"The spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing ..." (John 6:61-65)

"Does this offend you? What if you see the son of man ascend to where he was before! The spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe. This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him." (John 6:61-65)

Does this define Jesus' use of 'flesh' and 'blood'?

Here Jesus confirms that in his last statement (John 6:53-59) he was not speaking of eating physical bread or consuming his physical flesh or blood - here or during the last supper.

Those in the crowd who were confused by that analogy and deserted Jesus as disciples did so because they could not understand the most basic of Jesus’ teachings: That we are each spiritual individuals temporarily occupying a physical body. This is why Jesus said:
"The spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life." (John 6:62-64)
This confusion between matter and spirit is the reason some institutions and their teachers have misinterpreted and confused so many statements of Jesus. They also misconstrue the understanding of the resurrection (of both Jesus and others), the "last day," and "judgment day."

They mistakenly interpret "last day" to be the end of the world. They also state that during this end-of-the-world scenario, everyone who has ever died in the past will be judged.

This interpretation, of course, creates the problem of where are all the people who have died throughout time? To this problem, some institutions have created the speculative notion that everyone who dies before the "last day" must wait around in some kind of "purgatory" state until the end of the world.

Is there a purgatory?

Is purgatory mentioned in the Bible? No. This proposition was created by Church teachers to fill the gaps in their interpretations of Jesus' life and teachings.

Such a proposition would mean that billions upon billions of souls - every human who has lived on the planet - are crowded into this imaginary place, just waiting for Jesus to return to the earth.

And just where is this place?

If it is on earth why haven't we seen it or otherwise heard from all these souls awaiting Jesus' return?

And if it isn't on the earth, then why would they all need to wait for Jesus to return to the earth?

What are the 'last day' and 'Judgment day'?

Some interpretations regarding the "last day" and "judgment day" are based upon the false notion that we are these physical bodies. As a result of this basic misunderstanding, those interpretations have confused many of Jesus’ teachings almost in their entirety.

The understanding of our identity is the most basic and fundamental understanding we need to have in spiritual life. If spiritual life were a college degree, understanding our identity would be called “Reality 101.”

We are not these physical bodies. Our physical bodies are like automobiles. Just as we step into a car and drive it for a while, then stop the car and get out, the spiritual individual – each of us – enters a temporary physical body and drives it around for a while, and then leaves it at the time of death.

The personality of the body – the person making the decisions – is the spiritual individual. This spiritual individual dwells on a plane of the eternal. Each of us is eternal. When the temporary physical body dies, the spiritual individual leaves it and moves on.

At the end of the lifetime of this body, if the spiritual individual - the spirit-person - has not prepared himself to return to his relationship with the Supreme Being, the spirit-person will continue to dwell on the platform of the physical world within another temporary physical body.

Jesus is describing the method the spiritual individual can use to return to God’s spiritual kingdom. This requires the spirit-person to accept as a guide - the devoted loving servant and representative of God.

Should that spirit-person take God's representative's teachings into his heart and follow them with humility and devotion, God's representative will effectively deliver the spirit-person back to God by virtue of helping them develop their own relationship with God. This is the pathway for returning to the Supreme Being, and Jesus is discussing this pathway in his teachings.

Is Jesus God's only messenger?

This does not mean, as many have construed, that Jesus was the only representative of God who has ever offered a pathway back to God. Otherwise, are we saying that all those billions of people born into physical bodies before Jesus had no path back to God?

Furthermore, if Jesus is God's only representative after Jesus left the planet, then why have there been so many of Jesus' disciples, popes, priests, and reverends over the centuries since Jesus left the planet that has been teaching among the various churches and synagogues? Are they not claiming to represent God? Have they not been trying to teach us about God?

Such a scenario (that Jesus was God's only representative) would be grossly unfair to those who lived before or after Jesus. Such a thesis would unfairly give those who were able to experience Jesus' life personally when he was here on the planet a greater opportunity for salvation.

Moses, Abraham, Jacob, Isaiah, David, John the Baptist and many other loving servants of the Supreme Being were also empowered by the Supreme Being. They also had the ability to deliver those around them - who were suffering within temporary physical bodies - back to their relationship with God - including those of Jesus’ disciples who followed in Jesus’ footsteps.

Yes, those disciples such as Peter and James were directly empowered by Jesus and God to represent God as they taught others to love and serve the Supreme Being.

Why else would Jesus have commanded his disciples and students to go out and teach? If Jesus was the only person who could deliver people, then his disciples, and those many prophets before him and after him including John the Baptist, would have been teaching in vain. Why would they teach if they couldn’t deliver anyone?

It is this very problem that has produced the confusion and even at times the outright editing of the Bible texts in an attempt to portray John the Baptist, David, Moses and so many other prophets (teachers) as having the sole purpose of merely foretelling Jesus' arrival.

This began when Paul created his own interpretation about Jesus even though he had never listened to Jesus' teachings. It is claimed that he had a vision of Jesus even though Paul does not admit this.

Paul created an interpretation that Jesus died for all our sins and all we have to do is accept that fact. This is something that Jesus never taught.

Why would Jesus even spend time teaching if all he had to do was die and everyone would be saved?

Paul argued against Peter and James as he tried to spread his new interpretation of Jesus' teachings. He argued that Jesus' teachings had to be modified in order to bring in the 'gentiles' (or 'pagans' which refers to atheists that did not accept the existence of the Supreme Being).

This 'Pauline theology' effectively strangled the true teachings of Jesus as Jesus' own disciples were trying to spread - the teachings of love of God.

But the Romans effectively rubberstamped the Pauline theology and that's why nearly half the New Testament is made up of Paul's letters and life. 

Jesus' own teachings were passing on the teachings of the Prophets such as Moses, Abraham, David and Isaiah. This is why Jesus constantly quoted those Prophets' teachings.

If Jesus was the only messenger then why did Jesus quote the teachings of the Prophets? Why was Jesus' "greatest commandment" (to love God) a quote from Moses in Deuteronomy 6:5?

Because Jesus wasn't the only messenger of God. He truly was God's messenger. And he was truly the greatest messenger of God. But he was not the only messenger.

The fallacy of this teaching is quite easy to see. How so? Consider the purposeless of these prophets, if all their work preaching to people was only to foretell of Jesus' coming centuries and even in some cases, thousands of years into the future. What good would that do to the people they were teaching to that Jesus would come a thousand years later and save all of humankind?

Does Jesus have to come again to save us?

Is the Supreme Being so limited that He cannot empower others besides Jesus to represent Him? Is God so limited that people can only be saved if Jesus returns? What about all those billions of people who lived and died after Jesus left the planet during the 20 centuries between his departure and today?

This misinterpretation of scripture is an offense against the Supreme Being, along with the many Prophets the Bible describes. All of them were sent by the Supreme Being to bring the people of their particular time and society back to their loving relationship with God. This is why Moses instructed:
"Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength." (Deut. 6:5)
Why would Moses try to teach those around him to develop their loving relationship with the Supreme Being if they were all supposed to wait around for thousands of years for Jesus to come? It absolutely makes no sense.

The reality is that Moses, like the other prophets, and Jesus too, were each dispatched by the Supreme Being to canvas those around them at their particular time and place in time, to return back home to their loving relationship with God. This is why Jesus repeated Moses' instruction:
" 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' (Matt. 22:37)
and followed that with:
"This is the first and greatest commandment." (Matt. 22:38)
The gross misinterpretations laid out above stem from those who seek to control God's message rather than pass it on. We can see that Jesus had no problem passing on the instructions of Moses without changing their meaning. But those institutions that have over the past 1,800 years been using Jesus' teachings for political purposes. So they have changed the meaning and intent of his teachings.

Is 'Son of God' a mistranslation?*

Jesus is not speaking of himself as the only person in history that could bring people back to God. In fact, this is why Jesus often spoke of the "Son of God" in the third person. He was speaking of these as roles, much as a person might refer to the role of a captain or a lieutenant.

Yes, "Son of God" is a mistranslation if we take it literally (physically). The word "son" is translated from the Greek word υἱός (huios). The translation to "son" according to the lexicon is "restricted" to offspring of a physical family. Rather, the word υἱός (huios) is also "used to describe one who depends on another or is his follower."

Since Jesus was not referring to a physical family relationship here - rather a spiritual relationship - the appropriate translation would be "devoted follower of God" or "loving servant of God."

Therefore, "son of man" is also a mistranslation. Such a phrase has absolutely no meaning. Every male on this planet is a son of a man. Therefore "son of man" is a meaningless description for a person of Jesus' stature. (Others, such as Job, David and Ezekiel were also referred to with the same syntax "son of man" in the texts of the Bible.)

The correct translation of the Greek phrase υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου given the lexicon as stated above, would be "servant of humanity." The Greek phrase τοῦ ἀνθρώπου can be translated to either "of man" or "of mankind" or "of humanity" or of the people

Therefore the Greek phrase υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου would mean that Jesus is referring to himself as the servant of humanity or the servant of the people. This, after all, is consistent with the other teachings of Jesus, namely the need for humility in spiritual life. Remember what Jesus said as he washed his disciples' feet:
“Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.” (Mark 9:35)
Yes, at times Jesus did refer specifically to himself within these roles - as loving servant of God and servant of humanity. But he is speaking to a particular audience, and telling this audience that he is the bona fide representative of God in their midst - as opposed to the institutional temple teachers of Jesus' day who were not truly representing the Supreme Being.

Is the Supreme Being impotent?

He doesn't employ one son or one savior. God has the ability to produce many many many children. Thus, God sends His messengers - his loving servants - to those lost spiritual individuals living in the physical world in every generation in an attempt to bring us back home.

And because each of God's messengers is representing God, their basic teachings must be essentially the same. They speak with one voice. This is why one can also speak of God's representative in the singular. Because it is the Supreme Being who is the ultimate Teacher.

The only way back home is to latch onto the teachings of God's messenger. This is the only way, because the only way to return to God is to re-establish our relationship with the Supreme Being, and God’s loving servants are involved in such a relationship, so they can teach us how to regain our relationship.

In the verse above, Jesus also speaks about ascending "to where he was before." Where is this? This is the spiritual realm. This indicates that Jesus descended from the spiritual realm to bring us home to God's world - the spiritual realm - where "the spirit gives life."

Returning to God and the spiritual realm is not a mechanical thing. It is not as if we can join a club or do some rituals or postures or recite some scriptures or stare at a cross and we automatically return to God. 

We must be invited into an intimate relationship with the Supreme Being by God when we are ready. This comes in the form of receiving guidance from one of His messengers - who has such an intimate relationship.

Then of course we have to then do the work necessary to change our hearts and consciousness from loving ourselves to loving God. It is an exclusive situation because it is all about loving relationships.

The Supreme Being wants us all to return to Him. But we have to make that decision first. Should we make the decision, God will direct us to one of His guides and give us the vision to understand their relationship with God. This is stated clearly by Jesus:
"no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him"

 

*Here is the translation of these statements according to the Lost Gospels of Jesus:

“Does this offend you? Then what if you see the Servant of Humanity ascend to where he was before? It is spirit that gives life; the physical body provides no benefit. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. Yet there are some of you who do not trust.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who did not believe, and who would turn him over to be persecuted. And he said, “For this reason I have taught you that no one can follow me unless they have been enabled by the Creator.” (John 6:61-65)