John 6:63

John 6:63. It is the spirit that maketh to live; the flesh profiteth nothing. Jesus has spoken of ‘giving life,' of the ‘eating of His flesh,' as the means of gaining eternal life. In all this He has not the flesh but the spirit in view, not the material reception of the flesh by the flesh but the appropriation of His spirit by the spirit of man. Such spiritual union of the believer with Him alone ‘maketh to live' the flesh in itself is profitless for such an end.

The words that live spoken unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. The word ‘I' is emphatic, as it repeatedly has been in this discourse. The emphasis which Jesus here and elsewhere lays upon His sayings is very remarkable. He is the Word, the expression of the Father's nature and will; His sayings are to man the expression of Himself. The words or sayings just spoken to these disciples are spirit and are life. This is their essential nature. They may be carnalised, wrongly understood, wilfully perverted; but wherever they find an entrance they manifest their true nature. They bring into the receptive heart not the flesh but the spirit of the Son of man, and thus the man, in the true sense eating the flesh of the Son of man, has life. His words received by faith bring Himself. Thus He can in two verses almost consecutive (chap. John 15:4; John 15:7) say, ‘Abide in me, and I in you,' and ‘If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you.'