Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, “This is a hard saying; who can understand it?” When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, “Does this offend you? What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit and they are life” (John 6:60-63).
Jesus is abandoned by many of His disciples. He has spoken to them hard sayings; He told them they must eat His body and drink His blood that they may abide in Him and have eternal life. But they are offended by Jesus’ words. In answer to His complaining disciples, Jesus says, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing.” Evangelicals who deny the validity and working of God through the Sacraments often point to this verse. Here, they say, Jesus explains that all those things about His flesh being real food were just symbols. Picture language! The flesh profits nothing! It is the Spirit that gives life.
The words that Jesus speaks are spirit and life. But Jesus isn’t negating what He has previously said. He here expands on His previous teaching. Just as bodies need spirits to live, believers need the Holy Spirit to make them alive; the Spirit is given through Jesus’ words.[1] Jesus connects His words, His promise of the forgiveness of sins and eternal life, to the eating and drinking of His body and blood. This will come into sharp focus on Maundy Thursday when Jesus and His disciples eat the Passover, and He institutes the Lord’s Supper. Here, as Jesus answers His complaining disciples, He is speaking of the sinful human nature, unlike earlier in the chapter. Jesus says “the flesh” profits nothing, not “My flesh”.
Peter is indeed correct to answer Our Lord as he does. Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Jesus’ words are spirit, and life. Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you. This cup is the new testament in My blood, which is shed for you for the remission of sins. Whoever now accepts these words, given and shed for you, and believes that what they declare is true has forgiveness.[2] We have a body and a spirit. Both body and spirit together make up one being. It is for this reason that God attaches His promise of forgiveness and life to physical things like water, word, bread and wine. Our physical being comprehends the physical element, and our spirit comprehends the spiritual element. Writing of Baptism in his Large Catechism, Martin Luther explains it this way: “For that is the reason why these two things are done in Baptism: the body - which can grasp nothing but the water - is sprinkled and, in addition, the Word is spoken for the soul to grasp. Now, since both the water and the Word, make one Baptism, therefore, body and soul must be saved and live forever. The soul lives through the Word, which it believes, but the body lives because it is united with the soul and also holds on through Baptism as it is able to grasp it.”[3]
Jesus’ words are spirit, and they are life. They must be taken at face value. Jesus tells us that we must eat His body and drink His blood in order to abide in Him. He gives us the means by which we can do as He says in the Lord’s Supper. Our eating and drinking of the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper is a communion with His body and blood.[4] Believing Jesus’ words, we have what He promises to those who eat His body and drink His blood: the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.
[1] Engelbrecht, Rev. Edward A., ed. The Lutheran Study Bible. Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2009.
[2] McCain, Paul Timothy, Robert Cleveland Baker, Gene Edward Veith, and Edward Andrew Engelbrecht,. Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions. Translated by William Hermann Theodore Dau and Gerhard Friedrich Bente. St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2005.
[3] LC IV 45-46
[4] 1 Corinthians 10:16
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