John 6:63
"It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.
YOUR mistake is that you actually believe that Jesus is talking about
HIS flesh here - and that
HIS flesh avails
"nothing".
Jesus' flesh and blood avails us
EVERYTHING, as it was the
sacrifice of His flesh that
paid for the
SINS of the world.
To
properly understand this verse - you need to look at
ALL of the verses leading up to it. Jesus was telling an
UNBELIEVING crown that they need to
eat (trogo) His flesh and
drink His blood in order to have Life. He went onto say that His flesh was
TRUE FOOD and His blood was
TRUE DRINK (John 6:55). He told the crowd:
"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day" (John 6:44).
By the time we get to
verse 63 - the crown is just about ready to
walk away from Him.
THIS is where He tells them that they are thinking with
fleshly human logic instead of
spiritual logic from above. Christ was trying to
He
wasn't telling the crowd that
HIS FLESH didn't profit them.
He was telling them that their
FLESHLY THINKING didn't profit them.
THIS is why He says right
after this:
John 6:64-65
"But there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him. And He was saying, "For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father."
This truth had not yet been revealed to them by the Father, so they could ONLY use their fleshly minds to discern it.
As we know - in the very
next verse
(John 6:66) - they
abandoned Him and returned to their
former way of life.
Did Jesus try to
stop them to say, "Hey - I was just speaking
metaphorically! Let me explain!"
NO. He turns to the
Twelve and says:
"Do you ALSO want to leave?" (John 6:67).
Peter speaks for
ALL of them when he responds with.
"Master, to whom shall we go. You have the words of eternal life" (John 6:68).
They
didn't quite understand either - but they
TRUSTED in Him.
MOST of His followers
abandoned him that day for the
SAME reasons
YOU are arguing because they leaned on their
OWN understanding instead of relying on
God's (Prov. 3:5-6).