WWUTT 861 This is a Hard Saying, Who Can Listen to It?

Christ the Bread of Life and the Offense of His Hard Saying

Unless you come to Christ as a starving beggar, knowing that only He can fill you up, then you will not be saved, for only Christ gives eternal life, when we understand the text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text, as an online ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty, visit our website at www .utt .com.

Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes.

Thank you, Becky. We're back to our study in the Gospel of John, chapter 6, and I'll begin today in verse 60, reading through to the end of the chapter. The Apostle John wrote, When many of Jesus' disciples heard what He had said, they replied, This is a hard saying.

Who can listen to it? But Jesus, knowing in Himself that His disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before?

It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe. For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe and who it was who would betray Him.

And He said, This is why I told you that no one can come to Me unless it is granted him by the Father. After this, many of His disciples turned back and no longer walked with Him. So Jesus said to the twelve, Do you want to go away as well?

Simon Peter answered Him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God. Jesus answered them, Did I not choose you, the twelve?

And yet one of you is a devil. He spoke of Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. For he, one of the twelve, was going to betray Him. So back in verse 60, it says that when many of His disciples heard it, they said, This is a hard saying.

Who can listen to it? What are we talking about here? Well, we're referring to when Jesus said of Himself that He is the bread who has come down from heaven. He Himself is from heaven. When the Jews heard Him say this, they said, Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?

How does He now say, I have come down from heaven? And then from there, He went on to say that as the bread who has come down from heaven, that in order to live forever, if you want to have eternal life, you must eat of His flesh and drink of His blood.

And then the Jews disputed among themselves, saying, How can this man give us His flesh to eat? And they did not understand that what Jesus was talking about was spiritual food. He was not literally talking about eating His flesh and drinking His blood.

And as I had pointed out, the Catholic Church makes the exact same mistake that these Jews made when they took Jesus literally. The Catholic Church does the same thing. It's just that they kind of take what it is that the Jews thought Jesus was saying, and they went, Okay, well, we'll do it.

Let's eat His flesh and drink His blood. And then they have this little mystic ritual that they do in which the priest calls the Jesus into the Eucharist, which transforms into the body of Christ, which is absurd.

But that's what the Catholic Church practices. They interpret what Jesus said here about spiritual food, literally. And when the disciples had listened to these things that He had said, talking about the bread would come down from heaven, talking about eating His flesh and drinking His blood, they said, This is a hard saying.

Who can listen to it? Indeed, it is. It is a hard saying. And only those who have the Spirit of God within them can discern spiritual things. As the Apostle Paul talked about in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, that it's not for anybody to know the hidden truths of God, for they have been given to those only who have the Holy Spirit of God, that they may interpret spiritual things.

The naturally minded man can't interpret spiritual things, for they are spiritually discerned. And it takes the Spirit of God who searches the mind and heart of God to interpret to us the mind of God that is revealed to us in His Word.

In Matthew chapter 11, Jesus said, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.

And what did Jesus mean by little children? But as He had said previously, that if you want to enter the kingdom of God, you must have faith like a child. In Mark chapter 10, little children were coming to Jesus that He might touch them.

And the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw that the disciples were behaving in this way, He was indignant and said, Let the children come to me. Do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.

Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it. And He took them in His arms and blessed them, laying hands on the children who came to them. So He has these children about Him, and He uses them as an example of what we must be like in order to enter the kingdom of God.

What does it mean to be like a child? Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it. Well, it means that we must depend on our heavenly Father for everything. Just as your children, your small children especially, cannot do anything on their own.

If left to themselves, they would die. They would languish and perish because they can't do anything for themselves. They are helpless. So we must depend upon our heavenly Father the same way. We must understand that we are helpless in the sinful state that we are in.

There is nothing that we can do to save ourselves. We must depend entirely upon God and the provision that He has given to us through His Son, Jesus, who died on the cross for our sins and rose again from the grave.

And whoever believes in Him will have eternal life. And understanding that believing in Jesus means that you must die to yourself and live to Christ, not after the things that you want, the passions of your flesh, but you would give up everything in order to know Christ and be saved.

There is nothing on this earth that is worth going to hell over. So give up everything that we may follow Jesus and so live, depending entirely on our Father who gives us all good things and fulfills all of His promises through Jesus Christ.

We lack nothing. He gives us everything, access to His eternal kingdom, which we are a fellow heir of with Christ, all those who are followers of Jesus. Being like a child, coming before the Father, asking to be fed, looking for drink, which is exactly what Jesus is saying here, eat of my flesh, drink of my blood, and talking about spiritual food.

We need to understand the spiritual depravity that we are in before God and our need for a Savior. And when we recognize our emptiness and we come before God to be filled, there is nothing in this world that can possibly satisfy, but we know God can fill us up.

When we come to Him with that expectation, the Bible promises us that He will give it to us. Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount saying, seek and you shall find, ask and you shall receive, knock and the door will be open unto you.

And the interesting thing about that particular passage is that Jesus says, everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone?

Or if he asks for fish, will give him a serpent? If you then who are evil, and Jesus there, even in the Sermon on the Mount, He's talking to His disciples and He calls His disciples evil, because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children. How much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him? So in that passage, Jesus is talking about how if we come to God seeking like a beggar, asking for Him to give to us, He will.

And He gives us all good things through Christ. Your Father who is in heaven will give good things to those who ask Him. He's not like a kid with a magnifying glass burning ants on an anthill. He loves His children and loves us enough to discipline us, according to Hebrews 12.

If a father does not discipline his son, then he doesn't love his son. But God loves us and He disciplines us. And He tests us that we may be steadfast and sure as we endure through these trials that come our way and cling all the more to Christ who saves, who forgives us of our sin and delivers us into His eternal kingdom.

So Jesus is saying to the disciples here in John 6 that they must come to Him and beg for food. And if they come asking for food, then they will be filled. But they don't understand that Jesus is talking about spiritual things.

So they say this is a hard saying. Who can listen to it? But Jesus knowing in Himself, verse 61, Jesus knowing in Himself that His disciples were grumbling about this. Not the first time in John 6 they've done this, but Jesus, of course, knows all things and He searches mind and heart.

So He knows even without overhearing them that they are grumbling about what it is that Jesus is saying. And He says to them, do you take offense at this? Are you offended that I have said to you that I am the bread who's come down from heaven?

And if you want to have eternal life, you must eat of my flesh and drink of my blood. Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before? In other words, Jesus is saying to them, I'm telling you that I have come down from heaven and I'm also telling you I'm going to go back to heaven.

So if you're offended now at the fact that I've told you I've come down from heaven, are you going to be all the more offended when I tell you next that I am going to be ascending back to the Father? Surely that couldn't have made them feel any better about Jesus' words.

Because what we have coming up shortly here in verse 66 is that they turn around and no longer walked with him anymore. So Jesus is just continuing to lay out things before them that they cannot understand.

And again, as he said in Matthew chapter 11, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you've hidden these things from the wise and understanding. In other words, those people who think they know they've got it figured out.

I know what it is that I have to do in order to gain eternal life. I look at how good I am. Look at how righteous a person I can be. Look at how much scripture I know. Look at the seat that I sit in, in the synagogue.

And Jesus says, but you have hidden it from the wise and understanding and revealed these things to little children. Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. Those who are truly disciples of Jesus Christ will come to him realizing I know nothing I know nothing.

I need Christ. I need Jesus. And it is Jesus Christ who rescues me from the nothing that I am a part of now and gives me eternal life in his kingdom forever. And this world is nothing. It is going to pass away.

It will be destroyed by fire in the final judgment. But all who are in Christ Jesus will be saved. Christ is everything. This world is nothing. Christ is everything. And there are millions, billions of human souls on the planet who do not know Jesus.

And if they perish in the state that they are in, what they face is worse than death, but the eternal judgment and wrath of God. So knowing that people have been made in the image of God, we share the gospel with them so that they would turn from sin and worship Jesus Christ and image him as they were created to do.

We who were made in the image and the likeness of God are meant to reflect the holiness of God. And so when we come to knowledge of who he is and we repent from our sin and we believe in the gospel and we follow him, then we can do what we were meant to do.

And that is walk in holiness and reflect the good, perfect, righteous character of God. That's what we've been called to. So we must put to death all earthly things that are in us. As Paul says in Colossians chapter three, put to death what is earthly in you.

As John Owen said, mortify the sin, kill it. Don't let it have any dominion in your members. But may we submit ourselves fully unto the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And it is only by his righteousness that we can have this fellowship, this relationship that we have with our father in heaven.

Coming to him, realizing we've got nothing and we're starving to death. And Christ will fill us up with more of him. Jesus, who came down from heaven, is telling his disciples here that he is going to go back to heaven.

So if they're going to be offended by the fact that he says, I've come down from heaven, how are they going to feel in their flesh? The naturally minded man, they're just trying to discern these things naturally rather than understanding spiritual truth.

How much more offended are they going to be by the fact that Jesus says that he's going to ascend back to his father? Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the son of man ascending to where he was before?

It is the spirit who gives life. The flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. The flesh is no help at all. No matter how hard you try, no matter what you do, no matter how good you try to be, that is never going to be the thing that is going to save you.

It is full reliance upon Christ alone. It is by faith alone in Christ alone, the grace of God alone to the glory of God alone. According to scripture alone that we receive this salvation that has been given to us through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

The spirit is the one who gives life and Jesus is the one who gives the spirit. The flesh can't help you. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. And just compare the fact that the spirit is eternal and the flesh is not.

The flesh is going to perish. Now, you might say, well, isn't the flesh going to be resurrected and we'll have these resurrection bodies that we will live with God forever in glory in? Well, not really, because the body that we are given is different than the substance that it is now.

It won't be flesh. And Paul says that in first Corinthians chapter 15, when the Corinthians were thinking about heaven in physical, fleshly, worldly ways. They were trying to take their worldly experiences and apply them to the eternal promises.

And Paul called them foolish for thinking such things. You foolish Corinthians. Don't you know that the perishable cannot inherit the imperishable? What we are now is not what we will be. But this body must die and we must put on immortality in order to enter into eternal life in Philippians chapter three.

Jesus or Paul said that Jesus will transform our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself. This is the power of Christ that does this and we will be transformed into something different.

It won't be the same thing that we are now. So flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. First Corinthians 15, 50. So it is the spirit who gives life, the spirit who is eternal, the flesh which is perishable.

The flesh can't help us. It is the eternal spirit of God that saves us. And Jesus gives us his spirit. He says, the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. Have you ever had somebody say to you that they are not a religious person, but they're a spiritual person, right?

Have you ever had somebody tell you that? Well, Paul says in Romans 7, 14, the law is spiritual. So if you say that you're a spiritual person, you must keep the law. If you say that you're a spiritual person, then you must obey the commands of Jesus Christ, because Jesus says the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

Romans 10, 17, faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. And so it is believing in the words that Jesus has said that we come to understand the forgiveness of sins that has been given to us by his shed blood on the cross.

And it is by faith in the person and work of Christ that we receive salvation. The words of Christ are spirit and they are life. Jesus goes on to say, but there are some of you who do not believe for Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe and who it was who would betray him.

And we'll pick up there tomorrow. Let's conclude with prayer. Our great and gracious heavenly father, we thank you again for the salvation that has been given to us in Christ. All good things from above have been granted to us in Christ Jesus.

And so I pray that we would depend fully upon Christ, not trying to take any credit for ourselves, not trying to lift ourselves up, but realizing that we are dead in our sins, in our trespasses, in which, in which we once walked, but now in Christ Jesus, by the grace of God, we have been given life.

We've been raised to life in Christ with him. So teach us to walk in this world in a righteousness that has been given to us. That is a reflection of Jesus Christ. Thank you again for the grace and mercy that you show to us daily and whatever comes our way today.

May we commit that fully unto God and give you the praise and glory for great things you have done in Jesus name. We pray. Amen.