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Joh_6:51. Continuation of the exposition concerning the bread of life, which He is. “I am not only the life-giving bread ( ὁ ἄρτος τ . ζωῆς , Joh_6:48); I am also the living bread; he who eats thereof shall live for ever,” because the life of this bread is imparted to the partaker of it. Comp. Joh_5:26, Joh_14:19. Observe the threefold advance: (1) ὁ ἄρτος τ . ζωῆς , Joh_6:48, and ὁ ἄρτος ὁ ζῶν , Joh_6:51; (2) the universal καταβαίνων , Joh_6:50, and the historically concrete καταβάς , Joh_6:51; (3) the negative μὴ ἀποθάνῃ , Joh_6:50, and the positive ζήσεται εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα , Joh_6:51.
καὶ ὁ ἄρτος δὲ ὃν ἐγὼ δώσω ] Christ is the bread, and He will also give it (consequently give Himself); how this is to take place, He now explains. The advance lies in ὃν ἐγὼ δώσω ; hence also the καὶ δέ which carries on the discourse, and the emphatic repetition of the thought, ἣν ἐγὼ δώσω . Translate: “and the bread also which I (I on my part, ἐγώ ) will give [instead now of saying: is myself, He expresses what He means more definitely] is my flesh,” etc. Concerning καὶ … δέ , atque etiam, καὶ being and, and δέ expressing the idea on the other hand, see in particular Krüger, and Kühner, ad Xen. Mem. i. 1. 3; Bäumlein, Partik. p. 149. It often introduces, as in this case, something that is specially important. See Bremi, ad Dem. Ol. II. p. 173. Observe, moreover, that what Christ promises to give is not external to His own Person (against Kling in the Stud. u. Krit. 1836, p. 142 f.).
ἡ σάρξ μού ἐστιν ] He promises to give His flesh, i.e. by His bloody death, to which He here, as already in Joh_2:19, and to Nicodemus, Joh_3:14-15, prophetically points. Σάρξ is the living corporeal substance; this His living corporeity Christ will give, give up, that it may he slain ( ἣν ἐγὼ δώσω ), in order that thereby, as by the offering of the propitiatory sacrifice,[237] He may be the means of procuring eternal life for mankind, i.e. ὑπὲρ (for the benefit of) Τῆς ΤΟῦ ΚΌΣΜΟΥ ΖΩῆς ; comp. 1Jn_4:10; 1Jn_4:14. But as the atoning efficacy which this giving up of His flesh has, must be inwardly appropriated by faith, Christ’s σάρξ , according to the figure of the bread of life, inasmuch as He means to give it up to death, appears as the bread which He will give to be partaken of ( ὃν ἐγὼ δώσω ). In the repeated ΔΏΣΩ there lies the ἙΚΟΎΣΙΟΝ of the surrender (Euthymius Zigabenus). But observe the difference of reference, that of the first ΔΏΣΩ to the giving up for eating, and that of the second to the giving up to death.[238] That eating is the spiritual manducatio,[239] the inward, real appropriation of Christ which, by means of an ever-continuing faith that brings about this appropriation, and makes our life the life of Christ within us (Gal_2:20; Eph_3:17), takes place with regard to all the benefits which Christ “carne sua pro nobis in mortem tradita et sanguine suo pro nobis effuso promeruit.” Forma Concordiae, p. 744. On the idea of the life of Christ in believers, see on Php_1:8. On σάρξ , so far as it was put to death in Christ by His crucifixion, comp. 1Pe_3:18; Eph_2:14; Col_1:20 ff.; Heb_10:20. This explanation, which refers the words to Christ’s propitiatory death, is that of Augustine, Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, Beza, Aretius, Grotius, Calovius, Wetstein, Lampe, and most others, also of Kuinoel, Lücke, Tholuck, Ammon, Neander, J. Müller (Diss. 1839), Lange, Ebrard, Dogma v. Abendm. I. p. 78 ff.; Keim, in the Jahrb. f. d. Theol. 1859, p. 109 ff.; Weiss; comp. also Ewald, Kahnis (Dogmat. I. p. 624), Godet.[240] Others, following Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Basil, have understood by σάρξ the entire human manifestation of the Logos, which He offered up for the world’s salvation, including therein His death (so in modern times, in particular, Paulus, D. Schulz, Lehre vom Abendm., B. Crusius, Frommann, De Wette, Baeumlein; comp. Schleiermacher, L. J. p. 345, and Reuss). Not only is the future δώσω opposed to this view, but the drinking of the blood in Joh_6:53 still more distinctly points to Christ’s death as exclusively meant; because it would not be apparent why Jesus, had He intended generally that collective dedication of Himself, should have used expressions to describe the appropriation of it, which necessarily and directly point to and presuppose His death. That general consecration was already affirmed in ἐγὼ εἰμι ὁ ἄρτος , κ . τ . λ .; the advance from being and giving now demands something else, a concrete act, viz. His atoning death and the shedding of His blood. This tells also against the profounder development of the self-communication of Jesus which is said to be meant here, and is adopted by Hengstenberg and Hofmann (Schriftbew. II. 2, p. 245 ff.), following Luther;[241] viz. that faith in the human nature of Jesus eats and drinks the life of God, or that His life-giving power is bound up in His flesh, i.e. in His actual human manifestation (Brückner). Others, again, have explained it of the Lord’s Supper; viz. Chrysostom, Cyril, Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus, most of the Fathers (among the Latin Fathers, Cyprian, Hilary, perhaps also Augustine, etc.) and Catholic writers, also Klee and Maier, further, Calixtus too, strongly opposed by Calovius; and among moderns, Scheibel, Olshausen, Kling in the Stud. u. Krit. 1836, p. 140 ff.; Lindner, Köstlin, Delitzsch in Rudelbach’s Zeitschrift, 1845, ii. p. 29; Kaeuffer in the Sächs. Stud. 1846, p. 70 ff.; Kahnis, Abendm. p. 104 ff.; Luthardt; Richter in the Stud. u. Krit. 1863, p. 250; further, while also calling in question the genuineness of the discourse, Bretschneider, Strauss, Weisse, Baur, Hilgenfeld, and many others. Thus, as Joh_3:5 refers to baptism, we have now, it is said, a reference to the second sacrament. This explanation[242] has already this against it, that the eating and drinking is regarded as continuous (Joh_6:56); and, moreover, it can be maintained only by surrendering the authenticity of John. But if this be assumed, and the discourse be regarded as historical, Jesus could not Himself speak in the manner in which He here does of the Lord’s Supper. Had this been His reference, He would have spoken inappropriately, and in terms which differ essentially from His own mode of expression at the institution of the holy meal, irrespective of the fact that a discourse upon the Lord’s Supper at this time would have been utterly incomprehensible to His hearers, especially to the Ἰουδαίοι who were addressed. Moreover, there nowhere occurs in the Gospels a hint given beforehand of the Supper which was to be instituted; and therefore, that this institution was not now already in the thoughts of Jesus (as Godet, following Bengel and others, maintains), but was the product of the hour of the Supper itself, appears all the more likely, seeing how utterly groundless is the assumption based on Joh_6:4, that Jesus, in the feeding of the multitude, improvised a paschal feast. To this it must be added, that the promise of life which is attached to the eating and drinking could apply only to the case of those who worthily partake. We would therefore have to assume that the reporter John (see especially Kaeuffer, l.c.; comp. also Weisse, B. Crusius, Köstlin, etc.) had put this discourse concerning the Lord’s Supper into the mouth of Christ; and against this it tells in general, that thus there would be on John’s part a misconception, or rather an arbitrariness, which, granting the genuineness of the Gospel, cannot be attributed to this most trusted disciple and his vivid recollections; and in particular, that the drinking of the blood, if it were, as in the Lord’s Supper, a special and essential part, would not have remained unmentioned at the very end of the discourse, Joh_6:57-58; and that, again, the evangelist would make Jesus speak of the Lord’s Supper in terms which lie quite beyond the range of the N. T., and which belong to the mode of representation and language of the apostolic Fathers and still later writers (see the passages in Kaeuffer, p. 77 ff.; Rückert, p. 274 f.; Hilgenfeld, Evang. p. 278).[243] This is specially true of the word σάρξ , for which all places in the N. T. referring to the Lord’s Supper (Mat_26:26 ff.; Mar_14:22 ff.; Luk_24:24 ff.; 1Co_11:23 ff.) have σῶμα ; so that here accordingly there ought to have been stated the identity, not of the bread and the flesh (which Baur in particular urges), but of the bread and the body; while with reference to the blood, the element identified (the wine) ought also to have been mentioned. Further, the passage thus taken would speak of the literal “eating and drinking” of the flesh and blood, which is a much later materializing of the N. T. κοινωνία in the Lord’s Supper; and lastly, the absolute necessity of this ordinance,[244] which Joh_6:53 ff. would thus assert, is not once mentioned thus directly by the Fathers of the first centuries; whereas the N. T., and John in particular, make faith alone the absolutely necessary condition of salvation. Had John been speaking of the Lord’s Supper, he must have spoken in harmony with the N. T. view and mode of expression, and must have made Jesus speak of it in the same way. But the discourse, as it lies before us, if taken as referring to the Lord’s Supper, would be an unexampled and utterly inconceivable ὕστερον πρότερον ; and therefore even the assumption that at least the same idea which lay at the root of the Lord’s Supper, and out of which it sprang, is here expressed (Olshausen, Kling, Lange, Tholuck, etc.; comp. Kahnis, Keim, Luthardt, Hengstenberg, Ewald, Godet), is only admissible so far as the appropriation of Christ’s life, brought about by faith in His death, which here is enjoined with such concrete vividness as absolutely necessary,[245] likewise constitutes the sacred and fundamental basis presupposed in the institution of the Supper and forms the condition of its blessedness; and therefore the application of the passage to the Lord’s Supper (but at the same time to baptism and to the efficacy of the word) justly, nay necessarily, arises. Comp. the admirable remarks of Harless, p. 130 ff.
According to Rückert (Abendm. p. 291 f.), the discourse is not intended by Jesus to refer to the Supper, but is so intended by John, through whose erroneous and crude method of apprehension the readers are supposed to be taught, whether they themselves believed in an actual eating of the flesh and drinking of the blood, or whether this was a stumbling-block to them. An interpretation this which is neither indicated by the text nor has any historical basis.
Upon the history of the interpretation of our text, see Lücke, ed. 2, App. 2; Lindner, vom Abendm. p. 241 ff.; Tischendorf, De Christo pane vitae, 1839, p. 15 ff.; Mack, Quartalschr. 1832, I. p. 52 ff.; Kahnis, p. 114 ff.; Rückert, p. 273 ff. The exposition which takes it to refer to faith in the atoning death forms the basis of Zwingle’s doctrine of the Eucharist. See Dieckhoff, evangel. Abendmahlslehre, I. p. 440.
[237] Not that by the death of Jesus the barrier of the independent individuality existing between the Logos and the human being is destroyed. See against this explanation (Köstlin, Reuss), so foreign to John, Weiss, Lehrbegr. p. 65 ff.
[238] The words ἣν ἐγὼ δώσω are wanting in B C D L T à , a few cursives, several versions (following Vulg. It.), and Fathers (even Origen twice), and are rejected by Lachm., Ewald, Tisch., Baeumlein, Harless. The preponderance of testimony is certainly against them; and in omitting them we should not, with Kling, take ἡ σάρξ μου as in apposition with ὁ ἄρτος (see, on the contrary, Rückert, Abendm. p. 259), but simply render it: “the bread which I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world” (the former is the latter for the life of the world). But this short pregnant mode of expression is so little like John, and the repetition of ἣν ἐγὼ δώσω is so completely Johannean, that I feel compelled to retain the words as genuine, and to regard their omission as a very early error, occasioned by the occurrence of the same words a little before. Following à , Tischendorf now reads, after κ . ὁ ἄρτ . δὲ : ὃν ἐγὼ δώσω ὑπὲρ τῆς τοῦ κόσμου ζωῆς , ἡ σάρξ μου ἐστίν . This is manifestly an arrangement resorted to in order to asssign to the words ὑπ . τ . τ . κ . ζωῆς the place which, in the absence of ἣν ἐγὼ δώσω , seemed to belong to them. Baeumlein supposes that ὑπ . τ . τ . κ . ζωῆς is an ancient gloss.
[239] The expression “resurrection of the flesh” cannot be justified from John 6, as Delitzsch, Psychol. p. 460 [E. T. p. 541], supposes. If it cannot be justified by anything in St. Paul, which Delitzsch admits, it can least of all by anything in St. John. When, indeed, Delitzsch says (p. 339), “The flesh of Christ becomes in us a tincture of immortality, which, in spite of corruption, sustains the essence of our flesh, in order one day at the resurrection to assimilate also His manifestation to itself,” we can only oppose to such fancies, “Ne ultra quod scriptum est.”
[240] Who, however, attaches great importance to the corporeal side of the real fellowship of believers with Christ, by virtue of which they will become at the resurrection the reproduction of the glorified Christ, referring to Eph_5:30. The eating and drinking alone are figurative, while the not merely spiritual, but also bodily appropriation, must, according to him, be taken literally. This, however, is not required by the ἀναστήσω αὐτὸν , κ . τ . λ ., ver. 54, which we already had in ver. 39, and is not even admissible by ver. 63.
[241] “Therefore one eats and drinks the Godhead in His human nature.—This flesh does not carnalize, but will deify thee, i.e. give thee divine power, virtue, and work, and will take away sins,” and so on (Pred. Dom. Oculi).
[242] A view which Luther decidedly opposed previous to the controversy regarding the Lord’s Supper. In the heading or gloss he says: “This chapter does not speak of the sacrament of the bread and wine, but of spiritual eating, i.e. of the belief that Christ, both God and man, hath shed His blood for us.”
[243] Hilgenfeld calls the passages in Justin, Apol. i. 66; Ignatius, ad Smyrn. 7, ad Romans 7, an admirable commentary upon our text. They would, indeed, be so if our evangelist himself were a post-apostolic writer belonging to the second century.
[244] Its limitation to the Contemtus sacramenti (Richter) is a dogmatic subterfuge which has no foundation in the text.
[245] “He makes it so that it could not be plainer, in order that they might not think that he was speaking of something else, or of anything that was not before their eyes; but that He was speaking of Himself.”—LUTHER.