John 6:48-71: Faith that Feasts

Isaiah 55:1–3 Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.

Intro

I want you to imagine wandering through the wilderness.

Walking through a desolate wasteland with no food or water for miles.

A place you know, if help doesn’t come soon, you will die.

And after days of walking, starving and dying of thirst…a man shows up and sets out a table of rich food.

Delicious bread…bottles of wine…more than you could ever eat even as hungry as you are.

And you walk up and say, “I have no money but can I please have just a scrap. Just a little to get me by.”

And the man turns and says, “Get you by? Its all free! Have as much as you’d like. I have more than enough.”

Salvation. An Oasis.

Wouldn’t you be a fool if you did not reach out and take it?

That’s where we find ourselves today at the end of the Bread of Life Discourse in John 6:48-71.

And the main point of the passage is simple...

Jesus gave His life to give us Eternal Life by grace through faith.

And to enjoy that grace Christ calls us to a faith that feasts.

A faith that feasts on Christ and His finished work on our behalf.

A faith that savors His sacrifice, receiving Christ and taking Him as one’s own.

We are going to have four points today.

Let’s start with point number 1...

I. Jesus Gave His Life to Give Us Eternal Life

John 6:48–51 I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. 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.

Jesus says I am the Bread of Life.

This has been the whole point of everything Jesus has said in this sermon.

Everything’s been driving at this.

This is one of 7 famous “I Am” sayings in the Gospel of John and each one gives us a different picture…a different view of Christ and His saving work.

And by using these pictures and these images, Christ is inviting us into deeper and more abiding faith in Him.

And what Christ wants us to see when He says I am the Bread of Life…what He wants us to believe, and know, and trust in about Him is told to us in John 6:35:

John 6:35 I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

Jesus is the Bread of Life who gives us eternal life.

And just as physical bread satisfies all our hunger and gives physical life to the body...

So Christ satisfies all the hunger of our souls and gives us eternal life so that we never hunger or thirst again.

Without Christ, you will starve and perish in your sins.

Manna

And that’s exactly what Christ says in verse 49: Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.

If you’ll remember, when Jesus first told this crowd that they needed to believe in Him if they wanted to have eternal life, they said, “Then what sign do you do?”

And pointed to the Manna God rained down in the wilderness for forty years to say, “You gives us bread from heaven, then we’ll believe you.”

And Jesus’ answer was, “I’m right here. I’m the True Manna.”

The True Bread of God that God freely and graciously gives to save you from the wilderness and carry you all the way to the Promise Land of Eternal Life.

The People were wanting Manna, but Jesus says I’m the True and Better Manna.

You’re fathers ate the Manna in the wilderness, and they died.

For forty years God rained down Manna and it gave them life one day at a time. But ultimately…it still led to death.

That Exodus Generation…they all died. They never made it to the Promise Land.

All their bodies fell in the wilderness (Hebrews 3:17, Numbers 14:29).

And Jesus is saying there is a better bread God freely and graciously gives standing right in front of you and whoever eats of that bread will never die.

And in verse 51, He makes it clear.

John 6:51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.

Ok Jesus. You are the living bread…the bread that came down from heaven to give eternal life to the world (John 6:33).

But what does that mean? What are you talking about when you say you are bread?

That’s the second part of verse 51…

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

Substitutionary Sacrifice

In this verse we see Christ saying that He would be the Bread of Life who gives eternal life to everyone who believes in Him by giving His life as a substitutionary sacrifice on our behalf.

And we see that in the words “for,” and the word, “flesh.”

Flesh

Flesh emphasizes Jesus’ physical body as a sacrifice.

For one thing, this passage should be read in the backdrop of Passover because all the way back in verse 4: John 6:4 Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.

And in the Passover God’s people would celebrate their salvation and deliverance from slavery in Egypt pointing to the True and Greater salvation and deliverance Christ would bring from our slavery to sin, Satan, and death.

And at the first Passover the people would take the blood of the lamb and spread the blood of their door so that when the Angel of Death came to their door he would see the blood and Passover their house saving everyone covered under the blood from death…

…Obviously pointing to Jesus the True Passover Lamb.

And in the Passover, God commanded the people to use the blood to cover the door but to also eat the Lamb’s flesh.

A feast of faith that God would deliver them out of Egypt and for all later generations a celebration of God’s salvation and the communion they had with Him as God’s own chosen people.

That’s going to be relevant because Jesus is going to tell them to eat his flesh just like the passover lamb.

The other way the word flesh tells us Jesus gave His life as a sacrifice is that in the Greek Translation of Leviticus 17 that word flesh is the same exact one used here where it talks about the flesh as a sacrifice for atonement.

Leviticus 17:11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.

The reason this is relevant is because Leviticus 17 is where God forbids His people from eating or drinking blood and that’s obviously in the background here because Jesus is going to say not only eat my flesh but drink my blood something that would have been highly offensive to the Jews.

So by using the word flesh with the background of the Passover feast and Leviticus 17…

Jesus is saying that He is the Passover Lamb who delivers us from slavery and death into the Promise Land...

And the Atonement Lamb who gave His life as a sacrifice to forgive all our sins.

Or as John the Baptist said all the way back in chapter 1: Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

And then we come to For...

For

The word for in Greek means in place of our on behalf of.

And in the New Testament and especially in the Gospel of John, the word is used to emphasize Jesus sacrificial, substitutionary death.

John 10:11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

And maybe most important, Paul uses the very same word in 1 Corinthians 15:3 where Paul gives us His shortest and clearest summary of the gospel: For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures.

Jesus died in our place, for our sins.

He drank the cup of God’s wrath our sin deserved and offered His life as a sacrifice to satisfy God’s wrath, pay our debt of sin, and purchase our redemption.

Isaiah 53:5–6 He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

When Jesus died He offered his life as a sacrifice on our behalf.

This is why Jesus emphasizes all throughout the sermon that He was the bread that came down from heaven, talking about His incarnation.

The eternal Son of God took on human flesh in a body prepared for Him by God in the power of the Holy Spirit (Hebrews 10:5, Luke 2:35).

Why?

Hebrews 2:14–17 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things… He had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation [or an atoning sacrifice] for the sins of the people.

So what makes Jesus the Bread of Life?

He gave His life, His flesh…He offered Himself as an atoning, substitutionary sacrifice in our place for our sins.

He was the bread that was broken to give us eternal life.

Because don’t forget how all this started.

With the feeding of the multitude.

And when Jesus took the loaves and took the fish, what does the Bible say?

He broke the Bread.

And what does He say in the Lord’s Supper?

1 Corinthians 11:23–24 The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

He was crushed for our iniquities.

The Bread of Life was broken…crushed on the cross on our behalf to give life to the world.

Jesus is the Bread of Life who gave HIS life as a sacrifice to give ETERNAL LIFE to everyone who believes in Him.

Because how do you eat this bread?

How does Christ’s sacrifice become a sacrifice for you?

And that takes us to point number 2…

II. Jesus Gives Us Eternal Life through Wholehearted Faith in Him

John 6:52–55 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

The word disputed is much more than just confusion. Of what does Jesus mean?

The Greek word is actually to fight or quarrel.

They do not like what Jesus says.

And so you know what Jesus does? Doubles down.

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.

Now you have to understand how highly offensive this was to the Jews.

A. A literal understanding of Jesus’ words say He is advocating for a religious form of cannibalism which is appalling enough.

But even more offensive is God’s Law specifically forbade the drinking of blood for any of God’s covenant people.

Going so far so as to say if you drink blood you will be cut off from the people of God. Put out of God’s covenant blessing and promise.

And to see why and to see why this would have been so offensive for the Jews listening to Jesus I want to look at a specific passage we looked at only a part of earlier.

Leviticus 17:10–12 If any one of the house of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn among them eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people.

Why?

For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you [the blood] on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life. Therefore I have said to the people of Israel, No person among you shall eat blood.

Blood was sacred for the people of God.

It symbolized life.

They couldn’t eat it or drink it because God gave it to them to make atonement for their sins.

And then here Jesus says Drink my blood.

Well what do you mean? The Law forbids it! Don’t you know that anyone who drinks blood will be cut off from among the people.

And what Jesus is saying is His blood is the only true atonement for our sins.

Hebrews 10:4–5 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me.”

And so when Jesus says eat my flesh and drink my blood He is not talking about some form of Christian cannibalism.

About literally eating Christ’s flesh and drinking Christ’s blood.

He’s talking spiritually.

And spiritually He is calling us to spiritually eat His flesh and drink His blood by putting all of our faith in His atoning sacrifice.

He says in verse 53: Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

Presently. At that time. In other words they were already dead.

Not physically. They were standing around talking to Jesus.

They were spiritually dead!

Spiritually dead in their trespasses and sins.

And its clear that eating and drinking is not talking about literal eating and drinking but about spiritual faith.

Hear the parallel of John 6:54 and john 6:40 just a few verses earlier.

John 6:54

Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

And then verse 40: For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

So feeding and drinking corresponds to looking and believing.

What does it mean to feed on Christ’s flesh and drink Christ’s blood?

Looking on the Son and believing in Him.

Trusting in His sacrifice and His blood as our atoning sacrifice.

Its receiving Him and all His work on our behalf like a hungry stomach receives food.

And so what Jesus is calling us to is a personal, wholehearted faith in Him and His person and work on our behalf.

A personal faith that He is the Bread of God that came down from Heaven. That He is the Eternal Son of God incarnate in human flesh.

And a personal faith that He gave His flesh for the life of the world.

A personal, wholehearted trust in His sacrifice on the cross and His blood as the only blood that can make atonement for our sins.

Personal

Its a personal faith because no one else can eat it for you.

You must eat it yourself.

You must sit down at the table and eat the Bread of Life and drink His blood..

Wholehearted

And its wholehearted because its not a little taste or a nibble.

Its a full blown feast.

Its receiving Christ and all of Christ.

At the cross you renounce all your sin.

You repent and put it to death.

You say I live for this no more. All of it is nailed to the cross.

At the cross you renounce all your self-righteousness.

All the ways you try to earn God’s love and God’s forgiveness.

We have no righteousness of our own to give.

We are pitiful beggars who come to Christ with empty hands saying I have no righteousness of my own.

No good and no hope apart from the grace of Christ.

He is my righteousness and He is my justification.

And at the cross, you renounce all your life.

If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me (Matthew 16:24).

The call to follow Christ is a call to come and die.

To deny yourself…die to yourself…and follow Him.

Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

The Christian life is the one that dies to yourself and lives for Christ.

That is what a wholehearted faith means.

You renounce your sin…you renounce your self-righteousness…you renounce your life...

And you say all that I am and all that I have…everything…is yours.

All my life…All my hope…and all my faith…is in you.

And through that faith. Through that personal and wholehearted trust and commitment to Christ and His sacrifice on our behalf Christ gives us eternal life and we are saved.

Verse 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.

The idea of true food and true drink says Christ answers the true hunger of our souls.

The Parallel is in verse 35: I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

Thats the idea. Through faith in Christ we have the fullness of salvation.

All our souls could ever need.

One bite and one sip will satisfy your soul forever. He gives eternal life.

And then we come to verse 56:

John 6:56-59 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.

The idea here is the same as John 1:4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

And what I want to key in on is verse 56. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood - whoever has personal whole hearted faith in me and my substitutionary sacrifice - abides in me, and I in him.

Abide is an important word in the Gospel of John. It will come up again in John 15.

And what it implies is a committed and persevering faith.

Its not a flighty faith that follows Jesus one day but not the next.

Its a faith that’s either all of Christ or none of Christ where we make our home with Him. That’s the basic idea.

Union with Christ

And when Jesus says whoever has faith in me abides in me and I in him, what He’s promising is that that faith brings us into Union with Christ.

That through faith we are in Christ and Christ is in us.

Colossians 3:3 Our life is hidden with Christ in God.

And the idea behind our union with Christ...why its so important…why is such a precious truth of the gospel is that it is through our union with Christ that all the blessings and benefits of our salvation are ours in Him.

God forgives us in Christ.

He loves us in Christ.

We are adopted in Christ.

He blesses us with every spiritual blessing…in Christ (Eph 1:3).

All the promises of God find their yes and amen in Him (2 Cor 1:20).

We stand before God and we are righteous in Christ.

His life is our life. His death is our death. His resurrection is our resurrection.

And it is through our union with Christ that His righteousness becomes our righteousness and it is by His righteousness we are saved.

And so let me simplify it really easy for you.

When we talk about our union with Christ what it means is that God...

Sees us in Christ

And Loves us in Christ.

He sees us...

Sees Us

Through faith God sees us in Christ.

So when you stand before God its not you alone…its you in Christ.

All of your sin paid for in Him.

All of His righteousness credited to you.

You are justified, declared righteous, forgiven once and for all in Christ.

And through faith, not only does God see us in Christ, He loves us in Christ.

Loves Us

John 17:23 Jesus praying to the Father…You have loved them even as you loved me.

I say it all the time. God’s love for you is objective.

Its not based on you…its not based on your works…its not based on how good of a Christian you are.

God’s love for you is all based on Christ.

He has adopted you in Him which means you are as beloved as the eternally beloved Son of God.

Through faith you are in Him. You are wed to Christ and what God has joined together let no man separate.

You abide in Christ and Christ abides in you.

And all the blessings and benefits of your salvation are yours through Him.

You life is hidden with Christ in God.

No wonder Paul is able to say nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Col. 3:3, Romans 8:39).

God has eternally and invincibly hidden us in Him.

Transition

Christ gave His life to give us eternal life.

And Christ gives us eternal life through personal, wholehearted faith in Him and His sacrifice for all our sins.

Which takes us to point number 3...

III. Jesus Gives us Eternal Life by God’s Sovereign, Irresistible Grace

This point's going to be quick because we dealt with most of it last week.

John 6:60–65 When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?

It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”

Here in this passage we have Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility in salvation.

We hold them in tension, but the Bible never holds them in tension. They go hand in hand.

Its true that everyone must repent and believe in Jesus Christ in order to be saved.

And its also true No one can come to Christ unless the Father Himself draws them.

Jesus says it is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all.

We said last week there is a spiritual inability in us that keeps us from coming to Christ by our own power and our own will left to itself because we are spiritually dead in our trespasses and sins.

And dead men don’t hear. Dead men don’t walk. Dead men don’t believe.

They just lie there dead.

That for anyone to come to Christ there must be a powerful work of God in the heart of the believer where God takes what was dead and makes it alive again.

And this is what the Bible calls the New Birth.

You must be born again.

John 3:3 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.

That word again can mean born again as in born a second time or it can mean born from above…Born of God.

And both ideas are in view.

John 3:5–7 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’”

Its the same idea as Jesus here. The flesh is no help at all.

If you are going to come to Christ you must be born again of water - the atonement cleansing of the word of God through the good news of the gospel - and the Spirit.

You need a resurrection miracle of God’s grace.

That a personal, wholehearted faith in Christ and His atoning work is the fruit of God’s sovereign irresistible grace.

When we were dead in our sins, with no hope or possibility to ever save ourselves by our own power or will…God made us alive again.

It was not our own doing. The flesh is no help at all.

We did not wake up one day and say I want to follow Christ.

We were dead.

We believed because God was gracious to save.

So faith is casting yourself on God’s mercy and grace.

Its saying there is nothing we can do at all.

There is no hope in us. Nothing we can ever do to save ourselves.

And that is why we talk about faith as receiving Jesus Christ.

John 1:12–13 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

We have nothing. We can do nothing. Our only hope is to look to Christ and His finished work on our behalf.

And the good news of Total Depravity and being dead in our trespasses and sins is that we worship a God who has the power to raise the dead.

Which takes us finally to point number 4...

IV. The Faith that Saves is the Faith that Feasts on Christ and His Finished Work

John 6:66–71 After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?”

Everyone walks away.

Remember. The day before he had 5,000 men not including women and children…15-20,000 total people…and by the end of His sermon He has twelve and one of them is Judas who was going to betray Him.

These…were false disciples who did not have true, abiding faith.

And that’s when Peter comes in to give us a picture of what true saving faith…of what it means to eat Christ’s flesh and drink Christ’s blood actually looks like in verse 68.

Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.” He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray him.

Through Peter, speaking on behalf of all the disciples minus Judas, John gives us a picture of the kind of faith that feasts on Christ.

The kind of faith we should all strive for and the kind of faith we should do all that we can to live up to.

1. Walks with Jesus

First, a faith that feasts on Christ walks with Christ.

All the false disciples turned back.

But Peter turned to Christ and said Lord to whom shall we go?

Walking with Christ is such a beautiful picture of faith.

You’re with Him.

Following Him.

Sticking near Him.

Cleaving to Him.

That’s what faith is.

Even when the whole world goes one way, we stick with Christ.

Second, faith that feasts follows Jesus as Lord.

2. Follows Jesus as Lord

Jesus is our Lord and Master.

We obey Him and follow Him wherever He leads.

His words are the words of eternal life and so life for the Christian is obeying every single one of His commands.

Number 3, faith that feasts follows Jesus as Savior

3. Follows Jesus as Savior

Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.

The Holy One of God is a unique phrase in the Gospel of John.

The only other person to call Jesus this is actually a demon in Mark 1 and Luke 4.

And the way Peter uses the title is a way of expressing faith in Jesus Christ as the Messiah and the Mediator who stands between God and Man.

The whole purpose of the Gospel of John is that you would believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

And so it makes sense in a chapter of faith and eternal life…that’s exactly what John wants us to see here.

Son of God

As the Eternal Son of God, Jesus is the Mediator.

The GodMan who took on human flesh to live the perfect and sinless life we failed to live…

And died the death we deserved to die on the cross.

As the GodMan He stood in the gap and reconciled us to God making peace by the blood of His cross.

Prophet Priest and King

And He’s the Christ. The Messiah God sent to save us from our sins.

As the Anointed One…that’s what Christ and Messiah means…Christ was our Holy and Anointed Prophet Priest and King.

As Prophet He’s the One who revealed God and proclaimed to us the words of eternal life.

As Priest He offered His life as a sacrifice to atone for our sins and rose again to make intercession for us, to pray for us, at the right of the Father.

And as King He rules over all, conquers our enemies, rains down the blessings of His Kingdom, and to Him alone belongs all the glory.

That’s what it means to believe that Jesus is the Christ - He is Prophet, Priest, and King.

And faith that feasts doesn’t just say He is a Prophet, Priest, and King.

It says He is MY Prophet, Priest, and King…the Son of God who saved me from all of my sins.

Conclusion

Jesus gave His life to give us Eternal Life.

He said I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst (John 6:35).

But only if you eat Christ’s flesh and drink Christ’s blood by grace through faith.

Trust in His one and only sacrifice as the full atonement for our sins.

Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life!

Feast on Christ and His finished work on your behalf!

Live all of your life for Him.

Walk with Him.

Trust in Him as your Lord and Savior. The Holy One of God.

Your Prophet, Priest, and King and follow Him according to all that that means.

The Table is set…The Bread of Life has come…Will you come and eat?