Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                 Chapter Six

                                                                                                                                                  Verses 52-59

These materialist Jews were not able to open their spiritual natures to hear the spiritual truths that Jesus preached. They were so far from spiritual understanding that they thought that Jesus spoke about some sort of cannibalism. Had they only considered the fact that Jesus had shown tremendous love and compassion toward humanity, they would have realized that Jesus preached about a deeper, spiritual truth.

Jesus still did not give up on them. Jesus returned to preaching about salvation by grace. Jesus boldly preached to them that they had to eat His flesh and drink His blood, or they could have no permanent life in them. Jesus meant that they would not be able to receive that immediate, eternal life that only He could give them.

The good, spiritual life that God puts into every human when He creates them happens to be only a limited copy of the image of God. In itself, it cannot be powerful enough to withstand the wiles of the Devil. Adam and Eve sinned because of this. The free will that God gave them weakened them, but God planned to save the entire human race by the means of this very weakness. Sooner or later, God will cause every living human to return to faith in His Son of their own free will and either become saved by His grace or with a lesser form of salvation. Because of the weakness of free will, no human can ever make themselves good enough to save themselves. Romans 5:6. But God took care of that when He came to earth as His Son to sacrifice Himself so that through His death, burial, and resurrection He would take the eternal, spiritual deaths of all humans, and the sin that causes it, upon Himself to destroy all the works of the Devil so that He could cause all living humans that He created to return to the faith of their own free will that He put into them, some by His grace and all others with a lesser form of salvation. God will prove that His Love is real and eternal and that it can never fail and that He can never lose anything He has ever created. John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-14. God has proven that even the weakness that He provides for every living human happens to be far more powerful than the evil that the Devil injects into living humans. I Corinthians 1:25; I Corinthians 15:42-43; II Corinthians 12:9; II Corinthians 13:3-4. Through the gift of free will, God provided for the fall of mankind, but God will also use free will to cause every living human to return to the faith in His Son that He put into them when He created them. Genesis 1:27; Genesis 1:31. Christ has gained the victory over the Devil to prove that His Love for His creations can never be destroyed no matter the worst that the Devil can do. Revelation 1:17-18.

When Jesus told these unbelievers, "ye have no life in you," He meant that He could not give them His eternal life immediately and save them by His grace unless they believed His spiritual truth that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood. Christ could not have meant that they had no spiritual life that He gives to all humans whom He creates in His image. If humans had no innate, spiritual life, then all humans would be demonic; that is, totally evil and incapable of doing any good whatsoever. But even the most evil people have done some good in life which proves that they still retain a small image of God within them. Jesus told some unbelieving Pharisees that, "the kingdom of God is within you." Luke 17:20-21. Jesus also quoted Psalm 82:6 when He told some unbelieving Jews that, "Ye are gods?" John 10:34-35.

When Adam and Eve bit the apple, God also caused the Devil to bite the apple. In other words, God caused the Devil to fall into the trap that God had set for him. God's Love cannot be destroyed because His Love happens to be an Almighty self-sacrificial Love. John 15:13; Matthew 26:50.