Taught of the Father

Intro.

Does anyone have a favorite quotation?

There was a phrase I heard long ago. It goes something like, “The stupid person can be taught, but the incompetent person doesn’t know he’s incompetent.” Basically, if you actually don’t know any better you can hear, understand, and learn; if you think you already know what you’re doing and wrong, you don’t know how wrong you are.

Now, why am I bringing this random quotation up?

There’s something very interesting that Jesus says in our text today, which troubles the salvation doctrine of many.

John 6:40–47 CSB

40 For this is the will of my Father: that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him will have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” 41 Therefore the Jews started grumbling about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They were saying, “Isn’t this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” 43 Jesus answered them, “Stop grumbling among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets: And they will all be taught by God. Everyone who has listened to and learned from the Father comes to me—46 not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God. He has seen the Father. 47 “Truly I tell you, anyone who believes has eternal life.

First Things

Firstly, let’s look again at the context.

What miracles took place just a day before?

Feeding 5k

Walking on Water

Stilling the Storm

Instantly on shore

Why did the large group of people come looking for Jesus here?

Because they were hungry and they came to Him for physical fulfillment, and He is now not Who they thought.

Jesus is not who they thought He was because He is telling them that He is not going to give them physical bread to sustain their physical needs here. Instead, He is telling them spiritual matters.

He is teaching them, per what we looked at last week, that He Himself is bread from Heaven which comes to fulfill unto eternity, not temporal physical things, and that He will keep and sustain all unto eternal life! We saw the connection there with what we found in 1 Peter about our inheritance in Christ.

This week, we begin to look at more difficult matters. Rather, matters that have been made difficult because of teachings which do not align with the reality.

v. 44 Jesus says “No one can come to me except that the Father draws him...”

Now, on the surface level of this verse, it would seem that our Lord and Master is saying that it is impossible for one to seek the Lord except for some irresistible drawing and giving unto the Son. This is the way that many believers have viewed this teaching for a very long time.

It almost makes sense, and one can see how that conclusion could be arrived to, I believe. However, it is the wrong conclusion.

See, we have the call to repent and submit ourselves to Christ! (Acts 17.30)

Now, if that is our responsibility, and we must also “obey the Gospel” or suffer judgment (2 Thess. 1.8), then it wouldn’t be as if we had no agency in the matter of coming to Christ. We are told that we must choose it! Even as the Spirit begins to convict us of our sins as we see in the words of Jesus, we are still responsible for answering that call and obeying. There is no irresistible drawing of some humans and not others, God desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth!

So, what do you think this drawing is? How does this drawing happen?

Rom. 10.14

2 Thess. 2.14

It happens through the Gospel! Men are drawn by God as they hear the Gospel! It is the salvational, and glorious good news of our Lord which allows people of all nations to come unto Christ.

I have read in one or two places that it is through the love of the Father on all the world that we are drawn, seeing His great love for us in the cross of the Lord and being drawn unto Him. I’m not sure of the total accuracy of that, but it seems a pretty fair statement! We are drawn to those whom we know have shown love to us.

Hear, Be Taught

Now, we see Jesus clarify a bit more to this exact point. What is the condition that Jesu places on receiving eternal life and salvation?

Being Taught and Learning

Jesus then alludes to the Prophets

Isaiah 54:13 CSB

13 Then all your children will be taught by the Lord, their prosperity will be great,

Jeremiah 31:34 CSB

34 No longer will one teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know me, from the least to the greatest of them”—this is the Lord’s declaration. “For I will forgive their iniquity and never again remember their sin.

Isaiah 53:1 CSB

1 Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

John 6:45 CSB

45 It is written in the Prophets: And they will all be taught by God. Everyone who has listened to and learned from the Father comes to me—

It is very possible to hear something and not learn it, right? Even as we see in the prophet Isaiah in his prophecy regarding the Lord Jesus, many who hear will not believe! They will not be taught be God!

Yet the one who hears and is learns/is taught will receive eternal life from the Bread of Life come down from heaven!

What does it mean to be learn something?

When something is learned, not only is it understood but it is in some way acted upon.

When a person hears the Gospel of the Lord, one must not only hear it (though w/out hearing they cannot believe), but they must also believe what God has said!

There does remain on the individual agency and resopnsibility for their own behavior and how they obey God.

Unfortunately, many believers in the world today are astray over doctrines of men which have taught them a different and untrue Gospel. Especially one which removes that agency from men, and therefore usually strips even baptism of all spiritual meaning and purpose.

Inventory

How are we listening to God?

Are we reading the Scriptures and learning ourselves?

How do we reply when people won’t listen to our message to them?

Today I want us to walk away w/ two things:

It is not your job to convict people, nor is it your job to make them act on that conviction. It is only your job to plant and water the seeds of God’s Kingdom.

We ourselves still bear the responsibility to learn as we hear from God. If we hear the Word properly preached or read and leave going back to the world or not eating of the spiritual food which fills our souls, we have not learned anything! I encourae us all therefore to be students of God’s word and truly Learn!