Isa 55:1-2, Joh 6:53-57, 1Jo 1:3 | JFB | e4.org | 1. every one —After the special privileges of Israel ( ) there follow, as the consequence, the universal invitation to the Gentiles ( ). Ho —calls the most earnest attention. thirsteth —has a keen sense of need ( ). waters . . . wine and milk —a gradation. Not merely water, which is needed to maintain life at all, but wine and milk to strengthen, cheer, and nourish; the spiritual blessings of the Gospel are meant ( ). "Waters," plural, to denote abundance ( ). no money —Yet, in , it is said, "ye spend money." A seeming paradox. Ye are really spiritual bankrupts: but thinking yourselves to have money, namely, a devotion of your own making, ye lavish it on that "which is not bread," that is, on idols, whether literal or spiritual. buy . . . without money —another paradox. We are bought, but not with a price paid by ourselves ( ). In a different sense we are to "buy" salvation, namely, by parting with everything which comes between us and Christ who has bought it for us and by making it our own ( ).

‏ Isaiah 55:1-2

1. every one—After the special privileges of Israel (Isa 54:1-17) there follow, as the consequence, the universal invitation to the Gentiles (Lu 24:47; Ro 11:12, 15).

Ho—calls the most earnest attention.

thirsteth—has a keen sense of need (Mt 5:6).

waters . . . wine and milk—a gradation. Not merely water, which is needed to maintain life at all, but wine and milk to strengthen, cheer, and nourish; the spiritual blessings of the Gospel are meant (Isa 25:6; So 5:1; Joh 7:37). "Waters," plural, to denote abundance (Isa 43:20; 44:3).

no money—Yet, in Isa 55:2, it is said, "ye spend money." A seeming paradox. Ye are really spiritual bankrupts: but thinking yourselves to have money, namely, a devotion of your own making, ye lavish it on that "which is not bread," that is, on idols, whether literal or spiritual.

buy . . . without money—another paradox. We are bought, but not with a price paid by ourselves (1Co 6:20; 1Pe 1:18, 19). In a different sense we are to "buy" salvation, namely, by parting with everything which comes between us and Christ who has bought it for us and by making it our own (Mt 13:44, 46; Lu 12:33; Re 3:18).

2. not bread— (Hab 2:13). "Bread of deceit" (Pr 20:17). Contrast this with the "bread of life" (Joh 6:32, 35; also Lu 14:16-20).

satisfieth not— (Ec 1:8; 4:8).

hearken . . . and eat—When two imperatives are joined, the second expresses the consequence of obeying the command in the first (Ge 42:18). By hearkening ye shall eat. So in Isa 55:1, "buy and eat." By buying, and so making it your own, ye shall eat, that is, experimentally enjoy it (Joh 6:53). Compare the invitation (Pr 9:5, 6; Mt 22:4).

fatness— (Ps 36:8; 63:5).

‏ John 6:53-57

53-58. Except ye eat the flesh . . . and drink the blood . . . no life, &c.—The harshest word He had yet uttered in their ears. They asked how it was possible to eat His flesh. He answers, with great solemnity, "It is indispensable." Yet even here a thoughtful hearer might find something to temper the harshness. He says they must not only "eat His flesh" but "drink His blood," which could not but suggest the idea of His death—implied in the separation of one's flesh from his blood. And as He had already hinted that it was to be something very different from a natural death, saying, "My flesh I will give for the life of the world" (Joh 6:51), it must have been pretty plain to candid hearers that He meant something above the gross idea which the bare terms expressed. And farther, when He added that they "had no life in them unless they thus ate and drank," it was impossible they should think He meant that the temporal life they were then living was dependent on their eating and drinking, in this gross sense, His flesh and blood. Yet the whole statement was certainly confounding, and beyond doubt was meant to be so. Our Lord had told them that in spite of all they had "seen" in Him, they "did not believe" (Joh 6:36). For their conviction therefore he does not here lay Himself out; but having the ear not only of them but of the more candid and thoughtful in the crowded synagogue, and the miracle of the loaves having led up to the most exalted of all views of His Person and Office, He takes advantage of their very difficulties and objections to announce, for all time, those most profound truths which are here expressed, regardless of the disgust of the unteachable, and the prejudices even of the most sincere, which His language would seem only designed to deepen. The truth really conveyed here is no other than that expressed in Joh 6:51, though in more emphatic terms—that He Himself, in the virtue of His sacrificial death, is the spiritual and eternal life of men; and that unless men voluntarily appropriate to themselves this death, in its sacrificial virtue, so as to become the very life and nourishment of their inner man, they have no spiritual and eternal life at all. Not as if His death were the only thing of value, but it is what gives all else in Christ's Incarnate Person, Life, and Office, their whole value to us sinners.

54. Whoso eateth . . . hath, &c.—The former verse said that unless they partook of Him they had no life; this adds, that whoever does so "hath eternal life."

and I will raise him up at the last day—For the fourth time this is repeated (see Joh 6:39, 40, 44) —showing most clearly that the "eternal life" which such a man "hath" cannot be the same with the future resurrection life from which it is carefully distinguished each time, but a life communicated here below immediately on believing (Joh 3:36; 5:24, 25); and giving to the resurrection of the body as that which consummates the redemption of the entire man, a prominence which in the current theology, it is to be feared, it has seldom had. (See Ro 8:23; 1Co 15:1-58, throughout).

56. He that eateth . . . dwelleth in me and I in him—As our food becomes incorporated with ourselves, so Christ and those who eat His flesh and drink His blood become spiritually one life, though personally distinct.

57. As the living Father hath sent me—to communicate His own life.

and I live by the Father—literally, "because of the Father"; My life and His being one, but Mine that of a Son, whose it is to be "of the Father." (See Joh 1:18; 5:26).

he that eateth me, . . . shall live by me—literally, "because of Me." So that though one spiritual life with Him, "the Head of every man is Christ, as the head of Christ is God" (1Co 11:3; 3:23).

‏ 1 John 1:3

3. That which we have seen and heard—resumed from 1Jo 1:1, wherein the sentence, being interrupted by 1Jo 1:2, parenthesis, was left incomplete.

declare we unto you—Oldest manuscripts add also; unto you also who have not seen or heard Him.

that ye also may have fellowship with us—that ye also who have not seen, may have the fellowship with us which we who have seen enjoy; what that fellowship consists in he proceeds to state, "Our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son." Faith realizes what we have not seen as spiritually visible; not till by faith we too have seen, do we know all the excellency of the true Solomon. He Himself is ours; He in us and we in Him. We are "partakers of the divine nature." We know God only by having fellowship with Him; He may thus be known, but not comprehended. The repetition of "with" before the "Son," distinguishes the persons, while the fellowship or communion with both Father and Son, implies their unity. It is not added "and with the Holy Ghost"; for it is by the Holy Ghost or Spirit of the Father and Son in us, that we are enabled to have fellowship with the Father and Son (compare 1Jo 3:24). Believers enjoy the fellowship OF, but not WITH, the Holy Ghost. "Through Christ God closes up the chasm that separated Him from the human race, and imparts Himself to them in the communion of the divine life" [NEANDER].