John 6:60-71 (2)
Notes
Transcript
Open your bibles to John 6:60-71
I have a lot of emotions about this section of Scripture. And not just these 5 verses but the whole chapter of John 6.
For one, it is amazing to me. It is amazing to see what God has done for me, and you. No one, and I mean no one, would have dreamed this up. We only come to these truths by simply believing the Word of God.
This chapter is like the wellspring of some deep doctrinal teachings of Christianity. It is amazing.
But it is also sad to me. It’s sad but reassuring.
It is sad because these people came to Jesus, searching for him, seeking Him on the other side of the sea of Galilee. They found him there and heard this deep, rich teaching…but they turn their backs on Him because they didn’t like what He had to say.
That is so sad to me.
But it is also reassuring. It is reassuring because I know and you know that you are not alone when it happens to you today.
People still today claim to want Jesus, but when they are confronted with THIS Jesus, the one who spoke these words…many, just like here in John 6, turn their backs on Him.
Many people want the Jesus of our culture. Many people want the Jesus that gives them miracles, health, and wealth. But not all “disciples” want the biblical Jesus.
That is sad to me. It is heartbreaking…but it is reassuring to know that they turned their back on Christ when He spoke these words so it shouldn’t be shocking when people turn their backs on me, or you, when you repeat His Words in this chapter.
Lets read our text this morning:
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.”
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?” 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.
Prayer:
When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?”
“This is a hard saying; who can listen to it”....
The NIV says, “On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”
they HEARD what He said…they just didn’t like it. It didn’t sit well with them. It didn’t feel good to them.
What was said by Christ that was hard to “listen to” or “accept”?
All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.
It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me—
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.”
Now, when they heard this they said, “who can listen to it?” or “who can accept it”...
Isn’t this the same thing people say today?
I have heard some of the craziest explanations to get around these verses. And why is that? Because people do not want to accept them.
It’s the religious who refuse to accept this. It’s “disciples”, students of the Word, who can’t listen to it. Tell me anything, just don’t tell me about the Sovereignty of God in salvation and that there is nothing in me that can save me from my sins.
Look at verse 61
But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this?
I want you to notice something here…and it is the same today. Its amazing how similar. It so sad…but it is reassuring to know
Notice this:
First notice this: Jesus is God in the flesh. Jesus, the Second Person in the Trinity, the God-Man knew they were grumbling about this.
Only God can read your mind. He knows what you are thinking....right now.
Also notice this:
They didn’t come up to Christ and ask him to further explain what he was talking about.
They didn’t come up to him and say, “Jesus, it seems like you were saying that God is Sovereign over salvation and that there is nothing we can do for ourselves to be saved other than just simply look to you on the cross with faith. Are you saying that Im so bad that I don’t even see how depraved I am and that I do not have the ability to come to you on my own and it takes God the Father to draw me to you. Are you saying I can’t come to you on my own? Are you saying that it takes the death of Gods own Son to save me…are you saying that I am that bad?”
They didn’t do that. They did what people still do today. They grumble about this teaching amongst themselves.
Because see, in verse 60…they HEARD IT. They just didn’t want to accept it. They didn’t want to clear it up. So they just got amongst themselves and convinced each other that ‘no one can believe that…thats insane, that is ridiculous…who can accept that?’
And look at what Jesus asks them, “Do you take offense at this?”
Let me explain this verse…I want to take a little time on it because it is important for us to have a good understanding of God’s Word…we will see why when we get to verse 63.
All the verses on the Doctrine of Election that Jesus said didn’t really offend these Jews.
Does the Doctrine of Election offend us, in America? You KNOW IT DOES. Because that’s just not fair.
But to these Jews, these Israelites, the Doctrine of Election did not offend them one bit. That was an obvious thing to them. Of course God chose them…they were taught that their whole lives.
Look at Deuteronomy 7:6-8
“For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
So in their context…the Doctrine of Election didn’t offend them…yet. As the gospel spreads, as we will see as we go through John’s Gospel…they also begin to hate it. Because they saw it as an arrogant thing that God chose them, Israel.
But as the mystery starts to unfold, we see that God chose people from every tribe, tongue, people group and nation (Rev. 5:9), and NOT JUST from the JEWS.
For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles— assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
All that to say, what really offended them was the fact that it would take the death of God’s own Son to save them from their sins.
This is offensive to the religious Jewish person who thinks they can do something to save themselves.
and it is still offensive to religious people today
Religious people today still have the same mentality as these Jewish people did back then...
Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?”
Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it...
But there is nothing you can do. This is offensive to our nature. We want to be able TO DO something in order to have some bargaining power with God.
“Look what I have done”
“look at how well I did what you said to do...”
But none of that will work…only the death of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, will suffice.
Look at verse 62
Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?
Earlier Jesus talked about he had come DOWN from Heaven to do the WILL of the Father.
So if it is offensive to you that the Christ must die, how offensive will it be to you when you see what I must go through to ascend back to where I came from?
How offensive will it be to you that I must be put to death and hung on a tree?
his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.
this is scandalous! God dying? On a tree? For sinners? Grace?
NO…this doesn’t make sense. He, the God-Man will die on a tree for people who have sinned against Him…and He will do this and save them by His grace ALONE?
NO…there must be something I can do to add to that!
The cross is offensive to those who are perishing. It is an offense for someone who thinks they are “doing it” and “can do it”…now, they may admit that Jesus resets them, but it is offensive to those who think… “I got it from here...”
The cross is offensive to people who think “they need Jesus PLUS their efforts”.
But Look what Jesus says in the next verse:
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.
before there is any activity of faith there must be life. Before you come to Christ you are spiritually dead.
the Spirit gives life…the flesh is NO HELP at all.
This has been said in so many different ways already through the Gospel of John…starting in chapter 1.
“the flesh is no help at all” — the natural person, the unregenerate person, the unregenerate religious person HATES this. It is insulting and offensive to them. To think that there is nothing in you whatsoever than can make you right with God is a complete offense.
Smoke and lights will not give life to a spiritually dead person.
a great preacher and speaker who can make you weep at moments notice will not give life to a spiritually dead person.
The Spirit is the only thing that gives life AND THE FLESH IS NO HELP AT ALL.
that is offensive to so many people.
its sad…but it is reassurging to know that when I tell someone that and they get offended…it offended them when Jesus said it too.
look at the second part of this verse:
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.
“the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life”
What is needed more in the church today is learning the Bible. Learning God’s Holy Word.
The words that Jesus spoke are spirit and life.
This is why Christians long to know Christ and grow in the knowledge of Him. Because life is found in His Word.
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.)
He already knows doesn’t He.
You can fool me and everybody else but you will never fool Christ.
These people followed him…sought him…and found him…but they didn’t really WANT him. They wanted his benefits but not someone who made these types of claims.
Again, we said this a few weeks ago, and here it is again.
Jesus isn’t shocked that they didn’t believe.
Jesus isn’t shocked that the majority of them found this teaching offensive.
Look at our last verse this morning: verse 65
And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”
Let that marinate for a second.
This is the same thing he said in verse 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.
And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”
it doesn’t say “no one will”....it says “no one can”
JC Ryle explained this verse this way:
The connection of this verse seems to be as follows:—“There are some of you that believe not, and that is the reason why I said to you, that no man can come to me unless the Father gives him grace to come, and draws his heart to me. The Father has not given you grace, and drawn you to me, and therefore you do not believe.”
Again, the natural person, the unregenerate, the unregenerate religious person finds this EXTREMELY OFFENSIVE...
After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.
we are going to pick up at this verse next week but I wanted to read you this and make a point.
I have heard so many ways people have tried to get around the doctrine of election.
People try their hardest to explain that this is not what Jesus is talking about.
But if this is not what he is talking about…although it seems to say that NO ONE CAN COME TO HIM on their own....that they do not have the ability to...
IF that is not what he is saying…then why are they so upset?
I have never seen anyone get upset by telling them that they have the free will to choose Christ if they want to.
I have never seen anyone upset by telling them that God has chosen everyone but its up to you to choose him or not.
You know what this is saying AND YOU HAVE TWO OPTIONS....
you can believe the Word
OR you can grumble about it…turn your back on this Christ and reject Him.
This doctrine is easy to see in the Scripture…but it may be hard for some to swallow.
A.W. PINK said:
Contrary this may be to our ideas! distasteful to our minds and hearts; but it is God’s truth, nevertheless, and all the denials of men will never alter it one whit.
So the question that Christ asks these disciples is a fair question still today:
“DO YOU TAKE OFFENSE AT THIS?”