We Concluded our previous study with this reflection: Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. For Jesus, all his true followers were regarded as a gift from his Father. If we view our fellow believers in that light, it will elevate and ennoble our attitude toward them. As for the Lord himself, no disciple can escape the embrace of his love, except those who abandon him.’ The consummation of the relationship between the Lord and his disciples will be in the last day, when he will give them eternal life (John 6:40 RV, as all quotes).
Synagogue in Capernaum
With their blinkered understanding of Christ’s words, his hearers in the synagogue were concerned only with his claim to have come down from heaven. It is verse 42 of John 6 which expresses their total perplexity: How can this man have come down from heaven when we know his father was Joseph and his mother Mary? They were concerned with origins, legitimately in one sense.
The Lord does not enlighten them by rehearsing the true facts of his birth; he had, however, provided evidence, and more was to come, that he had been sent from God. As Nicodemus had acknowledged early in the ministry: “No man can do these signs that thou doest, except God be with him” (John 3:2). Then we remember the remark made later by the blind man healed by Jesus:
“Since the world began, it was never heard that any one opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing” (John 9:32-33). If the Jews were prepared to receive the evidence of the miracles, then they would have had a firm basis of faith and a desire to understand the “hard sayings” enunciated in this chapter.
Originating with God
As for the concept of “coming out of heaven,” they had themselves provided the key when they spoke of the manna coming out of heaven (John 6:31). They knew full well that the manna had not literally descended from heaven but that its origin was supernatural, provided by the Lord God in response to their foregatherers’ needs.
The Lord himself had used the same biblical idiom when he asked the Jews, “The baptism of John, whence was it? from heaven or from men?” (Matt. 21:25).2 In the Greek, “from heaven” is rendered by ek ouranou, the all-important expression we are tracing in the New Testament and which, as we have discovered, has its roots in the Old Testament. Over against it is eks anthropon, “of men.”
The former expression establishes the heavenly origin of John’s baptism. To assert the baptism did not literally descend from heaven is to state the obvious. The whole process in which John was involved was set in motion by the word of God coming to him in the wilderness (cf. Luke 3:2). We should note how Luke links the fact that God sent His word to John with his preaching of “the baptism of repentance” (Lk. 3:3)3
The key to understanding biblical concepts, especially the difficult ones, is to take note of them in other contexts where the meaning presents no difficulty. This applies with special force to the lofty concept with which we are at present concerned.
God is the initiator
We return to Capernaum. When the Lord heard their mutterings about him (John 6:43), he declared it was God who drew men to him: “No man can come to me, except the Father which sent me draw him” (v. 44).
Once more he makes it plain he was God’s emissary to men. The whole of scripture makes it clear creation and all that sustains it is from God: “Who hath first given to him and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, (eks autou) and through him, and unto him are all things. To him be the glory for ever. Amen.” (Rom. 11:35-36). God draws men to Him and to His Son in a variety of ways, all of which — whether it be the testimony of nature, miracles, prophecy fulfilled, the unique circumstances of the birth of Jesus – are of God. Apart from His creative activity, nothing has come into existence (John 1:3). Our noblest aims and desires derive from God. This Nehemiah appreciated when he informed us of the selfless purpose God had put into his heart (Neh. 2:12; 7:5).4 This drawing of men by the Father to the Son is to enable the Son to raise his followers at the last day.
Taught of God
The bond between the Father and the Son is wonderfully brought out in the next verse: “It is written in the prophets, And they shall all be taught of God. Every one that hath heard from the Father, and hath learned, cometh unto me.” The Lord’s quotation is from Isaiah 54:13, a majestic and eloquent chapter which speaks of the future glory of Jerusalem. The one who will be king there will unquestionably be the Lord Jesus. His followers will be associated with him in its government (Isa. 32:1). The Lord’s associates are being recruited and prepared in the present age. When they respond to the witness the Father has borne to the Son, they are thereby being taught by God.
The Lord himself declared to the eleven: “He that loveth me not keepeth not my words; and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s who sent me” (John 14:24). So it is that the response to God’s call cannot be disassociated from our response to Christ’s teaching and person.
We should note that it is not sufficient to hear; we must learn. Many heard the Lord’s words in the synagogue, but, because of their attitude, they were not learning. They were to die in their ignorance and in their sins.
The following verse (v. 46) appears a detached utterance but it underlines very effectively our dependence upon the vision of God possessed by the Son and mediated to us through him. We have already considered the deeper sense of seeing implied in John 14:19.5 What is here affirmed picks up the thought in John 1:18: “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” The vision of God was so totally embodied in the historical person Jesus of Nazareth, that to behold him with the eyes of faith was to see the Father (see John 14:9).
Eternal life through faith
In the section which embraces John 6:47-51, the great theme of eternal life recurs (cf. v. 27) and its relationship to faith is reaffirmed: “He that believeth bath eternal life” (v. 47). But how is that faith manifested? Once more, the Lord declares he is the bread of life, and then proceeds to show how that is true of him His hearers were proud of their origins and the Passover, so recently celebrated, reminded them of their ancestors’ wilderness experiences. The giving of the manna was a particularly significant event. It was certainly God-given but those who ate it died (v. 49). But now, in their midst and speaking to them was another “manna.” This, too, had come down out of heaven that men eating of it might not die. Though, indeed, physical death was to be the common experience of the Lord’s followers, yet it would not be the last word; hence the emphasis upon resurrection.
The Lord is resolved that his meaning should not be lost. In his words, the same fundamental truths are affirmed and reaffirmed. Yet once more he declares himself to be the living bread which has come down from heaven, superior to the manna given in the wilderness for, if a man eats of it, he will live for ever. There is a startling additional pronouncement at the end of this verse: “yea and the bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.” We can imagine without difficulty the initial recoil of his listeners. The term “flesh” was unexpected, yet it derived directly from the claim that Jesus was the bread from heaven. His person was human, authentically flesh and blood.
The listeners stunned
The reaction of his audience was predictable: the truths being uttered were simple, in one sense, yet they appeared outrageous. That sense of outrage is conveyed in the next verse: “The Jews therefore strove one with another, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” They were faced with a dilemma, not easily resolved, except by the exercise of faith and patience.
The Lord was making no concessions as he proceeded to increase their sense of outrage by declaring they must not simply eat his flesh, but also drink his blood! (v. 53). No language was better calculated to alienate orthodox Jews than this pronouncement. Superficially, it appeared to contradict the solemn commandment given to the children of Israel: “It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwellings, that ye shall eat neither fat nor blood” (Lev. 3:17). We note, too, the following stern instruction:
And whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, that eateth any manner of blood; I will set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh atonement by reason of the life (Lev. 17:10-11).
The Jewish dilemma is obvious: not only, apparently, is the man from Nazareth telling them to drink blood, but he is telling his audience to drink human blood, his own! At the same time he is talking of himself, insistently, as the bread which has come down from heaven. We consider this significant language further next month, Lord willing.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One