The Gospel of St. John: A Series of Discourses. / New Edition

by Frederick Denison Maurice

This doctrine respecting the Father and the Son, which we have been tracing through every passage of this Gospel—which we have found to lie beneath all its other announcements—is the necessary preparation for the answer which He makes to the murmurers:—'Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. And the bread which I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.'

This contrast between these two kinds of life has gone with us through this discourse, as well as through all our Lord's previous discourses: we ought by this time to be sufficiently familiar with it. The eternal life we have found is the life of the spirit; the life which is supported by material bread is the life of the flesh. Faith or belief is here, as elsewhere, described to be the proper act and exercise of the spirit, as feeding upon bread is the natural act or exercise of the flesh. That which is presented to the spirit must be as real as that which is presented to the flesh. The spirit cannot provide its own nourishment; faith cannot create its own object. Jesus says, 'He that believeth hath eternal life.' He adds, 'I am that bread of life.' 'I am the Word of Life to man at all times, whether he knows it or not—whether he desires a heavenly life, or is content with an earthly life. And as your fathers received manna from God to sustain the life of that body which was to die at its appointed season, I, the Word of Life, have come from God to sustain the life of the spirit—to keep that from perishing, to give it the immortality which He intended for it. I am the living Bread which came down from Heaven; I am that Word, in whom is life, made flesh. If any man acknowledge Me as that Word of Life—if his spirit participates of that life which is in Me—he shall live for ever; and this flesh which I have taken, which I have united to My living and eternal substance, I will give for the life of the world.'

I keep closely to the letter of the Evangelist. I dare not depart from it; and I dare not seek the interpretation of it anywhere but in himself. There are a hundred scholastical interpretations of the reason why the Son of God was made Man—why His death was necessary for the deliverance of men. Those who think these explanations better than St. John's may make what use they can of them. I find in St. John all that I want—infinitely more than I can embrace. I will try, with God's help, to learn what the Spirit is saying to us by him before I look elsewhere.

When He says, 'The bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world,' does He speak of His death on the cross? Does He speak of some mysterious life which He will communicate to those who truly believe in Him? Does He speak of that Sacrament which we believe that He has commanded us to receive? You know how these questions have been debated in all times—how they are debated now. Perhaps we are on the point of a tremendous conflict on this very subject—a conflict which, however slight in its beginnings, may in its issues be more serious and practical than the one from which we have just escaped. Do not, therefore, let us evade the question, or any of the great moral difficulties which are involved in it. Do not let us strive to discover a poor unsatisfactory compromise upon it. Do not let us treat with contempt or indifference any of the earnest feelings which are enlisted on one side or another of it. One man or another may be condemned; there may be shouts of party triumph, or groans of defeat. What are all these when the question is about the life of the world, the life of eternity—about that which is to be when we are all standing together before an all-righteous Judge, to answer for the idle words we have spoken against each other, and for our mockeries of His Name? If we are giving thanks to God for peace, in the Name of God let us be labouring for peace—such peace as He only can give us!

Let us be sure, then, that when Christ speaks of giving His flesh, He does mean, as all have supposed Him to mean, that He would give up His body to die upon the cross. Let us be sure that, when He speaks of giving His flesh for the life of any, He must speak of a real, hidden, divine life, such as he has been speaking of throughout. Let us be sure, lastly, that when He speaks of giving up His flesh for the life of the world, He must mean that the blessing which He would confer by giving up His flesh would be one for mankind—for the whole earth—not for a little portion of mankind,—not for a few inhabitants of the earth. Whether I can grasp these truths or not, I must acknowledge them all to be true, if I acknowledge the Gospel to be true; I must believe that God understands them, if I do not. And this is what I mean when I come to the Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ. I do come to give thanks there that in Him is the life of the world, and that He gave His flesh for the life of the world. I do not want a separate life either here or hereafter. I come to renounce that separate life, to disclaim it, to say what a wretch I have been for pretending to have it, for trying to create it. I come to say that I find a separate life to be a detestable and damnable life—another name for death. I come to say, that if God leaves me to that separate life, I know that I am doomed to the second death,—the eternal death; but that I understand that the Son of God, by sacrificing Himself, has given me a share and a property in another life—the common life, the universal life which is in Him; and that, understanding this, I have come to give God thanks for it—thanks for myself, thanks for my brethren, thanks for the universe; and I have come to pray that, through His Son, He will deliver me, and my brethren, and the universe from that separate and selfish life which is the cause of all our woes and miseries, spiritual and fleshly, inward and outward.

In this way, brethren, I reconcile the faith in that sacrifice which was made once for all—the full sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world—with that faith in each man to which Christ promises eternal life. In this way, I believe that the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper explains and justifies both truths, not because there is some strange mingling in the elements of a body which must be received,—whether there is a spiritual organ to receive it or not,—but because it testifies to man of the eternal Lord of his spirit—of the Word who is his life, of the Word who was made flesh for the life of the world. I regard that Sacrament as looking backward to the beginning, onward to the end of all things—as speaking of Him from whom all things have proceeded, and in whom all shall be gathered up, whether things in heaven or things in earth. I do not think St. John had anything new to tell us respecting the Lord's Supper: it was already adopted in all the churches. Though he dwells so much on the last passover, he does not record again the breaking of the bread and the pouring out of the wine. He had a different task. He had to show why that act was not a formal religious ceremony, the badge of a profession; he had to show the eternal law upon which it rested—the ground there is for it in the relations of God and man. If you ask me, then, whether he is speaking of the Eucharist here,—I should say, 'No.' If you ask me where I can learn the meaning of the Eucharist,—I should say, 'Nowhere so well as here; for here I find the very signification of the sign. Here I may discover what the Eucharist has been to Christendom—what it has been to each man who has desired to be one of the great Christendom family—what it may be as a means of binding that family together—how it may become a bond to nations which are as yet lying beyond the circle of that family.'

But, first, we must learn how hard it is to acknowledge either the sign or its signification. 'The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?' That strife which began in the synagogue of Capernaum has gone on, in every nation of the modern world in which the name of Christ has been proclaimed, even to this day. Some think they can quiet their own minds, and settle all debate, by saying, 'Of course, the eating is metaphorical.' But I do not find that the use of that phrase has brought much contentment to any living soul. I do not think that any man's spirit can be satisfied with the bare imagination of a feast any more than his body. When vain men feed upon praises,—when angry men feed upon the acts which provoke them to rage,—when men who have received kindnesses feed on these kindnesses,—when earnest patriots feed upon the deeds that have been done by those who have saved their country,—you may, if you please, call this fantastic, imaginary, metaphorical feeding. I know that the results are real; that the vain man does vain acts, and acquires a vain character; that the angry man does acts of revenge, and becomes in spirit, if not openly, a murderer; that all gentle acts come from that upon which the grateful man has nourished himself—all that is most blessed to mankind, from the courage and self-denial which the lover of his country has cultivated in himself. These skilful intellectual explanations of facts—the haughty and self-complacent formula, 'This only means'—may serve very well the purposes of those who write books; for those who have to live and die, they are good for nothing. They take for granted that which the conscience of mankind denies,—that which every language on the face of the earth denies,—that the words which represent acts of the senses, needs of the senses, the satisfaction of the senses, do not also represent acts of the spirit, needs of the spirit, the satisfaction of the spirit. They introduce an unreal middle world between the senses and the spirit—a world of shadows, from which the most absolute materialism is a deliverance; because that, at least, is honest, and because against that there must be a re-action.

The mere animal people, who had eaten of the loaves and were filled, did not strive and fight as these intellectual people of the synagogue did. They wanted actual food; they had real hunger, if the deeper and nobler hunger had not yet been awakened in them. To them Christ could offer Himself as the Bread of Life. He does so also to these; but it is in sterner and more terrible language. 'Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever. These things said He in the synagogue, as He taught in Capernaum.'

Our Lord does not argue with these men. He makes an assertion, appealing to the after-history of the world for the confirmation or refutation of it. I believe the history of Christendom, from beginning to end, is nothing else than a commentary on these words; that we may read it by the light of them. Immediately after the age of the Apostles, if not in the age of the Apostles, there arose sects which affirmed Christ to be a spiritual being, an emanation from God, but which utterly denied that He was the Word made flesh,—which were utterly scandalized at the notion that He actually and literally died upon the cross. The leaders of these sects were, many of them, very able men; they had perceived some high principles of the Gospel,—they had perceived the relation of those principles to the doctrines that were current both in Jewish and Heathen schools. They were not put down by the persecutions of their brethren, for they existed before the Church could persecute,—when it was the object of persecution. They were not in themselves offensive to the Roman empire, for they were like the religious or philosophical sects which it always tolerated; they were not politically dangerous. And yet these sects came to nothing. They had no cohesion,—they had no relation to humanity; in our Lord's simpler and higher language, 'they had no life in them;' for though they dwelt upon His spiritual nature, they did not feed upon His flesh and drink His blood.

Look on through all the centuries which follow. You find divisions, hatreds, secularity, hypocrisy in the Church; you find strifes about its doctrines,—about the relation of its ministers to each other,—about its relation to civil governments,—about its sacraments. What is it that has held this strange divided body together? What is it that enables us to say there has been such a thing as Christianity in the world,—that it has had an influence upon the civilization and order of the world? I can find but one answer. I do discover through all these ages the recognition of a Son of Man who actually took human flesh and blood,—who actually offered up that flesh, and poured out that blood upon the Cross. I do find that there has been here a common centre of life to all these ages,—something that has held them together in spite of their divisions and hatreds,—something that has been stronger than the division of castes, and classes, and sects, of the lord and the serf, of the prelate and the beggar. I do find the Cross the source of all that was noble, chivalrous, self-denying in the Middle Ages,—of all that was not base, tyrannical, superstitious. I do find the flesh and blood of Christ the strength of the Reformers, the bond of Protestants, the spring of all in them that has not been sectarian, disputatious, selfish, hateful. I cannot explain this in any other way than by believing that this flesh and blood of the Son of Man has been a divine food and drink, which has been ministered by God, in ways I know not, to Christian society, to Christian men, through all these times. I cannot but believe that there is a spiritual and eternal life in that flesh and blood which has given them this quickening power. I cannot account for that quickening power by any faith, or wisdom, or virtue which I see in Roman Catholics or Protestants,—in the members of one nation or Church or another. Whatever faith, or wisdom, or virtue, I do discern in them,—and, thank God, there is no corner of the earth, no moment of history, in which they may not be seen by those whose eyes are open,—I must trace to a higher source. I can find the only interpretation of it in the words,—'As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.' I must refer the Bread itself which has come down from heaven, and all the life of faith, and hope, and love that it has sustained, not to the creature, but to the Creator; not to the child, but to the living Father. I must suppose that He has been drawing men into the state for which He created them; that He has been proving that they were originally formed in His Son; that to be separated from the Son of Man is an unnatural, inhuman condition: that every good and blessed fruit which has grown on the soil of human nature, has been produced from union with Him.