Jesus’s statement that ‘the flesh achieves
nothing’ (6:63b) refers to human incapacity to understand and positively
respond to Jesus’s revelation. There are three principal views about the ‘flesh’ (σάρξ) which, according to Jesus, ‘achieves nothing’ (ὠφελεῖ ουδέν). First, some have seen a reference to the elements
of the Lord’s Supper, particularly when the latter is treated merely as an
outward rite. This Eucharistic interpretation typically depends on the view
that the reference to eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of Man
in 6:51–58 speaks expressly of the Lord’s Supper. According to this reading of
6:63b, Jesus is saying that a literalistic approach to his preceding words or
reliance on a merely physical partaking of the Eucharistic bread and wine will
be of no avail for eternal life. Second, a number of interpreters argue that
‘the flesh’ refers to Jesus’s physical, earthly life when viewed as a thing by
itself apart from the cross, ascension and outpouring of the Spirit. Third,
many interpreters argue that Jn 6:63b does not refer to Jesus’s flesh in any form but rather to the fleshly existence of
his audience. Their purely human efforts to understand and believe in the
revelation Jesus brings will come to nothing because of the limitations of
their earthly nature.
This third view best fits the overall context of the Fourth Gospel and
the context of chapter 6, in particular. First, in three other passages, the evangelist uses
the term ‘flesh’ to designate the sphere of natural human existence. One of
these specifically contrasts ‘flesh’ and ‘Spirit’ in a way that is very similar
to 6:63. According to 3:6, ‘That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that
which is born of the Spirit is spirit.’ Here Jesus contrasts natural human
birth with birth from above; he stresses that only the latter enables a person
to enter the kingdom of God. Another passages associates ‘flesh’ with human
inability to understand Jesus for who he is: according to 8:15, the Pharisees
are unable to accept Jesus’s testimony about himself because they judge
‘according to the flesh’ (κατὰ τὴν σάρκα). Finally, in
the Gospel’s prologue, John contrasts those who receive Jesus, who are born of
God, with those born merely ‘of the will of the flesh’ (ἐκ θελήματος
σαρκός; 1:13). So human inability is a prominent
theme in the Gospel of John and the term ‘flesh’ is frequently used to express
this concept. Jn 6:63b fits into this thematic and linguistic pattern
perfectly.
Second, the
final section of John’s account of Jesus’s bread of life discourse (6:60–71)
focuses on the response of Jesus’s
listeners. The verses that immediately surround 6:63 emphasize the unbelief,
confusion and offense of many of those who had been following him. In 6:65
Jesus directly calls attention to their human inability to respond to him
positively: ‘No one is able to come to me unless it is given to him by the Father.’
This echoes his earlier statement in 6:44, ‘No one can come to me unless the
Father who sent me draws him.’ So a statement about human inability to believe
and a corresponding reference to divine assistance is exactly the kind of thing
we would expect to find at this point in John’s narrative.
Third, the
alternative interpretations of 6:63b (that ‘the flesh’ refers to the elements
of the Lord’s Supper or to Jesus’
physical and earthly existence) are contextually awkward to the point of
impossibility. They clash with the near context of John 6 as well as with
the large context of the whole Gospel. This is because references to Jesus’
flesh are always positive in the Fourth Gospel. In fact, John consistently
highlights Jesus’s coming in flesh as a soteriological necessity. When the
Prologue introduces Jesus as the Word become flesh (1:14), it associates his
fleshly presence with the revelation of light and life (1:4–5, 9, 14). John 6
likewise presents Jesus’s ‘flesh’ as a positive source of life. Jesus says,
‘The bread that I give for the life of the world is my flesh’ (6:51). He goes
on to say, ‘The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life’
(6:54). Whether we take these last two statements to be direct references to
Jesus’s sacrificial death or to his body and blood as represented by the bread
and wine of the Lord’s Supper,
Jesus’s flesh is said to give life. It is therefore nearly impossible to
suppose that 6:63 asserts that Jesus’s flesh ‘achieves nothing’ in contrast to
the Spirit who ‘gives life’ (6:63a).
It is true
that the word σάρξ occurs six times in 6:51c–58, in each
case referring to the flesh of Jesus. This is the chief reason why a number of
scholars conclude that σάρξ likewise refers to Jesus’s flesh when it
appears again in 6:63. But there is no reason to think the evangelist was
locked into using σάρξ the same way
in 6:63 as he did in 6:51–58. On the contrary, we see John making an even more
abrupt shift of reference in 1:13–14, where he moves from σάρξ as a way of referring to human insufficiency (‘not by
the will of the flesh’) to σάρξ as a
reference to Jesus’s human existence (‘the Word became flesh’). (Timothy
Wiarda, Spirit and Word: Dual Testimony in Paul, John and Luke [Library
of New Testament Studies 565; London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017], 141-43,
emphasis in bold added)