DISCOURSE ON SPIRITUAL FOOD AND TRUE DISCIPLESHIP
PETER'S CONFESSION
(At the synagogue in Capernaum)
JOHN 6:22-71
ON the Differences Between Gospels and Placement of this episode....
The Pulpit Commentary does a fine job of exploring the broader issues of these chapters and the differences of placement and purpose among the four gospel writers. John is forever content to ride his own wave of exposition, whereas the synoptics hold tighter and closer to each other.
"Some commentators appear to have a morbid fear of reducing a difficulty, or seeing a harmony, between these four narratives. One thing is dear, that they are independent of one another, are not derived from each other, do each involve side views of the event distinct from the rest, and yet concur in the same general representation. The synoptists, however, place the "feeding of the multitudes" in the midst of a group of most remarkable and varied events. It is for them one page out of many descriptive of the Galilaean ministry, and which ultimately led to grievous departure from and diminution of the temporary popularity of the great Prophet. It would seem that bitter hostility, as well as excited enthusiasm, was checkering his early ministry. The synoptics take pains to show the combined effect of his self-revelations." -Pulpit
"The moral and mystic meaning of it was far more important than the superficial inferences drawn by the Galilaeans. The real lesson of the miracle would grievously offend them. But it sank deeply into the apostolic mind, and hence the various aspects which it presents in the fourfold narrative."
-Pulpit
Why Did Jesus Retire?
"The true grounds for Christ’s retirement are not incompatible, but mutually explanatory. The death of the renowned forerunner, of the idol of the multitude brought vividly to the mind of the Lord his own death—the foreseen sacrifice of himself. The conviction that he must give himself to a violent death—give his flesh to the hungry and starving multitude, made the decadence of his popularity in Galilee a certain consequence of any right apprehension of his mission or claims." -Pulpit
This explanation makes sense to me---Christ was dogged by a number of oppressive circumstances and thoughts--John's death, the short-sighted multitudes, his disciples' limited faith and understanding, and the escalating pace of the road ahead of him. It's very much like our own lives in that many things seem to conspire to bring us to a place where we need retreat and perspective.
Is Faith a Type of "Work"?
Andrew MacLaren defines the difference this way:
"But yet it is not a work, just because it is a ceasing from my own works, and going out from myself that He may enter in."
In the beautiful metaphor of the Apostle Peter, in his second Epistle, Faith is the damsel who leads in the chorus of consequent graces; and we are exhorted to ‘add to our faith virtue,’ and all the others that unfold themselves in harmonious sequence from that one central source. -MacLaren
For the length of my Christian walk, twenty six years now, I've been puzzled by the seeming contradiction that although we cannot do works to make ourselves accepted by God, it remains that belief, faith itself, is a type of work. Is it not? I don't know if I will ever completely resolve it in this lifetime as it taps into some of the deepest mysteries of God--the will of man, fate, freedom, determinism, the intersection of the Spirit of God with the spirit of man.
However, this morning, the Pulpit Commentary presented a refreshingly abrupt solution---yes, faith is a type of work, the hardest one:
To "believe on him," to habitually entrust one’s self to the power and grace of Christ, to make a full moral surrender of the soul to the Lord, includes in itself all other work, and is in itself the great work of God. "It is the Christian answer to the Jewish question" -PC
"Faith is the highest kind of work, for by it man gives himself to God, and a free being can do nothing greater than give himself....Luther says, "To depend on God’s Word, so that the heart is not terrified by sin and death, but trusts and believes in God, is a much severer and more difficult thing than the Carthusians or all orders of monks demand." -PC
Is faith a type of work? The ability to believe is gifted to us by God---here Christ specifies that it is His Father who calls us:
"All that the Father gives me will come to me...." John 6:37
There is little mystery in that piece of it for me. Some are given. Some are called. The origin of this calling is God not man. By itself, the statement is direct and clear enough.
The Pulpit Commentary sees it as God-given but takes pains to specify that it does not teach predestination:
"There is no necessity to suppose that our Lord refers to an absolute predestinating decree. For if God has not yet given these particular men to him, it does not say that he will not and may not do so yet. The Father’s giving to the Son may indeed assume many forms. It may take the character of original constitution, of predisposition and temperament, or of special providential education and training, or of tenderness of conscience, or of a truthful and sincere and unquenched desire. The Father is the Divine Cause. The giving implies a present activity of grace, not a foregone conclusion." -Pulpit Commentary
If God is the cause then I'm not clear on how He is not necessarily the determiner--to me that conclusion feels inevitable. My next logical question---"Well, why would the Father call some but not all?" is a much harder one.
And another, "To what extent then are we really "free" to determine the trajectory of our lives and beliefs." Hard and harder. This, to me, is the limit to which the Lord allows us to look into this dynamic. One answer and two harder questions.
And although we believe that faith is through Christ, not ourselves, why do we cling to the works by default so easily, so quickly, so relentlessly?
Physical Food vs. Spiritual Food
"Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.” John 6:27
"The kind of strength which will arise within you when once appropriated, is an eternal possession, an abiding advantage; the satisfaction is not exhausted by a short interval, it remains forever. " Pulpit Commentary
"The whole world is the object of the Divine grace and love. The bread of God must be a Divine gift, mysterious and heavenly in its origin, and must at once demonstrate its vitality, its Source, and its Giver." -Pulpit Commentary
Give us this bread
Joh 6:34 They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”
A great prayer this, which Christ showed himself not unwilling to answer in his own way. -PC
I Am the Bread of Life...
Joh 6:35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.
[But, or then £] Jesus said to them, now dropping all disguise, and gathering up into one burning word all the previous teaching, which they might have fathomed, but did not. -PC
"The mode in which any human being can so assimilate this Bread that it should accomplish its purposes and transform itself into life, is by "coming"" or "believing." The two terms are parallel, though in "craning" there is more emphasis laid on the distinct act of the will than in "believing....The parallelism is a strengthening of the same idea.....The deeper idea is that the desire of the soul is satisfied, and it is not a recurrent desire. There are certain realities which, if once perceived, can never be unknown afterwards."-PC
Was There Tension or the Possibility of Failure in Christ's Mission?
"And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. " John 6:39
This was one of my objections to Christ's sacrifice before I believed---how hard is it for the Son of God to give his life? If he can see all of eternity, if he knows he has eternal life, then how hard is it for him to endure a short episode of abuse? And didn't he choose it that way? Or was this the Father's will? Does the trinity have separate facets that are kept from each other? Exactly how does the trinity operate? So many questions here....
If Christ was human, then he struggled as a human with the same fears we experience. How he can be part human, part divine is another mystery, another question.
Note that the Jews did not wonder--they just grumbled:
So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” John 6:41
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