Introduction
If God’s objective in providing us with His
written Word was to teach us the way to heaven (and, while waiting,
also how to live a pious life here) then the Bible is a very strange
book for the purpose. Why, for example, is it such a
large book? It surely does not take so many words to tell us the
way to heaven, and any one that knows the Gospel is aware that just
a few texts (thank God) will suffice to make this plain with
absolute clearness. As to living a godly life here, the simplest way
to show us this would be an index of Christian principles. But
Scripture is not at all like this. Though there are blessed
statements of the gospel, and many a paragraph of Christian
exhortation, these are not put together as we might think they would
be, and they are mixed with much else of a different character. Nor
are things so definitely stated that there can be no possible
mistake about them, as is witnessed by the conflict between
Christians over their meaning. What a help to a common understanding
would be a divine summary of faith and practice like those the
various denominations have adopted! If such a creed had been written
by the apostles would not all Christians have subscribed to it? But
it has not pleased God to give us truth in this way, and we have to
hunt up Scriptures upon any given subject from every part of the
Bible—not even always sure that we have got the right ones. Does God
not care about this? Does He not know the feebleness of our minds
and the multifarious occupations that we have to be engaged in? Is
He not aware of the trouble and anxiety caused by our many
differences, and the obscurity in which even true-hearted saints
grope after His will? Does He not know, above all, the tendency we
have to follow men who will do our thinking for us? Yes, God knows
all this (and more), yet despite it, He has written Scripture as He
has—a book so needing to be searched and studied! There is clearly
purpose in this—a purpose that many of us have missed if we put
value on no more than a few key texts.
Where is
Spiritual Food Found?
Clearly, God’s will for us, whatever that may
be, is not to save us from labour—He does not wish to let us off
from the necessity of work. We see this in the Bible itself. Thus it
was not to theological students, but to men so poor that they
followed the Lord for loaves of bread, that He declared “work
not [for] the food which perishes, but [for] the food which abides
unto life eternal, which the Son of man shall give to you”
(John 6: 27, my emphasis). Now just as normally we cannot put food
on the table without labour, so work is also required for our daily
spiritual food—and that not by a special class of selected, capable
workmen, but from all who need and desire such nourishment. Indeed,
the Lord uses an interesting turn of phrase to a company who knew
all about labouring in order to get enough just to survive: “Work
not [for] the food which perishes” (my emphasis). Instead, they
were to expend their energy on “the food which abides unto life
eternal”. The men addressed had been filled with the loaves but the
effect of such material food is temporary, for it was only “food
which perishes”. What the Lord would urge on them was food which
abides, and not only
abides, but “abides
unto life eternal” (my emphasis).
So what is this food? To answer, look at the
context in which John 6: 27 is set. In verses 5-13, a crowd of five
thousand men had been fed with bread. Later they “came to Capernaum,
seeking Jesus” (v 24). They were
fed, and they
sought Christ. It is these
two facts that the Lord uses to bring out the teaching of the rest
of the chapter. In verse 27 He tells them to “work not [for] the
food which perishes, but [for] the food which abides unto life
eternal”. However, having told them to
work for the food
which abides, He follows this up by describing it as food “which the
Son of man shall
give to you; for him
has the Father sealed, [even] God” (v 27, my emphasis). Not
understanding this, the crowd respond by asking what they needed to
do (see v 28), and the
Lord responds by saying, “This is the work of God, that ye
believe on him whom
he has sent” (v 29, my
emphasis). It was not a question of obtaining food through their
own efforts, but of a right relationship with Christ. Everything
else was trivial when compared to that one great objective, and,
indeed, it could only be achieved as “the work of God” (v 29). The
Jews had great faith in their own merit, but the Lord was teaching
them that the only ‘work’ that had lasting value was to make
everything dependent on the Man that God has chosen. In verse 15,
the Jews would have made Him king, but they failed to see that the
kingdom was only assured to them
in terms of
right relation to Him. He knew where they really stood: “ye have
also seen me and do not believe” (v 36). The Lord speaks four times
in chapter six of raising up men and women in the last day in order
to enter the kingdom (see vs. 39, 40, 44, 54), but in every instance
it is independent of any merit on their part. The words used are
given,
see,
believe, draw and
eat.
All turns on Christ. The only thing that
mattered was believing that the Lord was truly “he who comes down
out of heaven” (v 33), as the sent one of the Father (see v 38).
This was difficult enough, but the Lord was not finished with the
crowd. In vs. 51, 53 and 54 He reveals that “the bread withal which
I shall give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the
world” and “unless ye shall have eaten the flesh of the Son of man,
and drunk his blood, ye have no life in yourselves. He that eats my
flesh and drinks my blood has life eternal”. The end result was that
“many therefore of his disciples having heard [it] said, This word
is hard; who can hear it?” and from that time they “walked no more
with him” (vs. 60, 66). Spiritual food then is found in Christ, but
it is only really obtained where his death is appropriated for
ourselves. The concept was utterly foreign to the prevalent Jewish
expectations. The Jews could not understand a Messiah who would die,
let alone whose death was the only source of their blessing.
How is
Spiritual Food Accessed?
How is this food to be accessed? It is all
very well saying that we are to feed on Christ, but what does that
actually mean? Certainly such eating is not literal but
spiritual—but that is not the only problem. We do not have His
presence with us in a physical sense as the Jews did, so how do we
reach Christ in order to feed? Some would say by the Holy Spirit,
but that is an incomplete answer, and, left as it is, leads to all
kinds of fanciful error. It
is by the Holy Spirit
that we find food, but it is
by His illumination of God’s Word
that we get it. Spirit and Word go together, as indeed they must do,
the Spirit of God being the author of the Word of God (see 2 Tim. 3:
16; 2 Pet 1: 21). However, it is not just a question of reading.
Earlier the Lord had castigated the Jews with these words: “Ye
search the scriptures, for ye think that in them ye have life
eternal, and they it is which bear witness concerning me; and ye
will not come to me that ye might have life” (John 5: 39, 40). It is
vital that we grasp what the Lord means by this. He is not
depreciating the value of the Scriptures, but stipulating that their
worth can only be accessed if there is an understanding that “they
it is which bear witness concerning me”. The believer finds Christ
in the Bible, and in so doing, he receives the food for his soul
that abides unto life eternal. We have a beautiful example of this
in Luke 24 where the Lord, beginning “from Moses and from all the
prophets … interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things
concerning himself” (v 27).
At this point, objections are likely to be
raised by those who trust to their own mystical experience and
openly deprecate the value of the written Word. Apart from the
occasional referral to a few foundational texts, this version of
‘Christianity’ (if it can be called that) is entirely focused on
‘spirituality’. Frankly, this is a lie of the Devil—a deception
which has the effect of keeping many of God’s children in a state of
perpetual spiritual infancy. Now of course, we need to be actively
living our faith, for “faith without works is dead” (James 2: 20),
and it is only as we “walk in [the] Spirit” (Gal. 5: 16) that we
will not fulfil the lust of the flesh. However, the idea that this
can be done by ignoring the Scriptures is not only wrong but results
in lasting spiritual damage (we shall see exactly why later).
The Christian mystic (if he has any use for
Scripture at all), characteristically has a self-interested approach
to the Bible. What I mean by this is that it is interpreted to suit
ideas conceived outside Scripture rather than any real attempt to
establish what God is saying. A passage might even mean something
one day and something else the next. Verses are read in isolation
with no regard to context, or placed side by side with other verses
with whom they have no particular relationship. All this is
deplorable—no other book would be treated in this way. The supreme
irony of all is that the Bible itself is often quoted to justify the
neglect of Scripture in favour of a supposedly richer spiritual
experience. One favourite is 2 Cor. 3: 6: “for the letter kills, but
the Spirit quickens”. The clear implication of those who misuse this
verse in this way is that the choice is between a Christianity of
the Spirit and a Christianity of the Bible. Not only is this a false
choice, but it is not the choice presented by the apostle, either
here or anywhere else. Read in context, anyone can see
that the apostle is contrasting the “ministry of the Spirit” (v 8),
with the “ministry of death, in letters, graven on stones” (v 7).
The latter is a reference to the Mosaic Law, the effect of which is
death, because “I was
alive without law once; but the commandment having come, sin
revived, but I died” (Rom.
7: 9). This has nothing to do with the believer’s attitude to the
Bible. Certainly a dry and intellectual approach to reading
Scripture is abhorrent, but to insinuate that it is a dead letter is
reprehensible. It is truly “[the]
living and
abiding word of God”
(1 Pet. 1: 23, my emphasis).
The Time to
Eat
Yet even if we admit the value of Scripture,
how much are we actually partaking of this rich provision?
A little here and there perhaps to
satisfy our consciences, before we return to our own interests? Is
that
really what
Christianity is supposed to be? And if we are not growing
spiritually, how can we pretend that we are feeding on Christ?
Certainly we turn over the pages, and our eyes scan the words, but
what life-changing impressions of Christ are we gleaning—both from
our own personal meditations on Scripture, and also in studying the
Bible with others? This is no mere academic question but
intrinsic and vital to the
life we profess to possess! Eternal life is a dependent
life—dependent on feeding on Christ. The Lord Jesus tells us this
Himself: “He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood has life eternal
… He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me and I in
him. As the living Father has sent me and I live on account of the
Father, he also who eats
me shall live also on account of me. This is the bread which has
come down out of heaven” (John 6: 54; 56-58). Now it is important to
see that this bread is presented as superior to its imperfect OT
counterpart, for “your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and
died. This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, that one may
eat of it and not die” (vs. 49-50). Nonetheless, that wilderness
food was important enough to be preserved in a golden pot (see Heb.
9: 4) and carried into the land in order that subsequent generations
might see “the bread that I gave you to eat in the wilderness, when
I brought you out of the land of Egypt” (Exod. 16: 32). It therefore
remained, but only as a memorial to be pondered over. When, however,
we come to the promise to the overcomer in Revelation 2: 17,
something additional is said in relation to this ‘hidden’ manna. The
Lord’s word there is “I will
give of the hidden manna”
(my emphasis)—meaning that the overcomer would partake of it, not
simply look on it. The lesson of this is that Christ as enjoyed in
the wilderness here will be enjoyed afresh in the place to which we
are going—indeed, more perfectly, surely, for all shall be perfect
there.
A very serious consideration
follows on from this: the one who has not had the wilderness
experience will not have the repetition of it in heaven. Why?
Because it is impossible to revisit the wilderness-condition, except
in memory. We cannot recall what we have never known. Thus, there is
a correspondence between the measure of apprehension of Christ here
and the measure of apprehension of Christ there. Take an angel’s
knowledge: an angel cannot have the knowledge that men and women who
have been redeemed have. Why? Because an angel knows neither sin nor
redemption, save as an observer. An angel’s knowledge is therefore
subject to a limitation. So it is with the babe taken out of the
world early in life—even the perfecting of its faculties in another
scene will not give it experiences of a state in which it had never
been. Now in measure this same principle applies with every
believer. Of course each one in heaven will look back with eyes
purged from the dust of the earth, and with memories that will have
been perfected, but the knowledge will still be constrained by
limitations set here on earth.
I will not be able to recall
things I have never known.
If Christ is the “food which abides unto life
eternal” (John 6: 27) and the food so laid up must be gathered here,
how important then is our gathering of it now! Of course, there
is in Christ more than can be justly spoken of as manna, for the
manna speaks of a heavenly man in earthly circumstances—the
provision of grace to sustain us in the wilderness. However, this
will not make Scripture less important to us. Christ in death,
Christ in resurrection, Christ in glory—all these are also learned
here in the same way, however much that knowledge may be enlarged
and enhanced in heaven. Hence, the “edifying of the body of Christ”
is “until we all arrive at the unity of the faith and of the
knowledge of the Son of God” (Eph. 4: 12, 13). We are now growing up
to this, and for that purpose the Word of God is given to us—not
simply that we may be saved, or even live here a life of piety and
good works—but that “we may grow up to him in all things” (v 15). No
wonder therefore that Scripture is as large as it is!
Conclusion
I believe that a false and limited idea of the
design of the Bible is shutting masses of Christian people out of
the desire to possess themselves of what our gracious God has given
them in it. It is a book larger by far than many feel that they have
any use for. To find salvation and to live a blameless life on earth
are the ends they have before them, and which they suppose to be all
that God has in His mind for them. If they feel any particular
responsibility about the Word of God, they are mystified as to what
to do with it all. They may read it conscientiously, even perhaps
all through, but have no idea why large swathes of it should have
been written. Of searching it for themselves, except certain
favourite parts, they know very little. They get light here and
there upon it through others, and read books, as long as they are
not too deep. They really have no concept that what God means by it
all is to form them in likeness to Christ, to make known His mind
and to train them for co-heirship with His Son (see Rom. 8: 17). To
accomplish this the word of God is not too large—for
these subjects can never
be fully plummeted. It is plain, therefore, that He means us to be
busy with it. To His people of old He spoke earnestly about this
occupation with Scripture: “And these words, which I command thee
this day, shall be in thy heart; and thou shalt impress them on thy
sons, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and
when thou goest on the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou
risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign on thy hand, and they
shall be for frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them
upon the posts of thy house, and upon thy gates” (Deut. 6: 6-9). All
this implies a constant keeping of the words of God before the eye
and mind, the constant meditation upon them and the constant
conversation about them. Is it to be supposed that God would have
us less fully occupied
or that we should have less joy or profit from the occupation? If
there be what may seem strange to be from Him, would He not have us
inquire all the more because of its strangeness? As Christians, we
have the Spirit of God as our Teacher; and He, let us remember,
“searches all things, even the depths of God” (1 Cor. 2: 10).
Here then is what we are called to enter into:
a field to be worked which will call for all our faculties to be
engaged with, and in all their energy. Mind, heart and conscience
will then develop together, for Scripture, while it makes mighty
men, never itself produces monsters of intellect without heart. Our
work is not simply doctrine, nor even faith in a doctrine. This is a
deepening knowledge of a Person, an apprehension of the truth—such
that one who knew the reality of it could say “Christ lives in me”
(Gal. 2: 20), and “looking on the glory of the Lord, with unveiled
face, are transformed according to the same image from glory to
glory” (2 Cor. 3: 18). Thus the Christian on earth is prepared for
heaven. It is the only way.
