What did Jesus mean in John 6:54? - J.I.Packer

What did Jesus mean in John 6:54 where he says, "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life ..."? Is he referring to Communion?[1]

The answer is what lies before and after in the Gospel of John.

J. I. Packer

The reference Jesus made to eating his flesh and drinking his blood is a metaphorical way of describing the person who draws on, claims, or lays hold of the reality of his atoning sacrifice by putting personal faith in him. We've constantly got to come back to that.

The Gospels capture that from beginning to end. Jesus is a person who confronts us through his Word. And when we realize that he's confronting us, then we have to respond to him. That's the ground, the base, of what's being said in this passage. The flesh and the blood are words which point to Jesus' death as a sacrifice, but it's eating "me" that Jesus talks about—in other words, receiving him as he confronts us in his character as Savior and Lord.

The commentators say different things about this passage, but these references do not directly relate to the Lord's Supper; instead they refer to what the Lord's Supper is about—Christ's upcoming sacrifice on Calvary. The Jews were understandably bewildered because they didn't know that Calvary was coming, and so they scratched their heads and asked the question which at that stage was unanswerable, really: "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

And what's flanking it on both sides is material in which the idea of eating Jesus is prominent and central. You eat the bread of life. Jesus makes it plain that means coming to him, which is the heart of the matter—an encounter with the Christ who confronts you. He goes right on to the end of the discourse, talking about eating his flesh and drinking his blood and having life as a result of doing so.

Put all of that in the framework of John's Gospel. There have been five chapters of John's Gospel leading up to this point; they establish the frame of reference into which eating Jesus' flesh and drinking his blood actually fits. Come to him and believe in him as Nicodemus was taught to do (John 3), as were the woman at the well and the other folk from Sychar in the next chapter. And in chapter five, you've got the reality of Jesus healing the cripple, and restoring to him a life that he didn't have before.

It all adds up, you see. And this is something that I find myself wanting to say over and over again to people who ask me about difficult Scriptures. If you read what leads up to them in the book from which they come, again and again you'll find that the problem answers itself, because the foundation for resolving it has already been laid.

[Emphasis is mine]

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[1] http://www.christianitytoday.com/biblestudies/bible-answers/theology/eternallife.html  Copyright © 2009 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian Bible Studies.

The Holy Spirit Does Not Interpret the Scriptures

I hear some talk from time to time that disturbs me. The statements appear something like this: “The Holy Spirit helps me understand the passage.”  Or, “I let the Holy Spirit teach me what it means.”  On one level this is right and good.  But on another level it is dangerous, misleading and false.

If you were dealing with a text of Scripture that seemed unclear or uncertain to you, and you told me that the Holy Spirit revealed the truth of it to you, I’d ask you how you knew that it was the Holy Spirit!  It might be shocking to you to hear these words but it is critically important to you to know that on an immediate level the Holy Spirit does not interpret Scripture.  He does not mediate direct thoughts to you that clarifies the meaning of a text.  Scripture interprets Scripture.  It is the hard work of exegesis, applied hermeneutics, cross-referencing and biblical theology that interprets Scripture.

The Holy Spirit is the authorial agent of Scripture, so if you mean that through careful study of the canon, the Holy Spirit interprets the text, you are safe and right.  The Holy Spirit’s immediate function is to illuminate the passage.  He by grace applies the passage to our lives.  He points out areas where we need to learn, need to be rebuked, corrected are taught how to live in holiness.  But in terms of immediacy, the Holy Spirit does not interpret the text.

Now many use the passage found in John 16:13 (ESV): “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.”  I ask the question “Is this verse written to the Church?”   I agree with the ESV Study Bible notes that show:

“The Spirit’s ministry of guiding Jesus’ followers into all the truth is a promise especially directed toward these 11 disciples, and it finds particular fulfillment in the subsequent work of these disciples in personally writing or overseeing the writing of the books of the NT (see note on 14:26). The promise, like the other things that Jesus says in these chapters, also has a broader application to all believers as the Holy Spirit leads and guides them (see Rom. 8:14; Gal. 5:18).”^[1]

This passage was not written to us, albeit it is for us.  This is a marvellous promise whereby we now have the New Testament. But if we apply the “broader meaning” of the passage we can readily see that it is referring to the Spirit’s work of illuminating and guiding the believer toward killing sin, holiness.  The Spirit is not interpreting the text, He is applying the text.

Indeed, proper study requires the Holy Spirit’s work of purifying the heart, cleansing the motives and reminding us of our desperate need to rely on Him.  But the Holy Spirit does not do the reading, study, exegetical work for us.  He has done that by giving us a lucid, canon of Scripture with the abilities to read and comprehend the Bible in our own native language. 

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^[1] Crossway Bibles. (2008). The ESV Study Bible (p. 2057). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.