Scripture Reading: John 6:1-21, 26-69
In this chapter we will continue to consider the signs in John 6. In the foregoing chapter we pointed out that chapter 6 of the Gospel of John gives many details concerning the Lord Jesus as the bread of life. We have seen five characteristics of the Lord as the bread of life. He is the heavenly bread (vv. 41, 50, 51, 58), the bread of God (v. 33), the bread of life (vv. 35, 48), the living bread (v. 51), and the true bread (v. 32). As the bread of life, Christ is the bread with eternal life, with zoe. As the true bread, the real bread, He is the reality of the food we eat daily. We need to be deeply impressed with the fact that we need Christ as the true bread of life sent by God to bring us eternal life. Therefore, through the Word we need to feed on Christ as the living bread.
In chapter 6 of the Gospel of John there are six sections related to Christ as the bread of life (vv. 32-71). In the first of these sections (vv. 32-51a), we see that Christ, the bread of life, was incarnated. In verse 33 Christ refers to Himself as the bread of God, who came down out of heaven and gives life to the world. Although Christ is the very God, He became flesh in order to be the bread of life for us to eat.
In the second section we see that Christ was slain (vv. 51b-55). He was crucified. John 6:51b says, “The bread which I will give is My flesh, given for the life of the world.” This refers to Christ’s crucifixion. The Lord gave His body, that is, His flesh, to die for us so that we may have life.
The third section concerning Christ as the bread of life points to His resurrection (vv. 56-59). In verse 56 the Lord said, “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me and I in him.” This indicates that the Lord had to be resurrected so that He may abide in us as our life and life supply.
In the fourth section (vv. 60-62) we have a word concerning the ascension of Christ. In verse 62 the Lord asked, “What if you saw the Son of Man ascending to where He was before?” In verse 56 the Lord’s resurrection is implied. Here in this verse His ascension, which follows His resurrection, is clearly mentioned. Ascension is the proof of the completion of Christ’s redemptive work (Heb. 1:3). In His ascension the Christ who came down out of heaven will go back to heaven.
In John 6:63-65, the fifth section, we see that Christ became the life-giving Spirit. At the beginning of verse 63 the Lord said, “It is the Spirit who gives life.” At this point, the Spirit who gives life is brought in. After resurrection and through resurrection, the Lord Jesus, who had become flesh (1:14), became the Spirit who gives life, as is clearly mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15:45b. As the life-giving Spirit, He can be life and the life supply to us. When we receive Him as the crucified and resurrected Savior, the Spirit who gives life comes into us to impart eternal life to us. We receive the Lord Jesus, but we get the Spirit who gives life.
In the last section we see that Christ as the bread of life is embodied in the word of life (John 6:66-71). Because He is embodied in the word of life, Simon Peter declared, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life” (v. 68).
In this chapter Christ first said that He is the bread of life. This bread of life is signified by barley loaves. However, eventually, the Lord went on to say that the bread which He gives is His flesh (v. 51). At this point, the bread is the flesh. The bread is of the vegetable life and is good for generating and nourishing, whereas the flesh is of the animal life and is good for nourishing and redeeming. In 6:53 and 54 the Lord Jesus went on to speak of eating His flesh in order to have eternal life. In verse 55 He said, “My flesh is true food.” First, the Lord was typified by the vegetable (plant) life, the generating and nourishing life, and then He was typified by the animal life, the nourishing and redeeming life.
A verse near the beginning of chapter 6 says, “Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was near” (v. 4). This indicates that the passover was the background for what is recorded in John 6. With the Feast of the Passover as the background, the Lord fed the multitude with the five loaves and the two fish and then went on to speak concerning Himself as the bread of life. In the passover the people killed the redeeming lamb, struck its blood, and ate its flesh. This typifies Christ as the redeeming Lamb of God who was slain so that we may eat His flesh and drink His blood and thus take Him in as the life supply for us to live by. At the time of the Passover the Jewish people also eat unleavened bread. Here we have three basic elements of the Passover feast: first, the slaying of the lamb and the striking of its blood; second, the eating of the flesh of the lamb; third, the eating of unleavened bread. Therefore, we have the blood of the lamb, the flesh of the lamb, and unleavened bread. These three matters are found in the Lord’s discourse in John 6.
For many years I was bothered by the Lord’s word in John 6 concerning drinking His blood (vv. 53-54, 56). At the time of the passover the blood of the lamb was applied to the doorpost. But here the Lord Jesus spoke about drinking His blood. Eventually, the Lord showed me that to drink simply means to receive. Hence, to drink the blood is to receive it. The proper way to receive something into our stomach is by eating or by drinking. The significance of eating and drinking is to receive something into our being. To eat the Lord’s flesh and to drink His blood, therefore, is to receive the Lord’s flesh and blood into our being. To eat is to take food into us to be assimilated into our body organically. To eat the Lord Jesus is to receive Him into us to be assimilated by the regenerated new man in the way of life. The principle is the same with drinking.
Matthew 26:26-28 describes the establishing of the table by the Lord Jesus. According to Matthew 26:26, the Lord Jesus “took bread and blessed it, and He broke it and gave it to the disciples and said, Take, eat; this is My body.” Then after taking the cup and giving thanks, He gave the cup to the disciples and said, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is My blood of the covenant, which is being poured out for many for forgiveness of sins” (vv. 27-28). To eat the Lord’s flesh, signified by the bread, and to drink His blood, signified by the cup, is to receive the crucified Christ, the One who was put to death for our sins in order that redemption could be accomplished. In this way we take Him and receive Him as our food for our nourishment.
We have pointed out that, according to John 6, the crucified Christ was resurrected and ascended and became the life-giving Spirit embodied in the Word. It is beyond the ability of our minds to comprehend such a wonderful One, One who was incarnated, crucified, and resurrected, who ascended to the heavens, and who has become the life-giving Spirit embodied in the Word.
Much of the teaching among Christians today fails to cover all the matters revealed in chapter 6 of John. Attention may be given to the Lord’s incarnation, His redemption, His resurrection, and His ascension. It is common for Bible teachers to point out that Christ was born of a virgin, that He died on the cross for our sins, that He was resurrected, and that He ascended to the heavens. But many do not cover the last two sections concerning Christ in this chapter, the sections about Christ becoming the life-giving Spirit embodied in the Word of life. But if we would receive the Lord Jesus as our bread of life, as our life supply to nourish us, we need to see that He is the life-giving Spirit and that this Spirit is embodied in the Word.
Among Christians there is not much argument concerning the Lord’s incarnation. Furthermore, there is not much argument concerning the Lord’s crucifixion. However, when they come to Christ’s resurrection and ascension, many Christians become somewhat unclear, and their understanding is vague. Some can only say that, according to the Scriptures, it was not possible for Christ to be held in Hades. Therefore, He came forth in resurrection, He ascended to the heavens, and He is now on the throne at the right hand of God. But if we stop with the matter of Christ’s ascension, what the Lord says in John 6 concerning eating His flesh and drinking His blood will be empty words as far as we are concerned, for there would be no way for us to experience them. If the Lord Jesus were not the life-giving Spirit embodied in the Word, there would be no way for us to have eternal life by eating and drinking Him.
We have seen that the Lord Jesus said that His flesh is true food and His blood true drink (v. 55), that unless we eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood we do not have life within ourselves (v. 53), and that if we eat Him we shall also live because of Him (v. 57). When many of the Lord’s disciples heard this word, they said, “This word is hard; who can hear it?” (v. 60). They could not understand how it was possible for the Lord to give them His flesh to eat and His blood to drink. Some of the Jews could only say, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He now say, I have come down out of heaven?” (v. 42). We are also told that the Jews “contended with one another, saying, How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” (v. 52). Likewise, to many Christians today, the Lord’s word concerning eating His flesh and drinking His blood is a hard word.
In 6:63 the Lord Jesus said, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” According to the context, flesh here refers to the meat of the physical body. Here the Lord explained that what He would give us to eat is not the meat of His physical body; the meat, which is the flesh, profits nothing. What the Lord gives us is the Spirit who gives life. We have seen that this Spirit is the Lord Himself in resurrection.
In 6:63 the Lord said that His words are spirit and life. Here the “words” follow the Spirit. The Spirit is living and real but rather mysterious, intangible, and difficult for us to apprehend. However, the Lord’s words are substantial. First, the Lord indicated that for giving life He would become the Spirit. Then He said that the words He speaks are spirit and life. This indicates that His spoken words are the embodiment of the life-giving Spirit. He is now the life-giving Spirit in resurrection, and the Spirit is embodied in His words. When we receive His words by exercising our spirit, we receive the Spirit who is life.
Many Christians are puzzled by the Lord’s word in verse 63. They do not know what it means for the Lord’s words to be spirit and life. Some Christians care only for the Bible in letters; they are reluctant even to talk about the Spirit. Their desire is merely to understand the Bible in letters. However, if we do not touch the Spirit in the Word, we cannot receive life. The Spirit is the extract of the Bible. Yet this extract is embodied in the Word. Today the incarnated, crucified, resurrected, and ascended Christ is the life-giving Spirit, and this life-giving Spirit is embodied in the Word. Daily we may come to Him and touch Him as the Spirit in the Word. If we do this, we will feed on Christ as the bread of life.
In our Christian life we daily need the experience of contacting the Spirit in a practical way. We should not be satisfied merely to read a few chapters of the Bible each day or take a portion of the Word in morning watch. Whenever we come to the Word, we need to exercise our entire being, especially our spirit, to contact Christ, who is now the life-giving Spirit. We definitely need to read the Bible. But it is crucial that we contact the Spirit in the Word by exercising our whole being. If we do this, we will take in Christ as our food supply. We will receive the Spirit as the heavenly manna.
We have seen that Christ is the bread of life, the bread of God, the heavenly bread, the living bread, and the true bread. Today this bread is not merely the incarnated, crucified, resurrected, and ascended Christ but the Christ who has become the life-giving Spirit.
In chapter 3 of John we have the case of a religious gentleman, and in chapter 4, the case of an immoral Samaritan woman. Then in chapter 5 we see that apart from Christ and without Christ everything is empty. The crucial point in chapter 6 is that we are hungry and need Christ as our food. Today this Christ is not merely the incarnated and crucified One, nor merely the resurrected and ascended One. He is now the life-giving Spirit. If we do not know our need and if we do not know what Christ is today, we will be empty. We need Christ as our life supply, and today Christ is the life-giving Spirit. Day by day we should exercise our spirit to contact Him. Just as we have three meals every day, so we need to eat Christ as the bread of life again and again during the day. Even every moment we need to eat the One who is the Spirit who gives life. The One who is our Creator, Redeemer, Savior, Lord, and Master is the life-giving Spirit for us to contact all the time.
We are hungry and need food. Even though you may have been a Christian for many years, every day you are still hungry. Christ is not only your life; He is also your life supply, your daily food.
We all need Christ as He is revealed in chapter 6 of John. Yes, we have passed through chapters 3, 4, and 5. But now in chapter 6 we are hungry ones around the sea in Galilee, and we need Christ as our life supply. We need Him to be our barley loaves and fish. We need Him as the generating life and the redeeming life. It is as the Spirit that Christ is this life to us. The Spirit who gives life is the generating life, the redeeming life, and the overcoming life. We need this Spirit as our life and life supply, as our food for daily nourishment. It is important that we all see this. I hope that we all will be helped to realize our need for Christ as our life supply and then daily contact Him as the life-giving Spirit embodied in the Word.
