the world. Gentile is as welcome to it as Jew. For this was the design of Christ's coming in the flesh and of His dying for us upon the Cross, that that which was impaired and deformed in the first Adam might be repaired and reformed in the second Adam. To this end He took upon Him our Human nature, that we might become partakers of the Divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. He was born that He might be able to die. He had not in Himself whence He might contract death. We had not in ourselves whence we might lay hold on life. He shared our death that we might share His life. He took that from us which He might offer for us. He is our life. We were His death. At this point in the conversation, better thoughts for the moment, like a gleam of sunshine through prevailing clouds, seem to have entered their breasts. What this was of which He spake they could not tell, but they suppose it must be some good thing. Still their idea is carnal, and they desire an incessant supply.2 CCLX. THE SAME SUBJECT—continued. St. John vi. 35-38. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me, and believe not. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. The Lord now further shows the spiritual nature of the Food He has been speaking of, declaring it to be Himself.3 1 Aug. Ser. ccxxxii. 5. 'He took our life that we might partake of His. He gave His life for us, that He might give life to us."-Bp. Taylor, Worthy Communicant, I. ii. 2 See again for a parallel, St. John iv. 15. 3 Note that "as in ch. v. 30, so He is living bread, incorruptible food, which gives and preserves life to all who will receive it; not like "the meat which perisheth," nor as that manna which corrupted in a night, and which at the best could but sustain for a time, not precluding the partakers from the returns of hunger; but whoso cometh to Him shall not hunger at any time.' He shall hunger no more. And further, he shall thirst no more.2 To come is to believe. "Believing and coming is all of one. "3 While however for the encouragement of any among them who might hunger and thirst after righteousness, He so speaks,-He is yet constrained to remind them of a former saying, wherein He upbraids them because of their unbelief. To a Disciple slow of heart to believe what was reported unto him, his Lord could say, "Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." But these obdurate Jews he was compelled to reproach, that they would not believe even when they had seen. And our Lord further informs those who boasted that they had "one Father, even God," that this was the mark of God's children, their readiness to come to Him. Their rejection of Him was rebellion against the Father whose children they claimed to be. For the whole body of the faithful is made up of those who come unto His Christ. "The Holy Church throughout all the world doth acknowledge Thee." If we are the elect of the here, our Lord passes from the indirect to the direct form of speech. Henceforward it is 'I,' 'Me,' throughout the discourse."-Alford. 1 So in the original. 2 Our Lord here touches upon the accompanying appetite, of which He treats more largely below, vv. 53–56, showing thus the completeness of the satisfaction He affords. Alford notes that "the manna . . . was no sooner given, Ex. xvi. than the people began to thirst, Ex. xvii." Compare Is. lv. 1-3. So John Bunyan in the Allegory, (which, however defective in some of its teaching, is at least right here) describes the musings of a soul when bidden to believe:-" Then said I, But Lord what is believing? And then I saw from that saying, ' He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst,' that believing and coming was all one." He has been anticipated here by more exact Divines. See Mede and others in Poole's Synopsis. Heb. xi. 6. • Contained substantially in ch. v. 38, 43. But possibly the reference may be to one of our Lord's unrecorded sayings. St. John xxi. 25. V. 45 below. St. John viii. 42; v. 38. St. John v. 23; viii. 54, 55. Father, we are believing in the Son. And "whosoever will" may be of that number. The Lord adds, for the encouragement of any, and whatever else may be obscure in His saying, this promise at least is plain-" him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out." He is no morose Master. He will not put him out of doors. The Lord proceeds to show the entire harmony between the Father and Himself. They will the same thing. The "Messenger of the Covenant" came down from Heaven to do the will of the Father, which is indeed His own will. The Son could have no private will or purpose of His own apart from the Father, nothing which should conflict with His purposes of mercy. CCLXI. THE SAME SUBJECT-continued. St. John vi. 39, 40. And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day. The Lord proceeds to set forth what that will of His Father, of which He had been speaking, is; what in fact His own will is; what is at once the will both of Him that was sent, and of Him that sent Him. It is not an hostile will against us, but a merciful will towards us. Like one who offers easy terms to a rebellious city, and labours to save it by persuading it to submission. Grotius. St. John ix. 34, 35. 2 The rendering of the Vulgate. In this comprehensive verse we have allusion both to the Father's counsels concerning a body (all in the original is neuter) made up of individual be So that if any "fail of the lievers in His Son, and to the Son's willingness that any individual (masculine) should come to Him, and become one of that body. 3 St. John v. 30. grace of God," it is not through God's decree, but through their own defection; not from any unwillingness on His part that they should be saved, but from their own unwillingness to work out their own salvation.' So it is well pleasing to the Father that every member of His Church, all who are called by Christ's name, numbered thus among "the elect people of God," should not stop short, but go on unto perfection; should not "resist the Holy Ghost," and " ceive the grace of God in vain." The Lord adds like words of encouragement as before,2 declaring further that it is the Father's will, with which His own cannot but coincide, that 1 Without entering upon the mysterious and hidden matters of Divine predestination and human responsibility, or attempting to define the precise point where they may meet, the following quotations may not be unacceptable. The first from a speech of Bp. Wilberforce (May 8, 1860) which, with one obvious correction, is given from the Times report. "The truth, according to God's revelation to man, may be conveyed in separate propositions, each equally true, neither utterly contradictory to the other; and yet in many cases, human intellect could not say how they were to be distinctly reconciled. Thus in the proposition that God is Sovereign of the Universe, and yet has created man a free agent, made him a responsible creature,-here two great truths arise, separate like two mountain peaks; but they have one deep common basis. ... Philosophy endeavours to combine them. It is a vain effort, as vain as if by mechanical force it would endeavour to bring together the two peaks of the mountain chain whose roots are struck deep down in His infinite wisdom. Man is to receive both; each in its completeness. God has revealed them to him, therefore he is certain they are true, and he must leave it to God's wisdom to reconcile them." In Richard the Third (iv. 4.), in answer to Richard's fatalistic defence of his conduct, re "All unavoided is the doom of destiny," the Queen mother rejoins, "True, when avoided grace makes destiny." "La foi embrasse plusieurs vérités qui semblent se contredire . . . Et d'ordinaire il arrive que, ne pouvant concevoir le rapport de deux vérités opposées, et croyant que l'aveu de l'une enferme l'exclusion de l'autre, ils s'attachent à l'une, ils excluent l'autre . . . Voilà la foi catholique, qui comprend ces deux vérités qui semblent opposées."-Pascal, Pensées xxiv. 12. In Scott's tale of The Abbot, the Author has, with his usual genius, seized upon the chief points of the controversy, and embodied one side of them in one and another of the characters who flourished in those turbulent times:-"I blame thee not, Seyton," said Douglas, "though I lament the chance. There is an overruling destiny above us, though not in the sense of that wretched man, who, beguiled by some foreign mystagogue, used the awful word as the ready apology for whatever he chose to do. ... He spoke of lights he had learned among the fierce sectaries of Lower Germany. An evil doctrine it was, if we judge by the fruits. God keep us from presumptuously judging of Heaven's secrets." 2 V. 37 above. See also St. John iii. 16, 17. everyone who is willing to partake of this benefit should share therein. If we are ready to believe in His Son, He is ready to give us the blessing of His people. There is nothing on His part to hinder but that everyone who will believe on the Son, looking at Him with the eye of faith,1 be added to His Body the Church, and be raised with it, and by Him, at the last day. Here as elsewhere the Lord mingles dark sayings with plain, secret things with things that are revealed. His words have a side which relates to God, and a side which relates to man. 2 CCLXII. THE SAME SUBJECT-continued. St. John vi. 41-46. The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven? Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me. Not that any man 1 The word for seeth in v. 40 is a different word to that rendered seen in v. 36. It is not physical sight but mental contemplation. The same original distinction of words is observed in 1 St. John i. 1. 2 The "I" of v. 40 seems emphatic. It is not expressed in the corresponding phrase of the previous verse. It seems added to show the identity of will in the Father and in the Son, and also perhaps (v. 42) to correct an error and dissolve a doubt. 64 3 In vv. 39, 40, note the neuters and the masculines, "all" and "it," everyone " and "bim," as in v. 37. Lampe notes that it is called a "Day" because it is a certain date determined by God. Its duration however cannot be decided by us. Who can say if it may not be a millennium? It is "last" in that it concludes the present Economy, and that the eternity which succeeds cannot be divided like this temporal dispensation into days. |