John 6:63Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

"The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life." That is, they are divine and spiritual. They contain nothing fleshly and are not subject to the natural order. They are foreign to every necessity of this kind, above the laws active on earth, and have another, special meaning.

Thus, as He said "spirit" here instead of "spiritual words," so, when He said "flesh," He meant not fleshly things but fleshly hearing. At the same time He was alluding to the Jews, who always desired what was fleshly, though they ought to have desired what was spiritual.

For whoever understands spiritual things sensibly will gain no profit. What then? Is His Flesh not flesh? Certainly, it is flesh. How then did He say, "the flesh profits nothing"?

He said this not about His own Flesh, by no means, but about those who understand His words sensibly. What does it mean to understand sensibly? It means to look at things simply and imagine nothing more. That is what it means to understand sensibly.

But one must not judge visible things in this way. With the inner eyes one must penetrate all their mysteries. This is what it means to understand spiritually.

For whoever does not eat His Flesh and drink His Blood has no life in himself. How, then, does the flesh profit nothing, when without it one cannot live? Do you not see that the words "the flesh profits nothing" were spoken not about His Flesh, but about fleshly hearing?

Only when it was united with the life-giving Word did it become wholly life-giving. It was raised to the power of the Most High, and did not violently force the Unconquerable into its own nature.

Thus, although the nature of flesh is weak in itself regarding its ability to give life, it can accomplish this because it has the life-giving Word within itself and bears His whole power.

For it is the body of Life by nature, and not the body of one of those who are earthly. Of them the saying is fully true: “The flesh profits nothing.”

It is not the flesh of Paul, or Peter, or anyone else that will accomplish this in us. It is solely and uniquely the flesh of our Savior Christ, in whom “all the fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily” (Col 2:9).

It would indeed be strange if honey communicates its quality to what is not sweet by nature, and can transform into itself whatever it is mixed with.

Yet one would then think that the life-giving nature of God the Word does not raise to its own quality the body in which it dwelt.

Therefore, with respect to all others, the saying “the flesh profits nothing” will be true. But it must not apply to Christ alone, because Life, that is, the Only-begotten, dwelt in His flesh.

He calls Himself “Spirit,” for “God is Spirit” (Jn 4:24), and according to blessed Paul, “the Lord is the Spirit” (2 Cor 3:17).

We say this without abolishing the proper hypostatic existence of the Holy Spirit. But as He calls Himself Son of Man because He became man, so again He names Himself from His own Spirit, for His Spirit is not alien to Him.

“The words that I speak to you are spirit and life.”

He now presents His whole body as filled with the life-giving activity of the Spirit. He calls the flesh spirit, while in no way denying that it is flesh.

Rather, because of its perfect union with Him and its investiture with all His life-giving power, it must now also be called spirit. There is nothing astonishing in this, and you must not be offended by it.

If “he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit” with Him (1 Cor 6:17), how much more should His own body be called one with Him?

In these words He again expresses something like this: From your own thoughts, He says, I see that you foolishly suppose I am telling you that an earthly body is life-giving by nature.

But this is not the meaning of My words. This whole explanation given to you concerned the Divine Spirit and eternal life. The nature of flesh does not make the Spirit life-giving.

Rather, the power of the Spirit makes the body life-giving. Therefore “the words that I have spoken to you are spirit,” that is, they are spiritual and concerning the Spirit.

They are also “life,” that is, life-giving and concerning Life by nature. He says this in no way denying His flesh, but teaching us the truth through it.

For what we have just said we shall repeat again for benefit. The nature of flesh by itself would be unable to give life. Otherwise, what more would belong to Him who is God by nature?

Yet in Christ it is not considered separately and by itself. It has united with it the Word, who is Life by nature.

When Christ calls it life-giving, He bears witness not so much to its life-giving power as to His own power, or that of His Spirit. Through Him His body is life-giving, since He transformed it into His own power.

How this took place is incomprehensible to the mind and ineffable to the tongue. It must be honored by silence and by faith that surpasses understanding.

That in the God-inspired Scriptures the Son too is often called by the name Spirit, we learn from the following passages.

Thus blessed John writes of Him: “This is He who came by water and Spirit, Jesus Christ, not by water only, but by water and Spirit. And the Spirit is He who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth” (1 Jn 5:6).

See how he calls the truth Spirit, while Christ clearly cries: “I am the truth” (Jn 14:6).

Paul likewise tells us in the Epistle: “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.

“If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. But if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness” (Rom 8:8-10).

Here again, after declaring that the Spirit of God dwells in us, he says that Christ Himself is in us. This is because His Spirit is undivided from the Son by identity of nature, though He is understood to exist hypostatically.

Therefore He often names now the Spirit, now Himself, without distinction.

Even the very flesh of Christ was sanctified by the power of the Word and made one with Him. Through this it was endowed with life-giving power in the Divine Eucharist, so that it has power to implant sanctifying grace in us also.

For here he also says that the flesh profits nothing for sanctifying and inspiring those who receive it, insofar as it is merely human flesh.

But when the flesh is understood by thought and faith as the temple of the Word, then it will surely be a channel of sanctification and life. Yet this is not by itself, but through God, who became one with it, and who is Holiness and Life.

See Cyril’s explanations on Jn 17:13.

“What then if you should see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before?”

Christ is the Son of Man from the Virgin Mary. This Son of Man received His being here on earth, where He took flesh from the earth.

For this reason it was prophetically said, “Truth springs up from the earth” (Ps 85:11).

What then did He mean when He said, “What then if you should see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before?”

There would have been no question if He had said, “What then if you should see the Son of God ascending to where He was before?” (Jn 6:62).

But since He said that the Son of Man would ascend to where He was before, was the Son of Man in heaven before He began to exist on earth?

Indeed, here on earth He said, “where He was before,” as though, when He said this, He were not there in heaven.

Yet elsewhere He said, “No one has ascended into heaven except the Son of Man Who descended from heaven, Who is in heaven” (Jn 3:13).

He did not say “Who was,” but “the Son of Man Who is in heaven.” He spoke on earth and said that He was in heaven.

Nor did He say, “No one has ascended into heaven except the Son of God Who descended from heaven, Who is in heaven.”

What purpose does this serve, except that we should understand what I entrusted to you in the previous discourse, beloved?

Christ God and Christ Man are one Person, not two, lest our faith in the Trinity become faith in a quaternity.

Therefore Christ is one: the Word, soul, and flesh are one Christ. The Son of God and the Son of Man are one Christ.

The Son of God is in eternity; the Son of Man is in time. Yet He is one Christ according to the unity of Person.

He was in heaven when He spoke on earth. He was Son of Man in heaven in the same way that the Son of God was on earth.

The Son of God was on earth in the flesh He had assumed. The Son of Man was in heaven in the unity of Person.

What then does His addition mean: “The Spirit gives life; the flesh profits nothing”?

Let us say to Him, for He bears with us if we seek knowledge and not contradiction: O Lord, good Teacher, how does the flesh profit nothing?

You said, “Unless one eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood, he will not have life in himself” (cf. Jn 6:53).

Or does life profit nothing? For why are we what we are, if not to obtain eternal life, which You promise through Your Flesh?

What then does “the flesh profits nothing” mean? It brings no profit, but only in the sense in which they understood it.

They understood flesh as a carcass cut into pieces and sold in the market, not as flesh vivified by the Spirit.

Therefore it was said, “the flesh profits nothing,” just as it was said, “Knowledge puffs up” (1 Cor 8:1).

Must we then hate knowledge? By no means. And what does “Knowledge puffs up” mean? It means knowledge alone, without love, puffs up.

Therefore he added, “but love builds up” (1 Cor 8:1). Add love to knowledge, and knowledge becomes useful. Not through itself, but through love.

So also here: “the flesh profits nothing,” but flesh alone. Let the Spirit be added to the flesh, as love is added to knowledge, and it will be exceedingly profitable.

For if there were no profit in the flesh, the Word would not have become flesh in order to dwell among us (cf. Jn 1:14).

If Christ greatly helped us through the flesh, how does the flesh profit nothing? Through the flesh the Spirit accomplished something for our salvation.

The flesh was a vessel. Look at what this vessel contained, not at what it was.

The apostles were sent by Christ. Did their flesh bring us no profit? If the flesh of the apostles was useful for us, can the Lord’s flesh profit nothing?

For whence does the sound of the word come to us, if not through the voice of flesh? Whence writing, whence texts?

All these are works of the flesh, but only when the Spirit uses it as His instrument.

“The Spirit gives life; the flesh profits nothing” in the sense in which they understood flesh. But I do not give My Flesh to be eaten in that way.

Therefore He says, “The words that I speak to you are spirit and life.”

For we have said, brethren, that the Lord entrusted this to us when He offered His Flesh to eat and His Blood to drink.

He did this so that we might abide in Him, and He in us.

But we abide in Him only when we are His members. He abides in us when we are His temple.

For us to become His members, unity must bind us. And what, except love, will cause unity to bind us?

And whence is the love of God? Ask the Apostle. “The love of God,” he says, “has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, Who has been given to us” (Rom 5:5).

Therefore “the Spirit gives life,” because the Spirit makes the members living. But the Spirit gives life only to those members which He finds in the Body that the Spirit vivifies.

For the spirit that is in you, O man, by which you know yourself to be a man, does it vivify members that it finds separated from your body?

By your spirit I mean your soul. Your soul vivifies only those members that are in your body.

If you remove one of them, it will no longer be vivified by your soul, because it is no longer bound to the unity of your body.

This is said so that we may love unity and fear division. There is nothing a Christian should fear more than separation from the Body of Christ.

If he is separated from the Body of Christ, he is not His member. If he is not His member, he is not vivified by His Spirit.

“If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ,” says the Apostle, “he is not His” (Rom 8:9).

“The Spirit gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit and life.”

What does “they are spirit and life” mean? It means they must be understood spiritually.

You have understood them spiritually; then they are spirit and life. You have understood them carnally, and though they are spirit and life, they are not so for you.

Thus every scandal is removed, if only you had faith for this. “The Spirit gives life; the flesh,” He did not say “My flesh,” “profits nothing.” Do not be fleshly, but rise to the spiritual. “My words are spirit and life.”

Therefore the reception of this teaching is accomplished by the higher side of human nature, which is accessible to the action of the life-giving Spirit of God. Yet, although My words are spirit and life, some of you do not believe in Me.

For this reason I told you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him by My Father."

Here the Lord speaks of His ascent to the Father in the broad sense, as His ascent into glory through sufferings (Lk 24:26). In the visible sufferings lies the beginning of His glory. Having suffered, He died, rose again, and ascended.

It is precisely this starting point of His glory, His sufferings and shameful death, that He indicates here. It will be a cause of offense to the Jews still greater than the offense caused by His present discourse.

If you are now offended by My word about the bread of life, My Flesh, what will happen when you see My sufferings and shameful death? Will this not be a still greater offense to you, since, in the carnal tendency of your views, you do not understand that these sufferings and death are the path to My glory and the ascent to where I was before?" Bishop Michael, Explanatory Gospel.

Speaking to the murmuring disciples, the Lord says that the end of His earthly course will offend them still more. They will see Him crucified on the Cross, although this death on the Cross will be only the beginning of His ascent to where He was before.

The Lord said: "You think only of the earthly and the fleshly. You cannot free yourselves from it, even when I speak to you of heavenly things and of the salvation of your souls.

Understand, then, that true life, eternal life, is given not by bodily food, nor by the manna your fathers ate. It is given by that spiritual food, that heavenly bread, which I give you.

For true eternal life is the life of the spirit, not of the body. The spirit enlivens the body; the Spirit gives life, but not the flesh. The flesh profits nothing and does not lead to the blessedness of eternal life.

You think only of the earthly and fleshly. The words that I speak to you are spirit and life. They lead to the perfection of the spirit, to the perfection of your souls, and secure for you the blessedness of eternal life.

But faith in Me is needed to understand them. I see that there are unbelievers among you. They are the ones who do not understand Me. Since they do not understand Me, they do not follow Me.

By refusing to fulfill the will of God, they cannot come to Me. The will of My Father is that all should believe in Me and all should come to Me.

The one who comes to Me comes according to the will of My Father, and this coming is, as it were, given to him by the Father. But whoever rejects the will of God has not been granted by My Father to come to Me.

For this reason I told you that no one can come to Me unless it is granted him by My Father."

One must look at all this with the spiritual eye of faith. Such a view will make the soul alive. It will not cast it into scandal, but will lead it to Christ and, therefore, to eternal life.

Fleshly understanding will bring no benefit. On the contrary, it will cause the greatest harm. "The flesh profits nothing: He said this not about His own Flesh, by no means, but about those who understand His words sensibly.

What does it mean to understand sensibly? It means to look at things simply and imagine nothing more. That is what it means to understand sensibly. But one must not judge visible things in this way. With the inner eyes one must penetrate all their mysteries. This is what it means to understand spiritually" (Chrysostom).

"The words are spirit and life." The teaching that I present to you contains precisely this life-giving Spirit. It reveals to you the higher spiritual understanding of the objects of faith. Therefore they are also life, because they enliven man's faith and with it lead him to eternal life.

Your understanding is low, sensible, and incorrect. My teaching is spiritual, exalted, and true.

The disciples secretly exchanged words of mistrust among themselves (Jn 10:20). The Savior saw what was taking place in their souls. To instruct them, He says that with their own eyes they will see His ascension into heaven.

The disciples were scandalized that His flesh would be food. Equally, if not more, incomprehensible was that His body would ascend into heaven. But if they were convinced by the experience of their senses of the reality of the flesh's ascension, they should also believe that His power extends to making His flesh wondrous food for the faithful.

There is a similar instruction in Jn 3:12. "The Spirit gives life; the flesh profits nothing." By flesh and spirit some, such as Klee, understand a sensible and a spiritual way of thinking, showing in the first an incapacity for understanding spiritual things.

But the Savior is not speaking about what can find the truth. He is speaking about what can give life or bring no benefit. He wishes to clarify His words about the flesh and remove the cause of scandal.

Christ's Flesh gives life because in it there is the life-giving and all-powerful Spirit. But the flesh of which the Jews are thinking, can it be useful for anything? See 2 Cor 5:16; 1 Pet 3:18.

"The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life." His words referred to His body and blood. Therefore "words" should be replaced by "body and blood." His body and blood, of which He spoke, are spirit and life. The body bears the Spirit in itself; the blood bears life in itself.

Cyril of Alexandria and Leontius understood Christ's words in this way. "But there are some of you who do not believe." "For this reason I said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him by My Father."