Christ, as the bread of life, is embodied in the Word of life. Although the Spirit is wonderful, it is too mysterious. We need something solid, visible, tangible, and touchable—the Word of life. In verse 63 the Lord says that “the words which I have spoken unto you are spirit and are life.” The Word is substantial.
The “words” in this verse is rhema in Greek, which means the instant and present spoken word. It differs from logos, which means the constant word, as in John 1:1. At this point, the words follow the Spirit. The Spirit is living and real, but rather mysterious, intangible, and difficult for people to apprehend, but the words are substantial. Firstly, the Lord indicated that for giving life He would become the Spirit. Then He said that the words He speaks are spirit and life. This shows that His spoken words are the embodiment of the life-giving Spirit. He is now the life-giving Spirit in resurrection, and the Spirit is embodied in His words. When we receive His words by exercising our spirit, we receive the Spirit who is life.
The Word is outside of us. When I receive the Word into me, it immediately becomes the Spirit. When I speak the Word out, the Spirit once again becomes the Word. When you receive the Word into you, the Word becomes the Spirit once more, and when you speak the Word out, it becomes the Spirit again. When we preach the gospel, we are actually preaching the Word. When people believe the gospel, they believe the Word. As strange as it may seem, when people receive the Word, the Word actually becomes the Spirit within them. For example, if you came to the Lord through John 3:16, you might have prayed, “Lord, I thank You that You are so good to me. You have given Your Son to me.” What happened within you when you believed these words? When you believed these words, something within you was quickened and became living. I do not mean that you received some knowledge in your mentality, but that something became so living in your heart and spirit. You believed the Word, yet you received the Spirit. The Word outside of you became the Spirit inside of you. It was the Word without, but it became the Spirit within. When you listened to the Word and received it, you somehow received the Spirit also. This is very mysterious and marvelous.
The Lord is the Spirit and the Word. The resurrected Christ is the Spirit, the Spirit is the Word, the Word is the Spirit, and the Spirit is the resurrected Lord for us to enjoy. Now we know what He is and where He is. Hence, when we contact the Word in spirit, we are actually contacting the Lord Himself as the living bread. When we receive the Word in spirit, we are receiving Christ Himself as the abundant supply of life. Now, day by day, we are participating in this wonderful, resurrected Christ as our food, life, and life-supply. He is the Spirit that gives life and He is the Word of life.
In verse 68 Simon Peter said something very interesting. “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” This chapter closes with the Word of life, which is the only way to receive the Lord. The problem today boils down to the Word. If you receive the Word, you will have the Spirit within; if you have the Spirit within, then you have Christ as the inner supply of life.
We have seen six steps whereby Christ has made Himself available for us to receive—incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, becoming the life-giving Spirit, and being embodied in the Word of life. The Lord has been incarnated, crucified, resurrected, ascended, has been transfigured from the flesh into the Spirit, and has been embodied in the Word. The Word is the embodiment of the Spirit of the Lord. You cannot say that you do not know how to contact the Lord, for the Lord has been embodied in the Word. He is the Spirit and the Word. If you receive the Word, you will have the Spirit as your enjoyment of Christ.
Now we may appreciate the difference between the human concept and the divine thought. The human, religious concept is what the Jews asked in verse 28: “What shall we do that we may work the works of God?” Throughout the Scriptures, it is only in this chapter that the religious Jews asked such a question. Religious teaching always exhorts us to do and do. Man’s concept is doing; God’s thought is believing.
The work that God desired and predestinated for us to do is to believe into His Son. The preposition “in” in verse 29 (“on” in KJV) should be translated as “into” according to the Greek text. The Lord Jesus did not tell us to believe Him, but to believe into Him. John 6 shows two ways of believing—to believe Him and to believe into Him. After the Lord answered their question, the Jews retorted in verse 30, saying, “What sign will you do that we may see and believe you? What work will you do?” They said, “Believe you,” but that was not what the Lord said. The Lord told them to “believe into Him.” The preposition is exactly the same as that used in Romans 6:3 for “baptized into Christ.” As we have seen, to believe Him means to believe that He is true and that everything about Him is right. But to believe into Him means to receive Him and to be united and mingled with Him as one. When you believe into Him, there is a union and a oneness between you and Christ. In other words, you have come into Him and have received Him into you. According to the divine thought, there is nothing for us to do but to believe into Christ and receive Him into us day by day.
“He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me and I in Him.” For us, the work of God is nothing other than eating Christ, receiving Him, and living by Him. We must be adjusted in our human concept about working for God. Daily we must eat Christ in order to live by Christ. Several times in this chapter the Lord says that he who eats Him shall live by Him (6:51, 57, 58). Today’s problem is not work, but life. What kind of life do you live? Are you satisfied with the life you are living? If you do not eat and drink of Christ, you simply do not have life. If you do not have life, how can you live? Verse 53 says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves.” The divine thought is not to work for God, but to take Christ as our food and drink. By eating and drinking of Christ, we shall be filled with Christ. Then we can properly live for God.
The strongest and strangest sentence in the entire Bible is verse 57. “As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me shall also live because of Me.” The Lord who is the Almighty God and the Creator of the universe exhorts us to eat Him. Man could never have such a thought. If this word had not been spoken by the Lord, I believe that none of us would possess enough courage to say that we must eat the Lord. Of course, we can say that we must worship and fear the Lord, trust and obey the Lord, pray and work for the Lord. We may use many other verbs to explain what we must do for the Lord, but we would be afraid to think that we should eat Him. We all must eat three meals a day in order to live. In other words, we live by eating. Likewise, we must eat the Lord so that we can live by the Lord. The most important point in the whole chapter of John 6 is that the Lord is our food, the bread of life. To eat Him is not a once-for-all matter. It is a daily matter and even a moment by moment experience of the Lord. Whether in the East or West, people continually eat so that they may live. So, we all must also contact the Lord and eat Him. We are not merely weak people, but hungry people who need the Lord as our life supply. The Lord is edible because He is the bread of life. He is as edible as a piece of bread. We must exercise our spirit to feed on Him as the Word and as the Spirit. Then we shall receive Him into us, digest Him, experience Him, and apply Him moment by moment. This is all—there is nothing else. We must forget about our doing and our working and learn to eat Christ and live by what we have eaten of Him. This is the divine way of life for our daily living.