ARTICULOS SOBRE YOHANAN
Believe in God; Believe in Me
What did Yeshua mean when he told us to believe in God and also in Him? The answer is in the Torah.
Flock of sheep and shepherd (Image: © Bigstock)
The Master’s words about His impending departure disturbed the disciples. Rabbi Yeshua knew that the turmoil and trauma of the hours to come would all but undo their faith—especially their faith in Him as the Messiah. He comforted them, “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me” (John 14:1). In other words, despite the turmoil to come, the disciples should not let their faith in God falter; neither should they doubt the Master. The words “believe in God” might be either imperative or indicative. He might have told them to believe in God and also in Him, or He might have said, “If you believe in God, believe also in Me.”
In either case, He seems to have alluded to an important passage from the Torah about the children of Israel placing faith not only in God but also in Moses, the servant of the LORD:
When Israel saw the great power which the LORD had used against the Egyptians, the people feared the LORD, and they believed in the LORD and in His servant Moses. (Exodus 14:31)
This teaches you that anyone who has faith in the shepherd of Israel, it is as if he believed in Him who spoke, and the world came into being. (Mechilta deRabbi Shimon bar Yochai)
The children of Israel proved their faith in God by believing in Moses. Our Master Yeshua is the prophet like Moses. Paul Levertoff says, “Through awakening faith in Himself He awakens faith in God.” Yeshua previously had told the disciples, “He who believes in Me, does not believe in Me but in Him who sent Me” (John 12:44). As the agent of God and manifest representative of the Father, He could tell His disciples, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).
A New Commandment
How can Yeshua give a “new commandment” when the Torah forbids adding and subtracting from the commandments?
Concept of a newly released version of the Bible that supersedes a
previous one. (Image: © FFOZ)
In the Messianic Era, men will live peacably with one another. Even the animals will dwell in peace. All of humanity will live in common fraternity. As the Messiah prepared to depart, He bequeathed the peace and love of the Messianic Era to His disciples. He gave them a “new commandment” that, if obeyed, would preserve the spirit of His presence among them: “Love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”
I am giving you a new mitzvah: that you love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. With this all will know that you are my disciples: if love dwells among you. (Yochanan 13:34-35)
How can Yeshua give a “new commandment” when the Torah forbids adding and subtracting from the commandments? Moses said, “Whatever I command you, you shall be careful to do; you shall not add to nor take away from it” (Deuteronomy 12:32).
The commandment was new in as much as Yeshua Himself bound it upon His disciples, but the commandment was not a novel innovation. Rather, it expanded on Leviticus 19:18: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Elsewhere, Yeshua taught His disciples that the other commandments of the Torah hung upon that central command. He considered the commandment of loving one’s neighbor second only to the command to love God.
Rather than loving one’s “neighbor” (which Yeshua defined broadly as one’s fellow human being), the new commandment refers to loving “one another,” that is, “the brethren,” specifically the other disciples of Yeshua. In the parable of the good Samaritan, Yeshua interpreted Leviticus 19:18 with a universal scope that embraced all of humanity. The love He called for in John 13:34, however, had a narrower focus—an intense devotion and affection for fellow believers.
Leviticus 19:18 calls upon us to love our fellow man as we love ourselves. Rather than loving others “as yourself,” the new commandment calls upon the disciple of Yeshua to love his fellow-disciple as the Master loved him. In other words, Yeshua calls upon us to love other believers with a love that transcends our love for fellow man. We are to love other believers as Yeshua loved us, sacrificially. He demonstrated His love for His disciples in service; setting aside His prestige, He took on the role of a servant, washed their feet, and offered His life in exchange for theirs. The Master’s type of love does not swim in sentimentality, nor does it demand internal, emotional affection; it calls for service, humility, deference, and self-sacrifice:
This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:12-13)
I Am the Bread of Life
Yeshua offered people “living water” and “the bread of life,” but what does that mean in practical terms? A passage from Isaiah unlocks his cryptic language.
'Living water' flows freely from a Judean desert spring in Israel, near
the Dead Sea. (Image @ Bigstock/kavram)
This saying does not deny that the manna in the wilderness came from heaven or even that the manna came by the agency of Moses. The Greek syntax lays the emphasis on the “true” nature of the messianic bread from heaven. In other words, the manna that came in the days of Moses was, indeed, bread from heaven, but not “true bread out of heaven.” Unlike the manna that came through the ministry of Moses, the true bread out of heaven “gives life to the world” (John 6:33).
The Master offered the people in the Capernaum synagogue true bread from heaven. If they ate of it, they would never again hunger or thirst. The true bread from heaven gives life to the world. He made a similar offer to the Samaritan woman at the well. He offered her living water, saying, “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14). The Samaritan woman misunderstood. She thought Yeshua offered her a literal, magical water. She said, “Master, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw” (John 4:15). The people in the Capernaum synagogue also took the Master’s offer of heavenly bread literally. They said to Him, “Master, always give us this bread” (6:34). The Samaritan woman and the people in the Capernaum synagogue did not look beyond the material-physical world.
Yeshua replied, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35).
He offered them imperishable food and water—eternal life. Like the host of a banquet, He invited the people to come, drink, and eat. The “living water” of John 4 and “bread of life” of John 6 allude to an important messianic passage from Isaiah:
Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in abundance. Incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that you may live …. (Isaiah 55:1-3)
In Isaiah, the one who comes to the waters and the one who comes to buy imperishable food is the same as the one who listens carefully: “Listen carefully to Me … Incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that you may live …” This clarifies things. Coming to Yeshua and partaking of the bread of life certainly requires believing in the one God has sent (6:29, 36), but believing in Yeshua includes listening to Him, heeding Him, believing His words, and submitting to His authority.
Yeshua is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Which Way? What Truth? And what Life?
Narrow path in the old city of Jerusalem (Image: Bigstock)
Yeshua had often forewarned the disciples of His impending suffering, death, and resurrection. Alluding back to those predictions during his farewell discourse, He said, “And you know the way where I am going” (John 14:4).
The disciples had never allowed themselves to take His death predictions literally. Always the pragmatist, Thomas shoved aside the cryptic references and objected, saying, “Master, we do not know where you are going, how do we know the way?” (John 14:5). Even if they did know where He was going, how could they know the way to where He is going? Can human beings find their way past the cross and the grave to reach the Father? How does a man find the house with many rooms of which he had spoken? Yeshua answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
What is “the way”? The Scriptures speak of Wisdom and Torah as the path of life, the way of the LORD, and the way of truth. “For the commandment is a lamp and the Torah is light; and reproofs for discipline are the way of life” (Proverbs 6:23). “The path of life leads upward for the wise that he may keep away from Sheol below” (Proverbs 15:24). King David said, “Teach me Your way, O LORD; I will walk in Your truth” (Psalm 86:11). He said, “I have chosen the faithful way; I have placed Your ordinances before me” (Psalm 119:30). After Yeshua’s resurrection, his disciples referred to their sect as “the Way.”
Yeshua words convey the sense, “If you know me, then you already know the way to the Father.” He is the way to the Father because He is the true revelation of God. “For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth” (John 18:37). As the way to the Father He is also the way to the resurrection and eternal life in the World to Come: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). “He who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life” (John 5:24).
As the divine Wisdom made flesh, Yeshua is truth and life—a living Torah—that leads to life and the true revelation of God.
- The Way = The path to God
- The Truth = The revelation of God
- The Life = The resurrection and eternal life
Your Mansion in Heaven
Do you have a mansion in heaven? What did Yeshua mean when he said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions”?
A castle in the clouds. (Images: Bigstock)
Yeshua told his disciples that He would remain with them only a little while. “Where I am going, you cannot come,” He told them (John 13:33). To where was the Master going? The disciples did not yet understand “that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father” (John 13:1), nor did they fully realize “that He had come forth from God and was going back to God” (John 13:3). He told His disciples not to let their hearts be troubled. He explained, “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2).
This is similar to the Chassidic idea that the tzaddik (the righteous one) goes ahead of his disciples to prepare entrance into paradise: “And the night before Rebbe Nachman passed away he said: ‘What do you have to worry about, since I am paving the way for you’” (Chayei Moharan 225).
What does it mean when he says, “In my Father’s house are dwelling places?” Biblical Hebrew refers to a family as a “Beit-Av” which literally means “house of a father.” The term, “My Father’s house” is idiomatic for “my family.” The King James Version of the Bible translated “dwelling places (mone, μονή)” as “mansions,” giving modern English readers the notion of heavenly mansions awaiting them beyond the pale. In Old English, however, the word “mansion” did not mean a palatial home, it simply meant “dwelling place.” The NIV translates, “In my Father’s house are many rooms.” It’s the idea of a large house with many subsidiary living quarters.
In the days of the disciples, families did not separate as they do in the modern world. Sons did not always leave home. Instead, they might typically take a place in the family business and begin to take over the family trade. As the children grew up, the daughters married out of the house, but the sons brought their brides home. When a son prepared to bring a bride home, the family might build an addition onto the father’s house by adding another chamber or insular building. The new family began life in a room in the patriarchal home. Within a few generations, a family house might sprawl across the village, courtyard added to courtyard, insular house added to house. Within one house were many households, but they all formed one family.
When the Master told His disciples, “I go to prepare a place for you,” He may have invoked the imagery of a young man building an addition on to His Father’s home. Earlier He had spoken of His own position in the household saying, “The slave does not remain in the house forever, the son does remain forever” (John 8:35). He is able to share with His disciples the position of sonship.
Improving on the Torah?
What’s the difference between the new commandment “love one another as I have loved you” and the original version “love your neighbor as yourself”?
The unveiling of the new Torah display at Trinity International
University. (Photo by Taylor Wilcox on Unsplash)
Yeshua said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (John 13:34). Was he trying to add something to the Torah? The “new commandment” was not an addition to the Torah. Rabbi Yechiel Tzi Lichtenstein explains that the commandment can be considered a “new commandment” in that it goes further than Leviticus 19:18 as it calls upon a man to love his neighbor more than his own life:
By this it is a new commandment, for Moses only said, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” meaning, “and not more than this.” Therefore R. Akiva ruled in the Talmud (b.Baba Metsia 62a): “Your life has precedence over your friend’s life,” but in the view of the Master and as shown in his deeds, the life of your friend has precedence … As Paul says in Romans 5:7, “Even for a righteous person it is difficult for someone to die.” (Even Tzohar)
Yeshua called upon His disciples to love one another as He loved them—sacrificially and impartially. He desired His disciples to distinguish themselves from other schools of discipleship and movements in Judaism by their profound and unshakable love for one another: “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). Paul Levertoff considers love the defining mark of Yeshua’s followers:
Love was the essential and characteristic keynote of the Messianic fellowship. The Messiah is the personification of divine love. He showed what real love is. Therefore, to imitate Him means to love as he did … Christ’s love is not only an example for the fellowship, but is the power which awakens love in it. His love is powerful because it is God’s Love. (Love and the Messianic Age)
The Master’s “new commandment” made a strong impression on young John the son of Zebedee as he reclined next to the Master. More than half a century after that seder, he still pondered those words, telling his students, “For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another” (1 John 3:11). He reminded His readers that this commandment came from the Master: “Love one another, just as He commanded us” (1 John 3:23, 1 John 2:7-9, 3:23, 4:21, 5:2-3; 2 John 5). Even at the end of His life, John continued to admonish his disciples with the words, “Little children, love one another.”
The blessed evangelist John, when he delayed at Ephesus up to the highest old age and could scarcely be carried to church in the hands of his disciples and was not able to put together a statement of several words, used to offer in different sayings nothing but: “Little children, love one another.” At last the disciples and brethren who were present, tired of the fact that they always heard the same thing, said, “Teacher, why do you always say this?” John made a worthy response: “Because it was the Master’s command, and if it alone is done, it is enough.” (Jerome, Commentary on Galatians 6.10)
Where Are You Going that We Cannot Follow?
If disciples are supposed to commit their lives to following Yeshua, why did He tell his disciples, “Where I am going, you will not be able to come”?
Jesus Discourses with His Disciples (Painting: James Tissot, French,
1836-1902. Image Source (cropped): Brooklyn
Museum
Six months later, at the festival of Passover, Yeshua reminded His disciples of that conversation. He told them, “You will seek me; and as I said to the Judeans, now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’” (John 13:33).
The Master’s words frightened and dismayed the disciples. Simon Peter demanded to know where Yeshua intended on going that they could not follow, “Master, where are you going?” After all, the disciples had made a career out of following the Master everywhere he went. That was all that they had done for nearly three years, and they had left behind everything to do it. If they could no longer follow Him, where would they go and what would become of them?
Yeshua meant that He was soon to suffer and die. His disciples could not follow Him to martyrdom just yet, but later they would. His words also anticipated the resurrection and ascension to His Father. The disciples could not yet follow Him to the place of glory, but one day He would receive them there. The disciples at the table that night, however, did not want to understand that the Master was really going to suffer and die.
Yeshua replied, “Where I go, you cannot follow Me now; but you will follow later.” With these words, He hinted about Simon Peter’s future destiny. His loyal disciple would one day follow Him to martyrdom. That night, however, Peter could not follow Yeshua, nor would He try.
Simon Peter insisted, “I will lay down my life for you.” Yeshua deflected the brash boast by turning it into a question, “Will you lay down your life for me?” (John 13:37). Simon Peter believed he would, but the Master foresaw the three denials. Peter would deny him thrice before dawn.
The conversation about Simon Peter following Yeshua to martyrdom resumed several weeks later beside the Sea of Galilee:
Now this He said, signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He said to him, “Follow Me!” (John 21:19)
On the night before He suffered, Yeshua told his disciples the important stuff. Take a fresh look at Yeshua’s farewell discourse.
The Last Supper, by Leonardo Da Vinci (Image: Cropped view, via Wikimedia Commons, Leonardo da Vinci / Public domain)
After Iscariot left the table, the Master said His farewells to the men who had followed Him over the course of the last several years. “My little children, I am with you a little while longer,” He told them (John 13:33). Disciples of a sage considered their rabbi as their spiritual father and head of household, and the sage considered his disciples to be his spiritual sons.
Ordinarily, Yeshua steered away from the father-son language when describing His relationship with His disciples. He often admonished them to become like little children and to regard God as their heavenly father. On other occasions, He referred to the disciples as “children,” but He did not refer to them as “my children.” Instead, He told them, “Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven” (Mathew 23:9).
In this instance, Yeshua directly referred to His disciples as His children. In the context of the family Passover Seder meal, He performed the role of the father at the table, and His disciples participated as the children. Moreover, by addressing His disciples as “my little children,” Yeshua signaled the beginning of His farewell discourse: John 13:31-17:26.
Farewell discourses in the Bible and Jewish literature follow a consistent pattern. A father gathers his children (or a spiritual leader gathers his followers) and announces that he is about to die. His children express sorrow and dismay, but he encourages them to be strong and courageous. He reiterates significant life events and interprets their meaning. He directs his children to follow the commandments and keep the Torah. He expresses his love for his children and instructs them not to quarrel but to love one another and strive toward unity. He warns them about particular vices and temptations. He predicts the future and warns his children about trials and difficulties to come. He promises them that God will protect them so long as they remain faithful, and he encourages them not to worry. He might pick a successor. Finally, he closes with blessing or prayer. The Master’s last discourse in John 13-17 follows most of the farewell conventions.
In the farewell discourse, Yeshua communicates His “realized eschatology.” That is to say, He explains to the disciples how they will experience the kingdom of heaven in their lives even though the Messianic Era has not commenced. The promises and predictions of the Messianic Era will bear early spiritual fruit in the disciples. They will experience the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, miraculous answers to prayer, a new revelation of God and relationship with the Father, fraternity, love, and peace. In other words, Yeshua’s disciples will enter the world of the Messianic Era before the Messianic Era enters this world.
To Whom Shall We Go?
Yeshua’s claims challenged His disciples. Many turned away from following Him. Two thousand years later, His words are no less difficult, and they still demand a decision.
Each disciple must ask of himself as he comes face to face with the
Master and His super-rational claims, which way to go. (Image © Bigstock)
The previous day, Yeshua spoke to a crowd of more than five thousand. Earlier that morning, His followers filled the crowded synagogue in Capernaum to capacity. By the end of the day, however, almost all of them were gone. What happened?
When Yeshua claimed to have descended from heaven, many of his disciples turned away from following after Him. They said, “This is a difficult statement. Who can listen to it?’” (John 6:60). The crowded synagogue in Capernaum cleared out quickly. The spiritual mumbo-jumbo about Him being the bread from heaven, about ingesting His flesh and blood, and about His descent from above was too much for the pragmatic Galileans. “As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore” (John 6:66).
By the end of His discourse that day, only the twelve and a few other diehards remained. The Master said to the twelve, “You do not want to go away also, do you?”
Simon Peter spoke up. As in the story of his confession at Caesarea-Philippi, Simon Peter spoke on behalf of the twelve and answered, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Peter confessed, “We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68-69).
Simon Peter posed a question that each disciple must ask of himself as he comes face to face with the Master and His super-rational claims. When all else is set aside, the disciple must take Him at His word or turn away and leave the synagogue with the others who abandoned Him. If we should choose this latter option though, we must each answer the question, “To whom then shall we go?”
The fidelity of the twelve and their confession of confidence affirmed the Master’s selection of His disciples. He chose the right men. Nevertheless, He knew that one of them would one day betray Him. He said, “Yet one of you is a devil.” This is a Hebrew idiom: “One of you is a satan.” The Hebrew satan (שטן) means “adversary.” The Master did not mean that one of His disciples was a literal devil (although perhaps under the literal devil’s sway). Rather, Judas Iscariot already hardened His heart in opposition to the Master.
The Real Difficulty
Why did Yeshua’s disciples turn away from following Him? What was the difficult saying that so offended them?
It was Jesus' statement about descending from above that offended the
crowds. (Image © Bigstock/FFOZ)
Yeshua’s disciples found His mystical claims hard to swallow. Many of them grumbled and said, “This is a difficult statement” (John 6:60). What did the disciples of Yeshua find so difficult?
Commentators explain that the Jewish disciples found the imagery of eating His flesh and drinking His blood offensive. If so, the disciples did not understand that their rabbi spoke metaphorically. They assumed that He somehow literally intended them to eat Him. Alternatively, they did not understand that He spoke about the sacrament of the Eucharist (which He had not yet introduced) through which the bread and wine miraculously transubstantiate into His actual flesh and blood. Neither of these explanations completely satisfy the puzzle.
The sacramental explanation is anachronistic. The theology of a Eucharist sacrament and its transubstantiation did not yet exist, nor had Yeshua yet conducted His Last Seder at which He shared the cup and the bread with His disciples. Revulsion over cannibalism imagery is also unlikely. The Jewish congregation in the synagogue at Capernaum could not have taken the rabbi literally or understood Him to be suggesting actual cannibalism—even on a sacramental level. On the contrary, all indications from Jewish literature point to a literate society that deftly handled and manipulated metaphors, a society capable of sorting symbolism and reassigning imagery much more aptly than ourselves. Immersed since childhood in the poetry of the Hebrew Scriptures which speaks of wine as “the blood of grapes” and the sacrifices on the altars as “the food of God,” the Jews at the Capernaum synagogue were probably more literate than most modern Bible readers and better equipped to think abstractly than the average Bible reader today.
We are more accustomed to the metaphor of eating and drinking than we sometimes realize. For example, we devour books, digest information, drink in teachings, swallow rumors, chew on ideas, ruminate on scriptures, and have dogmas shoved down our throats. In one passage, the Talmud itself employs the metaphor of “eating the Messiah,” and by this it means enjoying the blessings of the Messianic King (b.Sanhedrin 99a).
The eating and drinking of His body could not have so deeply offended His disciples, for He obviously intended it figuratively. He Himself explained it as a metaphor for abiding in Him. Why did so many of His disciples take offense at the bread of life discourse?
The difficulty did not rise from the eating and drinking metaphor but rather from His claim to have descended from heaven. The Galileans knew better. They knew his parents and his family, and they knew that He had grown up locally. “How does He now say, ‘I have come down out of heaven’?” they objected. This was the real difficulty.
Eat my Flesh; Drink my Blood
Years before the Last Seder occurred, Yeshua told the people of Capernaum to eat his flesh and drink his blood. How were the people present that day supposed to eat Him?
The text in John 6:53 is ordinarily understood as a sacramental
reference to the cup and bread of Passover, but chronologically speaking, the
Last Seder had not yet occurred. Instead, Yeshua invited the people to come to
Him, look to Him, and believe in Him.
The manna of the wilderness did not impart eternal life. Those who ate the manna in the wilderness died because “man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD” (Deuteronomy 8:3).
The Master contrasted the living manna (Himself) against the manna in the wilderness. He implored the people to set aside their objections. He said, “I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life” (John 6:47-48). Yeshua is the heavenly bread that came forth from the mouth of the LORD, “the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die … if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever” (John 6:50-51).
Some of the people in the Capernaum synagogue that day (many of whom had come looking for another miraculous feeding) misunderstood. They objected and began to argue with others, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” (John 6:52).
Undaunted, the Master turned their misunderstanding into a further teaching: “Amen, amen,” He said, “I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves” (John 6:53). The image is disturbing even outside of a Jewish context where the Torah severely censures ingesting blood. Yeshua took the imagery even further: “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink” (John 6:54-55).
How were the people present that day supposed to eat Him? Yeshua was not actually made of manna or bread. Nor did He expect the congregation in the Capernaum synagogue to gather around and begin to cannibalize Him.
He explained to the people, “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him” (John 6:56). In other words, consuming the Master’s flesh and blood consists of abiding in Him and allowing Him to abide within oneself. Like food that nourishes the body and becomes one with the human body, Yeshua nourishes the human spirit and becomes one with the spirit.
In the Torah and the teachings of the rabbis, the manna from heaven mystically represents the study and incorporation of Torah—the Word of God—into one’s consciousness and life. A similar meaning lies behind the Master’s words. Yeshua compared Himself to manna. Eating the manna (which is Messiah) symbolically means coming to Him, looking to Him, and believing in Him. He had already made that much clear earlier in the discourse:
- This is the work [required by] God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent. (John 6:29)
- Come to the Son, behold the Son, and believe in Him. (John 6:35, 40)
- Listen to the Father and learn from Him and come to the Son. (6:45)
- Believe in the Son and receive everlasting life. (John 6:47)
A Crazy Sounding Claim
Yeshua’s words about eating His flesh and drinking His blood were not the problem. The real problem was His claim to have descended from heaven.
Our Master’s claim to have descended from heaven met immediate
skepticism. (Image © Bigstock/FFOZ)
The difficulty over which the people stumbled was not Yeshua’s discussion about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, but rather they stumbled over His claim to have descended from heaven.
The Galileans knew better. They knew his parents and his family, and they knew that He had grown up locally. “How does He now say, ‘I have come down out of heaven’?” they objected.
His claim to have been with God and to have beamed down to earth from heaven left them frustrated and uncertain: frustrated that He continued to talk like that and uncertain about His sanity. “On hearing that Yeshua regarded Himself as descended from Heaven, many of his disciples said, ‘This is a difficult statement. Who can listen to it?’” (John 6:60), meaning, “Who can believe this stuff?”
They misunderstood what He meant. They thought that He was claiming that He had physically descended from heaven. They knew that He did not. The Master’s physical human body did not descend from heaven, but His essential person and being—the purest, highest emanation of the Almighty, the Divine Word in motion—descended from on high to be clothed in mortal flesh.
That may be easy for Gospel readers today to understand, but the people present that day in the Capernaum synagogue did not have the advantage of having read the prelude to the Gospel of John. They could scarcely be expected to think of Yeshua as an incarnation of the Divine Logos, the “Word” that became “flesh.”
The Master responded to their objection, “Do not grumble among yourselves” (John 6:43). The double reference to the “grumbling” alludes back to the Torah’s stories about how all Israel grumbled against the manna in the wilderness. The Master told the people to set aside their objections. He assured them that if the Father drew them, and they responded by coming to Him, He would raise them from the dead on the last day.
The Master understood that they rejected the notion that He had descended from Heaven. After all, there may have been some present who had known Him since He was a child. They had known only His “flesh,” that is, His “body.” They had not perceived His true spiritual essence. He tried to correct that misapprehension, saying, “The flesh counts for nothing!” (John 6:63), and “What then if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before?” (John 6:62).
No hay comentarios.:
Publicar un comentario