Discourse on Spiritual Food and True Discipleship. Peter's Confession.

  47 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.

  48 I am the bread of life.

[Jesus here reasserts the proposition to which the Jews had objected. Having paused to speak of the cause of their objections, he now asserts the main propositions, that he may enlarge upon them.]

  48 I am the bread of life.

  49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. [Manna did not stay death. During the forty years' sojourn in the wilderness all the grown men who started from Egypt died save two.]

  50 This is the bread which cometh down out of heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. [He quietly condescends to contrast the two breads. Manna simply sustained the body like any other natural food; it did no more. Jesus is supernatural food; he sustains the spirit unto eternal life.]

  51 I am the living bread which came down out of heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world. [He had declared himself to be the bread of life, but bread must be assimilated. The assimilation of natural bread requires eating, but Jesus, the spiritual bread, is assimilated by believing on him. But he was not then perfected as the bread of life. It was necessary that he should sacrifice himself for our sins before sins could be forgiven, and it was necessary for sins to be forgiven before men could have life with God. By his sacrifice on the cross he opened the fountain of forgiveness. By raising his humanity from the dead and by taking it with him in his ascension into heaven, he showed the results which men may expect to accrue to them by his death upon the cross.]

  52 The Jews therefore strove one with another, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? [They discussed from opposite sides the problem raised by these mysterious words.]

  53 Jesus therefore said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves. [He here expressed in words what he afterward expressed in symbols, when he gave the Lord's supper. The vital force of a disciple is proportioned to his belief in, remembrance of, and desire to assimilate the Christ.]

  54 He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life. And I will raise him up at the last day.

  55 For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.

[The flesh to be eaten must be broken, and the blood, if it is to be drunk, must be poured out. Christ speaks of himself as the sacrifice given for the saving of the world, and one must appropriate to himself by faith this expiation and find in it reconciliation with God if he would live; but the next verse enlarges the thought and shows that it includes more than the idea of expiation.]

  55 For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.

  56 He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me, and I in him. [The thought of drinking blood was startling to the Jew, for he was forbidden to taste even the blood of animals, and the reason assigned was very pertinent--because the blood was the life of the animal ( Genesis 9:4 ; Leviticus 17:10-14 ). By insisting, therefore, on the drinking of his blood, Jesus has insisted that his very life be absorbed and assimilated. To be disciples of other teachers it is only necessary that we accept and follow their doctrine. But to be a disciple of Christ is to do more than this. His divinity permits us to have a spiritual communion and fellowship with him, an abiding in his presence, an indwelling of his Spirit, and a veritable assimilation of life from him. Were it otherwise he could not be food for the spirit--bread of life. He had started to show to the Jews that he was to the spirit what bread was to the body. It was difficult to bring home to their carnal minds so spiritual a thought, and therefore Jesus clothed it in carnal metaphors and made it as plain as possible. Christians to-day, language, are somewhat confused by the carnal dress in which Jesus clothed his thought.]

  57 As the living Father sent me, and I live necause of the Father; so he that eateth me, he also shall live because of me. [The result of our union or abiding with Christ is a perfect life. The life of the Father enters the soul of the disciple through the mediatorship of the Son. The Father, who is the fountain of life, sent forth the Son that he might bestow it upon all who believe in him and abide in him.]

  58 This is that bread which came out of heaven: not as the fathers ate and died; he that eateth this bread shall live for ever. [Thus Jesus sums up the comparison which the Jews had thrust upon him between himself and the manna.]

  59 These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum. [It was in the synagogue built by the centurion, which we have before mentioned. Pots of manna appear to have been engraved upon its walls, possibly upon the frieze, for Colonel Wilson says of it: "It was not without a certain strange feeling that, on turning over one of the blocks (in the ruins), we found the pot of manna engraved on its face, and remembered the words, 'I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.'"]

  60 Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?

  61 But Jesus knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at this, said unto them, Doth this cause you to stumble?

  62 What then if ye should behold the Son of man ascending where he was before?

[If the prophecy of his sacrifice disturbed their dreams of a temporal kingdom, what would be the effect of his ascension on those dreams? The Book of Acts answers our Lord's question. In the very hour of the ascension the very apostles were still expecting the revival of the kingdom of David, with Jerusalem for its capital. But ten days later, at Pentecost, they had abandoned the earthly idea and looked upon Jesus as enthroned at the right hand of God-- Acts 1:6 ; 2:32-36 .]

  61 But Jesus knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at this, said unto them, Doth this cause you to stumble?

  62 What then if ye should behold the Son of man ascending where he was before?

  63 It is the spirit that giveth life; the flesh profiteth have spoken unto you are spirit, are are life. [Jesus here tells them plainly that his words relate to the spiritual realm, and to life in that realm. It is his Spirit in our spirit which gives eternal life. His flesh in our flesh would profit nothing, even were a priest able, by his blessing, to perform the miracle of transubstantiation. The life-principle of Jesus lay in his divinity, and his divinity lay in his Spirit, and not in his flesh. We would not come in contact with his divinity by eating that which represented his humanity.]

  64 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him.

  65 And he said, For this cause have I said unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it be given unto him of my Father.

[Jesus here distinguishes between those who were drawn to him by divine influences, and who were therefore ready to follow him as he really was, and those who were drawn to him by mistaken notions concerning him, and who would desert him as soon as they discovered that their conceptions of him were incorrect. He knew the reason which prompted each to become his disciple.]

  65 And he said, For this cause have I said unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it be given unto him of my Father.

  66 Upon this many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. [He had sifted them, for their false following could be of no benefit either to them or to his kingdom.]

  67 Jesus said therefore unto the twelve, Would ye also go away? [Jesus had sifted the outer circle of his disciples, and the loss, though prophetically anticipated, was not without its pang. In this sixty-seventh verse he proceeds to sift the innermost circle, and his words are full of pathos. By giving them an opportunity to depart he called forth from them an expression of loyalty which bound them more closely to him.]

  68 Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.

  69 And we have believed and know that thou art the Holy One of God.

  70 Jesus answered them, Did not I choose you the twelve, and one of you is a devil?

  71 Now he spake of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot,

for he it was that should betray him, being one of the twelve. [We have seen from verse 64 that Jesus has already had the betrayer in his mind. Here he speaks of him openly. In a discourse which forecasted his passion it was natural that he should allude to his betrayer, especially, when his presence enforced remembrance. But there was another reason to mention him at this time. He was an illustration of the truth that no man could be a real follower of Jesus unless he became such by the drawing of the Father.]

  69 And we have believed and know that thou art the Holy One of God.

  70 Jesus answered them, Did not I choose you the twelve, and one of you is a devil?

  71 Now he spake of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot,

      NOTE.--On the following page will be found a foot-note indicating a disagreement as to chronology. In the preparation of this work the senior editor preferred to let the junior editor be responsible for the harmonistic and chronological features of it, and hence his corrections as to these particulars are obliged to appear as foot-notes, since it is now impossible to