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62 What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?[a] 63 It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh[b] is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64 But there are some of you who do not believe.” Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him.(A) 65 And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.”

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Footnotes

  1. 6:62 This unfinished conditional sentence is obscure. Probably there is a reference to Jn 6:49–51. Jesus claims to be the bread that comes down from heaven (Jn 6:50); this claim provokes incredulity (Jn 6:60); and so Jesus is pictured as asking what his disciples will say when he goes up to heaven.
  2. 6:63 Spirit…flesh: probably not a reference to the eucharistic body of Jesus but to the supernatural and the natural, as in Jn 3:6. Spirit and life: all Jesus said about the bread of life is the revelation of the Spirit.

16 Scarcely can we guess the things on earth,
    and only with difficulty grasp what is at hand;
    but things in heaven, who can search them out?(A)
17 Or who can know your counsel, unless you give Wisdom
    and send your holy spirit from on high?(B)

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40 There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the brightness of the heavenly is one kind and that of the earthly another.

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Chapter 5

Our Future Destiny. (A)For we know that if our earthly dwelling,[a] a tent, should be destroyed, we have a building from God, a dwelling not made with hands, eternal in heaven.

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Footnotes

  1. 5:1 Our earthly dwelling: the same contrast is restated in the imagery of a dwelling. The language recalls Jesus’ saying about the destruction of the temple and the construction of another building not made with hands (Mk 14:58), a prediction later applied to Jesus’ own body (Jn 2:20).

10     that at the name of Jesus
    every knee should bend,[a]
    of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,(A)

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Footnotes

  1. 2:10–11 Every knee should bend…every tongue confess: into this language of Is 45:23 there has been inserted a reference to the three levels in the universe, according to ancient thought, heaven, earth, under the earth.

19 Their end is destruction. Their God is their stomach; their glory is in their “shame.” Their minds are occupied with earthly things.(A) 20 But our citizenship[a] is in heaven, and from it we also await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.(B)

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Footnotes

  1. 3:20 Citizenship: Christians constitute a colony of heaven, as Philippi was a colonia of Rome (Acts 16:12). The hope Paul expresses involves the final coming of Christ, not a status already attained, such as the opponents claim.