6. I Live through Jesus

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I must confess that I have not known John’s gospel as a flow of meaning as we are seeing it now. Rather, I have known it only in the “normal” disconnected way. Writing the lesson, “Judging Ourselves” in Symmorphy VI: Mankind, has transformed my understanding of John Chapter 6, tying John 6:63 and 2 Corinthians 3:3 tightly together with Rivers of Spirit as vital companion verses. Finally, for the first time, I have an inkling of understanding of the actuality of “eat My flesh” and of “drink My blood.”

Before bringing in any statements of faith, we must have the larger picture.

The Larger Picture. First, even though the offensiveness of Jesus in this passage is critical to the overall meaning, we will reduce the space given to it in this present discussion.

Then, here is the gist of the second and third ruling verses of the Bible. We are filled with all the fullness of God – Rivers of God flow out of us. Containing all of God – Revealing God to all. Can we comprehend this? Absolutely NOT!!! Yet this is the definition of the human. “Containing God – Revealing God” is the larger picture. Everything else is an attempt to cause us to understand.

Beyond Understanding. Our problem, then, is that God, in His always extravagance, has thrown a bunch of differing metaphors at us hoping that somehow we might comprehend God through us. All these metaphors are talking about the same simple reality, yet the whole mix of them becomes quite confusing.

Here are just some of the metaphors: (1) human sexual reproduction, (2) springs bubbling up, (3) rivers flowing out, (4) eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking His blood, (5) the word became flesh, (6) the life is in the blood, (7) planting a seed that becomes a plant bearing seeds. Paul said that we seize hold of understanding a vast God who is beyond understanding.

Untangling John. Here’s a difference between Paul and John. Paul used metaphors to illustrate the truth he was sharing. John weaves truth into the many metaphors he is sharing. John is the visionary one, and we MUST understand what that means. When we get to Revelation, I hope to write a two-page spread on “Bible Rules for Interpreting Visions.” But the untangling of John’s weaving together of completely different metaphors even in his gospel narrative is messing up my neatly organized layout in The Jesus Secret II, forcing me to add another two pages.

A Simple Statement. What we need, then, is the simplest statement of the actuality conveyed by all these metaphors with no metaphor in that statement. To our astonishment we find that very statement here in John 6:57. – As the living Father sent Me, and I live through the Father, so also the one feeding on Me, even he will live through Me.

Except this line contains a metaphor, so let’s re-word it, drawing also from other critical verses in John’s gospel. – The living Father sends Me into You, and I live through the Father. Even so KNOW Me and the Father in Me. Then, I send you to show Father to others, and you live through Me.

Live Through. Here is a simple picture of “live through.” The outer arrow is the Father, the middle arrow is Christ Jesus, Spirit and Word together, and the inner arrow is you and me.

Notice that the arrows go forward together forever.

This, however, is the world’s definition of blasphemy. And that takes us right back to the garden – “You shall be a god unto yourself. You shall be your own source.” Jesus takes us out of Adam’s absurd rebellion.

The Other Through. This first “through” is living, that is, what life does. Life itself, then, is the other “through,” that is, the same three arrows again, but inverted.

It is in this “through” that we KNOW the Father through Jesus Sent into us. The first set of arrows shows us substance, and the second set of arrows shows us appearance. It is always Father going before, yet it is always our face in whom Father is seen. And it is Jesus who makes it happen.

The Point. As you can see, this has to be a lesson in Symmorphy VI: Mankind, somewhere in Part 5: Ekenosis and Apocalypse. But let’s make this literal actuality extracted from Jesus’ words in different places even simpler. This is the POINT.

Know the Father by learning of Me, and thus you will know yourself. Or – The reason Jesus lives in our hearts is that we might know ourselves by knowing the Father.

Adam’s rebellion offered to him by Satan was a ludicrous delusion of “knowing himself.” Life given to us by Jesus is knowing ourselves by Father.

Age-Unfolding. I labored for some time over how the Greek phrase “aeonian zoe” should be translated. “Eternal” is not a Biblical word, but age-abiding seemed not quite right. Age-abiding seems like simple “survival,” and not a quality of God-life inside of us. I am convinced that it was the Spirit of God, then, that gave me the phrase “age-unfolding life.”

Look back again at the two sets of arrows depicting the two meanings of “LIVING THROUGH.” Notice the power of those forward arrows. Every step forward unfolds forever out from knowing Father.

The Metaphors. Now, John does state these things exactly in the tenth ruling “verse” of the Bible, the rule most important to us personally, the rule that makes everything else happen. Yet it is this main point that all the metaphors John throws at us are meant to describe. This main point is so critical and so vast in its meaning that every one of these metaphors is essential for us to grasp this simplest of actualities.

The living Father sends Me into You, and I live through the Father. Even so KNOW Me and the Father in Me. Then, I send you to show Father to others, and you live through Me. – Life given to us by Jesus is knowing ourselves by Father. – The metaphors all point us to this.

Come to Me. That brings us, then, to our first grouping of statements of faith for this passage. And in fact, we see a specific concept that is much more frequent in John than we had realized. “COME TO ME – that you might have life.”

~ Jesus is my Bread of Life. ~ I come to Him; I never hunger again. I believe into Him; I never thirst again. ~ The Father gives me to Jesus; I am always coming towards Him. Jesus always embraces me. ~ The Father draws me; I come to Jesus; I am raised in the day of completion. ~ I am taught of God. I hear and I learn in the presence of the Father. ~ I come to Jesus. ~ I live in the presence of God; I see the Father as He is.

Re-Calibration. This is slow going. I now have two pages in The Jesus Secret II on this passage, and things continue to shift. I think that we will need a second lesson as well, and thus I have changed the title of this one to “I Live through Jesus.” What is happening is that the critical truths of John 14:20 and 17:3 are already being stated and developed, even here in John 6. Yet those headings come much later. What we might do, then, in moving forward in The Jesus Secret II, is to develop the meanings of John 14:20 and 17:3 beforehand so that when we get to those headings, we won’t need to define anything, we can just DRIVE our reality HOME!

Eating of Christ Together. I must say again how much I value this approach, to take you with me through my thoughts as I grapple with the wondrous beauty of God as it unfolds through our reckoning with the words John wrote. Indeed, we are eating of Christ together.

In the remainder of this lesson, then, we will look at coming to Jesus, followed by a consideration of transubstantiation and metamorphy with a first look at John 6:63, and ending with the offensiveness of living through God. We will save “bread” for the first page on the Feasts, and in the next lesson, we will explore the mechanics of eating and drinking, with a fuller exploration of John 6:63.

You Search the Scriptures. You diligently search the Scriptures, for you imagine that you will discover age-unfolding life in them. Yet the Scriptures also give witness concerning Me, but you have no desire to come towards Me, that you might possess life (John 5:39-40).

The terrible line is, “You have no desire to come to Me.” Here is the Nicene game. “The Bible says that eternal life is to go to heaven (after I am dead). When I get to heaven someday, then I will see Jesus and I will come to Him. But I’m not dead yet, therefore I have to wait to see Jesus before I come to Him. Meanwhile, I will figure out the Bible.”

All of this thinking is a REFUSAL to come to Jesus now.

I Come to Jesus. The Father draws me to Himself; the Father gives me to Jesus. Jesus is my Bread of Life. I come to Him, I never hunger again. I believe into Him; I never thirst again. I always come to Jesus; Jesus always embraces me. Here, in His embrace, Jesus teaches me of God. I hear Him speaking to me, and I learn in the presence of the Father. I live in the presence of God; I see the Father as He is. I am raised in the day of completion.

The Father DRAWS us. We COME to Jesus. Jesus EMBRACES us. In that embrace, Jesus teaches us of the Father. I want the dictionary definitions of these three words.

Draw – Come – Embrace. The Father influences me with strong attraction to move towards the Lord Jesus. I approach Jesus with an eager heart. Jesus welcomes me with wide-open arms as He receives me to Himself.

The Father exercises an attraction upon me by His personal call to me to appear with Jesus in His glory. I run up to Jesus to stand by His side. Jesus clasps me in His arms with affection, encircling me with Himself.

The Father attracts, entices, and allures me to partake of all that Christ Jesus is. I enter into Jesus and He enters into me. Jesus makes me part of Himself; I am utterly enclosed inside of Him.

Two Processes. I want to bring in next the concepts of transubstantiation and metamorphy, two processes working together. Then, in the next lesson, eating and drinking of Christ are the mechanics of these two processes. We will attempt more complete definitions of these two terms as we mean them in the next lesson.

Transubstantiation is that process by which Jesus causes His substance, Word and Spirit together, to transfer into our substance, yet remaining inside our human appearance. Metamorphy is that process by which we come into harmony with Jesus, Word and Spirit together, by being with Him.

The Catholic Declaration. Here is the Catholic definition of “transubstantiation,” from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1376.

~ Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation.”

Our Declaration. Let’s convene our own Church council, indeed, I suspect we have more authority to do that, then they.

~ Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering using the metaphor of bread, it has become the conviction of this local church of God, and we together now declare again, that by the consecration of our lives into receiving every Word that He speaks, there takes place a change of the whole substance of our bodies into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of our life into the substance of his blood. This change this holy local church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation.”

Evil versus Heresy. There is a line in the first declaration that looks okay outwardly, but is incredibly evil in reality. Nonetheless, the men who wrote the Catholic version, if we lived among them, would burn us at the stake right now for blasphemy, heresy, wickedness, and arrogance. The evil line in theirs is “by the consecration of.” This is the power of the priest under the pope to replace Jesus.

And this brings us to the importance and meaning of the offensiveness of Jesus. Specifically, Jesus’ intention was to make us desperate enough to willfully escape from the false because we want to stay with Him.

To Whom Will We Go? The way of death sounds so RIGHT to all human thinking, argument, and agreement, and the way of life seems so WRONG to all human thinking, argument, and agreement. One thing and one thing alone would ever compel us to abandon what seems so “right” and to plunge into what seems so “wrong,” and that is our desperate desire to stay with a personal Jesus, regardless.

Then Jesus said to the twelve, “Are you not wanting to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom will we go? You have the words of age-unfolding life; and we have believed and have known that You are the Devoted One of God.” (John 6:67-69).

A Desperate Run. Every human being faces the same tree of death Adam faced and every human makes the same decision Adam made for the same reasons. Every Christian believer, drawn by the Father to Jesus, then has a view of the tree of life, but only in the background. Yet almost all use the terminology of the tree of life in order to describe the far more “correct” tree of knowledge. A few, a very few, are so desperate to know Jesus that they come to Him instead, abandoning all that is “right.”

Following, then, is what I have written into the box titled “The Offensiveness of Jesus.”

The Offensiveness of Jesus. “From that time, many of His disciples departed and no longer walked with Him.”

It is not possible for Jesus to have said something more evil in the consciousness of those who heard Him say, “Eat My flesh and drink My blood.”  This is as if straight out from the dark Greek cult of Dionysus with its sacrifice of children and cannibalism. It was Dionysus who said, “Eat my flesh and drink my blood.”

In essence, Jesus was driving everyone away with “blasphemy.” Why? His purpose in doing so is of great importance to us.

Separation. Humans are religious and aspire to superiority. They are attracted to power, but only so they can manipulate that power, or the person who wields it, to their own benefit. But what they can’t stand is someone who claims that “My humanity is the revelation of God.” Neither were they interested in the level of joining with this Man in the way that Paul‘s gospel would present.

Jesus’ own disciples were strongly attracted to Jesus, but they did not know the meaning of the Father calling them inside their own souls and drawing them to Jesus. Jesus’ words were as savagely offensive to those who were closest to Him as they were to anyone else.

A Desperate Commitment. Peter’s reply was the voice of every heart whom the Father draws to Jesus in midst of all other voices screaming against. “You have the words of age-unfolding life. – We belong to You.”

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What Jesus must have of us is a desperate commitment to stay with Him (ABIDE with Me), for He is taking us places we have never known. And a world that hates God, also hates all those who are His revelation. All of these men but one would give their lives for Jesus. In that moment, their commitment to His Word was sealed inside their hearts. This is what Jesus does.

Reading for Next Time. The reading for next time is John Chapter 6, which we already presented.

“Father, we thank You that You have drawn each one of us with great persuasion and desire to come to Jesus. And we have done so, with all our hearts and with full commitment.

“Lord Jesus, You have embraced us into Yourself. You have made us part of You and You part of us. Lord Jesus, Your words are our life, for You have given us to share Your Spirit. We know, Lord Jesus, that You are taking us with You into all the revelation of the Father. We give You all thanks, our Savior and our dearest Friend.”