WWUTT 857 Eat My Flesh and Drink My Blood?

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Jesus said that unless you eat of my flesh and drink of my blood, you cannot see the kingdom of God.

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There are some people who try to take that passage literally, but they're inconsistent when they do so when we understand the text.

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

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.com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of the gospel of John chapter six, and today we'll be covering verses 41 through 59.

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The apostle John wrote, so the Jews grumbled about Jesus because he said,

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I am the bread that came down from heaven. They said, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?

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How does he now say I have come down from heaven? Jesus answered them, do not grumble among yourselves.

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No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.

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It is written in the prophets and they will all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the father comes to me.

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Not that anyone has seen the father except he who is from God. He has seen the father.

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Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life.

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Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat of it and not die.

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I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.

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And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.

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The Jews then disputed among themselves saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat?

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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.

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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.

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Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him.

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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.

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

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Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever. Jesus said these things in the synagogue as he taught at Capernaum.

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So we come back again to where the Jews were grumbling about Jesus because he had said, I am the bread that came down from heaven.

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They said, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?

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How does he now say I have come down from heaven? And I mentioned yesterday that the people didn't know about the virgin birth, nor did they even care about such a theology.

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Jesus is saying that he's come down from heaven and they're going, well, wait, we know who your father and mother are. So how can you say that you have come down from heaven?

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There are many preachers today will say it is not necessary to believe in the virgin birth.

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All you need to do is believe in Jesus or you need to believe that that he rose from the dead.

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Just believe in the resurrection. But you don't have to believe in the virgin birth. It's only even mentioned in two books of the New Testament anyway.

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But with that argument, when they say things like that, they actually make their hearers into the same people

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John is exposing here because the people came after Jesus just wanting to wanting him to appease something in their flesh.

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They wanted Jesus to be who they wanted him to be. They did not actually love him with all their heart and truly desired him.

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And so when when they make this statement, how could you have come down from heaven? Because we know who your father and mother are.

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That's the same as these teachers who say it's not necessary to believe in the virgin birth. You just need to believe in Jesus.

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But without clarifying what that means, what it means to believe in Jesus, you're doing something that's no better than what the demons did.

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Even the demons believe in who Jesus is as the son of God. So it comes to it comes down to pursuing

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Christ with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. That's not what these people did.

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They were coming after Christ in their flesh. But Jesus said to them, do not grumble among yourselves.

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No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.

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It is written in the prophets and they will be taught by God that that's what was happening right there.

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They were listening to Jesus being taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the father comes to me.

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Not that anyone has seen the father, except he who has he who is from God, he has seen the father.

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Of course, that's a reference to himself. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.

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Some people will say that the doctrine of justification by faith was made up by Paul, or they may even go as far as saying the doctrine of justification by faith was made up by Augustine.

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You know, it was even sometime extra biblical. It was it was after the Bible had already been written.

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But Jesus just said right here that whole understanding of justified by faith.

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We are declared innocent before God by our faith in Jesus Christ. And Jesus has stated that here, where he says, truly,

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I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life, they are justified by faith.

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That's exactly what Jesus is saying here. Verse 48, I am the bread of life.

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Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat of it and not die.

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So even though it was miraculous that God had given the children of Israel bread from heaven to eat and also quail that covered the ground, these these things that God provided for his children while they were in the wilderness so that they would not perish.

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Yet the bread itself and the quail, they perished. And the next day, the Israelites were hungry again.

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So God had given them manna from heaven. But it was it was a type or a shadow of a bread was to come.

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That would be all fulfilling. You feed upon Christ. You don't need anything else.

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You are fulfilled. And furthermore, it leads to eternal life. You're not going to die the next day because you fed on Christ, but rather your dead spirit has been brought to life and has been seated with Christ and God in the heavenly places, according to Colossians chapter three, so that when

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Christ, who is our life, appears, then we will appear with him in glory.

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Jesus is that bread from heaven. He is the fulfillment of a sign that was given to the Israelites back in the book of Exodus.

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And whoever eats of Jesus will not die. Keep in mind also the miracles that Jesus performed, even raising the dead.

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There were many people that Jesus raised to dead. It was not just Lazarus that was raised from the tomb.

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But let me ask you this. Will they die? Did those people that Jesus raised from the dead, did they eventually die?

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Of course they did. Yes, is the correct answer. They're not still alive roaming the world today going, yeah, 2000 years ago,

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Jesus raised me from the dead. Now I just can't seem to get rid of this pesky body. I'm going to be doomed to be with it forever.

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In all of these miracles that Jesus performed, whether it was a healing or a raising from the dead, that person would still eventually die.

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So the miracles were to show who Christ was, that he had been given authority from the father, had authority over sickness and death over very creation itself, like walking out on the sea of Galilee or calming a storm or transporting the boat to the other side.

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Jesus has power over all of creation because he is the one who created all of creation.

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And it's true that Jesus is going to raise our bodies on the last day. Even our bodies are going to be made incorruptible like his body.

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But in the meantime, you know, looking at the miracles, all the signs that Jesus performed, everyone he healed, everyone he raised from the dead eventually died again.

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And if they believed in Christ, they would go back to be with the father. But if we believe in Jesus Christ, though the body may die because of sin, according to what

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Paul says in the book of Romans, yet our soul will go to be with the Lord forever in glory.

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Whoever believes in Jesus has eternal life. I am the bread of life.

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Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. I am the living bread that came down from heaven.

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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.

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Now we're going to make a little bit of a transition here because this is a passage that the

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Roman Catholic Church loves and even to some degree the Eastern Orthodox Church, although they might translate this somewhat different, but but still cut from the same cloth.

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What am I talking about? Well, the Roman Catholic Church has this doctrine called transubstantiation, and it's the idea that when the priest consecrates the mass, the

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Eucharist and the cup, it becomes the literal flesh and blood of Christ.

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So the Eucharist, the the bread that is consecrated by the priest, by his behest, by his command, the bread becomes the actual flesh of Jesus Christ so that you may eat of his flesh, as it says in John six.

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And the cup becomes his literal blood, the actual blood of Jesus, so that you may drink of his blood in fulfillment of John six.

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But that is not what Jesus is talking about here. In fact, when the Roman Catholic Church does this, when the

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Catholic Church uses this doctrine of transubstantiation to say that they have the true mass, they have the true communion and you can't actually receive eternal life unless you're taking communion from the

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Catholic Church. That's exactly what it is that they teach when they when they teach this doctrine of transubstantiation, that the that the bread literally becomes the flesh of Jesus.

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They're making exactly the same mistake that these Jews are doing right here because that's what they hear

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Jesus saying. The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat?

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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.

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And I've had a lot of go around with a lot of Catholics over exactly this passage. And they will say, see, how could you interpret that any other way?

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Jesus is saying that you literally have to eat his flesh and literally have to drink his blood.

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Now, my first two responses to that are really Jesus is encouraging you to be a cannibal in order to have eternal life.

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That's number one. Number two, you actually believe the bread is literally becoming

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Jesus flesh and the cup is actually becoming his blood. Both of those claims are nonsense, and they're also incredibly inconsistent, because as I've had this conversation with Catholics, they will say, well, this has to be taken literally.

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It has to mean exactly this, because John was not speaking metaphorically. He did not use the word like to describe his flesh with Jesus saying, truly, truly,

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I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the son of man, which is like bread and drink his blood, which is like wine, you have no life in you.

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So because John did not clarify a metaphor there, it has to be taken literally.

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Well, I've got two responses to that. Number one, what you're talking about is not a metaphor. It's a simile.

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When you're looking at when you're using the words like or as to describe something as being like something else or as something else, the clouds are like marshmallows.

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OK, the the lake is as crystal. Those are similes.

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They're not metaphors. Metaphors do not use like or as. So what Jesus is saying here is absolutely metaphorical.

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That's my first response. Second response to that is the Catholic is being inconsistent in how they're translating that.

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So in verse 53, Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat my flesh, unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

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So they take that to mean literally eat his flesh, literally drink his blood. We'll go back to verse 41.

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The Jews grumbled about him because he said, I am the bread that came down from heaven.

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So is Jesus literally made of bread? Because if you're going to apply the same way you translate verse 53 to the way you translate verse 41, then

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Jesus is saying that he's literally made of bread. It's the same form of translation.

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So they're inconsistent in the way that they that that they try to interpret what

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Jesus says in verse 53 versus what he previously said in verse 41. There's an inconsistency there.

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I am the bread that has come down from heaven. Is Jesus literally made of bread? And if you want to enter the kingdom of heaven, you must eat of my flesh and drink of my blood.

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Does he literally want us to eat his flesh and drink of his blood? The answer to both questions is no.

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But the Catholic will interpret one literally and not the other, which they'll receive metaphorically and then say we have to interpret the other one literally because John was not saying that it was a metaphor.

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It's just kind of poor writing when you say here, let me give you a metaphor that kind of loses the point of the metaphor.

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So the Jews disputed among themselves, saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat?

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And Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat of the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

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This is feeding on Christ that he would fill us up, that we would be full of Christ way down deep to our core.

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So what comes from us from the inside out is Christ, because he has he is everything to us, consuming

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Christ, consuming his word, feeding on it spiritually, not literally.

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That's exactly what Jesus is talking about here. And it's all metaphorical to refer to himself as the fulfillment of the bread that has come down from heaven.

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So whenever a Catholic wants to section this out to say, see, Jesus is saying transubstantiation, we have to eat of his flesh and drink of his blood if we truly want to have eternal life.

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So when they do that, they're really isolating those passages. They're taking them completely out of context because Jesus has very clearly in the context of this in John six shown that he is the fulfillment of the bread that came down from heaven in the wilderness.

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And which which perished and those who ate it would eventually die, but whoever eats

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Jesus flesh and drinks his blood, he will live forever. Now, there is somewhat of an indication of the

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Lord's Supper here. It's not an exact correlation, but this is kind of a foreshadowing, a foreshadowing to what

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Jesus is going to give to his disciples in about seven chapters from now.

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They're dining in the upper room and he breaks bread, saying to them, this is my body, which is broken for you.

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And then taking the cup, saying this is my blood of the new covenant, which is spilled for the forgiveness of sins.

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And there he's being metaphorical. But of course, the Roman Catholic Church would not take that as symbolism.

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They would still take it even at the Lord's Supper as Jesus literally giving his disciples his flesh and blood, literally calling them to cannibalism.

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If you want to be a follower of Jesus, if you want to have eternal life, you must be a cannibal.

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That's what's being insinuated there by saying that the priest is consecrating the mass to make it into the literal flesh and blood of Christ.

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By the way, this also goes against what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. Sorry, the

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Olivet discourse in Matthew, chapter 24, about those who will say that Jesus has come back in secret to a select few.

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Jesus said in Matthew 24, verse 23, if anyone says to you, look, here is the

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Christ or there he is, do not believe it. And that's exactly what a priest does when he's holding up the bread.

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He's saying this is Christ. Look, here is the Christ. I have made this wafer into the literal flesh of Christ.

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Jesus said, don't believe that for false Christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.

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See, I have told you beforehand. So if they say to you, look, he is in the wilderness, do not go out.

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If they say, look, he is in the inner rooms, do not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the son of man.

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This is what Jesus said to his disciples about what to look for regarding his coming. So he's never going to appear in small increments to a select few.

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If anyone says to you, look, here is the Christ, do not believe it. And that's what the

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Roman Catholic Church does. They hold up the bread and say, look, here is the

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Christ. But it's absurd. And it's just one of the examples of how many doctrines in the

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Catholic Church are wrong. It's certainly not the only one. The worst offender is the fact that the

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Catholic Church denies justification by faith alone. Now, you might even find a Catholic say something to the effect of justification by faith, but not understanding that it's justification by faith alone.

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You believe in Jesus. You stand before God as justified. There's no works that you need to do.

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You don't need to be baptized into a particular church. You don't need to take of a particular communion.

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You believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, period. So because they deny that doctrine, then you've got a whole bunch of other wonky doctrines like this special communion that they serve, which you have to have in order to be saved or you don't actually have eternal life.

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That is not what Jesus is saying here. That you literally have to eat the flesh and blood mass of the

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Roman Catholic Church in order to be saved. Jesus says in verse 54, whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks of my blood has eternal life.

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And I will raise him up on the last day. That's a reoccurring theme that we've seen over the course of these few paragraphs.

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And we'll finish up this section that we've been studying tomorrow, finishing up through verse 59.

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Let us conclude with prayer. Our great God, we thank you for the life that you have given to us in Christ.

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And I pray that you would fill us up with more of Christ. We desire him more and more so that what other people see in us, even on the outside, is the

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Christ who has filled us up with his holy spirit. Let us trust in what your word says, not what a particular church wants to say in claiming to have risen to the level of authority that you have given exclusively to your son.

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All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, Jesus said. And so it is by his word that we believe and we live.

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In Jesus name. Amen. This has been When We Understand the

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Text with Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books and more, visit our website at www .utt

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.com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com

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and let your friends know about our ministry. Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's word when we understand the text.