NOTES for Joh 6:63

Immediately before this, Jesus said that His Flesh and Blood give eternal life (v. 54), and suddenly: "The flesh profits nothing." How should this be understood?

Perhaps Jesus wants to warn His listeners against too one-dimensional a perception of His previous words. It is so easy to shift the center of our attention from Jesus Himself to His Flesh and Blood, from living relations with the One who is risen and alive to the process of consuming material substances. Here His words take effect: "The Spirit gives life." We must fulfill the "saving commandment," as it is said in the Orthodox Liturgy, and partake of the Body and Blood of Christ; but it is not the molecules and atoms entering us that bring us eternal life, but the Holy Spirit sent down to us and filling us at that moment.

The Spirit, unlike food, is almost imperceptible. He is light, like breath, like a stirring of the air. Spoken words are like that too. But words received seriously, with faith, lead us into true life, just as the Spirit received together with the Body and Blood of Christ does.