John 6:45, commentary and pictures

To be taught by God means that God Himself teaches every person directly, and everyone who has truly heard and learned from the Father comes to Christ. The Father's drawing is this teaching and enlightening of the heart by the Spirit to feel need of a Saviour, and knowing Christ comes only in this way. Hearing alone is not learning, for genuine hearing means receiving the Word, living by it, practicing the truth and doing it. Coming to Him is true and earnest belief in Him as the heavenly bread and Bread of Life, receiving Him and becoming one with Him by living faith. Eating His flesh and drinking His blood is the figure for this receiving of Christ and His Word by spiritual experience, taking His words as spirit and life into the soul until they become part of the life.

Gospel Setting and Occasion

Jesus spoke these words in the synagogue at Capernaum as part of His discourse to the crowd after the feeding of the multitude and His crossing of the sea. That setting follows the ministry to the hungry multitude in the feeding of the five thousand, showing care for physical need accompanying words of life, and follows the miracle of the loaves and fishes and His walking on the water. There He taught His hearers that He is the Bread of life, and that teaching contains many subjects of intense interest and highest value. The discourse in John 6:35-59 is that synagogue teaching in which He spoke of Himself as the bread of life.

It belongs to His declaration before the worshipers in the synagogue that He is the bread that comes down from heaven and the bread of life. In it He presented a spiritual kingdom, not a temporal reign, and devoted Himself to teaching His disciples the truths of His work. It was a discourse that brought light to the multitudes, though many worldly-minded followers turned away when they rejected His teaching. Those truths were taught to lead the hearers to decide for or against Him and to reveal their true feelings, so that those who were not wholly with Him would be seen as those who would oppose Him at His trial. It was plain testimony that tested the disciples, for truth brought home to the heart could lead people to turn from Jesus rather than accept reproof and reform.

The wonderful sermon on the bread of life in John 6:32-58 was preached on the occasion of the miracle of the loaves, setting forth the conditions of eternal life and entrance into the kingdom of God. Many who had followed Him apostatized immediately after hearing it and went back and walked no more with Him. They sought Him not from faith in His miracles but because they ate and were filled, coming only for the temporal advantages they could obtain, and the truth demanded too much of them. He had to speak the truth about His work in this way to prove those who claimed to be disciples before He left them, so that their apostasy would not come as a surprise to the true disciples and make the trial too severe for them. This testing was essential for the safety of His future work, so that it would not be swayed into wrong paths, and in that sifting the twelve did not show themselves unfaithful, with Peter speaking for his brethren in declaring loyalty to Christ.

Meaning of Key Phrases

To be taught of God means God Himself teaches all people directly, and everyone who has heard and has learned of the Father comes to Christ. The Father's drawing is teaching, so that coming to Christ depends on being taught and drawn by the Father. Knowing Christ is connected with being taught by God.

Hearing alone is not learning. Genuine hearing and learning means receiving the Word, living by it, practicing the truth, and doing the Word. Hearing without learning or practicing leaves only a form of godliness and is not genuine belief or sincere discipleship, for such a one does not receive the engrafted Word.

Coming to Christ is true, earnest belief in Him as the heavenly bread and the bread of life come down from heaven. To come means to receive Him, to believe in Him, to become one with Him, and to be united to Him by living faith. Faith rests on God's past work and present assurance and is essential to future experience. Those who so come have everlasting life and will be raised up at the last day.

Eating His flesh and drinking His blood is a figure for receiving His Word and believing, receiving Christ by spiritual experience and living by His word. His words are spirit and life, and those who truly receive them never hunger and those who believe never thirst for higher or more satisfying food. This receiving means taking His truths into the soul and assimilating them until they become part of life, living by every word from God without replacing His Word with human suppositions. Eating the Son of God's flesh and drinking His blood represents an actual experience of receiving Christ that belongs with conversion and spiritual growth through the Word. That experience distinguishes true disciples who receive Christ and are united with Him from those who merely follow outwardly, enabling people to understand His words spiritually and recognize Him as the bread of life.

Father Draws People to Christ

The Father draws all people to Christ by His love, teaching and enlightening the heart through the Spirit so that it feels its need of a Saviour, and only those who resist that drawing refuse to come to Him. Everyone who has truly heard and learned of the Father in this way comes to Christ, for no one comes unless the heart has first been thus enlightened. God Himself never appears in person to teach the way of life, because fallen humanity could not endure the sight or vision of His glory even for a moment. People therefore come to the Father through the Son, who is the Mediator between God and disobedient humanity.

In seeing and hearing the Son they see and hear the Father, for the Son reveals the Father through nature and revelation and all knowledge of the Father comes through Christ. To learn of the Father is to listen to the voice of His Son and to recognize in Jesus the One who thus makes the Father known. For this reason any profession or claim to be taught of God while refusing to come to Jesus is vain and empty, as was exposed when the Jews claimed God as their teacher yet rejected Christ.

Such refusal comes from unbelief that resists the truth, as when the Jews fastened upon Jesus' human family and on that ground rejected His heavenly origin. The Father's teaching draws to Christ, but unbelief can turn the heart aside from the drawing. Yet this hearing and learning of the Father does not mean that any person has seen the Father, for only He who is of God has seen the Father.

Prophecy and Old Testament Roots

Jesus cites Isaiah to show that His teaching that all shall be taught of God fulfills prophecy that God's people and children would be taught by the Lord, and it is not a new doctrine. Everyone who has truly heard and learned of the Father comes to Christ, because the Father teaches the heart and enlightens it through the Spirit to feel need of a Saviour. The Father draws all people through His love, and only those who resist that drawing refuse Christ. God does not appear in person to teach the way of life, because humanity could not endure the sight or vision of His glory even for a moment, but people come to the Father through the Son who is their Mediator between God and disobedient humanity.

In seeing and hearing the Son people see and hear the Father, for the Son reveals the Father through nature and revelation and knowledge of the Father comes through Christ by listening to the voice of His Son. To profess to be taught of God while refusing to come to Jesus is therefore vain and empty, as exposed by the Jews' claim that God was their teacher when they rejected Christ. The Old Testament Scriptures contain sufficient teaching in every age to lead people to Christ, and those who truly believe them would also believe the New Testament. Christ's directions in the Old Testament are living instruction, and the New Testament sheds light on the Old rather than replacing it, for this chapter teaches the spiritual meaning of the Word as bread from heaven by which people receive life through taking God's words into their lives.

Bread of Life and Eternal Life

John 6:45 stands within Jesus' teaching of Himself as the Bread of Life, where coming to Him is believing in Him and receiving the life His teaching gives, and all who learn from the Father come to Christ and partake of Him. To come is to receive Him, believe in Him, become one with Him, and eat His flesh and drink His blood, and those who do so have everlasting life and will be raised up at the last day. He Himself is the bread come down from heaven from whom flow the streams of salvation, the provision of the gospel feast with unsearchable, inexhaustible resources prepared at infinite cost through His death.

He did not overlook physical needs and showed care for the hungry multitude, even providing food for bodily necessities and imparting knowledge in different places, yet the spiritual food He provides is of far more consequence than temporal food. That living bread which endures to everlasting life can be obtained from no human agent, for through the gift of Christ God Himself gives it, and those taught of God labor for it by believing on Him whom God sent and coming to Him as the Bread of Life so they never hunger and never thirst. Receiving that bread means feeding on Christ by keeping His Word and truth before the soul, studying and practicing them, taking His words in until they become part of life, and living by faith and by every word from God without replacing His Word with human suppositions.

Like food, the Word must be taken in and made part of life rather than received merely through another person or merely heard, for it nourishes the soul, gives strength, perfects experience, brings lasting joy, exercises the whole life, and prepares people to resist deception. What the mind is given to shapes spiritual experience and obedience to the Word, and personal appropriation brings eternal life and a life shaped by obedience. The sixth chapter holds the conditions of eternal life, the mystery of godliness, and instruction full of value able to cure dissension and bring unity with Christ and one another.

Thoroughly understanding and living by its teaching gives a life that measures with the life of God, forms the mind of Christ, brings into connection with Christ through principles received into daily life, and enables distinguishing true from false in perilous days. It must be read, studied again, and brought into daily experience, for Christ spoke of eating His flesh and drinking His blood as a figure for receiving His Word and believing, and His words are spirit and life so that all who truly receive them never hunger and all who believe never thirst for higher food. Receiving and assimilating those words brings deep piety and less self in work.

Its lessons call people to receive and obey Christ's words as spirit and life, bringing happiness, salvation, and growth so character reflects profession. Coming to Christ means receiving His life and words, feeding on Him as living bread, becoming one with Him, and clinging to His Word as spiritual nourishment represented by eating His flesh and drinking His blood. Had Judas received that life he would have become truly Christlike.

Those ministering in word and doctrine must not be dull of understanding about the bread sent down from heaven contained in the Bible, which is the food that builds men and women up spiritually from what they give the mind, but must ask God for clearness instead of spending time on books and magazines that lead the mind astray and hinder growth. To be invited to feed on Him is the greatest honor, requiring prayer for the Holy Spirit to enlighten reason and combine with human effort and placing oneself where the bright beams of the Sun of Righteousness can sanctify soul and spirit. To refuse with earthly and selfish excuses brings amazement in heaven and grief to angels, because without eating His flesh and drinking His blood there is no life, while those who truly hear and learn come to Him, hear His voice and follow Him, receive eternal life, never perish, and will be raised at the last day.

Eating that bread is believing the Word of God and appropriating it to the soul by comparing Scripture with Scripture, believing every word, bringing His requirements into practical life, and obeying His words and doing His works to advance righteousness and restrain unrighteousness. Such a life gives the Spirit's witness that one's ways please God, Christ's joy remaining in the soul, full assurance of hope, and eternal life, so that one living this way is no longer condemned by the law, and this obedience is connected with happiness and salvation. The living oracles are the flesh and blood of the Son of God to be read and received as living bread from heaven, with the Scriptures' directions for practical holiness lived out in obedience, and Christ's work as substitute for sin was the only hope of ancient Israel even before His death.

The verse means cherishing in the heart the truth that works by love and purifies the soul, bringing thorough conversion, new life, humble Christianity free from self-esteem and self-praise, and the fruit of a good tree, without which the soul is in danger of being lost. Learning how eternal life is gained by hearing and learning of the Father and coming to Christ requires reading and studying the sixth chapter to feed on the flesh and blood of the Son of God. Receiving heaven's teaching nourishes hunger for God, while turning the mind to worldly entertainments leaves that hunger unsatisfied.

Taught by Spirit Through Word

To be taught of God is to learn from the Bible as the great educating Book above all books, and from Christ the divine Teacher clothed in humanity as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Hearing and learning of the Father means believing on Him whom God sent, and this believing is the work of God that comes first and then produces doing the Word and working the works of God, which is eating Christ's flesh and drinking His blood, and understanding Christ's words is essential to receiving the spiritual life He gives. This lesson must be understood and taught to students in schools, or heaven will be missed. Being taught by Christ is by His Word, by His Spirit, and by His providences. He leads those willing to be led to a right comprehension of what truth is, and teaches them to see the importance of obeying the Word of God, for the Word of God is truth.

God teaches through the Holy Spirit, who enlightens minds, impresses truth, and gives vital power. No preaching of the Word and no reading of the Scriptures can transform character or save souls unless the Spirit works with and through the human agent. The Word is a power, a sword in the hand of the human agent, but the Holy Spirit is its efficiency, its vital power in impressing the mind. The promise applies to everyone who teaches truth, especially ministering workers: all grace is given them if they will be learners in Christ's school, daily learning His meekness and lowliness, not planning to draw attention to self, and recognizing God as source of strength and the Spirit as Comforter whose living virtue must combine with human effort, and forgetting this is why so little is accomplished. The Holy Spirit Himself causes light to shine into the heart, and God must be recognized as source of strength and the Spirit as Comforter. Receiving the Holy Spirit enables God's people to be taught by Him and to overcome misunderstanding.

To understand Scripture rightly, the Lord must be sought in prayer and the Author trusted as its true interpreter under the Spirit's guidance. Study and intellectual strength alone cannot give this understanding, and errors arise from trusting limited human wisdom instead of receiving God's teaching. Those who hear and learn from the Father are thus led to Christ and enabled to find the Father in His Word without depending on the church as sole interpreter. Being taught means studying the Word God has made plain and simple, bringing revealed principles home to the soul and into daily life, grasping godliness, praying and communing with God to prove His mind and gain knowledge of His will for eternal life. It means receiving and assimilating Christ's words until they become part of the self, eating the Word by not departing from its precepts, living by every word from God's mouth in what He has revealed as all necessary for salvation, and not leaving His word for men's suppositions.

Being taught means the heart is opened for the Word to enter, drinking it in and digesting it and bringing it into life practice, not merely hearing. Without this there will be misconception, misapplication, and misinterpretation, and truth will not be accepted to the saving of the soul. A person's life reveals whether he is taught of God by whether he eats the Bread of life. Failure to be taught is never because God is unwilling to teach, but because man is unwilling to receive His teaching. Having received truth repeatedly does not ensure hearing, for obstinacy and refusal of warnings can hinder His work, while those who search the Scriptures with humble hearts are taught by God and led to Christ.

Being taught depends on willingness to be taught, conversion, wrestling in prayer, receiving the baptism of the Spirit, walking humbly, humbling the soul, self-denial and self-sacrifice. A common, shallow experience is not enough for entrance into the kingdom, and one who remains unconverted and feels no need of spiritual experience is not where he can be taught of God, whereas the converted are brought where God can teach them. Those thus taught carry forward the work in the Lord's way with a message from the Lord, the light of truth shines from them as a burning lamp reaching all parts of the world, God walks with them, and they see His salvation. Determined effort and dependence on the Holy Spirit belong to this learning, without which the results seen after Pentecost will not be seen. Those taught know what is truth by studying His mind and will, and when confronted with curiously invented theories do not enter controversy but affirm with It is written. They magnify the Lord, do not give up, hold the pillars of truth higher and still higher against specious errors and sophistry, and stand as enlightened by wisdom from above, which requires new birth, humility, and continued willingness to be taught.

God patiently instructs willing learners of every age; people may help clarify truth, but God alone teaches the heart to receive it savingly and welcome the words of eternal life. The obstacle is clinging to human ideas and refusing the humility and inner discipline needed to be taught. This does not make schools or other human agencies unnecessary, for God teaches through appointed means, including teachers who help people come to Christ and grow in faith, and this work is to continue. The Holy Spirit works on both teacher and learner so both are taught of God, presenting the Word with power and receiving it with eager, hungry attention. Those taught fix their gaze on the cross, find the Bible a treasure-house, testify to wonderful expositions, desire copies to study every point, recognize its precious truths, and become laborers together with God.

Recognizing Christ's glory comes from being taught by God, as Peter's knowledge was revealed by the Father and not attained by human wisdom or goodness, belonging to the Spirit's revelation of the deep things of God. Accepting this teaching is a higher education than relying on changeable, fallible human theories or judgment, and it is the highest science, leading to faith in Jesus and everlasting life. Human opinions and infidel writings cannot replace the teaching of the Creator who made heaven and earth and ordered the heavenly bodies. Being taught takes place in Christ's school, where yielded students learn the science of salvation. It is not addressed to intellect alone like mathematical formulas, because humans have a moral nature, so the Word as bread aims at the heart, takes the will, casts down imaginations against God's knowledge, and brings thoughts into captivity to Christ, emptying the soul of pride so Christ imprints His image and the soul becomes God's abiding place, while the wayward heart drags down the soul's faculties.

Those taught advance step by step in the divine life on a path growing brighter to the perfect day, with hearts filled with desire to make known received truths. Divine teaching includes practical instruction for daily life, and Christ's instruction in this is not valued enough. The God who gave His Word for spiritual life will not withhold knowledge of how to prepare healthful food, first for one's own family as first responsibility and then in Christlike liberality for the poor, including skill to prepare wholesome, inexpensive foods and to teach health reform to others. Learning from God belongs to continuing progress in religious education for those who earnestly seek Him. Those grounded in faith through established experience can know with certainty that God is teaching and leading them.

Living Out Divine Teaching

All are to be taught directly by God as individuals, with God dealing with each person and giving to everyone his own work and accountability. Each soul is to depend on God and not on human beings for strength, guidance and wisdom, taking the living Word as guide and realizing dependence on Him by creation and by redemption. Hearing and learning from the Father means coming to Jesus Christ the true Light instead of looking to human beings.

Through Christ's grace each person must work out his own righteousness while maintaining a living connection with the Father and the Son, and this individual experience of being taught and coming to Christ is genuine and of value. No one is competent to dictate another person's duty. Every person who hears and learns comes directly to Christ as Saviour through Christ alone, not through confessionals or priests or popes, and no human priest or religious teacher can take His place in revealing the Father. Mere outward connection with any church will not save, but personal faith in a personal Saviour brings the soul into spiritual union with Christ.

Being taught of God means receiving and practicing the truth, so that everyone who has heard and learned of the Father comes to Christ and becomes a light shining amid the darkness of the world, with a life revealing virtues that are a savor of life unto life. Those thus taught are true believers filled with His Spirit and experiencing the sanctification of the Spirit, making them God's true messengers of healing and the light of the church and of the world. As sons and daughters of God they accept the Word of God as counselor, receive the engrafted Word, speak the words of Christ, faithfully impart the received Word to others and diffuse light, showing daily conversion to the principles of truth in conversation, conduct and deportment and becoming a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men in whom God is glorified. This hearing and learning does not mean any person has seen the Father, for only He who is of God has seen the Father.

As they receive truth from Scripture it sanctifies and uplifts them, restores God's moral image in them, and leads many to eternal salvation. Through faithful teaching that opens the Scriptures and presents their truth, seekers are taught by God, learn from Christ the Great Teacher, and joyfully accept truths that sanctify and uplift them. Being taught of God is the education that makes children, youth, men and women workers together with God by feeding upon Christ's words as His very flesh and His blood. For youth this teaching centers on the law of Jehovah and the penalty for transgressing it, and on understanding that God accepts the ransom made by the Saviour in their behalf if they are obedient to the law of Jehovah.

The verse defines the righteousness of Christ that must be accepted to have on the wedding garment, which is the standard of character required to be counted a fit guest at the wedding where humanity is united with divinity. Accepting it requires taking a firm stand for Christ, surrendering to God what is already His, and ceasing from sin instead of measuring character by human ideas, and without it the soul is lost. Being taught of God means being taught daily in the school of Christ, and to comprehend and appreciate the truth as it is in Jesus requires eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of God, making continual growth in grace, praying to God for blessings, and bringing truth into daily experience.

Learning from God leads a person to Christ, and learning from Christ the great Teacher is connected with receiving eternal life. The lesson calls for a heart consecrated to God and hungry for Christ's instruction, since what a person chooses to hear and take in shapes the soul's capacity to receive that instruction. Learning from the Father leads to receiving Christ by faith as sanctification and righteousness, depending on God rather than human beings, praying for understanding of these truths and walking in the light given in order to be strong in the Lord.

In personal experience those taught by God who seek Him sincerely with a sincere heart confess their defects of character and come to Him in humble dependence with the promise of being received. Yielding to God's claims brings Christ's abiding presence and precious companionship. Through divine wisdom by taking hold of divine wisdom a person escapes the world's corruptions that are in the world through lust and learns day by day more fully how to bring infirmities and carry them to the One who is a very present help and who helps in every time of need.

Coming to Christ the bread of life gives the opportunity to receive the Word and form a firm, Christlike character. Receiving that bread means obeying Christ's words and doing His works, advancing righteousness and restraining unrighteousness, and this obedience is connected with happiness and salvation. Those who receive the bread of life by receiving the truth simply, following Christ as perfect Saviour, and desiring wholly to belong to the Lord reveal Christ abiding in them and become channels through which living water flows, with their words and actions showing whether they are doers of the Word and bear Christ's attributes. Those being taught by God learn to speak Christ's words rather than criticize fellow workers, and their prayers for pardon for their own faults and for God's blessing show that their lips have been changed, so that their speech can touch unbelievers who recognize the difference between what is human and what is divine.

The verse is instruction for teachers to search Scripture so they can lead students to Christ, for God teaches people and everyone who hears and learns from the Father comes to Christ. Christ is the center of all true doctrine and the one in whom hope of eternal life is centered and the source of hope for eternal life, and a teacher who learns from Christ finds a safe anchorage. Teachers who search Scripture for themselves with open hearts and walk in the light God has given are taught by God, which leads them to practice the truth, rely less on human theories and finite wisdom, and hunger for wisdom from God. Teachers who are daily taught of God can lead many to know the truth in Jesus, and children educated in this way can share the light and knowledge they receive with others.

Being taught by God is a continuing need, and teachers who neglect that need are unfit for their trusted work. The chapter revealing Christ as the Bread of Life must be studied with much more special diligence, holding the most precious and important lessons for all who are being educated in schools, truths to be brought into practical life by all who want an education that will endure through time and through eternity, though only faintly understood. Those who educate youth must educate themselves by the high principles Christ has given in His Word, and by this chapter recover lost ground as far and as fast as possible and weave into the school the spirituality that was in the school of the prophets, making the school a sample school perfected after God's pattern, not like all other schools, discarding worldly make-shifts which are called education. Students are to take in Christ's words there that they may understand their privileges, learning what He is to them and what individual advantage comes from eating His words and realizing He Himself is the great center of life, for His words are spirit and life.

The promise that God teaches His people applies to the greater spiritual power and clearer understanding of the work that can come when the school and sanitarium share ideas and help one another. Those ready to serve are those who feed most on Christ and first learn from Him themselves by reading and studying His Word, drinking in the inspiration of His Spirit, and receiving His grace not to hoard but to give to others. No one can instruct others without first being a learner of Christ, and even the most zealous workers busy in religious activity like Martha must also have Mary's part of learning at the feet of Jesus. Those who minister to others must first feed on this bread themselves through communion with God, for Christ teaching that He is the bread of life was preparing His disciples to give that bread to others, and without receiving spiritual food from God they have nothing to share with people who hunger for life; then they can share fresh truth that meets the spiritual hunger of their hearers.

God teaches people how to present the truth simply, and He sustains and guides those He calls to His work, giving them the Holy Spirit, grace, wisdom and strength. Being daily taught of God is necessary for faithful Christian work, and leaders who receive this instruction can advance the work. Those chosen to preach present truth in the cities without delay in the eastern and southern states must be humble, converted men taught of God who arouse the attention and interest of the people and continually extend the sphere of their labors as souls are converted to the truth. God's messengers are to stay closely connected with the Great Teacher and seek to be taught by God daily, and are also to pray earnestly for the baptism of the Holy Spirit so they can serve a world perishing in sin.

Each person is to seek God's guidance directly rather than rely on another person to determine duty, for the Father instructs people and those who hear and learn from Him come to Jesus. Workers for God are to learn of God and not of men, so that workers in sanitariums are not to sign contracts binding themselves to an association or an institution for a certain number of years. God Himself will teach and lead those He makes representative men if they walk humbly before Him, going to God as the Source of all wisdom, asking for light to come to their own minds, and keeping the prayer constantly ascending to show His way. They must not decide on another person's light, but wait until what is presented commends itself to their own judgment and becomes their own light and sincere, honest conviction, and then move in confidence in whatever way the Lord directs; if anyone becomes wise in his own conceit God will leave him to follow his own finite judgment, but those who seek Him humbly will receive strength, guidance and counsel from Him.

Being taught of God means receiving divine wisdom, which is needed to make sound decisions and carry out responsibilities wisely. God's teaching gives people light and wisdom to know and follow His way, and they must seek it for themselves, pray humbly, and act on what becomes clear to their own judgment rather than relying on another person's direction. God's workers are to be taught by Him through His Word rather than depend on another person's shadow or prescribed rules, and if God leads them they must rely on His Spirit to teach them. Those taught by God should have spiritual discernment, and allowing a board to rule judgments and decisions instead of being taught by God is evidence of not being taught by Him.

Many poor, timid, ignorant souls will be taught directly by God and learn aright from Jesus Christ and come to do the will of God even when human agents exercise power over their religious faith and conscience and hinder them. This divine teaching prevails against the mixing of things sacred with things carnal, the conforming of the church to the world, and the making of laws through secular influence to bind the consciences of those God made free, with resulting cruel imprisonments. It also overcomes slowness to learn lessons relating to religious liberty caused by men calling other men their property and by imperfect discernment of God-given rights. Each soul is to be taught by God, learning line upon line and precept upon precept, calling for personal faith and holiness, meekness and lowliness, and a sense of individual responsibility to serve God by helping save others. Knowledge of God and Jesus Christ is the soul's only hope, and the Holy Spirit must work in a person or another power will control the mind and judgment.

Being taught by God leads a person to come to Christ as an individual experience joined with personal communion with God, where spiritual union with Jesus moves and impresses the heart and leads to growing fellowship with Him. God teaches His people as those who humble themselves before Him can learn from Him, including seeking wisdom from God in prayer so that believers may know what He would have them do, and bringing their cares and perplexities to Him as part of an individual experience. Receiving and assimilating Christ's words as the teaching in the sixth chapter to be read and studied brings deep piety and less self into one's work. That instruction in John 6 expressing God's will for His people is to be lived in practical life and is able to cure dissension and bring unity with Christ and with one another. Christ as the greatest Teacher gives words understandable in their simplicity when received with honest hearts and the Holy Spirit's guidance rather than obscured by human interpretations, and the chapter's teaching is to be studied by Christians and put into practice.