(BRIEF REMARKS ON John 6)
I WOULD start with a few general remarks. John’s Gospel deals much with imagery — forcibly conveying thought, but which could not be taken literally. The varied figurative expressions in connection with the Lord’s Person we are so well acquainted with, are given in this Gospel. “I am the Vine.” “I am the Door.” “I am the Shepherd of the sheep.” We cannot take these literally; Christ was not a vine nor a door neither are we sheep. This thought bears on the expressions in the sixth of John, sought to be made literal by Roman Catholics and Ritualists. But it is only some expressions here and there in the chapter which they so take, just as it suits the object they have in view, for it is remarkable that other figurative expressions in the same chapter, for instance, “I am the living bread,” are passed by, which have an equal right, to be understood literally as those that they insist on.
Again, in the other Gospels where we have the institution of the Lord’s Supper (see Matt. 26), we have, if you take all the expressions literally (and why some and not the others?), a strange transubstantiating backwards and forwards. For instance, “Jesus took bread... and brake it, and said, This is My body. And He took the cup... saying, “This is My blood of the New Testament...,” and directly after, “I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine.”
If we take it literally, the wine is transubstantiated into blood, which is then called “this fruit of the vine,” and all sorts of nonsense could be argued, for I have as much right to take the last expressions literally, and if so, I find the blood has re-become fruit of the vine, or that it never was ought else!
I dislike, and it is painful to me, to speak thus, to come down to such carnal thoughts, but to meet the carnal it may be allowable to show the vanity and folly, and worse than folly, of carnal thoughts, and what they would lead to.
Taken in its true sense all is perfectly simple, the wine never ceased to be wine, and was but a figure of that precious blood which was to be shed for the remission of sins — a figure of the reality. So likewise in 1 Corinthians 11, after the words of the institution have been quoted, it is added, “As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup” — and so on, three times repeated. The literal sense is further precluded in the words of the institution, for whatever image the Lord employed it could not then be literally Himself, for His body was not yet broken, His blood not yet shed; the literal sense was untrue and impossible.
Another remarkable point is, that in all places where the Lord’s Supper is the subject, there is no thought of getting life by partaking of it, or of getting life at all, as is the case when the Lord Himself is spoken of. I allude to the three Gospel narratives of the institution, and to Corinthians 11. This is in contra-distinction to where the Lord Himself is spoken of, and faith directed to Himself. They have to go to the sixth of John for this, on the false adaptation of which to the Supper instead of the Lord Himself; their whole system rests, and on which their whole theory is built.
And here a strong point at once meets you, namely, that the words in the sixth of John were spoken in the early part of the Lord’s ministry, whereas the Supper was not given till the close — it does not come on till the time of chapter 13 — hence, it is not too bold to say, even if all Christian doctrine did not make it certain, that the Supper can in no wise be the subject of the chapter. It is also known that even some Roman Catholic authorities, Bellarmine amongst others, do not consider the sixth of John to be the Supper, and would not every probability lie, even to human reason, on the side that the Lord spake in this discourse of His death, that mighty fact on which all was to be founded, and the new heavens and the new earth to subsist before Him, and not of the Supper which but figured it? To the heart taught of God, and who knows the value of that death, and has found its own deep need met by it, it is a certainty.
I now come to the chapter itself, and would open by a few general thoughts before taking up details and literalities. First, with the assertion that it does not speak of the Lord’s Supper at all, but of Christ Himself and His death; that it speaks of the same thing that the Supper speaks of, but it does not speak of the Supper.
To make it the Supper, and attribute the virtues to it that are there spoken of as belonging to and flowing out from the reality known to faith, would be like trying to seize a person’s shadow for themselves, and while grasping it the reality passes on and is lost to you. The attention is diverted from the reality to the shadow, which can never do anything for the soul, it is thrown on the symbol instead of the thing symbolized.
Again, if the chapter speaks of the Supper and not of Christ Himself, and if expressions are to be taken literally, it must result in what the consciences of all are forced to own, could not be and is not true, namely, that not one of those who have once partaken of the Lord’s Supper could be lost, whatever he might be; and that those who do partake of it would not only be blessed, but they would be eternally saved by having partaken of it, for verses 51,54, and 56 say, “If any man eat of this bread he shall live forever.” “Whoso eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” “He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood dwelleth in Me and I in him.” Also, that none could be saved without partaking of it, for verse 53 says, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.”
Now these words are as absolute as the rest. I own the absolute nature of all, but it is Christ Himself and His death presented to and appropriated by faith, and not the memorial institution to which the literality applies; and except I, through grace and divine power, appropriate that death of Christ in all its efficacy for my soul, and thus eat His flesh and drink His blood (that is, make it my own), I have no life in me. Receiving Him once and forever, thus, I have eternal life.
Eating is a common figure in Scripture for that which appropriates or takes into itself. For instance, “Thy words were found, and I did eat them”; so here they are indeed the words of eternal life to me. The Lord Himself tells me of His death, the necessity of it, and the value and efficacy of it. I receive His testimony (and now, the added testimony of the Holy Ghost to it), and live; the incorruptible seed has been sown by divine power in my heart, and I am born again (see 1 Peter 1:2323Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. (1 Peter 1:23)); my heart has owned the truth of my lost condition — dead in trespasses and sins — of the need of atonement wrought by another. And what more does the Word tell me? That the Son of man must be lifted up on the cross; that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son for this, “that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” God gave Him to die that I might live. I believe it, and live eternally.
But to return to literalities, the Lord in this chapter says, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.” Am I called upon to believe that He was bread and not very man? or that He was transubstantiated into living bread? Why not? If I am to take the other expressions in the chapter literally, why not this? Why pick and choose thus? The words in one case are as positive and as plain as in the other. Those who did not understand Him and took His words carnally, went away and left Him; those who received His words, and understood that the flesh profited nothing, but that the Spirit quickeneth, and that His words were the words of eternal life, remained and confessed Him. And is it not so now? Those whom superstition holds, and who seek to ordinances for salvation and life, go away from Christ, and they have no peace, no assurance, none of the absolute certainty the Lord in this chapter links with believing on Him, and appropriating His death, while those who come to Him — not to an ordinance — can indeed tell of the virtues of His blood, and of all that they possess in Him.
The Lord twice in this chapter repels while correcting the idea of a physical change and a carnal eating — “the Spirit quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing,” and, “not as your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead.”
In conclusion, I would say that I believe it to be utterly false that the sixth of John speaks of an ordinance at all. I believe, too, on other grounds than I have entered upon here, the whole doctrine of transubstantiation and the whole superstructure built upon it of ordinances being the channel for the communication of life and of salvation, to be false, as also the assumption of a miracle contained in it, on which latter point I would just add a few words.
In every miracle God gave proof to man of the change; the thing became what God said it was. Adam became a man; he did not remain dust. Eve became a woman; she did not remain a rib; the blind saw; the deaf heard; the dead were raised up; the water Christ turned into wine became wine, and so on. Here there is no proof of God’s power. A wafer becomes the living God, but remains a wafer — (alas, “a deceived heart has turned this people aside, and they hold a lie in their right hand”!) — but besides this, this supposed miracle and the doctrines built upon it, are opposed to all God’s actings, not only as regards miracles, but His ways and dealings with men’s souls. Hence I must have His word divinely certain for it ere I believe that which is opposed to His ways, and which, furthermore, if true, falsifies the doctrine and teaching of the word He has given, and the facts.
J. N. D.
THE Spirit of God judges sin in me, but He makes me know that I am not judged for it, because Christ has borne that judgment for me.