Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
Whoever puts living trust in Christ already possesses everlasting life now as a present gift, not merely as a future hope. Such believing means receiving Him, coming to Him so as never to hunger or thirst, and becoming one with Him as a branch is joined to the vine, with His life becoming the believer's life. To eat His flesh and drink His blood is this same spiritual reception, taking His words by the Spirit into mind and heart, for His words are spirit and life. He Himself is the living bread come down from heaven, true food and true drink given for the life of the world, unlike the manna the fathers ate and died, for those who feed on Him shall live forever. Received by true childlike faith, He dwells in the heart by the Spirit, imparts His divine nature, shapes a Christlike character, and will raise the believer up at the last day to immortal life.
Setting and Original Hearers
The promise belongs to the teaching that followed the feeding of the multitude and the walking on the water. It was spoken as Christ's teaching that He is the bread of life. The crowd had come seeking Jesus after the miracle, but the spiritual meaning of the loaves had not yet been understood, and this discourse was to make it plain.
It was spoken in the synagogue at Capernaum. There Jews with unbelief and caviling and proud self-righteousness scorned how He could give His flesh to eat. He spoke it before the worshipers as His statement that He is the bread come down from heaven.
The teaching turned attention away from hopes of an earthly kingdom and worldly rewards toward Christ. It concerned a spiritual kingdom, not the temporal reign many expected. Believing on Christ unto everlasting life is not following Him for temporal advantages from eating the loaves and being filled, but seeing the miracles and receiving Him as the bread of life.
Many hearers called it a hard saying, murmured, went back and walked no more with Him, including some who professed to be His disciples. He spoke the truth about His work to test and prove those who claimed to be His disciples. The proving had to happen before He left them, so their apostasy would not come as a surprise to the true disciples and the trial would not be too severe for them, and so His future work would be kept safe and not be swayed into wrong paths. The twelve did not turn away then, and Peter declared their loyalty to Him.
The chapter shows Christ both giving words of life and caring for the physical needs of those who come to hear Him. He is the same compassionate Saviour today, not unmindful of physical wants, able to meet bodily necessities and to impart knowledge by which His people in different places will be provided with food, and His hand of benevolence is not stayed, yet He teaches care that nothing be lost.
Meaning of Believing Faith
Whoever believes in Christ, believes on Him whom God sent, already has everlasting life now as a present possession. True, earnest belief in Jesus gives that life, received through Christ as the bread from heaven and the rich manna that satisfies the soul's hunger and gives spiritual strength and comfort. This life is nourished by taking Christ as the living bread, eating His flesh and drinking His blood by receiving Him into mind and heart, abiding in Him, and drawing life from Him and from His words. His words are spirit and life, received by the Spirit and lived by, understood through spiritual experience and brought into practical life, so that all who so receive Him never hunger and never thirst for higher or more satisfying food. His presence in the soul so fed brings comfort, sobriety and joy and produces a Christlike spirit and character.
Believing means receiving Him and coming to Him so as never to hunger or thirst spiritually, becoming one with Him and dwelling in Him with Him dwelling in the believer. It is putting on Christ and being united to Him as a branch is joined to a vine or a limb to a body, with His life becoming the believer's life and the spirit becoming one with His as the branch is one with the vine nourished by sap flowing from the stock to every branch. This living union supplies what the soul needs just as physical food supplies what the body needs, sustaining the life Christ gives by abiding in Him, bringing spiritual nourishment and understanding. Eating His flesh and drinking His blood is hearing and searching His Word, mixing what is heard with faith, appropriating truth to the soul as the bread and water of life, and letting the Word enter life and character by becoming a doer of the Word. Heard truth not mixed with such faith does not profit, leaves hunger unsatisfied, and leaves life and character unchanged, while those who believe gain spiritual strength, reveal Him to the world, and show that His principles are their principles.
Eating His flesh and drinking His blood is the figure for this believing: receiving His words by the Spirit into mind and heart, for His words are spirit and life. Receiving Him is like eating bread from heaven, the bread being His flesh given for the life of the world, and eating and drinking means receiving the life He gives. It is a spiritual reception, not a teaching that physical flesh gives life, and its teachings are to be believed and practiced, giving spiritual life and transforming the character.
The faith meant is true, earnest, childlike trust like a child's confidence in earthly parents, a real personal experience of tasting that the Lord is gracious. It is personal faith in a personal Saviour bringing the soul into spiritual union with Christ, receiving Christ as personal Saviour and bringing His life-giving Word into one's own life, through which believers lay hold of His divinity and become partakers of the divine nature. It is not mere intellectual agreement, not merely naming His name, not seeking Him only for daily benefits, not mere outward or occasional profession, and not mere outward connection with any church. No one comes except as drawn and taught by the Father, and those who hear and learn from the Father come to Christ, with everyone taught of God coming directly to Christ as Saviour, not through confessionals or priests or popes. This belief is lived out by revealing the principles of that life and practicing the truth according to His teachings, since professing belief without doing so dishonors God and misrepresents Christ.
Believing on Him whom God sent is the work God requires and the way to heaven, securing the living bread that endures unto eternal life which the Son of man gives and which God the Father sealed. Believing comes first and then working the works of God, for students taught to believe in Christ will work God's works by receiving Christ as the Way, the Truth and the Life and being doers of the Word, which is eating His flesh and drinking His blood. Failing to understand this believing means missing heaven, and the price of heaven is God's only begotten Son. This spiritual food is of far more consequence than temporal food, to be obtained from no human agent but given by God Himself through the gift of Christ, through whom all gifts of God come, so that he that comes to Christ shall never hunger and he that believes on Him shall never thirst.
Christ the Living Bread
Christ Himself is the bread of life, the living bread come down from heaven, the rich manna from heaven and the bread of God that gives life to the world. He gave His flesh for the life of the world, and His flesh is true food and His blood is true drink. To believe is to receive Him and become one with Him, eating His flesh and drinking His blood by coming to Him so as never to hunger or thirst spiritually. Receiving Him as the bread of life is receiving the promise of eternal life, the knowledge children, youth, and adults need with Christ as the center of life and hope.
This life is different from the manna the fathers ate in the wilderness and died. That manna sustained the body but did not prevent death or give immortal life. Those who eat this bread shall not die but live forever. Christ is the bread of life and the only hope for those in darkness about the future life and the resurrection, and the life He offers ends in immortal life for the body.
His words are spirit and life, and eternal life is found in His Word received as the bread of life. Believing is receiving His Word as heavenly bread by the Spirit into mind and heart and living by it, figured by eating His flesh and drinking His blood. That life is pure truth and living water given to all who come to Him. All who so receive Him never hunger and never thirst for higher or more satisfying food, because His Word satisfies the soul's hunger, quenches thirst, and sustains spiritual life as food sustains physical life. Each person must receive the Word personally and take it in so fully that it shapes every action and character trait, strengthening the soul with immortal vigor, perfecting experience, and bringing lasting joy.
His coming death is the only true propitiation for human sin. His sacrificial death and resurrection give life to those who receive and trust Him as personal Saviour, with genuine faith joining them to Him so His life becomes their spiritual life. His work as substitute for sin is the hope of ancient Israel as well as of later believers, and the New Testament sheds light on the Old Testament without replacing it. The living Scriptures themselves are described as the Son of God's flesh and blood, taken into the life as spiritual nourishment.
Christ alone reveals the Father, whom no human being can fully comprehend. No man has seen the Father save He which is of God. This declares the absolute Godhead, infinite and beyond the comprehension of the mightiest created intellect, whom the most eloquent words fail to describe.
Gift of Everlasting Life
Everlasting life is God's gift through His Son, given so that His children may become partakers of the divine nature, and it is obtained only by believing on Christ. It is the will of God for His people and the divine antidote for the sin of the whole world. He that believes has eternal life now, with his life hid with Christ in God; he may die as Christ died, but the Saviour's life is in him. Believing means eating His flesh and drinking His blood, entering a living union with Him that supplies what the soul needs just as physical food supplies what the body needs. Those who believe gain spiritual strength because Christ nourishes them, reveal Him to the world, and show that His principles are their principles.
Immortality is obtained only in this way, by receiving Him as the living bread come down from heaven given for the life of the world, dwelling in Him and He in the believer. His flesh is true food and His blood is true drink, and His words are spirit and life that give life. Just before the close of this earth's history God's cause needs earnest, spiritual-minded men with a clear understanding of this truth, and all must cling to the Lord Jesus Christ. This life is in the Son, and having the Son means having life. Through faith Christ's life becomes the believer's, because Christ has united Himself with humanity and dwells in the heart through the Spirit.
The Spirit received by faith is the beginning of eternal life. Christ came that believers might have life more abundantly, and He carries on the great process by which believers are made one with Him in this present life to be one with Him throughout all eternity. Those who receive Him live forever, and Christ will raise them up at the last day. Believers will rise from the grave through their union with Christ, not merely through an outward display of His power, and the life offered ends in immortal life for the body. This life is different from the manna the fathers ate in the wilderness and died; those who eat this bread shall not die but live forever.
To believe means to receive Him and become one with Him, coming to Him so as never to hunger or thirst spiritually. No one comes except as drawn and taught by the Father, and Christ's words themselves are spirit and life. Eating His flesh and drinking His blood means receiving Him and His words, which are spirit and life, and receiving Him and His Word brings cleansing and a living connection with God. Christ gave His life and gave Himself for the life of the world, and receiving Him and depending on Him, pictured as eating His flesh and drinking His blood, means sharing His life and abiding in Him. Believing in the One God sent is the work God calls for.
Through faith believers lay hold of His divinity and become partakers of the divine nature. This belief means receiving Christ as a personal Saviour and bringing His life-giving Word into one's own life, requiring genuine spiritual experience and not merely outward or occasional profession. Continually feeding on Christ gives assurance of sharing in the divine nature. Believing acceptance defines the righteousness of Christ received, which is the wedding garment joining humanity with divinity and the standard of character each must reach to be counted a fit guest. Without accepting this righteousness there is no wedding garment, only presumption ending in loss of the soul, and continuing in sin hinders the fulfillment of the promise.
Belief in Christ and the truth about Him cannot be treated as unimportant or surrendered to please self or others, for Christ is the source of life and light, and without His light abiding in a person that person has no connection with the source of light and cannot be saved. The life given in believing is kept through the Holy Spirit as the representative of Jesus Christ and constant helper to the believer, so that the believer is never left nor forsaken. The Spirit is freely given to those who appreciate and accept it, working from the heart outward to make faith rich and to develop a character God approves. Dependence on its efficiency removes the hindrance to divine illumination, so greater faith brings better knowledge of the Word, and through the Spirit Christ fulfills His abiding with the believer. Receiving this life calls for greater faith and dependence on the efficiency of the Holy Spirit.
The chapter plainly states the way and conditions of eternal life and entrance into the kingdom. Those who understand and live by its teaching have a life that measures with the life of God. Its lesson on the bread of life explains the terms of eternal life and calls people to understand and cling to Christ's word, with eating His flesh and drinking His blood expressing receiving His truth. Believing unto everlasting life is not following Him for temporal advantages because of eating the loaves and being filled, but seeing the miracles and receiving Him as the bread of life. Many hear these conditions and go back and walk no more with Him because the truth demands death to self and self-denial, while they want only what they can obtain and to gratify ambition, so they make shipwreck of faith.
Transformed Life and Service
Feeding on Christ produces a Christlike spirit and character, for everlasting life is nourished by receiving Him as living bread into mind and heart, abiding in Him and drawing life from Him and from His words. That receiving shapes lives by love for God and for others, by His Spirit and by holy desires toward God, bringing comfort, sobriety and joy to the soul. What is inwardly appropriated as food sustains spiritual life as food sustains the body, shaping experience and conduct, and understanding and living this lesson leads to deeper consecration and genuine, practical religious life. Those who live by His Word become observers of the Word, sustained by abiding in Him with Him abiding in them.
Receiving means keeping God's Word and truth before the mind, studying, hearing, searching and cherishing truth that works by love and purifies the soul, mixing what is heard with faith and becoming a doer who brings its truths into daily life, practice and character. Eating His flesh and drinking His blood is hearing and searching His Word and then letting the Word enter life and character, appropriating truth to the soul as bread and water of life so that Christ's life becomes the believer's life. Taken into the inner life like leaven in meal, studied and obeyed, the bread which is the Word of God works in the heart to subdue every unholy attribute. The Holy Spirit convicts of sin, and faith born in the heart works by love to Christ to conform the whole being to Him so that God can use the believer, with power working from within outward to pass the received truth on to others. Living by every word God has revealed, praying and communing with Him and proving His mind in striving for eternal life, gives knowledge of His will needed for salvation, and truth is revealed only as it is known in Christ.
Heard truth not mixed with such faith does not profit, leaves hunger unsatisfied, and leaves life and character unchanged. Profession without revealing the principles of that life and practicing the truth dishonors God and misrepresents Christ, for truly receiving His words means Christ abides in the believer with change appearing in spirit, words and actions. Belief in Christ and the truth about Him cannot be treated as unimportant or surrendered to please self or others, since without His light abiding within there is no connection with the source of light and life.
Happiness and salvation depend on obeying Christ's words and doing His works, including advancing righteousness, restraining unrighteousness and respecting all God's commandments. This teaching inspires self-denying service in those who take in His Word and are shaped by Him. Those who eat the bread of life reveal Christ abiding in them, so their words and actions show His attributes and make them trustworthy.
This believing is true conversion, being born again, actually tasting that the Lord is gracious in real personal experience rather than merely naming His name. Like a newborn babe the converted soul learns to desire the sincere milk of the word for growth, opening the mind to the entrance of God's word with determination to practice it so that light and understanding come. Then the frivolous life is changed and character transformed, with feet placed upon Christ as the first round of the ladder in a heavenward climb, Christ revealed in spirit, words and actions. Beholding Him and beholding the Father's love in calling believers His sons keeps affections stayed upon the Eternal, separating from the world's extremes, practices, customs and attractions that draw the mind from God, since worldly customs cannot be practiced while serving God.
Christ is the source of the spiritual food people need, and sharing this life-giving truth with others is breaking to them the bread of life. Disciples sent to share that bread must seek from God the supply needed to feed others, and a minister must first receive this spiritual nourishment before giving it. Those who feed most on Him are most ready to serve, by reading and studying His Word, drinking in the inspiration of His Spirit, and receiving His grace not to hoard but to give. Teachers must first be learners of Christ, joining active work like Martha with listening and learning at the feet of Jesus like Mary.
Believing means receiving Christ as a personal Saviour and as the Way, the Truth and the Life, being doers of the Word of God, which is eating His flesh and drinking His blood. It means receiving Him by faith instead of looking to any human being for power, experience, strength, guidance or wisdom, for each person belongs to Christ by creation and by redemption and is accountable to God. All must depend on Him and take the Living Word as guide, since dependence on human beings brings bondage, and those who come into truth look to Jesus as the true Light rather than to human workers. When received by faith He becomes sanctification, righteousness and exceeding great reward, and through faith believers lay hold of His divinity and become partakers of the divine nature in genuine spiritual experience rather than mere outward or occasional profession.
The truth demands death to self and self-denial, not following for temporal advantage or to gratify ambition and seek only what can be obtained. Many hear these conditions of eternal life and entrance into the kingdom and go back and walk no more, making shipwreck of faith. Appropriating the Word of God to the soul by living faith, which is eating the bread of life, gives the Spirit's witness that ways please God, brings the joy of Christ and full assurance of hope, and unites to Him in practical obedience so the person is no longer condemned by the law.
Studying and Sharing Truth
The fifth and sixth chapters together hold the mystery of godliness and the highest science, and must be read, studied, prayed over, made a part of life, and brought into daily experience and practical life. This alone gives the knowledge that enables distinguishing the true from the false in days of peril and makes strong in the Lord. Believing unto everlasting life is receiving Christ by faith instead of looking to any human being for power, experience, strength, guidance, or wisdom. Each person belongs to Christ by creation and by redemption and is accountable to God, so all must depend on Him and take the Word of the Living God as guide, for dependence on human beings brings bondage, and when received by faith He becomes sanctification, righteousness, and exceeding great reward, with those come into truth looking to Jesus as the true Light rather than to human workers. The chapter teaches what Christ is to each person individually and the advantage of eating His words and taking them in to understand privileges, with Christ Himself as the great center of life, because His words are spirit and life.
Feeding upon His words as His very flesh and blood is the education children, youth, and men and women most need. It gives an education that endures through time and eternity when its wonderful truths are brought into practical life, though only faintly understood, with Christ as the center of hope of eternal life. Believing on Him whom God sent is the work God requires and the way to heaven, coming first and then working the works of God, so that students taught to believe in Christ will work God's works, receiving Him as the Way, the Truth and the Life and being doers of the Word, which is eating His flesh and drinking His blood. The Bible stands as the great educating book, and Bible study founded students' education on these words of Christ as spiritual nourishment. The price of heaven is God's only begotten Son.
God has revealed all that is necessary for salvation, though not all, since more could not be borne, and His Word must not be left for human suppositions. Believing means studying the Word and bringing its principles home to the soul, eating the Word by not departing from its precepts, bringing its truths into daily life, and grasping the mysteries of godliness. It means receiving and assimilating His words until they become part of the self, which is eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of God, living by every word revealed, praying and communing with Him and proving His mind in striving for eternal life with a knowledge of His will, so that truth can be revealed only as it is known in Christ. That life is pure truth, living water given to all who come to Him, to be distinguished from commingled truth and error and from fanciful spiritualistic sophistries. Receiving it requires cleansing the mind from false theories, singling out true threads from false, holding fast the beginning of confidence firm unto the end, resting faith on Christ rather than on theories that mix truth with error, and preaching the Word as witnesses so the Spirit accompanies the warning message.
Eating and drinking is the way to comprehend and appreciate the truth as it is in Jesus, giving continual growth in grace. It must be brought into daily experience through prayer for daily bread and daily teaching in the school of Christ. Faith is to be cultivated through trust in God's past work and present assurance, because believing is essential to future experience.
The Old Testament Scriptures are sufficient to lead to faith in Him, so that those who believe the Old Testament would also believe the New. This feeding and being taught means being taught the law of Jehovah and the penalty for transgressing it, and understanding that God accepts the ransom made by the Saviour in behalf of each one who is obedient to the law of Jehovah.
Whoever puts living trust in Christ already possesses everlasting life now as a present gift, not merely as a future hope. Such believing means receiving Him, coming to Him so as never to hunger or thirst, and becoming one with Him as a branch is joined to the vine, with His life becoming the believer's life. To eat His flesh and drink His blood is this same spiritual reception, taking His words by the Spirit into mind and heart, for His words are spirit and life. He Himself is the living bread come down from heaven, true food and true drink given for the life of the world, unlike the manna the fathers ate and died, for those who feed on Him shall live forever. Received by true childlike faith, He dwells in the heart by the Spirit, imparts His divine nature, shapes a Christlike character, and will raise the believer up at the last day to immortal life.
Setting and Original Hearers
The promise belongs to the teaching that followed the feeding of the multitude and the walking on the water. It was spoken as Christ's teaching that He is the bread of life. The crowd had come seeking Jesus after the miracle, but the spiritual meaning of the loaves had not yet been understood, and this discourse was to make it plain.
It was spoken in the synagogue at Capernaum. There Jews with unbelief and caviling and proud self-righteousness scorned how He could give His flesh to eat. He spoke it before the worshipers as His statement that He is the bread come down from heaven.
The teaching turned attention away from hopes of an earthly kingdom and worldly rewards toward Christ. It concerned a spiritual kingdom, not the temporal reign many expected. Believing on Christ unto everlasting life is not following Him for temporal advantages from eating the loaves and being filled, but seeing the miracles and receiving Him as the bread of life.
Many hearers called it a hard saying, murmured, went back and walked no more with Him, including some who professed to be His disciples. He spoke the truth about His work to test and prove those who claimed to be His disciples. The proving had to happen before He left them, so their apostasy would not come as a surprise to the true disciples and the trial would not be too severe for them, and so His future work would be kept safe and not be swayed into wrong paths. The twelve did not turn away then, and Peter declared their loyalty to Him.
The chapter shows Christ both giving words of life and caring for the physical needs of those who come to hear Him. He is the same compassionate Saviour today, not unmindful of physical wants, able to meet bodily necessities and to impart knowledge by which His people in different places will be provided with food, and His hand of benevolence is not stayed, yet He teaches care that nothing be lost.
Meaning of Believing Faith
Whoever believes in Christ, believes on Him whom God sent, already has everlasting life now as a present possession. True, earnest belief in Jesus gives that life, received through Christ as the bread from heaven and the rich manna that satisfies the soul's hunger and gives spiritual strength and comfort. This life is nourished by taking Christ as the living bread, eating His flesh and drinking His blood by receiving Him into mind and heart, abiding in Him, and drawing life from Him and from His words. His words are spirit and life, received by the Spirit and lived by, understood through spiritual experience and brought into practical life, so that all who so receive Him never hunger and never thirst for higher or more satisfying food. His presence in the soul so fed brings comfort, sobriety and joy and produces a Christlike spirit and character.
Believing means receiving Him and coming to Him so as never to hunger or thirst spiritually, becoming one with Him and dwelling in Him with Him dwelling in the believer. It is putting on Christ and being united to Him as a branch is joined to a vine or a limb to a body, with His life becoming the believer's life and the spirit becoming one with His as the branch is one with the vine nourished by sap flowing from the stock to every branch. This living union supplies what the soul needs just as physical food supplies what the body needs, sustaining the life Christ gives by abiding in Him, bringing spiritual nourishment and understanding. Eating His flesh and drinking His blood is hearing and searching His Word, mixing what is heard with faith, appropriating truth to the soul as the bread and water of life, and letting the Word enter life and character by becoming a doer of the Word. Heard truth not mixed with such faith does not profit, leaves hunger unsatisfied, and leaves life and character unchanged, while those who believe gain spiritual strength, reveal Him to the world, and show that His principles are their principles.
Eating His flesh and drinking His blood is the figure for this believing: receiving His words by the Spirit into mind and heart, for His words are spirit and life. Receiving Him is like eating bread from heaven, the bread being His flesh given for the life of the world, and eating and drinking means receiving the life He gives. It is a spiritual reception, not a teaching that physical flesh gives life, and its teachings are to be believed and practiced, giving spiritual life and transforming the character.
The faith meant is true, earnest, childlike trust like a child's confidence in earthly parents, a real personal experience of tasting that the Lord is gracious. It is personal faith in a personal Saviour bringing the soul into spiritual union with Christ, receiving Christ as personal Saviour and bringing His life-giving Word into one's own life, through which believers lay hold of His divinity and become partakers of the divine nature. It is not mere intellectual agreement, not merely naming His name, not seeking Him only for daily benefits, not mere outward or occasional profession, and not mere outward connection with any church. No one comes except as drawn and taught by the Father, and those who hear and learn from the Father come to Christ, with everyone taught of God coming directly to Christ as Saviour, not through confessionals or priests or popes. This belief is lived out by revealing the principles of that life and practicing the truth according to His teachings, since professing belief without doing so dishonors God and misrepresents Christ.
Believing on Him whom God sent is the work God requires and the way to heaven, securing the living bread that endures unto eternal life which the Son of man gives and which God the Father sealed. Believing comes first and then working the works of God, for students taught to believe in Christ will work God's works by receiving Christ as the Way, the Truth and the Life and being doers of the Word, which is eating His flesh and drinking His blood. Failing to understand this believing means missing heaven, and the price of heaven is God's only begotten Son. This spiritual food is of far more consequence than temporal food, to be obtained from no human agent but given by God Himself through the gift of Christ, through whom all gifts of God come, so that he that comes to Christ shall never hunger and he that believes on Him shall never thirst.
Christ the Living Bread
Christ Himself is the bread of life, the living bread come down from heaven, the rich manna from heaven and the bread of God that gives life to the world. He gave His flesh for the life of the world, and His flesh is true food and His blood is true drink. To believe is to receive Him and become one with Him, eating His flesh and drinking His blood by coming to Him so as never to hunger or thirst spiritually. Receiving Him as the bread of life is receiving the promise of eternal life, the knowledge children, youth, and adults need with Christ as the center of life and hope.
This life is different from the manna the fathers ate in the wilderness and died. That manna sustained the body but did not prevent death or give immortal life. Those who eat this bread shall not die but live forever. Christ is the bread of life and the only hope for those in darkness about the future life and the resurrection, and the life He offers ends in immortal life for the body.
His words are spirit and life, and eternal life is found in His Word received as the bread of life. Believing is receiving His Word as heavenly bread by the Spirit into mind and heart and living by it, figured by eating His flesh and drinking His blood. That life is pure truth and living water given to all who come to Him. All who so receive Him never hunger and never thirst for higher or more satisfying food, because His Word satisfies the soul's hunger, quenches thirst, and sustains spiritual life as food sustains physical life. Each person must receive the Word personally and take it in so fully that it shapes every action and character trait, strengthening the soul with immortal vigor, perfecting experience, and bringing lasting joy.
His coming death is the only true propitiation for human sin. His sacrificial death and resurrection give life to those who receive and trust Him as personal Saviour, with genuine faith joining them to Him so His life becomes their spiritual life. His work as substitute for sin is the hope of ancient Israel as well as of later believers, and the New Testament sheds light on the Old Testament without replacing it. The living Scriptures themselves are described as the Son of God's flesh and blood, taken into the life as spiritual nourishment.
Christ alone reveals the Father, whom no human being can fully comprehend. No man has seen the Father save He which is of God. This declares the absolute Godhead, infinite and beyond the comprehension of the mightiest created intellect, whom the most eloquent words fail to describe.
Gift of Everlasting Life
Everlasting life is God's gift through His Son, given so that His children may become partakers of the divine nature, and it is obtained only by believing on Christ. It is the will of God for His people and the divine antidote for the sin of the whole world. He that believes has eternal life now, with his life hid with Christ in God; he may die as Christ died, but the Saviour's life is in him. Believing means eating His flesh and drinking His blood, entering a living union with Him that supplies what the soul needs just as physical food supplies what the body needs. Those who believe gain spiritual strength because Christ nourishes them, reveal Him to the world, and show that His principles are their principles.
Immortality is obtained only in this way, by receiving Him as the living bread come down from heaven given for the life of the world, dwelling in Him and He in the believer. His flesh is true food and His blood is true drink, and His words are spirit and life that give life. Just before the close of this earth's history God's cause needs earnest, spiritual-minded men with a clear understanding of this truth, and all must cling to the Lord Jesus Christ. This life is in the Son, and having the Son means having life. Through faith Christ's life becomes the believer's, because Christ has united Himself with humanity and dwells in the heart through the Spirit.
The Spirit received by faith is the beginning of eternal life. Christ came that believers might have life more abundantly, and He carries on the great process by which believers are made one with Him in this present life to be one with Him throughout all eternity. Those who receive Him live forever, and Christ will raise them up at the last day. Believers will rise from the grave through their union with Christ, not merely through an outward display of His power, and the life offered ends in immortal life for the body. This life is different from the manna the fathers ate in the wilderness and died; those who eat this bread shall not die but live forever.
To believe means to receive Him and become one with Him, coming to Him so as never to hunger or thirst spiritually. No one comes except as drawn and taught by the Father, and Christ's words themselves are spirit and life. Eating His flesh and drinking His blood means receiving Him and His words, which are spirit and life, and receiving Him and His Word brings cleansing and a living connection with God. Christ gave His life and gave Himself for the life of the world, and receiving Him and depending on Him, pictured as eating His flesh and drinking His blood, means sharing His life and abiding in Him. Believing in the One God sent is the work God calls for.
Through faith believers lay hold of His divinity and become partakers of the divine nature. This belief means receiving Christ as a personal Saviour and bringing His life-giving Word into one's own life, requiring genuine spiritual experience and not merely outward or occasional profession. Continually feeding on Christ gives assurance of sharing in the divine nature. Believing acceptance defines the righteousness of Christ received, which is the wedding garment joining humanity with divinity and the standard of character each must reach to be counted a fit guest. Without accepting this righteousness there is no wedding garment, only presumption ending in loss of the soul, and continuing in sin hinders the fulfillment of the promise.
Belief in Christ and the truth about Him cannot be treated as unimportant or surrendered to please self or others, for Christ is the source of life and light, and without His light abiding in a person that person has no connection with the source of light and cannot be saved. The life given in believing is kept through the Holy Spirit as the representative of Jesus Christ and constant helper to the believer, so that the believer is never left nor forsaken. The Spirit is freely given to those who appreciate and accept it, working from the heart outward to make faith rich and to develop a character God approves. Dependence on its efficiency removes the hindrance to divine illumination, so greater faith brings better knowledge of the Word, and through the Spirit Christ fulfills His abiding with the believer. Receiving this life calls for greater faith and dependence on the efficiency of the Holy Spirit.
The chapter plainly states the way and conditions of eternal life and entrance into the kingdom. Those who understand and live by its teaching have a life that measures with the life of God. Its lesson on the bread of life explains the terms of eternal life and calls people to understand and cling to Christ's word, with eating His flesh and drinking His blood expressing receiving His truth. Believing unto everlasting life is not following Him for temporal advantages because of eating the loaves and being filled, but seeing the miracles and receiving Him as the bread of life. Many hear these conditions and go back and walk no more with Him because the truth demands death to self and self-denial, while they want only what they can obtain and to gratify ambition, so they make shipwreck of faith.
Transformed Life and Service
Feeding on Christ produces a Christlike spirit and character, for everlasting life is nourished by receiving Him as living bread into mind and heart, abiding in Him and drawing life from Him and from His words. That receiving shapes lives by love for God and for others, by His Spirit and by holy desires toward God, bringing comfort, sobriety and joy to the soul. What is inwardly appropriated as food sustains spiritual life as food sustains the body, shaping experience and conduct, and understanding and living this lesson leads to deeper consecration and genuine, practical religious life. Those who live by His Word become observers of the Word, sustained by abiding in Him with Him abiding in them.
Receiving means keeping God's Word and truth before the mind, studying, hearing, searching and cherishing truth that works by love and purifies the soul, mixing what is heard with faith and becoming a doer who brings its truths into daily life, practice and character. Eating His flesh and drinking His blood is hearing and searching His Word and then letting the Word enter life and character, appropriating truth to the soul as bread and water of life so that Christ's life becomes the believer's life. Taken into the inner life like leaven in meal, studied and obeyed, the bread which is the Word of God works in the heart to subdue every unholy attribute. The Holy Spirit convicts of sin, and faith born in the heart works by love to Christ to conform the whole being to Him so that God can use the believer, with power working from within outward to pass the received truth on to others. Living by every word God has revealed, praying and communing with Him and proving His mind in striving for eternal life, gives knowledge of His will needed for salvation, and truth is revealed only as it is known in Christ.
Heard truth not mixed with such faith does not profit, leaves hunger unsatisfied, and leaves life and character unchanged. Profession without revealing the principles of that life and practicing the truth dishonors God and misrepresents Christ, for truly receiving His words means Christ abides in the believer with change appearing in spirit, words and actions. Belief in Christ and the truth about Him cannot be treated as unimportant or surrendered to please self or others, since without His light abiding within there is no connection with the source of light and life.
Happiness and salvation depend on obeying Christ's words and doing His works, including advancing righteousness, restraining unrighteousness and respecting all God's commandments. This teaching inspires self-denying service in those who take in His Word and are shaped by Him. Those who eat the bread of life reveal Christ abiding in them, so their words and actions show His attributes and make them trustworthy.
This believing is true conversion, being born again, actually tasting that the Lord is gracious in real personal experience rather than merely naming His name. Like a newborn babe the converted soul learns to desire the sincere milk of the word for growth, opening the mind to the entrance of God's word with determination to practice it so that light and understanding come. Then the frivolous life is changed and character transformed, with feet placed upon Christ as the first round of the ladder in a heavenward climb, Christ revealed in spirit, words and actions. Beholding Him and beholding the Father's love in calling believers His sons keeps affections stayed upon the Eternal, separating from the world's extremes, practices, customs and attractions that draw the mind from God, since worldly customs cannot be practiced while serving God.
Christ is the source of the spiritual food people need, and sharing this life-giving truth with others is breaking to them the bread of life. Disciples sent to share that bread must seek from God the supply needed to feed others, and a minister must first receive this spiritual nourishment before giving it. Those who feed most on Him are most ready to serve, by reading and studying His Word, drinking in the inspiration of His Spirit, and receiving His grace not to hoard but to give. Teachers must first be learners of Christ, joining active work like Martha with listening and learning at the feet of Jesus like Mary.
Believing means receiving Christ as a personal Saviour and as the Way, the Truth and the Life, being doers of the Word of God, which is eating His flesh and drinking His blood. It means receiving Him by faith instead of looking to any human being for power, experience, strength, guidance or wisdom, for each person belongs to Christ by creation and by redemption and is accountable to God. All must depend on Him and take the Living Word as guide, since dependence on human beings brings bondage, and those who come into truth look to Jesus as the true Light rather than to human workers. When received by faith He becomes sanctification, righteousness and exceeding great reward, and through faith believers lay hold of His divinity and become partakers of the divine nature in genuine spiritual experience rather than mere outward or occasional profession.
The truth demands death to self and self-denial, not following for temporal advantage or to gratify ambition and seek only what can be obtained. Many hear these conditions of eternal life and entrance into the kingdom and go back and walk no more, making shipwreck of faith. Appropriating the Word of God to the soul by living faith, which is eating the bread of life, gives the Spirit's witness that ways please God, brings the joy of Christ and full assurance of hope, and unites to Him in practical obedience so the person is no longer condemned by the law.
Studying and Sharing Truth
The fifth and sixth chapters together hold the mystery of godliness and the highest science, and must be read, studied, prayed over, made a part of life, and brought into daily experience and practical life. This alone gives the knowledge that enables distinguishing the true from the false in days of peril and makes strong in the Lord. Believing unto everlasting life is receiving Christ by faith instead of looking to any human being for power, experience, strength, guidance, or wisdom. Each person belongs to Christ by creation and by redemption and is accountable to God, so all must depend on Him and take the Word of the Living God as guide, for dependence on human beings brings bondage, and when received by faith He becomes sanctification, righteousness, and exceeding great reward, with those come into truth looking to Jesus as the true Light rather than to human workers. The chapter teaches what Christ is to each person individually and the advantage of eating His words and taking them in to understand privileges, with Christ Himself as the great center of life, because His words are spirit and life.
Feeding upon His words as His very flesh and blood is the education children, youth, and men and women most need. It gives an education that endures through time and eternity when its wonderful truths are brought into practical life, though only faintly understood, with Christ as the center of hope of eternal life. Believing on Him whom God sent is the work God requires and the way to heaven, coming first and then working the works of God, so that students taught to believe in Christ will work God's works, receiving Him as the Way, the Truth and the Life and being doers of the Word, which is eating His flesh and drinking His blood. The Bible stands as the great educating book, and Bible study founded students' education on these words of Christ as spiritual nourishment. The price of heaven is God's only begotten Son.
God has revealed all that is necessary for salvation, though not all, since more could not be borne, and His Word must not be left for human suppositions. Believing means studying the Word and bringing its principles home to the soul, eating the Word by not departing from its precepts, bringing its truths into daily life, and grasping the mysteries of godliness. It means receiving and assimilating His words until they become part of the self, which is eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of God, living by every word revealed, praying and communing with Him and proving His mind in striving for eternal life with a knowledge of His will, so that truth can be revealed only as it is known in Christ. That life is pure truth, living water given to all who come to Him, to be distinguished from commingled truth and error and from fanciful spiritualistic sophistries. Receiving it requires cleansing the mind from false theories, singling out true threads from false, holding fast the beginning of confidence firm unto the end, resting faith on Christ rather than on theories that mix truth with error, and preaching the Word as witnesses so the Spirit accompanies the warning message.
Eating and drinking is the way to comprehend and appreciate the truth as it is in Jesus, giving continual growth in grace. It must be brought into daily experience through prayer for daily bread and daily teaching in the school of Christ. Faith is to be cultivated through trust in God's past work and present assurance, because believing is essential to future experience.
The Old Testament Scriptures are sufficient to lead to faith in Him, so that those who believe the Old Testament would also believe the New. This feeding and being taught means being taught the law of Jehovah and the penalty for transgressing it, and understanding that God accepts the ransom made by the Saviour in behalf of each one who is obedient to the law of Jehovah.