Audio restored with Diffio. Diffio processed the original archive recording to reduce noise and produce a cleaner listening version; the original stays available.
Speech quality score (model-estimated, SCOREQ): before 3.00 → restored 4.68
Use the player's Original switch to compare.How Diffio restores old speech recordings
With that then, we come to our resumed study of the Gospel by John, and tonight we have to make an attempt in our first session to deal with chapter six. So let me remind you of what we were thinking about on our last occasion so long ago. On our last occasion, we began to study the chapters five and six of the Gospel of John, and we took them together because, in the first place, they comprise the story of our Lord's second journey to Jerusalem and back again to Galilee. In chapter five, our Lord goes to Jerusalem on the occasion of a Jewish religious festival.
Then in chapter six, we are told he is back now in Galilee by the Sea of Tiberias, and it was at the time of Passover, chapter six and verse one. Four. At least the Passover was near at hand. Those two chapters then comprise our Lord's second journey to Jerusalem, that is the second one that John records. In chapter seven we shall meet the third journey. Then, as we looked at these two chapters superficially, we saw that they stand together for another very good reason.
In chapter five, our Lord is presented to us as the source of life. In him is life. The Father has given to the Son to have life in himself. He is the source of life, both physical and spiritual. But in chapter six we observed that our Lord presents himself not here as a source of life, but as the means of life. And we used an analogy to help us see the importance and the necessity of those two features. Our physical life.
We didn't get our physical life by eating our bread and butter. Of course not. We got our physical life from our parents, and they eventually from God, of course. But having got our life from our parents, the immediate source of our life, we then found that our life had to be maintained by bread and butter and other such things. In other words, we needed a source of life from which to obtain life to start with, and then we needed a means of life to maintain that life all the way through our years. We need both of them.
We cannot have one without the other. We need both. And as it is in s- physical life, so it is in spiritual life. When we first come to the Lord, we experience him as the source of life, who without any means whatsoever can impart to us eternal life instantaneously because he is the source of life. But then we discover that though we have eternal life, that eternal life needs to be maintained, and our Lord is the means of life. He is the bread of life to maintain the spiritual life that we have been given.
And, uh, we noticed, of course, how, and you may notice it if you care now to turn to your sheets. These sheets come to you by courtesy of Stuart and Barbara Hamilton, who have been working their fingers to the bone and to the very last minute, so that the, uh, uh, the layouts just came in time for this session. But if you care to notice on the first page, both stories begin with a miracle. But in, uh, that section one, the miracle on the Sabbath, detail two in chapter five, the story con- concentrates on the inadequate and helpless man.
Nothing is said there about the, the, to criticize the means. It is the inadequacy of the man to use the pool. I have no man to put me into the pool, he said. But our Lord's response was not to give him a helping hand into the pool. The Lord does not use the pool as a means of healing, but imparted healing instantaneously without using any means whatsoever. Whereas tonight, as we come over to chapter six, the miracle at Passover season, when the great multitude followed him because they saw the signs which he did on the sick, John spends some time recording the conversation that took place between our Lord and his disciples.
Our Lord set out to test his disciples, and he said to them, where shall we get bread from to feed this multitude? And one wise man responded that two hundred pennyworths wouldn't be enough to feed this great company. And when you consider that a penny was the average, uh, wage for day's wage for the average worker, he was saying that two hundred days work and the money for it wouldn't suffice as a means to get the food to feed this vast multitude. Another disciple added the, what he thought was a hopeless suggestion. Here is a lad here, he has 5 barley loaves and two fishes, but what are they among so many utterly inadequate means?
So now it's not the inadequate man unable to use the means, it is the means themselves that appear to be utterly inadequate. The interesting thing is that when the disciple said there's a lad here, he's got, uh, five barley loaves and two fishes, but what are they amongst so many? Our Lord doesn't reply, oh, bother them, I don't need them stupid men. What use would they be anyway? I don't need any means. I can speak the word and the loaves will drop from heaven. No, no. On this occasion, our Lord took those seemingly inadequate means and used them miraculously to feed the multitude.
We may be glad that that is so written, because who of us in our service for the Lord has often, has not often felt utterly inadequate to the task of meeting the people's hunger. And our Lord could dispense with any one of us, but in his great mercy chooses to use us and our resources, utterly inadequate though they are, and uses them constant forms his miracle thereby of feeding and satisfying the hungry souls of men and women. So then, the two miracles and the comments upon them enforce what we have thought we have seen.
The chapter five is talking about our Lord as a source of life who doesn't have to use means, while chapter six is talking about our Lord as the means of life, who deigns to use means, and in the feeding of the five thousand, used the bread and the fish as a sign that would point to himself as the bread of life, the means to support the eternal life that he gives us. So now, uh, we must immediately get hold, if we can, of the lesson that chapter six is going to teach us.
It is good if we have come to the blessed Lord Jesus and received eternal life instantaneously as a gift from him. That is not enough. In addition to receiving the gift of life from its source, we shall constantly need thereafter the blessed Lord Jesus as the means of life, as the bread of life, to sustain us on our journey. And you'll see, if we for a moment, um, take time to reconnoiter opposition in this, uh, chapter uh six, We shall next observe that the feeding of the five thousand happened, according to verse four, when the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.
The information is interesting and relevant. There were many feasts in the course of the year in Israel, but the Passover had this particular feature about it. You normally talked of eating the Passover. So when our Lord Jesus sent his two disciples to prepare the upper room, they were to say to the good man of the house, where is the upper room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples? And you talked about eating the Passover, not because on other feasts you didn't eat anything, in the Feast of Tabernacles you ate quite a lot, but because central to the feast of Passover was the ceremony of eating the Passover lamb.
And because it was the central, the central feature of the feast, people talked of eating the Passover lamb. Our blessed Lord is going to talk presently about our eating his flesh and his blood. But now let us remember from our Old Testament that when people ate the Passover on the original night of redemption out of Egypt, they were not allowed to eat the Passover lamb just any old how. They were given specific directions. They were to eat a bit, not raw, but roast, and they were to eat it with their staff in their hand and their shoes on their feet and their loins girded, because eating the Passover lamb carried this implication that this very night they were going to be redeemed, and having been redeemed, they were expected to start on that great journey that would take them from Egypt to their promised in the land of Canaan.
You couldn't eat the Passover then unless you were prepared to journey. Point number three that we ought to take on on board as we reconnoiter the general terrain of this passage. When Israel, on their journey towards their promised land, got out into the desert, then God, in his mercy, rained down manna from heaven to feed them and maintain them on the journey. No use God delivering them out of Egypt by the blood of the Passover lamb and the miracle at the Red Sea, and sending them on a journey towards their inheritance, if he couldn't maintain them on that journey.
And since in the desert there was little food to be got, then God in his mercy miraculously rained down manna from heaven to maintain them on the journey. So we shall find that in this chapter six, the crowd remind our Lord Jesus of that happening. Our fathers, they said, ate bread from heaven, for it is written, God gave them bread from heaven to eat. They remind the Lord Jesus of the manna and present him with the opportunity to draw the analogy. Actually, he said, it wasn't Moses that gave you the manna, it was my father that gave your fathers the manna, and thus sustained them on their journey.
And now my Father is doing a similar but infinitely superior thing. My Father is giving you the bread from heaven. Yes, and it reminds us, by dint of that analogy from the Old Testament, that we too are on a journey. We not only started by having been given the gift of eternal life, by having been given the gift of eternal life that set us out on our first steps on our great spiritual journey towards our great inheritance, for there is an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away.
And to be saved by the Lord Jesus is not only to be given eternal life here and now, but to be maintained on the journey home to our great inheritance in glory. A fourth thing we could take on board, if we would, as we reconnoiter the terrain of chapter six. that another one of its features reminds us and underlines to us that the, uh, the Christian life is a journey. For the miracle that begins chapter six is in fact a double miracle.
When our Lord had, uh, dismissed the crowd, he went up in the mountain himself alone, and his apostles set forth on a journey across the Sea of Tiberias, themselves also alone, the Lord Jesus having gone up the mountain. In a way, I suppose it was an ordinary journey. They'd done it many, many times. But that night, as they rode their hardest, the sea rose and the wind blew, and they were making very difficult progress. And the Lord had not yet come to them, says John. But when the difficulties were at their height, then they saw the Lord Jesus coming to them, and oh, what a miraculous journey that too turned out to be.
First they saw him walking on the water himself, and as he drew near to the boat, they willingly received him into their boat, and when they did so, instantaneously they were at the land whither they went. A marvelous, if mysterious, journey that brought them to their desired goal and haven. And we too are on a journey. For our blessed Lord, who once appeared here on our earth as the manna come down from heaven by his blessed incarnation, being rejected by his people, has ascended to glory.
Meanwhile, we, his people, journey across life's turbulent sea. Very often for us too, the winds are contrary, and the sea runs high, and in spite of all our efforts, we seem to make little progress, indeed sometimes to go backwards. And could it happen? And what is it anyway? That as we toil on our journey to our desired haven, that the blessed Lord Jesus could draw near to us.
And what would that mean? Inviting him into the boat. And what does that other bit mean? That when they invited him into the boat, they were instantaneously at their desired haven. We'll say, Mr. Preacher, you're getting a little fanciful, and that's not your usual thing at the beginning of a session like this. That normally happens when you're getting very tired and losing self-control. Revert, please, to the historical. This was an historical event. It just happened. It was a miracle, but it happened, and that was that. Oh, I see. Well, let's leave it like that for the moment anyway. That was that.
Certainly it was. You'll see. Yes, uh, you'll see. But now, um, a practical question arises before we get down into detail, doesn't it? You who know your Old Testament will remember that when Israelite- the Israelites, uh, set off on their journey across the wilderness to their inheritance, and God has rained down the manna from heaven to maintain them, in spite of it, that first generation that came out of Egypt did not get into their inheritance, did they not? But died in the wilderness.
You say, why was that then? Well, because they were jolly well sinners, that's why. But that raises a question, doesn't it? Here's me. And yes, I received the Lord Jesus and received from him eternal life years ago. I better not tell you how many. And I'm on my journey to my inheritance. And the Lord Jesus, uh, is the manna sent down from heaven to maintain me. But wait a minute. If the Israelites with their manna didn't get in, but died on the way, what about me?
Shall I get in? Now, first generation of Israelites was redeemed by the blood of the Passover lamb. They were delivered from the power of Pharaoh by the miraculous intervention of God at the Red Sea. They had angels' food to feed on. But they sinned, and they did not get into their inheritance. So what about us? Redeemed by the blood of Christ, baptized to Christ in the clouds and in the sea. With the bread, the manna come down from heaven. Now, what is the answer?
Shall we get in? Or not? One man here says yes. He knows, of course, that a lot of folks, if not here, elsewhere, a lot of dear Christian folks say that that is a question that must be left uncertain. And some positively hold that it is possible for a true believer on the way to glory to get lost somehow, to lose their faith, and in the end be lost eternally. So, right at the beginning of our study, let's look at what our Lord Jesus himself said about it, so that we may put the question to rest before we proceed.
This is chapter six, You'll see, verse forty eight, to start with. I am the bread of life. Your fathers did eat the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which cometh down out of heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die. See the contrast deliberately made by the Lord Jesus. And in order to emphasize it, he repeats it, you'll see, verse fifty eight. This is the bread which came down out of heaven, not as the fathers did eat and died.
He that eats this bread shall live forever. Thank God in your heart, that because our Lord is the living bread, he is able to maintain us all the way home to glory and bring us home at last. These two chapters then stand together. We saw on the last occasion, and if you care just to shuffle through your notes on this occasion, that in presenting these two sides of the truth, Christ the source of life, Christ the means of life, John sets out his material in a formally similar way.
Page one of the notes, we start with a miracle in chapter five. we start with a miracle in chapter six. Then there is a reaction to the miracle in both chapters. In chapter wi- uh, 5, the Jews say to the healed man, it is not lawful to carry your bed on the Sabbath day. And the man said, but he that healed me told me to carry my bed. They said, who's he? And he said, I don't know, because Jesus had conveyed himself away, the crowd being in the place. And Jesus, having found the man after that some time in the temple, warned him, lest having been miraculously healed by that miracle, he sinned again and incurred a worse illness that made the first miracle, therefore, uh, vain.
And thus our Lord's identity was revealed. Now let's look at the reaction to the miracle in chapter six. And you will notice how different the reaction is. The first reaction of the crowd is to say, this is surely the prophet that should come into the world. They are thinking of the prophecy and promise of Deuteronomy eighteen fifteen, where Moses prophesied, a prophet like unto me shall the Lord your God raise up unto you. Him shall you hear. And therefore, the Jews were in expectation that one day this great prophet should come, the prophet that should come into the world, the prophet that Moses had prophesied about.
And they, when they saw the Lord's miracle, were immediately inclined to believe that he was exactly that prophet like unto Moses. They're very different from the reaction in chapter five, isn't it? Where the Jews of Jerusalem, when they heard about the miracle, were indignant and said it was a contradiction of the law of Moses. It broke the law of Sabbath that Moses had, uh, laid down. So in chapter five, the reaction is that our Lord is contrary to Moses, but in chapter six, at the beginning, he is the fulfillment of Moses, so the people say.
And so they came to make him king. But now again, our Lord does an extraordinary thing. He withdraws himself. Do you all see that? When he healed the man in chapter five, he had slipped away in the crowd so the man didn't know who it was. Now on this occasion too, having done the miracle, when the crowd come to take him to make him king, he slips away, he withdraws himself and goes up the mountain alone. And what is more, then he crosses the sea in that very mysterious way and leaves the crowd wondering where on earth he's got to.
And they hunt up what boats they can, and when they eventually find him, they said, Rabbi, when on earth did you come here? Dorsey. A question he never did answer, of course. Why the withdrawing? We notice the sheer fact and pass on, Dorsey. The reaction of the Jews was to persecute our Lord in chapter five for working on the Sabbath day, so they criticize his work. And his reply was, my father works hitherto, and I work. In chapter six, the reverse state of affairs, when the crowd eventually catch up with the Lord and ask him, when did you come here?
And they all sought him. Our Lord turns to criticizing their work. Did you see that? Work not for the food which perishes, but for the food that abides. And in answer to their inquiry, tells them that in order to work the work of God, they must believe on the one whom God has sent. They therefore ask, what sign do you do so that we may see and believe? What do you work? And we notice that the emphasis in both chapters on this question of work, but we notice again how they are the reverse image of each other. In chapter five, the people are criticizing Christ's work, and in chapter six, Christ is criticizing the people's misdirected work.
You would should notice in the second reaction there on page two. however, the very big difference between the crowd in chapter five and the crowd in chapter six— In chapter five, when our Lord said, my father works even until now, and I work, the Jews were incensed because they realized the implication of his saying, my father. And they persecuted not only him, eh, they persecuted him not only because he worked on the Sabbath, but because he called God his own father, thus making himself equal with God. And they were livid with religious and theological rage, do you see?
But when in chapter six our Lord replied to the crowd's question and said, my father gives you the true bread out of heaven, they didn't object. In fact, their wa- their reply was apparently very pious, wasn't it? They said, um, Lord, evermore give us this bread then. Why not? You'll see. And I should like to pause to press home upon you, uh, uh, the point that John is making. These are a very different crowd in chapter six from the people of chapter five. Of course, it is natural in one way.
In chapter five, our Lord was down at Jerusalem, and he was among the Jews, that is, the people of Judea. They were a very sophisticated crowd, religiously speaking. In chapter six, he's not in Jerusalem. He's way up north among the Galileans, you'll see. The Jews of Jerusalem would have thought the Galileans were not theologically respectable, you'll see. They were fuzzy duzzies, if ever there were any, theologically, you'll see. So, uh, um, yes, you can say they're a very different crowd, and when the Lord says, my Father gives you the true bread, they don't pick up the implication of my Father, but are quite happy about it and say, Lord, give us the bread.
We'll come back to that point just in a moment. Just let's scan towards the end of our notes. In both chapters, then, after the initial reactions, Christ expounds his claims and says exactly what he means by them, first of all as the source of life and then as the means of life. Then if we turn to page three, under my section four, we notice in chapter five, Christ turns to cite the witnesses that validate his claim.
In, uh, section four on that same page from chapter six, our Lord replies to the Jews' objections. And when we come to it, we shall see that in both those sections four, our Lord goes over similar ground, but from different points of view. Then in five, section five on page three. in chapter five, Christ diagnoses the cause of their unbelief. How can you believe, he says.
And we thought about that last time together. How could they believe? What made it impossible for them to believe? By their own sinful attitude of heart. But now, look at five, on the other side. Here Christ exposes the reasons why, in the first place, many even of his disciples found his claim to be too big. They found it to be a hard saying and went back and walked no more with him. Our Lord diagnoses and exposes the reasons why they found it a hard saying.
And finally, expose the fact that Judas, not only a disciple, but one of the apostles, would betray him, and tells us the reason why that would be. So formally, the two chapters are set out in very, very much the same formal way, the same formal pattern. But that is merely the structure, the architecture, the bare bones of our topic, and we must now begin to come to think about the meat upon the bones and to see what lessons chapter six in particular has, uh, to tell us. So first, we notice that in chapter six when our Lord Jesus was in Galilee, it says that great multitudes followed him because they saw the signs he did on them that were sick.
And Jesus went up on a mountain to s- to a- and sat there, verse five. Jesus therefore, lifting up his eyes and seeing that a great multitude cometh unto him, he says to Philip, how shall we feed them? Do you pick it up? We're going to meet this word come many, many, many times in this chapter six. so we better notice this first occurrence. It occurs in this chapter more than in any other chapter of the gospel, this word come. He lifted up his eyes and saw the multitude coming to him, you'll see, and says, how are we going to feed them? When he had fed them, the crowd were understandably excited and delighted, you'll see.
They said in verse fourteen, when therefore the people saw the sign which he did, they said, this is of a truth, a prophet that cometh into the world. Jesus, therefore, perceiving that they were about to come and take him to make him king, and they were coming. Ha! They come in the first place out into the wilderness near the mountain there to hear the Lord's teaching. Now they were coming in another sense. They were coming to make him king. Marvelous, isn't it? Why don't you clap? I mean, isn't that what people are supposed to do? They're supposed to come to the Savior. And as for coming to him, aren't they supposed to make him king? I was taught it in my youth, in what was then a modern chorus, and is now antiquated, I fear, you'll see, but so am I.
And it said, uh, make Jesus king, you'll see. That was the chorus and its sentiment that went through its one verse, you'll see. Make Jesus king, you'll see. I mean, isn't that what you're supposed to do? You'll see. Why this very chapter is going to preach salvation in these terms. Let's skip the page a bit and cheat a little bit and look ahead, you'll see. Uh, it says in verse thirty five, Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall not hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never. And similarly, you'll see, uh, uh, the rest of the chapter repeats this great idea that we must come to the Savior, and believing on him, we receive eternal life.
So the people came to the Lord Jesus and were disposed to make him king, you'll see. Why then did the our Lord do this peculiar thing? When the people came to make him king, he withdrew and went up into the mountain, and his disciples went across the sea. And then he, in the dead of night, in the dark, when nobody should see it except his disciples, crossed the sea walking, leaving the crowd on the other side. It certainly posed the crowd a problem, didn't it? And John explains it.
I hope you can follow John's explanation. You see, the fact was this, that the crowd had noticed how many boats there were on the seaside on the day when he fed them, you see. And then they had observed the apostles had gone away in the boats, so there were no other boats left. And our Lord had gone up the mountain. Well, how on earth did he get then the next day across the sea to Tiberias, you'll see, when there wasn't a boat to go in? Of course, there subsequently came boats from Tiberias near to the place where our Lord had broken the bread and fed the crowd. Of course, later they came, but the crowds were remembering yesterday, do you see?
There weren't any other boats there yesterday. The apostles went off in the only boat there was, do you see? So, when did you come here, they said. Why did our Lord do it? Why, when people came to him, did he apparently run away, Josie? What's your answer to it? That these good folks came to the Savior, and he, so to speak, ran away. You'll say, yeah, well, the answer is easy, Mr.
Preacher. There are different ways of coming, you know. There are different kinds of coming, and these folks didn't come in the right way. I see, I see. Oh, why didn't they come in the right way then? Well, you say that answer is easy too as well, you know, it's a question of God's sovereign election, you know, as our Lord pointed out to them. Do you see, our Lord, uh, said straight to them, didn't he? Uh, verse, uh, do you see, verse forty four, No man can come to me, except the Father which has sent me draw him, and I will raise him up in the last day, do you see?
All that the Father gives me, said our Lord, do you see, in verse thirty seven, shall come to me, and him that cometh I will in no wise cast out, but it has to be given to you of the Father, and unless the Father gives it to you, unless the Father draws you, you cannot come. And that is repeated again, isn't it? Verse 65, and he said, for this cause have I said unto you, that no man can come unto me except it be given unto him of the Father. So perhaps you say, well, that's the answer then, Mr. Preacher, no more ado. The folks came physically, but they didn't come in the right way.
They didn't come spiritually, so to speak. Why didn't they come spiritually? Well, because God really wasn't interested in their coming anyway. No one can come unless the Father draws him, and the Father had decided not to draw these people. So, in spite of the fact that they were all anxious to come and see the Lord and to make him king, uh, God the Father wasn't interested in drawing them, you'll see. He wasn't intending to give it to them to come. He wasn't intending, in a word, to save them. Now, that is an interpretation that very great theologians and godly men have put upon these verses and still do.
Before we decide, however, that that is necessarily the right interpretation, that is to say, before we decide that the reason why these folks didn't come in the right way is that the Father was not prepared to draw them, the Father was not prepared to give it to them to come. We would be wiser, I think, at least, to try and read these things in their context and see what the flow of the argument is as we go down the chapter, lest we take these verses out of their context and then take them to mean what in their context they were never intended to mean.
So now, um, we come back to the miracle itself. When they came to the Lord Jesus, uh, the next day, you see, and they said to him, Master, when did you come here? Our Lord didn't tell them, nor did he bother to tell them how he came, for I suspect if he'd said, how did I come here? I came here last night by walking across on the sea. They might have found it a little bit difficult to comprehend it, you see. And you don't cast pearls before swine. Our Lord didn't attempt to answer either when or how he got there. But this he did say, you seek me, you see, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.
Work not for the meat that perisheth, but for the meat that abides unto eternal life, you see. You seek me not because you saw the sign, but you say, surely they saw the sign. They saw him do the miracle. Our Lord admits they ate of it and were filled. Surely they saw the sign. No, they didn't. They didn't come because they saw the sign. They saw a miracle, if you like. They saw this marvelous work of power that our Lord did. But what escaped them was the significance of the miracle. And as you know, in the Gospel of John, miracles are called signs because they're not just works of supernatural power, they are signs that point to some greater.
All they saw was here was a man that could provide a very good dinner free. And so naturally enough, if you found such a source better than McDonald's any day of the week, then come tomorrow and get another free feast. Why not? What's wrong with it? Who wouldn't? Now we're beginning to get at the motivations of their coming and what kind of a coming it was. And at the grindingly literal historical level, it was a sad business, wasn't it? Our Lord saw their hearts. Can you credit it? Here were men, they had just been treated to a miraculous meal and were full so they couldn't eat anymore.
What do you suppose their first reaction would be when they saw the Lord? They were going to make him king, you'll see, but he slipped away and they couldn't. So when they got hold of him, what do you think they would have said? They would have said, Lord, we have had time overnight to ponder that. I mean, the fish was good, marvelously good and fresh somehow, and and the rolls were magnificent, you'll see. But, uh, Lord, what began to work in our mind was, who must you be if you could, uh, multiply loads like that? But no. You seek me not because you saw the sign, but because you ate of the food in my field and you'd like another, another feast.
Do you find that credible, that story? I mean, if you had been there and somebody had done a miracle, would you have been interested tomorrow in simply having another round of buns and fish? Without being interested in who he is. But, ladies and gentlemen, that is, that is the corruption at the center of the human heart and of the human civilization, isn't it? Even at the lowly level, we munch our cornflakes, our toasted marmalade. We enjoy the lovely things of life, and millions have no thought whatever for the hand that, uh, is behind the bread and butter and daily loads our table with benefit.
And some there are who are convinced that there isn't any hand there either. No hand to give it. One of the first imprecations of the glorious incarnation of Christ, oh, what a magnificent thing it is. Here had men and women been eating barley loaves and fishes for thousands of years, many of them without a thought of where they came from, and one day their host, their heavenly host, came down to earth and personally presided at table and distributed them their barley loaves and fishes. He it was, ever since anything, had been feeding them all these years.
But they were more interested in the food than they were in the hand behind it. If I came to yours to dinner one of these days, by your gracious kindness, so that you might, uh, befriend this poor waif and stray, do you see? And I enjoyed the souffles, do you see, and the jugged hair and all the rest of that you put on, do you see? But to every attempt of yours to engage me in conversation, I turned a deliberate deaf ear and in the end turned round and said I didn't believe, I didn't, uh, I wasn't interested in you at all. I was just interested in the food, and that I doubted whether you existed actually, but even if you did, I wasn't interested in you.
What would you do? Well, I think not. I think you'd not give me another dinner party, would you? Nor did our Lord. You'll see here is one of those very interesting things that makes us about the historical Jesus. The Bible claims he had the power miraculously to feed the hungry. Then tell me this, why didn't he? Goodness knows there were enough hungry around this world, even in those days. They weren't the affluent society that we are. Why, if he had the power to multiply loaves and fishes and feed the hungry, didn't he find it his first responsibility and duty to go out in the world in this great social campaign and feed the multitudes.
Why didn't he stop all the preaching business, words, words, words, words, words, and do some practical things, like feeding the hungry, if he had the power to do it? Ah, but as we, we, as we, we pose that question, that we hear re-echoes of it coming to ourselves today, don't we? What is the duty of the church? Of course, our Lord had compassion on the hungry and the sick and the poor, and so should we. Yes, he fed them on that occasion in chapter six before he preached. Whether he'd heard of, was it Moody's advice or not, I don't know, that you can't preach to a man on an empty stomach, that is, if he has the empty stomach.
You may do it yourself if you like, you'll see. Uh-huh. So he fed them. Now the historical Jesus, when they came the next day, said no, no more feeding. Why not? Well, because for people to take God's physical food and not be interested in the hand that gives it, that is such a disaster. It not only removes the highest level signi- of significance from our daily bread, but it brings us in danger of perishing eternally.
For life is a journey, isn't it? And as far as its physical part goes, be it forty years, sixty years, or ninety eight and a half years. Okay, well, barley loaves and fish will do as well as most things to maintain us through those eighty years. But then what? Then what? Israel was on a journey to their inheritance. We are on a journey to a greater, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for us.
But it's in the world beyond, isn't it? And to be so occupied with physical satisfaction that one has no interest in the blessed Lord himself, who provides that physical satisfaction, would mean that when one reaches the end of the physical journey here, eternity will be a time of eternal famine. It is not only, you see, that our Lord is the giver of our daily bread.
And at that level, it is true, man shall not live by bread alone. The hostess's conversation with me, if I'm a guest at her table, and the friendship that lies behind her putting on the dinner is far more significant than the sausages she has cooked so well, isn't it, what? If I take the sausage and I'm not interested in the hostess and her friendship, then I've missed the most significant thing about the meal. And if I go through life just taking its joys and satisfying myself physically and intellectually and aesthetically, without reference to God who gives it, then I've missed the significance even of my bread and butter on the plate.
I've missed the highest significance of my music. I've missed the highest significance of studying the atom, for it was meant to be an awesome thing to discover what the atom is like and catch sight of the divine mind who devised it. But there's more to it, you'll see. It is not only that daily bread has its higher level of significance in the hand of him who gives it, but that multiplying of loaves and fishes, literal physical loaves and fishes that day, was meant to be a sign to a higher kind of bread altogether. That is the bread that came down from heaven, bread at the spiritual level.
And if this life is but a journey to that spiritual realm, we shall need that spiritual manna now to prepare us for that spiritual realm, as presently we shall see, and to eat the physical and miss that spiritual bread is a disaster. It is such a ruination of God's purpose for mankind that our Lord will not be a party to maintaining that idea in the eyes of people that so long as they are physically fed, that's the main thing in Christianity.
And of course, it has implications, doesn't it, for our social work. Of course we should be interested in social work. Of course we should, as Christians, be interested and carefully and consideredly and deliberately and organizationally interested in meeting the famine of the world. But we mustn't allow the world to preach to us its cheap sermons. Stop your preaching. Start a little bit of true Christianity. I mean, if you were interested more in the poor and the starving in Ethiopia and stopped your sermonizing, then you'd be real Christians. We must resist that kind of cheap sermon, but isn't true. Important as our, our task is and responsibility to feed the hungry, we must with our Lord, constantly point as the church to the great bread of life.
If people, whether hungry or full, pass through life without meeting him, without hearing his word, without believing his word, and for them eternity, the end of the journey will be a disaster. And creation miss, in their respect, God's intended goal. So our Lord criticizes their misdirected work. Our Lord isn't telling us here, of course, that we are not to work for our daily bread. Work not for the meat that, uh, perishes. This is a Hebrew way of talking.
It is saying, don't just work for the meat that perisheth. Let your greater weight of emphasis be put on working for the meat that endureth unto eternal life, you'll see. Let that be your main emphasis. So then, when our Lord Jesus said that, let us follow the flow of the argument. They replied, well, what shall we do that we may work the works of God? And our Lord, in replying, very carefully reduced their plural word works to a singular word work.
They said, what work must we do that we may work the works, plural, of God? He replied, this is the work of God, that you believe on him whom he has sent. This is the chief work. He has come down from heaven. Presently he was to go back where he was before. Their chief work in life will be to believe on him. This is life's chief business. Or could we get it into our heads who are believers? Our daily work is important, isn't it? It doubtless con- con- uh, consumes a majority of our time.
And there's no wrong in that. And it must be nice sometimes for ev- for a housewife, mustn't it, to put on a dinner and, uh, be the means in the Lord's hands, to be one of his hands that lays a lovely spread. You'll see. Ah. But life's chief business, life's chief work. To believe on Christ, in all the senses that this chapter will tell us, it is not a hobby. To be done when we have the time to do it. It is life's chief business.
So when he said that, they said therefore to him, what then doest thou for a sign that we may see and believe thee? What workest thou to see? Well, now, in the first place, you might think that that was a very silly question. What's work, uh, that what sign doest thou that we may see and believe thee? You say, well, they've just seen a sign, stupid people. Wasn't that a miracle yesterday? Wasn't that a sign yesterday? What on earth do they mean now, uh, Julesy? Uh, what work does thou d- uh, uh, what work do you do for a sign that we may see and believe you? Our fathers, they said, in the wilderness at the manner as it is written, he gave them bread out of heaven to eat.
So what kind of a sign you going to do? I mean, yesterday it was a few fish and and loaves. Well, perhaps we don't know how it was done, but that's a... You bring some meal down out of heaven, they said, or something like that. Then we could believe your claim that the Father has sent you. But their logic was astray. And our Lord takes up the, uh, very thing that they'd referred to. Moses, uh, gave the manna in the wilderness? No, he didn't, says Christ. It was not Moses that gave you that. It was my Father, do you see? What's the point of saying that? Well, there were certain signs that Moses did by lifting up his rod here and there, and in the name of God he did signs that were, uh, given him to do so that the people should believe Moses.
This wasn't one of them. Moses didn't give them the manna out of heaven. It was the Father that gave them the manna. It was God that gave them manna. The manna didn't come down so that the people should believe Moses. The manna came down from heaven, sent by God. In that same way, says our Lord, it is not I that give you the manna, I am the manna. It's my Father that giveth you the manna. Yes? So let's use the analogy, it could help. What would you have thought to the Israelites? The book of Exodus chapter sixteen says that when, uh, God sent down the manna, the Israelites went out the next morning and they saw this stuff lying on the ground, you'll see.
And they said, ah, what is it, do you see? What is it? And Moses says, this is the manna that the Lord has sent you, do you see? Now, what would you have thought of the people if they said, ah, come, come, Moses, you're telling us this manna has, uh, been sent down by God here? Um, um, Moses, uh, uh, we suggest you do a sign to prove it. Well, stupid chumps. You'll see. What ridiculous a situation. Here was the stuff on the ground. Moses says it's manna. You know, it tastes good, gentlemen. It tastes like honey, actually. It's sent there by God himself to feed you.
To say, well, you do a sign and we'll believe it. That's nonsense. How would you know it was the manna? Well, getting some and eating it, of course. And what would you have said if they had come to the manna and they said, ah, manna, you say, manna, that you have come down from heaven, this little stuff up on the ground here. Well, before anything else, manna, you do a miracle that we may see and believe it. I'd lost the senses. Talk such irrelevant nonsense. You'll see. That was the manna. They had one way of finding out whether it was good and whether it came from God and whether it would maintain them, that's to pick it and eat it. What do you mean, says Christ, you come to me and say, uh, I say I've come down from heaven as the, as the very bread of life, and you come to me and say, do another sign so that we may see and believe it.
Look, says Christ, just as it wasn't Moses that gave the manna, it was the Father that gave the manna. So I'm telling you, it's the Father that is now giving you the true bread from heaven. I am that bread. Don't ask me to do a sign, you might as well ask the manna to do a sign. My Father gives me to you as the manna. You have a very shortcut to finding out whether my claim is true, and that is to believe and eat. There comes a point, you see, ladies and gentlemen, where asking for signs is a high illogicality, and it misses the point altogether.
Our Lord had done one sign by multiplying physical bread. That is enough. He'd done a physical sign. It was now pointing to the spiritual level. At that level, he's saying, I am the spiritual bread of life sent down from heaven. How do you prove whether he's true? Well, how did you prove whether he'd done a miracle yesterday? By getting hold of the barley cakes and stuffing them down your mouth, of course. Fish as well. How do you prove that Jesus is the bread from heaven? By coming, believing, receiving, eating. And the evidence is in the eating. So now it brings our Lord to make his claim, and he sets it out briefly before them, you'll see.
I am the bread, he says, who comes down from heaven. For the bread of God is that which cometh down out of heaven and giveth life unto the world. They said therefore unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. And so once more you notice that the crowd isn't, uh, hostile as they of chapter five were. They're now asking for the bread, and that's going to set us our major problem. Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall not hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.
But I said unto you that you have seen and yet believe not. You were asking for a sign just now that you might see and believe. I'm telling you, gentlemen, you have. Here I am. Can you see me? And yet you have not believed. Why don't you believe? The terms are that whoever cometh to me, says the Lord Jesus, you'll see, uh, uh, can he that cometh to me shall not hunger, he that believeth on me shall never thirst. And you have come. Why can't you see that I am the bread of life, and why don't you believe me? And now he begins to explain.
All that which the Father giveth me shall come unto me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out, for I am come down not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. What is our Lord saying? Let me remind you of the context. When they had come to make him king, he had deliberately gone away from them. When they came the next day seeking him, deliberately he refused to do another sign. But why? They come to him. Why doesn't he respond?
Is he being difficult? On purpose or something? Making it difficult for folks to receive the manna? No, says the Lord, no, he's not that at all. I'm the bread, and it's my Father's will that whoever comes to me and believes on me shall have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day. That is precisely the reason why I came down from heaven to do my Father's will. I'm not making it difficult for you, gentlemen. You come, I'm not making it difficult. No, no. I come down from heaven to do my Father's will. It's my Father that is giving you this manna. I'm not making it difficult. In fact, all that the Father gives me shall come to me, and him that comes, I will not cast out, I will never sh- push, shoo them away, I will never reject them, I will never make it difficult.
Well, then you say the answer must be it's not Christ's fault, it must be the Father's then. For he says, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me. Is he implying that the reason why, although they've come, although they've sought him, of although they've said, give us this bread, it's no use because the Father hasn't given them to Christ. It's not that, ladies and gentlemen, surely. Let us go back to the historical occasion. These people were not pagans, you know. They were not idolaters. They were not polytheists. All their life they had believed in the one true God.
Here was Jesus Christ coming to them, a man, and he was claiming God as his own father. What was he doing trying to persuade people that God was his own father? Was he setting up in competition with God? Was this some ghastly form of religious excess and blasphemy that Jesus of Nazareth was putting himself in the place of God? No, no. Was it that Jesus was pressurizing the crowd to believe in him, so as to draw away their allegiance from God? No, no, no.
He was the bread of God come down from heaven, Dorothy. How would the folks come and believe it? How would they even begin to understand what it meant that he was the bread of God? Well, there's only one way that could happen, and that is these, these verses now tell us God would have to draw them. God would have to give them to believe. God would have to reveal the Lord Jesus to him. It would be God who would give them to the Lord Jesus.
Nothing difficult in that, is it? When our Lord asked his disciples, whom do you say that I am? And Peter replied, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Our Lord said, blessed are you, Simon Barjona, flesh and blood didn't reveal it to you, but my Father, which is in heaven, he revealed it. So, here too, if ever we're going to see Jesus as the bread of life, the manna come down from heaven, that he is really a being who was one with the Father, and he has come down from heaven to be our food. If ever we're going to see that and understand what it means and take that food and eat it, then it won't be by our wits.
It will have to be by God's own illumination and drawing. Why? Because the concept is so marvelous, isn't it? You will say, do you really begin to see what's involved? Do you really believe that Jesus has come down out of the great eternity as the bread from heaven, and that somehow to be saved you have to eat him? What does it mean? You see, that's the difficulty of many people, isn't it?
They can see the Jesus who preaches morality. They can see the Jesus who urges us to feed the poor and hungry. That to them is Christianity. When you start talking about, no, that isn't the main thing in Christianity. The main thing in Christianity is personally believing in Jesus and receiving Jesus as the very bread of life, knowing that he came down from the eternal world, and that if you receive him, he'll take you to that eternal world too. Then there comes up a wall. People don't understand what you are beginning to say. Why don't they understand? Well, because it isn't within the powers of the human mind to understand it. And if ever we're going to understand it, the very God who has given Jesus the food, as the food to men, will have to give us to believe in the Lord Jesus.
And now comes the real question. Is it so that God has a short list of people to who- whom he's prepared to give to the Lord Jesus? Does God have a short list of people, say, well, it's only those I'm prepared to draw, I'm not interested in, uh, anybody else? No, that's an implication that the verse doesn't say, does it? It is saying, if you want to believe in the Lord Jesus, God will have to give it to you. God will have to explain it to you. God will have to illumine your mind. Our Lord is saying, not saying, but of course, you gentlemen, he's not prepared to illumine your mind. He's just saying that this is the only way that can be done.
That is true, isn't it? So then it is not a question of seeing Jesus as a man who can do miracles and multiply literal physical loaves and bread, and you come to him to make him king. That kind of coming is no use, unless in addition, God himself illumines your heart, gives you to come to Christ in that spiritual sense and understanding, believe, and be united with the Lord Jesus. Yes? And when that happens, says Christ, by definition, I shall not make it difficult.
All that the Father gives me shall come to me, and him that comes I will not cast out. It doesn't mean I will not subsequently pass out, but when they come, I shall not drive them away. Why then did he run away from the crowd? They had come to him. They'd come to make him king. Why did he run away? How does he now stand here and say that them that come, I will not, uh, uh, throw them out. Why? Because you'll see the very first nature of their coming. Wasn't a coming that the Father instituted, was it? They came to make him king, that is political king. They were poor, there were hundreds of poor people.
The rulers of their day very often trod the poor down. Here was a Jesus that could multiply loaves and fishes and give them free meals, many of them unemployed. What, they were going to vote for him. They were going to put him into parliament. And secondly, here was a Messiah. You know, when Moses had brought the Israelites out to Canaan, God had said, now there's a land, my dear people, flowing with milk and honey, bees, cows, grass, everything that is delightful, and it gave- given them these physical blessings, and they were hoping that when the new prophet came, like Moses, he would do the same and give them all a large house, although it's a decent bungalow at least, a chariot, personal chariot, you'll see, and holidays in Majorca, a- a- and freedom, you'll see, from the Romans, of course.
And so when Jesus, uh, gave them a free meal, yes, they came to make him king. And that was the size of their concept of what he was talking about. He was not talking about ordinary food. He was not talking about a paradise on earth. He was talking of that spiritual realm. Marvelous how the physicists nowadays begin to talk about it too, don't they? Beyond our reactions, as we study the old atom and the electron and discover various reactions to our probings, beyond the curious and mysterious ways of electrons, there is another world, isn't there?
The world in itself, that we had no hope of ever touching, not with our most ad- advanced observation technique. A world that lies beyond is really there. How do I know Jesus Christ comes from it? He is saying to us in this world, this show you see here is but a temporary show. There is a world in itself, the great eternal world beyond your election electrons, the world of the Creator himself, the world of spirit. I came out from there. If you don't get hold of this, you'll perish eternally.
How will you even conceive of it? Oh, my good folks, he says, my Father is willing to draw you. My Father is willing to give it to you to understand. Yes, surely you can't come just on your own initiative unless it be given to you by my Father. These are such colossal things that only he possibly could make them real to you and give you to understand them, but he stands ready to do it. And if he does it when you come to me, I shall in no wise cast you out. We're going to think just a little bit more about that, but just for the moment, let's sit back, shall we?
We've been talking of difficult things. Let's sit back and enjoy our salvation. Twice over, the blessed Lord Jesus said, I came down from heaven to do my Father's will. I've come down as the very bread of God to do his will. Now my Father's will is that everyone that sees and beholds the Son, everyone given to me of the Father, I should lose not one, but raise him up at the last day. See how sustaining this bread is, just you work it out. It is God's will that of all he has given to Christ, Christ should lose nothing.
Right, ho? And I have come to Christ. I have seen him by God's grace. It wasn't the size of my little brains that helped me to see it. It was God's own revelation that gave me to understand, and I have beheld his son and seen his significance, and I have received him and believed him and accepted him. And God has a will concerning me, for I'm part of all that he has given to Christ, and God's will is that Christ shall lose nothing. What a comfort that is to me. I imagine in my childish, naive mind, you know, the great assembly when Christ presents his people to God, and here they come, and the Holy Son says, Father, this is Abram, you know, this is Sarah too, you see, Father, yes.
What a day that will be when he shall present us before the throne of his glory, hey what, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing. And this is David, my dear father, this is David. And this is, uh, Lydia, you'll see, from Philippi, you'll see. And this is Mrs. O'Flaherty from Ocker and Clocker and Five Mile Town or somewhere. Imagine it all when the last has been introduced. The father says, where's Gooding? Which Gooding do you mean? The Davy Gooding.
Oh, him. Well, he's not here. You'll say he was such a straggler on the journey, always going after primroses in this directions and, and dandelions in the other, and well, a difficult character, so I'm afraid he got lost, so he's not here. Why, in that moment, heaven would grow black, wouldn't it? For it would mean that the blessed Son of God had failed to do his Father's will. And though he failed only once, if he lost one, it would constitute the Son of God himself a sinner who failed to do God's holy will.
Oh, it shall not happen. See what bread is this. I know you want it to be your comfort now, but the point of the issue is he came from heaven, he proposes to take us back there. We shall not be finally saved till our feet stand there in that other great world, in the immediate presence of God. And the will of the Father is that all who see the Son and believe on him shall give them eternal life. He shall lose not one. He'll raise them up again at the last. Come death of any kind, come mince meat. They shall lose not one.
They shall be raised with bodies like unto the body of his glory and presented before the Father with exceeding joy. That is the statement of Christ's claim. But there were difficulties. First of all, the difficulties came from the Jews, and then the difficulties came from the disciples. So first of all, the Jews' objection. This is, as you see, chapter six now and verse uh forty one.
The Jews therefore murmured. In verse fifty two, the Jews strove with one another. The Jews have two lots of difficulties, you'll see. Then in verse sixty, the disciples said it's a hard saying. And then in verse sixty six, upon this many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him. So two objections from the Jews, two difficulties from the disciples, in response to our Lord's tremendous claim. And the first difficulty, the one from the Jews, was this: they murmured concerning him because he said, I am the bread which came down out of heaven. And they said, is not this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?
How does he now say, I am come down out of heaven? Jesus answered and said unto them, murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to me except the Father which sent me draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day. And we've already commented upon it. Was our Lord saying, yes, and therefore I'm not interested in you, gentlemen. You have not been drawn by the Father, and there's no hope for you, even if you would like to be saved, there's no hope for you. Of course he wasn't. What he was saying is this, you find this difficult to think that I came down from heaven? You know my mother, yeah? You knew me when I worked in the carpenter shop. And you say to yourself, how on earth can he say he come down from heaven?
I mean, this is sort of fantastic, surrealist kind of stuff. I mean. A- a- a- and you'll find it difficult. Well, of course you'll find it difficult, but you have no need to murmur about it. God is not asking you to use your unaided wits to try and work it out. You'll see. No man can come to me in this sense except the Father draw him. Is the Father prepared to draw? Well, of course he is, says Christ, and quotes the prophets. It is written in the prophets, and they shall all be taught of God. Everyone that hath heard of the Father and hath learned cometh unto me, not that any man has seen the Father, except he which is from God, he has seen the Father.
It's not difficult. It is that the concept is so gloriously magnificent that you would never work it out if you spent the rest of life trying to puzzle it out intellectually, and you don't have to. Because though it is true you can't come unless the Father draws you, the promise of the Old Testament prophet is they shall all be taught of God. That's where you start. And those that have been taught of God come to me, says Christ. You see, he was not talking to polytheists in the jungles of Zaire. He was talking to Orthodox Jews who believed in God. Their own prophets said that God was prepared to teach them, and being taught of God, they would recognize the Messiah when he came.
Why didn't they come to Christ in the right sense? Why didn't they recognize him? They hadn't let themselves be taught by God, had they? That's why. So that objection is dealt with. Of course, it's a difficult concept, the incarnation. How can Jesus be man and God at the same time? But God is prepared to teach, if we're willing to be taught. Second objection. The Jews therefore strove with one another, verse fifty two, saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? And our Lord's reply to that is, verily, verily, I say unto you, except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have not life in yourselves.
So the first answer is, difficult as it may sound to you, gentlemen, but unless you eat his flesh and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves. What does that mean? Well, let's, uh, look, go back at our notes, shall we? Page, um, uh, uh, three of our notes, under B, the scriptures. You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and you will not come to me that you may have life.
Do you remember what we said about that four weeks ago? Here were Jews, apparently godly Jews, studying the Bible with meticulous care, but they had made a fundamental mistake. They thought that they bi- love the Bible, and if only you studied the Bible by just studying the Bible, you got life. You search the scriptures because in them you think you have eternal life. That is a mistake, says Christ. They are the inspired word of God, but you see, the scriptures are a signpost, an inspired signpost, and they point to me, says Christ. But alas, you won't come to me that you might have life. You imagine the life is in the scripture, so that just if you study it, you get the life automatically.
That is not true. Scripture is but a signpost. The life is in Christ, not in scripture. Similarly now, when they say, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? Well, first get hold of this proposition, says Christ, that as you sit there yourself apart from me, you don't have life in yourself, you know. Do you? Because I'm alive. Oh, I know that. Take it at the physical level. You are alive, but you didn't make your own life, did you? You are not the source of your own life, no? You didn't decide when you got it, did you?
You don't have physical life in yourself. You are what the philosophers would call a contingent being. You depend upon another for the physical life that's in you. I'm telling you, says Christ, when it comes to eternal spiritual life, you don't have life in yourselves. If ever you're going to have life, it will mean a life being put into you. And since I am the bread of life, that is my function, says the Christ, I am come so that I might come right into you.
Let's take the analogy of your daily bread. How does bread maintain you? Well, not by theorizing about it, reading about it in the book, examining its vitamins and testing the purity of its flour. That doesn't maintain you. Bread maintains you by coming into you and becoming a part of you. And if you're going to have this eternal life, this spiritual life that I talk of, says Christ, you'll have to accept me that I come in you. How is that done? Well, we must now make sure that we don't fall into a very widespread mistake.
There have been multitudes of people that have said that here in John chapter six, when our Lord talks of eating his flesh and drinking his blood, he is talking of the Lord's Supper, or the Eucharist, as some people prefer to call it. And he is saying that at the Lord's Supper, the Eucharist, the bread is turned into the body of Christ, the wine is turned into his blood, and when you eat the bread, you are eating the very flesh of the Son of God, and when you drink the wine, you're drinking the very blood of the Son of God. That is not true. And you say, how do you know it is true? Well, to start off with, this is John six. We're not talking about the Lord's Supper, not from beginning to end is it talking about the Lord's Supper. Is it?
To say this refers to the Lord's Supper is to bring something into John six that our Lord never put there. The institution of the Lord's Supper was not until months and months and months and months later. That's number one. Number two, as for eating his flesh, look what our Lord Jesus says in verse sixty three. It is the Spirit that quickens. It is the Spirit that gives life. The flesh profiteth nothing. You could eat the, if it were possible, you could eat the literal flesh of Christ. It would do you no good whatsoever. The flesh profits nothing.
Then why did he use this vivid phrase, and to eat his flesh and drink his blood? Well, we recur to the analogy. If you want food to maintain you, you must ingest the food so that it become part of you. Similarly, our Lord says this way, to give us another analogy in verse fifty seven, as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he that eateth me, he shall live because of me. Magnificent analogy. Now, the Father has no flesh or blood, does he? God is spirit.
How does the Son live? He says, I live because of the Father. The Father is in me, and I in him. On that same analogy, this is how I propose to maintain you. He that eateth me, he shall live because of me. For as he says in the earlier verse, you'll see.
