Lars Larson Live Stream

First Baptist Church Leominster iconFirst Baptist Church Leominster

3 views

0 comments

00:02
♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪
09:35
We see some of the shame that the Lord Jesus Christ endured.
09:42
He was spit upon. He was mocked. He was unjustly tried. He was blasphemed.
09:49
And Lord, He did this for Your glory. He did this for our good. And when we see
09:55
Peter and we see his denying You, Lord, we need to confess that we often deny
10:01
You. We deny You in our words. We deny You in our thoughts. We deny You in our actions.
10:08
But Lord, we are so thankful that You are faithful, that You could not deny
10:14
Yourself, that You perfectly followed the law of God. You perfectly followed the will of God.
10:21
And because of You, because of Your work on the cross, Lord, we have life.
10:28
We thank You for our union with Christ. We thank You for the fellowship that we have as believers with each other because of Your work.
10:36
And we pray now, Lord, as we turn to the Gospel of John and as we continue our study there,
10:42
Lord, help us to be mindful of what Jesus Christ has accomplished on our behalf. We pray that we would understand the text.
10:49
We pray that the Spirit would teach us exactly what we need to do individually in order to obey it.
10:56
Lord, conform us to the image of Your Son. Thank You, in Jesus' name, amen. Well, let's turn in our
11:11
Bibles again to John 6 as we're working through this discourse of Jesus where He declares that He is the true bread that comes down from God out of heaven to give life to the world.
11:26
It's fitting that we sang that first hymn today, the
11:31
Hymn of the Month. We picked it, of course, a theme because it was centered here on John 6.
11:39
It's always somewhat of a struggle for us, the first occasion, first Sunday of the month, singing that Hymn of the Month, but we seem to get better as the month goes on.
11:47
And I trust that will be the case with this new hymn as well. Well, this is the fifth
11:53
Lord's Day in which we've considered this discourse of Jesus. John's Gospel is centered around seven signs and each sign seems to establish the context or the occasion for Jesus to give a discourse.
12:09
And we are presently about halfway through it as we've been here some time now.
12:17
And in our passage today, we read of our Lord Jesus actually becoming more direct and provocative than He had been up to this point.
12:27
It would seem as the passage unfolds, He gets more direct with His hearers and they actually get more angry with Him as He became more clear and direct.
12:42
Now, we've got 13 pages of notes before us. There's no way in the world we're going to get through those today, and so don't sigh or be discouraged by that.
12:51
But I did want to put what was here in your hands to make them available to you.
12:58
The nature of our passage of John 6 really forces us to have to deal with some issues that some may regard as not pleasant.
13:08
We live in days when we're supposed to celebrate everybody's opinion no matter how biblical or unbiblical it is.
13:15
That's how we coexist, right? Everybody's right. But we cannot be faithful to the
13:21
Lord and faithful to His Word by taking that kind of approach. And so we have to address what we believe the
13:27
Bible teaches. It may get some hymn books thrown at me, but that's all right. We've got to do what we do, right, regardless.
13:35
And so the nature of this passage and the divergent claims as to its interpretation by disparate groups over the centuries, whose beliefs are practiced today across the world, really necessitate for us to address them.
13:51
Because not only are we called of God as a church and certainly I as a pastor to proclaim what is good and true, but we're also commanded in Scripture to warn people against that which is bad and false.
14:05
And that kind of thing is not popular in today's multicultural world, nevertheless.
14:12
And so today in our notes, we give particular attention to what we would regard, Protestants have always regarded, as the idolatrous and blasphemous practice of the
14:21
Roman Catholic Mass. With its teaching of transubstantiation, we repudiate this as not being biblical, but rather the creation over time of tradition and doctrine, the doctrines of men.
14:41
And I think I'll mention it later. We might not get to it, though. But the first word of transubstantiation isn't found in literature until the 9th century
14:50
AD. Although you had supposedly priests offering a sacrifice of the
14:55
Lord's Supper much earlier in centuries, the first notion that somehow the bread and wine of the
15:03
Lord's Supper is turned into the literal body and blood of Jesus Christ did not surface until the 9th century
15:10
AD. It was the result, again, of tradition departing from the
15:17
Scriptures over time and authoritative teachings and doctrines offered by Rome.
15:24
Rome's claim and practice that their priests repeatedly offer Christ in bloodless sacrifices on a consecrated altar made holy by a relic is unbiblical.
15:36
And we would argue Protestants always have that this is idolatry, the sin of idolatry for all those who participate.
15:46
And from the earliest days of the Protestant Reformation, the belief and practice of Rome respecting the mass has been refuted and corrected biblically and historically.
15:58
And so, again, we'll not have time to speak on all the information in your notes, but I felt it important that you have it in hand anyway.
16:07
We left off last week in our study of John's Gospel in the 6th chapter with verses 50 and 51 and following, in which we read
16:16
Jesus' words. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, speaking of himself, of course, that one may eat of it and not die.
16:26
I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever, and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which
16:36
I shall give for the life of the world. So the Lord had been speaking, regarded himself as the true bread from heaven, really since the early part of this discourse.
16:47
We're up at verses 50, 51. But early on, he declared that he was the true bread from heaven.
16:54
But he did so in more subtle ways before this point. As the dialogue unfolds, however, we read, our
17:03
Lord became more direct and pronounced in his assertions. The crowd got madder and madder, and he got more and more direct.
17:11
He wasn't trying to appease anybody. Jesus first declared that although Moses had given
17:18
Israel bread in the wilderness, Jesus said to them, My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. That was back in verse 32.
17:25
Then in verse 33, Jesus described this bread from heaven was not literal bread, but the true bread from heaven is a person.
17:33
He didn't yet identify himself. He said, for the bread of God is he, he used the personal masculine pronoun, third person, he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.
17:45
But then Jesus became more direct. In verse 35, in which he declared, I am the bread of life.
17:52
And he repeats that later. And again, we saw when we were there, that was a claim to deity. The I am, ego me in Greek, was the claim that he's the
18:01
Jehovah, the burning bush. I am the bread of life. And so, for the bread of God, he is who comes down from heaven, gives life to the world, and it is he.
18:12
I am the bread of life. He told them that the life that he gives as the true bread is obtained by the one who comes to him.
18:21
Verse 36. So what is it to come to him? What does this mean?
18:27
Well, he conveyed then the truth that to come to him is to embrace him in faith as the only source and means of eternal life that God the
18:36
Father grants to those who know him. He is the way, the truth, and life.
18:41
No one comes unto the Father except by him, as he declared in John 14.
18:48
And so, he conveyed the truth that to come to him is to embrace him in faith, again, as the only way of salvation.
18:58
Nevertheless, Jesus then told them that none of them would believe on him. In spite of all the signs, all the miracles, in spite of the great offer and privilege that was theirs, none of them would believe.
19:12
And so, those who do come, however, would do so because God the Father draws them.
19:18
And so, the Lord Jesus starts talking about the sovereignty of God in salvation. It's because of the
19:24
Father. He draws sinners to believe on Jesus. I would have never come to Christ if it were not for the drawing of the
19:32
Father, and neither would you have done so if you're in Christ today. The Father drew you. You didn't find
19:40
Jesus, he found you. You were the one who was lost. Jesus wasn't lost, and you went out there and found
19:46
Jesus. No, you were lost, and he came and found you, is how the Scriptures declare it, isn't it?
19:53
And the Father drew you to him. But again, Jesus told them, you don't have the desire, nor do you have the ability to come unto him.
20:02
And so, it's the Father who draws them. And so, he speaks of God's effectual call.
20:08
When God, it's not just a general call. We give a general call to everybody in this building right now.
20:14
Come to Christ and receive forgiveness of sins and everlasting life. And that's a sincere offer of Christ to everyone here who's a sinner.
20:24
But there's a calling of God because no one would respond to my invitation, you know, unless God uses my words to call and summons.
20:36
There's conviction. This isn't just this man standing up here and teaching me about Jesus.
20:42
I hear God calling me to believe, to turn from my sin. It's a powerful, spiritual working and awakening in the soul that God performs.
20:55
And Jesus indicated that. And again, the promise, verses 35 to 40, speaking of this effectual call of the
21:04
Father, of the elect unto salvation. Jesus said to them, I'm the bread of life.
21:09
He who comes to me shall never hunger. He who believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me, and yet you do not believe.
21:17
They were no different than anybody else. And then he declares, all that the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me
21:24
I will by no means cast out. For I've come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.
21:32
And this is the will of the Father who sent me, that of all he has given me, that's the elect that the
21:39
Father chose and then gave to his Son in eternity. And then he was sent on this mission, you go save them.
21:45
And it was his mission to come. I'll lose nothing. He doesn't lose a one of them. But should raise it up at the last day.
21:52
This is the will of him who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son truly sees him spiritually with the eye of faith and believes in him may have everlasting life.
22:02
And I'll raise him up at the last day. Talking about the final day of the resurrection and the general judgment of all mankind.
22:11
He'll raise that person up onto everlasting life. Well, the Jews as they're listening to Jesus were getting more and more enraged because they knew exactly what he was saying, what he was claiming.
22:23
He declared that he had come down from God in heaven. In other words, they understood what he was saying.
22:30
They didn't believe it, but they understood. He was asserting his incarnation that God the
22:36
Father sent him down from heaven. And of course, he assumed a human nature and became
22:42
Jesus of Nazareth, the God -man. He asserted his incarnation sent by the
22:48
Father and they reacted and rejected his claims as we read in verses 41 and 42.
22:54
The Jews then complained about him because he said, I had the bread which came down from heaven. They said, is this not
23:00
Jesus, the son of Joseph whose father and mother we know? How is it then, he says, I've come from heaven?
23:06
They didn't believe it. They wouldn't believe it. But with verse 43, our
23:12
Lord then, you know, didn't become apologetic in trying to convince them and persuade them.
23:18
It would seem that he ramped up the intensity of his language by becoming more direct toward his hearers and more abrupt in the description of himself.
23:30
And so we read verses 43 through 51. We've already covered these. Jesus therefore answered and said to them, do not murmur among yourselves.
23:39
Stop your complaining. And he's talking to the synagogue in Capernaum. No one can come to me unless the
23:46
Father who sent me draws him and I'll raise him up at the last day. It's written in the prophets, they shall all be taught of God.
23:52
Everyone that becomes a Christian comes because God the Father teaches them to do so.
23:59
Therefore everyone who's heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the
24:05
Father except he was from God. He's the only one. He's the infinite son of God.
24:11
He's the only one who can see the infinite God face to face as it were.
24:16
Everything else is simply a very, very limited representation of God so that we might understand him through our human context.
24:27
Most assuredly I say to you, he who believes in me has everlasting life. I am the bread of life.
24:33
The second time he stated that truth. Your fathers ate the man in the wilderness and are dead.
24:39
This is the bread which comes down from heaven that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven.
24:47
If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I shall give is my flesh which
24:53
I shall give for the life of the world. He is the only source of life for the entire world.
25:01
Faith through Jesus Christ. And it's with verse 51 we left off last Lord's Day.
25:07
And it's here we pick up with our Lord's words which speak to the theme of this fourth division of the discourse of the outline that we've been following which is no one has eternal life except through feeding upon Jesus Christ.
25:23
And that's what we have in verses 50 through 59. And as we read this, again
25:30
I want you to notice the more heightened and direct language that Jesus now gives to this gathering.
25:39
The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat?
25:45
And then Jesus said to them, most assuredly, that's one of those verily, verily statements that we've talked about.
25:51
Amen, amen. I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
26:02
He couldn't have slapped a Jewish man or woman in the face and shocked them more than that word.
26:09
Who were forbidden to have any kind of blood in their meat. Now he's talking about really a cannibalistic idea.
26:16
He wasn't apologizing. He didn't back off in any way. He went for the spiritual juggler, so to speak.
26:24
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I'll raise him up at the last day.
26:29
For my flesh is food indeed, my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me,
26:36
I in him. As the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on me will live because of me.
26:45
This is the bread which came down from heaven. Not as your fathers ate the manna and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.
26:52
These things he said in the synagogue as he taught in Capernaum. And so he concludes his public course, as it were.
27:03
And so we read that our Lord, as he taught these people, he did so with an increasing boldness and intensity.
27:10
Speaking in terms and conveying images that confronted these people directly. And as they expressed their refusal to believe on him, he expressed to them their sad and damned condition as unbelievers.
27:24
They revealed their resistance to him, even their intractable hostility of him, their incorrigible unbelief in his claims to be
27:32
God incarnate sent by God the Father. He was asserting that he was eternal God sent by God his
27:38
Father and now is manifest in this man standing before them who alone gives eternal life to them who believe on him.
27:48
And they didn't like it. They were enraged. Now we know, of course,
27:54
I hope we know, that our Lord's emphasis on eating his flesh and drinking his blood was to illustrate and emphasize to these people that true saving faith in him is a wholehearted dependence and confidence in him.
28:10
He was pressing on them the truth of the gospel that God gives eternal life to those who believe on him with their entire heart, mind, soul, and strength.
28:21
And that's what he was concerned with by the metaphor, the imagery of eating and drinking, eating his flesh and drinking his blood.
28:29
This should not be understood carnally. He wasn't saying he was going to pull off some of his flesh and give them to eat and drain some of his blood out of his veins and give them to drink and thereby give them eternal life.
28:43
That is a carnal understanding of that. He was speaking of spiritual matters. It's pagan and it's really anti -Christian to speak in those terms.
28:55
He was rather impressing upon his hearers that he alone was the source of eternal life.
29:01
Just as the people in the wilderness long before had to depend on eating the manna in order to sustain physical life, people needed to feed on him in faith in order to have everlasting life.
29:18
And so we see in these verses that we just read our Lord increasingly sharpened his speech, intensified his imagery, as his discourse unfolded in the passage.
29:31
And although Jesus had spoken about the need to come to him and to believe on him in the earlier portions, he introduced the idea here of eating him and then of course drinking his blood.
29:46
Now the teaching of Jesus to this gathering of Jews regarding eating his flesh and drinking his blood of course caused a significant and lasting impression on those hearers.
29:58
You can bet they never forgot this, did they? And this was one of his purposes for speaking to them in this manner.
30:08
Those who were sitting there, I imagine, who did not believe on him, this just confirmed them in their unbelief.
30:14
This guy is a heretic. Let's get him out of here. We're not going to listen to another word this man says.
30:22
And then there were others who probably believed somewhat. They wanted to make him king, we read, because he fed him the day before.
30:30
I imagine that their faith, which was not wrought of God, but rather it was a superficial faith,
30:38
I imagine that was immediately squashed when he gave these words.
30:44
There were a few there, however, his disciples who truly believed on him. It must have caused them puzzlement.
30:53
And yet they had resolved they were going to follow Jesus regardless of what he taught.
30:58
They were already convinced who he was and they needed him and they were not going to turn loose of him.
31:05
And so you've got this reaction and you've got the people really kind of spreading out in extremes.
31:12
Those who are clinging to him in faith but probably troubled listening to him and watching it unfold.
31:20
I mean, they had a kingdom at the beginning of the day. Five thousand men, women, children wanted to make, force him to become king.
31:27
And by the time Jesus got done with them after a sermon, he barely had his twelfth and it must have been terribly distressing for those twelve disciples.
31:39
And we'll consider that more next week, I think. And so it's quite remarkable the way our
31:44
Lord Jesus handled these people. Now let's consider a few general matters about interpreting this passage.
31:53
And here's where we get into it a little bit. There is a difference of opinion on commentators coming to John chapter 6 and how to read it and how to interpret it, say, to churches today.
32:09
The theme of Jesus eating his flesh and drinking his blood is one of the major points of differences and sources of contention across the spectrum of commentators of John's gospel.
32:22
And it's not so much a difference between, say, conservative commentators and liberal commentators as much as it's a difference between churches and those traditions that seem to be more liturgical and those traditions that are less liturgical in their form of church service, as it were.
32:44
In other words, a major point of difference and contention in interpreting this discourse of John chapter 10 is whether or not our
32:51
Lord's words should be applied or should not be applied to the
32:56
Lord's supper. And you can see how easily it could be. He's talking about eating and drinking, eating and drinking, which we just did.
33:07
And so there are those who make the application. And the way these arguments go, therefore, in commentaries are one of two directions, really two different contexts.
33:21
There are those of us who would argue when Jesus is talking about himself as the bread, he was speaking in comparison and contrast to Moses giving the manna.
33:34
And so he is talking to Jews in the synagogue of Capernaum comparing and contrasting himself as the bread from heaven against the manna.
33:46
The other group, however, would say no. Rather, John the
33:52
Apostle wrote this gospel probably in the 90s A .D. And therefore, he was writing to a
33:59
Christian community, probably in Asia Minor, what is Western Turkey today. And so he is writing to a church.
34:07
And therefore, he was recounting to these people in this synagogue, really addressing and speaking about the
34:15
Lord's Supper that the church in the 90s A .D. would have been practicing. And therefore, you have commentators who say the
34:24
Lord's Supper should not be seen at all in John chapter 6. And you have others that say it's only speaking about the
34:32
Lord's Supper here in John chapter 6. And then you have people that go in between as well.
34:38
They see one or both. And so really, that's at the heart of the debate.
34:46
Here's a, on page four of your notes, I put in a little theological note taken from one of my commentaries that I find very useful.
34:55
It's a very, rather late published commentary. It's quite good.
35:01
I don't agree with everything, but it's quite good. And he wrote about this problem of interpretation.
35:07
Unlike the synoptics, that would be Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Unlike the synoptics, John does not give an account of the
35:14
Lord's Supper. That's interesting. For this reason, alongside what is often taken as strong Eucharistic imagery, the
35:22
Eucharist is, of course, a term commonly applied to the Lord's Supper by more liturgical people. Eucharist is taken from a
35:29
Greek and Latin word meaning gratefulness, sometimes grace or gratitude.
35:38
As strong Eucharistic imagery of the pericope, numerous interpreters have debated the manner in which this pericope, or episode, incorporates sacramental theology.
35:48
In other words, the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. How one interprets or even recognizes the
35:54
Eucharistic imagery is almost entirely dependent upon the author assumed by the interpreter.
36:01
In other words, is it God or is it John? That's the point. For example, those who see the sacramental meaning directly in the text consider the author to be writing to a late first century
36:14
Johannine church audience where such practices are already developed. They're observing the
36:20
Lord's Supper perhaps weekly. And so that's the emphasis of John chapter 6.
36:26
In contrast, others consider any sacramental meaning to be blatantly anachronistic.
36:33
In other words, you're talking about another time. It has no application to John chapter 6.
36:39
One might try to hold them both in tension. Like Carson, he's making reference to D .A.
36:44
Carson, who's an excellent commentator, who has in view primarily the ostensible historical context but would secondarily be willing to say that it's hard to imagine the evangelist writing several decades after the institution of the
36:58
Lord's Supper could produce these words without noticing that many readers, even if they understood the passage or write, would in all likelihood detect some parallels with the
37:08
Eucharist. I think Carson has a point there. That's how John's gospel would have been read when
37:14
John wrote it. He was talking about a historical situation, and yet when those gospel readers read it, they couldn't help at least seeing something there with the
37:25
Lord's Supper. And then Plink goes on to argue his position that he took in his commentary on John.
37:34
Rather than choosing between Jesus and the evangelists or trying to mediate between them on historical grounds, this commentary intends to incorporate them both within the confines of the ontology of Scripture.
37:47
In other words, the nature of Scripture. You just don't limit it to the historical situation. And he's right, which interprets the words of the divine agent or author,
37:56
God, in cooperation with the human agent, author, that'd be John. This allows, no, demands that one not choose between Jesus and his
38:07
Jewish context and the evangelist, that would be John, the gospel writer, and his Christian context.
38:13
That is, we should not be forced to choose between whether the imagery is alluding to the motif of manna in the
38:19
Old Testament, that would be Jewish, or to the rite of the Eucharist in the early Christian movement,
38:25
Christian. Rather, in light of the purview of the divine author, God, the images make impressions upon the reader that reverberate across the entire canon with the manna in Exodus and the
38:39
Eucharist in 1 Corinthians serving the appropriate interpretive background from which
38:44
Jesus comes and is made known. As Augustine, in the 5th century, explains in regard to manna and the
38:52
Lord's Supper, in the signs they were diverse, in the thing which is signified they were alike.
38:58
As Jesus explained regarding Moses, he wrote about me. And in other words, what
39:04
Klink is arguing is that it's not an either -or. There is both involved.
39:13
Obviously, if you sat down and read John chapter 6, probably the idea of the Lord's Supper would at least be correlating there.
39:20
How does this apply? What does this mean? Even though the exact historic context was only
39:27
Moses and the manna in the wilderness. Well, this is one of the difficulties of John's Gospel.
39:34
It's a complex matter. And trying to sort it through. Well, I prefer to address the historical issue.
39:44
This is how Jesus taught in the synagogue. And I laid down the arguments here against the sacramental interpretation of John 6.
39:53
In other words, those who are more non -liturgical, these are the reasons they wouldn't apply to the
40:00
Lord's Supper directly. And so, first of all, the setting of the discourse mitigates applying it to the
40:07
Lord's Supper. Jesus is talking to Jews in a Jewish synagogue in Capernaum.
40:12
And that was long before the Lord's Supper was even instituted. It was instituted down in Jerusalem a couple of years later, perhaps.
40:21
They wouldn't have had any kind of understanding or context of the Lord's Supper. And therefore, to apply
40:26
Jesus' words to that, they would argue, is illegitimate. Secondly, there's the nature of the language itself.
40:34
We're on the top, page 5 now, by the way. We could hardly understand verse 53 sacramentally, which reads,
40:43
Then Jesus said to them, 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.
40:51
And what this commentator argues is, there's no way in the world you can apply that to the
40:57
Lord's Supper. And he argues why. This language is absolute. No qualification is inserted.
41:04
No loophole is left. But it's impossible to think that Jesus, or for that matter, the evangelist, that would be
41:11
John, who's writing the gospel, should have taught that the one thing necessary for eternal life is to receive the sacrament.
41:20
It conflicts with everything what Jesus was saying in the whole passage. To receive eternal life is believing on Him, coming to Him in faith, not eating of the
41:31
Lord's Supper. And to argue that, it's just not possible. Thirdly, they would argue the consequences to failing to eat and drink here are the same as failing to eat and believe in Jesus in other verses.
41:45
In other words, what he's saying here is that eating and drinking here is believing, not physically eating of the
41:53
Lord's Supper as a sacrament. And I think that's a valid argument. And then four, the words of Jesus would never have had a sacramental meaning to the
42:03
Jewish audience. Although His listeners took Him literally, and therefore utterly rejected
42:09
Him in His teaching, clearly He was teaching that feeding on Him was to receive
42:14
Him wholly and completely into one's innermost being. And that was through faith, and through faith alone, not by the means of eating and drinking something physical like in communion.
42:29
And so those commentators who would give weight to these arguments would say basically the following. The chapter refers purely to spiritual realities.
42:38
Eating Christ's flesh and drinking His blood point to that central saving act as described otherwise.
42:44
Say in John 3 .16, Christ's death opens the way to life. Men enter that way by faith.
42:51
And so in this chapter, Christ speaks of giving His flesh, which points to the same act as God giving
42:57
His Son. But men must appropriate this gift by faith. Eating the flesh, drinking the blood, represent a striking way of saying this.
43:07
Amen. Men must take Christ into their innermost being if they were to have the life
43:13
He died to bring them. And the idea that somehow God communicates eternal life by eating that which has been sanctified is pagan.
43:24
It's not Scripture. We're saved by God's grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone.
43:31
And that's everywhere taught in Scripture. And so that mitigates the idea that somehow you can apply this in a liturgical way to the
43:39
Lord's Supper as though the Lord's Supper itself conveys forgiveness of sins and conveys eternal life.
43:47
And you've got to keep coming to the Mass or keep coming to the Sacrament in order to have eternal life.
43:53
That just completely flies in the face of everything Scripture teaches. And we would certainly argue that point.
44:02
Now let's consider now after a few general matters of interpretation just a few points more specifically.
44:09
Particularly verse 52. We have the reaction of the Jewish crowd to Jesus' words.
44:15
The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves saying how can this man give us his flesh to eat?
44:21
This quarrel was intense and the Greek word describing quarrel speaks of the intensity.
44:28
It was a flat -out church fight as it were in the synagogue. They were fighting with one another over that.
44:36
The plain sense of his words caused them to cringe and recoil with shock and disgust. And I imagine a few were trying perhaps to be patient.
44:44
Well, let's hear the man out. Man, he's been performing miracles among us. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt.
44:50
Others however were totally disgusted with what he was teaching. They wanted to throw him out.
44:56
And so this was the effect of Jesus in his ministry as he was teaching. He's not like this passive effeminate guy that's softly trying to appease the crowds.
45:08
Won't you believe on me? He was direct and confrontive.
45:13
And he was unapologetic. And nobody seemed to like it.
45:19
But some of them concluded it's got to be true. It's true.
45:25
And God's in this. I'm going to believe on him. No, I can't answer all the issues that they were watching and were hearing.
45:33
No matter. I'm tying myself to him and I'm not going to turn away.
45:39
And that's the kind of faith you and I ought to have, right? That we are resolved, as God enables us, nothing's going to turn us away from Christ.
45:50
They can find other worlds inhabited with other people. It doesn't matter. If aliens came down next week, it's not going to change anything, is it?
45:59
We are committed to Christ and who he is and who he's revealed himself to us. God has drawn us and called us to him and nothing's going to change that as he enables us.
46:10
It's not by our resolve, of course, but it's by his grace. Well, then secondly, verses 53 through 58,
46:18
Jesus further pressed his claims to them in language that accentuates their rejection of him.
46:25
It was in the midst of this conflict, however, that our Lord spoke in a manner to aggravate the mayhem.
46:32
They were having a fight there and he wasn't, at this point, playing the peacemaker, was he?
46:38
He was throwing oil on the fire. It was incredible. It would have been something to watch it play out before us.
46:47
Jesus didn't retreat from conflict. Neither did he attempt to calm the crowd down so they wouldn't quarrel among themselves.
46:55
He then spoke in a manner that must have just stirred up the controversy all the more. And again, we already have, but we read verses 53 through 58 and I highlighted and emboldened some of the words that would have immediately caused a row among them.
47:12
Jesus said to them, 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.
47:19
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. I'll raise him up at the last day.
47:25
For my flesh is food indeed and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh, drinks my blood, abides in me and I in him.
47:33
As the living Father sent me, I live because of the Father. So he who feeds on me will live because of me.
47:40
This is the bread which came down from heaven. Not as your fathers ate the manna and did. He who eats this bread will live forever.
47:48
I noticed something interesting in verse 53. Jesus used the Greek word phagēte.
47:55
It's the common word that's translated as eat. Okay? But in verse 54 he used a different Greek word translated as eat.
48:06
And it's the Greek word tōgon. Far different in sounding, isn't it?
48:11
And it has a different nuance of meaning. And it's actually an accentuated meaning.
48:18
It's incredible. It's a coarser word. Sometimes it's translated like crunch or munch.
48:26
And so he was just talking about feeding on him, and now he's saying basically, unless you chew on me, crunch and munch me, you've got no life in you.
48:34
I mean, he is not in any way trying to pacify people. He is going to the spiritual juggler here.
48:41
And he's basically confronting them with their false understanding, their pride, and bringing about humility and brokenness on their part.
48:52
Unless you chew on me, you have not eternal life. And you can imagine the rising vehement reaction and anger that resulted from his words.
49:02
Again, everybody present would remember this day and the interchange and the accentuated reaction of those present.
49:10
And so through this interchange, the Lord Jesus caused his speech to be heard and listened to very carefully.
49:16
And it was given in such language that his teaching would be retained in the minds of these people.
49:22
I imagine for decades after they could tell you exactly what he told them in that synagogue on that day.
49:30
And it was designed that way. How were these words, by the way, interpreted down through church history?
49:40
However, now we're getting back into this idea of is it sacramental or referring to the sacrament of the
49:47
Lord's Supper or more historical? And I found this quote. I'm not going to read it, but it mentions
49:54
Augustine once again in the fifth century. And it mentions a man much later in church history,
50:00
Bernard de Clairvaux. And it mentions these two noted leaders in Christendom as talking about this event.
50:11
But in no way did they apply it to communion. They did not in any way talk about the bread being changed into the body of Jesus and the wine into the blood of Jesus.
50:26
But rather they were talking about the very thing that we have been pressing. The need for clear and full faith in Jesus Christ.
50:35
And the person that drew this out was basically showing that the whole idea of transubstantiation and that of a sacrifice being performed in the mass was foreign to even the leaders of early
50:52
Christendom. Again, they found a special category for priests in the early centuries.
51:01
Not in the first century, but third century. Because they needed priests to offer a sacrifice to atone for the laity's sins.
51:11
But even then, although it was a sacrifice, they never said the bread turned into the body and the wine into the blood of Jesus.
51:20
Again, until the ninth century A .D. It was just a gradual accumulation and departure from Biblical truth.
51:29
And so the historical belief and observance of the Lord's Supper in Christendom, we don't have but of course there are, and I'm just going to summarize just off the top now, and then we'll close.
51:43
There is the teaching of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. They divided in the 11th century
51:50
A .D. over the use of icons. Greek Orthodoxy in the east,
51:55
Roman Catholicism in the west. They were both in agreement, however, of the idea of the mass that the priest in the action of mass turns the bread into the literal body of Jesus and the wine into the literal blood of Jesus and then it's fed through the priest, sometimes just to the priest, on behalf of the people.
52:19
This is the teaching of Rome, the teaching of the Greek Orthodox, now Russian Orthodox. When the
52:24
Muslims took over Istanbul, they moved the capital to Moscow and that's the Greek Orthodox Church.
52:30
And then also High Church Anglicanism, the Church of England and Episcopalianism, High Church.
52:36
They also believe in this idea of the mass. They teach that the mass is a bloodless sacrifice offered to propitiate the sins of the people.
52:49
So the early reformers took such great issue with this, basically saying you're denying the finality and sufficiency of Jesus dying on the cross when you re -crucify him every week and you feed him to the people.
53:04
And the Protestants they declared that's idolatry, it's heresy, it's error.
53:10
Look at the quote right in the middle of page 8. This is from a Roman Catholic priest who wrote a book about this matter and this is what they understand the priest does in the mass.
53:22
And by the way, we might think that somehow the Lord's Supper is just a little different form in different churches and denominations.
53:31
It's Lord's Supper here, communion in another place, the mass somewhere, it's all the same but just a little different form.
53:37
No. It's entirely different. We would say the mass is in no way whatsoever equivalent to the
53:43
Lord's Supper that we practice and is set forth in the scriptures. But consider what this priest declared in his book on Catholicism.
53:52
When the priest pronounces the tremendous words of consecration, this is the mass, he reaches up into the heavens and brings
53:59
Christ down from his throne and places him upon our altar to be offered up again as the victim for the sins of men.
54:08
It is a power greater than that of monarchs and emperors. It is greater than that of saints and angels.
54:15
Greater than that of seraphim and cherubim. Indeed, it's greater even than that power of the
54:22
Virgin Mary. While the Blessed Virgin has the human agency by which Christ became incarnate a single time, the priest brings
54:30
Christ down from heaven and renders him present on our altar as the eternal victim for the sins of men, not once but a thousand times.
54:40
The priest speaks and lo, Christ, the eternal and omnipotent God bows his head in humble obedience to the priest's command.
54:50
That's what they believe is happening. you know, it's...
54:56
And the Protestants, they were vehement against this. It's idolatry. And we would argue it is too.
55:05
Now, again, please don't misunderstand. We're not talking in any way at all against Catholic people.
55:12
We all have friends. Many have family. Many of you came out of Catholicism.
55:18
Well over half of our church came out of Roman Catholicism. We're not talking about Roman Catholics.
55:24
We're talking about a system of belief and practice which is Roman Catholicism, which we believe is unbiblical and false and deceives people in telling them that they have salvation because they do this thing.
55:38
And they go forth thinking that they have pleased God and that God is pleased with them because they've participated in this thing.
55:45
It's a sacrilegious act. That's how all Protestants have always viewed it. We would quote what they claim for themselves in the
55:55
Council of Trent. It's shocking when you read it. And then if we had time we would quote what
56:01
Martin Luther himself said about the Mass. They were Catholic when they came out of it.
56:06
And John Calvin, what he said against the Mass. And so we stand very strongly against the
56:13
Mass. Calvin gave eight charges against the Mass. Martin Luther wrote a book against it.
56:18
It was one of the principal issues of the Protestant Reformation. We believe in the
56:24
Lord's Supper, but we believe it as we saw played out before us today. And this is historically how all
56:31
Protestants have understood the Lord's Supper. Some with different points of emphasis and teaching, but we're generally as Protestants against this prominent teaching, central teaching of Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and High Anglicanism.
56:54
Christ, when he died on the cross, died once. And he satisfied the justice of God on behalf of all of his people of all times.
57:04
And to say that that wasn't sufficient, and that he needs to be offered again today and every
57:10
Sunday as another sacrifice in order to atone for our sins, and that you've got to eat and drink of this in order to have salvation.
57:19
That is another gospel. That is not the salvations taught in the Holy Scriptures.
57:25
And we say that, you know, with conviction. We say it as strongly as our Lord spoke here, but with concern, hoping that if we say it strong enough, it will get people's attention and they'll think about this.
57:39
And what does the word of God say? That's the bottom line, isn't it? So the Scripture, what does the
57:45
Scripture say? I don't care what a man says, okay, what churches, denominations have said, what does the word of God say?
57:53
And we're going to go with that and only that, sola scriptura.
57:59
And the Lord's going to hold us responsible for that. He's given us a book, a holy book, the only objective standard by which we can know
58:08
God and know his will, believe on Christ, and know how to live before him.
58:13
And may the Lord enable us to have conviction and courage to do so. People are being deceived by this terrible error and they need to be awakened so that they see
58:25
Christ and Christ alone as their Lord and Savior. And that's our desire and aim.
58:31
Amen? Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for your word. And again, our
58:37
God, we want to be clear and firm because we care about Jesus Christ and we care about people.
58:44
And you've made it very clear here in John chapter 6 that embracing
58:49
Jesus Christ wholly and solely in faith is a way of salvation.
58:55
Help each and every one of us, Lord, to go forth from this place with this conviction. We pray,
59:01
Lord, that you would awaken many people and give us a burden and concern for loved ones, friends,
59:07
Lord, that are caught up in these things, that we might see them delivered by the liberty and freedom that's in Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray.