Note 83 — TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Preliminary Note.—Before entering upon this discourse in detail, some preliminary considerations are necessary. 1. The report. There is no reason to believe that we have a verbatim report of Christ’s discourse, but good reason to believe the reverse. John makes no claim to give the sermon in full. The language of ver. 59 implies that he does not. The whole sermon occupies in deliberate reading less than five minutes. We can hardly suppose that an actual discourse delivered in the synagogue would have been compressed in so brief a space. We have then, here, John’s subsequent report written out from memory, though from memory quickened by divine inspiration, of a discourse very much longer than the report. It embodies in John’s language the substance of Christ’s thoughts. 2. The circumstances and connection. After the feeding of the 5,000, the apostles embark in their boat; Christ goes up into the hills to pray; the people linger a while for his return, then conclude that he has returned to Capernaum, and go back to Capernaum themselves; on the following Sabbath morning he enters the synagogue; their astonishment at his approach is great; they break out in questioning, How did you get here? His answer diverts them from mere astonishment to a serious consideration of spiritual truth: “Ye are seeking me, not because of the evidence I have given of my divine commission, but because ye did eat of the loaves and were filled. Labor not for the meat that perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life.” Their response indicates some seriousness of desire: “What is the work which God would have us to do that we might have this bread of life as our reward?” This is the question of all religious aspiration, and Christ’s answer is the response of Christianity to the soul-hunger of the ages: “This is the work of God, that ye have faith in him whom he hath sent.” This I believe to be the text of the sermon which follows; it gives the subject; it is the key to its mysticism. The object of the discourse is to give Christ’s definition and interpretation of faith. This definition appears and reappears, first in metaphor, then in interpretation: My Father is giving you the true bread, which is coming down from heaven. I am the bread of life; he that cometh to me shall never hunger; he that believeth on me shall never thirst. This coming is not a literal physical coming; it is a coming of the spirit; a coming drawn by divine influence; a coming of those who are taught of God. To thus believe in me, to thus eat my flesh and drink my blood, is to have everlasting life; for to thus eat my flesh and drink my blood is to dwell in me and have in me an indwelling life. Finally, to guard his followers against that literalism which has since converted this metaphor into a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence, Christ adds to his discourse the decisive words of ver. 63, “It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.” 3. Meaning of the metaphor. I believe then that the key to the metaphors of this sermon is to be found in the question and answer of verses 28, 29; that it is Christ’s metaphorical interpretation of the declaration that faith is a condition of spiritual life; that it is mystical, because experience is always mystical except to those that know it experimentally; that it is expressed in metaphor, because a spiritual experience can never be expressed in any other way; and that Christ has emphasized the importance of the metaphor by subsequently making it a permanent symbol in the Lord’s Supper. To eat his flesh and drink his blood is to have faith in him, to come unto him; to partake of his character and imbibe his spirit (verses 35, 40, 47, 54, 57). Faith, according to Christ, is not then merely believing what is revealed in the Word (Westminster Confession); nor merely receiving what God says to be true and resting on it (George Muller); it is feeding on Christ. It is interpreted (a) by the physical phenomenon of eating and drinking. The food enters into us, becomes a part of us; builds us up; makes us what we are; different food going to different parts of the body—some to brain, others to muscle, etc.; different natures and different avocations needing different food. It is Christ in us who is the hope of glory. (b) By our own use of the same metaphor. We recognize in common language a higher than mere physical feeding; other gateways to the nature than the mouth and the stomach; other means that modify, develop, and make the character. Men are made by what they receive through interior faculties. So Christ’s metaphor constantly reappears in the language of our common life; we drink in a picture; imbibe ideas; devour books; e. g.,