John 6:44-81.
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I raise him up on the last day. It is written in the prophets: They shall all be taught of God. He therefore that heareth of the Father, and learneth it, cometh unto me. Not that any man hath seen the Father, but he that is of the Father hath seen the Father. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate manna in the desert and died. This is the bread that comes from heaven, that whoever eats of it may not die. I am the living bread that comes from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever. And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
This gospel teaches us nothing but Christian faith and awakens the same in us; just as John does nothing else in his entire gospel, but instructs us how to trust in the Lord Christ. And such faith, which is based on the true promise of God, must alone make us blessed, as this gospel clearly expresses. And all who have taught us other ways and means of becoming godly must hereby become fools; everything that the senses of man can conceive, however holy it may be, let it shine before the eyes of men as it may, must all come to nothing, if man is to be saved in any other way. For man, if he wills himself as he wills himself, he may not reach heaven, unless God comes first with the word which His divine grace offers him, and enlightens his heart so that he may take the right path.
2. but the way is the Lord Jesus Christ.
stus. Whoever wants to seek a different way (than the greatest number submits to with outward works), has already missed the right way; for Paul says to the Galatians Cap. 2, 21: "If by the law," that is, by the works of the law, "righteousness comes, Christ died in vain." Therefore I have said that man must be crushed and broken by this gospel, and lie down in the bottom of his heart as a man who is powerless and able to do nothing? who can neither move hands nor feet, but only lie still and cry out: Now help, Almighty God, merciful Father, I cannot help myself; now help, Lord Christ, with my help it is lost. So that before this cornerstone, which is Christ, every man may be brought to nothing; as he himself says in Luke Cap. 20:17, 18, when he asked the Pharisees and scribes, "What then is it that is written, The stone which the builders rejected is become a corner stone? Whoever falls on this stone will be crushed, but on whom it falls it will crush him," Ps 118:22. Therefore we must either fall on him out of our inability
and powerlessness, in that we deny ourselves and are broken there; or he will crush us eternally with his severe judgment and sentence. But it is better that we fall on him than that he should fall on us. For this reason the Lord speaks here in this gospel:
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.
(3) Whom therefore the Father draweth not must surely perish: so also it is determined, that whosoever cometh not unto this Son must be eternally damned. The Son alone is given to us to save us; nothing else, either in heaven or on earth. If he does not help, then it is otherwise unhelped; Peter also says about this in the stories of the apostles Cap. 4, 11, 12: "This is the stone, rejected by you builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no other, neither is there any other name given to men, wherein we shall be saved." Where are our theologians and school teachers who taught us that we should become godly through much work? Here the high master Aristotle, who taught us that reason strives for the best and always strives for the good, is disgraced. Christ says here no; but if the Father does not precede and draw us, we must perish eternally.
(4) Here all men must confess their inability and their inability to do good; but if anyone thinks that he is able to do something good out of his own strength, he is doing as much as lying to the Lord Christ, and wants to go up to heaven in defiance of the Father and out of thirst. Therefore, where the word of God goes forth pure and clear, it brings down everything that is high and great, it turns all mountains into valleys, and all hills it knocks down, as the prophet Isaiah Cap. 40:4; so that all hearts that hear the word may despair of themselves, or else they may not come to Christ. God's works do not do otherwise, for in that they strangle, they make alive; in that they condemn, they make blessed; as Hannah, Samuel's mother, sings of the Lord: "The
The Lord killeth, and giveth life; he leadeth into hell, and bringeth out again; the Lord maketh poor, and maketh rich; he bringeth low, and exalteth," 1 Sam. 2:6, 7.
5 Therefore, if a man is so smitten by God in his heart that he recognizes himself as one who must be condemned because of his sin, this is like the right man whom God has thrust with the first word of this gospel, and by this thrust has put on him the bond or rope of His divine grace, by which He draws him, that he must now seek help and counsel for his soul. Before, he could not find help or counsel from Him, nor did he ever desire it; but now he finds the first comfort and promise of God, which is Luc. 11:10: "He that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." From this promise, man becomes more and more courageous and gains greater and greater confidence in God. For as soon as he hears that it is God's work alone, he desires it from God as from his gracious Father's hand, that He may draw him. If he is then drawn to Christ by God, that which the Lord says here will certainly happen to him: He will raise him up on the last day. For he has taken hold of God's word and trusts in God; by this he has a sure sign that he is the one whom God has drawn; as John says in his first epistle, Cap. 5, 10: "He who believes in the Son of God has God's testimony with him.
Therefore, it is necessary that he be taught by God, and now he recognizes in truth that a God is nothing other than a helper, a comforter, a maker of salvation; as we also say to those who have saved us from danger: You have been my God today. From this it is clear that God does not want to be anything else towards us, but a savior, helper and giver of all blessedness, who neither demands nor desires anything from us, only wants to give, only offers us; as he says to Israel in Psalm 81 v. 11: "I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of Egypt; open your mouth wide, I will fill it." Who would not want to be favored by such a God, who is so friendly to us?
and offers us his grace and goodness? if only we would recognize him as God and be taught by God. Those who let such grace pass by may not escape the severe eternal judgment of God, as the Epistle to the Hebrews Cap. 10, 28. 29. says: "For because those who transgressed the law of Moses did not go unpunished, much more will God choke those who despise the blood of the testament and trample under the Son of God.
7 How diligent is St. Paul in all his epistles that the knowledge of God should ever be grasped correctly. Oh how often he wishes to increase in the knowledge of God. As if he wanted to say: If you only knew and understood what God was, you would already be blessed; then you would love him and do everything that would please him. So he says to the Colossians Cap. 1, 9-12.: "We do not cease to pray for you, and to pray that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will, in all spiritual wisdom and understanding; That ye may walk worthy of the Lord in all pleasing, and be fruitful in all good works, and grow in the knowledge of God, and be strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, in all patience and longsuffering, with joy; and give thanks unto the Father, which hath made us fit for the inheritance of the saints in light." And in Psalm 119:34 David says: "Instruct me, and I will keep thy law with all my heart."
(8) So then, from this first saying of the gospel, you see that the knowledge must come from God the Father; he must lay the first stone in us, otherwise we will not be able to do anything. But it happens in this way: God sends us preachers whom he has taught, and has his will preached to us: first, that all our life and being, however beautiful and holy it may be, is nothing before him, even an abomination and a displeasure; which is called a preaching of the law; then he offers us grace, namely, that he nevertheless does not want to condemn us and throw us away, but accepts us in his beloved Son; and does not accept us badly, but makes us heirs in his kingdom, lords over all that is in heaven.
and earth. This is called the preaching of grace or the gospel. But all this comes from God, who thus awakens the preachers and drives them to preach. This is what St. Paul means when he says to the Romans Cap. 10, 17: "Faith comes from preaching, but preaching comes from the word of God. This is also the intention of the The words of the Lord here in the Gospel, when he speaks thus:
It is written in the prophet: They are all taught of God: he therefore that heareth of my Father, and learneth, cometh unto me. Not that any man hath seen the Father; but he that is of the Father hath seen the Father.
(9) Now when the first sermon, the sermon of the law, is preached, namely, how we are condemned with all our doings, man becomes anxious for God, and does not know how he should do his things, gets an evil, timid conscience; and if he were not helped as soon as possible, he would have to despair forever. Therefore, one must not be long in preaching the other sermon, but must preach the gospel to him, and lead him to Christ, whom the Father has given to us as a mediator, so that we may be saved through him alone, out of pure grace and mercy, without any works or merit on our part. Then the heart is glad and runs to such grace as a thirsty deer runs to water. This is what David felt when he said Psalm 42:2, 3: "As the deer cries out to the waters, so my soul, O God, cries out to you; my soul thirsts for God, for the living God."
(10) When a man comes to Christ, that is, to the Gospel, he hears the voice of the Lord Christ Himself, confirming the knowledge that God has taught him, namely, that God is nothing other than a gracious Savior, who will be gracious and merciful to all who call upon Him in this Son. Therefore, the Lord further says:
Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the bread of heaven in the wilderness and died.
This is the bread that comes from heaven, so that whoever eats of it will not die. I am the living bread come from heaven; whoever eats of this bread will live forever. And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the wager.
(11) In these words the soul finds a well-prepared table to satisfy all hunger, for it knows for certain that he who speaks these words cannot lie; therefore it falls on it, clings to the word, relies on it, and thus builds its dwelling on this well-prepared table. This, then, is the meal on which the heavenly Father has slaughtered his oxen and fatted cattle, and invited us all to it.
The living bread, of which the Lord says here, is Christ Himself, whom we thus enjoy: if we take only a morsel of this bread into our hearts and keep it, we will have enough eternally, and may never be separated from God. But such enjoyment is nothing else than believing in the Lord Christ, that he was made for us by God, as Paul says in 1 Cor. 1:30, "for wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." Whoever eats this food lives forever. Therefore, soon after this gospel, when the Jews were quarreling about this speech of his, he speaks and says, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink of his blood, you have no life in you. He that eateth of my flesh, and drinketh of my blood, hath everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day."
The bread of heaven, which the fathers ate in the wilderness, as Christ says here, could not save from death; but this bread makes us immortal: if we believe in Christ, death cannot hurt us, indeed, it is no longer death. This is also what the Lord wants to say in another place, John 8:51, when he says to the Jews, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, If any man keep my word, he shall never see death." There he speaks ge
from the word of faith and from the gospel.
014 Yea, let one say, as the Jews also were offended at this word of the Lord, Do not the holy men also die; for Abraham died, and the prophets; as they said. Answer: The Christian's death is only a sleep, as the Scriptures also everywhere call it. For a Christian neither tastes nor sees death, that is, he is not aware of death; for this Savior, Christ Jesus, in whom he believes, has strangled death, so that we may no longer taste or savour it: but to a Christian death is only a transition to life, yes, a door to life; as Christ himself says in John Cap. 5:24: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life."
. 15 Therefore the Christian life is a blessed and joyful life, and the yoke of Christ is gentle and sweet; but that it seems bitter and heavy to us is because the Father has not yet drawn us; therefore we have no desire for it, nor is this gospel comforting to us. But if we took the words of Christ to heart, they would be more comforting to us. Thus you have how to enjoy this bread which has come down from heaven, the bread of the Lord Christ, namely, by faith, if we believe in him that he is our Savior and Beatificator.
(16) For this reason *) I have said that these words should not be forced upon the sacrament of the altar, for whoever interprets it in this way does violence to the gospel. There is not a letter in this gospel that would allow the sacrament of the altar. Why should Christ remember the sacrament here, if it was not yet instituted? The whole chapter from which this gospel is taken speaks of nothing else than spiritual food, namely, faith. For when the people followed the Lord
*) I hereby request and remind you not to force these words etc. (a b)
and wanted to eat again, as the Lord himself indicates: so he takes a cause from the bodily food, which they sought, and speaks throughout the whole chapter of a spiritual food; as he said, "The words that I speak are spirit and are life". So he wants to indicate that he fed them for this reason, that they should believe in him, and as they enjoyed the bodily food, so they should also enjoy the spiritual food. We will say more about this at another time.
17. Now let us consider this, that the Lord comes along so graciously and kindly, and offers us himself, his blood and flesh, in words so mild that it should ever move hearts to believe in him, namely, that this bread, his flesh and blood, taken from Mary of the virgins, was given to us because he had to taste death and suffer hell in our place, plus the sin he had never committed, as his own sin; which he then willingly did, accepting us as brothers and sisters. Which, if we believe, we do the will of the heavenly Father, which is nothing else than believing in the Son; as Christ Himself recently said before this Gospel: "This is the will of Him who sent Me, that whoever sees the Son and believes in Him may have eternal life," John 6:40.
18 Therefore it is clear that whoever has faith in this bread of heaven, in Christ, in this flesh and blood, of which he speaks here, that it was given to him and is his, and accepts it as his own, has already done the will of God and eaten of this bread of heaven; as Augustine says, "What are you preparing your mouth for?
19 The whole New Testament speaks of this spiritual supper, and especially John. The sacrament of the altar is a testament and assurance of this true Lord's Supper, by which we are to strengthen our faith, and be assured that this body and soul are the same.
This blood, which we take in the Sacrament, has saved us from sin, death, the devil, hell, and all misfortune; of which we have said and written more elsewhere.
(20) But how can one test and know that he also belongs to this heavenly bread and is invited to such a spiritual supper? He only looks at his own heart: if it finds that it is sweetened in God's promise, and if it firmly believes that he is also one who belongs to this meal, then he is certainly one; for as we believe, so it happens to us. He also takes care of his neighbor from the beginning and helps him as his brother, saves him, gives to him, lends to him, comforts him, and does nothing else to him than what he wanted to be done to him. All this comes from the fact that Christ's good deeds have filled his heart with sweetness and love, so that he takes pleasure in them and is glad that he should serve his neighbor; indeed, he is in pain if he has no one to show his good deeds to. And above all this, he becomes gentle and humble toward everyone, does not pay much attention to temporal splendor, lets everyone be as he is, does not speak ill of anyone, interprets all things for the best, and where he sees that things are not right, that his neighbor lacks faith, love, life, he prays for them, and is heartily sorry when someone acts against God and his neighbor. Summa Summarum, root and sap is good; because he stands in a horny fruitful vine, in Christ; therefore also such fruits sprout.
021 But if any man have not faith, and be not taught of God, and eat not of this bread of heaven, he doth not indeed these fruits. For where these fruits are not, there is certainly no true faith. Therefore St. Peter 2 Ep. 1, 10. teaches us that we should make our profession to salvation certain by good works; since he actually speaks of the works of love, serving one's neighbor and taking care of him as of his own flesh and blood. That is enough of this gospel; let us call upon God's grace.