John 6 (Part 4) :48-71 • We must be partakers

Right now we're in John chapter 6. We're picking it up in verse 48. So skip all the way down and then we're going to read through the end of the chapter. Follow along with me as I read, Jesus speaking here.

Stop there, let's pray. Father, as we get into this last portion of John chapter 6 as always, when we approach the Word we approach you with humility and an open heart that you might speak to us Lord, the things that you desire to say. We ask Father that you administer your grace, your power, your wisdom and that you would nourish our hearts through the study of the scriptures. Guide us, we pray, direct us we ask in Jesus' precious name, amen. Amen. Well, this is the second week that we're actually looking at this statement that Jesus is making related to him being the bread of life. Those of you who attend Calvary, probably you noticed even the first time you probably walked in this room that we've plastered the I AM statements of Jesus all around the room. The I AM, The Bread of Life statement is right back in the corner over there. All of the I AM statements are very important to study and to understand. Last week, we kind of focused on Jesus talking about the benefit of the bread of life in our lives. And He's going to touch on that a bit here as we get into some of these verses as well. But today in our study as we finish up chapter 6, we're going to be focusing instead on, well I shouldn't say instead, I should say, “We're going to be focusing also on the whole idea of what we need to do.” In other words, what is our part related to the bread of life? And I'm not talking when I say, “Our part, don't get weirded out.” We all know that our salvation is by grace through faith. There's nothing we can do in and of ourselves to earn our salvation. However, faith in itself precipitates action. Faith is an action word and our faith requires us to step out in action related to the bread of life. And we're going to take a look at the action that is required of us as it relates to our salvation. Now, in the first several verses of what we look at here this morning Jesus is going to repeat the speaking of the benefit of the bread of life.

For example, in verse 48 He says, “I am the bread of life.” And then goes on in 49 to say, “Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died.” And He's reminding them, because you'll remember this is just a day after He fed the multitude on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. And the people are now, they've been asking Him, “Do that again, we want more miracle bread.” And Jesus says, “Listen, I know that God fed your forefathers in the wilderness with supernatural manna from heaven, but you do realize that after they ate that bread, I mean, they eventually died. You do know that, right?” He says now He goes on in verse 50 and He says, “(speaking of himself) This is the (real bread, the true) bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.” And that's the benefit once again. He's talking about eternal life, victory over death, and so on. Isn't it interesting? We hear this statement that Jesus makes, He says, “Eat of this bread and you won't die.” And we all kind of think, “Well, but we do kind of still die.” I mean, Jesus isn't saying you're never going to expire in the physical sense of the word. And yet He very boldly says, “Eat of this and you won't die.” And what causes the problem with our understanding of that statement is that we see physical death as the end, that's it. And for God, it's just, it's not. It's just like walking through a door for the Lord. We simply do not view physical death the same way as God views physical death. In fact Jesus, you'll remember, even told his disciples don't be afraid of those that can just kill the body, that's not that big of a deal.

Now as we get on in verse 51 and following, I guess we kind of read that again, He'll say, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.” He's clarifying that He is the bread. But now He goes further, and He begins to talk about what you need to do with the bread of life. And if you need to underline or highlight this in your Bible, it wouldn't be a bad idea, He says, “If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” And there you go, right there Jesus said, “You must eat of this bread.” And we're going to talk more about this. But this must have been a very interesting and rather shocking thing for the people who were listening to Jesus at that time to hear. Remember He's in a synagogue in Capernaum and He's saying these things. And this is a really weird language. I mean, it's even a little bit crude from the standpoint, I'm not saying obscene crude, I'm just saying graphically crude, from the standpoint that He's saying, “You must eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood.” And you can imagine, you know what the people they're thinking, there's probably a lot of folks sitting there with their mouths hanging open, “What in the world is this? Eat his flesh and drink his blood?” In fact, we're told in verse 52 that the Jews started disputing with one another. Your NIV Bible says, “They argued sharply (and they were saying things like), how can this man give us his flesh to eat?” For one thing, yuck! But for second, I mean, “What does that have to do with anything? What does that have to do with eternal life?” And so there's a lot of obvious confusion here. But it is apparent that they are hearing Him and interpreting His words in a physically literal sense. And that's one of the reasons why this bold figure of speech isn't making sense to them. But notice Jesus doesn't back down in verse 53 He goes on,

And we're all kind of thinking. “Lord, could you kind of tone it down just a bit because this is a little creepy. I mean, you're saying things that sound a lot like cannibalism or something weird like that.” And He doesn't care. He goes on verse 54, “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I'll raise him up on the last day.” He goes, “For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.” He says it again, “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood (he) abides in me and I in him.” And on and on. “And this is the bread (He says inverse 58) that came down from heaven, (it's) not like the bread that (your) Fathers ate (they ate that bread) and (they) died.” They still died. But “Whoever feeds on this bread (he says) will live forever.” And so he's making these incredibly bold claims in very explicit graphic and yes, even crude sort of terms that we listen to. And we're sitting here today and we understand how this thing kind of fits together. But can you again, can you imagine how the people who were listening to him that day were perceiving all of these words? Verse 60 it says, “When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “(This is hard). This is a hard saying; (The ESV says) “Who can listen to it?” Or your NIV Bible says, “Who can accept it?” It's like, “This is what He is saying anyway? This is hard to listen to.” So, the disciples are beginning to waffle a little bit. Keep in mind the word disciples here is not referring to the 12 because there were other people who were following Jesus and that's what the word disciple literally means. There was a group of people by this time that were following along and these are the ones who are kind of debating and quibbling among themselves and saying “I don't know. I don't know.” So, one of the questions we have to ask is, “Why was Jesus doing this? Because we know that this is a figure of speech that He's using when He says, “You must eat my flesh and drink my blood.” We know that this is metaphoric. We get it. They didn't get it. We get it. But still, we have to ask the question, “ Why? Why not just lay it out in simpler, non-graphic, non-figurative sort of terms rather than saying, what he's saying and how he's saying these things?” Well, the answer to that question comes down to something that we've talked about in the past and it has to do with the fact that this is one of those biblical examples and there are several others, where God wants us to search out the truth. And God doesn't always just kind of lay things out in perfectly recognizable form at first. He gives us plenty of hints. He gives us plenty of clues, plenty of information, if we would apply ourselves. But that's the point, we have to apply ourselves. Many times people read through the Bible in sort of a superficial way and they're like, “I don't get it. This is too hard to understand.” And you know what? It's just too easy to be lazy. God wants us to pursue the truth. He wants us to dig. He wants us to really want this, to really know what this is all about. He wants us to pursue the truth. And so he lays out, boy talking about the book of Revelation, but he lays out these figures of speech and these metaphoric sort of ideas so that we would apply ourselves to recognizing and digging after and searching after the truth. So we're not going to just be superficial about this. And that's frankly what some of the people that were listening to Jesus that day were being, “I don't get this. I don't think this is worth listening to and I don't think I'm going to follow this guy.” And rather than coming up to Him and pursue it, “Jesus what are you saying? Tell me about this. Let's get it. Let's get to the bottom of this. I don't think you're talking to us and telling us to be cannibals. Okay? I don't think that's what you're saying. So what are you saying? What are you getting at? Help me to understand.” Verse 61, Jesus kind of comes out and confronts him and says, “But Jesus knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, (He) said to them, “Do you take offense at this? In other words (He's kind of saying because He knows this was very graphic and rather shocking) so he says, “So are you offended? Have I offended you?” The word offense here is where we get our word scandal and it literally in the Greek means to stumble someone. And so Jesus is asking, “Are you stumbling over what I'm telling you? Are you looking at this thing so superficially that you're actually stumbling over my statements?” And then He asks in verse 62, “What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?” Remember, Jesus had told them previously, “I am the bread of life that comes down from heaven.” And you're tripping over the fact that I'm just telling you that I'm the bread of life that has come down from heaven.? What if you were to see me go back up to heaven?” But anyway, the reason that Jesus is obviously questioning them here is because they found His statements offensive. But again, the reason they found them offensive is because they were looking superficially. And because of that, they misunderstood what He was trying to say. And that misunderstanding is something that has gone on even to this present day. It went on even on that day. Do you know that in the first century, the Romans persecuted the Christians largely in part that they heard rumors of these Christians who were eating flesh and drinking blood in their services. You know what they misunderstood? They misunderstood their communion services, just like we take the bread and the cup. But all they heard about was, “I think they're eating somebody's flesh and drinking blood.” And they felt that it was a violation of just their civilized society. But the misunderstandings related to what Jesus is saying here have gone on even to this present day. And I'm not trying to throw stones at all but I will tell you that Roman Catholicism, I believe, has misunderstood this statement in their attempt to be true to this passage. Roman Catholicism came up with the idea of transubstantiation. I don’t know if you've heard that word before. But transubstantiation is something that Roman Catholics believe happens during the serving of the Eucharist at Mass and it happens when the priest prays over the elements. And what transubstantiation means is that the elements of the bread in the cup literally become the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, literally. That's what transubstantiation teaches. I got online as I was studying this out onto a Catholic website, and I found this. In the previous chapter the apostle wrote, “ The blessing-cup that we bless is a communion with the blood of Christ, and the bread that we break is communion with the body of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:16). His words are clear. The only possible meaning is that the bread and wine at the consecration become Christ’s actual body and blood. - Transubstantiation for Beginners by Francis J. Ripley (catholic.com) So these are the words from, you can see at the very bottom, it’s written from an article called Transubstantiation for Dummies, I mean beginners by Francis Ripley. Anyway, it's catholic.com is a website. You can look it up yourself.

--- But he writes, he says, “In the previous chapter, the Apostle wrote, “The blessing-cup that we bless is a communion with the blood of Christ, and the bread that we break is communion with the body of Christ.” He's referring to one Corinthians 11:16 and then he goes on to say, “His (meaning of the Apostle Paul's) words are clear. The only possible meaning is that the bread and wine at the consecration (and that consecration refers to what happens at transubstantiation) becomes Christ's actual body and blood.” Right there, it is right there. So that is what Catholics believe and teach that during this prayer of the priest, the elements are transformed. “Well, why do they believe that?” Well, they're trying to be true to John chapter 6, where John said, “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you.” They're attempting to be true and I give them credit, at least for attempting to be true to that passage. But I would suggest that they have misunderstood the passage and they have ignored where Jesus brought clarity to what he was saying, which is found in verse 63. Look in your Bible please with me as we read verse 63 together. This is Jesus clarifying what he meant and why he was telling these things in metaphoric language.

In other words, Jesus is saying that the true meaning behind the metaphoric language and the figurative language is that it pertains to a spiritual dynamic, not a physical one. It is not physical. There is no need for transubstantiation because the words that Jesus was giving have a spiritual meaning, not a physical one. And that's the important thing to understand here. In fact, you'll notice that Jesus says here, “the flesh is no help at all.” The flesh is no help at all. The NIV says, “the flesh counts for nothing.” I kind of like that phrase. So what is the spiritual message? We know that it's not a physical message. What is the spiritual message that Jesus is trying to convey to us by using these rather shocking and graphic words, “Eat my flesh and drink my blood?” We know that this is spiritual but what is the message? What's He trying to say by using such graphic language? Well, the answer to that question is something we like to talk about pretty much every time we do communion here at Calvary Chapel, which by the way, is going to be this next Sunday. ---

I like to share with you when we're doing communion and after you've come up and gone to whatever table you're closest to and you've gotten the elements and you're holding them in your hand, and we're getting ready. I like to explain to you that those elements are a picture, a figurative picture of what Jesus did for you on the cross by bearing your sins on his body, by shedding his blood, cleansing you. Paying the price for your salvation. But I like to remind you that we don't just sit and hold them, nor do we just look at them, nor are we called to simply admire them. But what we do is we do something that's very intimate. We take them in, right? We literally ingest these elements. Now, there's nothing supernatural about the ingesting of the elements. It's the picture that they convey. And what is the picture that they convey? We must partake. It is simple. It's really not confusing or complex. You must partake. The reason Jesus is giving these graphic pictures of eating flesh and drinking blood is because He's simply conveying the idea, “You must partake of what I am going to do for you. Don't just look at it. Don't just admire it from a distance. Take it in.” You remember when Jesus went through this whole process once again at the last Supper? Let me put it on the screen. Matthew 26:26-28 (ESV)

It's for Matthew chapter 26, He says, “Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “take, admire.” No! It doesn't say that. It says, “Take, eat (Take it in); this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying (right, don't just look at it, don't just admire it), “Drink of it (take it in, partake of it), all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” Isn't that important for us to see? Don't just look at it, you guys. I really believe there are some people who understand and know what Jesus has accomplished on the cross. And they admire what Jesus did, “ It was pretty cool. I mean, He was willing to die on behalf of his disciple. Oh, that's a great thing. Given your own life. That's wow! Cool stuff.” But that's not going to get you saved. Jesus says, “You must partake.” And in the strongest, most graphic language that he can think of, He says, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” Wow! Blows us away. Remember, we're saved by putting our faith in the finished work of Jesus but faith precipitates action. Faith is an action word. What is the action that God wants you to take? Partaking. Jesus referred to this as, or excuse me, John the apostle. Remember back in chapter one he called it receiving. John 1:12 (ESV)

Remember we went through this John chapter 1, “... to all who did (what?) receive him (to those who received him)...” And then he clarifies to those, “... who believe in his name…” That means to believe everything that He did and to open your heart to it and so forth, “...he gave the right to become children of God,” but you must receive. So many Christians try to complicate it, “Pastor Paul I don't know for sure if I've received the Lord Jesus. Would you tell me, what does it mean to receive? I just, I want to know what are the steps to receiving?” It's like, “Oh, you're trying to make it harder than it is. There's nothing difficult about receiving. We receive all the time. If somebody gives you a gift and you take it and you say, “Thank you.” You've just received something. And it's the same with understanding and receiving what Jesus did for us on the cross. It's accepting it, partaking of it.” “ I believe Jesus died for me. I accept it personally. His death was for me. He died to save me from my sin.” This is very personal, just like taking bread and the cup and taking it into your body. That's very intimate. I need to be just as intimate with my partaking of Jesus and what he accomplished on the cross. I'm taking it in, receiving what he did. Very, very important that we see this. Did you notice that related to this whole idea of His message being a spiritual message and not a physical message, did you notice that he said, “The flesh is no help at all?” The flesh is no help at all, I think this is also a statement that reflects on our salvation. I mean, how we're saved. He's reminding us the flesh is no help at all. If you're trying to be saved by being a good person, you need to know that the flesh is no help at all. The works of the flesh, if you're trying to do good things, that's not going to help you at all. You're saved by grace through faith but faith precipitates action, partaking, that's how we're saved. The flesh is not going to help as Paul wrote,

(Philippians 3:1-4) Now the last few verses of the chapter are also really interesting. Verse 64 it says, “But there are some of you (Jesus speaking here) who do not believe.” And it goes on to tell us parenthetically that of course Jesus knew who would not believe and in fact who would betray him. And He went on to remind them, “65 This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” And we talked about what that meant last Sunday. Now check this out verse 66, I love this, “After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. 67 So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away too (as well)?” Are you guys going to leave? And Simon answers here and there's probably several times that Simon opened his mouth and wished later that he hadn't. But this is one of those times when Peter spoke up and what he said was golden. He said, “Lord, where are we going to go? Where are we going to go? Only you have the words of eternal life, and you know what? We know and we are convinced that you are the holy one of God.” And the reason I have to tell you that I love Peter's statement so much is because it shows that Peter had come to a place where there was no longer a plan B. There was no longer a secondary option. There was no back door. Jesus had presented himself to Peter and to the others in such a way that this was it. This is it. There's no turning back. Because life will present us with opportunities to turn back. You are aware of that, right? All kinds of disappointments, all kinds of situations where things didn't happen as we thought that they should. I mean, our expectations, frankly, just were not met. And now what am I going to do? And Jesus would say to us at that time, “Are you going to leave too?” Because some people do. Some people walk away. And so He says to you and me, “Are you going to leave too?” “Have you been reserving for yourself a plan B? Just in case things don't work out? Have you left an open door, a back way of getting out of this thing?” I remember when I was a new believer, I was going through some pretty stout spiritual warfare. And I said to my pastor, “If this is being a Christian, I don't think I want it.” And he just kind of laughed at me which ended up being kind of good. But I wasn't very impressed at the time to be honest with you because I was serious. And you know what I was saying to him? What I was admitting to him is I had a back door to this whole Jesus thing, this whole relationship. I had a back door and it was there just in case I needed to use it. But I love Peter when Jesus says, “Are you guys going to leave too?” He says, “Listen, there's no back door.” Have you ever been curious about why the New Testament writer spends so much time warning us about the challenges that come along in our Christian walk? Because there's all kinds of them and they talk to us about them. When you read through the scriptures, it's almost like you're trying to talk you out of being a Christian. Peter starts talking about the devil and he says, “The devil, I want you to know the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.” (1 Peter 5:8) “Thank you. And why again, did you share that with me?” “I wanted you to know.” “Okay, cool.” “Just in case, I just wanted you to know.”

And then there's Jesus talking about how the world is going to respond to us. He says, “Listen, if the world hates you, just keep in mind it hated me first. Have a good day.” (John 15:18) “Hatred?” “Yeah. He says, “The world's going to hate you because you don't belong. You don't belong. You don't belong here. You guys are strangers in a strange country.” (Philippians 3:20) “Okay, thank you.” And then there's all the confusion with false teachings that come along. If I had a dollar for every note I've ever received from a believer that said, “Pastor Paul, I'm confused.” I'd be a very wealthy man because people write to me all the time. And they'll say, “I listened to a video, I read a book, I saw an article, I was talking to a friend. And he said, she said, they said. And then, they started telling me what they heard and they came and said, “I'm confused.” You know what? There's a lot of confusing junk that's floating around that's unbiblical and just flat out dumb. And it causes a lot of confusion, and that confusion causes disappointment. And that disappointment can lead to somebody going, “You know what? I think this is just too weird.” We just finished first, second, and third John and Jude on Wednesday night and far and away, the main theme of those letters is false teachers and their false doctrines, and the warnings associated with those for the body of Christ. Well, there it is. The New Testament authors are telling you, “Hey listen, just want you to know there's a lot of really weird junk floating around, and you got to be very careful. This is going to provide a real challenge to your Christian walk.” And you know what? You might even get disgusted by it all and just say, “You know what? I'm done. I'm done.” And Jesus would ask you at that time, “Are you going to go away too? Are you going to walk away too?” And if all those things aren't bad enough, there's all my own personal moral failures that come along. Right about the time, I think I'm doing good, I fall flat on my face. And I wonder to myself, “What in the world is going on Paul, I thought you were a believer and yet you're still capable of this kind of sin? What in the world?” And so many people will respond to some act of sin in their life by questioning their very salvation, “I wonder if I'm even saved. I don't know. Maybe this isn't, maybe this whole Christian thing isn't even for people like me. Maybe it's for other people but not me. I mean, look what I just got done doing.” And at that moment Jesus would come to you and say, “Are you going to turn away too? Are you going to walk away?” And we have to all ask ourselves, “What is my response going to be when Jesus asks me that question? Are you going to walk away too?” I hope our response is going to be the same as Peter or at least along those lines and say, “Lord, I no longer have any place to run except back into your arms. It's the only place I have to go. There is no other place to run. There is no running away. All I can do is run to you and I will submit to you.” Brothers and sisters in Jesus that's the best thing you can do. When life presents all kinds of disappointments and challenges and issues and tribulations to your Christian walk and you become disappointed and discouraged and hopeless even. You just run back into the arms of Jesus and just say to him, “I got nowhere else to go. You're it. You are the end of the line. There's nothing else to do. There's no back door. There's no plan B, it's you or nothing.” I think that's the best answer because Jesus is never going to disappoint. You run back into His arms and He'll take care of those issues. Trust Him. Amen. Amen. Let's stand together. What's that song No turning back. No turning back? “I have decided.” “Thank you. I have decided to follow Jesus. Yeah. Isn't that great? No turning back.” I wonder if somebody who wrote that just went through one of those kinds of times. You know where the Lord said, “Are you going to walk away too?” “No Lord, there's no turning back I have decided.”

--- If you need prayer, we'd love to pray with you. Come on up after we're done. Father, thank you so much for who you are. And thank you Lord for the reminder here in these verses that it's not enough just to admire what you have done for us on the cross but we need to partake, we need to receive. And Lord, that's the action that faith must take. We ask you to do that work-in us, Father God, to fill us daily with the ministry of your grace that we might grow in the knowledge and understanding of who you are and that daily we might remember that you are it. And Father, I just want to pray this morning for anybody here in this room or who's hearing online who is not absolutely sure that they have partaken of what you have accomplished for us on the cross. And I pray, Father, that even now as I'm praying in the quiet of their own heart they would just say, “Jesus, I believe that you died on the cross for me and I receive that forgiveness for all that I ever have done or will do and I accept and receive your death on my behalf. And I also believe in your resurrection as the punctuation of the victory that you had over sin and death.” Thank you, Father, for your incredible goodness. Thank you for sending your Son to give his life for us. No turning back in Jesus' precious name and all God's people said, amen. God bless you. Have a good rest of your Sunday. ---