coming Out podcast a few months later on November 17th called Three Very Important Updates, in which he announced that he had finally been convinced of the truth of the papacy.
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Throughout this journey, he has appeared on many podcasts, Protestant and Catholic, either being challenged or reaffirmed in his exploration of the claims of Roman Catholicism and his decision to convert.
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Today, we will interact with Cameron on several points, but to a large degree, we will interact with the people who convinced him to convert because at least they claim to be deep in history.
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As we have repeatedly observed, however, they typically think they are deep in history, but they are still in the shallow end of the kiddie pool.
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Cameron is with them right now, swimming with his floaties. Cameron has acknowledged several key factors in his conversion, but there are two that we will focus on here.
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The Eucharist, focusing largely on John 6, and the papacy, focusing largely on Matthew 16 and the
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Eliakim typology. Regarding the Eucharist, we'll focus on his debate with Roman Catholic podcaster and apologist
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Matt Fradd on the topic of John 6, and regarding the papacy, we'll focus on Suon Sona's argument for the typology of Isaiah 22 in Matthew 16 -19.
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Again, because Cameron does not claim to be deep in history, we'll be interacting only a little bit with Cameron, but a lot with those who led him to this decision.
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So, let's listen to Cameron Pertuzzi's conversation with Matt Fradd on what influenced him the most.
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First, the Eucharist and John 6. We join the conversation at the point where Cameron is discussing the key factors in his conversion and who influenced him the most.
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Cameron, who was the biggest influence for you to start an investigation on what the true faith is?
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Probably you. Probably you, because I had never, never thought about the
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Catholic versus Protestant debate until you invited me to come on your show to talk about something completely unrelated.
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But then we did a separate thing on my channel where we looked at some of the objections, and I kind of shared my thoughts.
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And that was, I think, in that video, which now has over 100 ,000 views, maybe more at this point.
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But in that video, one of the things that we talked about was the Eucharist, and that was one of the first times that I had actually read
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John 6 and been like, that is pretty straightforward, actually. And you, you were the one, you were the sort of catalyst that got me thinking about these issues.
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And here is Cameron again later in that same interview explaining some of his developing thoughts on the
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Eucharist. There were two, there were two others that I spent some time working through as well.
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One of them was the Eucharist, which you and I had a debate about that. Yeah, that's online.
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People could check that out. I defended the metaphorical reading, which I don't think I hold that anymore, not because of some dogmatic claim from the
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Catholic Church. I just, as I was reading it one day again, I was like, coming back at it with this metaphorical reading in mind.
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And I was like, is that really the right reading of this passage? I don't know anymore. But that was, that was one of the objections that I had was that if you read
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John 6, John 6 is the part where he says, you've got to drink my blood, you've got to eat my flesh in order to be saved.
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Very explicit. And Catholics will often point to that as like, here's evidence of the Eucharist. And so one of my objections was,
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A, it can be read more metaphorically, and B, it's not even a Last Supper narrative. The Last Supper narratives happen in the other
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Gospels. This one's in John. And so it's not even a Last Supper narrative. What does this have to do with the
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Eucharist? Especially if it's metaphorical. But then I came to realize that you could actually take a metaphorical reading of John 6 and then consistently hold that the
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Eucharist is the real body and blood. So you could hold transubstantiation and a metaphorical reading of John 6.
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So that was another barrier that was removed for me, is that I could see how even if I took that view, it could be the case that the
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Catholic teaching on this is also correct. For those not familiar with the
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Roman Catholic Eucharist, Roman Catholicism celebrates the Lord's Supper by blessing or consecrating the bread and the wine and teaches that once they are consecrated, they are literally the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ.
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That is called the Real Presence Doctrine, because Jesus is said to be really present under the forms of bread and wine.
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That is why Roman Catholics refer to Christ as their Eucharistic Lord. Cameron has just explained that he used to hold to the metaphorical view of John 6, but has since adopted the
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Roman Catholic position on the Real Presence. Once the priest has consecrated the bread and wine by calling them the body and blood of Christ, they are then sacrificed on the altar.
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Which is why the Supper in Roman Catholicism is also called a sacrifice. And further, any consecrated bread remaining after the
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Supper is still believed to be Jesus Christ, body, blood, soul, and divinity, and is therefore worshipped.
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That is what Roman Catholics call Eucharistic Adoration, the worship of the consecrated bread.
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And when they have consecrated the bread, they expose it for worship around the clock, 24 -7.
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That is called Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration. If you do a Google search for Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration in your neighborhood, you can freely go see
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Catholics worshipping a piece of bread that they believe to be Jesus. So, Cameron's debate with Matt Fradd largely focused on these two issues, the
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Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and the worship of the Eucharist. As Cameron states,
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Matt Fradd helped him get over that hurdle. We'll come back to that in a minute. For now, let's listen in on what else convinced
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Cameron to become Roman Catholic, particularly on the matter of the papacy. Cameron mentions several arguments, but emphasizes the
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Suon Sona argument on the typology of Isaiah 22 -22 as a foreshadowing of the papacy.
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And I know for you, perhaps the biggest thing was the papacy.
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You said you had, you can correct me, but you had some good Protestant friends say, Listen, if you look into this seriously, you'll understand that Catholicism has to be false, because the papacy, the claims of the
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Catholic Church regarding the Pope and infallibility are false, unhistorical, unbiblical.
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So the way that it went down, I was like, okay, I called some Protestant friends of mine, and I was like,
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Hey, look, you know, these are my objections to Catholicism, and I no longer have these objections.
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Like, and that's basically, that's basically my objections. So what should I do now?
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Where should I go at this point? So where did you go to first to look? Was it the kind of patristic sources?
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Was it the biblical evidence, historical evidence? There's really three passages in the
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New Testament that are sort of relevant to the papacy, in terms of like giving some positive boost to it, which is
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Matthew 16, John 21, and Luke 22. And if you look at those three, you'll see that,
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I mean, I think being charitably, you can say, Okay, this does give a little bit of weight to the side of the papacy.
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But what really surprised me, and this is why I spent so much of my time focusing on this one piece of data, is there is this argument called the typological, there's all sorts of names for it, but the typological
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Eliakim argument, you may call it something like that. Okay, so there are the two main topics, the
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Eucharist and the papacy, and we'll have to break this into two episodes because there is a lot of material to cover on each topic.
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In both cases, the people influencing Cameron Bertuzzi sincerely believed they were deep in history and gave a
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Roman Catholic interpretation of the passages and claimed to have the early church on their side.
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So, we'll not only rebut them from the ancient sources, but we will also show from the scriptures that they have not understood the passages.
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Clearly, Bertuzzi desires to join his counselors in the deep end, but goodness, he's going to hurt himself diving into the shallow end like that.
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So, let's get up on the diving board at the deep end of the pool and dive into history and into scripture and examine two of the main arguments that convinced
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Bertuzzi to become Roman Catholic. Our first topic is the Eucharist. When Bertuzzi started his conversation with Matt Fradd, he was still
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Protestant and maintained a figurative or metaphorical view of the passages of scripture related to eating flesh and blood or calling the bread and the cup the flesh and blood of Christ.
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And true to form, Matt Fradd leads with Cardinal Newman's famous line, to be deep in history is to cease to be a
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Protestant. See, I'm going to say some strong words, but I don't mean them to be personal or aggressive.
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But Cardinal John Henry Newman has this line, to be steeped in history is to cease to be a
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Protestant. And even though I know that sounds combative and maybe not to you, but to your listeners, offensive, but I find that the
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Catholic Church is teaching on the Eucharist, right? That the Eucharist is truly the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ under the appearances of bread and wine is foreshadowed in the
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Old Testament, taught explicitly in the New Testament. And I'd argue that it couldn't be taught more explicitly.
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I don't think it's possible. And that it's been believed for basically 1500 years by the church until shortly before the
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Protestant Reformation. And so for that reason, I think it's a really good reason to side with that view.
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Matt Fradd suggests that Cameron's current position, that is the position at the time of the debate, is at odds with all of church history up to the
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Reformation, because the early fathers were unanimous in their view of the real presence of Christ in the
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Eucharist. It is a very bold position. And from that point forward, Fradd puts on an enthusiastic and frankly triumphalistic display of galactic ignorance of the liturgy and history of the early church.
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It's really something to behold. And he makes claims that are so grotesquely false, misleading, and inaccurate that to be charitable, we must assume that he truly is unaware of what he is saying.
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I want to show something clearly from the debate. And my intent is not to embarrass either party, but it just simply has to be pointed out that Matt Fradd is incredibly naive or ignorant in his statements.
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And Cameron was foolish to accept him at their face value. Listen carefully to the debate in which
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Cameron outlined his reasons for maintaining a metaphorical view of John 6. First, because eating flesh and blood would violate the
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Old Testament law. And second, eating and drinking Christ's flesh and blood simply means to receive and believe what he is preaching.
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First, Cameron. And so as I started to look into this and started to look at what
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Protestants had to say about this, I came across a few different things that I think weigh in favor of a metaphorical reading of this passage.
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So the first one was that in previous scripture in the Old Testament, Leviticus 17, it forbids against the drinking of blood, which
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Jesus would have known because he was a Jew. And so the question then is, was
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Jesus sinning when he told people that they had to drink blood? And so I think that that actually weighs in favor of a metaphorical view.
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OK, here's another observation from Cameron later in that same debate. Verse 58 references bread, and in context we can see that the people, the disciples, were searching for Jesus because they had just been fed and they were hungry again.
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And so in context, Jesus is trying to teach them that instead of like physical bread, instead of fish or loaves, what you need is spiritual bread.
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You need the spiritual bread of life that is going to give you eternal life. And so you need to believe and have divine wisdom and believe in Jesus.
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Cameron's former position on this is so close to the truth that it is almost painful to hear him dither on it.
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We'll come back to the proper interpretation of John 6 momentarily. But Cameron was very close to the truth here, namely that the invitation to eat
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Christ's flesh and drink his blood was a metaphorical invitation to believe his doctrines, the things he was saying.
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Again, we'll come back to the scriptural argument for that position, but for now it's important to hear this so you can understand what
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Cameron held and what Matt Fradd vehemently rejected when he says no major early writer supported the metaphorical view.
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Here is Fradd's response, and notice that he doubles down emphatically that Cameron's view was absolutely unheard of in the early church.
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So often I find that, OK, we all agree what the Bible says. We don't agree what the Bible means, and I think we can stick to the
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Bible if you want. But one powerful way of figuring out what it means is to see what the earliest Christians believed it to mean.
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Because, and I'll end with this, I'm rambling a little, sorry. If we looked into church history and found that for the first like 11 centuries, basically everybody believed that the
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Eucharist was symbolic, right? And maybe you'd find like some unimportant, you know, not very prominent
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Christian dissenting, but basically everybody believes this thing is metaphorical.
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And then, you know, in the 1500s, all of a sudden the Catholic church starts saying, this is my body and blood.
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We would kind of rightly kind of balk at that and say, OK, like this is an interpretation that was unknown for the first, you know, 10, 11 centuries.
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So I'm going to go with a more ancient interpretation because that seems to me, unless it contradicts the
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Scriptures, to be the way to go. But what I've found is that when you look at what the early church has to say, it's
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Catholic. There's no doubt about that. And so for that reason, I think
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Protestants should seriously consider the true presence, especially if the earliest
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Christians are unanimous on it, right? It's one thing if I can pick a father and you can pick a father and there was great dissension, right, and disagreement.
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That's one thing. But when the earliest Christians all believe that this is bodily.
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I really want the listeners to keep that in the forefront of their minds because we're going to come back to it repeatedly.
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Matt Fradd says that Cameron's metaphorical view of John 6 and the institution narratives was unknown in the early church and that the early fathers were unanimous in their affirmation of the
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Roman Catholic real presence position. The earliest Christians are unanimous on it.
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The first prominent Christian to take your position, Cameron, is Baron Garius of Tours in the 11th century.
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The earliest Christians are unanimous on it. But is that true?
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What did the early church think of John 6 and the institution narratives? Let's take a look first at John 6.
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This is Clement of Alexandria, 198 A .D., from the book The Instructor, Book 1,
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Chapter 6. He goes on and on in this chapter about the figurative language, but this will give you a taste of his thoughts on it.
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Elsewhere, the Lord in the gospel, according to John, brought this out by symbols when he said, eat 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
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Lord of flesh and blood. For in reality, the blood of faith is hope, in which faith is held as by a vital principle.
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Again, 198 A .D., Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, Book 1,
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Chapter 6. And here is Clement again in the Stromata, Book 1.
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Here Clement is commenting on John 6, 27, which says, labor not for the meat which perishes, but for that which endures to everlasting life.
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His comment is, and nutriment is received by both bread and by words, and truly blessed are the peacemakers who, instructing those who are at war in their life and errors here, lead them back to the peace which is in the word, and nourish for the life which is according to God by the distribution of the bread, those that hunger after righteousness.
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Now, Tertullian of Carthage, 210 A .D., On the Resurrection of the
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Flesh, Chapter 37. 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.
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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.
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That's all very figurative language about what it means to eat the flesh and the blood of Jesus Christ.
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Here's Origen and his commentary on the Gospel of John. This is Book 10, from 238
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A .D. I am led to this observation by John's saying, and the bread which
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I give is my flesh for the life of the world. Again, we eat the flesh of the lamb with bitter herbs and unleavened bread, when we repent of our sins and grieve with the sorrow which is according to God, a repentance which operates for our salvation and is not to be repented of.
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Or when, on account of our trials, we turn to the speculations which are found in those of truth, and are nourished by them.
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But we must strive to convert the rawness of Scripture into well -cooked food, not letting what is written grow flabby and wet and thin, as those do who have itching ears, and turn away their ears from the truth.
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Here's Novation, a Roman presbyter from 250 A .D., on Jewish Meats, chapter 5.
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Commenting on John 6, he says, But labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for the meat which endureth, to life eternal, which the
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Son of Man will give you. For him hath the Father sealed. By righteousness, I say, and by contingency, and by the rest of the virtues
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God has worshipped. For Zacharias also tells us, saying, If ye eat or drink, is it not ye that eat or drink?
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Declaring thereby that meat and drink attain not unto God, but unto man. For neither is
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God fleshly, so as to be pleased with flesh, nor is he careful for those pleasures, so as to rejoice in our food.
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God rejoices in our faith alone, in our innocency alone, in our truth alone, in our virtues alone.
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And these dwell not in our belly, but in our soul. And these are acquired for us by divine awe and heavenly fear, and not by earthly food.
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Again, that's Novation on Jewish Meats, chapter 5, from 250 A .D.
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Now, he became schismatic in 251 and was then excommunicated, but his views on John 6 were not the cause of the schism or the excommunication.
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Here's Augustine in 397 A .D., from Christian Doctrine, book 3, chapter 16,
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Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, says Christ, and drink his blood, you have no life in you. This seems to enjoin a crime or a vice.
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It is therefore a figure, enjoining that we should have a share in the sufferings of our Lord, and that we should retain a sweet and profitable memory of the fact that his flesh was wounded and crucified for us.
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Again, Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, quoting John 6, But he instructed them, and saith unto them,
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It is the spirit that quickeneth, but the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I have spoken to you, they are spirit, and they are life.
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Understand spiritually what I have said. Ye are not to eat this body which ye see, nor to drink that blood which they who will crucify me shall pour forth.
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I have commanded unto you a certain mystery. Spiritually understood, it will quicken.
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Although it is needful that this be visibly celebrated, yet it must be spiritually understood. And again,
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Augustine, Tractate 26, Paragraph 1 on the Gospel of John, For to believe in him is to eat the living bread.
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He that believes eats. He is sated invisibly, because invisibly he is born again.
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So here you have Clement in 198 AD, Tertullian in 210,
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Origen in 238, Novation in 250, and Augustine in 397
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AD. Clearly speaking of a metaphorical, non -literal interpretation of John 6.
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It is true, you could say, that Tertullian fell into Montanism, and Origen was a heretic, and Novation was a schismatic.
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And yet, on the matter of John 6, they were all considered to be perfectly orthodox. The metaphorical view of John 6 was not the error that led later writers to reject
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Tertullian, Origen, and Novation. Their views were similar to that of Clement and Augustine on the same passages, and they were hardly heretics by Rome's standards.
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Matt Fradd says the metaphorical interpretation was unknown for 1500 years, and the early church fathers were unanimous on this.
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The earliest Christians are unanimous on it. No, not by a long shot. Now, there are some citations from the early church that he could use, and indeed he does cite them a little bit later, and we'll address them at that time.
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But his claim that the early church unanimously accepted the Roman Catholic view is preposterous to the point of comedy.
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Matt Fradd is either ignorant or is hoping Cameron Bertuzzi is not curious enough to venture out of the shallow end of the pool.
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But enough of John 6. Let's move on to the institution narratives. Were the early writers unanimous in their affirmation that take, eat, this is my body, and take, drink, this is my blood, were to be understood literally?
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Let's take a look. Irenaeus of Lyons, 190 A .D., fragment 37.
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He refers to the consecrated elements, the bread, the body of Christ, and the cup, the blood of Christ, as these antitypes, a
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Greek word meaning symbols. Tertullian of Carthage, 208 A .D.,
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against Marcion, book 4, chapter 40. In his argument against the Gnostics, Tertullian explained the supper.
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Then, having taken the bread and given it to his disciples, he made it his own body by saying, this is my body, that is, the figure of my body.
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Hippolytus of Rome, 215 A .D. This comes to us from the Didiscalia. The Greek original of Hippolytus' instructions on the thank offerings and the supper is no longer extant.
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But the Verona Latin fragments helpfully preserve both the Latin translation and the
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Latin transliteration of the Greek. At the thank offering, prior to the blessing, the bread is called an example, or exemplum, of the body of Christ, or in Greek, antitupum.
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The wine is called an antitype, or antitupum, of the blood of Christ, or in Greek, similitudinem.
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Yet, even after the consecration, the communicant is instructed to receive the image, antitupum, of the blood of Christ.
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Origen of Alexandria, 248 A .D., commentary on Matthew. In his commentary on Matthew, Origen insisted,
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It is not the material of the bread, but the word which is said over it, which is of advantage to him who eats it, not unworthily of the
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Lord. And these things, indeed, are said of the typical and symbolic body. Cyprian of Carthage, 256
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A .D., in his letter to Magnus, paragraph 6. For when the Lord calls bread, which is combined by the union of many grains, his body, he indicates our people whom he bore as being united.
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And when he calls the wine, which is pressed from many grapes and clusters and collected together, his blood, he signifies our flock linked together by the mingling of a united multitude.
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Adamantius, 300 A .D., in Dialogue, Book 5, Chapter 6. Arguing against the
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Gnostic error, Adamantius asked, If, as they say, he was fleshless and bloodless, of what flesh or of what blood was it that he gave the images in the bread and the cup when he commanded the disciples to make the memorial of him by means of these?
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Eusebius of Caesarea, 325 A .D., from History of the Church, Book 10,
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Chapter 3. Explaining the origin of the supper, Eusebius recorded, Yea, and perfect services were conducted by the prelates, the sacred rites being solemnized, and the mysterious symbols of the
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Savior's passion were dispensed. Eusebius again, Demonstration of the
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Gospel, Book 1, Chapter 10. We have received a memorial of this offering, which we celebrate on a table by means of symbols of his body and saving blood.
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Eusebius again, Demonstration of the Gospel, Book 8, Chapter 1. The wine was indeed the symbol of his blood.
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He gave himself the symbols of his divine dispensation to the disciples when he made them take the likeness of his own body, bread to use as the symbol of his body.
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Cyril of Jerusalem, 350 A .D., in his instruction to the Catechumens, Cyril insisted that they understand the consecrated bread and wine figuratively.
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Wherefore, with full assurance, let us partake of the body and blood of Christ, for in the figure of bread is given to you his body, and in the figure of wine his blood.
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Catechetical Lecture 22, Paragraph 3. In the same lecture, trust not the judgment to your bodily palate, no, but to faith unfaltering.
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For they who taste are bidden to taste not the bread and wine, but the antitypical body and blood of Christ.
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That is, the symbolic body and blood of Christ. The Eucharistic Anaphora of Serapion of Thammuz, 353
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A .D. This bread is the likeness of the holy body, the cup the likeness of the blood.
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For the Lord Jesus Christ, taking a cup after supper, said to his own disciples, Take, drink, this is the new covenant, which is my blood.
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Gregory of Nazianzen, in his preparation for the supper, Gregory refers to the unconsecrated elements using the language of symbolism, calling them the antitype of the great mysteries.
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That's Oration 2, Paragraph 95. But also uses figurative language as the participants are about to eat the consecrated bread and wine, saying,
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Now we will partake of a Passover which is still typical, though it is plainer than the old one.
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That's Oration 45, Paragraph 23. Apostolic Constitutions from 380
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A .D. In the communion prayer, the celebrant acknowledges that the bread and cup are a representation of the body and blood of Christ.
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Now quoting, Macarius, the
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Egyptian, 390 A .D., Homily 27. And finally, here's
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Augustine of Hippo in Sermon 272 from 408 A .D. What you see on God's altar, you've already observed during the night that has now ended.
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But you've heard nothing about just what it might be, or what it might mean, or what great thing it might be said to symbolize.
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So now, if you want to understand the body of Christ, listen to the Apostle Paul speaking to the faithful.
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You are the body of Christ, member for member. That's 1 Corinthians 12, 27.
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If you therefore are Christ's body and members, it is your own mystery that is placed on the Lord's table.
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It is your own mystery that you are receiving. You are saying Amen to what you are.
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Your response is a personal signature affirming your faith. But what role does the bread play?
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We have no theory of our own to propose here. Listen instead to what Paul says about this sacrament.
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The bread is one, and we, though many, are one body. 1 Corinthians 10, 17.
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Understand and rejoice. Unity, truth, faithfulness, love. One bread, he says.
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What is this one bread? Is it not the one body formed of many? This is the image chosen by Christ our
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Lord to show how, at His own table, the mystery of our unity and peace is solemnly consecrated.
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Again, we remind the listener of Frad's ostentatious claim that the early church was unanimous on the real presence of Christ in the
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Eucharist, and that no prominent church father spoke of the symbolic metaphorical view of John 6 or the institution narratives until the 11th century.
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The first prominent Christian to take your position, Cameron, is
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Baron Garius of Tours in the 11th century. The earliest Christians are unanimous on it.
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But what we have just read shows otherwise. Irenaeus and Clement in the 2nd century,
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Tertullian, Hippolytus, Origen, Cyprian, and Novatian in the 3rd century, Adamantius, Eusebius, Cyril, Serapion, Gregory, and Augustine in the 4th and 5th.
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All these adopted language and interpretations that explicitly take a metaphorical view of John 6 and a symbolic allegorical view of the institution narratives.
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In fact, I would say that none of the writers of the first three centuries held to the literal view that Matt Frad espoused.
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He cites a couple in support of the literal view, like Ignatius of Antioch in 107 AD and Cyril of Jerusalem in 350
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AD, and there are several others I will gladly add to his list. But it can be shown plainly from their own words that they did not take the literal view, as I will demonstrate.
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We'll come back to that in a moment. But before we look at Matt Frad's views on John 6,
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I want to revisit something Matt Frad said, and it has to do with idolatry. His point was that if Catholics are wrong about the real presence, then
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Catholics have been committing idolatry by worshiping the Eucharist for 1 ,500 years before the
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Reformation. The debate was recorded on Sunday, June 7, 2020, and Matt Frad tells
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Cameron Bertuzzi that he went to Mass that morning. Listen closely, and you'll hear him say that he worshipped the
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Eucharist during the service. He says Roman Catholics have been worshipping the Eucharist for 1 ,500 years, and then
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Protestants showed up and started complaining about it. Like as a Catholic, I received the Eucharist today, and I worshipped the
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Eucharist, right? I gave it adoration, and I received it into me. Two points.
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If you're right, then for the vast majority of Christian history, all Christians, or the vast majority of Christians, have been wrong about it.
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And it was only like 500 years that we figured out he meant it symbolically. For 1 ,500 years, you have
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Christians basically committing idolatry. We're worshipping bread and wine. This is a serious sin.
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The ignorance on display here is absolutely stunning. During the Roman Catholic Mass, the
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Eucharist is elevated so that the people can worship the consecrated bread on their knees. Matt Frad went to church that day and knelt down and worshipped the bread as the priest elevated the host.
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And he believes Roman Catholics have been doing this for 2 ,000 years. So far removed from the apostles is
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Matt Frad's real presence doctrine that it did not even occur to anyone to kneel before the consecrated bread until late in the 11th century.
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Matt Frad went to church the day of his debate with Cameron Bertuzzi, a Sunday, and knelt down to worship the bread.
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What better day to kneel than Sunday, when the bread is consecrated for the meal, right? But kneeling on Sunday or any day between Easter and Pentecost was actually prohibited by the 20th
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Canon of Nicaea in 325 AD, a prohibition that was maintained all the way through the 1st
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Canon of the 4th Council of Constantinople in 870 AD. If everyone for the first 1 ,500 years acknowledged the real presence of Christ in the
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Eucharist, why did they prohibit kneeling for the first 1 ,200 years? Even the
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Catholic Encyclopedia acknowledges that elevation of the consecrated bread for adoration during the
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Mass is not known to have existed earlier than the close of the 12th century, and kneeling during the consecration was introduced in the same period.
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How could Matt Frad's ostensibly apostolic religion fail for over 1 ,000 years to realize that it was supposed to be kneeling before Christ's real presence on Sunday mornings?
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The truth is, nobody knew anything about kneeling to adore the consecrated bread during the supper until the ostensible
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Eucharistic Renaissance of the 12th century, and Renaissance is a terrible misnomer because Eucharistic adoration was not being reintroduced at all.
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It had never been a practice of the early church. Raising the bread for worship and kneeling to worship it are novelties of the late medieval era.
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They were not apostolic practices as Matt Frad suggests. Okay, we're going to go through an exposition of John 6 in a moment, but for now, let's go back to Matt Frad's objection to the metaphorical interpretation, namely that whenever people take
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Jesus literally, when he spoke metaphorically, Jesus corrects them. But John 6 is the only time
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Jesus doesn't correct them, and on that basis, John 6 is supposed to be read literally.
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In other passages in the gospels, when people misunderstand
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Jesus, either he or the author of that gospel corrects them.
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So when he says, I am the vine or I am a door, nobody's interpreting him to say, well, this guy has got hinges.
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He wants us to pick leaves off him. He's nuts. Rather, it's clarified. But here, there is no clarification forthcoming.
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He even allows his disciples to abandon him rather than correct them.
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And I think that just on the face of it is a sign that Jesus meant what he said.
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And in fact, I would argue that he can't actually say what he said more clearly. When people wrongly take
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Jesus literally, he corrects them and explains what he means. And conversely, when people rightly take him literally, he confirms and repeats.
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I brought this up earlier. When Jesus uses metaphor and people don't understand it, either he explains the meaning of it or the scriptural author does.
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But we, 2 ,020 years removed or whatever, look at it and think, no, no, no, he's just speaking metaphorically.
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That's just something interesting, I think. So let's look into this claim. Is it true that Jesus always corrects people when they take his figurative language literally?
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No, he most certainly does not. Let's look at John 4, 10 to 11 and 14 to 16 about the woman at the well.
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Jesus answered and said unto her, Notice that she is taking him literally about something that is figurative.
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Jesus continues now in verse 14. Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up unto everlasting life.
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The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.
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Jesus saith unto her, Go call thy husband, and come hither. Notice that the woman at the well isn't getting it.
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After twice saying that he was going to give life -giving water in a spiritual, figurative sense, she still thinks he's talking about literal water.
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Now John 7, verses 34 to 36. Notice that the people think that he's literally going away somewhere to another town.
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But he's actually going up to heaven to his father after he dies on the cross. These people think he's just going on a trip somewhere and he doesn't bother to explain.
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John 8, verses 21 to 22. The Jews are thinking he might commit suicide.
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That would actually be a terrible scandal for Jesus to be entertaining the notion. And yet he does not explain to them that he's speaking figuratively about his departure into death and returning to his father in heaven.
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John 10, verses 1 to 6. Verily I say unto you, he that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.
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This parable spake Jesus unto them, but they understood not what things they were which he spake unto them.
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This saying was so confusing that it caused division among the Jews. John 10, verses 19. But Jesus makes no effort to explain.
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Now, there are many more examples of this in John and in the other
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Gospels. But remember what Matt Fradd said. Honestly, that is a preposterous statement.
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Many times in the New Testament, Jesus' listeners take him literally when he was speaking figuratively or grossly misunderstand what he was trying to say, and he doesn't bother fixing the situation.
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Now, what about Matt Fradd's statement that John 6 is the only time Jesus' followers left him over his teaching?
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The disciples literally abandoned him. This is the only example in Scripture where Christ's disciples abandoned him over a doctrinal, over a teaching.
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And I think that Christ would have been morally obligated to explain himself to them rather than to allow them to abandon him for something they've misunderstood.
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That's not true either. Consider John 8, where Jesus addresses the Jews who believed in him.
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By the end of the conversation, they're trying to stone him. Here, the Jews are very eager to believe for there's one thing they can't get their arms around, that he existed before Abraham.
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So they tried to stone him. And what about the rich young ruler? Matthew 19, verses 16 to 29,
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Mark 10, 17 to 30, Luke 18, verses 18 to 24. The rich young ruler ran up and knelt before him, according to Luke, and calls
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Jesus teacher in all three accounts, showing that he is an eager disciple. But confronted with the implications of Jesus' teachings, he went away sorrowful, according to Matthew and Mark.
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So again, a follower abandons him because of his teaching. My point here is that it's not just in John 6 that disciples were confused about something he said and turned away, and he didn't chase after them to explain it to them or persuade them to stay.
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So no, the John 6 eat my flesh narrative is not the only time in the scriptures that disciples turn away from him because of his teachings.
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What is also preposterous is Matt Fradd's statement that Jesus is morally obligated to correct those who do not understand what he is saying.
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Hear him again. And I think that Christ would have been morally obligated to explain himself to them rather than to allow them to abandon him for something they've misunderstood.
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Jesus himself would very much beg to differ. Just look at what Jesus says about why he speaks to people in parables, so that they do not understand.
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Luke 8, 10. And he said, unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to others in parables, that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand.
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John 12, 40. He hath blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.
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In other words, Jesus was intentionally obscure in some of his teachings with the explicit intent that some of his hearers not know and not understand and not believe.
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So no, Jesus is never morally obligated to explain in a way that people will understand.
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The word of God achieves the purpose for which God sent it, and Jesus was under no moral compulsion to convince anyone of his teachings, or even to help them understand.
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He did reveal his meaning to the elect, but to others he simply let them go on in their ignorance and didn't bother chasing them down to help them understand.
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So just think about this. Cameron Pertuzzi has acknowledged that Matt Fradd's debate with him on the
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Eucharist was highly influential in his conversion to Roman Catholicism. In that debate,
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Matt Fradd claimed to be deep in history, because as Cardinal Newman's statement goes, to be deep in history is to cease to be
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Protestant. But is Matt Fradd deep in history? No. He claimed that nobody took the metaphorical view of John VI and the institution narratives until the 11th century.
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The first prominent Christian to take your position, Cameron, is Baron Garius of Tours in the 11th century.
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That is plainly false. He claimed that Jesus always corrected people when they took his metaphorical statements literally, except in John VI.
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When people misunderstand Jesus, either he or the author of that gospel corrects them.
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That is plainly false. He said John VI was the only time in Scripture that Jesus lost disciples due to a doctrine or a teaching.
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This is the only example in Scripture where Christ's disciples abandon him over a teaching.
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That is plainly false. He said that Jesus was morally obligated to correct people who had misunderstood his teachings.
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And I think that Christ would have been morally obligated to explain himself to them.
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That is plainly false too. Over and over again, Matt Fradd is wrong, wrong, wrong.
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Wrong on history, wrong on Scripture, and wrong on tradition. Actually, factually incorrect based on information that is freely and publicly available.
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But that is the stock and trade of the Roman Catholic apologists. Simply to claim the historical and scriptural high ground and then watch the naive
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Protestant squirm. It's very effective and terribly dishonest. But to be charitable, we'll simply assume that Matt Fradd doesn't realize what he's doing.
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He's not technically being dishonest, he just doesn't realize how ignorant he is. He's very good at reciting the
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Roman Catholic talking points on the Eucharist, but hasn't done the hard work of validating the talking points.
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Now, all of this discussion on John VI is about Cameron Bertuzzi coming around to the Roman Catholic view on transubstantiation.
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So, why not take it literally as Matt Fradd suggests? And as Cameron Bertuzzi would now affirm.
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Well, there are very strong scriptural reasons for taking the metaphorical approach to John VI, as Clement, Novatian, Tertullian, Origen, and Augustine did.
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We take the metaphorical view not because of these early writers, but because the Scriptures actually demand it.
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We provide four proofs. First, the immediate context of John VI. Second, the expanded context of the narrative of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes.
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Third, the broader context of the four gospel accounts of Jesus' interaction with the Pharisees.
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And fourth, the fuller context provided by Isaiah's prophecy. Each one of these militates for a metaphorical reading of the chapter.
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But first, let's set the stage. In a harmonization of the narratives of the feeding of the 5 ,000 and the feeding of the 4 ,000,
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Matthew, Mark, and John all record a conversation between Jesus and the Jews on the western shore of the
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Sea of Galilee, just before Peter's confession. Matthew has Jesus sailing to the coast of Magdala, and then the
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Pharisees, also with the Sadducees, arrive requesting a sign from heaven. That's Matthew 15, 39 to 16, 1.
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Mark has him sailing to the parts of Dalmanutha, and the Pharisees arriving later to request a sign from heaven.
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That's Mark 8, verses 10 to 11. John has Jesus initially interacting with the witnesses the day following the feeding of the 5 ,000, according to John 6, 22.
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But the remainder of the conversation involves Jews who had not witnessed the miracle, for they arrive asking,
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What sign shewest thou then that we may see and believe thee? John 6, 30. This part of the conversation would have been weeks later, after the six days of purification, according to John 11, 55, and after the eight days of Passover and unleavened bread, according to Leviticus 23, verses 5 to 6, when the
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Jews would have been in Jerusalem. The feeding of the 5 ,000 had occurred when the Passover, a feast of the
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Jews, was nigh. That's John 6, 4. Like the Sadducees and Pharisees in Matthew 16, 1 and Mark 8, 11, the
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Jews arrived late in Capernaum in John 6, asking for a sign from heaven. Our fathers did eat manna in the desert, as it is written,
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He gave them bread from heaven to eat. John 6, 31. John has this conversation taking place in the synagogue in Capernaum, on the western shore.
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John 6, 59. Notice that Matthew, Mark, and John, at this point in the Loaves narratives, all have
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Jesus confronted by the Jews asking for a sign from heaven. In all three accounts, no sign is given, but in Matthew's account,
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Jesus says the only sign they will receive is the sign of the prophet Jonas. It's Matthew 16, 4.
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With that backdrop, let's evaluate Jesus' response to the Jews in the immediate context of John 6, the expanded context of the
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Loaves narratives, the broader context of the four gospels, and the fuller context of Isaiah's prophecy.
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Based on this evidence, our reading of John 6 must be metaphorical, as we shall see.
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Jesus was commanded of his father to speak it in exactly this way. First, Jesus introduces the
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Bread of Life narrative by appealing to Isaiah 55, in which eating bread is a metaphor for listening to the teachings of God.
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John 6, 27. John 6, 27.
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When Jesus says, For him hath God the Father sealed, it is a simple reference to God approving
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Jesus as a witness to his word. See, for example, John 3, verses 33 -34.
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He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true, for he whom
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God hath sent speaketh the words of God. John 3, 33 -34.
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Jesus' statement in John 6 is a plain allusion to Isaiah 55, 1 -4, in which the prophet expressly declares that the invitation to eat and drink bread, wine, water, milk, and fatness is an invitation to listen to and incline one's ear to the word of God, because God had provided a witness.
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Isaiah 55, 1 -4. In other words, eating meat and bread and drinking wine, milk, and water are all metaphors for hearing and believing the word of God.
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That's the context Jesus establishes at the beginning of the conversation, and there is nothing in John 6 to suggest that he departs from that construct.
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In other words, there is no evidence that Jesus suddenly stopped being metaphorical when he said,
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The bread that I give is my flesh. Or, He that eateth me, even he shall live by me.
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That's John 6, 51 and John 6, 57. That, too, must be a metaphor, just as wine, milk, bread, water, and fatness were in Isaiah 55.
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Jesus is still speaking metaphorically of eating, which means literally believing true doctrines, the words of his mouth.
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Now let's evaluate John 6 in the expanded context of the loaves narratives. As we have observed, this conversation takes place on the western shore between Jesus and the
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Sadducees and Pharisees, after which Jesus and the apostles depart for the eastern shore.
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On the way back across the sea, right after this conversation, Jesus tells the apostles to beware of the leaven of the
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Pharisees and of the Sadducees. That's Matthew 16, 6. You can also look at Mark 8, 15.
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The apostles initially thought he was talking about literal bread, but finally realized that he was telling them to beware of the doctrine of the
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Pharisees and of the Sadducees. That's Matthew 16, 12. In other words, Jesus' invitation to eat the bread of his flesh but avoid the leaven of the
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Pharisees was spoken in a metaphorical context that contrasts believing the true bread from heaven,
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John 6, 32, with the false leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees, Matthew 16, 12.
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He was still applying Isaiah's metaphor in which leaven refers to the false doctrines that satisfyeth not,
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Isaiah 55, 2. Whereas the bread from heaven refers to true doctrines that satisfy, for he that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst,
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John 6, 35. The whole conversation is metaphorical, and to eat bread or leaven is to believe doctrines.
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Now let's evaluate the bread of life conversation from the broader context of the four Gospels. When the
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Pharisees and Sadducees ask for a sign from heaven, Jesus responds, Why doth this generation seek after a sign?
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Verily I say unto you, there shall no sign be given unto this generation. That's Mark 8, 12.
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What Mark means here, as Matthew's account makes clear, is that Jesus was not going to be performing parlor tricks.
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There would be a sign, just not the one they desired. For Jesus says to them, There shall no sign be given but the sign of the prophet
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Jonas, Matthew 16, 4. Let us dwell patiently for a moment on what
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Jesus has said here. Although his meaning is clear to us now, it was not clear to his hearers.
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None of the apostles could possibly have understood the meaning of the sign of Jonah. For none would know of his coming death and resurrection until after Peter's confession.
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And even after Jesus told them plainly, Mark 8, 32, not once, not twice, but thrice, that he must be put to death and rise again on the third day, they still did not know what he meant.
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To look at those three occasions when he told them about his resurrection, go to Matthew 16, 21,
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Matthew 17, 22, and Matthew 20, verses 18 to 19, or in the Gospel of Mark, 8, 31, 9, 31, and 10, 33 to 34.
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Or in Luke, chapter 9, 22, chapter 9, 44 to 45, and chapter 18, verse 33.
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Throughout this curious narrative, we find them wondering what the rising of the dead should mean, as Mark 9, 10.
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And even as they stumble unbelieving into the empty tomb, they knew not the scripture that he must rise again from the dead, as John 20, verse 9.
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It is Luke who tells us why they did not and could not understand, for the
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Lord had concealed his meaning from them. That's Luke 9, 45 and 18, 34. Jesus would only say what his
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Father had commanded him to say. That's John 12, 49 to 50. And it pleased the Father to conceal the doctrine of the resurrection, even from the apostles.
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Many mysteries of the kingdom had been revealed to them, according to Matthew 13, 11 and Luke 8, 10, but not the resurrection.
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If the apostles did not understand his plain words about rising from the dead, they certainly would not have understood his cryptic reference to the sign of Jonah.
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The Sadducees and Pharisees would have been no better off. At the time he said it, nobody knew what the sign of Jonah was except Jesus, and its meaning was intentionally cloaked in a very cryptic metaphor.
01:00:07
Matthew informs us that the sign of Jonah must at the very least refer to his burial, for he says,
01:00:20
That's Matthew 12, 40. There's no obvious mention of Jesus' death and resurrection here, for Jonah was alive throughout the narrative, and the reference to three days in the heart of the earth does not plainly indicate what will happen when those three days are over, or what preceded it.
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Luke provides more information. Jonah could not have been assigned to the
01:00:48
Ninevites unless the fish had vomited him out alive to preach, according to Jonah 2, 10.
01:00:56
The sign of Jonah must therefore refer to Jesus' burial, according to Matthew 12, 40, and his resurrection to life, according to Luke 11, 30.
01:01:04
In hindsight, we know this, but for the apostles it was impossible until the Lord opened their eyes through the scriptures.
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The significance of this truth is that Matthew, Mark, and John have all recorded the same conversation in which the
01:01:17
Jews request a sign from heaven. In Matthew and Mark, Jesus refuses the request, and in Matthew he provides a metaphor so cryptic that it could not possibly be understood by any listener or any reader except by further revelation.
01:01:32
Two additional premises may thus be drawn from this remarkable exchange. First, Jesus' answer to the
01:01:39
Jews in Matthew's account was a cryptic metaphorical reference to Jesus' resurrection, and by implication, the need to believe in that doctrine.
01:01:48
And second, John's account of the same exchange cannot be intrinsically different from Matthew's.
01:01:53
John's account therefore must contain, and in fact must be limited to, a cryptic metaphorical reference to Jesus' resurrection, and by implication, the need to believe in it.
01:02:04
John's account, while syntactically different from Mark's and Matthew's, cannot be substantively so, else the scriptures would be broken.
01:02:12
We must therefore conclude that the entire exchange in the bread -of -life narrative of John 6, that is, the bread that I will give is my flesh, which
01:02:20
I will give for the life of the world, John 6, 51, and whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day,
01:02:29
John 6, 54, is indeed a metaphor about belief in the doctrine of Jesus' resurrection from the dead.
01:02:36
The reference to eating his flesh and drinking his blood must be metaphorical and so intentionally cryptic that none could possibly understand it, just as Matthew's account records in Matthew 16, 1 -4, and as Luke's Gospel confirms,
01:02:51
Luke 9, 45 and 18, 34. This conclusion is confirmed when we examine
01:02:56
Isaiah's own cryptic reference to Jesus' resurrection in Isaiah 55. As we noted at the beginning,
01:03:05
Jesus established the context of John 6 by alluding to Isaiah 55, 1 -4. It is in that passage that the
01:03:12
Lord promises eternal life through belief in his word. Incline your ear and come unto me, here in your soul shall live,
01:03:21
Isaiah 55, 3. We are invited metaphorically to eat and drink the bread and the fatness, the wine and the milk and the water of the word of the
01:03:30
Father. We are invited literally to hear God's word and believe it unto eternal life.
01:03:37
Jesus four times promises that explicitly to the hearers of John 6. I will raise him up at the last day, he says in John 6, 39, 40, 44, and 54.
01:03:48
That much Jesus had said plainly, and the people understood, as evidenced by John 11, 24.
01:03:55
What was not immediately clear, and indeed could not have been, is the power by which
01:04:01
Jesus would keep that promise, that is, by conquering death personally. Implicit within the promise to raise up the believer on the last day is
01:04:09
Jesus' own victory over death and hell at his resurrection, a victory that will be ours, when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, 1
01:04:21
Corinthians 15, 54. It was the foundational precept of the entire exchange, and yet, according to Luke, no hearer was permitted by the
01:04:30
Lord to grasp that fact. Like the exchange recorded in Matthew 16, 1 -4, the exchange between Jesus and the
01:04:38
Jews in John 6 was orchestrated to reveal only the need to believe in his doctrines, but to conceal, in metaphor, the central doctrine of the faith, we shall be saved by his life,
01:04:49
Romans 5, 10. The centrality of Jesus' resurrection to the narrative is evident by Isaiah's cryptic reference to it in chapter 55, the very passage used to establish his meeting in John 6.
01:05:02
The Lord's covenant of everlasting life by belief, that is, by eating and drinking the wine, bread, milk, and water of his word, is established upon the sure mercies of David, Isaiah 55, 3, a veiled reference to Jesus' victory over death.
01:05:18
Paul explains, In his conversations with the crowds,
01:05:33
Jesus had openly invited them to hear and believe his doctrines, John 6, 29, 40, and 47, knowing that only the elect could truly understand and believe what he was saying,
01:05:44
John 8, 43, and 47. And yet, even in the midst of the John 6 narrative, in which his followers were invited to eat and drink of his word,
01:05:53
John 6, 35, there was one doctrine neither Jesus was permitted to publish nor his closest disciples allowed to understand.
01:06:01
His resurrection from the dead. Matthew shows that Jesus concealed it from them in chapter 16 by using the metaphor of Jonah's mission to the
01:06:11
Ninevites. John shows that Jesus concealed the knowledge of his resurrection in John 6 by using a metaphor from Isaiah 55.
01:06:19
In both cases, he achieved his objective, and none of the apostles understood or believed the sign of his resurrection until he opened their eyes.
01:06:27
To our immediate point here, just as Isaiah had concealed the doctrine of the resurrection under the metaphor of the sure mercies of David in chapter 55, and Jesus had concealed it under the metaphor of the sign of Jonah in Matthew 16,
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Jesus also concealed it under the metaphor of eating his flesh and blood. Except ye eat the flesh of the
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Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. John 6, 53. The metaphor, while intentionally cryptic, has precisely the same meaning as I am the resurrection and the life.
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He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. It was a metaphor for believing in the resurrection, as evidenced by Jesus' comments in John 11, 25.
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By this means we establish the metaphorical sense of John 6. First, in the immediate context of the chapter,
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Jesus has invoked Isaiah 55, in which eating and drinking are metaphors for believing his word.
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Second, in the context of the loaves narrative, Jesus contrasts the bread of life with the leaven of the
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Pharisees and Sadducees, in which eating bread or leaven were metaphors for believing doctrines.
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Third, in the broader context of the gospel accounts, because Matthew, Mark, and John all recorded
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Jesus' response to the Jewish request for a sign from heaven at the western shore of the
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Sea of Galilee, and Matthew has him responding with a cryptic metaphorical reference to his resurrection,
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John's account of Jesus' response must of necessity also be a cryptic metaphorical reference to his resurrection.
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Fourth, Jesus had invoked Isaiah 55, in which is also concealed a cryptic metaphor for Jesus' resurrection, the sure mercies of David, which the followers were invited to eat and drink, which is to say, believe.
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Thus, we conclude that Jesus intentionally concealed the doctrine of his resurrection in John 6 by veiling it under the metaphor of eating his flesh and drinking his blood.
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This is particularly relevant to our discussion on the conversion of Cameron Bertuzzi, because Matt Fradd insisted in his debate with Cameron that if Jesus' hearers did not understand what he was saying,
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Jesus was morally obligated to tell them plainly. Here is Matt Fradd again on John 6.
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And I think that Christ would have been morally obligated to explain himself to them.
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And yet, what we find in the scriptures is that on this particular point in the narrative, Jesus was in fact morally obligated to conceal his meaning from his disciples.
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It was not his prerogative to reveal to men what his father had commanded to be hidden. The scriptures insist on this point.
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Frankly, it is impossible to be more wrong on this than Matt Fradd is. At precisely the point that Jesus is morally obligated to obey his father by concealing the meaning of the metaphor,
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Matt Fradd says he would have been morally obligated to reveal it, the very thing his father had instructed him not to do.
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We are actually running very long on this podcast, so we're going to wrap it up here and we'll come back to some of Matt Fradd's arguments from the early church fathers on the real presence of Christ in the
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Eucharist. But we'll close this episode simply by saying that Cameron Bertuzzi believed he had to convert to Roman Catholicism after being persuaded by Matt Fradd on the ancient interpretation of John 6 and the
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Eucharist, which is to say, taking a literal interpretation of the Bread of Life and Eat My Flesh and Drink My Blood narratives in the
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Gospel of John and a literal reading of This is My Body and This is My Blood in the institution narratives of the
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Synoptic Gospels. In his debate with Matt Fradd, Cameron was initially resistant to the
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Roman Catholic interpretations, but over time, Matt Fradd's interpretations seemed more and more reasonable and became more and more appealing because after those interactions,
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Bertuzzi started reading John 6 from a literal perspective. Matt Fradd made the claims that the symbolic figurative view of the passages was unheard of until the 11th century, a remarkable historical blunder.
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Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian of Carthage, Cyprian of Carthage, Hippolytus of Rome, Novatian of Rome, Augustine of Hippo, Fradd also claimed that Jesus always corrected people who took his figurative language literally, which is not true.
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Fradd claimed that John 6 was the only time Jesus lost disciples because of his teachings, which is not true.
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Fradd claimed that Jesus was morally obligated to correct people who had misunderstood his teachings, which was not true.
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And Fradd claimed to be steeped in history, which is obviously not true either. And Cameron Bertuzzi fell for it all, thinking that he, too, would be deep in history.
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What we find repeatedly is that the only way to convince people that the early church took the literal reading of these passages is to keep people in ignorance and darkness, which is precisely what happened to Matt Fradd and what
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Matt did to Cameron Bertuzzi. Okay, that's where we'll wrap up today. We'll cover
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Cameron's take on the papacy, and particularly Sue and Sona's take on the Eliakim typology hypothesis that was so influential in Cameron Bertuzzi's conversion.
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As time permits, we'll also interact with Matt Fradd's interpretations of Ignatius of Antioch and Cyril of Jerusalem, some of which we already covered in previous podcasts, like on the conversion of Marcus Grodi.
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But for now, this is your host, Timothy F. Kaufman, and you've been listening to episode 12 of The Diving Board.