John 6:54-55

Ver. 54. After having given this explanation in a negative form (without this eating and this drinking, impossibility of living), Jesus completes the expression of His thought by adding: By this eating and this drinking, assured possession of life. Then He raises the eye of the believer even to the glorious limit of this impartation of life the resurrection of the body. The relation between these last words: “ And I will raise him up...,” and the preceding ones is so close that it is difficult to avoid seeing an organic connection between the possession of the spiritual life and the final resurrection; comp. Romans 8:10-11. However this may be, the bodily resurrection is by no means a useless superfetation relatively to the spiritual life, according to the thought which Reuss ascribes to John. Here is the fourth time that Jesus promises it in this discourse as the consummation of the salvation which He brings to mankind; comp. John 6:39-40; John 6:44. Nature restored and glorified is the end of the victory gained by the divine grace over sin.

The John 6:55 justifies the preceding negation and affirmation. If to eat this flesh and to drink this blood are the condition of life, it is because this flesh and this blood are, in all reality, food and drink. A part of the critical authorities present the reading ἀληθῶς, “is truly; ” the rest read ἀληθής : is true food... true drink. The former reading is more in conformity with the style of John. As Lucke observes, John ordinarily makes ἀληθής refer to moral veracity, in contrast to ψεῦδος (falsehood), but he also connects the adverb ἀληθῶς with a substantive (John 1:48: ἀληθῶς᾿Ισραηλίτης; perhaps John 8:31: ἀληθῶς μαθηταί). Moreover, the sense of the two readings is not sensibly different. The adverb or the adjective expresses the full reality of the vital communication effected by these elements, which are truly for the soul what food is for the body. John 6:56-57 explain how this communication of life is effected. By this food of the soul Christ dwells in us and we in Him (John 6:56), and this is to live (John 6:57).