Christ's Doctrine of Faith: A Study of "Believing" in John's Gospel (John 6:35-36)

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John 6:35-36 contains the thirty-first and thirty-second occurrences of “believing” in the Gospel of John. The passage reads: “And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me, and believe not” (KJV). As we have been doing, we will consider 1) the context of this passage and 2) what we can learn about faith from this passage.

First, what is the context of this passage? Right after the multitude asks Christ what sign He will perform so that they will believe Him, they recount that their ancestors ate manna in the desert and that it is written that he gave them bread from heaven to eat. Jesus responds by strongly assuring them that Moses did not give them that bread from heaven, but that His Father gives them the true Bread from heaven, because the Bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. The multitude then calls Him “Lord” and asks Him to always [1] give them this bread. Jesus answers their request by telling them that He is the Bread of Life and that the one who comes to Him will never hunger and that the one who believes on Him will never thirst. He then declares that He said to them that they have also seen Him and believe not. This is the context of John 6:35-36!

Second, what can we learn about faith from John 6:35-36? The first point about faith that we will here draw from this passage is that to believe in Christ is to come to Christ. Now, some try to clarify the term “believe” by the term “come.” However, since “come” is clearly a metaphorical expression, we will here clarify the metaphorical term “come” by the literal term “believe.” When a person trusts in Christ, it is as if he comes TO Christ and AWAY from whatever is taking Christ’s rightful place in his life. [2] A second point about faith we will draw from this passage is this: if one believes in Christ, it is as though he “eats” and “drinks” Christ. As we will see as we go through the occurrences of “believe” in John 6, “eating” and “drinking” Christ is not literal, but instead metaphorical. Proving that assertion will be for later posts though. So, let’s get back to how faith in Christ is, metaphorically speaking, eating and drinking Christ. When you eat and drink something, that thing nourishes you and is assimilated into your body so that it becomes a part of you. Substitute the body with the spirit, or the inner man, and you have a clear idea of what it means to eat and drink Christ. [3] A final note I will make here: since we know that, if you put your trust in anything other than God, you, in effect, make that thing your god, we can conclude this in light of what we have covered in this post: whatever you, spiritually, eat and drink, is your “god.” [4] Whatever your inner man, wherein are your thoughts, affections, etc., feeds on as its food and drink, nourishing itself and assimilating these “foods” and “drinks” into itself, is your god. These are some things we can glean about faith from John 6:30!

[1] https://biblehub.com/interlinear/john/6-34.htm [2] This insight about what it means to come to Christ I got from a 20th-century Bible teacher named Arthur W. Pink, who expounded on this insight in his book “Studies on Saving Faith.” While I will give credit where it is due here, I cannot recommend the late Mr. Pink or his aforementioned book, because I think, in his zeal to warn against the truly fatal error of what has been called “easy believism,” he tends to veer into the other error of conflating saving faith with the fruits that will naturally flow from it. [3] This analogy I have gleaned from one or more (I think more) Bible teachers. [4] https://illbehonest.com/what-are-you-eating-jesus-or-sin