The Flesh is No Help at All
"It is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life." - John 6:63
Union and Communion with Christ
Union with Christ
By grace through faith, we enter into union with Christ. Our sins become His, paid on the cross. His righteousness becomes ours. We are wed covenantally to Christ under the covenant of the cross.
Communion with Christ
Union produces communion - relationship and fellowship with God. We get to enjoy Him, interact with Him, pray to Him, and walk in His Spirit. Union is fixed, but communion grows for all eternity.
If you have believed in Jesus Christ, you will never be more united to Christ than you are right now. But communion escalates for all eternity - from faith to sight, standing before God's throne saying "worthy is the Lamb." The outer depths of God cannot be plumbed, so we need all eternity to enjoy and understand our infinite God.
What Jesus Is Saying in John 6
Jesus moves from illustration to instruction - feeding the multitudes with bread, then declaring "I am the bread of life." This emphasizes both His humanity (qualified to stand for mankind) and His divinity (the eternal "I AM" of Exodus 3).
01
Look
Cast your eyes in the right direction on the object of salvation
02
Believe
From your inner soul, personally believe with repentant heart
03
Eat and Feed
Not passive assent but active embracing of Christ's life
Belief is not just admiration or appreciation. No one can do belief for you - you must believe for yourself. "Believe and you have eaten" (Augustine). Believing is eating, and eating is life - eternal, indestructible, irrevocable life united to God Himself.
Jesus Reveals Yahweh's Fundamental Being
In John 6, Jesus gives insider understanding to Yahweh's very nature. God is the fountain of living waters (Jeremiah 2:13), having life within Himself (aseity). He doesn't get life from outside - life flows from Him as an outward-pouring being.
The Father
Plans life and draws people to salvation
The Son
Effects life through His sacrifice and work
The Spirit
Gives life and enables belief in hearts
Jesus places Himself in the center of divine Persona, revealing the Trinity. Only God can give life, so Jesus claiming to give eternal life explicitly shows He must be God. He is pre-existent (John 1:1), the prophesied "Son of Man" from Daniel 7 who receives all authority from the Ancient of Days.
The Flesh is No Help at All
Jesus is not referring to His own flesh, which gives life, but to human effort and sinful flesh. Human work cannot contribute to salvation because:
Life is Union
Eternal life means being bound up in God's very life - only God can unite humans with God
Sin's Total Impact
We are utterly unable to commend ourselves to God due to pervasive depravity
Created Limitations
Even hypothetically perfect humans cannot unite themselves with infinite God
The Impossibility of Self-Salvation
Romans 3 declares: "None is righteous, no not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless." This is pervasive or total depravity - sin's corruption touches every aspect of our being.
"We are so entirely controlled by the power of sin that the whole mind, the whole heart and all our actions are under its influence."
By works of the law, no human being will be justified in God's sight (Romans 3:20). Even hypothetically perfect behavior cannot accomplish what only God can do - unite finite creatures with infinite Creator. Salvation requires divine intervention, not human contribution.
Paul's Warning in Galatians
Paul was "astonished" that the Galatians were turning to "a different gospel" by adding circumcision and law-keeping to Christ's work. This wasn't denying Christ's divinity or messiahship - it was adding religious acts to complete salvation.
1
The Distortion
Adding circumcision and law-keeping to complete what Christ began
2
Paul's Response
"Let him be accursed" - false gospel is damning
3
The Truth
"Justified by faith in Jesus Christ, not by works of the law"
Paul's conclusion: "I bear on my body the marks of Jesus" - not circumcision, not law-keeping, not good works, but Jesus alone. Any addition to salvation is gospel distortion that Paul calls "accursed."
The Words of Jesus Are Spirit and Life
Jesus declares in John 6:63 that His words are "spirit and life." Perhaps we have so little power in the Spirit and so little enjoyment of life in Christ because we're simply not in the words of Jesus - the Bible that imparts grace and enables us to enjoy that life.
The flesh is no help at all, but faith in the Son of God enables us to live. As Paul said, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God."
Jesus knew from the beginning those who did not believe and who would betray Him. Man's unbelief cannot frustrate God's purpose - salvation remains entirely God's work from beginning to end.
Grace Offends the Fleshly Mind
After Jesus' teaching in John 6:66, "many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him." Why? Because grace offends the fleshly mind that thinks it can contribute something to salvation.
1
Natural Mind
The word of the cross is folly to those perishing. We have such a high view of ourselves that we think we can somehow participate in our salvation.
2
Biblical Truth
You can do nothing. It is only by God's amazing grace that He reached down and opened your eyes to believe.
Paul declared, "We preach Christ crucified" - not creative sermons or wacky attention-grabbing methods, but Christ alone. The power of God lies in the person and work of Christ. Fleshly thinking emphasizes works of the flesh; biblical thinking lays hold of the cross alone.
What Mark Do You Bear?
Paul concluded Galatians with these words: "I bear on my body the marks of Jesus." Is that true of you? Or do the marks on your soul say "I helped"? Church history and tradition often teach that rites and rituals matter for salvation, but when Christ hung on the cross, He didn't say "It is semi-complete" - He said "It is finished."
100%
Christ's Work
Salvation accomplished completely by Jesus alone
0%
Human Contribution
The flesh is no help at all in salvation
Do works matter for communion with Christ? Yes.
Are sacraments means of grace for enjoying our union? Yes.
But do they accomplish salvation? No.
Union and salvation is solely God's work. Whoever believes can enter into that life. Praise God for His grace!