"It is the Spirit who gives life."

John 6:43-71 from the daily reading in the One Year Bible

Jesus answered and said to them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. ⁴⁴ No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. ⁴⁵ It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught of God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me. ⁴⁶ Not that anyone has seen the Father, except the One who is from God; He has seen the Father. ⁴⁷ Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. ⁴⁸ I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹ Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. ⁵⁰ This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. ⁵¹ I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.”

⁵² Then the Jews began to argue with one another, saying, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” ⁵³ So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. ⁵⁴ He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. ⁵⁵ For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. ⁵⁶ He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. ⁵⁷ As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me. ⁵⁸ This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever.”

⁵⁹ These things He said in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum.

⁶⁰ Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this said, “This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?” ⁶¹ But Jesus, conscious that His disciples grumbled at this, said to them, “Does this cause you to stumble? ⁶² What then if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before? ⁶³ It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. ⁶⁴ But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him. ⁶⁵ And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.”

⁶⁶ As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore. ⁶⁷ So Jesus said to the twelve, “You do not want to go away also, do you?” ⁶⁸ Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. ⁶⁹ We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.” ⁷⁰ Jesus answered them, “Did I Myself not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil?” ⁷¹ Now He meant Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray Him.

Once again in today’s text we see an example of people failing to understand what is spiritual, because they only see, hear and know what is natural.  The text says: … the Jews began to argue with one another, saying, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever.”    What Jesus was referring to, what they did not understand, is what He shared and explained to His disciples on the night before He was crucified. In Luke 22:17-20 it says:  When He had taken a cup and given thanks, He said, “Take this and share it among yourselves; for I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine from now on until the kingdom of God comes.” And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.”  Jesus gave us something natural so that we could remember what He did for us in the spiritual realm. By the blood of Jesus our sins were paid for. We are redeemed . By His broken body, we are restored.    Isaiah 53:4-6 says:  Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him.     1 Corinthians 11:26 says:  As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.    It is not only His death that we proclaim. We also remember and proclaim all that He did for us, that we are redeemed, healed and restored by His body and blood. By understanding and believing what is spiritual, we are changed in what is natural and physical.

The text says:  Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this said, “This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?” But Jesus, conscious that His disciples grumbled at this, said to them, “Does this cause you to stumble? What then if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him. And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.” As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore.    There are many today who are like these disciples. They follow Jesus, but they only know Him by what they see, hear and understand with their natural minds. They too, like the disciples in the text, fall away because of the difficult statements of Jesus. Jesus Himself says that no one can come to Him unless it has been granted from the Father. 2 Peter 3:9 says:  The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.   The granting of the Father comes by way of the Holy Spirit. Jesus says:  “It is the Spirit who gives life.”   God’s desire, His will is that none should perish; that all should come to repentance. Without the spirit we cannot understand spiritual things. Without the Spirit we cannot accept what is spiritual. John 3:16 says:  “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”   Without the Spirit we cannot believe. Jesus says: “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. But there are some of you who do not believe.”  If the words of Jesus Himself were not and are not enough for them to believe, how can we think that by our words we can convince anyone? Our focus should be on what is spiritual, not what is natural. We should pray for Holy Spirit understanding, Holy Spirit revelation and Holy Spirit conviction. We should pray that others will hear the words of Jesus, even the difficult words, and believe, by the Spirit.

In the text it says:  Jesus said to the twelve, “You do not want to go away also, do you?” Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.”   There are many voices in the world today and many ways and places for people to go. May it be for us, that we like Peter would say:  “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.”   

Heavenly Father, Lord Jesus Christ; precious Holy Spirit; thank You for what You have done physically and spiritually. Lord Jesus, every day I remember what You did, physically being broken and bleeding for my redemption and my restoration. I believe. Holy Spirit help me to live and walk in the fullness of all that the Father has granted me in Christ. I believe. You have the words of eternal life. You are the Word of eternal life. I have come to know, by the Spirit, that You are God.    Amen.