What did HE say? (continued)
Bread of Life (Part 8 )
There is insight into the words of Jesus within His words. An example is in His telling the woman at the well regarding drink: “whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:14). Is this not in the same saying as “whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:54) at least from the perspective of drinking. Is it not what He gives to us that matters to us. Does it matter what He calls it in His different sayings? whether He calls it blood or calls it water. Jesus also tells us that “he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). Can we say that this means that coming to Him is the same as eating His flesh and that believing on Him is equivalent to drinking His blood? These things He is saying to the same people to whom He says eat His flesh and drink His blood.
Can we say that within the sayings of the Master are at least clues to what He means in some of the exceedingly hard verses like “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you” (John 6:53)? Can we take from these other sayings that coming to Him, believing in Him and drinking the water of life that He gives us means the same thing? The people listening to Him in Capernaum did not make any connection but they did not have the written record to peruse and comment on; they could only hear the word and hear it only once. We get to hear it as often as we like; how much better off are we than they.
“Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God” (John 6:67-69). This is the final part of this dialogue that we will deal with here; we will save the references to Judas for another time. Now the twelve are very close to the Master as we see throughout all of the gospels and although He asks this question we should assume that He knew the answer just as He knew who would betray Him and the many other things that He knew that are revealed in scripture. The Master does ask however and Peter’s answer reveals that he does not quite understand this all either. To whom shall we go is a statement akin to we are lost without you. Peter’s saying that thou art that Christ and thou hast the words of eternal life reflect little on the twelve’s understanding of the Master’s words to the people but show that they do believe that Jesus is the one promised, the messiah. They are so convinced that they have left all to follow Him. We should remember here what Jesus tells us several times in this chapter and in several ways; “no man can come unto me except it were given him of my Father“. This is true of the twelve as well as it is true of us. Jesus tells us this four times in this chapter and we have given it what meaning we can in previous posts in this series.
Another thing that the Master says to us four times and in much the same words is “I will raise him up at the last day”. Twice, when we came to this saying I could only say that we will need to wait for some revelation to address this. I believe that I can address this now. This may not be a perfect look at it but it is more of a look than I have ever had before. As we discussed, this saying is usually attributed to the resurrection or to a final resurrection. Jesus does not mention the word resurrection in any of His four mentions of this saying but He does talk about everlasting life. Let us list the verses in question so they are in front of us; all are from Chapter 6 of John’s Gospel
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“And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing , but should raise it up againat the last day” (v39).
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“And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day” (v40).
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“No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day” (v44).
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“Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day” (v54).
Reviewing commentary on these verses leaves one with the idea that most all the church regards these sayings as that they pertain to resurrection and some say to a final resurrection. This comes from a firm belief that there is a resurrection of the physical body and is based on some interpretations of the Master’s words and the epistles. An example of the Christian thought is found in the ‘Commentary Critical and Explanatory of the Bible’ which says: For the fourth time this is repeated showing most clearly that the “eternal life” which such a man “hath” cannot be the same with the future resurrection life from which it is carefully distinguished each time, but a life communicated here below immediately on believing; and giving to the resurrection of the body as that which consummates the redemption of the entire man, a prominence which in the current theology, it is to be feared, it has seldom had. Another example is in Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible (complete) where he says: Christ’s undertaking for those that are given him extends to the resurrection of their bodies. I will raise it up again at the last day, which supposes all that goes before, but this is to crown and complete the undertaking. The body is a part of the man, and therefore a part of Christ’s purchase and charge; it pertains to the promises, and therefore it shall not be lost. The undertaking is not only that he shall lose none, no person, but that he shall lose nothing, no part of the person, and therefore not the body. Christ’s undertaking will never be accomplished till the resurrection, when the souls and bodies of the saints shall be re-united and gathered to Christ, that he may present them to the Father:
In both of these examples there is clear belief and reliance on the resurrection of the body; that the billions upon billions of dead bodies will come back together as they were to be with Him in Glory. Now scripture tells us that all will be resurrected “they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation” (John 5:29) and we know not what this really means but those who subscribe to the idea of resurrection of the body must subscribe to this as well. There will be infants and toddlers and young children resurrected and who will take care of them if mothers or fathers are destined to go to the resurrection of damnation. There will be the elderly and the feeble and the deformed or there must be some miracle that is not written to accommodate them. Cremated remains, disintegrated remains, remains lost at sea and some that were totally destroyed will come on the wind but there is no scripture for this either. Note also that in this belief it appears that resurrection trumps eternal life but this can only be true in not understanding the idea and the meaning of eternal and of everlasting. There is created here a dichotomy between living forever and being resurrected. If we are living forever what is the purpose of resurrection.
Neither the lexicon nor Strong’s nor Webster nor Vincent give us any real idea of what the meaning of resurrection may be aside from the raising of dead bodies back to life. Since resurrection is not our topic here we will leave this for discussion on another day. Today we will just acknowledge that to most the idea behind our subject verses is the resurrection and in this we should see the dichotomy developed between eternal life and the resurrection. Jesus speaks of raising at the last day and eternal life in the same saying and in this there is the understanding that we need. Raising at the last day and eternal life must be allowed to coexist because the Master puts them together; we have eternal life or, in our terms, the realization of the eternal life that we have, and at the same time we will be raised up at the last day. Now I don’t propose to understand the meaning of the last day but there is an understanding of raise him up that I will share.
Our true nature, and I hesitate to call it man, is that we are Spirit and being Spirit we live, as our Father, eternally in ‘heavenly’ places and of course we must remember that heaven is within us. Now we have no choice but to see this all as men in form on this Earth and this can be difficult. We are told by the Church that we are not this body which is a truth; the church analogy is that the body is a glove in which our Spirit lives and at death we leave the body like a hand leaves a glove. This is a good analogy except for their idea that for some reason we are in need of this body again for some future life. So let us say surely that we are not this body but we are the Spirit that dwells within. If all were that simple we would know that we are Spirit and we would be forever spiritual but this is not how we see ourselves. We see ourselves as men, mortal men, and it is only when the Father draws us, when our Spirit gets our mortal attention, that we begin to realize our true nature. Until then we are essentially this mortal body or more accurately the personality that appears as this mortal body. Saying this appears to be creating another part of life but this Spirit is our nature and it is acknowledged in scripture. The duality is recognized by Christ when He talks about us as body and Soul; it is recognized when we are spoken of as Gods (I have said ye are Gods) and as children of God. And the Apostle Paul tells us “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you” (1 Corinthians 3:16); this he says talking to men. For us, the understanding should be that we are that Spirit. The common teaching however is that we have a Spirit within us only when we are born again; this teaching is in place of the reality of we are that Spirit regardless of what we believe and we are not the body that the Spirit is within.
We have gone long here and did not get to the point but only to building an understanding to support that point. What we have to say next does not agree with modern Christian thinking and though this can be said about most of these posts it may be more apparent in this. What we say can however will be supported by the words of the Master and by scripture in general.
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.
Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment (John 7:24 NAS)
Following on yesterday’s Quote of the Day, this one tells us too that we cannot rely on what seems to be. Yesterday we were cautioned about things that seem right to a man because that may not be what is true. Today, in the words of the Master we have a similar thought saying do not judge based on what seems to be but be righteous in that judgment. Too often we go off and do a thing or think and judge a thing without having all the information about it. We react to what someone says to us or what we think we see and we act and we judge and we are often wrong.
- * Websters Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1828 and 1913
