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Welcome to John chapter 6. As we continue our study, and it's turning into somewhat of a lengthy study, isn't it?
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Today is the 44th Lord's Day that we've given to this gospel, and here we are approaching the end of John chapter 6.
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By the way, Jason and Laura's oldest son, Jack, was out snowboarding and broke his arm quite severely this week.
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Had a rod put in it. And so, Jack, I assume, has got a cast put on his arm this week.
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His coals have been taken off, I believe. One off and one on. And such are sons in this
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New England snowy region, huh? Last week we gave our attention to our
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Lord's words in John chapter 6, 47 -59. These were the final words of our
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Lord in this teaching session before a Jewish gathering in the synagogue of Capernaum, probably a large, rather large synagogue there.
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Our Lord, of course, pressed upon these people the vital importance that they believe on him solely and fully in order to receive the gift of eternal life.
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That's the theme throughout this passage. Our Lord spoke in terms that startled and even offended these people.
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And so he raised quite a fur there among those people.
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We'll read these words again in which our Lord drew a conclusion to his sermon to these people.
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And so we'll read John 6, 47 -59.
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Jesus said, The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying,
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How can this man give us his flesh to eat? And then Jesus said to them,
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As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on me will live because of me.
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This is the bread which came down from heaven, not as your fathers ate the manna and are dead.
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He who eats this bread will live forever. These things he said in the synagogue as he taught in Capernaum.
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Because of the nature of the language here and the history of interpretation of this passage, we felt compelled last
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Lord's Day to address the scriptural teaching regarding the Lord's Supper and what this passage doesn't teach.
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And this is over against those who have twisted this passage to justify their errant belief in practice.
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Namely, Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy with their aberrant promotion and practice of the mass and transubstantiation.
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That is not biblical doctrine. I came across these comments of J .C.
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Ryle, whom I highly regard his expository thoughts on the Gospels. And he wrote this,
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The plain truth is that there is a morbid anxiety in fallen man to put a carnal sense on scriptural expressions wherever he possibly can.
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In other words, we want to make physical that which is spiritual. He struggles hard to make a religion a matter of forms and ceremonies, of doing and performing, of sacraments and ordinances, of sense and sight.
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He secretly dislikes that system of Christianity which makes the state of the heart the principal thing and labors to keep sacraments and ordinance in the second place.
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Happy is that Christian who remembers these things and stands his ground. Baptism and the
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Lord's Supper no doubt are holy sacraments and mighty blessings when rightly used, but it is worse than useless to drag them in everywhere and to see them everywhere in God's work.
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And we pointed out last week that's exactly what they do here in John chapter 6. And so because we felt compelled to address these matters last
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Lord's Day, we were really not able to say very much about the details of these verses.
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And so we want to do that somewhat this morning and then we'll continue on with some of the verses that we read,
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Lord willing. With verses 52 through 59 we entered into the fourth division of this discourse of John chapter 6.
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No one has eternal life except through feeding upon Jesus Christ. That is the theme of these verses.
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Now as we've already pointed out, the Apostle John who wrote this gospel relayed this account of our Lord's dealings with his gathering of Jews on one particular
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Sabbath day in Galilee. So let's consider these verses, again beginning with verse 52 in which we read of the reaction of the
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Jews to our Lord's words. The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat?
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And so they took his words literally rather than spiritually as he intended them.
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This entire discourse has been an exchange between our Lord and the Jews and they're described as such, the
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Jews. With verse 52 we have this sixth and final verbal exchange as they're going back and forth, the
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Jews. It's set forth almost like a single character engaged in this conversation with Jesus.
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That's a part of the narrative art by way of gospel writing and it was rather unique to the ancient world, so much so that biblical studies, persons, professors and whatnot have determined that the gospel in our
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New Testament, these four gospels, is actually a unique genre of writing that was actually invented by the gospel writers to set forth the life and ministry of the
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Lord Jesus. We see our Lord's words incited a quarrel in this synagogue, a quarrel which was quite intense.
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In fact, the Greek word translated in our text as quarrel is in the form of an imperfect tense.
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That is a past tense, more often than not a continuous action in past time.
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And this particularly, for any of you who are interested in grammatical points, would be described as an aggressive imperfect.
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In other words, it began and it began to accelerate as it were. It is a strong term that depicts a heated dispute.
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They quarreled, and one described the tone of this gathering, therefore based on this word and others.
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The moment Jesus mentioned his flesh, contention arose among his auditors, in other words those who heard him, whom
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John again designates as the Jews, a term used by him to indicate their hostile temper. The imperfect, and then he gives the
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Greek word emakonto, describes the passionate exchange of words among themselves, no longer spoken in undertones like the previous murmuring mentioned in verse 41, but in open exclamations.
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And the verb shows that they were divided. Yet this does not mean that some supported Jesus while others contradicted them, but that some raised one objection while others clashed with them in raising a different objection.
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Thus there was a battle among them, and it was intense.
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And as we pointed out earlier, I think last week, the way in which John cast this dispute, and the manner in which
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John described these Jews as quarreling, earlier they were described as grumbling.
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These Jews are being cast by John the Gospel writer as parallel with the ancient
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Jews who murmured against Moses in the wilderness after God had given them the gift of manna, the bread that fed them daily for 40 years.
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And so now they're reacting against Jesus who fed them the day before the 5 ,000 with the bread and fish.
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They're as guilty as those unbelieving Jews back in the wilderness. As one wrote, like their forefathers who not only grumbled, but also argued with Moses so as to put
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God to the test, these Jews argue and test Jesus. Their question is a final challenge in the form of a mocking rebuke and is rooted in their unbelief.
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Ironically, however, their question is actually important and provides Jesus with a final explanation about eating his flesh, the living bread.
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Now, it's quite interesting to see how our Lord Jesus dealt with this crowd at this juncture.
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Here they were, they're quarreling, becoming more intense, and Jesus seems to provoke the controversy further to the point it was a near brawl taking place in the synagogue.
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We read in verse 53, Jesus said to them, most assuredly, and that's another instance of the amen, amen, or the
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Aramaic amen, amen, and verily, verily, as it's translated in the King James or truly, truly,
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I think in the ESV, and here in the New King James, most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the
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Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. And so the Lord didn't soften his words, but he spoke to this gathering in the
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Jewish synagogue with greater intensity and vividity.
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He was more vivid than he was even before. The Jews believed to be the people of God, once whom
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God had granted true life, life in God's presence, enjoyed his blessing, but Jesus told them, you have no life in you unless they ate his flesh and drank his blood.
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Think about that in this Jewish setting. He had earlier spoken of eating his flesh in verse 51, but now he adds the extra element, drinking his blood, verse 53.
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And again, this is interjected here as they're arguing and fighting among one another. Of course, the
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Jews were forbidden to eat any meat that had not been drained of blood, and so as one wrote, if eating flesh was shocking, drinking blood was outright offensive and especially abhorrent to Jews who were explicitly forbidden to partake of blood.
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But again, we see our Lord elevating his speech here, even while they had begun to quarrel among themselves.
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And so one could hardly imagine a more volatile statement that he could have uttered at this time, in this place, before this people.
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He wasn't trying to be the peacemaker here. He was setting fire to this powder keg, as it were.
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He was declaring to them that their only hope for life before God was wrapped up in him, and the blessing of life was only through eating this flesh and drinking his blood.
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Now, as we read this as Christians, I think that we should recall many of the sacrifices of the
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Old Testament. And if you're following our reading chart, we're in the book of Deuteronomy, and it's been talking about that, how the priests and the priest's family were permitted, even exhorted, to eat the sacrifice, some of the sacrifices that were offered on the burnt altar.
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And so the sacrifice on the brazen altar was actually the food for the priests and the families of God.
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And of course, the blood of the animal was drained and then poured out on the ground or against the altar when those sacrifices were slain right there at the altar.
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And so the language that Jesus used of eating and drinking cast himself as a sacrifice for sin, on which they were to feast, that is, to ingest wholly and completely.
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And by the way, the Greek tense of the verbs here, eat and drink, in this verse is in the aorist tense.
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That's a tense that speaks about the fact of a matter. And so it's a final, and it would seem a singular act of eating and drinking.
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We'll see a little farther on, he talks about continuous eating, continuous drinking. But here in this verse, he is speaking about a singular initial event of eating his flesh and drinking his blood.
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And so here Jesus was expressing a one -time eating, a one -time drinking, resulting in eternal life.
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And so here his flesh perhaps speaks of his incarnation as the blessed eternal son of God, assuming our human nature.
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And his blood speaks of his death on the cross to pay for our sins. When you see that emblem of blood here, it is suggesting the cross, suggesting his sacrificial death on behalf of his people.
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And so to eat and drink here is to embrace in faith initially and fully who he is as God incarnate and what he did in dying for the sins of his people.
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This speaks about the person initially being converted as it were. He ate and drank of Jesus Christ.
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Again J .C. Ryle concisely stated this matter. The flesh and blood of the
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Son of Man mean that sacrifice of his own body which Christ offered up on the cross when he died for sinners.
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The atonement made by his death, the satisfaction made by his sufferings as our substitute, the redemption affected by his endure, the penalty of our sins, and his own body on the tree, this seems to be the true idea that we should set before our minds.
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The eating and drinking without which there is no life in us mean that reception of Christ's sacrifice which takes place when a man believes on Christ crucified for our salvation.
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It is an inward and spiritual act of the heart and has nothing to do with the body.
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Whenever a man feeling his own guilt and sinfulness lays hold on Christ and trusts in the atonement made for him by Christ's death, at once he eats the flesh of the
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Son of Man and drinks his blood. His soul feeds on Christ's sacrifice by faith just as his body would feed on bread.
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Believing, he is said to eat. Believing, he is said to drink. And the special thing that he eats and drinks and gets benefit from is the atonement made for his sins by Christ's death for him on Calvary.
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And that was the spiritual truth that the Lord Jesus was conveying to these people. But he did it, of course, in terms so that he knew they wouldn't comprehend what he was saying.
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But every word he said was true and came to pass. Jesus then said further in verse 54,
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Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day.
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He claims to be the one who will raise the dead to life. That's quite a claim in itself. On the last day of history.
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One final day. One last day. As he had taught his disciples earlier that we considered in John 5,
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Jesus said, For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself, and has given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the
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Son of Man. Do not marvel at this, for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear his voice and come forth.
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Those who have done good to the resurrection of life, those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation.
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There he spoke about the hour is coming. And here in John 6, he talks about the last day.
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And so Jesus declared he would raise the dead to life on the last day. There is a one final day of the general resurrection of the dead and the final judgment of all mankind.
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They are normally believed by sincere evangelicals.
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There are not two different days. One for the resurrection of the just and then a thousand of the damned after the millennium, so called.
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This is what has largely been popularized. This is what everybody believes. But here the
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Lord Jesus speaks about the last day. There's a singular day in which all the dead will raise, the entire human race.
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And as Matthew 25 describes, He will separate the human race into two groups just like a shepherd at the end of a long day separates his goats from his sheep.
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The goats into everlasting damnation, the sheep into everlasting life. But it's a singular day, the last day.
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And He'll pronounce to His own, Come you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
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But again, of the damned, King Jesus will pronounce a sentence and they will go away into everlasting punishment.
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One day, the last day, general resurrection, general judgment of all mankind.
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Now in this verse, the verbs eats and drinks are not in the aorist tense as the previous verse that we pointed out.
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Rather they are both in the present tense. And so there's a different emphasis that Jesus makes here.
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Here Jesus was speaking of continually feeding on Him. We initially eat Him and drink
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His blood as it were when we initially believed on Him. But now our Christian life is a continual feeding on Him and drinking of His blood as it were.
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And this is what Christians do. They continue to believe and entrust themselves to the incarnate
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Son of God who died for them on the cross. And this was put forth by actually a
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Lutheran commentary, a gentleman named Lenski who died in the first half of the 20th century.
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The essence of faith is exactly this that we receive from Jesus that we abandon all else and let
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Him give Himself to us. His blood bought merits, His flesh and His blood sacrifice for us.
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No truer and richer definition of faith can be given than this. Faith equals to eat
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Christ's flesh and drink Christ's blood. It is idle to charge that no sensible man would entertain the thought that believing can be an eating and a drinking.
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Like this discourse on the bread of life is the Word of Jesus in Matthew 5. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.
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And John 7, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. And he that believeth on me.
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And also John 4 .10, if the point of comparison is asked for, it's simply that eating and drinking like believing is a receiving of the most intimate and vital kind.
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As eating and drinking receive food to be assimilated in the body, so believing receives Christ with the atonement made through His sacrificial flesh and blood.
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But the figure is less than the reality, for bodily eating only sustains life already present, while spiritual eating or believing expels death, bestows life, and sustains life forever.
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Eating and drinking means believing in this passage, and that's what the Lord Jesus was teaching.
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And to carnalize it and make it physical, make it into a mass, changing the bread into the body and the cup and wine into the blood of Jesus is just totally unspiritual and carnal and idolatrous.
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That's how all the Reformers understood the Roman Catholic mass and the teaching of transubstantiation.
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And I hope none of us ever partake or participate in that. It's wrong to do so.
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We would argue that it's sin to do so because it's not taught or commanded in the
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Word of God. Well, we then read our
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Lord's words in verse 55, For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. Notice the sentence begins with the conjunction for in English.
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And what this is commonly understood as is an explanatory conjunction.
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It sets forth an explanatory clause. In other words, it gives the reason why the statement he just made is true.
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And so, whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I'll raise him up at the last day.
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How is it, Jesus, that is true? And it's because he can say,
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For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. That's the explanation. Actually, the
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English Standard Version, ESV, is probably better in the translation of the verse. It reads, For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink, in contrast to physical bread or the wine in the cup, as it were.
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And so, in contrast, say, to the food and drink of all the Old Testament sacrifices but pointed to life being given on behalf of and for the benefit of his people, the incarnation of the
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Lord Jesus and his death on the cross to atone for sins is the real bread, the true bread and drink that bring us eternal life.
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And so, this is not as complicated or complex as we might think as we read it rather superficially.
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The Lord is talking about embracing wholly and fully in faith his life and his death for eternal life.
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Now in verse 56, we read our Lord's words, He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.
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Here's a little bit more information that the Lord gives us. He adds the words of abiding, abiding with Jesus.
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This speaks of a mutual indwelling. Not just He indwelling us, but we are indwelling
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Him. Isn't that fascinating? A mutual indwelling. He who eats my flesh, drinks my blood, abides in me, and I in him.
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There's a union of Christ with his people. We often speak of Jesus abiding in us.
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Here, He declares that those who truly believe on Him also abide in Him. There's this mutual interaction and participation in one another.
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Now, we find this matter of abiding later on in John's Gospel. In fact,
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John 15, verse 4, Jesus will tell His disciples, Abide in me, and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.
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Some translate the Greek word meno, which is commonly translated as abide, by the
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English word remain. And that may actually be a better English rendering in some instances.
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This is how the New International Version translates it, by the way. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.
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This may be the more accurate idea, more specific nuance.
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This theme of abiding or remaining that we see in verse 56 is actually a rather common theme in John's Gospel.
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As one wrote, the term remain, as many, is one of the central terms in the
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Gospel. The Father remains in the Son, the Spirit remains upon Jesus, the believers remain in Christ, and He in them.
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The term is depicting a co -participatory existence where the being of the believer is determined or regulated by Jesus.
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It is nothing less than a depiction of an intimate relationship. The Apostle Paul considers himself to have shared so deeply in Christ that the crucifixion of Christ was in a real way also his death, with his life being lived or empowered by Christ in him.
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And this is the first appearance of this concept in the Gospel. And later in the Gospel, Jesus will give further explanation concerning this mutual indwelling, abiding in Him, or remaining in Him.
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And again, this is all through the instrument of faith, isn't it? And then we read in verse 57, our
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Lord saying, as the Living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so He who feeds on Me will live because of Me.
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It took me a while to ponder this verse and figure out what it was saying and what it wasn't saying. It's very precisely written.
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The common thread here is the matter of life or living. The Father is living. Jesus said that He lives present tense, due to the
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Father. And the one who believes continually, feeds on Jesus, will live future tense, because of Christ.
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The life that God gives to believers in Jesus Christ is trinitarian in nature. Later, we'll read about the
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Holy Spirit who gives life. Again, the language of this verse is very precise.
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It indicates that the life we have is due to the life that God the Father gave His Son, gave to Jesus Christ, who in turn then gives
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His life to us. It doesn't technically come directly to us from God the
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Father to us. It comes through a Mediator, Jesus Christ. The life that Jesus has is in common with the
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Father. The Father has life. He has life. It's one and the same. But it's different than the common life that the believer has.
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You and I aren't living in the same way that God the Father is. God the
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Father determined that Jesus would have life in Himself. And we understand this to be speaking primarily of His human nature.
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And so the life we have is derived from Jesus Christ. With respect to believers, they live because of the
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Son's determination. But unlike Jesus, they never have life in themselves. Jesus said,
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I have life in Myself. You and I have life that is derived from Jesus.
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It comes from the Father. Given through the
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Father to Jesus in His human nature so that life can be mediated to you and me as human beings.
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And so we see Jesus Christ as the blessed Mediator here. The language is very precise.
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And so when Jesus said, I live because of the Father, He was speaking of His human nature. Jesus Christ is one person with two natures, one divine, the other human.
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We'll have to address that sometime. The life that is in the Father He caused to be given to Jesus in His human nature so that He in His human nature might give us life through His life and death.
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Thomas Boston, Scottish pastor. He was a pastor to a rather rural church and became quite well known because he was so good, frankly, in the way he wrote.
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But his library was not very extensive. I think he only had like two shelves of books but every book was thoroughly read and worn out and underscored.
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He knew what he was talking about. Jonathan Edwards, who lived about the same time, said that Thomas Boston was really a noble divine.
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He really appreciated his writing and his ministry. He gave a sermon on this text,
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John 6 .57 on July 2, 1711. How about that? And it was right after they observed the
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Lord's Supper in his church. And then he gave these words. We have the spring from whence the believer derives his supernatural life of his and its beginning, progress, and continuation.
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It's not from himself. He is but a branch, not a root. It's not immediately from God as Adam's.
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Adam's life was immediately from God. But from the Mediator, Jesus Christ. The justice and holiness of God refused an intermediate union with the sinful creature.
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Yet there could be no life but as proceeding from God, the prime fountain of all. And there could be no communication of this life without union with Him.
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Wherefore it pleased God to unite the human nature to the divine in the purse of His Son, and so to make
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Him the Mediator, the mean or the instrument of the sinner's union and communion with the
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Father, that He deriving life from His Father, they might again derive it from Him, Christ.
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This is the import of the former part of the verse in which Christ shows how He comes to be living bread.
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He's fitted for giving life because He lives by the Father, deriving life from the fountain of life.
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There is a divine appointment of hint by the Father by which He was ordained and set apart to be life -giving bread to His people.
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We have the way how this life is derived from Christ to the soul. And this is by eating
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Him. That is by faith. It cannot be understood of a corporal eating.
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He's slapping transubstantiation there. For this eating would not give life. John 6 .63
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It is by the Spirit that quickens. The flesh profits nothing. You see what he's arguing there?
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The flesh profits nothing. And therefore to argue that the bread is turned into the flesh of Jesus, it doesn't profit anybody because they eat that.
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The flesh profits nothing. Very clever. Our Lord Jesus, our Lord Himself, determines it to be believing.
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That's what it is to eat. He that cometh to me shall never hunger. He that believeth on me shall never thirst.
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The word here used properly signifies a keen appetite, being the same as in Matthew 24.
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And many denote unto us that greedy appetite which the believer has after Christ is soul food and that there is no hazard of excess here.
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In other words, you can't have too much of them. Either in the appetite which obtains or in the continuance at this blessed work.
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We may eat all the day long and also in the night and welcome. Yea, it's remarkable that it's not said he that hath eaten that has got a taste of Christ is satisfied, but he that eateth, denoting a continuing action, he's emphasizing the present tense there, such as he that breathes and lives, there must be a constant improvement of Christ as a fountain of life, a living by believing, and the life which
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I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
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And so we initially come and we feed upon him by believing on him initially and then we continually feed upon him.
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And this is what sustains the Christian life. It's not just a set of doctrines or principles.
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The Bible is not just an instruction book. And if you follow the principles, you're going to come out alright.
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The Bible presents that life only comes through the person of Jesus Christ as we are in union with him through faith.
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And this is how God mediates this life, transforming, joyous, peace, empowered to live according to the will of God.
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So incredibly important. The last words our Lord spoke in this synagogue on this occasion are contained in verse 58.
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He said, This is the bread which came down from heaven not as your fathers ate the manna and are dead.
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He who eats this bread will live forever. He's really not saying anything new in this verse.
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Really, as you consider the narrative in his speech that he's laying out, it's a rhetorical device which brings a conclusion to his speech.
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He closes his words with a statement quite similar, even repeating the words which he had opened the section of this discourse earlier, like in verse 49.
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Here he closes his teaching contrasting once again Moses and his giving of the manna to Israel in the wilderness with Jesus giving himself the true bread from heaven which enables the one who believes on him to live forever.
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But whereas they died, they live forever who feed in faith on Jesus Christ. And then this episode concludes with John providing the setting of this discourse.
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These things he said in the synagogue as he taught in Capernaum. And the people were clueless, you know, the truth, everlasting life was opened up to them and they were blind to it, deaf to it, and enraged by it in the manner in which he presented it.
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And he did it intentionally, didn't he? He didn't make a mistake in the way he stood before them and taught them.
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He did it in that manner, in that way, intentionally. And we want to consider a little bit why that's the case.
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Well, we now arrive to the fifth and final section or division of this discourse which describes the reaction and the response of those who heard
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Jesus' teaching. And so we see from this concluding section that only those enabled by God's sovereign grace will believe on Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
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You and I would have not been any different than those Jews sitting in that synagogue apart from the grace of God.
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And so we'll read these verses first and then we'll begin to consider them one at a time.
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We're only going to get to one or two of those in the remainder of today. Then we'll have to pick it up next week.
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John 6, verse 60, Therefore many of his disciples, when they heard this, said, This is a hard saying.
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Who can understand it? When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples complained about this, he said to them,
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Does this offend you? Again, he didn't pacify them, mollify them, cater to them.
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He goes at them even harder. What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where he was before?
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It's 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. But there are some of you who do not believe. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe and who would betray him.
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And he said, Therefore I've said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted to him by my
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Father. And then verse 66, incredible. From that time many of his disciples went back and walked with him no more.
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And Jesus said to the twelve, Do you also want to go away? Here's your opportunity.
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Do you want to go away with them? Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go?
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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. And Jesus answered them, Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you as 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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And that brings the conclusion to this chapter six. So we read that our
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Lord Jesus at this point in his ministry had many disciples. He had gathered the following who had witnessed his signs and heard his testimony, his teaching.
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They believed on him at least in a measure. They had enlisted as his followers who were committed to learn of him and from him.
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And this is at the heart of what it means to be a disciple. A disciple is a learner, a follower of another.
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And Jesus had many disciples. And we read here that many of these disciples were very troubled by his teaching.
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They had just learned, just heard. And so our Lord's instruction troubled them greatly.
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And they told him so. This is a hard saying. Who can understand it? I have a book in my library,
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The Hard Sayings of Jesus. He gave a number of them too. Matthew Henry wrote of how our
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Lord welcomed the entire crowd even though many of them were hypocrites. And they had made great effort to follow him.
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But before this day was over, they proved themselves to be superficial followers.
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Again, the night before he had 5 ,000 men plus women and children who by force wanted to make him king.
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And now he's got 12 remaining at the end of a long day. Matthew Henry wrote,
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These people appeared afterwards to be unsound and not actuated by any good principle, and yet were thus zealous.
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Note, hypocrites may be very forward in their attendance on God's ordinances. They go to church.
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If men have no more to show for their love to Christ than their running after sermons and prayers and their pangs of affection to good preaching, they have reason to suspect themselves no better than this eager crowd.
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Though these people were no better principled, and Christ knew it, yet he was willing to be found of them and admitted them into fellowship with him.
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If we could know the hearts of hypocrites, if we could know the hearts of hypocrites, yet while their profession is plausible, we must not exclude them from our communion, much less when we do not know their hearts.
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And so he's advocating patience and tolerance with people even though we might not be seeing the kind of truth that we would hope to see.
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Matthew Henry then wrote about these temporary disciples in John chapter 6, verse 60.
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To some it was a savior of death unto death, not only to the Jews who were professed enemies to him and his doctrine, but even to many of his disciples.
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Such as were disciples at large who were his frequent hearers who followed him in public, a mixed multitude like those among Israel that began all the discontents.
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And now here we have, first, their murmurings that the doctrine they heard, verse 60. This is a hard saying.
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Who can hear it? First, they do not like it themselves. What stuff is this? Eat the flesh and drink the blood of the
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Son of Man? If it's to be understood figuratively, it's not intelligible. And if literally, it's not practical.
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What? Must we turn cannibals? Can we not be religious? But we must be barbarous?
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Now, when they found it a hard saying, if they had humbly begged Christ to have declared unto them this parable,
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He would have opened it. And their understanding too. For the meek, He will teach His way.
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A quote of Scripture. But they were not willing to have Christ's sayings explained to them because they would not lose this pretense for having rejected
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Him. That they were hard sayings. They think it impossible that anyone else should like it.
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Who can hear it? Surely, none can. That was their thought. And thus the scoffers at religion are ready to undertake that all the intelligent part of mankind concur with them.
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They conclude with great assurance that no man, no man of sense, will admit the doctrine of Christ, nor any man of spirit submit to His laws because they cannot bear to be so tutored, so tied up themselves.
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They think none else can. Who can hear it? Well, then Henry concludes, Thanks be to God, thousands have heard these sayings of Christ and have found them not only easy but pleasant as their necessary food.
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And in today's world, there are a lot of people that are very contrary to our Christian faith. And they think we're idiots, frankly.
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Uninformed, uneducated. We're idiots. And they'll argue, Hey look, the whole world doesn't believe like you are.
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And so they see our claims, our belief system is totally invalid and incredible.
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You've just been duped. Now with this reference of our
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Lord's disciples in verse 60, who are said to walk away in verse 66, we need to address a few matters of importance.
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First, we need to understand what the Word of God teaches us about being a disciple of Jesus Christ. What is a disciple of Jesus Christ?
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First, let's be reminded of the great commission that Jesus gave in Matthew 28. We're to go into all the world and make disciples of the nations.
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Baptizing them. We baptize disciples in them only. That's a Reformed Baptist conviction.
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A Baptist conviction. We baptize disciples in them only. Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
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Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe or to do everything that Jesus commanded us, and that's everything in the
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Scriptures, everything in the Word of God. And Jesus promised, behold, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age.
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And so Jesus said, go make disciples. That's our job. We have a responsibility to make disciples.
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Jesus did not command us to make proselytes, but disciples. That is, we're not merely to persuade people to embrace our belief system, making people followers of our ways and our beliefs.
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That's not what we're trying to do. And nor did Jesus command us to make believers. A lot of people think that's what we need to do.
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We need to make believers. And that's a great commission. No, the great commission is to make disciples. Not believers.
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We want true believers. And we'll argue, of course, a true believer is a true disciple. But some people think that our responsibility is just to convince people out there this gospel that we have so reduced to all you have to do is believe this and this, and you're in.
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No, we're not called to make believers. We're called to make disciples. Actually, this is a verb in Matthew 28, 19.
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You disciple people. You make disciples of them. You disciple them. It's a verb.
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Our Lord deliberately used this form of expression to convey the force of a command. Make disciples.
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And that's our commission. Our Lord gave us marching orders. And so this is our main task as a church, as Christians, to make disciples.
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And therefore, it's prerequisite to this work to have a solid, biblical, precise understanding of what a disciple is.
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And when this is in place, then, the way to accomplish our task will become clearer to us. What is it to make a disciple?
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And so what is a disciple of Christ? Well, again, the Greek word for disciple has a root meaning of the idea of learner, not just in the sense of a student to a teacher, but as, say, an apprentice to a craftsman, one who learns from the master, one who not only hears instruction, but observes and follows.
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Example. And so a disciple is a follower or an adherent of another. John the
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Baptist had disciples. The Pharisees had disciples, amazingly. They were disciples of Moses.
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They were followers. Of course, we're only concerned with what the Bible teaches of true disciples of Jesus Christ.
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But even when you begin to examine this term, disciples of Christ, then you have to nuance it even further because the term is used to describe different groups of people, and we've listed them here.
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First, the term is used of any and all who followed Jesus, even if for a short period of time.
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That's these disciples in John chapter 6. Many of the disciples, they were offended. They walked back, no longer followed
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Him. Second, the term disciples is used of the twelve apostles only.
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The disciples. Third, the Lord spoke of true disciples. John 8, 31, which suggests there were some who called themselves
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His disciples who were not actually true disciples. He basically says in John 8, you are true disciples if you continue in the words that I have spoken to you.
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A true disciple is one who continues in faith. These people in John 6 were not true disciples because they were offended, they turned around, and walked away.
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They were disciples in name only. Temporarily. And so we can posit this definition of a disciple of Christ.
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A disciple of Jesus Christ is a professing Christian, one whose purpose is to devote himself, herself, to obey the teachings of Christ.
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A disciple of Christ is one whose purpose is to learn and observe all that Christ has commanded His followers.
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That's the biblical description or definition of a true disciple. And only true disciples are true
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Christians. Commonly, you've heard the idea of being a disciple. And the idea is conveyed here, you've been a
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Christian, but you really need to become a disciple. I remember that in my early years. As though a disciple is really a dedicated
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Christian. Really someone who's on fire for the Lord. You're a Christian, that's fine and well, but you ought to become a disciple.
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And that's just not biblical. The scriptures tell us in the book of Acts the disciples were called
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Christians first at Antioch. You cannot be a Christian unless you're a true disciple of Jesus Christ.
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Many people claim to be Christian because they claim they believe certain things, even do certain things.
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Only true disciples of Jesus Christ are true Christians. We're to make disciples of all nations, teaching them to do everything that the
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Lord has commanded. And so, it's extremely important that we be true disciples of Jesus Christ.
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What is a true disciple of Jesus Christ? Again, John 8, 31. If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples.
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In other words, Jesus was saying that you are only his disciple if you purpose that his word will govern your thinking and behavior, and that his word continues that role in your life.
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A true Christian is one who eats and drinks. You know, the Lord's flesh and blood, they can believe continually throughout life.
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It's not just a one -time decision. A true disciple of Jesus Christ is a follower of Jesus.
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He's the Lord. And you're his follower. That's what a disciple is. And only that kind of person has salvation.
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If you claim to be a Christian, but you're not a disciple of Jesus Christ, you've been deceived or you're deceiving yourself.
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Because a true disciple is a true Christian. Temporary disciples are not true disciples of Jesus Christ.
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And these were temporary disciples in John 6. Our Lord was not surprised when he witnessed these disciples turn and walk away.
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Of them, again, it said, from that time many of his disciples went back and walked with him no more.
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And we read that our Lord wasn't surprised by this because we read in verse 64,
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Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe and who would betray him. At the start of that morning when there were thousands standing there, and then he went into the synagogue where there were fewer, but he knew which ones were true disciples, which ones were going to be standing at the end of the day.
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And he would do his teaching, declare truth in such a way to separate them.
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And that's what the Word of God is supposed to do. It's supposed to separate true Christians from those who are not true
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Christians, to reveal to them their true condition so that they might truly come to salvation.
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And so he used the Word of God to speak very forcefully, clearly, knowing that the
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Word was going to do like the winnowing breeze at the end of a harvest day, to separate the wheat from the chaff.
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That's going to happen on the Day of Judgment, but it happens within history in the churches of Jesus Christ.
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And therefore the idea that you're going to build a church, and he could have had a church with 5 ,000 men in it plus women and children without any effort whatsoever, but to build that kind of church he wouldn't have been faithful to them, would he?
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He had to speak to them truthfully, directly, and in a manner that he would expose in reality their unbelief.
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And that's what we're to do. We're to speak clearly and directly. And you know what happens.
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Those who are true Christians, they may be troubled by it, greatly troubled, as his 12 were.
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But they realize, you know, where are we going to go? Jesus has got the words of eternal life.
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We're not going anywhere. Though I don't understand it, though I don't like it necessarily,
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I'm sticking with it because there's no other way. There's no other hope.
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Temporary disciples are not true disciples. God does not bring salvation to temporary believers.
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Rather, true believers are ones who persevere in their faith through life. And so we do not favor suggesting or promoting a
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Christianity without people totally surrendering their lives to Jesus the
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Lord. The true Christian who is a true disciple is a fully committed learner and follower of Jesus Christ the
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Lord. And we're to follow our Lord's example by dealing with the crowd before Him.
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We're to tell the whole truth clearly and fully, even that truth, and perhaps especially that truth that we know will be hard for them to understand and embrace.
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For it's the kind of crisis of faith that the true spiritual condition of the person will show itself.
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Then you will discover, and he might discover of himself, that he has not truly yielded himself to the
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Lord, that he's just been kind of going along while he perceives matters are going the way he thinks they should be going.
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But as soon as he confronted, the Lord's going this way, and if you don't go with Him in this way, you're on your own.
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He's not your Savior. People are going to be unsettled and perhaps awakened to their true need of salvation.
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The parable of the sower, we're not going to take time, we're going to wrap things up real quickly here. The parable of the sower that Jesus gave in Matthew 13 and Luke chapter 8, the sower goes out and he sows the seed in Luke's Gospel.
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It's the seed of the Gospel. In Matthew 13, it's the word of the kingdom.
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And he goes out and he sows the seed and it falls onto four kinds of ground, of course. First ground, hardened path, the devil comes, takes away that word before any faith is exercised.
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And then there's seed that is sown on stony soil or rather shallow soil. That seed immediately springs up.
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Then you have seed sown among thorns. Over time, the thorns choke the word. And lastly, the seed sown in good ground.
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These temporary disciples in John chapter 6 were of that second form, the seed sown on stony soil.
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They were excited, enthusiastic. They believed on Jesus. You would have asked them, they would have said they did.
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And they're like young professing Christians who seem to be the brightest of converts, the most enthusiastic.
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They seem like everything is going to go great. And then Jesus said, but they are ones who become offended because of the word.
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They're either persecuted by those when the word comes forth, or else they are affronted, confronted, and offended by what the word of God teaches them.
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And that's when they walk away. They stop believing. And that's how these so -called disciples were in John chapter 6.
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They were not true believers. They were superficial followers.
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And it took the Lord Jesus to unsettle them and undeceive them to see who they were.
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And that's what we are to do. We have hope and we rejoice when we hear anybody claim they believe on Jesus.
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But before we settle the matter in our hearts and walk away, or certainly before we embrace them wholly into the fellowship of the church, we have to do a little more scrutinizing and determine just what kind of faith they are advocating.
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And is it a faith that results in a total love for Christ and commitment to Him?
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And if that's the case, we'll come and walk with us as we move on. But it's all a work of grace, as we'll see next week, of course.
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Jesus says, the flesh profits nothing. You and I can't produce that kind of person.
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We don't have that capability. We cannot force or enable ourselves to become that kind of person.
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It's all a work of the sovereign grace of God. And that's what Jesus teaches His disciples here at the end of John chapter 6.
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Indeed, it's what He's been teaching throughout this message.
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I want to conclude with reading Charles Spurgeon's quote here. It was from a sermon.
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I read it many, many years ago. He called it fickle followers, those who would follow for a while or follow until they found out what was really going to cost them, and then they walked away.
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And he's talking here about how the man came to him and said, Lord, I'll follow you wherever you go.
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And then Jesus responded to him, Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the
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Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head. You follow me and things are going to be tough. That's basically what Jesus said.
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And here's Spurgeon's words. Now anyone here say, that was a rather hard method of our
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Lord to tell this hopeful person and so discourage him. Oh, dear friend, it was a very safe and proper method.
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Our Lord wants not to gather to His army those who cannot be soldiers.
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If we cannot endure what lies before us, it's better for us honestly to turn back than to pretend to go forward.
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If we enlist a man who's not sincere at the first, we're doing him a serious injury, and we're doing ourselves an injury.
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We're doing the whole cause of Christ a solemn injury before the eyes of men. For all they that go back like dogs to their vomit bring disgrace upon the good cause.
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All those who say that they are Christ's and then go and live ungodly lives stay in the name of Christ.
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They do more injury through having made a profession, that is a profession of faith, than they would have been capable of doing if they had never made that profession.
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Now as the church hastily counts up her numbers and says so many were converted, the world has another register and counts up the apostates, the backsliders, the wanderers, and it's a serious blow struck at the crown and the glory of Christ when the world can say, such and such a man bore
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Christ's name, but he acted like a servant of the devil. And hence our Lord was wise as the great heart -searching
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Savior to let this man know the worse side of religion, that if he did take up with it, he might know what the cost of it would be.
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And so would I say to everyone here that we want you to come. We want you to join the army of Christ.
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We want you to be followers of the Redeemer, but not unless you will count the cost first.
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We beg you not to take the name of Christ upon you unless you are truly His in your very soul.
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Do not dare to be added to the church of God unless heart, soul, and spirit, your whole nature goes with our profession and you become truly and really a follower of Christ.
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The enthusiastic often comfort a preacher, but they as often delude him.
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Let him be on his guard. Try well with searching truth and with the untiring preaching of the whole
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Gospel. Those who come to him, lest a great heap on the threshing floor should suddenly prove to be nothing but chaff when
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God's great fan comes to blow upon it. We must keep the fan of the Gospel going, that the chaff may be divided from the wheat, for God would have us separate between the precious and the vile, and then shall we be as His mouth.
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And this is what our Lord was doing here in the synagogue of Capernaum on that day. He was separating the wheat from the chaff, and only that which was true and genuine stood at the end of the day.
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And that's essentially what we are doing, or attempting to do. Reveal people the true nature of salvation, that it's a holy work of grace that He bestows on sinners.
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No excuse. Humble, repentant sinners. He bestows His wonderful grace of salvation.
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Amen? Let's pray. Thank You, Father, for Your Word, and help us, our
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Lord, to take these principles to heart and be faithful, our Lord, to the world in which
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You've placed us, and to set forth the nature of true Christianity. It's a supernatural work that You perform in a person's life, giving them life where there is only death, transforming them and making them a
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Christ -lover rather than a Christ -hater. And so help us, our Lord, to be attentive and teachable and responsive to Your Word.
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Help us, our Lord, to even embrace what we might perceive to be hard sayings, because we know, our
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God, that You are true, that Jesus Christ is the truth, and that if there is some misunderstanding, some lack of understanding, the failure must certainly lie upon us, not
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You or Your Word. And we'll thank You, Father, as You call Your people into Your kingdom, for it's in Jesus' name we pray.