John 6:35-40

We’re going through Scripture trying to come to a deeper understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. Right now, we’re in the New Testament and the book of John. Last time, we saw the feeding of the 5,000. Keep that story in mind and if you want to get your Bibles to see the surrounding context of John 6:35-40, which is our text for tonight, I not only invite that but encourage it. For now, let us look at the text:

 ³⁵Then Jesus declared, “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. ³⁶But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. ³⁷All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. ³⁸For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. ³⁹And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. ⁴⁰For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

I wrote about the feeding of the 5,000 because not only is it in every gospel, and it is the only miracle that is apart from the resurrection, but because it is the background to this account. What happens here is because the feeding of the 5,000 took place and the people are looking to see if Jesus is the Messiah.

Now some of you might think that they were coming to make him a king. They were. There wasn’t really a distinction. After all, when the Messiah came, he would raise an army and go and deliver the Jews from Rome and restore Israel to the golden political age that they once had under David.

The Jews have asked about Moses providing bread and Jesus has just declared that he is that bread. This will be explained more when we get to another passage later on in this text, but for now, Jesus is declaring that he is like the bread in that while the bread kept them going physically in the wilderness, Jesus will keep them going spiritually.

The text also says Jesus has come down not to do his will but the will of him who sent him. He is speaking of the Father. What does this mean for Trinitarianism? Since Jesus is not doing his own will but that of the Father, does that mean he is not fully God?

What on Earth would make someone think that?

How could Jesus be the one who is fully God and yet not be doing the will of the Father? It would seem that if they were in such tight unity that the two would go together. Jesus does not have a rogue will where he goes against the Father. Naturally, I believe he had a human will of course, but that was one he submitted to the Father, like any good man would do.

The problem for anti-Trinitarians so often is they see this submission and assume that that refers to a lesser nature. When we get to a later text in the epistles, one even the Jehovah’s Witnesses use in “What Does The Bible Really Teach?”, we will find that this is not so. Those familiar with that book can look at the lesson on who Jesus is and see if they can figure out the argument. Hopefully, they will.

Submission only proves one thing. It proves the Son submitted to the Father. It does not speak of the nature of the Son, which is where the anti-Trinitarian must go.

We shall continue tomorrow.