Jesus Lives Because of God

Here is a great truth that if you understand it rightly, will make it clear who Jesus is: Jesus lives because of God.

Although they are in the Bible, you won’t hear these words mentioned in churches. You won’t hear them explained in pulpits. That’s why we’ll state them again: Jesus gets his life from God. And surprisingly, this is something Jesus himself tells us in the Bible!

Just as the Living Father sent me

and I live because of the Father,

so the one who feeds on me

will live because of me (John 6:57).

Feeding Off Of

Another way of expressing ‘Jesus lives because of the Father’ is to say Jesus feeds on God. You might think that the expression feeding off of God sounds strange, but it’s not from any human theology. And it’s not us speaking.

Feed is not our term. It’s Jesus’ term. Jesus said that in the same way we feed off of him, so does he feed off of the Father. To feed off of someone or something means to obtain life-sustaining nutrition from it or them. A baby calf feeds off its mother cow.

A better illustration is the one Jesus used: a branch that feeds off of a vine. Imagine a vineyard. What happens to a branch that is detached from the vine? It will dry out. So we must be united to Christ and get our spiritual life from him.

Most Christians are very aware that they should get their spiritual life from Jesus. We know it. But do we know that Jesus too must obtain his life from an outside source? Do you know that Jesus must remain united with his Father? He cannot be cut off from God. He must feed off of God.

You probably did not know this because this is a truth long ignored by the Church. But here’s the truth: The Lord Jesus is not self-sustaining. He’s not independent. He’s not an island. Jesus gets his life from God.

They Don’t Get It

Jesus lives because of the Father. Most people can’t grasp that truth because they have the false idea that Jesus (who is the One God for them), doesn’t need anybody. They’re wrong in so many ways.

But why are they wrong? It's mostly because they don’t know Jesus. If they don’t know Jesus, then they can’t know God. Now, God is the One who sent Jesus, so someone who ignores the Messenger automatically ignores the message-sender.

… the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me (John 16:2-3).

‘You do not know me or my Father,’ Jesus replied. ‘If you knew me, you would know my Father also’ (John 8:19).

Such a person is the Antichrist—denying the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also (1 John 2:22-23).

Jesus needs God as much as we need Jesus! Just as Jesus lives because of the Father, so do we live because of Jesus. How do we live because of Jesus? Well, we live by him by obtaining our spiritual sustenance from Jesus. We get the nutrition our souls need through his teachings and by eating the Lord's Supper with faith. Jesus is our food.

Resurrected by God

If Jesus said ‘I live because of the Father’ it’s because Jesus depends on the Father for life. God sustains him, and Jesus tells us these things so that we might understand how much we should depend on Jesus.

If you understand Jesus’ dependance on God, then you understand your own dependent relationship with Jesus. So, you live because of Jesus. Good with that? Probably--but did you know that Jesus lives because of the Father? He does—and that’s not metaphorical. It’s literal. Did God not resurrect Jesus?

If you can’t affirm that with a resounding “amen” that God resurrected Jesus, then we suggest that you review the 35 Bible passages in the New Testament which affirm it. Click on the link to review One God lesson 13.

Let's reflect: What does it mean for God to have resurrected Jesus but that Jesus wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for God? If you can comprehend this truth, then you will understand Jesus’ words ‘I live because of the Father.’ If you cannot comprehend this truth, then you've been listening to bad teaching for too long. You need to be purged from the heresies and reprogrammed.

A Correlation

Our Lord Jesus made a correlation between the dependence we have on him for life with the dependence he has on God for life. These two relationships are comparable. Set them down side-by-side. They correlate in that the same way you live because of the life Jesus gives you, so Jesus lives through the life God gives him.

As Jesus said, he feeds on God. And if Jesus feeds on God, then what’s the corresponding action on our end? We feed on Jesus.

But how do we feed on Jesus? Jesus didn’t mince words. He explained that our feeding on him is through the Lord’s Supper.

Feed at the Table

Yes, the Table of the Lord is patently the context of Jesus' teaching in John 6 when he said 'I live because of the Father.' The Lord’s Supper takes place at a holy moment when you are in Christian fellowship and by faith you and your friends eat Christ’s flesh and drink his blood, these being memorialized in the bread and the wine.

Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the Last Day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the Living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me (John 6:53-57).

Total Dependence

To comprehend how much Jesus relies on the Father, ask yourself “How much do I need Jesus?” The answer is “without him you cannot do anything.” Well, the same applies to how much Jesus needs God. Without God, Jesus can do nothing.

That’s why Jesus said:

Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing (John 5:19).

Jesus cannot do anything independently from his Father. We know this by observing him, hearing him, and understanding the correlation between our relationship to Jesus and Jesus’ relationship to God. Our Lord Jesus said it himself—he explained how much we must depend on him for life:

No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 

If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire, and burned (John 15:4-6).

The Power Within

If you were to visit a forge, you would see blacksmiths at work. In Medieval times, these blacksmiths (metal workers who perform smelting and who shape metal objects) would very often forge swords. Those swords could be made of bronze, but were often made of iron. Today’s swords are made of steel—a much stronger metal than either bronze or iron.

Metals will glow from the latent fire within them. This glow is not natural to iron or steel. These metals will only glow when they have been super-heated.

Now that Jesus has been resurrected by God [and hopefully you already know that God sent his Holy Spirit to perform this miracle], Jesus our Lord has the divine nature like metal has fire within it. Jesus has been super-charged. He has something he did not have during ‘the days of his flesh’ (Hebrews 5:7).

In other words, Jesus was like an iron sword when he was with the disciples. Now he’s like a sword out of the furnace! Jesus has latent divinity within him. And as you delight in that truth, you should also be sure of this: God is Christ’s blacksmith.

Then and Now / Jesus and Us

God resurrected Jesus and gave him the divine nature so that in Jesus there lives today all the fullness of the Deity. That’s Jesus today. During his earthly life, he had the anointing of the Holy Spirit. That was great. He was sharp. Jesus was effective. He served God well. But it wasn't what he is now!

That anointing of the Spirit Jesus had in 'the days of his flesh' is what you and I have now. All of us who have been born again can be sharp, effective, and serve God well. We’re well-equipped, but you ain't seen nothing yet!

In sum, whether you: a) get resurrected and have the fullness of the divine nature, or b) are unconverted with Holy Spirit anointing, or c) are converted and have obtained the baptism of the Holy Spirit—the three different degrees of power all have one source, the Father.

Yes, the source is none other than the One God. The Father sends his Spirit to vivify, anoint, resurrect, and glorify whomever he wills. He was the source of Jesus' power, and he has made Jesus the source of our power--but everything has its origins in God.

... everything comes from God (1 Corinthians 11:12).

The Divine Nature

In the case of Jesus, a man who was dead for three days in a tomb, God resurrected him. God gave the divine nature to Jesus. God gave Jesus immortality, knowledge, power, and authority. Therefore, God is the source of Christ’s life.

Christ... was chosen before the Creation of the World, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the Dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God (1 Peter 1:19-21).

And that God gave Jesus the divine nature is clearly spelled out for us here:

For in Christ all the fullness of the divine nature lives in bodily form (Colossians 2:9).

We hope that you’ll be able to see that if the fullness of the divine nature lives in Jesus corporally, it means that Jesus was not in the divine nature before God resurrected him--in fact, he was dead. (Someone with the divine nature cannot die because they're immortal).

Can you see that what Jesus has since his resurrection, he didn’t have before? Can you see that the fullness of the divine nature dwells within him now, but that it didn't before God resurrected him from the Dead?

Why Say It?

Jesus is the vessel in which the Deity’s fullness abides. Why else would it be necessary to mention anything about someone else’s fullness dwelling in Christ, unless Christ were not a special vessel? You would never say “God’s life is in God” because that’s obvious.

You would never say “A Mexican’s life is in a Mexican” because it’s already true for the Mexican. He has Mexican culture. It’s innate. It’s an intrinsic quality, and there's no reason to draw attention to something that is inherent.

However, you could say “That Japanese man has Mexican culture” and people would be interested in meeting the man. Mexicans in particular would be pleased and surprised to see that a Japanese man eats Mexican food, speaks Spanish, and dresses like a Mexican.

Very Good News

Similarly, In Jesus we now see the fullness of the divine nature, and (as fellow human beings) this news pleases us very much! We love to hear Jesus’ story. It’s called the Gospel because it’s good news! It proves that a human being can be made great and receive glory through what God does in him.

What God did in Jesus, we expect Jesus to do in us! That's our hope--the resurrection.

Jesus himself is not the One God. He’s not the Deity mentioned in Colossians 2:9, but he is the person in who the fullness of Deity abides.

Like it says in another passage:

… God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him [Jesus] (Colossians 1:19).

With that, we have confirmed Jesus' statement: ‘Jesus lives because of the Father.’ God is his source of life. Jesus feeds off of God, and we must feed off of Jesus. He has become our life source.