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Lord's Day. The epistle of Hebrews is rather unique in that it doesn't open like a regular epistle, the author identifying himself and the person to whom he's writing.
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Rather, it's been noted that the book of Hebrews opens like a sermon. And some have suggested it's like a sermon that would have been proclaimed in a synagogue at the time or an early church setting.
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And of course, it sets forth the glory of Jesus Christ in wonderful ways. And so,
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Hebrews chapter 1, and then Jason will pray. Hebrews 1.
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Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.
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But in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also
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He created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power.
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After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on High, having become as much superior to angels as the name
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He has inherited is more excellent than theirs. For to which of the angels did
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God ever say, You are My Son, today I have begotten You? Or again,
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I will be to Him a Father and He shall be to Me a Son? And again, when
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He brings the firstborn into the world, He says, Let all God's angels worship Him.
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Of the angels, He says, He makes His angels' winds and His ministers a flame of fire.
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But of the Son, He says, Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.
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The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of Your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.
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Therefore, God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness beyond Your companions.
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And You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of Your hands.
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They will perish, but You remain. They will all wear out like a garment. Like a robe,
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You will roll them up. Like a garment, they will be changed. But You are the same, and Your years will have no end.
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And to which of the angels has He ever said, Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet?
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Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?
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Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank
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You for this wonderfully descriptive passage of who Jesus Christ is.
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He is the radiance of the glory of God. He is the exact imprint of Your nature.
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Jesus Christ is God, very God. And Lord, we are so thankful to know
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You. We're thankful to know You through Jesus Christ. And Lord, we pray that as we open up Your Word this morning that we would get a clearer glimpse of who
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Jesus Christ is and help us, Lord, apply that truth to our lives so that we might more accurately praise and worship
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You. We thank You, Lord, for Your faithfulness to us in Jesus' name,
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Amen. Well, I missed being with you last week, but Mary and I were able to try out our new app, our church's app, so we were able to watch the service, or most of it, and Jason giving his message.
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And it's encouraging to me that, you know, I can be away and everything's going to be fine. You know, it's the
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Lord's church. You know, it's not mine, but it nevertheless is reassuring. Well, let's turn to John chapter 6 once again, please.
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And this is the seventh Lord's Day in which we're in this chapter. Lord willing, we'll complete our study of John 6 today.
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Last time we began to address the last section of this passage, which is contained in verses 60 through 71.
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And the main theme of these verses is that only those enabled by God's sovereign grace will believe on Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
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Here we will have reinforced the biblical truth that God not only initially brings us to faith in Christ by His grace, but that He also keeps us in faith by His grace unto our final salvation.
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And so let's read these verses once again. Again, John 6 verse 60 and following.
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Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, This is a hard saying. Who can understand it?
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And when Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them,
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Does this offend you? What then, if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before?
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It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing.
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The words that I speak to you are Spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you who do not believe.
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For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe and who would betray Him. And He said,
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Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.
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From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more. And then
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Jesus said to the twelve, Do you also want to go away? But Simon Peter answered him,
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Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. And also we have come to believe and know that you are the
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Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered them, Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?
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He spoke of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, for it was he who would betray Him, being one of the twelve.
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Up to this point the Lord had gathered many disciples who followed Him. We read of that in verse 60.
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But after hearing Jesus instructing them in what is recorded for us here in John chapter 6, they voiced their concern and their confusion to Jesus, saying,
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This is a hard thing. Who can understand it? But our
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Lord did not soften His tone or mince His words to them when they expressed resistance to His teaching.
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He then spoke to them in terms that aggravated their dissonance and fueled their defection from Him.
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And the result was that many of these many disciples, so called, stopped following Jesus due to what they heard
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Jesus teach them in this discourse. They were offended by the doctrine that Jesus taught them.
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In their departure from following Jesus, of course, they proved themselves not to be true disciples.
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We emphasized this last time. For had they been true disciples of Christ, although they might have been troubled by what
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He taught them, they would have continued with Him regardless of the difficulty of His words or the confusion that may have resulted or characterized their thinking.
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Jesus had said in another place, or actually we'll get to it in a couple chapters from now, maybe three months from now,
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I don't know. If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples.
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True disciples continue in the Lord's word. And so we stressed last time that true
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Christians are true disciples of Jesus Christ. If one is not a disciple of Jesus, he is no
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Christian regardless of what he claims. He does not know Jesus Christ as his
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Lord and Savior. Temporary disciples are not true disciples of Jesus Christ.
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Temporary disciples are not true Christians. Because true Christians continue in faith.
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Only those who endure unto the end in their faith in Jesus Christ are saved from their sins on the day of judgment and granted by Him the gift of everlasting life.
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Now let's work through these verses of John 6, 60 -71. First we see in these first six verses, our
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Lord's response to those who reacted to and rejected His hard saying.
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Our Lord had emphasized that the way unto eternal life was through faith in Him. Saving faith is present when a sinner, of course, wholly and fully depends upon Jesus alone for the gift of eternal life.
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And in order to stress the nature of this full acceptance and submission to Him, Jesus described believing on Him as eating
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His flesh and drinking His blood, which certainly caused a reaction. He declared,
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Most assuredly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.
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Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
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And the Jews, of course, were greatly offended by these words. And even His so -called many disciples, they were offended.
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And so in verse 60 we read of their reaction to His words and their refusal to receive His words as true words.
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Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, they said, This is a hard saying. Who can understand it?
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Now, if you read this verse carefully as we've set it forth from the
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New King James Version, it suggests that their objection posed to Jesus was their difficulty to understand what
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He was saying to them. This is a hard saying. Who can understand it?
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But actually the objection of these many disciples was not in understanding His words, but rather they were telling
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Him that no one would accept what He was saying. In other words, the problem was not that they found
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His words incomprehensible, but rather they found His words objectionable.
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And that's the issue here. And I am reminded of the response of the infidel
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Mark Twain to a reporter who once asked him, Do the things of the Bible that you do not understand trouble you?
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And his response was, No, the things of the Bible that I do understand trouble me. And they understood what he was saying in a sense.
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They didn't see the spiritual meaning or implication, but they heard him quite clearly. These people were declaring to Jesus that no one would accept or receive what
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He had been telling them. And really they were right in that. The English Standard Version better conveys this idea that the problem was not understanding, but rather acceptability of what
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Jesus said. It reads, When many of His disciples heard it, they said,
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This is a hard thing. Who can listen to us? Who can put up with it? Is the idea.
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Not that it was difficult to understand so much. Perhaps even the NIV may carry this idea a little more clearly.
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On hearing it, many of His disciples said, This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?
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And so that's the issue. The fact is they were not asking Jesus to explain His words.
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They would have Him retract His words. And that, of course, is not what
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He would do. Well, this clarification of their reaction justifies the manner in which our
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Lord responded to them in verses 61 and following. Does this offend you?
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What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before? This no doubt got a rise from them.
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A little fly fishing lingo there. Rise to the fly drifting over them. This got a rise from them.
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We should not be surprised when people react to what we believe and teach regarding our faith in Jesus Christ.
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Much of Christian evangelism and really the work of ministry is the attempt to answer objections and settle confused and errant souls.
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J .C. Ryle wrote of this, a Church of England minister of the 19th century.
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Murmurs and complaints of this kind are very common. It must never surprise us to hear them.
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They have been, they are, and they will be as long as the world stands. To some,
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Christ's sayings appear hard to understand. To others, as in the present case, they appear hard to believe and harder still to obey.
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It's just one of the many ways in which the natural corruption of man shows itself. So long as the heart is naturally proud, worldly, unbelieving, and fond of self -indulgence, if not of sin, so long there will never be wanting people who will say of Christian doctrines and precepts, these are hard sayings, who can hear them?
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And the idea that somehow the Church is supposed to pare these things down and make them soft and palatable to unconverted people is just not the biblical way of helping souls.
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This is not how the Lord Jesus dealt with these people on this occasion. He didn't back off. He didn't retract.
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He went at them. And so what should our attitude be? Ryle went on to write,
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Humility is the frame of mind which we should labor and pray for if we would not be offended.
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If we find any of Christ's sayings hard to understand, we should humbly remember our present ignorance and believe that we shall know more by and by.
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If we find any of his sayings difficult to obey, we should humbly recollect that he will never require of us impossibilities and that which he bids us to do, he will give us the grace to perform.
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Humility is the grace that should characterize us because there are many things in the word that we don't understand.
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And because of our sin, there are many things in the word that we may find offensive at first reading.
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Again, the Lord Jesus did not soften his words to these followers, so -called, but he really ramped up his assertion by making a claim far greater than what he had before.
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And so here he spoke of his preexistence as God. He said,
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What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where he was before? Our Lord's reference to before refers to the time of his existence prior to his birth into the world as Jesus of Nazareth.
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For him to ascend to where he was before refers to heaven, the abode of God. It's a claim to deity on the lips of Jesus.
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Jesus Christ is eternal God, or more specifically, he's the eternal Son of God who reigned as the ruler over his creation from its beginning.
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And in his divine nature, he descended into this world. That's language to relate to us as human beings.
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He descended into this world, joining to himself our human nature, which is both a physical body and a reasonable soul, thereby being born into this world as both
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God and man, two natures in one person, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. The apostle
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Paul wrote of this descent of the Son of God when he quoted an Old Testament prophecy of the ascent of the
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Lord Jesus Christ, the exaltation of Christ after his resurrection. And it was in the context about spiritual gifts
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Paul wrote these words. But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift.
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Therefore, he says, when he ascended on high, this is the prophecy of Christ, he led captivity captive and gave gifts to men.
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And Paul went on to describe these gifts as gifted persons to the church, evangelists, pastors and teachers and such forth and so forth.
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He was quoting Psalm 68 18, which he applied to the resurrection and exaltation of Christ who is thrown in heaven as Lord, the promised
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Son of David. And so after having conquered the devil and even death itself, Jesus ascended into heaven to be seated on the throne of God.
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And so it's at this point, the Apostle Paul gave further explanation as to Jesus ascending into heaven that he first descended from heaven in the incarnation.
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And so he gave, Paul gave this parenthetic statement at this point. And we have it there in your notes,
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Ephesians, and this is verse nine. Now this he ascended, what does it mean but that he also first descended into the lower parts of the earth.
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He who descended is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things.
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Ephesians 4 9 and 10. Here the expression, the lower parts of the earth is a reference to the womb of the
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Virgin Mary. Paul declared that the Son of God had descended to the earth in his incarnation, having come down from heaven.
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And in our passage in John chapter six, Jesus said to these people, what then if you should see the
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Son of Man ascend where he was before? Same ideas conveyed. Now Jesus was referring to his descent from heaven in his incarnation, but actually he was opposing a question to them, wasn't he?
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What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where he was before? He's actually talking about the potential of a future event, right?
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What if you should see him going up to where he was before? And so he was speaking of this future event, and actually 11 of the 12 disciples who were standing there listening to our
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Lord on this occasion in John chapter six actually saw the ascent of the
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Lord, didn't they? What if you should see me ascending up to where I was before? And of course in Acts chapter one, we see that this is exactly what they didn't see.
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It was like a prophecy that the Lord was giving to his disciples. And so we read in Acts one verse nine,
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Now when he had spoken these things, while they watched, he, Jesus, was taken up in a cloud.
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The shekinah glory of God received him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, angels, who also said,
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Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw him go to heaven.
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A promise of the second coming, Jesus returning physically, visibly. And so his apostles did in effect see the
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Son of Man ascend where he was before. And so here in John 6, 62, Jesus is proclaiming his preexistence, but also anticipating his exaltation.
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As Lord of Lords and King of Kings. Now, the Lord had already alluded, of course, in his discourse, that he was
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God who came down in the incarnation when he identified himself as the two bread that came down from heaven.
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And there are actually three verses in John 6 that speak about this.
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But he also made this claim of coming down from heaven in other places of John's gospel. It's quite a common idea that is found.
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We saw it back in John 3, 13. No one has ascended to heaven, but he who came down from heaven, that is the
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Son of Man, who is in heaven. That's a fascinating verse. Even as Jesus was talking on the earth, he's describing his divine nature is still in heaven.
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God manifested himself in the person of Jesus, but he wasn't limited to the human body of Jesus as eternal
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God. He's infinite and without boundaries whatsoever. And so even when he was here on earth ministering, his divine nature filled all in all.
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John 6, 38, For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.
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He came down from heaven. That's the incarnation. John 6, 46, Not that anyone has seen the
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Father, except he who is from God. He has seen the Father. That idea from God.
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He came from God. John 8, 23, He said to them, You are from beneath. I am from above.
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You are of this world. I am not of this world. And also in John 8,
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Jesus said to them, If God were your Father, you would love me. For I proceeded forth and came from God, nor have
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I come of myself that he sent me. And John 16, 28, I came forth from the
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Father and have come into the world. Again, I leave the world and go to the Father. And so, this is a common theme in John's Gospel.
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The incarnation, God, the eternal Son of God, assuming a human nature, becoming
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Jesus of Nazareth, God and man, our Savior. Before we move on from verse 62, however,
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I think we should take some time and address the meaning of our Lord's self -designation here that we probably read over quite quickly without thinking about it.
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And that's His self -designation as the Son of Man. Again, Jesus declared,
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What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before? Nobody referred to Jesus as the
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Son of Man except Himself, and He did so repeatedly by the way. What did
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He mean to convey by this self -designation, Son of Man? Again, no one else called
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Him by His name, but this is how He referred to Himself. It's popularly taught and thought that when
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Jesus referred to Himself as the Son of Man that He was speaking about His human nature, and that's not correct, but it's commonly believed.
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And so they would say something like, whereas the term Son of God refers to His divine nature, the term
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Son of Man refers to His human nature, and that's not correct. The Son of Man is a title that Jesus used for Himself in order to identify
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Himself as the promised Messiah. The Son of Man is a messianic title, a title of the promised
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Messiah who would come to bring salvation to His people. And so the
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Son of Man expression as you find them in the various contexts of the Gospels are described here by a man who's with the
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Lord now who wrote a very good systematic theology, Robert Raymond. This title, the
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Son of Man in the fourth Gospel, connotes the heavenly superhuman side of Jesus' mysterious existence, expressing what is commonly called
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His preexistence. As the Son of Man, Jesus in the synoptics, that would be
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Matthew, Mark, and Luke, claimed to have the authority to forgive sins, to regulate even the observance of the divine ordinance of the
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Sabbath, clearly prerogatives of deity alone. To speak against the
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Son of Man, He said, although forgivable, is blasphemy. As the
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Son of Man, the angels are His, implying thereby His own superangelic status and lordship over them.
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As the Son of Man, He would know a period of humiliation, having no place to lay His head. And finally, even die in the cruel death of crucifixion.
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But He, the Son of Man, would suffer and die. He declared only to the end that He might ransom others.
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A man's eternal destiny would turn on his relationship to the Son of Man, He taught, for unless the
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Son of Man gives a man life, there is no life in him. As the Son of Man, He would rise from the dead and sit at the right hand of power, come in clouds with all
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His holy angels in the glory of His Father. True enough, but coming in His own glory as well.
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And when He comes, He declared He would come with the authority to execute judgment upon all men precisely because He is the
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Son of Man. Clearly, the Son of Man sayings embodied Jesus' conception of Messiahship and its associations were supernatural, even divine in character.
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And so you just see from that paragraph, it would be improper to just assume when
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Jesus used the term Son of Man, He was speaking about His human nature. No. There's much more involved.
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And then B .B. Warfield, the wonderful Presbyterian theologian who died in the early 20th century, he wrote this regarding the title
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Son of Man. It is in the picture which Jesus Himself draws for us of the Son of Man that we see
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His superhuman nature portrayed. For the figure thus brought before us is distinctly a superhuman one, one which is not only in the future to be seen sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven, but which in the present world itself exercises functions which are truly divine.
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For who is the Lord of the Sabbath but the God who instituted it in commemoration of His own rest?
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And who can forgive sins but God only? The assignment of the Son of Man of the function of judge of the world and the ascription of Him of the right to forgive sins are in each case, but another way saying
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He is a divine person for these are divine acts. And so the
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Son of Man does not indicate His humanity. What then?
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Why did Jesus call Himself the Son of Man? And actually there are two reasons. First, by this title
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Jesus identified Himself with the Son of Man promised in Daniel 7, 13 and 14.
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Now the Son of Man is an expression that Ezekiel used dozens of times in his prophecy, but it's been commonly universally recognized when
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Jesus used the term Son of Man He was identifying Himself with the Son of Man of Daniel 7, 13 and 14.
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And here we read it in Daniel's vision. I was watching in the night visions, and behold, one like the
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Son of Man. There's the Old Testament origin of Jesus' expression.
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One like the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven. He came to the ancient of days, that'd be
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God the Father, and they brought Him near before Him. Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all people's nations' languages should serve
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Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and His kingdom the one which shall not be destroyed.
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Now our dispensational friends, for those of you who have ears to hear, wrongly interpret this passage to be a prophecy of the second coming of Jesus Christ.
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They're wrong in that. They say things like this, when Jesus first came
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He came to be a Savior, but when He comes a second time He'll return a King. But this is terribly wrong,
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I would argue. They teach that this passage, Daniel 7, 13 and 14, is a prophecy of His second coming when
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He will become King to reign over a future thousand years of their earthly Jewish millennium.
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John MacArthur, God bless him, the great man of God that he is, nevertheless is wrong in his interpretation of these verses that he set forth in his studied
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Bible. He declared that Daniel, shouldn't be 9, I believe it should be 7, 13 and 14, is a prophecy of Christ's future earthly millennial kingdom.
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Now verse 14, he wrote, the reference to all people's nations and languages, these distinctions are earthly and speak of the promise of an earthly kingdom ruled by Christ that merges into the eternal kingdom.
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In other words, he teaches that Daniel 7, 13 and 14 is a prophecy of the second coming of Christ that He will then become
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King over an earthly thousand year millennium. That's his teaching. And this is common to dispensationalists.
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But if you read Daniel 7 and 13 and 14 carefully, you'll see that there is no reference here to Jesus' second coming to the earth.
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It speaks of Jesus coming to the ancient of days, coming to the throne of God in heaven.
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He's not coming to earth. God the Father is sitting on His throne in heaven. The crucified but risen
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Messiah came to the Father, received from His authority to reign as King over the kingdom of God.
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And Paul wrote of this event. Therefore God has highly exalted Him and given
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Him the name above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of those in heaven, those on earth, those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is
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Lord to the glory of God the Father. He received that kingdom when He ascended into heaven after His resurrection, not
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His second coming. And so this took place when Jesus ascended into heaven after His resurrection.
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And it's recorded for us in detail in Revelation 5. If we had time we would read that.
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It's a wonderful passage that is not talking about a future second coming, it's talking about what happened when
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Christ rose from the dead and went to heaven. Daniel 7, 13, and 14 were fulfilled.
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John saw in Revelation 5 a Lamb slain, as it were, came forth.
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He was worthy to take that scroll from the hand of the Father. And He walked up to the throne of God in heaven and the
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Father handed Him that scroll. And then all the angelic hosts began to give praise to Jesus Christ as promised
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Lord and King. And so this is a prophecy of His exaltation upon His resurrection.
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And it's recorded in detail there. He was given a name above every name.
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Jesus Christ sat down on His Father's throne and He began to reign as the crucified, risen, and now enthroned
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Lord of Lords and King of Kings. And so, one reason that Jesus used the expression for Himself Son of Man was to identify
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Himself as the promised Messiah who would receive this authority as King over the kingdom of God, which
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He received from His Father when He ascended into heaven. There is a second reason, however, that Jesus used this title, the
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Son of Man. This was so He could declare Himself to be the Messiah, but in a way that no one would have imposed their wrong understandings upon Him of what kind of Messiah He would be to them.
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The Jews had all kinds of misconceptions of the nature of the promised kingdom and the Messiah who would come.
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Again, Robert Raymond stated this traditional understanding of this title of Jesus. The church has traditionally understood the phrase
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Son of Man as the title Jesus chose as a self -designation precisely because, although assuredly messianic, this title was ambiguous in meaning to the current and popular imagination.
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When Jesus described Him as the Son of Man, nobody understood what He was saying. This enabled
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Him to claim to be the Messiah with little danger of the current erroneous views being read into it before He had opportunity to infuse it with the full -orb content of the messianic task which was foreshadowed in and predicted in the
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Old Testament. In other words, there was no uniform understanding among Jews of the identity and the nature of the
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Messiah as to when He would come to His people. The majority of the Jews were looking for a descendant of King David whom
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God would use to re -inaugurate the Davidic Kingdom leading Israel to become the dominant nation over the entire
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Gentile world. Other Jews, however, did not believe that the Messiah would be an earthly figure, a human being, but rather He would be a
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Messiah like a heavenly figure coming like a Son of Man who would usher in the end of the world, the resurrection of the dead, and bring about the new heavens and the new earth.
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The people who lived in the community of Qumran down by the Dead Sea had this understanding of the coming of the
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Messiah. No one was anticipating a suffering Savior who would die as a sacrifice for sin and then be raised unto life even though it was taught everywhere in the
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Old Testament. And when Jesus asserted He was the Son of Man, He could instruct and prepare
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His disciples for the great event of His impending sufferings and the glory to the Kingdom that would follow.
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In Jesus Christ the various streams of Messianic understanding of the Jews were realized and displayed.
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Errant understandings were discredited. And the truth of Jesus as the promised Messiah was manifest.
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And so through Jesus using this title the Son of Man, He was able to instruct and prepare
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His disciples for the fulfillment of all of God's promises to Him. And so the
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Son of Man is a Messianic title and He infused it with meaning through understanding of the
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Scriptures over the course of His ministry to His disciples. Well after our
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Lord posed this question to those who heard Him He made this statement recorded in John 6 .63
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It is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are
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Spirit and they are life. And so Jesus Christ declared the faith to believe in Him and to believe
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His teaching was due to spiritual life that the Holy Spirit sovereignly bestows upon people.
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Jesus said it's the Spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The Holy Spirit gives spiritual life.
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Only He can. For the flesh profits nothing. Here is another statement of our
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Lord in which He declared the sovereign grace of God in bestowing spiritual life. Fallen man is incapable of achieving spiritual life.
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He cannot be gained. It cannot be gained by man. It must be imparted to him by the
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Holy Spirit. You can't create yourself in the womb of your mother and therefore be born.
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You cannot create new life within you, spiritual life. It has to be done from outside of you by the
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Holy Spirit. And this is of course clearly taught in the Scriptures. And our
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Lord made this statement in the face of those who reacted and objected to His teaching. He wasn't surprised by their reaction and rejection.
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Only the Holy Spirit can enable a man to hear and be enabled to understand and respond to the
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Word of God. Paul wrote of this to the Corinthians as it's written, Eye has not seen nor ear heard nor ventured into the heart of man the things which
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God has prepared for those who love Him. He's not talking about heaven. You can't imagine what heaven's like.
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He's talking about salvation. Never did it ever occur to you before the
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Holy Spirit began to deal with you that there is this matter of salvation through Jesus Christ.
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Eye has not seen, ear heard, neither has ever entered into the heart of man. The flesh profits nothing.
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But then Paul went on to say, but God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. He revealed these things we can't see or hear enter into the heart of man.
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He revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of a man which is in them?
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How can you know somebody else is angry except you're human like He's human? You know what it is to be angry.
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You know what He's like when He's angry. You and I cannot know what God is like. He's infinite.
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And therefore God has to reveal Himself to us and only the Holy Spirit can or we would never know
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Him. And that's what Paul is basically reasoning here. Even so no one knows the things of God except the
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Spirit of God. Now we have received not the Spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God.
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And here's the purpose clause. So that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.
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We would have never known if it were not for the Holy Spirit. Paul went on to reason these things also, we also speak, not in words of man's wisdom which man's wisdom teaches but which the
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Holy Spirit teaches. Comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man, that's the non -Christian, the natural man does not receive the things of the
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Spirit of God for their foolishness to him. That was my attitude before becoming a
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Christian. That stuff is foolish. You really believe that nonsense? And that's the natural response of a fallen man to the things of Christ.
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Their foolishness to him nor can he know them because they must be spiritually discerned.
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But he who is spiritual, and in this context spiritual means if you're a Christian, he who is spiritual judges all things yet he himself is rightly judged by no one for who has known the mind of the
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Lord that he may instruct him? No one. But we have the mind of Christ.
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Why? Because of the Holy Spirit. That's what Paul is arguing. And then the
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Lord Jesus said, the words that I speak to you are spirit and they are life. Notice here the
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S in the English translation is in the lower case. In the first clause the S is capital, the
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Holy Spirit. Here he's talking about the spiritual nature of his words. We sang the hymn
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Wonderful Words of Life based upon this verse. And so, the words
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I speak to you are spirit, they are life. But the Holy Spirit uses the words of Jesus to bring forth spiritual life in his hearers.
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As one wrote, Leon Morris, a woodenly, literal, flesh -denominated manner of looking at Jesus' words will not yield the correct interpretation.
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That is granted only to the spiritual man. And again, that's a true Christian, one born again.
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The spirit -dominated man. Such words cannot be comprehended by the fleshly whose horizon is bound by this earth and its outlook.
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Only as the life -giving spirit informs him may a man understand these words. If you understand these words that we've been talking about here in John chapter 6, it's because the
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Holy Spirit has revealed them to you. You are a blessed person. That's the only way they can be understood.
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This applies to much more than the words of this discourse. In other words, John 6. In his teaching as a whole,
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Jesus emphasized the spirit, though specific references to the spirit are not frequent. He is not concerned with the good that men may produce by the best efforts of the flesh.
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All his teaching presupposes the necessity for a work of the divine spirit within man.
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And he wasn't surprised when these ones rejected him, reacted to him. This is a hard saying.
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Who can accept it? I'll tell you who can accept it. Only the ones that the Holy Spirit has granted life can understand my words of life.
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And so Jesus said that his words are life. The Holy Spirit uses the words of Jesus to create spiritual life in those who hear him.
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This means that Jesus' words are creative utterances, as one described them. His words tell us who he is and what he's done to save sinners from their sin.
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And death and damnation do them for their sins. The Holy Spirit enables sinners to both understand and not just understand, but embrace his words as truth.
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And due to the Holy Spirit informing the sinner and imparting a new heart to him and regeneration, the sinner becomes a believer in Jesus Christ.
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It was a work of God, sovereign work of God, sovereign grace of God. But then
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Jesus declared thirdly, But there are some of you who do not believe, for Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who do not believe and who would betray him.
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Not only does Jesus reveal himself to others, but he reveals to others their true nature.
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Jesus is still speaking to many of his disciples at this point who had become very troubled by his teaching.
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He declared that their problem was unbelief. They refused to believe him and the words he taught them.
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The more Jesus became an offense, the more visible their unbelief. It's here that the apostle
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John, the writer of the gospel, provides an explanatory statement for his readers.
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Jesus didn't speak these words. John wrote these words. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe and who would betray him.
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Our Lord Jesus knew the condition of the hearts of those who were standing before him. Those who were walking with him and supposedly fellowshipping with him, these many disciples who turned and walked away, they did not know that they were known by him.
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John was writing this explanation long after the event. Jesus was not surprised, was not offended, wasn't discouraged.
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This is all in accordance with the will of God and he knew it so.
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Our Lord Jesus knew that was taking place around him. He knew the motives and the capabilities of those with whom he related.
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He was the Word of God even as described in Hebrews 4. For the Word of God is living and powerful.
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We commonly attribute that to the scriptures, which is right, but it's also attributed to Jesus Christ himself, the
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Word of God. Living and powerful, sharper than any two -edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
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And there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.
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He knows you. He knows what you're thinking. He knows what you watch during the week, what you read, what you ponder upon, and you're going to have to give an account of him one day.
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He's all scrutinizing as an omniscient Lord. And so it is, the
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Lord knows your heart and mine. He knows what we believe and what we struggle to believe.
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He knows how devoted we are to him and how little we are committed to him. But thankfully, he's a sympathetic high priest who is moved with pity and compassion for those he represents.
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And so he intercedes with the Father on your behalf, if you know him. He superintends your life and enables you to persevere in your faith unto his promised destiny.
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He'll see to it that you arrive before him, receiving the fullness of salvation.
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But Jesus Christ knows who would betray him as well. Yet he was patient with them, even though he knew of their upcoming defection and departure from him, with these many so -called disciples.
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There's no evidence that he regarded or treated Judas Iscariot differently than the other 11.
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He was a patient person, even though he knew the end of these people.
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Now after Jesus declared to them that only by the grace of God any of them could come to him in order to receive eternal life, he affirmed once again in very strong terms that only through the sovereign will of the
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Father could they come unto him in faith. And so we read in verse 65. And he said,
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Therefore I've said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted to him by the
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Father. That verse is a clear, full declaration of the sovereign grace of God and salvation, is it not?
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Certainly it is. He reaffirmed that salvation from sin and damnation could only be obtained by the will of God.
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The will of God the Father, by the way. As one wrote, Jesus concludes his post -dialogue conversation with the so -called disciples with a statement that re -emphasizes the fundamental theme of the entire pericope, or episode, the primary agent of faith is the
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Father. If you believe, it's due to the work of the Father in your soul.
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The latter clause of this verse reads, unless it has been granted to him by my Father. The verb of this clause is very interesting, frankly.
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It's in a rather unique form. It's actually a participle. And a participle, in contrast to a finite verb, is like a verbal adjective.
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And this verbal adjective, this participle, is in the perfect passive tense. As one described it, this latter phrase is conveyed with a perfect passive participle that nearly bursts with theological significance, unless it's been granted to him by my
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Father. And what this means is that it is the Father who enables the sinner to first understand and then to embrace the words of Jesus in order to have saving faith.
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And that initial enablement will continue throughout the life of the believer. It's been granted by him, by the
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Father, to come unto him. And that initial coming is going to persist and persevere in your life.
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And that's what's being conveyed by the perfect tense of the participle. As one wrote, faith is not just a specific gift, something upon which the
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Christian is utterly dependent. From start to finish, there is no such thing as an independent Christian.
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Without the Father, there would be no children. It's the Father who must give the right. Salvation is from God.
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In a real way, this is the ultimate rebuke of Jesus to his interlocutors, that would be those that he's having this conversation with in John 6, in this challenged dialogue.
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They lose not only because of their own lack of faith, but also because the Father was quite simply against them from the start.
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The Father could have acted and saved them. God the Father is sovereign in his bestowal of salvation.
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Salvation is due to the grace of God. And it was this last assertion that brought many disciples to end their commitment to believe on Jesus and follow him.
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And several weeks ago, some weeks ago, we spoke about Spurgeon's Sermon, how religionists hate sovereign grace.
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That if you want to stir up some ministers, talk about the sovereign grace of God, that'll get a rise out of them.
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Well now, after making this declaration, and these many disciples departed from him, no longer to follow him, our
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Lord challenges the twelve that were standing before him. From that time, many of his disciples went back, walked with him no more, and then
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Jesus said to the twelve, Do you also want to go away? But Simon Peter answered him,
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Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. And also we've come to believe and know that you are the
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Christ, the Son of the living God. We read in verse 66, from that time onward, these many so -called disciples went back, followed him no more.
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We address this verse last time we were here in John chapter 6, we'll not do so here now, only to reassert here and now that these temporary disciples were not true disciples of Jesus Christ.
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A temporary disciple of Jesus Christ is no true disciple of Jesus Christ.
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These former followers did not lose their salvation, that's not what's taught, rather they never possessed the true faith in Jesus Christ that saves the soul.
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They had a nominal faith. And here, the Lord Jesus' teaching on sovereign grace found them out, discovered them, and revealed to them that they were not true
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Christians. Their departure from Jesus Christ, their refusal to continue in faith to Him as disciples, proved that they never had really known
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Him. And the same one who wrote the Gospel of John, this fourth gospel, later would pen in his short epistle, written about the same time as the gospel probably, maybe in the 90s
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AD, he wrote of certain apostates who once were in the church, who professed
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Christ, but they went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.
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But they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us. But you have an anointing from the
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Holy One, and you know all things. And just by word of explanation here, he was talking about some who at one time were in the church, who believed the truth about Jesus being
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God and man. But because of the Gnostic teaching, they rejected either the deity of Christ or they rejected the humanity of Christ, because they did not believe
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God and man could be in one person. And so they embraced this
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Gnostic heresy, and they separated from the church. And John declared, they don't know
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God. If they would have known God, they would have continued with us. They went out from us to prove they were never of us.
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And then he says, but you have an anointing of the Holy One. Every true Christian has this anointing.
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You know who Jesus Christ is. He's God and He's man. And no one,
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I could not stand up here and convince you otherwise. You know, you would throw me out of here, and rightly so in a moment, because you have an anointing from the
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Holy One, from God the Father. You know who Jesus Christ is. That's a bedrock foundational doctrine of being a
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Christian. And you reject that, you're no Christian. And so these people went out.
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They were not true Christian. But then our Lord didn't make it easy on these 12, did He? He turned to these few remaining and said to them in verse 67,
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Jesus said to the 12, do you also want to go away? You know, here's your opportunity.
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There they go. You want to join them? And so here we read for the first time in John's Gospel of the 12, first time they're listed.
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We read earlier in John 2 and 3 of Jesus calling certain ones, came out to five in number.
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But now there are 12. And of course, the reason there were 12 apostles is because the nation of Israel was comprised of 12 tribes.
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The Lord appointed 12 apostles to become the new leaders of the nation of Israel. He had wrested the control of Israel out from the
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Jewish leaders and entrusted the leadership of Israel to the apostles.
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And I don't think we're going to take time to work through that. But the
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Bible is quite clear. The church is not the replacement of Israel.
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The church is Israel, reconstituted under a new covenant. In the
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Old Testament, Israel was a physical people, an ethnic people, physical descendants of Abraham.
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Under the New Testament, Israel is comprised of those who have the same faith as Abraham. Abraham is our father, as Paul declared in Romans 4.
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He's the father of many nations. Abraham is our father, and we are inheritors of the promise.
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And even though we're Gentiles, we are part of Israel. As the Old Testament prophets promised everywhere, that this remnant of Israel that would be saved the
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Messiah would take the gospel to the world and the nations would respond to their message.
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And here we are this morning, mostly Gentiles, I suspect, and we believe on Jesus. We're in this kingdom in fulfillment of God's purposes.
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And so we're the Israel of God who are not made
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Israel by a physical circumcision, but through a spiritual circumcision of the heart.
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This is what identifies true Christians. They've been born again, and they love Jesus Christ, and they become the children of God through their identity and their union with Jesus Christ, who is the true
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Israel, by the way, the true faithful son of God in contrast to ethnic Israel, the unfaithful son of God.
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And so we are the Israel of God, as the
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Holy Scriptures declare. Well, again, we won't go into much more detail.
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I didn't intend to go that far, but let's move on. Again, toward the bottom, page 9, in verse 67, our
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Lord asked his 12 disciples, do you also want to go away? And we then read Peter's response in verses 68 and 69.
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Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.
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And also we've come to believe and know that you're the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God. Peter spoke on behalf of the 12.
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They would not defect and depart from Jesus. They were true believers. They were disciples indeed.
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They believed that the words of Jesus were true words. Moreover, they knew that Jesus Christ was the only way through which one could attain eternal life.
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They believed in solus Christus, through Christ alone, salvation by Jesus Christ alone.
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And moreover, they had come to understand and believe that He was the blessed, eternal Son of God, the promised
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Messiah, the Christ who could alone bring them to experience salvation. Actually, the
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New King James Version isn't the best translation of this. It was effected by a later scribe.
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And so it reads, also we've come to believe that you and know you are the Christ, the
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Son of the living God. The newer translations render it better. We believed and come to know that you are the
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Holy One of God, is what probably was original. Now remember, these 12 were troubled men.
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They started out that morning with 5 ,000 men plus women and children that wanted to force Jesus to become king.
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Jesus got done teaching them and now there's only 12 and they were bothered and troubled. They saw thousands of people grow disillusioned and turn away.
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And His words, Jesus' words, probably troubled them just as it had troubled the multitude. Nevertheless, they would stay on Him.
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True Christians can do nothing but stay upon Him in faith. True Christians can be tempted to turn away but they cannot do it.
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It's not in them to do so. God in His grace keeps them unto Himself and He will not let them go.
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I've always thought that church problems, when you have a church that gets torn up through division and what not, is the
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Lord and His sovereignty purging the church and cleansing the church because I could recount persons
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I know in this community that at one time grew up in this church, were part of this church, but they got offended because of some issue in the church and they haven't been in this church or any church for the last 30 years.
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And the Lord basically purged His church so that true disciples would remain.
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And they can't help it. They may want to go. They're troubled terribly, but there's something within them, the grace of God, that will not let them go.
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I once used this knowledge. I was reminded of this. I used this knowledge once of the grace of God's preserving grace in order to help a young Christian woman in her troubles.
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This was back in the 1980s. She was a young mother and wife of an unsaved husband who was terrible to her.
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It was just incredible. I've always been amazed how these lovely young ladies get tied up with jerks.
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You know, so much of the ministry is involved with dealing with these kinds of situations. And this is what happened.
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I remember her telling me, John changed the day we got married. It's like the vows were said and all of a sudden he became another man.
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And it was just terrible. Praise to God, the Lord converted him about 10 years later.
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And they're now both walking with the Lord and they love the Lord. And God's been very gracious to them.
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But he had so worn her down with his cruel words, his hard heart. She had enough. She knew the
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Lord didn't want her to walk away from her husband, but she determined she was going to do that anyway. In fact, she was going to abandon her faith in Christ entirely.
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Walk away. And there were other issues pressing upon her. I won't articulate. But she was so hardened and resistant to my appeals, resolved to walk away.
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And every argument I gave, she dismissed entirely. And I was all out of reasons and arguments.
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And she was intransient. And so I sat there for a moment and then sitting back, said to her,
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Fine, Betty. I give up. Go ahead and walk away from Christ. And in just a few moments,
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I could see her completely relaxed, as it were. And she said to me, I can't do it.
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I can't walk away from him. And she was undergoing some real difficulty. She surrendered completely to the
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Lord. And so I had been convinced that she was a true believer and that she couldn't walk away ultimately.
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All people can walk away temporarily, but the Lord always brings them back, doesn't he? He doesn't lose a want.
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He goes out and gets them. And so although we may backslide, and she would, nevertheless, she couldn't deny the
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Lord or forsake him. But the fact is, the Lord keeps his own. And these were kept by the
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Lord. He declared them as such. They believed that Jesus Christ was God incarnate, that Jesus was not only a man, but that he was the eternal
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Son of God. They believed what Jesus said. And they believed who Jesus truly was, even though probably everything he was teaching in that day troubled them.
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They struggled with this. Nevertheless, they had saving faith, and their faith was of a persevering nature, all born of God's grace and stained by his grace.
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And then the Lord concludes this chapter with this assessment of his twelve. Verse 70,
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Jesus answered, Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you as a devil? He spoke of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, Simon bar
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Jonah, son of Jonah. For it was he who would betray him, being one of the twelve.
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Judas Iscariot. Here Jesus declared to his twelve apostles that he had chosen them. This is not speaking about their eternal election unto salvation.
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Rather, it's speaking probably about him calling these specific twelve to become his twelve apostles.
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And we could read of that if we had time in Matthew 10. But in choosing them, he knew that one of them was a devil.
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The way this is expressed is quite interesting. Of course, he was referring to Judas Iscariot.
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John the Gospel writer declared him to be so in verse 71. But when Jesus said this to these twelve men, no one knew who the identity of the betrayer was.
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Here you are, the twelve. One of you is a devil. And I don't even know if Judas knew that he would be that person.
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One wrote of this matter, of the devil. Even there, the one catastrophic failure amongst the twelve was not unforeseen.
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One of them was a diabolos. The word in common Greek means slanderer, false accuser. But in the
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New Testament, it always refers, when it's a substantive, in other words, a noun, to Satan, the prince of darkness.
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Indeed, the Greek should probably not be rendered one of you is a devil, but one of you is the devil. The meaning is clear from 13 .2.
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Clearer yet in Mark 8 .33, in that paragraph, where Jesus addressed Peter as Satan, the same supreme adversary of God so operates behind fallen human beings that his malice becomes theirs.
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Jesus can discern the source and label it appropriately. Well, let's conclude.
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These twelve alone remained in faith at the end of the day. But one of them one day would betray
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Jesus. He was a devil. That is, he would be led by and governed by the devil in his treachery and betrayal of Jesus.
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All of these twelve had their faith tried this day. And the result of their trial was that they were stronger at the end of the day than at the beginning.
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And so it is, you as a believer will also encounter the trial of your faith. This is the lot of every true
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Christian. It is the destiny that all of us encounter. And Peter himself would later write of this in his epistle.
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Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance, that salvation, incorruptible and undefiled that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you.
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It's there. And who are kept? You're being kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
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God's keeping safe your inheritance. And then he says he's keeping you safe through his power of grace through faith.
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And in this you greatly rejoice. That is, in this inheritance it's ours awaiting us.
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Though now for a little while if need be, and this is a third class conditional
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Greek sentence, if need be, and it is necessary, is what Peter is writing, it's necessary, you've been grieved by various trials so that the genuineness of your faith being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it's tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation or second coming of Christ, Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love, though now you do not see him yet believing you, rejoice with joy and expressible and full of glory receiving the end or the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
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A tried faith is a true faith. Our trials of faith are varied in nature and grievous to our experience, but our
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Lord is both purifying us and perfecting our faith through these trials, and he does not lose one of his own through these trials, for their faith is undergird by the grace of God.
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He keeps us by the power of God through faith. He doesn't keep us by our faith, he keeps us by his grace through faith.
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He uses faith as an instrument to keep you, and the power of God undergirds and supports you in that faith.
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It cannot be extinguished in the true child of God. He keeps us by his power.
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And so, upon the disciples' commitment to stay true to Jesus in faith and resolve to continue to follow him, he assured them,
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Did I not choose you, the twelve? They knew that he was their true Messiah, the
01:07:21
Savior of their souls, the giver of eternal life. He assured them that through faith in him their souls were eternally secure, and yet Jesus announced one of them was a devil.
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Which one? The disciples do not. And that was intentional on our
01:07:38
Lord's part. He would have them know that they are blessed, that they are secure, but he would not have them be complacent or presumptuous.
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I suspect all of them continued onward following Jesus, but in their thinking was this prospect, by God's grace
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I'll not be that one led by the devil to betray my Lord. Eleven of them were certain, but that one, boy
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I don't want to be that one. And so too, let us be assured and be at peace that we have life through faith in our
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Lord Jesus Christ. And granted, you may never understand all that he has taught in his word, that doesn't matter.
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Or what he's doing in your life, that doesn't matter. It's sufficient that you know him for who he claims to be, and that he has promised that those who believe on him have everlasting life.
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Believe on him to be a greater Savior than you are a great sinner. Rest in that and you'll be okay.
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Amen? Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for your word. Thank you for this discourse that we've given much attention to.
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And we pray that you would help us, our God, to persevere in this life of faith. We thank you, our
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God. You promised that you will enable us by your grace to continue in faith in our
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Savior. And therefore, we're resting in him. We pray, our God, for perhaps that one who is a stranger to Jesus, and yet you, the blessed
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Holy Spirit, have made clear to that soul today the truth of these words. We pray, our
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God, that you would draw that soul to a full belief and surrender to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.