What did HE say? (continued)
Bread of Life (Part 7)
As an example of the difficulty that Jesus’ audiences had in understanding His words stands the Parable of the Sower. To many people today this seems one of the easier parables to understand but in that day they did not have a New Testament that explained it to them; they only heard His words. In hearing the parable even the twelve were bewildered and asked the Master what was the meaning of it. According to Luke the twelve said to Jesus “What might this parable be?” (Luke 8:9). He answers the similar question in Mark’s Gospel saying “Know ye not this parable? and how then will ye know all parables?” (Mark 4:13). The rest of His reply has been repeated throughout these essays; it stands as our explanation of both His words and the complexity of them. We can hear the same verses over again getting new meaning each time; the words are the same, it is our understanding, our hearing, that changes.
According to Matthew, after speaking this parable to the people Jesus says: “Who hath ears to hear, let him hear“, to which His disciples reply: “Why speakest thou unto them in parables” (Matthew 13:9-10). There is no way for us know who or how many were the disciples. There is mention of the twelve and of the seventy but in the place and time of our subject in John we only know that they are more than the twelve; there were many “From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him” (John 6:66). So we can assume that He is speaking to a large number of disciples (generally when He speaks as He is speaking to those who follow Him) when He says: “Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear” (Matthew 13:11-16).
Many people today believe that they are disciples of the Christ and we think we know the definition of being a disciple. For Jesus to call any a disciple they should, even must, live by the criteria He sets forth for being one in the Gospel of Luke where He says: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple“. He says also that “whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26-27, 33). The word rendered hate above does mean just that; hate. However, we need to look at this word as it is used in scripture and Webster’s helps us by defining hate in part as: In Scripture, it signifies to love less. If any man come to me, and hate not father and mother, &c. Luke 14. He that spareth the rod, hateth his son. Prov. 13*. Strange that this idea is not presented by either Strong’s or the Greek Lexicon. Even with a better understanding of the word hate, this is a hard saying to follow. We should understand however that when one is truly a disciple that he will do all these things without thought or question. Until then what can we be but aspiring disciples.
The dialogue above is meant to show two things. One is the nature of a disciple. John does call these who leave Him, after He speaks of eat His flesh and drink His blood, disciples so one must assume that they met, at least for the most part and outwardly, the criteria for being a disciple. They were followers of the Master and disciples at least in the ordinary sense of the word. The second is for another reminder that His words need not be presented to us as parables to be misunderstood as if they are parables. A parable is regarded as a sort of story and this is fine; however, a parable can also be a statement which conveys a meaning indirectly. The whole of our theme on the Bread of Life concerns statements than cannot be taken at face value but have an indirect meaning. It is this hidden meaning that we are attempting to discover. These sayings seem intentionally made, according to the citations above, to confound the people who were not able to understand them spiritually.
We should note here also the verse above that says: “whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath“. We have seen this before and also in regard to hearing and also from the pen of Luke (In the Words of Jesus part 61). Here Jesus says this in direct relationship to ones ability to understand the meanings of what He is saying so as to say that if we are able to understand spiritually the truths that He is giving us then we will get more truths, and in abundance. Any of us who do spend time in His word and in spiritual pursuits know that the more we do understand, the greater is our next revelation.
Now back to our text from the Gospel of John which says: “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 for ever. These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum. Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it? When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. 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. And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father. From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him” (John 6:58-66). The Master is here repeating His comparison of Himself and the manna that the Jews ate in the wilderness. We said that they ate the manna and they died because the manna fed only the physical nature and not the spiritual. We said also that the Bread which is Christ is spiritual bread and it nourishes the whole personality with spiritual food but only when we choose to partake in it. We said too that we partake in the Bread of Life that Jesus offers to us by prayer, meditation, reading and doing the words of the Master; by focusing on the Spirit life and not the carnal and by doing all those things that enable us to be in His Presence, in the Kingdom of God. The text next tells us that all of this that He said He said in the synagogue which is not necessarily a building but, like the word church, can refer to the gathering or the assembly of persons.
Remember that Jesus knows that they are still murmuring about His sayings and that they cannot accept what He is saying because they are looking at this all in a strictly physical way. In their lack of understanding we can see that these are not ‘real’ disciples although John calls them such. They are, up to this point, believers and followers for the most part who had been eager to hear His word. We see in the fact that they followed Him across the sea without knowing that He was actually there. In the last post, we painted them with the brush of being like the places where the word is sown from the Parable of the Sower. Jesus next responds with still more sayings that they cannot understand. He says: “Doth this offend you?” which should be rendered as “cause you to stumble” and then goes on to pose the next question while assuming the answer to the first as to say if this causes you to stumble what will you do if “ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?“. This is to say that if you can’t believe what I am telling you what will you do if you see these things. Similar questions can be posed today. What if the Master returned today and opposed the dogma of the churches as He did the dogma of the Pharisees; who of the ‘believers’ would understand and follow Him. In our text He is telling them what they must do to attain to the Kingdom and this message is throughout the gospels but who is listening? Are not even many of us supplanting His teaching with our own understanding and our doctrine and our dogma.
He goes on to tell them that “it is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” which can be looked at as His message in its entirety if we could but hear it. The Spirit gives us life; we are Spirit. The life of the flesh as it is our personality nature is worthless on its own; it is of no profit to our spiritual lives which is the real and only life we have. No matter what we become or do or gain; no matter how many children we have; no matter how many houses or millions of dollars we acquire, it is all left here when we go. We may be remembered by a few and, if we are in some way spiritual and help change the lives of many, we will be remembered by many; similarly if we are truly evil we will be remembered as well. We should always remember that it is not just in Jesus Christ that we can be spiritual; some are, as personalities, so imbued with their Spirit that they have revelations in non-religious fields that change the world. For us that are listening however there is Christ Jesus and His words. These are spiritual food for us and they are life to nourish our carnal personalities with the Spirit that they are.
Jesus closes this part of His dialogue by reminding us that He did tell us that “no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father” which we have discussed already in this series. It is however an important point and since He found it right to remind them, so can we. The Father in heaven is the Spirit in heaven for we know that God is Spirit. We too are Spirit and the Master tells us that the Kingdom of Heaven is within us. Thus spiritually speaking we are the Spirit in heaven and in this is found the key to Jesus statement. God is Spirit and we are Spirit, this is our true self. When we are focused on the Kingdom of God and allowing our Spirit nature to influence our personality consciousness we are giving ourselves, our conscious selves, to the Lord. Giving in this context and coming to the Christ can be seen as a single act for one includes the other. When we are, in everyday consciousness, aware of the Spirit within and are drawn to it, then the Christ Within is born and we are, so to speak, born again.
Note on the Quote of the Day
This daily blog also has a Quote of the Day which may not be in any way related to the essay. Many of these will be from the Bible and some just prayers or meditations that may have an influence on you and are in line with the subject matter of this blog. As the quote will change daily and will not store with the post, it is repeated in this section with the book reference and comment.
There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful; and the end of that mirth (joy) is heaviness. The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways: and a good man shall be satisfied from himself. The simple believeth every word: but the prudent man looketh well to his going. (Proverbs 14:12-15)
The simple message here in this Quote of the Day is in regard to what seemeth right unto a man. Unless we see things from our spiritual perspective, that is, unless our hearts are in tune with the Christ Within and not in tune with the world, things may seem right but in reality they are not. What we see, what we hear and what we should do are all interpreted by us; either the higher or the lower. The rest of the saying helps to fill this out with: as carnal man we may laugh but when the laughing is over the problems remain and when we are grounded in worldly affairs we are filled with our own ways and are not satisfied from within. Finally we can’t believe just because we are told; we need to find things out for ourselves, our inner selves.
- * Websters Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1828 and 1913
