Reading: John 4:31-34; 6:28-32,34,38,53-58; 7:17.
In verses 32 and 34 of the
fourth chapter of the Gospel before us there are certain implicit
facts. The first is that of a secret source of strength - "I
have meat to eat that ye know not". Then there is shown to
exist a link between the will of God and this secret strength,
that the strength of Christ is maintained in relation to the will
of God. Then, further, there is shown to be a link with a Divine
purpose, the complete fulfilment of which is alone true
satisfaction, in the same way that suitable food is satisfaction
to the body when in need. If the body craves food, and is utterly
satisfied only by food suitable to its need, the same truth holds
good here in relation to God. That is to say, there is a Divine
purpose, and the complete accomplishment of that Divine purpose
is the only way of answering to the deepest need and bringing
complete satisfaction, of removing the pangs of hunger and
transcending all the attendant weakness.
Obedience the
Way of Fulness
In all that we have said one
thing is clear, that obedience is the way of fulness. By these
Scriptures the food question is brought into view, and its
elements are very simple. One is the maintaining of life. Another
is satisfaction of need. Yet another is that of growth, increase,
development, progress, maturity; the attaining unto the full
measure. Carrying those into the realm of things spiritual, we
see how important the food question is to the inner man. You do
not take one meal for the whole of your life. Spiritually
interpreted that means that the Lord does not want us to be just
saved, but desires us to grow. Children of God who are
unnourished, undeveloped, not built up, are a terrible tragedy.
I was listening recently to a
brother who from time to time visits a certain part of Europe
where large numbers of people have professed Christ at special
Gospel meetings. Of the many that are reported to have been saved
it was said that ninety-nine percent of them backslide. On being
asked why this should be, the answer, which was given without any
equivocation or hesitation, was this: There is no spiritual food
to build them up. They have no ministry and no help beyond what
can lead them to simple faith in the Lord Jesus. If that is true
in one part of the world, in one small country in Europe, the
same can be said of a much wider area, and must therefore
represent terrible tragedy and be a very sound rebuke to all who
would say, Get people saved and that is all that matters! Surely
it represents a further demand for a ministry of Christ in
fulness.
Apart from those who backslide,
what about those who, while not backsliding, never go on? May the
cause not be the same? Surely there is no justification whatever
for condemning a ministry which is wholly given to the feeding of
the flock, to the healing of a situation like that, to the
meeting of need of that kind! The food question is a very acute
and very serious one, and there is a great deal bound up with it.
That is true in the natural, and it is also true in the
spiritual, and perhaps with far more serious consequences.
So much, then, for an
introductory word of a general character upon the food question.
The Nature of
the Food
The food of God; the meat of
God; the bread of God! What is this? In answer to that question
we are to think first of the Lord Jesus in His life here on the
earth. Then we shall see later that what was true of Him here is
to be true of us. His basis of life is to be our basis, His
sources of life are available to us.
As we turn then to think of the
Lord Jesus in this particular connection, let us note the
following statements: "I have meat to eat that ye know
not" "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me,
and to accomplish his work." "As the living Father hath
sent me, and I live because of the Father..." We only quote
the last verse so far because the latter part has to do with
ourselves. "I have meat..." "My meat is to do the
will of him that sent me" "I live by the Father."
Such words clearly mean that His relationship with the Father was
connected with a Divine purpose for the sake of which He was here
on this earth; that His life in every detail was governed by a
specific expression of the will of God, His Father. That is to
say, the will of God for Him meant and represented a certain
work. For that work He had come, and to that work He had
dedicated Himself. But in the doing of that work He needed to be
sustained. That sustenance was found in a maintained fellowship
with the Father on all matters, and as that fellowship with the
Father on all practical matters was maintained He was able to go
on, and on, and ever on: running without being weary, and walking
without fainting; for there was being meted out to Him in a
secret way supplies of strength, sustenance, and nourishment. The
will of the Father was comprehensive as to a purpose and detail,
as to times, and methods, and means. Not only was He one with the
Father in the Father's object and intention, but He was one with
the Father in His method of reaching that object, and in His
times in the working out of that object.
It is one thing to have a
conception or apprehension of the purpose of God, and to be given
up to it, but it is an extra thing to know how God would realise
His purpose. It is still another thing to know the means He would
employ. There are many who have a true conception of what God's
purpose is, but the means which they employ are not God's means,
the way in which they go to work is not His way, and therefore
they find that the Lord does not support them. They may be in a
true direction, but being out of fellowship with the method or
means they are compelled to take responsibility for the work
themselves, and to find the resources. Thus they find themselves
oftimes exhausted, brought to a standstill, and having to resort
to all kinds of methods and means to raise the resource to carry
on God's work, because they are not in the real enjoyment of His
Own support. The work of God becomes a burden upon their shoulders,
and the Lord cannot order it otherwise because there is not the
fullest fellowship and sympathy between them and His ways, His
methods, His means, His times, and the details of His purpose.
Now, in the case of the Lord
Jesus it was quite the contrary. In the details He was in secret
fellowship with the Father. With Him this represented a detailed
obedience unto one comprehensive purpose. The only explanation
needed by Him in any given matter was simply that of knowing that
the Father willed it, and without any further word He did it.
That was the basis of His relationship. Never do we trace in Him
a sign of waiting to question why a thing should be done in a
certain way, or at a certain time and not another, or why certain
means should be employed and not others. It was enough that the
Father willed it. The explanation came in the justification and
vindication that followed. The doing of the will of God was a
matter of that obedience which never moves out from self but
always out from the Father. As that held good in His case the
spiritual resources of sustenance, maintenance, strength, and energy
were supplied.
To Abide in
the Will of God the Secret of Growth and Rest
This also was the secret of His
growth. Perhaps the growth of the Lord Jesus is something about
which we have to be careful, and yet, while perfect in His moral
nature, while sinless as to His essential Being, the Word makes
it perfectly clear that there was a progressiveness even in His
life. The Word definitely states that He was made perfect through
sufferings, and that "though He were a Son yet learned He
obedience by the things which He suffered". That is a
strange statement. I do not profess to understand all that it
means, but it at least indicates that there was progressiveness
in Him. There was progress from a perfect state to a perfected
state. You cannot explain that, but there is the Word for it. He
moved onward with the Father, but that onward movement was by
development, by expansion, as the reaching of a point of fulness
by one who has started at the beginning. He had laid aside for
His humanity, for His manhood, all the fulness of Deity. It was
His by right, and was retained for Him, and as Son of God He was
still in possession of it. As Son of Man He had relinquished the
right to command the resource of Deity, and had accepted a life
of complete dependence upon the Father, and that, therefore, a
life of faith. Such being the case, His steps were steps of
faith, which brought Him into an increase, and when He finished
His course He was filled with all the fulness of a Divine
replenishment of perfected humanity. We behold a Man filled with
the fulness of God! In Jesus crowned we see not only God, but Man
filled with the fulness of God, into which fulness we also are
called, as is made perfectly clear in the Epistles.
The truth of these statements
is well seen in such passages as Philippians 2:6-9: "Who
being in the form of God, counted it not a thing to be grasped to
be on equality with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of
a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and.... he humbled
himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the
cross. Wherefore also God highly exalted him (because of this
obedience), and gave unto him the name which is above every
name". Then there follows the universal acknowledgment of
Him in His exaltation: "That in the name of Jesus every knee
should bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things
under the earth". Again in Hebrews 2 we read: "...we
behold him who hath been made a little lower than the angels,
even Jesus, because of the suffering of death (that is
humiliation and emptying), crowned with glory and honour..."
That is but a way of saying, filled with glory and honour.
So that on His part there was a moving by the way of obedience
toward ultimate fulness. There was a progression. God was filling
Him as He obeyed. That is what it means. The fulness was coming
to Him as he obeyed. The way of obedience is the way of fulness.
The food, then, is the doing of
the will of God, and to do the will of God is to abide in a
relationship in which nothing is done without consultation with
the Father. It not only means to inquire as to the Lord's will in
some emergency, some turning point in life, some dilemma, some
crisis, but to have the entire life governed by God, so that
everything is submitted to Him and brought under His hand. In
that life there is no loss, no narrow restricting; development,
growth, increase, enlargement, new satisfaction, and a coming to
Divine fulness are the marks of it. There is no deeper sense of
satisfaction than that which is resultant from knowing that the
Lord is satisfied, the Lord is well pleased. To know that the
Lord's will has been done, and not to have a shadow of a doubt
about it is to bring to the heart the deepest contentment. No
good meal ever satisfied the body of a man more than the
knowledge that the Lord's will has been done, or is being done,
satisfies the spirit of the child of God. There is a comfort, a
fulness, a satisfaction about it.
This accounts for the
remarkable tranquility in the life of the Lord Jesus. There was
about Him no fret, no anxiety, no strain, no feverish concern. He
seemed always to be in a realm of spiritual content. Not that He
was content with things outwardly, but deep down in His heart
there was a rest, resultant from His utter abandonment to the
will of the Father and His knowledge that the Father's will was
being done hour by hour. This was no self-complacency, but the
witness of the Spirit of life in Him, the Father continuing to
say, "In thee I am well pleased"! Such was His life of
obedience which led Him on progressively unto fulness.
The Believers
Participation Through Union with Christ Risen
That brings our relationship
with Him into view, and explains the bulk of this sixth chapter
of John's Gospel, which foreshadows union with Christ in
resurrection life. Union with Christ in resurrection life is here
set forth as spiritual feeding - "He that eateth my flesh
and drinketh my blood..." "Except ye eat the flesh of
the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in
yourselves". What does that mean? Of course, there is a
background to this chapter, as you see from verses 4 and 5 -
"Now the passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand".
The feeding question was just then very much in view. It was the
time when they would feed upon the pascal lamb; for the Passover
was a meal. When feeding was thus in view, feeding upon the
Passover lamb, we have the presence of a hungry multitude. You
see the timing of everything. Here is a multitude hungry, and the
thought of feeding before them, the Passover at hand. The Lord
Jesus stepped right in at that point and performed a symbolic
miracle, feeding them as from a secret source. As to the feeding
of the multitude the question had arisen: Whence bread enough for
so great a multitude? The "whence" was a mystery. Bread
was provided, but it did not come from the shops or from any
quarter in the town, nor in its fulness did it come from the
boy's basket. There was a hidden source in heaven. The multitude
were fed, with bread enough and to spare; there was a large
surplus. There is a great deal more in that secret cupboard than
you and I need, a great deal more. There is always plenty over
when our immediate need has been met. We do well to thank the
Lord that it is so.
I want you to notice this
twenty-seventh verse. "Work not for the meat which
perisheth, but for the meat which abideth unto eternal life,
which the Son of man shall give unto you". The Lord will
tell us presently what that means, but for the moment He says,
"...for him the Father, even God, hath sealed". This is
said to a hungry multitude, with the Passover meal in view. The
Lord Jesus steps right in at that point with His secret, heavenly
source of sustenance, and then goes on to teach that He Himself
is to be the source of supply for their deeper need - "for
him the Father, even God, hath sealed." He has carried them
away to the Passover. What happens at the time of the Passover?
Every household takes a lamb, a lamb without spot or blemish. Who
is to judge of that? Who is to say that this lamb is
satisfactory? The priest is the one who carries that
responsibility. So it was in the case of all the sacrifices which
were offered to God, and not only of those in which the lamb
found a place. The sacrifice was brought to the priest, who was
expert in discovering anything wrong, and after his expert
examination had been carried out and the sacrifice, whatever it
might be, was found to be according to the standard required by
God, without spot, or wrinkle, or blemish, or any such thing, the
priest sealed it with the temple seal. It was sealed as
satisfactory according to God's mind. Nothing could pass until
that seal was on it. Nothing could be offered to God without that
seal. Apply that in particular to the Passover lamb. It has to be
sealed if it is to be God's means of sustenance, and then the
slaying of it means that that lamb is acceptable to God on God's
standard. With what fulness of meaning do the words then fall
upon our ears, "In thee am I well pleased" "For
him the Father, even God, hath sealed". Sealed by the Holy
Spirit in the hour when God said, " In thee am I well
pleased".
I would like now to go off at a
tangent and pass onto that word of the Apostle: "Whereby ye
are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise" (Ephes. 1:13).
What is the seal? Accepted in the Beloved, justified in Christ;
perfect acceptance, because of what He is, and what we are in
Him. God is well pleased, satisfied. But we must leave that at
this time and not enlarge the compass of our meditation.
Here is Christ, sealed to be
God's Own satisfaction, and therefore given as God's satisfaction
to His people. He has done the will of God perfectly when He
becomes the Passover Lamb, and because the will of God has been
perfectly done and God has been perfectly satisfied, God gives
Christ, Who is His satisfaction, for our satisfaction; that is
union with Christ and our eating of Him. It is faith's taking of
Christ in resurrection life to be our energy. Christ becomes our
energy, our vitality, our strength, our sustenance, when our
relationship to Him is exactly the same as that which existed
between Him, as Man, and the Father. "As the living Father
sent me, and I live because of the Father; so he that eateth me,
he also shall live because of me" (John 6:57). How did He
live by the Father? By taking the Father's mind, the Father's
will, the Father's thoughts, and desires, and intentions to be
the basis of His entire life, and no other. On that ground the
Father gave Himself in life to Him. Now having perfectly
satisfied the Father, having become the Father's full
satisfaction, He then becomes the basis of our life. We live by
Him. Christ our life! Christ our sustenance! What does it mean?
It simply means that in Christ are found all those vital moral
and spiritual elements which we require to live upon. They are
provided for us. This perfection of Christ is a living energy, a
vital force. It is something that can come to us in the power of
the Holy Spirit in a living way.
Man
According to God's Mind
We mark that in John 6:53 the
reference is to Christ as Man - "Except ye eat the flesh of
the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in
yourselves". What is the meaning of that designation? It
speaks of man perfected according to God's mind. There is only
one such man, the Man Christ Jesus, and it is because of what He
is as Man according to God's mind, and through our faith union
with Him, and faith's drawing upon Him, faith's living upon Him,
faith's appropriation of Him, that moral and spiritual strength
is imparted to us. It is exceedingly difficult to define or
explain the mystery of how Christ gives Himself to us through
faith, but there is the fact. The difference is between our
effort, and struggle, and wrestle to overcome and our taking His
overcoming by faith, meeting every situation, within and without,
on the basis of what Christ has already done and of what He now
is. Such is the tremendous foundation that God has put for our
feet in Christ risen. God has put full and final accomplishment
of everything right under our feet. To change the metaphor, He
has spread a table with every commodity that we need for our
spiritual life, and we may draw upon that bounty as we will.
Christ is provided as the Bread from heaven, the perfection of
moral victory, of spiritual ascendency, and our part is to learn
how to live on the basis of what Christ is. "I live because
of the Father." "He that eateth me, he also shall live
because of me"! The alternatives which are presented are
whether we will try to proceed in relation to the will of God on
the basis of what we are by nature, governed by our natural
resources and the conditions that may obtain in spirit, soul, and
body at any given time, or whether we are going to recognise that
there is another secret source which is more than that, which is
the source of certain triumph, and live on that. "He that
abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for
apart from me ye can do nothing." In those words in His
parable of the Vine the Lord sets forth this truth of which we are
speaking.
What is abiding? Abiding in
Christ, as we have often said, is the opposite of abiding in
ourselves. To abide in ourselves is simply to try to do this
living, and this working for the Lord, of ourselves; asking the
Lord to help us to do it, instead of recognising that a life
wholly pleasing to God has been lived and that faith appropriates
that accomplishment in Christ. Abiding in Christ is simply doing
everything, meeting everything as out from Christ. It is a sure
ground. There is no need for question and reasoning: Can it be
done? Can I do it? Or, I am not sure about it. It is done. The
Lord Jesus has met everything that you or I will meet, and in all
things has done what is needful. That is available to faith, and
faith says, Well, in myself the thing would be absurd, and to
attempt the thing would be ridiculous; as to myself it would be
folly to contemplate it. But it can be done, because it is done;
I can meet this demand, and I can stand up to that one; I can go
through with this, and I can do that - "I can do all things
("all" is a big word) through Christ, which
strengtheneth me". It is what Christ is as our secret source
of strength, of sustenance, of nourishment.
This is a school, and we learn
this lesson in a progressive way. He learned, and we learn,
though in our case there is a difference to be noted. We are
learning to draw upon the fulness which He consummated, working
out from a fulness as we press onward to the goal. We are
learning how to come back to a fulness, He moved on toward a
fulness. The Cross for Him was the end, for us it is the
beginning. We have to learn how to come back to His fulness and
we learn progressively, step by step, like little children, first
of all learning to walk and to talk. Like them we are confronted
with things which we have never done or even attempted before,
things which are all new and strange; a new world, sometimes a
very terrible world. The contemplation of taking his first step
to a little child is a most terrifying proposition. You and I are
brought into this realm of faith, wherein the simplest thing at
the beginning, the taking of a first step, is sometimes fraught
with horror for us. But there are arms stretched out, and those
arms now represent for us the accomplishment of what is required
of us, the thing is done. The strength is there, available for
the matter in hand, a strength which has been proved. Recognising
those arms and trusting, taking the step, we learn to walk by
Christ, to live by Christ; and the next time we shall be able to
go a bit further. Each time capacity is being enlarged and we are
coming to a fuller measure of maturity. The fulness of Christ
eventually will be that all that ever Christ accomplished will be
made good in us. All! Whether here or there, it will be
done. I do not know that we have ever yet caught a glimpse of
what a perfect humanity is going to be like. A perfect humanity
in glory hereafter will be one of tremendous capacity, tremendous
ability. The accomplishments and achievement of that perfect
humanity will be the occasion of great wonder. Christ in fulness!
The Offence
of the Cross
Let us remember that this way
is a way that is a constant offence to the flesh, to the natural
man. The Jews strove with one another, saying, "How can this
man give us his flesh to eat?" But not only did Jews, the
religious people in their religious self-satisfaction, strive
together, but it is also written, "Many therefore of his
disciples, when they heard this, said, This is a hard saying; who
can hear it?" Even disciples could not go on sometimes. When they
came face to face with the implications of such a saying, they
were no longer willing to be associated with Him on a basis of
that kind. The flesh loves to have it in itself to be doing, to
be laying the plans, arranging the programmes, organising the
work, superintending it, and getting it going. The flesh revels
in that, and when you come and say to that whole order of things,
The way of God is the way of utter dependence and faith, with the
Holy Spirit in entire charge, and you must keep your hands off
and be willing to do only what the Lord tells you and no more,
(that which is meant by the declaration, "I can do nothing
out from myself") it is an offence to the natural man, even
in religious matters. We come up against that constantly, do we
not? It is the difference between meeting together as they did at
Antioch to pray things out and get the Lord's witness as to His
will, and having a committee meeting to discuss a proposal and
make plans. If the natural man is not doing the whole thing, and
arranging it, and ordering it, and running it all, he cannot
think that progress can be made at all. Unless you come out with
your plans, and announce your programmes, and declare what you
are doing, present your statistics, the naturally minded
Christian thinks that nothing is being done. It is possible to
have wonderful things done without any of that kind of activity.
We cite such a thing purely as an illustration. Application can
be extended in many directions, but this is just to help out the
thought.
The whole accomplishment of God
in Christ is on the basis of Divine life mediated through faith.
That is another way of saying, Christ has to be the basis of
everything in a spiritual way. This is an offence to the flesh,
but a satisfaction to the Spirit.
We gave to this meditation the
title of "The Hidden Manna". That as you know is a word
spoken to the Church at Pergamum in Rev. 2:17: "To him that
overcometh to him will I give of the hidden manna..." Why
was that said? Because the people of that Church were indulging
in feeding upon the sacrifices of paganism. Do you perceive the
character of the idol sacrifices of paganism? They had the
counterfeit principle. These mystic rites of paganism in the
eating of sacrifices offered to gods meant that there was an
imbibing of the powers of the gods. There we have a true
principle carried into a devilish realm, associated with all the
most evil things, and Christians were eating of sacrifices
offered to idols, to demons, to nourish their spiritual life in a
mystic way. Think of it! They have grasped the idea - We get
strength from the gods! It was, you see, spiritual strength they
were after, but they had gone into the wrong realm for it. The
Lord says to the one who requires spiritual strength, "To
him that overcometh, to him will I give of the hidden
manna..." The hidden manna is Christ in heaven. The thought
carries us back to the Most Holy Place in the tabernacle where
was the Ark of the Covenant. In the Ark was a pot of manna,
hidden in the Ark in the Most Holy Place. It was hidden in the
Most Holy Place. When we were speaking about the opened heaven we
saw that the Most Holy Place represented heaven, the Holy Place
earth. The manna in the Most Holy Place typifies Christ in
heaven. "I am the bread of life I am come down from
heaven...." Seven times in this discourse in John 6 that
phrase "down from heaven" is used. Christ in heaven is
the Hidden Manna, the Secret Source of sustenance.
We are struggling to explain
the inexplicable, to define the indefinable. We can never explain
the mystery of how Christ becomes the spiritual strength and
nourishment of His own, but the fact is there. The practical
course left to us is to act upon the fact that Christ is our
sufficiency, no matter what the demand, and never to fall back
upon what we are, or make our natural condition or circumstances
the ground of decision. That is not the criterion, that is not
the argument, that is not the conclusion of the matter. "Not
what I am, O Lord, but what Thou art," this must rule in the
presence of need, and in the obedience of faith we must step out
on Him. We are brought to the conclusion of John 6, that the work
of God, the will of God, is to believe in Him Whom He hath sent.
What is it to believe in Him? How do we believe in Christ when we
feel bad, when we feel ill, when things are difficult? The answer
has been given. This belief, as we see borne out by the whole of
this story, is appropriation. It is eating. It is one thing to
say you believe in certain foods, but here that passive kind of
belief has no place. Belief in this food involves the taking of
it.
The Lord show us the meaning of
the secret source of strength.