John 6:58

He had said above, Whoso eats My flesh and drinks My blood, has eternal life: and now to show the great difference between bodily meat and drink, and the spiritual mystery of His body and blood, Ho adds, For My flesh its meat indeed, and My blood its drink indeed.

i.e. this is no enigma, or parable, but you must really eat the body of Christ; or He means to say that the true meat was He who saved the soul.

Or thus: Whereas men desire meat and drink to satisfy hunger and thirst, this effect is only really produced by that meat and drink, which makes the receivers of it immortal and incorruptible; i.e. the society of Saints, where is peace and unity, full and perfect. On which account our Lord has chosen for the types of His body and blood, things which become one out of many. Bread is a quantity of grains united into one mass, wine a quantity of grapes squeezed together. Then He explains what it is to eat His body and drink His blood: He that eats My flesh, and drinks My blood, dwells in Me, and I in him. So then to partake of that meat and that drink, is to dwell in Christ and Christ in you. He that dwells not in Christ, and in whom Christ dwells not, neither eats His flesh, nor drinks His blood: but rather eats and drinks the sacrament of it to his own damnation.

Or, having given a promise of eternal life to those that eat Him, He says this to confirm it: He that eats My flesh, and drinks My blood, dwells in Me, and I in him.

As for those, as indeed there are many, who either eat that flesh and drink that blood hypocritically, or, who having eaten, become apostates, do they dwell in Christ, and Christ in them? Nay, but there is a certain mode of eating that flesh, and drinking that blood, in the which he that eats and drinks, dwells in Christ, and Christ in him.

That is to say, such an one eats the body and drinks the blood of Christ not in the sacramental sense, but in reality.

And because I live, it is manifest that he will live also: As the living Father has sent Me, and I live by the Father, even so he that eats Me, even he shall live by Me. As if He said, As the Father lives, so do I live; adding, lest you should think Him unbegotten, By the Father, meaning that He has His source in the Father. He that eats Me, even he shall live by Me; the life here meant is not life simply, but the justified life: for even unbelievers live, who never eat of that flesh at all. Nor is it of the general resurrection He speaks, (for all will rise again,) but of the resurrection to glory, and reward.

He said not, As I eat the Father, and live by the Father, so he that eats Me, even he shall live by Me. For the Son does not grow better by partaking of the Father, as we do by partaking of the Son, i.e. of His one body and blood, which this eating and drinking signifies. So that His saying, I live by the Father, because He is from Him, must not be understood as detracting from His equality. Nor do the words, Even he that eats Me, the same shall live by Me, give us the equality that He has. He does not equalize, but only mediates between God and man. If, however, we understand the words, I live by the Father, in the sense of those below, My Father is greater than I, then it is as if He said, That I live by the Father, i.e. refer my life to Him, as my superior, my humiliation in my incarnation is the cause; but He who lives by Me, lives by Me by virtue of partaking of My flesh.

Of the truth then of the body and blood of Christ, no room for doubting remains: for, by the declaration of our Lord Himself, and by the teaching of our own faith, the flesh is really flesh, and the blood really blood. This then is our principle of life. While we are in the flesh, Christ dwells in us by His flesh. And we shall live by Him, according as He lives. If then we live naturally by partaking of Him according to the flesh, He also lives naturally by the indwelling of the Father according to the Spirit. His birth did not give Him an alien or different nature from the Father.

That we who cannot obtain eternal life of ourselves, might live by the eating that bread, He descended from heaven: This is the bread which comes down from heaven.

He calls Himself the bread, because He is the origin of His own body. And lest it should be thought that the virtue and nature of the Word had given way to the flesh, He calls the bread His flesh, that, inasmuch as the bread came down from heaven, it might be seen that His body was not of human conception, but a heavenly body. To say that the bread is His own, is to declare that the Word assumed His body Himself.

For we do not eat God simply, God being impalpable and incorporeal; nor again, the flesh of man simply, which would not profit us. But God having taken flesh into union with Himself; that flesh is quickening. Not that it has changed its own for the Divine nature; but, just as heated iron remains iron, with the action of the heat in it; so our Lord’s flesh is quickening, as being the flesh of the Word of God.

And to show the wide interval between the shadow and the light, the type and the reality, He adds, Not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eats of this bread shall live for ever.

The death here meant is death eternal. For even those who eat Christ are subject to natural death; but they live for ever, because Christ is everlasting life.

For if it was possible without harvest or fruit of the earth, or any such thing, to preserve the lives of the Israelites of old for forty years, much more will He be able to do this with that spiritual food, of which the manna is the type. He knew how precious a thing life was in men’s eyes, and therefore repeats His promise of life often; just as the Old Testament had done; only that it only offered length of life, He life without end. This promise was an abolition of that sentence of death, which sin had brought upon us. These things said He in the synagogue, as He taught in Capernaum; where many displays of His power took place. He taught in the synagogue and in the temple, with the view of attracting the multitude, and as a sign that He was not acting in opposition to the Father.

Mystically, Capernaum, which means beautiful town, stands for the world: the synagogue, for the Jewish people. The meaning is, that our Lord has, by the mystery of the incarnation, manifested Himself to tile world, and also taught the Jewish people His doctrines.

2. Let us commence here, accordingly, with the notice presented by Matthew, [which runs thus]: “And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to His disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body.” Both Mark and Luke also gave this section. It is true that Luke has made mention of the cup twice over: first before He gave the bread; and, secondly, after the bread has been given. But the fact is, that what is stated in that earlier connection has been introduced, according to this writer’s habit, by anticipation, while the words which he has inserted here in their proper order are left unrecorded in those previous verses, and the two passages when put together make up exactly what stands expressed by those other evangelists. …

5. Therefore mark, my brethren, what answer this man who came to Jesus by night makes. Although he came to Jesus, yet because he came by night, he still speaks from the darkness of his own flesh. He understands not what he hears from the Lord, understands not what he hears from the Light, “which lighteth every man that cometh into this world.” Already hath the Lord said to him, “Except a man be born again, he shall not see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto Him, How can a man be born again when he is old?” The Spirit speaks to him, and he thinks of the flesh. He thinks of his own flesh, because as yet he thinks not of Christ’s flesh. …

12. “He that loveth his brother abideth ( manet ) in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.”, I beseech you by Christ: God is feeding us, we are about to refresh our bodies in the name of Christ; they both are in some good measure refreshed, and are to be refreshed: let the mind be fed. Not that I am going to speak for a long time, do I say this; for behold, the lesson is now coming to an end: but lest haply of weariness we should hear less attentively than we ought that which is most necessary. “He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is no scandal,” or “none occasion of stumbling, in him.” Who are they that take scandal or make scandal? They that are offended in Christ, and in the Church. They that are offended in Christ, are as if burnt by the sun, those in the Church as by the moon. …

Ver. 57 . “As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father”? Yet the words harmonize perfectly. For since He continually spake of “eternal life,” to prove this point He introduceth the expression, “dwelleth in Me”; for “if he dwelleth in Me, and I live, it is plain that he will live also.” Then He saith, “As the living Father hath sent Me.” This is an expression of comparison and resemblance, and its meaning is of this kind, “I live in like manner as the Father liveth.” And that thou mayest not deem Him unbegotten, He immediately subjoineth, “by the Father,” not by this to show that He needeth, in order to live, any power working in Him, for He said before, to remove such a suspicion, “As the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son also to have life in Himself”; now if He needeth the working of another, it will be found that either the Father hath not given H …

XI. And besides all this, there is the absolutely impossible and inadmissible, as that which we are now examining. For as we assert that it is impossible for God to be evil, or not to exist, for this would be indicative of weakness in God rather than of strength, or for the non-existent to exist, or for two and two to make both four and ten, so it is impossible and inconceivable that the Son should do anything that the Father doeth not. For all things that the Father hath are the Son’s; and on the other hand, all that belongs to the Son is the Father’s. Nothing then is peculiar, because all things are in common. For Their Being itself is common and equal, even though the Son receive it from the Father. …

19. It will follow that we should next in order point out the character of the provision of blessings bestowed on us by the Father “through him.” Inasmuch as all created nature, both this visible world and all that is conceived of in the mind, cannot hold together without the care and providence of God, the Creator Word, the Only begotten God, apportioning His succour according to the measure of the needs of each, distributes mercies various and manifold on account of the many kinds and characters of the recipients of His bounty, but appropriate to the necessities of individual requirements. Those that are confined in the darkness of ignorance He enlightens: for this reason He is true Light. Portioning requital in accordance with the desert of deeds, He judges: for this reason He is righteous Judge. …

II. “And if any one hearing the Son say, As the Father hath life in Himself, so also hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself , shall say that He who has received life from the Father, and who also declares, I live by the Father , is the same as He who gave life: let him be anathema.”

16. Again, how natural this unity is in us He has Himself testified on this wise, He who eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood abideth in Me, and I in him . For no man shall dwell in Him, save him in whom He dwells Himself, for the only flesh which He has taken to Himself is the flesh of those who have taken His. Now He had already taught before the sacrament of this perfect unity, saying, As the living Father sent Me, and I live through the Father, so he that eateth My flesh shall himself also live through Me . So then He lives through the Father, and as He lives through the Father in like manner we live through His flesh. For all comparison is chosen to shape our understanding, so that we may grasp the subject of which we treat by help of the analogy set before us. …

And others make known the fact of His origin from the Father as cause, for instance My Father is greater than I . For from Him He derives both His being and all that He has: His being was by generative and not by creative means, as, I came forth from the Father and am come , and I live by the Father . But all that He hath is not His by free gift or by teaching, but in a causal sense, as, The Son can do nothing of Himself but what He seeth the Father do . For if the Father is not, neither is the Son. For the Son is of the Father and in the Father and with the Father, and not after the Father. In like manner also what He doeth is of Him and with Him. For there is one and the same, not similar but the same, will and energy and power in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.