Joh 6:56 | KingComments | STEP | The Jews grumbled among themselves about earlier words. About the words concerning the eating of His flesh they argue with one another. Every truth about Him gives the enemy more reason to reveal opposition, while it strengthens the chosen ones more in their faith in Him. The dispute in question is how He gives them His flesh to eat. They don’t understand any of this. They look for an explanation and engage in a vigorous debate about it with each other. With yet another double and therefore emphatically “truly” and an authoritative “I say to you” the Lord speaks about eating the flesh of the Son of Man and drinking His blood as the only and exclusive condition to get life. The Father gives the Son as the true bread and the Son gives Himself to die. As a result, His flesh can be eaten, and His blood can be drunk. The Lord does not say ‘he who eats Me’, but He speaks about eating His flesh and drinking His blood. With this He presents His death. Faith finds atonement with respect to sins and fellowship with God as a result of that atonement. It is about fully empathizing with the thought of the reality of His death. Before God, we must identify ourselves with His death and share in His death through faith, otherwise we have no life in us. It means that I must be aware that the death of the Lord Jesus was a condition for me to be reconciled with God and thereby receive eternal life. The only way I can do that is when I see that I am a sinner who cannot exist before God and to whom God can only give righteous judgment. Then I also see that Christ has undergone that judgment for me on the cross. When I realize that, in a spiritual sense I eat His flesh and drink His blood. This is a one-time eating and drinking in order to receive life, i.e. eating and drinking as a convinced sinner. This is not about the Lord’s Supper at all and certainly not about the falsification of it which is called ‘eucharist’. The Supper is about eating in remembrance of the Lord ( ), but here it is about eating Himself in order to receive eternal life. It is utmost folly to link the obtaining of eternal life to taking part in the Supper. The Lord uses the eating and drinking as a picture for believing in Him as the dead Lord in order to receive eternal life. Eating and drinking means spiritually nourishing oneself with a dead Christ, that is believing in His substitutionary death and His resurrection. Whoever once received life through faith in Him – that is what the Lord says in – needs to constantly eat His flesh and drink His blood. That is what the Lord says in . The footnote in the Dutch TELOS-translation at says the following about these two aspects of eating and drinking: In ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ are in Greek in the aorist so that they refer to an event that takes place once; in and they are in the praesens, so that they refer to events that are still going on. [End of footnote] [Explanation of the terms ‘aorist’ and ‘praesens’: ‘aorist’ and ‘praesens’ are Greek forms of tense which also indicate how the act is presented, namely as a once-only and thus closed (aorist) or as a repeated fact (praesens)]. Continuous or repeated eating and drinking is necessary because life is in Him. This eating and drinking will continue until the resurrection, to which the Lord points by speaking of raising up on the last day. Always, for all eternity, we will be aware that we owe everything to Him Who died for us and rose from death. For the believer, His flesh is the true food and His blood is the true drink. Every believer will experience and enjoy the truth of this inwardly. This applies both to the one-time (spiritual) eating when someone comes to faith and to the daily (spiritual) eating and drinking of the believer. The result of this eating and drinking is the closest fellowship. It is not only assurance, but Christ is the home for the believer and Christ lives in him. The believer has a continuous fellowship with Christ, which he maintains by feeding with Him every day. The Lord Jesus compares the intimacy of the fellowship the believer has with Him through eating His flesh and drinking His blood with His own fellowship with the Father. His fellowship with the Father is the perfect example of fellowship. Just as He depends on the Father in everything, so does the believer depend on Him. The Lord calls His Father “the living Father” to indicate that He shares life with the Father and that everything to live on is received from the Father. It was the living Father Who sent Him. Thus the life of the Father that is in Him has become visible on earth. The believer who eats the Son also lives according to that glorious model. By eating the Son, the life of the Son becomes visible in the believer. Outside of the Son there is no life possible. A believer also has no life to live than only in fellowship with the Son. In the Lord summarizes His teaching. When He says “this is the bread which came down out of heaven”, He points with the word “this” not only to Himself but to the whole teaching that is connected with the bread. He is the bread that has come down out of heaven. He spoke about this in . This is different from the manna the fathers ate, for they died in spite of eating the manna ( ). From Him and everything He has said about Himself, such as His death, everyone must eat in order to live eternally ( ). The Lord said these things in the synagogue in Capernaum. The synagogue is the learning house for the Jew. Capernaum is the town where He lived ( ).

‏ John 6:56

Eating His Flesh and Drinking His blood

The Jews grumbled among themselves about earlier words. About the words concerning the eating of His flesh they argue with one another. Every truth about Him gives the enemy more reason to reveal opposition, while it strengthens the chosen ones more in their faith in Him. The dispute in question is how He gives them His flesh to eat. They don’t understand any of this. They look for an explanation and engage in a vigorous debate about it with each other.

With yet another double and therefore emphatically “truly” and an authoritative “I say to you” the Lord speaks about eating the flesh of the Son of Man and drinking His blood as the only and exclusive condition to get life. The Father gives the Son as the true bread and the Son gives Himself to die. As a result, His flesh can be eaten, and His blood can be drunk. The Lord does not say ‘he who eats Me’, but He speaks about eating His flesh and drinking His blood. With this He presents His death.

Faith finds atonement with respect to sins and fellowship with God as a result of that atonement. It is about fully empathizing with the thought of the reality of His death. Before God, we must identify ourselves with His death and share in His death through faith, otherwise we have no life in us.

It means that I must be aware that the death of the Lord Jesus was a condition for me to be reconciled with God and thereby receive eternal life. The only way I can do that is when I see that I am a sinner who cannot exist before God and to whom God can only give righteous judgment. Then I also see that Christ has undergone that judgment for me on the cross. When I realize that, in a spiritual sense I eat His flesh and drink His blood.

This is a one-time eating and drinking in order to receive life, i.e. eating and drinking as a convinced sinner. This is not about the Lord’s Supper at all and certainly not about the falsification of it which is called ‘eucharist’. The Supper is about eating in remembrance of the Lord (1Cor 11:24-25), but here it is about eating Himself in order to receive eternal life. It is utmost folly to link the obtaining of eternal life to taking part in the Supper. The Lord uses the eating and drinking as a picture for believing in Him as the dead Lord in order to receive eternal life. Eating and drinking means spiritually nourishing oneself with a dead Christ, that is believing in His substitutionary death and His resurrection.

Whoever once received life through faith in Him – that is what the Lord says in Jn 6:53 – needs to constantly eat His flesh and drink His blood. That is what the Lord says in Jn 6:54. The footnote in the Dutch TELOS-translation at Jn 6:53 says the following about these two aspects of eating and drinking:

In Jn 6:53 ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ are in Greek in the aorist so that they refer to an event that takes place once; in Jn 6:54 and Jn 6:56-58 they are in the praesens, so that they refer to events that are still going on. [End of footnote]

[Explanation of the terms ‘aorist’ and ‘praesens’: ‘aorist’ and ‘praesens’ are Greek forms of tense which also indicate how the act is presented, namely as a once-only and thus closed (aorist) or as a repeated fact (praesens)].

Continuous or repeated eating and drinking is necessary because life is in Him. This eating and drinking will continue until the resurrection, to which the Lord points by speaking of raising up on the last day. Always, for all eternity, we will be aware that we owe everything to Him Who died for us and rose from death. For the believer, His flesh is the true food and His blood is the true drink. Every believer will experience and enjoy the truth of this inwardly. This applies both to the one-time (spiritual) eating when someone comes to faith and to the daily (spiritual) eating and drinking of the believer.

The result of this eating and drinking is the closest fellowship. It is not only assurance, but Christ is the home for the believer and Christ lives in him. The believer has a continuous fellowship with Christ, which he maintains by feeding with Him every day.

The Lord Jesus compares the intimacy of the fellowship the believer has with Him through eating His flesh and drinking His blood with His own fellowship with the Father. His fellowship with the Father is the perfect example of fellowship. Just as He depends on the Father in everything, so does the believer depend on Him.

The Lord calls His Father “the living Father” to indicate that He shares life with the Father and that everything to live on is received from the Father. It was the living Father Who sent Him. Thus the life of the Father that is in Him has become visible on earth. The believer who eats the Son also lives according to that glorious model. By eating the Son, the life of the Son becomes visible in the believer. Outside of the Son there is no life possible. A believer also has no life to live than only in fellowship with the Son.

In Jn 6:58 the Lord summarizes His teaching. When He says “this is the bread which came down out of heaven”, He points with the word “this” not only to Himself but to the whole teaching that is connected with the bread. He is the bread that has come down out of heaven. He spoke about this in Jn 6:32-33 ; 38 ; 50-51. This is different from the manna the fathers ate, for they died in spite of eating the manna (Jn 6:32 ; 49). From Him and everything He has said about Himself, such as His death, everyone must eat in order to live eternally (Jn 6:35 ; 40 ; 50-51 ; 53-57).

The Lord said these things in the synagogue in Capernaum. The synagogue is the learning house for the Jew. Capernaum is the town where He lived (Mt 4:13 ; Mt 9:1).