We shall read tonight part of that blessed sixth chapter of John's Gospel, beginning at the forty-first verse.
John 6:41-42. The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven?
Familiarity breeds contempt. Because the Jews knew Jesus and his kindred after the flesh, therefore they would not believe that he came down from heaven. Let us beware of foolish prejudices, and let us not judge after the flesh. Why should Jesus not have come down from heaven even though these men knew his reputed father and mother?
John 6:43. Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves.
It was a muttering that was scarcely audible, but Jesus heard it, and he checked it. The Lord cannot take any delight in murmuring: «Murmur not among yourselves.»
John 6:44. No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
You did not expect the Saviour to say just that, did you? He always speaks the truth, even though he has to lay the axe at the root of the tree of self-confidence. He does not seem to be encouraging his hearers, but rather to be repelling them. He was trying to show them the state in which they really were they had not been drawn to himself, they were alienated from him; and they would continue to be at a distance from him unless God should interpose, and draw them to him.
John 6:45. It is written in the prophets, and they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.
This was as much as to say, «The Father has never taught you. You have learned nothing from him, or you would come to me; but in your rejection of me you prove that you are strangers to the grace of God.»
John 6:46. Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father.
Christ is «of God» in a very peculiar sense. He is not God's creature, but God's Son He is of the very essence of God, and therefore he knows what God is as we never can know.
John 6:47. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
This is a grand saying, can you not catch the truth it reveals? Whatever deficiencies there may be in you, if you believe on Christ, you have everlasting life, not a life which you can lose, or which will die out, but everlasting life; and we-are not among those who clip the wings of that great word «everlasting.» We take this verse to mean just what it says; that is, if you believe on Christ, you have within you a life which will last for ever and ever.
John 6:48-50. I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.
Christ is the Bread for the soul, the Bread of immortality, the Bread which will fit a man for heaven, and sustain him till he arrives there. Oh, that we may all eat of this Bread of life, and so live for ever!
John 6:51-54. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, Now can this man give us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
How necessary it is to have a spiritual understanding of the Scriptures! These metaphors have a sort of cannibal meaning about them to a man who goes no further than the letter, but the spiritual man knows that the soul feeds upon the doctrine of Christ's incarnation, and drinks in the truth of Christ's atonement. This is feeding, this is drinking, this is being nourished upon Christ's flesh and Christ's blood.
John 6:55. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
Meat and wine are, after all, only shadows; they feed the shadow-life of the flesh. Christ and his precious blood are the great realities, they nourish the true life of the spirit. Blessed are they who know what it is in spirit to feed upon these spiritual things!
John 6:56-58. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.
The Saviour goes over the same ground several times, there is a variety in his utterances, but in essence the meaning is the same. He wants to get it into our minds that we are to live upon him; that He, not self, He, not works, He, not our feelings, is the real food of the soul, by which that soul acquires and retains immortal life.
John 6:59-60. These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum. Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?
Preachers must not be astonished if they stagger their hearers when they proclaim the truth, they must not retract what they have said, nor tone it down, because so-and-so is offended by it. Truth is hard, especially to hard hearts. Every great truth is hard to a beginner in the school of Christ; but it is none the less to be taught, for that which is difficult today may become delightful tomorrow or whenever we are better educated in the things of God.
John 6:61-62. When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?
He that is offended at any gospel truth may expect to be still more offended, for there are higher and deeper doctrines than Jesus had then uttered. If you stagger under the elementary lessons, what will you do when you get into the grammar school of divinity, and begin to learn the loftier lessons of the truth of God? Oh, for a faith that never staggers when Christ speaks, and that believes whatever he reveals!
John 6:63. It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
Do not look at them as dead words regard them as full of life, and understand them in their living spiritual sense.
John 6:64. But there are some of you that believe not.
Some of Christ's own disciples, some who had kept him company, believer! not This was a very sad statement for Jesus to be obliged to make; but it must be made today about many professed Christians: «There are some of you that believe not.»
John 6:64. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him.
He is not deceived by hypocrites; if we have crept into the church unworthily, he knows all about us, he knows us better than we know ourselves. Oh, that we might be very careful, watchful, jealous! May we abhor hypocrisy of every sort! It is impossible to continue in it without being detected; if it were possible we ought not to practice it; but with such an eye as that which is in the Head of the Church, even Christ, we cannot deceive; therefore, let us not attempt it.
John 6:65-66. And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father. From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.
It often happens, in the ministry of a faithful preacher, that he has to say unpleasant things, and there are some who withdraw because of his preaching of the truth. Should he break his heart when they do so? Certainly not. They did the like with his Master, they acted the same with the apostle Paul. It will be so to the end of the chapter; and, indeed it is part of our work to separate between the precious and the vile. Truth is like the fan which drives away the chaff, and leaves the wheat the more pure. Yet it is sad to read that many of the disciples of Christ went back, and walked no more with him, because they could not endure the faithful words he spoke to them.
John 6:67-68. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter
Who was always to the front, ever ready to speak, «Simon, Peter»
John 6:68-70. Answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus answered them, have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?
Our Lord often surprises us by the way in which he speaks; he does not say what we should have expected to hear from him, but he says something that is very startling, and even discouraging. It is the way of our Master, because he sees further than we do; and he often replies, not to the question as it lies in the words addressed to him, but to a belief in the heart at the back of the words. He did so here, Peter may have thought that «the twelve» were all steadfast and sincere, so Christ says to him, «Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?»
John 6:71. He spake of Judas Iscariot the son of Simon: for he it was that should betray him, being one of the twelve.