discipline they passed through in the wilderness had been to teach
them that '_man does not live by bread alone, but that by every word
which proceedeth out of the mouth of God, doth man live_.' He was
speaking to them as the members of a _nation_. He was telling them
that the endurance of their national polity from age to age would
depend not upon material bread, but upon another kind of nourishment
and strength which it would derive from an unseen Presence. The lesson
was repeated by every prophet, ratified by the darkest and the
brightest passages of Jewish history. They were a wise and
understanding people, strong and united,--however poor in numbers and
physical appliances,--just so far as they believed in a One God, who
watched over them, in whom they might confide. They were a
contemptible people, essentially weak, full of elements of strife and
dissolution,--however numerous they were, however rich,--when numbers
and riches became the objects of their worship, when the righteous and
living King was forgotten. Do you think that this, which is _the_
maxim of the Old Testament, is forgotten in the New? Do you think that
Jesus introduced a new law which set this law aside,--a law that had
reference to individuals merely, and not to societies? I believe that
the great misery and sin of the Jews, in the time when our Lord
appeared among them in the flesh, was that they had lost the feeling
of national unity,--that they had become mere covetous individuals,
herding together in sects, knit to each other by opinions and
antipathies, not by the sense of a common origin, a common country, a
common Lord. Jesus came to gather together the lost sheep of the house
of Israel under their true Shepherd. Jesus claimed publicans and
sinners as part of the same nation, as heirs of the same covenant with
the most devout. Jesus was in continual conflict with the sects,
because they were substituting a self-seeking religion for the faith
of Israelites. It is true that He was unfolding the faith of
Israelites into a human and universal faith; but in doing so, He was
establishing, not undermining, that which sustained the nation, and
must sustain every nation.
When, therefore, He answered those who spoke to Him of the manna which
their fathers ate in the wilderness, by telling them of the true Bread
which came down from Heaven, He was, I conceive, expounding the words
of Moses,--those which He had used in His own temptation. He was
showing that neither the life of Israel nor the life of humanity can
be sustained by earthly bread; that both demand another food; that He
could tell them what that food was, whence it came, how it might be
received. By keeping this thought in our minds through the latter part
of this wonderful discourse, I believe we shall do something to rescue
it from the fangs of systematisers and controversialists, as well as
to deduce needful instruction from it for England on this day.
The 40th verse of this chapter appears, as I observed last Sunday, to
close our Lord's dialogue with the people who had crossed the lake to
see Him, because they had eaten of the loaves on the previous day. An
interval has passed before the 41st verse. Then we hear of certain
Jews who were _murmuring_ at the words, '_I am the bread that came
down from heaven_.' These Jews, I conjectured, were Scribes belonging
to the synagogue of Capernaum,--men who had caught the notions and
habits of the Scribes in the capital, and yet could avail themselves
of the local prejudices of Galilæans. Their temper is clearly
indicated in the 42d verse:--'_And they said, Is not this Jesus the
son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that He
saith, I came down from heaven?_' The difficulty about Heaven, of
which I spoke last week, was really not less for the Scribe than for
the peasant,--only the one could talk learnedly about a second, or
third, or seventh heaven, while the other, more honestly and more
wisely, did not pretend to know about anything but the actual
firmament which was over his head. Yet the consciousness which man has
of some better heaven than this, was indicated by the confused
experiments of the former to conceive one, and dwelt in the heart of
the latter, awaiting some divine touch to call it forth. The spring
was touched when our Lord spoke of a Father; the new heaven which the
spirit of man in each man craves for, is contained in that name; where
the Father is, it is. If we demand a more accurate definition, we may
try our skill in framing it,--God's revelation will not help us. For
that revelation does not cheat us with formulas when we are in want of
realities; does not give us stones when we ask for bread.
Jesus, therefore, told the cavillers just what He had told the crowd.
'_Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to me, except the
Father which hath sent Me draw him: and I will raise him up at the
last day._' All their reasonings and debatings would not bring them
nearer to Heaven or to Him, than the feet and the eyes of the people
who had eaten of the loaves had brought them. The Father of spirits
must draw their spirits to Him who was the source of their life and
light, whom He had sent to raise their spirits out of their darkness
and death; when they were drawn, when they did embrace Him as their
deliverer and friend, no death of the body, no darkness of the grave,
should have power over them; He will raise them up to the fulness of
life in the last day.
Was this new doctrine? '_Was it not written in their Prophets, Ye
shall be all taught of God?_' Was it not the very promise,--the
highest promise,--to the people of God's covenant, to those who were
circumcised and withdrawn from fleshly idols, that they should hear
His voice speaking to them? What did that promise imply but that God
was a Father who was educating the creatures who are formed in His
image to know that image? '_Every man therefore that hath heard and
learnt of the Father, cometh unto Me._' 'He comes to Me as that Word
who was in the beginning with the Father,--as that Word who has been,
and is, and will be always, the light of men.'
'_Not_--He goes on--_that any man hath seen the Father, save He which
is of God, He hath seen the Father_.' It is not that any man has had a
vision of Him who, by a thousand mysterious influences, is every hour
acting upon him, and whom he has either obeyed or resisted; only He
who is of God--only the Son, who has come forth from the Father--has
had this vision; only He has entered into that Love which has been
guiding the universe, and penetrating into the hearts of human beings.
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.
It is the next passage which contains the words that I have chosen for
my text. '_Many therefore of His disciples, when they had heard this,
said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it? When Jesus knew in
Himself that His disciples murmured at it, He said unto them, Doth
this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up
where He was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh
profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit,
and they are life. But there are some of you that believe not. For
Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who
should betray Him. And He said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man
can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father._'
Why does the allusion to the Ascension occur here? What has it to do
with the previous discourse? I think brethren, that here again the
history of Christendom is the interpreter of the words of Christ. It
has been a '_hard saying_,' that we must eat the flesh and drink the
blood of Christ, in order that we may have life in us. To make that
'_hard saying_' easier to the understanding, easier to the flesh,
various devices have been resorted to. One has been that to which I
alluded just now, of representing the saying as only metaphorical.
Another has been that of supposing that we may eat the flesh and drink
the blood of Christ, provided He descends into the bread and wine of
the Eucharist, and transmutes them into His body and blood. I call
this hypothesis an experiment to make the words which were hard,
easier to the carnal understanding. I fully admit that there has been
a Nemesis of that understanding. That which was framed to aid its
conceptions, has become the most intolerable bondage to it. Decrees
must compel it, under awful penalties, to accept the explanation which
its impatience craved for. And what has been the consequence? The
blessed and elevating mystery which this week speaks of, has been
practically lost sight of. The ascended Christ, at the right hand of
the Father, has been thought at a hopeless and incredible distance
from the suppliant upon earth. The glorified Humanity has been
entirely overshadowed by the thought of the cradle at Bethlehem. One
vast section of Christendom has acknowledged the words,--'_Except ye
eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life
in you_.' But it has denied that other sentence which proceeded from
the same lips,--'_It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh
profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you_, _they are
spirit, and they are life_.' The spirit in man is as impatient of
those fetters that bind it to the earth, as the carnal understanding
is of all that is not of the earth, earthy. The message which Christ
brings from the living Father to that spirit is,--'I can raise you
above the earth; I can enable you to share those treasures of wisdom,
and righteousness, and love which are the treasures of the kingdom of
heaven. I can make you partakers of that Divine Humanity which I have
redeemed and exalted to the Father's right hand.' And our gospel to
the spirit of man is; Either you must feed metaphorically upon
Christ's flesh and blood, or you must force yourselves to think that
He is come down again into lower and baser conditions than those which
He took when He 'did not abhor the Virgin's womb!'