BELIEVING
John 6
On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”
If you were there, listening to Jesus saying what he said about bread and water, body and blood, spirit and life, you would have a pretty tough time too, I think, unless you already have the context of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and an understanding of the Gospel message.
But Jesus’ response (“Does this offend you? Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before!”) gives us a clue as to the core issue for these disciples, which is the same as that of the crowd: the identity of Jesus. They could not accept Jesus’ claim to deity.
However, when you read over what Jesus said, you will realise that his core point is not about his deity but rather that his mission is to bring life (“This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”) It is one thing to understand who he is, it is another to believe that it is his God-authorised mission to pave the way that we may have life, that it is for our sake.
And this helps us to see that Jesus was indeed answering the question the crowd posed—“What must we do to do the works God requires?” —and elaborating on the answer he gave—“The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
So what does it mean to believe in Jesus?
It is to respond to him as divine (“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God”), to trust that his mission is God-authorised (Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.) and therefore certain and dependable (All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.) It is to die and gain a new life (“Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”) and to (subsequently) feed on him as our (spiritual) food (Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains (abides) in me, and I in them.) because he is our Vine and we are the branches.
“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”