Hard Sayings of Jesus

I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to John chapter 6 and please hold your place at verse 51.

John chapter 6 and we are going to be reading when we read verses 51 to 60.

Last night as we were having our time of prayer with our children, Jennifer had pulled out a devotional book, one that we use, and began to read and she came upon a word that is not common, at least not common to many of us, and it was the word perspiscuity.

In fact, that's not always the easiest word to say and we were joking about how hard it is to actually pronounce.

But, perspiscuity is a doctrine that is well known of the reformers to have advocated for and that is the doctrine that the word of God is clear in its overall message.

Perspiscuity means clarity or understandability and the argument of Rome is that you really can't understand

God's word unless you have an infallible interpreter. That's what the magisterium is there for.

That's what the church is there for. It's to provide you with an infallible interpreter.

The problem is Rome has been anything but infallible in her interpretations.

So the reformers said no, the word of God has in it an inherent perspiscuity.

It has an inherent clarity that even a child having heard

God's word can understand its meaning. But the reformers were quick to also say that just because the word of God carries within it the quality of perspiscuity, that does not mean that all of Scripture is equally clear.

There are difficult passages of Scripture. There are, what we are going to talk about today, hard sayings.

You ever read your Bible and think, boy, that was hard to hear. That was hard to understand.

Certainly there are stories which are difficult to understand as the Bible does not hold back on its descriptions of man's depravity.

It doesn't hold back on its descriptions of God's judgment. But sometimes even the passages which seem to be for our instruction and virtue can be hard for us to understand and hard to apply.

Some things are even hard to hear, as in when Jesus spoke to the Syrophoenician woman.

She came to him for the healing of her daughter and he said, it's not good to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs.

And many people have taken great offense at Jesus' words, but I'm not offended by Jesus' words, but it does say that's a pretty hard statement to say.

Or the time when Jesus said that no one knows the day or the hour, neither the angels in heaven nor even the

Son, only the Father. That can create some difficulty in how we understand the nature of Christ.

And so we come to these passages and we understand there are difficult sayings.

The unpardonable sin has, I can't tell you how many times I've been in Q &As and that question arise, what was

Jesus talking about? And so these are things that we know are not as clear as some of the other places of scripture.

Dr. R .C. Sproul even did an entire series, I think he wrote a book, but I know he did the series because I've seen it.

And it was just entitled The Hard Sayings of Jesus, where he walked down some of the most difficult things that Jesus ever said.

Well, I would argue that today we have come to another of these hard sayings of Jesus.

In fact, that very phrase is in the text. If you would, just before we read, jump down to verse 60 with me and notice what the disciples say after Jesus has completed this message.

It says, when many of his disciples heard it, they said, this is a hard saying.

Who can listen to it? So the very understanding of the people who were there listening to Jesus said, this is scleros.

The word scleros means hard. It's where we get our medical term, sclerosis.

Like arterial sclerosis is the hardening of the arteries or multiple sclerosis is the hardening of the nerves and the scar tissue on nerves causes hardening.

That's where the word sclerosis comes from. It's to be hard or to harden. And that was the response.

This is a hard saying. This is hard to understand.

Moreover, it's hard to accept. The words of Jesus in this passage are hard.

And I want to say they have divided believers, not just unbelievers.

The words of Jesus here are understood differently in different denominations.

We're going to talk about that as we go through the text today. But having said all of this,

I do not think it is impossible to know what Christ means here. But we have to say from the outset, it's not an easy saying.

So with all that being said, I hope my prayer, and I prayed this all week, is that as we dive into this text, that the meaning of the words will be drawn out as Christ intended his audience and us to understand.

So let us stand and hear the words of Christ as they come to us.

Beginning at verse 51, this is

Jesus speaking. He says, The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying,

So Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the

Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.

Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him, and the living Father, as the living

Father sent me, and I live because of the Father. So whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.

Verse 58, This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate and died.

Whoever eats on this bread will live forever. Jesus said these things in the synagogue as he taught at Capernaum, and when many of his disciples heard it, they said,

This is a hard saying, who can listen to it? Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,

Lord we pray as we come now to the word of God and to these hard sayings of Christ, Lord I pray for clarity,

I pray for wisdom, and I pray for your Holy Spirit, for apart from your

Spirit I can not preach a sentence or even a word that would have any true value.

So Lord may your Spirit be the teacher, and may the words that come out of my mouth reach the ears of the people and be administered by the

Spirit to their minds and to their hearts and to their souls. And Lord God, may

Christ be on display, and Lord may we see as we eat of him and drink of him, that this is analogous to our believing in him.

So Lord I pray for those who believe in him, that they will understand that they have in fact eaten of him.

But Lord for those who have never tasted, for those who have never eaten, for those who have held back,

Lord I pray today that you would give them a heart to come, that you would open their eyes to see the beauty of your

Son, and open their ears to understand his words. And we pray all this in his name and for his sake.

Amen. We're in the midst of the

Bread of Life discourse, as I have mentioned over the last few weeks. Many of you know we've been going verse by verse through the

Gospel of John, and that is our study for today, is studying through this Gospel, continuing on through this discourse of the

Lord Jesus Christ. This is one of his many long discourses in John. John just seems to move from one long section of Jesus' speaking to another, and here we are in chapter 6.

The day prior Jesus had fed the multitude in one of the most public and well -known miracles, the miracle of feeding of the five thousand.

He then crossed the Sea of Galilee at night, having walked on the water, and now finds himself in Capernaum, where according to this text, he is speaking in a synagogue.

Many of the people who ate their fill of the loaves the day before have followed after Jesus, and Jesus has made it clear that they have come to him not because they believe his words or because they trust in who he is, but because they want to be fed again.

He says, you came to me not because you believe, but because you had your fill of the loaves. Verse 36 is the key to the entire discourse as far as I'm concerned, because verse 36 he tells us, you have come to me, but yet you do not believe.

And by the way, I think that is going to play into what we're going to learn today about what

Jesus says. Remember, he is talking to people who have not yet believed. And so,

Jesus calls himself the bread of life. He compared his coming to the coming of the manna in the wilderness.

As the people in the wilderness ate bread from heaven, Jesus says, so too shall you eat of me, you shall receive me.

And as they were nourished from the manna from heaven, so too will you be nourished from me.

And this leads us into this challenging section of the discourse where he says that they have to eat his body and drink his blood.

So let's begin at verse 51. Jesus says, I am the living bread.

And by the way, the construction of that we ought not miss is very similar to when Jesus said to the woman at the well that she had to have living water, if you remember that portion.

I bring that up because the term bread of life and living bread are synonymous, but they are constructed different.

When he says, I am the bread of life, he's saying, I am the bread come down from heaven.

And now he says, I'm the living bread. Same idea, but this is paralleled to just a chapter or two before in two chapters before when he said that the woman at the well needed to have living water.

If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.

The life of the world that I give is my flesh. I believe in that statement, he is referring specifically to the giving of himself at Calvary, which is to happen.

This is why he says the life that I will give, I will give, looking forward, I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.

When Jesus talks about giving his flesh, talks about giving his life, he's referring to his coming crucifixion.

That's the bread. It is what he is going to do. He's going to give himself on the cross.

Then the Jews disputed among themselves. How can this man give us his flesh to eat?

Now that particular question is reasonable if you are interpreting the words of Jesus in a way that I would say is overly literal.

The question, how can this man give us his flesh to eat, only comes out of the thought that he is somehow not speaking symbolically, not speaking metaphorically, not speaking as a sign and symbol, but rather he's speaking of something physical and real and literal.

And by the way, this is not the first time that this has happened. I want to remind you,

I'll put them on the screen for you. Here are other examples that we have seen already of overly literal examples in the gospel of John.

You remember when Jesus is preaching to Nicodemus, or not preaching, he's having that evening intercourse that he had with Nicodemus as he came to him and they had their interaction.

Jesus said, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, unless a man be born again, he will not see the kingdom of heaven.

And what did Nicodemus say? Am I supposed to go back into my mother's womb and be born again?

And you just want to sit back and say, are you really that dense? I mean, it's kind of what

Jesus said, are you the teacher of Israel? And you don't get what I'm saying? Are you taking it so literally that you really think that what

I'm saying is that you have to go back through the birth canal? You see, all of us understand that when

Jesus is dealing with Nicodemus and he says you must be born again, he is speaking in spiritual symbolic language about regeneration.

That's what we call the new birth, the change of heart. The new birth is the spiritual regeneration or spiritual resurrection that occurs with our dead souls when they are made alive in Christ.

And that's what Jesus is saying. Unless you are born again, you will not see the kingdom of heaven. Remember when I taught on that,

I said born again also could be translated born from above. Born from heaven, born from God, born spiritually.

And yet Nicodemus, and this is why I do think translating it born again is actually correct because the way he understood it was go back into mama's womb and be born again, rather than being born from above, rather than being born spiritually.

He understood Jesus to be saying I've got to be born a second time in a physical literal way.

And that was not what Jesus was saying. But that is how Nicodemus took it the first time he said it.

And therefore Jesus went on, said it again and they had their interaction. Now we move a chapter later and Jesus is with the woman at the well.

And he goes to her and he says give me some water. And the woman says, why do you a

Jew ask for me a Samaritan to give you water? You know our people don't have that type of social interaction.

And Jesus said if you only knew who it was who was saying to you give me some water, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.

And the woman says, well she asks about the living water, they have an interaction and then finally she says, well sir give me this water so I don't have to keep coming here and drawing water from the well.

So what was her interpretation of Jesus' words? That he was going to give her literal water to drink.

Was it special water? Certainly. Was it miraculous water? Certainly. But to her it was still physical water.

It was still literal water. Because she said give me this water so that I don't have to return and get another drink.

You give it to me, I'll never thirst again. Give it to me so I don't have to keep coming here and drawing water.

So these are two overly literal interpretations of Jesus' words that we've already seen in John.

Now we get to John 6 and it is my contention that we find a group that is doing the same thing.

When Jesus talks about his flesh being food and his blood being drink, their interpretation is overly literal and therefore incorrect.

In the same way that the woman at the well got it wrong, in the same way that Nicodemus got it wrong, this group will also get it wrong.

Notice their objection. How can this man give us his flesh to eat?

And honestly, if Jesus was talking about physical eating of his body and physical drinking of his blood, as I said earlier, their question is sound.

How can that be? Because if there's one thing that was understood among the

Jewish people, and let me back up. If there was one thing that was understood in all cultures, not just God's people, but almost every culture, it's eating human flesh is an abomination.

The act of cannibalism has only ever been practiced by the very small minority of human beings.

I remember one time, there was a comedian. He said, I can't even imagine what it would be like to live with cannibals.

You wouldn't want to sleep too hard. You wake up and Bob's chewing on your arm and you're like, Bob, I'm not dead yet.

Very few people have ever engaged, very few cultures have ever made it their practice to engage in cannibalism.

And why is this the case? Because we understand that human beings are qualitatively different than animals.

I was hoping for an amen, not that I like to beg for them, but I will say this.

This is a little bit off the point, but I'll make it anyway. I think we miss this sometimes.

I think in our culture today, we have elevated animals to the status of human beings and devalued human beings to the status of animals.

And in doing so, we have missed the point of both. Are animals precious?

Yes. Are animals valuable? Yes. Can we value the animals we love? Absolutely. Please do.

But one human being is worth 10 ,000 dogs because they're qualitatively different in their nature.

They're qualitatively different in their nature. And we can eat the

Passover lamb, we can eat the animal flesh, but we don't eat human flesh.

Cannibalism and human flesh eating in the Bible is always associated with judgment from God.

In fact, the worst of judgments that we see in Scripture, do you know what? They are, is when

God gives a people over to the eating of their own children. Leviticus chapter 26 says, when

God is talking about the judgments that will come upon the people, he says in verse 27, in spite of this, you will not listen to me, but you will walk contrary to me and then

I will walk contrary to you in fury. And I myself will discipline you sevenfold for your sins and you shall eat the flesh of your sons and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters.

That's the judgment of God. And we see that through the Old Testament, we actually see that occur.

The reality is the eating of human flesh would have been seen as repugnant to the first century hearers of Jesus' words because it is repugnant to eat human flesh.

It's not something that we are supposed to do and drinking blood is absolutely forbidden in the Old Testament.

You are not to eat the animal with its blood in the flesh, right? It's to be drained of its blood, right?

A lot of times we go and we get the meat from the store. We think it's got blood in it. No, that's not blood. That meat's been drained of its blood.

That's a chemical that the meat produces. It's a red, it's a red liquid, but that's not blood. We're not eating the blood of the flesh.

And so this idea of eating human flesh and drinking human blood would have been by his hearers, if understood literally, a repugnant thought.

And it makes sense that they would have been scandalized by it. It makes sense that they would have been scandalized by it.

Now you would think

Jesus would have clarified his statement at this point.

You would think Jesus, when they said, how can this man give us his flesh to eat?

You would think Jesus would say, listen, I want to clarify, it's not physical, it's not literal, it's spiritual, and it is through faith.

He doesn't do that. This is where it gets hard. Because Jesus actually doubles down.

Rather than clarifying, he presses into the analogy. And he presses into it so hard that he even says, it is true food and true drink.

The word is in the Greek alethe, meaning truth, and it's translated in Latin, it's veritas, means truth, it's true.

So that's where we see Jesus not clarifying, but solidifying what he has said.

Look at verse 53. So Jesus said to them, truly, truly, verily, verily, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the

Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.

Multiple times, Jesus repeats that which they have already rejected.

They have already, up in verse 52, questioned, how can this be?

And Jesus continues to press into it. Now why would he do that?

Why would he not just say, this is meant to be understood spiritually?

Some would say that he did mean it literally. In fact, this is a division that does happen among denominations of Christians.

Some Christians believe that what Jesus is saying here is that we are to physically eat of his body and physically drink of his blood because they believe that the elements of the bread and the cup become the literal body and blood of Jesus in the supper.

Now, there are different understandings of this and I taught on this several weeks ago so I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this, but just for, by way of reminding you and for those who aren't here, by way of instructing you, let me just quickly remind you.

There are at least four different ways that the table is to be understood. The Roman Catholic Church believes in something called transubstantiation, which means a change of substance.

Trans means to change and transubstantiation means a change of substance.

So in the Roman Catholic Church it is believed that when the priest upholds the bread and he consecrates the bread, that the substance of the bread literally becomes the physical corporeal body of the

Lord Jesus Christ. That is what is believed happens at the words of consecration.

So prior to the words of consecration, it is only bread. But when he offers the words of consecration, it is no longer bread, but it is the flesh of Christ, though it carries the accidents of bread, which means that it carries the physical look and feel and taste of bread, but the substance has changed.

That's an Aristotelian distinction between the substance of a thing and its attributes or its accidents.

And so they argue that you still see bread, you still chew bread, you still taste bread, but it is literally the body of Jesus Christ.

And so to the cup, the wine becomes his blood.

That is transubstantiation. The second doctrine is the doctrine known as sacramental presence.

This is what is held to by Lutherans and I would argue very similar to what is held to by the

Eastern Orthodox Church. This teaches that Jesus is in the elements physically, but they do not try to make a metaphysical argument as Rome does, but rather they simply say that the elements themselves contain the body and blood of Christ and as to how it is a mystery.

They will say he is over it, under it, around it, and through it, and in what way they do not try to explain.

They simply say he is because he said, this is my body, therefore this is his body.

That was Luther's argument. Luther pounded on the table at Marburg and said, this hoc est corpus meum, this is my body.

And he argued for the bodily presence of Christ in the table. The third view is

Calvin's view held by many in the Reformed Church and that is that Christ is present, but not physically.

Christ is present spiritually. Now this view I think is the least problematic of the first three because I would not quibble over Christ's spiritual presence in the bread and cup if that were something someone truly held to.

I wouldn't take a huge issue with that. I could see how someone could arrive at that conclusion and I think that conclusion is one that is reasonable.

But Calvin argued that Christ's corporeal body is at the right hand of the

Father, but his spiritual presence is omnipresent and therefore can be contained in the bread and cup without it having to divide up his corporeal presence.

So Calvin's was a little bit more philosophical regarding the nature of Christ as both

God and man. The memorial view states that when

Christ held up the bread and he said, this is my body, what he meant and what the word is means is that this represents my body.

This is a symbol to point to my body and this cup is a symbol that points to my blood.

Now that is the view that I hold. That is the view that we teach here and if you take issue with that,

I mean we can have a disagreement on that, but I will say this. The one of those four that we would say is absolutely out of bounds would be transubstantiation and there's a lot more to it because of the authority it applies to the priest in pulling

Christ down and putting him on the altar. That's the biggest issue we have with transubstantiation. Now again

I didn't mean to take that little theological aside. My point is to simply say this. Many people who hold to one of the first three of those positions will say

Jesus is here giving us his understanding of what happens in the table.

That this is where we eat of his body and drink of his blood. And I will tell you, not just because I hold the memorial view, but because of my understanding of this text,

I don't think that that's what Jesus is doing. I do not believe that Jesus is here in John chapter 6 telling us that eating of the bread and drinking of the cup is how we eat his flesh and drink his blood in this context.

Because I believe that eating his flesh and drinking his blood in the context of this passage is actually referring to trusting in him in the same way drinking the living water was equated to trusting him in chapter 4 and in the same way being born again causes us to trust in him in chapter 3.

This is all analogous to what it means to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now I want to quote to you so that you don't think that this is just Keith out on a limb by himself with no one at least to agree with him.

And if that were the case I would say it. But this is something to be understood. Even people who have held these other views have said that this isn't about the

Lord's Supper. And I'll give you two quotes. The first is from J .C. Ryle.

Now J .C. Ryle would have been a high church person. He probably would have held a very high view of the

Lord's Supper and I believe would have held probably to the third view on that screen, the spiritual presence view.

I can't say that for sure and I didn't have the opportunity to look up specifically. But as to his understanding of this text, this text that we're reading,

I want to read his comments. He says this. Let us first consider carefully what these verses do not mean.

The eating and drinking of which Christ speaks do not mean any literal eating and drinking.

Above all the words were not spoken with any reference to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. We may eat the

Lord's Supper and yet not eat and drink Christ's body and blood. We may eat and drink Christ's body and blood and yet not eat the

Lord's Supper. Let this not be forgotten. So what is Ryle's point? He's saying this.

You can come to the table a thousand times and still not be a believer. You agree with that? Everybody here, you could come to the table and not be a believer.

And you can be a believer and not yet eat of the table. You agree? Now I would say believers should eat of the table.

Please don't think I'm saying you shouldn't come to the table. But as a believer, a person can be a believer before eating of the table. And that's

Ryle's point. He's saying what Jesus is referring to here is not the eating of the table. He said, because many have come to the table and eaten and have not been believers.

And what does Paul say? They've eaten condemnation unto themselves. But there are others who come to the table after having believed and then what is the table to them?

It's simply confirmation of what they have already received spiritually. Now Calvin, who certainly held to the third view, because I already explained what he held.

But on this verse, listen to what Calvin has to say. This is directly from his commentary and you can look it up yourselves.

It's on studylight .net for free if you want to go and check my work. John Calvin says in regard to John chapter 6, this discourse does not relate to the

Lord's Supper. That's his own words. This just doesn't. But to the uninterrupted communication of the flesh of Christ which we obtain apart from the use of the

Lord's Supper. For if it were true that all who present themselves at the holy table of the

Lord are made partakers of his flesh and blood, all will in like manner obtain life. But we know that there are many who partake of it to their condemnation.

And indeed it would have been foolish and unreasonable to discourse about the Lord's Supper before he had instituted it.

It is certain then that he now speaks of the perpetual and ordinary manner of eating the flesh of Christ which is done by faith only.

That's the words of Christ. Dial the words of Christ. Somebody go clip that and put it on the internet. That's the words of Calvin about the words of Christ.

He's saying he's not speaking here of the Lord's Supper. He's speaking of our perpetual eating and drinking of the flesh of Christ which is done not physically but is done by faith.

Now Calvin does say something further in his commentary which I would agree with. He says that there is a sense in which there is an illustration of the

Lord's Supper here that we should at least acknowledge. I'll read his quote.

He says, And yet at the same time I acknowledge that there is nothing said here that is not figuratively present and bestowed on believers in the

Lord's Supper. And Christ even intended that the Holy Supper should be, as it were, a seal and confirmation of this sermon.

So what's Calvin saying? He's not contradicting himself. He's saying this sermon isn't about the

Lord's Supper. But what this sermon does is this sermon does give us an illustration by which we later see him confirm in the

Lord's Supper the reality of what the Lord's Supper is meant to represent. The Lord's Supper represents our continual feeding on Christ.

It represents our continual nourishment in Christ. It represents our union with him through eating his body and drinking his blood spiritually which we do symbolically at the table of the

Lord. So the idea, should we do the Lord's Supper? Yes, we should. It has great value in the life of the believer.

I have people ask me all the time, why do you do it every week? I say, why do you kiss your wife every day? Why do you breathe every day?

Because you need it. And we have the Lord's Supper here as a needful reminder of the work of Christ pointing to his finished work, pointing to that which he did on the cross.

Pointing to his death, burial, and resurrection. Leon Morris says this, he says,

Many commentators speak as though the flesh self -evidently marked a reference to Holy Communion.

It, of course, does nothing of the sort. It is not found in the narratives of the institution, nor in 1

Corinthians 10, nor in 1 Corinthians 11, in connection with the sacrament. I think Morris really grabbed something smart there.

He said, if this was what Jesus meant, it's interesting that he never mentions it. He never makes the connection, and Paul doesn't either.

Paul does not make the connection in his message about the supper in anything to point back to what

Jesus says here and says, this is what Jesus meant. So if you want to know, if I think that this is talking about the

Lord's Supper, I will say this, only figuratively, but this is not giving us in the

Lord's Supper a reason to believe that there is physical flesh and physical blood in the body and the cup.

I don't believe this text demands that. I don't believe this text teaches that, and I do not believe that we as Christians are bound to believe that.

Now if a Christian does believe that, like my Lutheran brothers who believe that Christ is present in the bread and the cup,

I'm not going to condemn them for that belief, but I don't have to share it.

I can say that they are my brothers in Christ, and yet I can say on this point, I think that they have arrived at an incorrect conclusion.

But I love them, and I hope that the same extension would be given in my direction.

Now, so you ask, what does it mean then? If Jesus didn't mean it to be taken literally, what does it mean?

It is not to be understood as literally eating and drinking the body and blood of Christ. It is meant to be understood as believing in Him.

Brian Bell has a very funny comment on this in his commentary. He says, what is meant by eating his flesh and drinking his blood?

This is non -kosher talk. This is cannibalism and blood drinking. It sounds like a bad vampire movie filmed at Donner Pass.

If you know anything about history, I just thought that was a funny line. He wasn't literally bread any more than he was literally a lamb or literally a lion.

It means nothing more and nothing less than believing in Him. G. Campbell Morgan says this.

He said, our Lord went further still and spoke in mystical language of the necessity for drinking His blood. This figure was suggestive of a way through which we would receive life, and that is through His death.

How do we receive life? It's through the death of Christ. Christ didn't come just to live, but He came also to die.

And when you go back up to verse 51, he says, the life I now give for the world is my flesh.

Or the bread I now give for the life of the world is my flesh. My bread is the flesh. And how is He going to give it? He's going to give it through the sacrifice on the cross.

To trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and what He did on the cross is to believe on Him.

In fact, I want to quote Augustine. I know I'm quoting a lot today. Again, this is a hard saying. I wanted to bring with me, at least to bear that I'm not standing alone on this.

But also, I just want you to hear the words of Augustine. It's interesting, Augustine even commented on John 6.

And you know what Augustine said in the 4th century? He said, crede et menduscari, believe and thou hast eaten.

Believe and thou hast eaten. Crede et menduscari. Have you believed on the

Lord? Have you trusted in His finished work? Have you genuinely said that it is by His work and not yours that you are saved?

Then you have received His body and His blood. And you have life in you by faith.

Now, I want to address one other question. And this one may be a little hard, but this has all been hard.

Why then did Jesus not clarify this? Why did He dive further into my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink?

I believe He is pressing into their misunderstanding. I believe He is pressing into the aversion of their disposition towards them.

Not because He is attempting to force them to disbelieve, but to expose that they already do.

Go back up to verse 36 and what did Jesus already say? You come to me and you do not believe.

Therefore, I will give you these words which are hard words and demonstrate your unbelief. And that's the very thing that's about to happen.

Because when they say these are hard words, who can understand it? They bolt. The Bible says that the word of God is foolishness to those who are perishing.

And so to the people who heard Jesus' words and did not understand them as He intended, to them they were scandalous, to them they were foolish, and to them they were the very reason that they would walk away.

Understand this. Jesus knew their hearts. And the text we're going to look at next week is going to say,

He even knew which among them would not believe. It was not the purpose of Jesus to sit there and try to coerce them into belief.

Instead, He gave them something hard and demonstrated their unbelief. Modern preachers will do almost anything to get someone to come down the aisle.

I always think of the story of the rich young ruler who came to Jesus and said,

What must I do to be saved? And you know, Jesus' response to him was not what we would think of a 21st century evangelical preacher.

Because as the young man came to Jesus, what shall I do to be saved? Hey, repeat after me. I believe, I believe that Jesus is, you know, whatever.

Let's do the five spiritual laws or let's go through the sinner's prayer. No. Jesus said,

Go sell everything you have and then come and follow me. Demonstrating what held the man's heart was not love for Christ but love for his own wealth.

Jesus said hard things to expose hard hearts. The hard sayings of Christ have a reason.

They aren't there just to confuse us. They are there to force us to ask this question.

Do you trust the Savior to believe even the things you don't understand? Do you trust the

Savior even when he says something hard? They did not.

They said this is a hard saying. Who can accept it? What did

Jesus say? No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.

Beloved, my prayer for you today is that these hard sayings would not cause you as well to run from Christ.

But rather they would cause you to grow in faith and to be able to say, If Jesus said it,

I believe it. And Jesus said it. So let us believe it.

Let's pray. Father, there is so much that could be said.

But Lord, nothing greater than this. If Jesus has said it, let us believe it. Let us trust it.

And I pray, Lord, that we do. I pray that we would trust his words. And I pray that there's been no confusion in the message today.

And if there has, I pray that you would clear it up in the hearts of the people who have heard it. And most of all,

Lord, that you would show them the beauty of Christ. For the believer,

Lord, as we participate in the Lord's Supper here in just a moment, may it be that our hearts are knitted to yours.

And Lord, that we experience the blessing of communion with you through this meal. And Lord, for the one who does not believe, may it be today that he is convicted of his sin, converted in his soul, and that he comes to faith in the