29 His disciples said, “Ah, now you are speaking plainly, not in any figure!

The final verses of Chapter 16 conclude the portion of the farewell discourse that largely is applied to the apostles themselves. What starts in the Chapter 17 is mainly Jesus’ lengthy prayer to the Father. All of the discourse follows the Last Supper.

Jesus has just given the best possible lesson on his relation to God the Father, it is the disciples response to this that begins todays readings. It is important to state that Jesus’ divine knowledge does not mean that everyone understands what he is saying. He is having to condescend and speak in figurative language in all his conversations with his apostles or his other followers and even then, they do not always “get it”. After his latest articulation his Apostles seem to grasp some of what he is saying. It leads them to reply as a group, “Ah, now you are speaking plainly, not in any figure!“.

They will go on to clarify just how much they understood but Jesus, being truly God, knows the limits even of the newly found comprehension.

30 Now we know that you know all things, and need none to question you; by this we believe that you came from God.”

First they acknowledge Jesus’ omniscience, a unique capacity of God to know all things. This unique capacity provides a narrower understanding of what the apostles mean by “you came from God”. This is not in the sense that they think Jesus is like any other messenger of God, angelic or human. They have clarified that Jesus knows “all things”. Moses certainly did not know all things, neither do the angels but they can come “from God”. So this articulation of the apostles is a primitive but true acknowledgement of Jesus’ divine essence, which he shares with God the Father and God the Spirit.

31 Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe?

32 The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, every man to his home, and will leave me alone; yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me.

33 I have said this to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

Jesus asks a rhetorical question, as if to say, “I’ve done all the signs, said everything that you should have had the capacity to understand from the beginning but now you understand? ” It reminds me of Jesus’ response to Nathaniel at the beginning of John’s Gospel. “Do you believe just because I told you I saw you under the fig tree?” It’s a humorous question from Jesus’ standpoint but could come off as rude to the uninitiated. As he is God he knows the actual extent of our understanding, so even when we get the fraction of something correct, it comes off as a child telling their parent something they learned at school. Luckily as a God of love, Jesus finds this all endearing I hope.

Although they’ve had an intellectual breakthrough, Jesus ups the game again. Despite their intellectual assent to him being God, it is not going to prevent their human frailty. He prophesizes a moment in the future where the apostles will scatter, this does of course happen at the crucifixion. The death of Jesus, despite it being told to them many times and how it is just a part of the mission will be a cause of division and doubtfulness for them. When this occurs they should still not give up hope, regardless of how things appear because whatever the world does throw at them, Jesus has conquered already. If they bound to him, they will also conquer it.

It might seem premature for Jesus to announce now that he has conquered the world, many non-Catholic Christians take the position that Jesus’ defining moment is the crucifixion and that moment itself is the penal substitution, the time of atonement, this would make Jesus’ words rather pointless here. Unless there is something else going on that is. When you take on a larger, coherent view of our redemption being that of a covenantal relationship, our nature being divinised, with the crucifixion being the consummation of that Covenant relationship you can start to see why he can say he has already conquered the world.

If we take this larger view, the start of the process doesn’t begin with nails on Mount Calvary but in the institution of the New Covenant meal in the Upper Room. Dr Scott Hahn’s work on the Fourth Cup explains the Last Supper as an uncompleted Passover meal, with new institutions like the Eucharist being placed into it. The Fourth Cup is the final drink of wine that concludes the meal where the reigning patriarch announces to those in attendance “It is finished”. These are the words of Jesus when he drinks the wine vinegar on the Cross, completing the meal and consummating the New Covenant.

Before the New Covenant is instituted, mans nature was, by natural hierarchy, lower than the angels, fallen or not. We used to be able to walk with God in the Garden but we fell, losing that part of our nature. Moses will write in Deuteronomy 32:

“Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations; ask your father, and he will show you; your elders, and they will tell you. When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of men, he fixed the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. For the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.”

All the peoples outside of Abraham’s line were under the dominion of lesser gods. With God taking a portion, in the beginning just Abraham and his wife, to be his own, a lineage that will be guided and taught by himself until through his people, he reconquers the entire earth. Jesus can say he has conquered the world now, before the crucifixion because the process began at the Last Supper. The rest of the worlds people and geographies are allotted to “sons of God”, lesser gods, created entities by Yahweh himself. God could snap his immaterial fingers any time he wanted to wipe them out but he sought to conquer them through us, his free will agents. This demonstrates our true calling, to co-rule with him who is, above the demons who hate him and us.

12 “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.

We are getting toward the end of the farewell discourse of Jesus to his Apostles, which begins at the end of the Last Supper until they reach the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus makes promises of both a middle period (the age of the Church) and of the eschatological period (the end of time) as well as warnings. It is important to understand when and to whom these statements are made or otherwise you would come to some very problematic (yet common) misconceptions about Jesus.

It may be difficult in a prideful façade of piety to accept that there are still things to be said and done after Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension, luckily Jesus in his own words tells us as much. The Church is not rejecting Jesus, she humbly accepts his word. There are “many things” he wishes to tell his Apostles but they “cannot bare them now.”

The sticking point between man-made institutions and the Church fundamentally comes down to the perception of Jesus’ death, the mainstream protestant view of modern times is penal substitution or/and forensic justification. The former means all the sins of man, past, present and future are perfectly taken out on Jesus in a bloody manner on the Cross and the latter that Jesus’ death was a toll paid out for the legal declaration of humanities justification. This conclusion comes from misunderstanding Greek words, surface level observation and in all honesty, refusing to take Scripture as a whole non-contradicting piece of inspired literature, reducing some portions, even words of Jesus to below their intended importance.

The Church’s perception is that of Paul’s elaborations in Ephesians 5, these explain why Jesus can say the things he says here without ignoring them or minimising them like man-made institutions have. The mystery of the connection between Jesus and the Church is a marriage but on a divine level. Marriage is the mutual offering of life to one another in exchange for the two becoming one flesh. Now imagine one of the spouses is God, what does this do for the bride? She is divinised by divine legality and also becomes a representative for the bridegroom, Christ. Because Jesus’ nature is shared with the other persons of the Godhead, The Father and the Spirit, all those baptised into his Church enter a covenant, a divine contract, with the Holy Trinity itself, all members of a body with a singular head, the Pope that unifies the mouth and limbs that are the Bishops and Clergy. This is why the “Natural Model” stuff is so important in my ramblings, that is how our Lord envision this, you can think its weird if you want but I’m just gonna submit because its easier.

13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

Jesus has previously made it extremely clear that he must go before the Spirit can arrive, that means his death, resurrection and ascension are all just parts of the mission, I do not say this to minimise them, they are more glorious and magnificent than we can possibly imagine but this tale of salvation is WAY bigger than we can truly comprehend. That is why faith is needed because our eyes cannot see nor the mind imagine what is in store for us. If these monumental moments were final and the be all end all, the Spirit would not be required to do anything after Jesus ascends. Yet he does and Jesus says as much so we must humbly submit to that.

The Spirit shares his nature with The Son and The Father, he will transmit all he hears to the Apostles who will be the mouth, mind and limbs of the Bride of Christ, the Church. Jesus can say he wants to tell them more and then that the Spirit will tell them these things because of their shared nature. This transmission is possible because of the marital nature of the crucifixion, it makes his flesh one with ours like a marriage. The Bishops have the authority they have because they truly are, like a married couple, legally one, not in the eyes of a human court but in the eyes of God himself but also like a married couple, they are not equal, the bride is in submission to the bridegroom but the bride is still a legal representative in the absence of the bridegroom.

This promise extends throughout all time until the eschaton, guiding the Church in faith and morals, binding and loosing as required without error.

14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

15 All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

Jesus now expresses the framework of the shared divine nature within the Trinity in a manner that the Apostles can understand in faith. The Spirit can be completely trusted because he only says what he hears from the Godhead, he glorifies Christ because he only takes what is from Jesus and transmits it to the Apostles, everything that Jesus has that is being transmitted in his physical absence is what the Father has. Again, the binding of the Godhead is the shared nature. Since we are finite beings operating in time, the entirety could not be dispensed in instantaneously, most people at this time couldn’t understand why a guy was blind without him or his parents sinning. The Divine pedagogy is always at work not because God is limited but because we are. You might ask why doesn’t God just make us understand, I’d answer because at that point the beauty of Love being faith and trust would be eliminated but the most we can say for certain is that is how God planned this.

5 But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’

Jesus continues his farewell discourse to his apostles before his crucifixion. Jesus has repeatedly said that he is going to be killed but it must take place and is just a part of his mission, after death he will rise to the right hand of the power (God the Father). Despite his claims his apostles are always limited in their comprehension of what this means, despite the wide span of belief on the afterlife, inherent human materialistic fears within the apostles prevent them from fully trusting what Jesus says. They’re always stuck between “this guy can literally walk on water, turn water into wine, heal the sick, raise the dead but…his death seems irreconcilable. Jesus highlights their silence, if they believe fully they should be curious about the ins and outs of the divine machinations that will take place when he goes. “None of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’.”

Typical first century understanding is at least Sheol, the realm of both the righteous and unrighteous dead awaiting the final judgement, Jesus will go there but he isn’t going there to stay, they should be more curious but death is still a stumbling block to the Jews both before and after Jesus’ mission.

6 But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts.

Jesus expresses a type of confusion, not literal but as leverage to manoeuvre his apostles to the correct position of thought. Their sorrowful disposition at the knowledge of his future death is actually at odds with what will come about because of it.

7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.

Jesus now illuminates some of the divine machinations going on in the invisible realm and how it interacts with ours. We can use what he says as “pillars” or “rules” of it, at least according to his word which we should understand as reality. It also clarifies why they should not be sorrowful. Similar to that of the Old Covenant coming to end should not bring sorrow to the Jews as it will be the advent of the greater and eternal covenant, Jesus’ earthly ministry was the means to which the Holy Trinity deemed to mediate the new covenant, it wasn’t a be all end all of itself but a means to establish it. By his going, the Paraclete will arrive, God the Spirit that will guide them into all truth and Jesus makes it clear that it is necessary for his going because that is how the Spirit will arrive. If he stays, it will not. What this means in its absolute sense can be pondered for millenia without really getting any concrete conclusions but what we do know is that it is a rule posited by the Word made flesh as a requirement for things to come.

Jesus always makes it clear that his leaving, enables him to send the Spirit to them, once again another part of this discourse that verifies the claim that the Spirit proceeds from both the Father and Son via spiration whilst maintaining that the Father is the principle root. The Filioque affirms the spiration.

8 And when he comes, he will convince the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment:

The Incarnation was wide reaching in the context of first century Palestine but in a material sense limited and pedagogical, in the context that we as a species are many people spread over the world, a single seed can be planted but something immaterial is required to spread all over. This will occur through individual Christians united by the Spirit. This combined witness of the Spirit and the little Christs going out to all nations will “convince the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgement”. It is massively undeniable, the ethical and moral change that occurred over the past 2000 years because of Spirit that led the bride of Christ into all truth. It is not a “judeo-christian” foundation but a Christian one. It was the Christians who bore witness to Christ for 300 years to Romans and in their martyrdom converted the pagan empire, thus spreading all over the known world. Jews sought to tone down their beliefs in order to not rock the boat of the Gentiles, this is what we see in the Talmudic period of Jewry. On multiple occasions, Jews saw the pagans as allies against the Christians up until the blood of the Church converted the empire.

9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in me;

10 concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no more;

11 concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

Jesus now clarifies, concerning Sin, because they do not know him. His Church will spread and every martyr will be a witness to Christ, an image of him. The world will see Christ in his legion of self-sacrificing followers. Concerning righteousness, because Jesus will go to the right hand of the Father, the be all and end all of what is “good” and “just” will no longer be left up to intellectual opinion or rabbinical bickering but defined by He Who Is. Concerning judgement because the peak of peoples understanding of the material world was that of at most, being slaves to death and the might of the sword. This world left under the dominion of the Prince of Darkness, the evil one, will be humiliated by a greater power, one that can conquer death itself and rise on the third day. This judgement of the evil one is completely coherent with Second Temple literature, extra biblical exegesis of Old Testament literature, the expectation of the judgement of both human sinners and the divine ones, this is elaborated in great depth in the texts of 1 Enoch.

26 But when the Counselor comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness to me;

Chapters 14-17 of John’s Gospel contain what we call the Farewell Discourse, it is Jesus’ final words of encouragement, warnings and eschatological promises to his apostles before his mission on Mount Calvary. These chapters of John have been used as a proof-text for Hellenistic influence on the Apostle or even worse, the accusation that it was actually a second century pseud-epigraphical writing by a Greek, not a Jew of first century Palestine. Writings like Aeneas’ Farewell in Virgil’s Aeneid or Socrates’ final words in Plato’s Phaedo are used as comparisons.

All of this conjecture can be thrown out the window when one looks at the Old Testament, although not as intricate and separated by many generations, we see similar discourses from key figures like Jacob, Moses, Joshua and David or even Matthias in 1 Maccabees. Some might argue that biblical sources are not adequate and that’s fine, people are allowed to be wrong I guess but there are also Jewish sources of the Second Temple Period in the region Palestine, that behold, were even written in Aramaic in the centuries preceding the birth of John the Apostle. Both 1 Enoch and the Testament of the 12 Patriarchs feature such discourses and they were widely popular in the Aramaic speaking Jewish society of first century Palestine. Foreign influence was not remotely required as a building block for John’s writing style, which truly I just believe to be the most personally accurate recording of Jesus’ spoken words, albeit in Greek.

Jesus is telling his apostles about ho paraklētos or The Advocate or The Counselor depending on translation choices. Ho being the definite article “The” implying a singular entity of the subject “Advocate” and a secondary implication of eternality. This is a figure, a person who is the spiritual embodiment of Advocacy and comfort. Jesus says that he will send it but it’s nature is that of the Father for it comes from him but sent by Jesus, it proceeds from the Father but is a witness to Jesus. In another place Jesus says he also comes from the Father but him and the Father are one. This is highly trinitarian and a good text to point to for such things but on the surface it can be confusing because we inevitably try to fit it into mortal finite frameworks we can imagine, not so surprisingly, God should be beyond those frameworks. Their natures are equal but their relations are different. Both the Son and the Spirit proceed from the Father but in the sense of eternality not in the finite sense of human experience where the former is not equal to the latter (see the heresy of Arianism). The Spirit also proceeds from the Son as he can send it, that is why we say it in the Creed. To say Jesus can’t send it would be to argue with the Scriptures themselves and I’m glad I don’t have to take that position.

This Advocate is the Spirit of Truth, and has several references in the Old Testament throughout the Psalms, the Prophets but my favourite as it is the most analogous to today’s readings is that of the Book of Numbers where the Spirit comes upon the elders, enabling prophecy and granting them binding and loosing authority within the container of the Old Covenant. A similar thing is happening here just on a grander scale with the New Covenant.

27 and you also are witnesses, because you have been with me from the beginning.

Jesus adds to this saying on the Spirit, its relation to him and the Father, with how the theological kaleidoscope extends out, mirroring the divine forms as it is applied to those in its foundational covenant members. As the Spirit is a witness to Jesus, so they the apostles are. Their participation from the beginning of Jesus’ calling them is a human, in-time, equivalent to the Spirit’s participation in the Trinity for eternity. This grants them special powers obviously, especially that of binding and loosing. Even the monarchical head is mirrored onto Peter, the Apostles are equal in nature but not in relation. This is an invitation to theosis or divinisation.

1 “I have said all this to you to keep you from falling away.

Currently in the events of John’s writing, the linchpin of the early Catholic Church is dependant on the physical presence of Jesus. The Incarnation was a redeeming miracle of our own nature but it was also a pedagogical tool for the Apostles, they needed the theological training wheels of God in the Flesh but it is a teaching tool after all and if you want to learn to ride a bike you have to take off the stabilizers at some point. They must learn to rely on the Spirit, a non-physical and invisible person but one that will prevent them from falling away if they rely on it. Jesus is telling them all of this so they know what is coming, first the three days in the tomb is going to cause some panic but then after the ascension they have no physical human Jesus to touch anymore to rely on. The Advocate is going to be necessary when they are, by all material accounts, alone and suffering.

2 They will put you out of the synagogues; indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.

The Houses of Prayer, reading and Law Study, the Synagogues, were public hubs for all Jews and even Gentiles who believed. The mission that Jesus is sending his apostles on is going to be so hostile to the obstinate Jews that the Apostles will be thrown out of them. Jesus also speaks of a moment in the near future that people will kill them thinking they are serving God in doing so. This should immediately make you think of Saint Paul who prior to his encounter with Christ at Damascus, was killing and imprisoning Christians not out of evil desire but because of his religious zeal, he truly believed that this is what God wanted. He was not hiding blood lust under a religious facade. This was obviously not a singular thing, there were many like Paul in the first century.

3 And they will do this because they have not known the Father, nor me.

These figures that commit these horrible acts, prove that they do not know God the Father or God the Son, again when we look to Paul, it is his encounter with Christ that changes his ways, in a lesser form by relation, this applies to all those who encounter Christ in the veiled form of just a normal Christian person. Not many people have Paul’s Damascus moment, but many witness Christ in Christians that is enough to convert them, by witnessing the Son in the Christian, they can know him and by extension, know the Father.

4 But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you of them. “I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you.

A vital circumstantial proof of the Resurrection is that the most of the Apostles died for believing it. The hinge they clung to was most likely these words of Jesus’ farewell. He told them these things would occur. That they would happen after he has gone but the Spirit will be with them. They would remember these words and the promises and finish the race, winning the crown martyrdom and a throne in Heaven.

1 “Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me.

John 14 begins the farewell address of Jesus after the Last Supper. He begins with planting the seeds of hope, the apostles should not let their hearts, their emotions be shaken despite the fate awaiting Jesus. His resurrection is interwoven intimately and inextricably to trust in God the Father and God the Son. If they maintain that focus, they will be not be troubled unnecessarily.

2 In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?

Jesus now hints to heavenly realities, kind of like if you had an arduous journey ahead of you, you might talk about the joy of the final destination. Jesus does this here on a heavenly level. He reveals to them some particular truths of the heavenly realm. In the heavenly temple, of which the earthly temple is only an icon of, both known as God’s house has many rooms. Jesus says that his promise to prepare a place for them proves this to be true.

On one level this is divine bridegroom language, it was the responsibility of the bridegroom, in between the betrothal and consummation stage of marriage, to prepare a house, a home, where the consummation would take place. This was a normal part of marriage but Jesus is saying, this natural marital process is actually an icon of a divine reality, like how a husband prepares a home for himself and his wife and future children, Jesus does the same in the heavenly realm. The sacrifice the bridegroom makes to take however long it takes to build a home is analogous to Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, he must die to go prepare the home for his bride, the Church.

The Old Testament is littered with references to both the Temple, the Tabernacle proceeding it, the Garden before that along with Heaven itself of course being the Dwelling place of God. What is especially curious about Jesus’ words are the extra details, there are “many rooms”. There is no reference for this in the Old Testament, it could be deduced from the infinite aspect of God’s dwelling place that there might be many rooms but this focus on the many rooms seems specific and a core part of his promise to his apostles. This is where Second Temple Literature comes into play that expounded upon inspired scripture, kind of like a biblical commentary written as a biblical fiction, inspired by the divine but not divinely inspired. Stories and sayings attributed to ancient patriarchs of the Hebrew people to convey a contemporary Midrashic understanding of an inspired text. This idea of multiple rooms in God’s house is explicitly referenced in 1 Enoch 41:1-2a

 “And after that I saw all the secrets of the heavens, and how the kingdom is divided, and how the  actions of men are weighed in the balance. And there I saw the mansions of the elect and the mansions of the holy“

Jesus with his divine knowledge, knew that this understanding in the Pseudo-epigraphical text was actually correct and since 1 Enoch was one of the most influential non-inspired texts of the Second Temple Period, Jesus isn’t inventing some novelty here, nor is John placing Hellenistic frameworks into Jesus’ mouth. He is speaking of a concept dominant before the Incarnation. The father of Gospel Scepticism, Rudolf Bultmann, who sought to “demythologise” Jesus and his Church actually pointed to this verse as a Hellenistic-Christian reinterpretation of modern Jewish understanding of the afterlife. Bultmann’s ideological descendant, Bart Ehrman, suggests that this verse was later Christian editing of Jesus’ words to cope with the perceived delayed eschaton. It turns out they’re both just retarded and German.

3 And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.

4 And you know the way where I am going.”

Now Jesus assures his apostles that his death, although sad in the immediate sense, is intimately connected to his “going” to prepare a place for them. They should not worry because he will come to them again to bring them to himself. This is when they die or when anyone dies, if you have abided by him he will say “good and faithful servant, come to your lords embrace” and so on. We will be with him in the afterlife, like a bride with her husband.

5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?”

Thomas speaks up, a rare occurrence but also foreshadows his doubt after the resurrection. We call him “Doubting Thomas” a lot but I think its more appropriate to call him “Worried Thomas”, Doubt always has an air of animosity of which Thomas really seem to only exude human frailty which I find very understandable. Thomas does not know where Jesus’ is going, he does not know death himself, so he says so and asks the question of how could he know the way if he has never gone there? I don’t think he is assuming that Jesus is going to some different place geographically speaking, he is speaking of death and he, as most people, does not intimately know death and has not gone to it.

6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.

Jesus gives one of my favourite lines in scripture. He doesn’t provide a checklist, he does does not provide a formula or an instruction manual, Jesus says “I am the way, and the truth, and the life”. First of all, divine statement “I am”. Second of all these are all immaterial concepts, non-tangible notions…until the Incarnation. Many a discussion has been had on Jesus’ human and divine natures but I like talking about what it enabled. It enabled for the first time in history for “the way” a person should act, “the truth” they should attest to and “the life” they should live to be so tangible they could touch him and love him the way we do to another human being. The way, truth and life could be as intimate as a parent is to their child, no longer lofty mental frameworks but an embraceable person because he was God.

Jesus also gives a qualifier that can be interpreted in both a positive or negative sense. The negative sense is that no one can receive the beatific vision, dwell with God face to face, unless they come to Jesus. Or the positive interpretation, that anyone who does receive the beatific vision does so because of the Son, whether they knew him or not. I’ll leave that kind of stuff to the theologians.

52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

Chapter Six of John’s Gospel is the home of the great “Bread of Life Discourse” which goes on for quite awhile. At this point in the discourse Jesus has told the Jews, who wish to eat of the true bread of Heaven, that he is the bread and they are going to have to eat him. Those that do this, will live forever. This is obviously a difficult saying for a variety of reasons. The Jews response of confusion could be interpreted in a variety of ways.

The most immediate is that cannibalism would obviously contradict the Mosaic Law but there are a few others that I think are important especially as it pertains to the miracles that Jesus has previously performed. There are two more pressing issues, one of which would answer the Mosaic Law problem. How could Jesus’ flesh also be bread? or Vice-versa? If his flesh is the bread, will isn’t that kind of limited? One full human body of flesh is going to limit the amount of people who could eat from it. Two of the previous Signs or miracles of John’s Gospel point to the solution and also the other signs point to the effects of eating Jesus’ flesh as well.

The first Sign is the wedding feast at Cana, at a Convental Feast (a Marriage) Jesus transforms water in to wine. It’s not just a “Wowee, magic trick” moment. He is demonstrating is authority over material substances. He can by his own word, transform one thing in to another. If he can do that, he can transform his flesh into bread if he so wished.

The second and third sign deal with healing human frailty in both the nobility and the peasant, these are historical events but also symbols of the effects of receiving eternal life when consuming Jesus’ flesh. The fourth sign answers the other problem, Jesus can literally multiply bread and feed as many people as he wishes. He can multiply mass of material and transform it. So Jesus has actually given all the evidence already for why they should trust him on this but that’s easy for us with 2000 years of Church tradition as our starting point. These Jews did not have that but technically Jesus gave them everything in order to accept it.

53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you;

In response to their questioning of Jesus’ statement, Jesus doubles down. Even using the signature “Amen, amen, I say to you” preface. This always precedes important teachings. If you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man, you will not have eternal life. It’s extremely simple and extremely clear. Though to clarify, we are bound by these sacraments, God isn’t. If we enter the covenant and reject the body of Jesus, we reject eternal life. Jesus is not going to punish those who know nothing about it and therefore can never receive it. He is also fully aware of who would have accepted it had they been offered because he is God after all.

54 he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.

Jesus triples down on his statement and now even moves into more graphic language. The word for eating in the previous verses was esthiō, it can be used is metaphorical and spiritual terms but John now records Jesus switching up the phrasing to reaffirm just how literal he is being by writing trōgō. This is explicitly a physical chewing action of food. You can’t really get out of the physical eating meaning of what Jesus is saying. He also continues to reaffirm the drinking of his blood because it has eternal life. Consuming this will cause you to be raised up at the last day, so it is a prerequisite for the resurrection at the end of time.

I am now going to go on a massive ramble so forgive me.

It should also be noted that in the Hebrew context, regardless of species, the drinking of blood was massively forbidden for the exact reason it was practiced by the pagans and I believe it is this underlying belief that actually makes Jesus’ case for drinking his blood. God’s original words to Moses about abstaining from blood was to do with blood having a particular purpose and it shouldn’t be misused. Blood contains life, the purpose of the blood in Hebrew Sacrifice was to ratify covenant, the day of atonement for example the blood gets splattered everywhere on the Ark, the people, its very messy. That’s its purpose, drinking it would be like hammering in a screw on top of that, the life of the animal is in its blood and you as a human are above animals, the ancient idea of “You are what you eat” extends even to this point in time. Drinking an animals blood would be an insult to your inherent nature. Now step in the pagans in an almost universal way, they did drink animal blood, almost always in a ritual way because the life of the animal was in it and especially as it relates to the belief of animals as being living icons of the their respective gods. If you drink the blood of the ox you become as strong as the ox deity, that kind of logic. We actually still see this in modern day African countries unfortunately.

Obviously in our understanding of the supernatural universe, we believe these entities in some fashion exist, they are demons and in the sense of the divine hierarchy we are actually above them and as they are finite beings, their power is limited so trying to ritually consume them is an insult to ourselves and God. The only way ancient Hebrews could eat animals was by explictly offering them to God first, a demonstration of “yeah I’m not worshiping this guy, I’m team God”.

Yahweh in his divine condescension and pedagogy has been preparing his people for the moment where he offers himself, he is uncreated and infinite and the incarnation demonstrates God’s entering into time to physically offer his divine unlimited self to his people. You are what you eat. This is theosis, divinisation at play. The Laws that the Jew’s clung to and to this day use as their proof against Jesus are actually the framework mechanism for why Jesus does it at all.

55 For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.

56 He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.

57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me.

58 This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever.”

59 This he said in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.

[unfinished]

35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.

The day following the multiplication of the loaves to feed the five thousand, Jesus has delicately prepared his audience for the bombshell on one of the difficult hidden truths about the expected Messianic Banquet.

The Messianic Banquet was a commonly held belief about what would happen in the fullness of time. Quasi-divine figures like the Son of Man from the Book of Daniel were expected to arrive, incorporate the Nations and the Hebrews together under one New Covenant with God. This would be celebrated with a feast amongst the heavenly host.

The typical feast imagery we should be imagining is that of where you get to the Patriarch of the household face-to-face and get to eat at his table as if you were a part of his family. The divine surprise is that Jesus, routinely referring to himself as the “Son of Man”, definitely takes place of the Messianic figure at the Banquet but he also declares that he is the food. “I am the bread of life”. This is where many of his audience would probably be scratching their heads and further on in the discourse they will be outright disgusted because they realise he is being quite literal.

Second Temple Literature like 1 Enoch which was very influential on the New Testament authors speaks of a time, at the end of time, where people will not be sad or hungry or suffer sickness. Jesus here is presenting himself as the medicine to human suffering hunger and thirst, the difficulty was the typical expectation was that God was the one who would do the mending, to his audience, Jesus is just a man so by placing himself as the solution to human frailty he is not so subtly claiming divinity, along with one of the “I am” statements proceeding it, this is very rich text for divine claim. It is eating this bread (himself) and believing in him, that transfigures human issues like hunger and thirst.

36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.

Up to this point Jesus has offered clear signs of both his prophetic and Messianic claims through his supernatural miracles, explicitly for this crowd, the multiplication of loaves which both imitate but transcend the miracles of the Prophet Elisha and the prototypical messiah Moses. He is the representative sent by God, they can physically see him, witness his miracles yet still do not believe.

37 All that the Father gives me will come to me; and him who comes to me I will not cast out.

All those who believe, and by belief we mean live out the requirements of Jesus as well as intellectually assent to him will come to him. He himself will not “cast out” these that come to him. The Greek here uses the same word used in the Greek Old Testament for when our first parents were “cast out” of the Garden in the Book of Genesis. Some have taken this line of Jesus to mean eternal security, basically no matter what you do, as long as you intellectually believe in Jesus, you go to Heaven. This would contradict other parts of the Gospels and the Epistles so that can’t be the case. What is being articulated is that Jesus does not cast you out, you cast yourself out which is how the Church understands those who are damned to hell. They choose it. They choose to blaspheme the Holy Spirit and reject Jesus at the end and choose to be cast out of the elect.

38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me;

39 and this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up at the last day.

40 For this is the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

Jesus mentioned previously that a true manna from Heaven will be sent, he then said that he is that manna, the bread of heaven and life. To make his point even more explicit he states that he has come down from heaven. This is an outright claim of divinity, although we might read past it, in the Hebrew context what comes from heaven is of God and therefore have connect to the divine in some way.

Like the prophets before him Jesus comes because of the will of his father, the difference is that the previous prophets were of earth, he is of heaven and does the will of God. This lines up with the expectations of the Son of Man figure who is at the right hand of the Ancient of Days. He is a divine figure, from heaven, doing the will of God on earth.

He is gathering for God the father from the people of earth, those who the Father seeks to “raise” at the last day. Although an eternal spiritual existence with God would be great, God’s plan involves the body to be a part of this communion with him.

[unfinished]

30 So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see, and believe you? What work do you perform?

Following the miracle of the multiplication of loaves and using them to feed 5000 men, the crowds are even more determined to follow Jesus around. The issue brought up in the previous verses is that Jesus recognises the desires of these people as being materialistic, essentially seeing him as a free food factory. He then explains to them that he has been sealed by God the Father, a synonym for anointed. What is curious about this is that Jesus has already performed the miracle with the loaves but this crowd seem unmoved by it and request another sign to verify his claim that he has been sent by God.

31 Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ ”

Jesus’ miracle was supposed to reflect a typological fulfilment of the Manna in the wilderness but his audience actually use this event as evidence against him seeing the bread that Jesus miraculously multiplied as being just earthly bread whereas their ancestors ate the bread from heaven. I’ve seen some people claim that they aren’t quoting scripture directly and that they are paraphrasing a verse from Exodus but to me at least, it sounds an awful lot like what is said in Psalm 78:24

“And he rained down on them manna to eat and gave them the grain of heaven.”

This would be the English translation of the Masoretic Text, doesn’t sound quite right does it? When we turn to the literal English translation of the Aramaic we have

“And He rained down on them manna to eat, and the produce of heaven He gave to them.”

Closer? Maybe? The real magic starts when we look at the Septuagint, the Greek Translation of the Old Testament.

“And He rained down on them manna to eat, and bread of heaven He gave to them.”

Now we have an almost word-for-word, slightly reordered which can easily be down to how we translate the phrase into English. When in doubt, use the Old Testament that the Gospel authors actually used.

32 Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.

Jesus corrects his audience, when they use the term “He” they are referencing Moses, an Earthly root of the Manna, so Jesus tells them that It was God the Father who gave them the bread from Heaven. Moses was just the mediator but Jesus is also speaking on another level, Manna was commonly used metaphorically as a symbol of God’s infinite wisdom and vitality. God is in the present tense, giving that to his children, they might not accept it, as they do in the person of Jesus but it is being offered at the time Jesus is talking on that spiritual level.

33 For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world.”

Now Jesus is leading them to the conclusion he wants them to make, he has pointed out that earthly hunger is not a penultimate challenge to strive fulfilment of, Moses is not the root or source of the actual fulfilment they should be seeking, God is and the bread that God offers will come down from Heaven and give life to the world.

34 They said to him, “Lord, give us this bread always.”

35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.

This is obviously all very exciting and Jesus has led them to want whatever this bread is, so much so that they call him Lord and ask for this bread always. Now the difficult thing to swallow for Jews. Jesus states that He is that bread. The bread of Life. He has come down from Heaven, He gives life to the World and He will be the Father’s offering to feed his people on their final Exodus to reach the promised land of Heaven.

22 On the next day the people who remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone.

Verse 22 begins with John telling us that what transpires here is on the day following two particular events. First is the feeding of the five thousand and second is Jesus walking on the water, in the first case he is being presented as a New Moses and in the second case it involves one of Jesus’ “I am” statements, although this one is slept on by most people. Jesus walks on the water and when his disciples see him they take him for a spirit, he says “Do not be afraid, I am” but many translations render it as “It is I” despite it being the same phrase he uses for his divine “I am” statements, there is only one entity who crosses the surface of the waters in the Old Testament and it is not coincidence he will later reveal his name to be “I am” to Moses, spoiler: its God in Genesis. So Jesus is presented as both Moses and God.

The day after these events those were present notice that something weird has happened with Jesus’ disappearance because he did not get in the boat with disciples when they left but he also isn’t still there, so they’re left to come to their own conclusion on what happened, obviously Jesus’ disciples see that Jesus just walked across the water but the outer ring of followers are kept in the dark.

23 However, boats from Tiberi-as came near the place where they ate the bread after the Lord had given thanks.

24 So when the people saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus.

There is a constant back and forth between the towns and villages on the different shores of the Sea of Galilee, very prosperous fishing hubs like Capernaum were not isolated cases, it’s just the only one Jesus makes his base of operations so it can seem like its the only one. Those who were present during Jesus’ multiplication of loaves miracle presume Jesus is back in Capernaum they presumably asked or paid to get into one of these vessels that go back and forth in order to get to Capernaum.

25 When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?”

26 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.

Upon arriving at Capernaum the travelling fanfare of Jesus find him and are obviously still mystified at how he got there without a boat so they ask him “Rabbi, when did you come here?”. We typically read past these conversations because they aren’t very tantalising but I think we should put more weight on what miracles are public and what ones are not. Jesus had no issue displaying himself as a New Moses and New Elisha by supernaturally multiplying bread but he only displayed his much more undeniable act of divinity to his apostles. There is always an element of hidden and unhidden with Jesus that pertains to the Messianic secret. Outside of the twelve, only certain acts are done.

Although we have a habit of highlighting the disciples inability to understand, we should also acknowledge their rightful authority, even when they do not intellectually understand what Jesus means by something, by right of being apostles Jesus is open with them. This is not extended to the outer followers. Peter can fail to comprehend what Jesus means about the bread of life discourse, which comes very soon by the way, but it doesn’t negate Jesus’ openness with him. The other followers of Jesus however who have not been given any authority by Jesus, when they fail to comprehend something i.e. the divine signs that the multiplication of loaves pointed toward, Jesus lightly shuns them. He admits they seek him but only because of a material fascination with his miracle, they’re blind to what it meant as an action and he says this in response to their question about how he cross the water. They are being excluded from that divine miracle because they seek with the same desire as a person who wants to see a magic trick. So Jesus is essentially answering with why they can’t know how he did it by referring to something else they failed to comprehend. He gives away zero secrets of the crossing of the water.

27 Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of man will give to you; for on him has God the Father set his seal.”

Jesus as he always does, never lets a teaching opportunity to go to waste. These people have gone through some large effort to cross the sea after witnessing Jesus’ ability to multiply bread, this is not a end goal to be motivated by. That is not what Jesus has come here to do. They need to set their goals quite a bit higher.

There is actually a lot of things going on in this verse so I will try my best to highlight it all.

This all relates to the bread Jesus gave at the feeding of the five thousand, it is perceived (correctly) as a Mosaic sign, Moses gave the manna to the Israelites in the wilderness, originally coming from God obviously. This manna was the bread of angels but it was temporary, it ceased when the Israelites entered the promised land. A lot of Second Temple Literature like 2 Baruch points to the return of this Manna in the Messianic age, God’s final traveling food for the true promised land. The physical geography of Israel is obviously not eternal, see the fall of the Kingdom after David. There must be a true homeland and a special provision for that journey. This is Apocalyptic Judaism talking, not Christianity, obviously we as Catholics see a continuity because there is one but its important to understand these ideas are being spoken about before Jesus’ ministry. Jesus in a few verses after this will present himself as the that provisional food for the journey to the true promised land: Heaven.

The Wisdom of Solomon talks of the Manna as being Divine Wisdom itself, the Jewish philosopher Philo (born around 20 BC) speaks of the Manna as being the Logos of God. Now turn to the Apostle John’s Gospel,

1 In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God.

14 And the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.

John isn’t contradicting the Jewish perception at all and neither is Jesus, they’re making it clear that some of them actually got it nearly right. Modern Judaism unfortunately has nothing to do with the Yahwehist cult of the Second Temple, it was largely built up in spite in the second century in opposition to Christianity and further on the fictions of forged books in the medieval period. Jesus is positioning himself as the answer and provisional food of the final Exodus but also as the Son of Man figure from Daniel. The Messiah they were all waiting for who would bring back the Manna in a Messianic Banquet (See Isa 25:6; 1 Enoch 62:14). Jesus has been marked with a “seal”. In Jewish thought, prophets/messianic figures were often “marked” by God (e.g., Ezek 9:4; T. Levi 18:6). In apocalyptic Jewish thought, the new Manna would be a restoration of the Tree of life, the food of immortality that our first parents lost in the Garden of Eden. Jesus would be killed by being “hung on a tree” and be our eternal food in the Eucharist.