OH 6:47-71{I have it a little on my heart to seek to unfold, as God may enable me by His Spirit, the verses we have read in this chapter, which are more especially connected with the appropriation by the believer of the death of the Son of man. I need hardly say that this connects itself very intimately with the blessing of eternal life, into -which the believer is brought.
I would first say a few words as to the general place in this Gospel of these two chapters, the fifth and sixth.
There is a certain development in the truth that runs all through the Gospels. There was more than one side in the Person of the blessed Lord, and we get this opened out by the four -evangelists. In John 5 Jesus is presented to us as the Son of God acting in divine sovereignty: The Son quickeneth whom he will." And then again: " The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son." The great point of chapter 5 is that the Lord Jesus exercises divine prerogative. God is the Judge; but all judgment is committed "unto the Son, that all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father."
But in chapter vi., what is brought before us is the form in which eternal life was presented to men; it is an incarnate Christ, the true bread from heaven, the Son of man, sealed by the-Father, who gives His flesh for the life of the world. This is the great point that the Lord presses in this chapter.
The Jews claimed to be the people of privilege. They say "- Our fathers did eat manna in ' the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat." But the Lord answers: " Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true, bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world." An incarnate Christ was the form in which God presented His Son to man to be received; and a humbled Christ is food for: the believer. He adds, " Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life." If the Jews had really discerned the grace of His, humiliation, that He really was the Son of God, they would have had eternal life, but they must, have gone on to appropriate His death. I have—no doubt this would have been the case, but it is not my subject to-night. I wish rather to look at the absolute necessity for the death of Christ for us, and our appropriation thereof.
Most of you will remember these words in the first epistle of John: " There are three that bear record; the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one." They all bear witness to the fact that God has given to us eternal life. But they also bear another witness, and that is, that if we have eternal life, it is not in Adam; it is not in ourselves; it is in Christ. And that, I believe, is the teaching of the epistle; and this is how the epistle connects itself with the passage that I have read. It was when the Lord was dead that the blood and the water flowed forth; and the Spirit was not given until He had gone back to the Father. So' that I do not get one of these witnesses until death has come in.
I question in my own mind whether we realize the solemnity of the fact that death has come in; and that, not death in ourselves, for, if it had been, we should have been forever lost; but it is the death of Christ.
But I wish to say a few Words more about these three witnesses. I believe that you will find that the whole of John's first epistle ranges itself under these three heads: The consequences of the water; the consequences of the blood; and the consequences of the Spirit.
The first two chapters are rather the result of the blood, for that is what gives us title to be with Him. God Himself is always 'light; but the witness about God to Israel was that "Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was." Now the witness is " If we walk in the light as he is in the light." God has come out in light, and Christianity has brought us into the light in which He is. It is not conditional. God has brought us " out of darkness into his marvelous light." This is not attainment; it is the privilege of every believer. " The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin," and gives us the privilege to walk in the light as He is.
In the third chapter the question is the nature; that which is the product in the believer of the word. " Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures," as the apostle James says, and Peter: " Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God which liveth and abideth forever." So here we get that we are the children of God, and that " He that practices righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous." It is a righteous nature, which has its manifestation also in love; love that enables us to " lay down our lives for the brethren." It is a wonderful thing.! We may not enter into it, but still there it is plain in Scripture. And men may not be able to see it in us, it may be obscured, but still it is there; it 15 the same nature as in God Himself, it is divine.
Then comes the third witness: the Spirit.. This is the result; it follows on the water and the blood. An entirely new thing has been brought in, a new creation, and this is accompanied by the Spirit. The consequences of the presence of the Spirit are brought' out in the fourth chapter.
The first is intelligence. The apostle says " We know that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit." We know it because God has given to us of His Spirit, and He does not take away His Spirit. We continue in God and He in us. Besides this, the Spirit is here for testimony; He witnesses that " The Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world." Both these are the result of the presence of the Spirit of God in the believer. I have said thus much in preface, and would now add a few words on the passage I read.
The Jews were stumbled at once when the Lord spoke of giving His flesh to eat, and I do not wonder at it. " Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." This was the test. You may meet people who pretend to -have life towards God, but if they do not know what it is to have eaten "the flesh of the Son of man, and to have drunk his blood,' there is no life in them.. I need hardly say how much Socinianism there is in the present clay. The death of Christ is slighted as to the solemn judgment of man's state effected in it. Now the Lord puts it as a test for the state of souls. " Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." If you have not' part in death, you have not part in life.
There are three things brought out in our chapter about the Son. First, He has become incarnate. Second, He dies. Third, He goes up to heaven again, where He was before. Now the Lord was talking here to people who were setting up religious pretensions; " Except ye -eat," you are clean outside the whole thing. You have no part in life if not in death. The old state is death, as children of Adam; the new is life in Christ, but through death. As to the-Christian, it does not say that he has life in him, but life in Christ.
The next verse is not so much a test, as it is a proof- " Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life." His death is the food of life. The eating in this verse is,-I judge, an habitual thing. It is not a thing that is done once for all. And I ask, Is it ‘not a privilege to feed on the death' of Christ? I do not meant at the Lord's table-on the first day of -the week, I mean as the habit of our souls every,day of our lives. It is an individual thing. Has not God brought in the death of Christ upon everything? From the cedar wood to the hyssop? I do not say it is our only food; for we have also the humbled Christ, the manna; but we do feed on the death of Christ.
And while contemplating, and a blessed contemplation it is, the death of Christ, in His perfect love to the Father, and in His triumph over evil, we have a part in what is eternal, in what never began and will never end. This part in life with Christ is what we are brought into; and when the time for display comes, He will raise us up. If, as having life, we delight to meditate on the death of Christ, Christ will raise us up at the last day! What a blessed thing t It is a present association with Christ, and the display and the glory are at the last day.
In the next verse we have a further statement. If we eat His flesh 'and drink His blood, He continues in us and we in Him. We have an eternal part in Christ; and, if I may use the expression reverently, He has in us. A person may in a sense have a part for a time in Christ, and then go away; but it is not this; here it is " continue" as we get it in the epistle; it is a present and continuous " eateth and drinketh."
But more than this. It indicates a condition of -dependence, for the life is only in Him; and the word " continue" implies dependence. I have eternal life up there in Christ, and Christ is in me down here before the world. Christ did not present Himself to the world, but the Father; and so with us. We continue in Christ, and Christ in us. And if you want to know what a Christian is, I can say it is Christ. People sometimes talk and think much of proprieties. Thank God, we have done with proprieties. And what tends to distinguish us-that which ought to characterize a Christian down here-is Christ, and that is what. I seek. God does not value anything else but Christ in His people. It is what is before the mind that forms the person. If it is Christ that is before you, Christ will come out in your life and ways.
There is one more clause: " As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me." I can only say as to this verse that I dare not expatiate on it.. Indeed what could I say about it? I little understand what it is for Christ to live on account of the Father. All 'that I can say is that the very same character of life as that of the Son is the life of the believer, and that inseparable connection with Christ is ours. In this passage there is not the thought of the body. It is life only that is before us. But life is essential to the truth of the body, and it is in this way that John is necessary to Paul; John gives us the life; Paul gives us the life in one body. (Col. 3). We cannot well appreciate church truth if we do not enter into what John teaches as to the life.
And then we have this closing expression: " This is that bread which 'came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live forever." The Lord reverts to what He had been saying in the previous part of the chapter. He knew very well that He was going on to death, and He insists, on the way to it, that He was " the living bread which came down from heaven, that a man might eat thereof, and not die." I do not doubt at all, if there had been a single one of those poor Jews listening to Him that could, in faith, have seen the Son of God through the humble exterior of the Lord' Jesus Christ, that he would have had the blessing, in anticipation, though, as I have said, he must needs go on to the death. It is a great thing to get into God's 'thoughts. The pretensions of man in the present day only move one's Contempt and sorrow; but that a Man could stand upon earth and say: " I am the living bread which 'came down from heaven... he that eateth of this bread shall live forever" is Marvelous! Death has now come in, and life is the result. Is not that worthy of God! The death of Christ is presented to man as the way of life, and feeding on it is a proof to the believer that he has got eternal life. Take the simplest soul that you can, but find it delighting in meditating on the death of Christ, and it is to me a proof that it has eternal life.
The seed of the life is in Christ, and it is a dependent life, as we have been seeing: " He that eateth me, even he shall live by me." If you could take away Christ, you could take away the life of the believer. But you cannot take away Christ, for Christ is God.
It is a great thing for our souls if God, by His Spirit, establishes us in the understanding of this truth, and gives us to realize what a marvelous thing it is to be in the hands of Christ! To know that we are going to be the subjects of His mighty power, and that He is going to raise us up at the last day.
(F. E. R.)