JOHN 6 (3)
JOHN 6 (3)
FER I do not think it is very difficult to enter into the murmurings of the Jews, if we know anything at all about our hearts, and how material the mind of man is.
Rem And then, too, having no real sense of their need was what made it so difficult for them to understand the Lord’s words.
FER Yes. For when God begins to work, and man is really anxious to get light from God, things become comparatively simple to him, but for the human mind to enter into divine thoughts is a very difficult matter. They seem to be astonished at the [p. 102] idea of any one coming down out of heaven, and so would people be at the present day, I believe.
These Jews took up the word of the Lord in a kind of material, natural way; they never understood anything moral. The Lord speaks of it afterwards to them, because, when He had told them of His giving them His flesh to eat, they had taken it up in a material way, and He says, “It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life”, that is, the words had another character — they were of another order of things. I think it has reference to their understanding it all in a kind of literal way. They say, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” We see from verse 42 that the Jews knew the genealogy of Christ after the flesh, but they had no idea of His divine genealogy any more than was the case with Peter, until the Father revealed it to him.
Ques Until Matthew 16, you mean?
FER Yes; when he confessed that Christ was the Son of the living God. It was with some sense, I should think, that He had come down out of heaven. He had the sense of Him as of another generation altogether — He was more than the Son of Mary.
Ques Peter does not rise to that here, does he?
FER No, he does not.
Ques Is not this the corresponding passage to Matthew 16?
FER No. This corresponds to Matthew 14. But the way it is put at the end of the chapter, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”, is, as we all know, incorrect. It really is, “Thou art the holy one of God”. The words, “the Christ” are omitted.
Rem Matthew 16 is the only place where that expression occurs, “the Christ, the Son of the living God”.
FER Yes, I think so.
Ques What is the exact force of His coming down [p. 103] from heaven to give life to the world? “The bread of God is he who comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world” (verse 33).
FER Well, I have taken it in the same way as other similar expressions in John — in regard to the world, I mean. He was the “Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world”.
Ques There are three expressions used in the chapter — verse 33, “the bread of God”; then in verse 35, “the bread of life”; and then in verse 51, “I am the living bread”. What would you say as to the force of each?
FER I think that the general idea of “bread” pervades them all. As I understand it, it is satisfaction. Bread is what satisfies, and, in that sense, Christ may be spoken of as the Bread of God, because it was in the heart of God that He should come down out of heaven and give life to the world. The “bread of God” is a moral idea — it is the Bread of God’s providing.
Ques Before we can get satisfaction we must get life from it?
FER Yes. He says, “I am the bread of life” — the one who believes on Him has eternal life — “he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst”. It is the realisation of complete satisfaction. As has been said, “It a region of satisfied desire”.
Ques So that it is in contrast to the manna?
FER Yes. They ate the manna and died, he now He says, “This is the bread ... that a man may eat thereof, and not die”. You see, a man in the world is consumed with desire — the more he gets, the more he wants, he is never satisfied. Supposing man obtains the object of his ambition, to get to the top of the tree in politics, or such like, do you suppose he is satisfied? He has come out into a larger region, he has got a larger scope for his desires, and he has [p. 104] just become consumed with desires which are never satisfied.
I think what a man really wants is bread. That is what man naturally wants to find, what he craves after and does not get — he wants bread.
Rem “Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not?”
FER Yes, exactly.
Ques What about the “living bread”?
FER What is called “living bread” is a new idea entirely. You cannot get “living bread” until death is there. Christ is “living bread” outside of death. The fact is, He brings life in.
Ques Is the “living Father” brought in, in the same way, as a contrast?
FER Yes. “Living” has that character in Scripture. The thought of “water” is refreshment, while “bread” is more satisfaction to a hungry soul. Bread and water go together as necessary to life. In a “dry and thirsty land, where no water is”, people die parched — they have no refreshment.
Ques Why does the Lord introduce, in verse 44, “Except the Father which hath sent me draw him”? Is it that they were not upon a moral line, and it needed the Father’s drawing to bring them to Him?
FER The idea of it to me is that the Lord did not come down out of heaven to attain anything for Himself. He did not come down to make Himself a centre — He had no ends of His own to serve. It was no good their murmuring against Him — He had emptied Himself. He did become a centre, but that was no work of His own, it was really the Father who gathered to Him.
Ques He is the Father’s centre, in that sense?
FER Yes. He never made Himself a centre, otherwise they might have had ground for their grumbling.
[p. 105] Ques What is the Lord leading them on to, is it not to death? They must realise their condition under death before anything else.
FER Yes, quite so. He could not give life to them in their then condition. I think it comes out very plainly in the after part of the chapter. The first place where Christ is to be appropriated is in death if He is going to be the satisfaction of a man’s heart. It answers, to my mind, somewhat to baptism, if you can understand my thought. What you properly learn in connection with baptism is the fact that Christ has come into death. I was in death, and Christ has come into death. He has, in love, come into the place where I was that I might have Him for the satisfaction of my heart. You cannot apprehend Him as Priest until you have apprehended His death. I think that is what comes out in this chapter. “Unless ye shall have eaten the flesh of the Son of man, and drunk his blood, ye have no life in yourselves”.
Ques Would you say that the Supper is a continuation of that?
FER Yes. But that is more in connection with the assembly, here it is individual.
Ques We do not learn all this actually at baptism?
FER Well, no; because, after all, you have not a very great hand in your baptism, and no doubt a very long time elapses between a person’s being baptised, and his learning its import — its moral import of Christ in death.
Ques Is there any force in the expression, “He that cometh to me shall never hunger”, and then, “He that believeth on me shall never thirst”?
FER I think that “coming” would indicate a kind of movement in the soul, and “believing” is the reception of the testimony.
I think we are all very deficient as Christians, because we are so little acquainted with divine Persons.
[p. 106] We have a kind of familiarity with doctrine, but we have never got hold of what the doctrine presents. You get the doctrine of chapter 4 put forth — I am sure I have often heard it — and compared with Romans 5, but then the point in chapter 4 is that you are conscious of the Spirit springing up within you into eternal life. It is not a question of doctrine, but of a well of water springing up. Then, too, in chapter 5 you may have the doctrine of it, but the great point is the bringing in the light of the will of the Father. It is the revelation of the Father’s pleasure. Then, when you come to chapter 6 it is the soul finding complete satisfaction in Christ. How few have it, and yet they know the doctrine of Romans 6. The real deficiency is in the lack of acquaintance with divine Persons. Do not stop at doctrine, or you will only get the shell, while the kernel is not reached! If you get satisfaction in Christ, it is extremely possible that you may have to let many other things go. You cannot have Christ as bread, and be taken up at the same time with a thousand things down here. The two things are incompatible. Paul counted things but dung and dross that he might win Christ.
I think the Father’s drawing is really seen in appreciation of Christ. When you see a person with a real appreciation of Christ, then you know it is the effect of the Father’s drawing. It is seen in that way.
Where do you think the evangelist has a place in this chapter? You cannot say for a moment that the evangelist draws to Christ. It is, “Except the Father which hath sent me draw him”. You may say, But the Father uses agencies. So He does, but that is not the side of things here.
Rem You get that in Romans 10.
FER Well, I hold to Romans 10, but it is very important to see that all the work is really done by God. Nothing is real but what is of God. “Every one that has learned of the Father comes to me”. It [p. 107] is the drawing of the Father, and He draws only to Christ.
Rem Like chapter 17, “Thine they were, and thou gavest them me”.
FER I think it would be an interesting point to think of what is the sign and evidence of the Father’s drawing. It seems to me to be in the way of affection for Christ. It is when there is the movement of affection to Christ we see the sign of the Father’s drawing.
Ques The stepping out from the boat?
FER Yes, I think that would come in too. You are prepared to leave certain things. I think the point in the chapter is the Father drawing to a rejected Christ, not to Christ accepted.
Rem And consequently drawing out of the world.
FER Yes. He is everything to the Father, and the Father draws to Him. If such a thing were conceivable as that Christ was accepted here, the Father would not have to draw to Him. The Father’s drawing is a proof that He was rejected. This chapter records the same circumstances as Matthew 14.
Rem So that that which is spoken of Peter in that chapter is true of every soul that comes to Christ.
FER Yes. You come to the Living Stone. Peter had to leave the Jewish boat, and we today have to leave the boat, and it is a very Jewish boat, too, in which the mass of people are found today.
Ques Does it not suppose discipline and progress, “Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me”? You have to learn it in your soul.
FER Yes, I think so, and man necessarily leaves the boat when he comes to Him.
Ques You would not say that a man has left the boat when he comes among “Brethren”.
FER No, I would not. He has only left one boat for another. He has only come into a scriptural system — left a “one-man ministry”, left the big boat for a smaller one.
Rem I think it is very beautiful the way it is put in the New Translation: “Every one that has heard from the Father himself, and has learned of him, comes to me” (verse 45). It brings out the great point in it — the immediateness of it — that each one has to do with the Father personally.
FER There is no room in this chapter for the evangelist. The fatal mistake has been to confound this with conversion. Many a converted person has never come into this. They may have tasted that the Lord is gracious, and they are born again, and they are redeemed, I do not doubt, and yet I have equally little doubt whether they have ever come to the “living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious”.
Rem It is to every one that “seeth the Son”; He is a divine Person, and a divine Person in rejection.
FER Yes, quite so. If He were not in rejection, there would be no drawing.
Rem You were speaking of the evangelist. He has some place.
FER Oh, yes, of course. I was only following on what was said as to the work being God’s. It is of immense importance to see that.
Rem I think you have said that the work of the evangelist is to bring light.
FER Yes, that is it — he enlightens. Of course, the evangelist is not a mere machine, and he may reason with a man, and all that, but the great thing is to bring light, to “open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light”.
Rem So that, although you may thank God for the one who brought you light, yet if you had not to do with God Himself, you would not have turned from the darkness to light.
FER Yes. The mere fact of the man getting [p. 109] light would not do him any good — the light has to become effective.
Ques Is there not a difference between the scriptural thought of an evangelist and the way the work is carried out?
FER Yes, an evangelist is a wonderful man. I really can hardly conceive anything more wonderful than that a man, in this dark world, should have power to communicate divine light. He can go to people and open their eyes, “that they may turn” — that is God’s work. The evangelist has opened their eyes, but it is God’s part to make the work effective.
Rem It is like “diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all”.
FER Yes. I think a man may have the gift of an evangelist, and very little light, but the more light he gets, the better he will be able to help people, and the more he will be helped in the exercise of his gift. If a man were increasing in the knowledge of God, he would become a very much more effective evangelist — he has got more light.
Rem And yet the more light that is given the less people like it.
FER Well, that is very likely, because you see that a man who has not got very much light often preaches to man according to man, and is acceptable to man, but that is a different thing from preaching to him according to God. I think the point is to present the light in a divine way. This is what the apostle did, without studying to serve it up acceptably.
Rem You often find young converts used to others.
FER Yes, because they are in earnest about it. It is natural that the truth by which a man has been recently affected is in very great freshness. I do not think that if a man goes on he will lose his freshness. The verse, “keep yourselves in the love of God”, would show that.
[p. 110] Ques What is the force of verse 46, “He which is of God, he hath seen the Father”?
FER The Lord’s object was to show that it was a spiritual work, and to keep them apart from any material thoughts.
Ques Does not “he that believeth” see the Father?
FER No. “He which is of God” is the Lord Himself: No one hath seen the Father save He which is of God — that is Himself: He would not speak of a believer as “of God”. It is Himself:
Ques I suppose you would say that He mentions that in connection with the murmuring in verse 43?
FER Very likely. The Lord is speaking of Himself all through the passage as simply incarnate, but in verse 51 He speaks of His death: “The bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world”. He goes to that point now. All through the passage He is an incarnate Christ on the road to death, because it is only there that He can perfectly put in evidence His love for man. He must come down into death if He is to do that. I think the idea amongst us has been that Christ has died to make us dead, but the truth is He died because we were dead. You may recognise, of course, the fact that death is upon us, but the acceptance of it is another thing, and though it does not alter the fact that death is upon us, the point is that we might accept that we are dead, and Christ came into death for that.
Rem As a man accepts death, the consciousness of the judgment of death is removed.
FER Yes. I see that divine love has been into death, and the moment I see that, I am free of the judgment.
After all, what is there in divine Persons but love? What is there to know of them but love? I am sure you only get to them when you love. It is he “that loveth is born of God”. You cannot touch divine Persons but in the divine nature. Scripture is very explicit about it: “Every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God ... for God is love”.
Ques Why is it three times over, “I will raise him up at the last day”?
FER Well, it is the consummation. The “last day” is God’s day, as I understand it. “Your life is hid with Christ in God” now, but in the last day it all comes out — it comes to light. The Lord takes care of it.
Rem I did not quite catch your thought as to the “last day”.
FER The “last day” is God’s day in contrast to man’s day, and in contrast, too, to all dispensations. God will not be defeated, He will have His day. Man has had a good many days, but God will have the last day.
It is all a question of appropriation at the present. If we were brought into it actually, we should not have to appropriate. It is the way we come into the blessing now, but that is not the way in the last day. There is something still better coming — not appropriation, but manifestation.
Until a man appropriates, he does not assimilate. It is J.N.D. who uses the expression, “assimilated into the life of our being”. What Christ presents to us is assimilated and digested, so that a man really lives by Christ. That is the principle upon which we live now, but that will not be the principle in heaven. Appropriation will not mark heaven — there will be no need of it.
Ques Does this take in the thought of eating the “old corn of the land”?
FER Oh, no, I do not think so. It is all the great fact of His coming down to me; it is very much more akin to priesthood. I appropriate Him, in that sense, as a living Priest, and the living Priest would [p. 112] lead me into the enjoyment of where He is Himself — into life. Life is where He is. The old corn of the land has more reference to Himself as the Object and Centre of divine counsels.
Rem I thought that was what He carried us on to here.
FER I do not think it goes beyond affection here — it is a question of affection. The idea to me is that it is finding in Christ a complete and satisfying Object, so that I am apart from all that a man naturally turns to — independence of all that upon which a man rests down here. Christ Himself was independent of all here, because He lived by the Father, and I do not want anything here if I live because of Him.
Ques Was it not as sent by the Father, too — He lived as sent by the Father?
FER It says of us, “He also who eats me shall live also on account of me”, but we could not speak of His eating in that way. It was natural to Him to live because of the Father, but we only live because we eat. And how does a man live down here? Why, because of the world. If he had not the world he would wither — he wants the world to live by. Now that is exactly where Christ was entirely independent of the world, because He lived by the Father. He found everything in the Father. It is a question of affection. He lived by what the Father was to Him. Here it is that Christ is indispensable to me if I have apprehended what Christ is as a controlling Object, like, “Where thou goest I will go”, and so on. It is all that line of things here.
Rem I think the other Persons of the Godhead present quite a different thought from that of Christ.
Rem “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father”.
FER Yes. But then Christ presents a different thought from any other divine Person. In that way you could not say that the Father died for you, or [p. 113] that He is a Priest to you. The fact is that it is “the Son of God who loved me, and gave himself for me”.
Ques And is it not a blessed thing that we have the love of the Son?
FER Yes. The old corn of the land is in contrast with the manna. I will tell you where you get something more of the old corn, that is in chapter 7: “This spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Spirit was not yet; because that Jesus was not yet glorified”. It is the Holy Spirit coming out to report the glory of Christ.
Ques But must you not have something of the company to know what the old corn of the land is?
FER Yes, I think so. You do not feed on the old corn of the land individually. Feeding on the manna is individual, but not on the old corn. The moment you come to the latter you are on assembly ground.
Rem And that is why the manna ceases.
FER Yes, exactly. When you come to the truth of the assembly, it is the old corn of the land. Manna is not the food of the assembly, it is for the individual, and I do not think you would be very effective if you did not know this.