HE IS THE WORD

“Aware that His disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, ‘Does this offend you? Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where He was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you — they are full of the Spirit and life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe.’ For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray Him. He went on to say, ‘This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him.'” John 6:60-65.

Sobering words!

If there were among His disciples those who were offended by the talk about His death and the effect it would have on them, how would they swallow the reality of His return to the Father. They were already grumbling because He insisted that He had come from the Father but, to go back to where He had come from would be just too much for them. Little did they know that they would be witnesses of that very event!

Jesus brought these men to the heart of what He was all about — His Word. He and His Word are inseparable. John introduced Him to his readers as the Word who was with God in the beginning and who was God. According to Hebrew understanding, God’s Word is a manifestation of Himself in another form. Jesus was God in another form — in the flesh and the Word.

It is difficult for the human mind to understand the intimacy between the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit and the Word. What the Father speaks and what the Son speaks are the perfect expression of who they are. The Spirit equally participates in and energizes the Word to speak and make effective what they say.

Faith in God’s Word is equal to faith in God. To believe what Jesus said is to stake one’s life on the one who said it. It was John’s purpose to present all the evidence necessary to authenticate Jesus’ claim to be the Son of God so that His readers would have confidence in His Word and therefore in Him.

How difficult it is for human beings to take the words of Jesus seriously! We are conditioned by the fickleness of our nature, to mistrust one another’s words because of experience. The word of human beings has proved so untrustworthy that we have to record on paper, sign and have witnessed every agreement for it to be believed.

“When God made His promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for Him to swear by, He swore by Himself, saying, ‘I will surely bless you and give you many descendants.’ And so, after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised.” Hebrews 6:13, 14.

Nowadays, not even an oath is trustworthy. It has to be recorded with ink on paper and signed for it to be binding.

“Men swear by someone greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument. Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of His purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, He confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged.” Hebrews 6:15-18.  

If Jesus is God and His word is the essence of who He is, then His promise is infallible and unbreakable — “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.”

What anguish, what sorrow, what frustration went into the words He spoke. His constant refrain was, ‘You will not believe.’ Judas walked with Him for more than three years and he chose not to believe and walked away. What will it take for us who have all the hindsight we need to be convinced that He is who He said He is, to believe and to respond to what He had promised?

Do you believe?

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.