John 6:63, 65, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe…This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”
Short Thoughts:
Unless the Spirit ignites and directs the word of the cross, it will not give life.
Which means we despair of our ability to bring life in self and others and hope fully in the Lord’s sovereign grace to give life to ANYONE that He chooses.
Long Thoughts:
A few things to consider. First, that eternal life comes only by the working of the Spirit of God. The Spirit gives life, the flesh is no help at all.
And the Spirit gives life, it would seem, through the word that Jesus is speaking. Christ’s words are “spirit” (ie, spiritual) and “life” (ie, eternal life imparting), and as such cannot be apprehended by someone functioning solely out of “the flesh.” Just as a radio antenna cannot pick up a television signal, and a record player cannot play a CD, so too the flesh cannot receive words of “spirit and life.” Different “machinery” is needed in order to receive the content. Only by the working of the Spirit can Christ’s word about eating His flesh and drinking His blood be received as the wisdom and power and love of God, as an invitation to eat by faith what is truly good food, as an invitation to be satisfied with all that God is for us in the crucified and risen Son. Only the Spirit can grant this reception.
And in light of this—indeed, because of this—Jesus says that no one can come to Him unless it is granted by the Father. Well, “come to Him,” entails receiving His words as “the words of eternal life” (v.68), and this happens only by the working of the Spirit….and Jesus says that this will take place only if it has been granted by the Father. So, we see God’s sovereignty in salvation unfolded in Trinitarian language.
The Son—who is the image and revelation of the Father—speaks the words of eternal life (concerning Himself as the crucified and risen one in whom alone the Father is known)
The Father—who sends the Son in the first place—grants some to receive His words and believe in the Name of the Son.
The Spirit works receptivity in all those to whom the Father has granted eternal life so that they receive Christ’s words—and Christ Himself—as eternal life.
Awesome……and what are these words? What are these words that give eternal life? What are these words of the Son that only the Spirit by the granting of the Father can enable us to receive? It is the word that we must eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man as our true food and true drink….it is the word that the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 IS the life-giving, soul-satisfying feast of Isaiah 55…it is the word that, if we are to know the One True God, then we must receive Him as the one and in the one who gives His flesh and blood on the cross in our place, we must embrace Him at the deepest place of our being as the one who bears away the sins of the world, who is lifted up as the embodiment of our curse, who is slain in our place, who lays down His life that we might live……we must embrace GOD as the one we meet in the crucified Christ and the crucified Christ as GOD—only in this do we know the One True God, that is to say, only in this do we have eternal life (John 17:3)……..All of this is really just the Johannine way of saying that “God, who said let light shine out of darkness, has shone into our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6)! Hallowed be His Name
