John 6:38, John 6:41-42, John 6:51, 58 – “came down from heaven”
The interpretations for these passages usually fall into one of two groups:
1.) Some interpret these passages of scripture to mean that Almighty God literally sent his Son Jesus, who was up in heaven with God the Father, DOWN FROM HEAVEN into the Earth to take the form of a man. Jesus (God the SON) had TWO natures at the same time; one totally divine (as God the SON) and the other totally human.
2.) Others interpret these passages to mean God Himself literally “CAME DOWN FROM HEAVEN” to earth in the form of a man (as an infant), and in essence while God was here on earth, God “pretended” to be his own Son (Jesus), who was “sent” by God (Himself) while God was in His own personal body of fleshly, named Jesus.
Although there are many other differences that distinguish these groups apart (Oneness/Trinitarians) they both teach and instill in their members the same non-biblical “created concept” called incarnation, that God was “totally human” by means of incarnation. God embodied himself in a body of flesh (Jesus) and by doing such that made God “totally human” (or a complete human) while at the same time he was “totally God.”
(Ref: The Difference Between Manifestation And Incarnation)
Since neither of the above claims are correct, and in order to correctly understand what it may mean when something is stated as “coming from Heaven” it is imperative that you first understand the facts about Jesus “the Man,” before he died and was resurrected up to Heaven to be with God. (Hebrews 4:14, 9:24) (See also: Acts 7:55-56; Romans 8:34; Ephesians 1:20; Colossians 3:1; Hebrews 1:3, Hebrews 8:1, Hebrews 10:12, Hebrews 12:2; 1 Peter 3:22)
The truth is it was common for the Jewish people to say that something “came down from heaven” if God were its source or origin.
For example:
(Mal. 3:10) When God wanted to tell the people that He would bless them if they gave their tithes, He told them that He would open the windows of “heaven” and pour out a blessing. Of course, everyone understood the idiom being used, and no one believed that God would literally pour things out of heaven. They knew that the phrase meant that God was the origin of the blessings they received.
(Matt. 21:25) “John’s baptism—where did it come from? Was it from heaven or from men?” Of course, the way that John’s baptism would have been “from heaven” was if God was the source of the revelation. John did not get the idea on his own, it came “from heaven.” The verse makes the idiom clear: things could be “from heaven,” i.e., from God, or they could be “from men.”
God was and is the origin of Jesus Christ. Christ was God’s plan, and God directly fathered Jesus (Heb 1:5) after He made Jesus in the womb of a woman (Gal 4:4) named Mary. The idiom (from Heaven) is the same when used of Jesus. Jesus is “from God,” “from heaven” or “from above” in the sense that God is his Father and thus his origin.
