John 6:57

The living Father (o zwn pathr). Nowhere else in the N.T., but see 1 John 5:26 and "the living God" ( Matthew 16:16 ; 2 Corinthians 6:16 ). The Father is the source of life and so "I live because of the Father" (kagw zw dia ton patera). He that eateth me (o trwgwn me). Still bolder putting of the mystical appropriation of Christ ( 2 Corinthians 51 53 54 56). Because of me (di eme). The same idea appears in 2 Corinthians 14:19 : "Because I live ye shall live also." See 2 Corinthians 11:25 . Jesus Christ is our ground of hope and guarantee of immortality. Life is in Christ. There is no real difficulty in this use of dia with the accusative as with dia ton patera just before. It occurs also in 2 Corinthians 15:3 . As the Father is the fount of life to Christ, so Christ is the fount of life to us. See 1 John 4:9 where dia is used with the genitive (di autou) as the intermediate agent, not the ground or reason as here.