JOHN 6 (2)
JOHN 6 (2)
FER We constantly get the Jews using the expression, “What sign shewest thou?” I think the “sign” is what is referred to in 1 Corinthians 1 as the “power of God”: “Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God”. The Jews sought for a sign, and the Greeks sought after wisdom, and in contrast to that the apostles preached Christ, the power and the wisdom of God. What I understand the sign to be is a proof or sign of God’s intervention. So the manna, in that way, was a sign of God’s intervention, “He gave them bread from heaven to eat”.
The giving of the manna authenticated Moses; the point in their mind was that if anyone came to them as from God, he was bound to give them proof of God’s intervention. The difference between Moses and Christ was that Moses was nothing. They got the bread from heaven through Moses, but he himself was [p. 92] nothing. Now it is the very opposite with Christ — He was everything.
Ques Does the Lord mean here that Moses gave them the shadow, but not the substance?
FER Yes, I think so. The Father gave them what was called “bread from heaven”; that was the substance, Christ Himself.
Ques Therefore He is in contrast with the manna?
FER Yes, quite so. “My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven”. The Father is the Giver, not Moses; there was nothing essentially in him. God takes up suitable instruments, no doubt, but still Moses himself was but the instrument. But in Christ was everything. You might read Hebrews 11 with all its different witnesses, as simply representing the traits of faith in one person. The different men are nothing in themselves.
Ques Is there any thought in its “coming down” (verse 33)?
FER Yes, the manna was figurative of Christ. “He gave them bread from heaven to eat”, and that was no doubt emblematic of Christ. It is only taken up here to set off Christ.
The great argument of the chapter is that “if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever”. In the case of the manna, it did not give them life; they ate it and died — it was not intended to give them life; but on the other hand, “This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die”. The real point in the sign was this — what were the people on the lookout for? If they were looking for the right thing, they would have received a sign, but they were looking out for the wrong thing and consequently missed the right thing. Christ Himself was the sign, and He was the sign because He came, after all, in a very lowly way — a babe laid in the manger. The intervention of God was not apparent outwardly, but, nevertheless, it was [p. 93] there — Christ was the power of God. There was a kind of expectation abroad, as we find from other scriptures, but the people were not looking out for what they really wanted.
Ques I suppose that what would have suited the Jews better would have been that He should come like Elias, and call down fire from heaven?
FER Yes. But then it would have been a poor lookout for them. They themselves would have come under the destructive power of it. I think if the people had only been looking out for what their need really was, they would have apprehended Christ, but they were looking for the wrong thing.
Ques You mean that which would have met their need spiritually?
FER Yes. If they had been in the mind of God, and of Scripture, they would not have stumbled over Christ. They were eaten up with self-importance, but God had no intention whatever of putting honour upon man, and therefore it was totally impossible that the Christ should be in any way connected with the honour of man. “This shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger”. If they had been in the mind of God they would not have stumbled over that fact, or that the Christ should have been going about the world not having where to lay His head. They would have known that the One who came into the world as a Saviour and as a sacrifice for their sins could not have come in any other way. He could have had no part whatever in their honour and glory. They would have received the sign — One truly coming into manhood, but at the lowest and weakest point of manhood — a babe. Simeon and Anna looked for redemption in Israel, and they saw the sign.
Ques Do you not think that the same principle is abroad in the world today?
FER Yes; you see it in people who stumble [p. 94] over Scripture. It is certain to me that, if a man is to live to God, he must see that God will not put any honour upon man. That is patent to anyone and everybody.
Ques “Giveth life unto the world” (verse 33). Does that mean that it is not merely for the Jews?
FER It is the way that the apostle usually employs the word. “God so loved the world”. It is a most wonderful thing that a Man has actually been in the world who was capable of dying for the sins of the people. He was God’s Lamb. On the other hand, He could communicate the Holy Spirit. That is what had come in. But then, if He is going to be a sacrifice for their sins, it must be that He passes through the world entirely apart from it. That is inevitable and obvious. The people were looking out for the wrong thing, and therefore the right thing was a stumbling-block to them. So the apostle says in 1 Corinthians, “We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block”.
In this chapter it was the occasion of the Passover. He makes a great deal of it — speaking of eating the flesh of the Son of man, and drinking His blood.
Ques “Cometh down from heaven” (verse 33) is what is characteristic of Him, is it not?
FER Yes. It expresses the true thought of God in regard to the world; it is One coming down out of heaven, having life, and giving life to the world. That is the thought of God. He comes down out of heaven — expressing in that way the love and the grace of God — and gives life to the world. I feel that we are very poorly affected by the ministry of it. He brings into the world the witness and the testimony of divine love, and brings man into it. I think people would be very different if they were more in the light of it.
Rem And you could not be in it and not love.
FER No, quite so: “He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love”. One “coming down out of heaven” was the expression of what God’s thought was.
What I see is that they had no sense that man was under the judgment of God, under death. It is a most astounding thing how men overlook it. Cain overlooked it, and men today have no idea of it. Life is the great need of man, for he is under death.
Rem I think you have said that the idea of “bread” is life brought within the reach of man’s appropriation.
FER Yes, I think so. The fact is that, morally, as to the history of a man’s soul, he really finds life in death.
Ques In the death of Another?
FER Quite so. The testimony of divine love comes into death, and when a man apprehends that, it is the beginning of life with him.
Ques That is the “voice of the Son of God”?
FER Yes; that is the idea of it to my mind. Love has come into death — that is the real language of the cross. “God so loved the world”. When a man apprehends that, then he begins to live. It is the first breath of life. No man lives until he breathes, and this is the answer to the love of God, it is the beginning of life spiritually.
Ques Is not satisfaction one great thought of John?
FER Yes; and bread gives the thought of that. I think the chapter brings in — or at least the effect of it would be — a peculiar attachment of heart to Christ, just as the previous chapter brings in the voice of the Son of God. Another effect would be complete deliverance from the whole system of the world where Christ is not.
As regards divine Persons, the prominent idea in chapter 4 is the Spirit, then in chapter 5 the Father, and in chapter 6 Christ. In chapter 4 you have the well of water, that is, the Spirit, the water which Christ gives. Then in chapter 5 you get the light of [p. 96] the Father, that in which His pleasure lies, His working. And then chapter 6 brings Christ Himself specially before you giving His life — His flesh — for the life of the world.
Ques There are two thoughts brought before us — “My Father gives”, and then His own grace in coming down?
FER Yes. He traces things from their source; but the great point in the chapter is the Father leading to the Son — all that the Father drew to Him should come to Him.
Ques Is that why you say there is peculiar attachment of heart to Him?
FER Yes. It is because the Father has drawn you to Him; it is the drawing of divine affection.
Ques Why do you think He says, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out”?
FER I think you must read it in connection with what follows — “I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me”. And then further on, “This is the will of him that has sent me, that of all that he has given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up in the last day”. What it brings out is that the Lord had a charge — even a responsibility, if one might so say — to all those whom the Father had given Him. They were committed to His keeping until the last day. He would present them all at the last day. Perhaps I should not use the word “responsible”, but He is accountable to bring them all to light then.
Rem In chapter 17 He lays stress on it, “none of them is lost”.
FER Yes. But now they are not known; we are apparently no different from other men today, but in the last day we shall all come out into view. The last day must be the millennial day, I think.
Ques Not the last day of the existing period?
FER No, I do not think so.
[p. 97] Ques Was it not a Jewish expression of speech? Martha uses it, you know.
FER Well, I think the last day must be God’s day. I should think that the moment Christ rises from the Father’s throne, that must usher in the last day for God. The moment He brings in the “resurrection of the just”, that brings in the millennial day.
Ques God’s rest would begin?
FER Yes. The moment Christ leaves the Father’s throne, as has been said, it will alter everything. The moment He begins to act, it ushers in everything for God. Certain things, of course, have to be fulfilled which man is not cognisant of, but still, the moment He rises, it ushers in everything for God. We find the apostle Paul using the expression “that day” — he had that same day before him.
Rem And he prays for Onesiphorus that he may find mercy of the Lord “in that day”.
FER Yes. I think the “last day” is God’s day. Man will have had six days of it, and God has the last day.
Rem The day of life and love.
FER Yes, quite so. It may not be God’s day in the sense that it is the eternal state, but it is His day all the same.
Ques What do you understand by the expression, “raise him up at the last day”?
FER Well, no one today can tell the difference between you and the rest of the world, but the work of God will all come to light then.
Ques It must have meant something for these Jews to hear this, for they thought that all were to be raised up?
FER Yes. Here He says, as it were, I will raise up those whom the Father has given Me. Who could raise men up if they are under the judgment of death? It is only He who can relieve man of that judgment, and raise him up. He annulled him that [p. 98] had the power of death, and He gained the keys of death and hell by dying. He “became dead”; it is on that ground that He has the keys.
Rem “Keys” is the sign of administration.
FER Yes, and in order to gain them He had to go into death.
Ques And since then, has He not put death in quite another light for us?
FER Yes, I think so. Spiritually the Christian has passed out of death into life, there is no longer the judgment of God for him. We can be on terms of the greatest intimacy with God, and even risen with Christ, but not yet, of course, literally free. By the Spirit all is made good to us.
The Lord is looking at the great result all through the chapter, and that is why He speaks so much about raising up at the last day. If it was man who brought all under judgment, it should be man who went into it and annulled it, for “By man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead”. It is always that way with God. Man is under death, and the voice of the Son of God appeals to him where he is. He comes into death that His voice may be heard. He brings into death, where man is, the testimony of divine love, and makes death really the place of life. You have the same principle coming out in connection with Israel — “the valley of Achor for a door of hope”.
Rem So that Satan’s work has become, in that way, a perfect fiasco.
FER Yes. God has maintained His own judgment, and yet taken advantage of it to express His love, so that man might live.
Ques Do you get the will of God on two sides in verses 39 and 40; one on Christ’s side, and the other on our side? Is verse 40 that there is nothing in God’s mind against us — all is open?
FER I could not quite say. It is put on the ground of man’s responsibility. What it conveys to [p. 99] me generally is that there is nothing in God’s mind against me. The Jew had received testimonies, but here it is “whosoever” contemplated. The great idea is, it is open, and there is nothing now in the mind of God against me.
Ques Is the expression, “seeth the Son and believeth on him”, descriptive of a person?
FER Yes. For though God undertakes to fulfil His own counsels, yet there is nothing in the heart of God against any man whatever, against any man’s salvation.
Ques And yet, in His company, there were some who did not believe?
FER People will not come — they do not want to come. He brings all that out at the close of chapter 3. They did not want to come “lest their deeds should be reproved”. And people do not want to come today. These infidels and free-thinkers do not come to Christ because they do not want their will rebuked. It is intense conceit at the bottom of it — intense conceit of man’s powers and sufficiency, and therefore they do not come to the light. “Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life”.
Rem Someone has said, “None will come; all may come; but some shall come”.
FER Yes. No one ever came but by the power of God; yet all are free to come, every one that “sees the Son”. The way is open. Any desire after Christ is not hindered, but if God did not accomplish His purpose, He would have nothing at all. He brings down man’s will in some way. It would be a very poor lookout for man if God did not accomplish His purpose, and there would be no result for Christ’s work; but there must be a result. After all, the purpose of God does not come fully out until after the world had rejected Christ — “the world knew him not” — and then it is that “as many as received him, to them gave he the right to be children of God”.
[p. 100] The world took no account of its Creator when He came to them.
Rem How dark they all were!
FER Yes; they did not recognise Him; and you could hardly expect man to recognise what came down from heaven; but he ought to have known what suited his own need; to recognise what came down from heaven is another thing.
Rem And He came in the very way suited to all men’s needs — within the reach of all men, accessible to all.
FER Yes, exactly. The great essential was that He should be accessible; and it may be added that it would be impossible to conceive of a man who had taken part in the glory of man becoming a sacrifice for sin.
Rem He was, from His birth, completely outside everything here.
FER Yes. He was “holy, harmless, undefiled, separated from sinners”. The world could not have been what it was if Christ could have taken any part in it. I think it is a very great point for people to apprehend that, from the very moment that sin came into the world, God had another world before Him.
Rem He could not patch up the old.
FER Exactly. What came out before the flood are the great constituent parts of the world to come — acceptance, and then the heavenly and the earthly companies. Then after the flood you get the new stock, the man of faith, and the woman marked by confidence. Obedience is what comes out in the man, and confidence in the woman; and then you get the progeny in Isaac and Jacob. Abraham is the father of us all in regard to the world to come. “I have made thee a father of many nations”. All the new stock comes of him — we are all accounted as of Abraham’s seed. He is the pattern of the new stock, and what marks him is obedience. In Sarah God sets forth His [p. 101] power in the most remarkable way. When there was no hope in nature, He brings life out of death. Abraham looked for a city that had stability; he sought a country, and God prepared him a city. As the Lord said, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day”.
Rem It is very striking that he should have looked for it just at the time when the earth was divided up among the nations.
FER Yes. God saw what man was after, He saw the combination of man for his own glory and the gratification of his pride. Man made for himself a city and a tower, and for the moment God scattered it; but now man has got over all that with his telegraphs, and railways, and the like, and you will get the whole thing coming out again in full bloom in Antichrist. When it is all full-blown, and you get the harlot coming into view, then God brings to light the heavenly city, the city which Abraham looked for. After all, man’s work is utterly without stability, the very best of it. I do not see anything in it, but not only that, it is positively repulsive.