John 6 25-68
John 6 25-68
Interesting that you would pick those Scriptures.
1 John 5:13.............
"
These things have I WRITTEN unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; THAT YE MAY KNOW THAT YE HAVE ETERNAL LIFE, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God."
Having said that, allow me to explain to you what Jesus meant that we must eat His flesh and drink His blood.
For contextual clarification one should read John 6:1-21.
When you have done that, I hope that you did......we see that Jesus feeds thousands of people with five loaves of bread and 2 fish.
Then in John 6:22-25, the following day all of the people who were there went looking for Jesus.
Then in verses 26-27 tells us that when they found Him, He told them that they did not look for Him because of the works that they had seen.
He told them that they came looking for Him because they wanted more food. Then He told them not to work for the meat that perishes but for the meat which would give them everlasting life. Jesus told them that He would give to them.
Now in verses 28-29 the people said......"What shall we do that we might work the works of God"?
The answer Jesus gave them is important in verse 29 as He said to them...
"This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent".
Now then in verses 30-31 we see the hardness of the peoples hearts.
They said........."What SIGN showest thou then, that we may see and believe thee? What dost thou work"?
THERE IT IS FOR ALL TO SEE!!! The day before He had done that huge miracle in front of them and they have totally ignored what they saw and instead said......."Show us something so that we will believe you".
That tells us that they DID NOT BELIEVE JESUS AT ALL!!!!
Then these same people call on their forefathers the Israelites who ate manna from God in the wilderness. God fed them for 40 years and now they want Jesus to feed them all the food they can eat.
Then in v. 31 the people mention how their fathers, the Israelites, ate manna in the desert. Remember God fed them out there for 40 years. The people now wanted Jesus to feed them all the food they wanted.
Verses 32 - 33 we see Jesus telling them that God is giving them the TRUE bread from heaven as we see Him saying....."The bread of God is He which cometh down from heaven and GIVETH LIFE unto the world. In other words He just said to them that He is the bread that gives nourishment to the world.
BUT, what kind of nourishment is the question?????????
Then in verse 34-35 the people respond by saying.......
"Lord, evermore give us this bread".
Jesus then said.....
"I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE, he that
COMETH TO ME shall never hunger and he that
BELIEVTH ON ME shall never thirst".
We all know that no physical bread can make us full for the rest of our lives and no physical drink can quench our thirst for the rest of our lives.
Then what did he mean?
Now we come to verses 36-40 and we see that Jesus plainly tells them that even though they had seen Him they did not believe Him.
Jesus says then in verse 40.........
"And this is the will of him that sent Me, that everyone which
seeth THE SON AND BELIEVETH ON HIM, may have everlasting life".
Jesus said if we come to him and
BELIEVE in him we will get everlasting life just like eating physical bread gives us physical life. The people were talking about physical life, Jesus was talking about the spiritual life.
In verses 41-42 we see again that these people did not believe in Jesus and therefore did not receive His words as the truth of God. They murmured at Him because of what He had just said about the bread that came down from heaven.
They knew His family and thought that there was no way that He could have come down from heaven.
In verses 43 - 47 Jesus tells them that anyone who hears and learns from God, the Father will come to him, others won't. He told them what they needed to do and they ignored it and then got indignant about it.
Again, Jesus said to them........
"Verily, Verily I say unto you, He that BELIEVES ON ME HATH EVERLASTING LIFE".
JOHN 6 VERSES 48 THROUGH 51 -- THE BREAKDOWN
Now Jesus breaks it all the way down in these verses. These greedy people were only concerned with having their bellies full so he spoke to them on that level. He basically told them, "Your fathers ate manna and they are DEAD.
I am the living bread, eat me and YOU WILL LIVE FOREVER. My body is the bread I will give for the life of the world."
What did he mean by eat me?
Remember he told them that the work of God was to BELIEVE on Jesus.
To believe is to accept, internalize, and absorb--which is what eating is--taking in an outside substance, food inside of you.
But unlike physical bread which is eaten and cast out through the digestive system, the spiritual bread, the word of God, is eaten/internalized through belief and never cast out. It remains inside of us. In verse 58, Jesus explains that when we eat him it is
......
"NOT as your fathers did eat manna and are dead". It is not the same kind of eating. It is INTERNALIZING, ACCEPTING, BELIEVING HIM.
Believing/internalizing/eating this fact gives us eternal life. Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. When we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, he helps us to overcome sin and the world. His grace helps us. After we get SAVED, even our desires change--and this does not take a long time. It is not contrived, it is natural.
What about the blood? Jesus' blood is lifesaving drink indeed because without the shedding of blood, there is no remission (forgiveness) of sins.
We need blood, the blood of Jesus alone. God the Father sent his only begotten Son to die for us and to shed his blood so that we can be saved. The blood of Jesus is the propitiation of our sins. It is the payment. Without the blood of Jesus, we would have no hope. We have sinned and we all deserve the lake of fire, but God is not willing that any should perish. When we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, the blood of Jesus washes away our sins and we are reconciled to God who becomes our Father and we have a good future in front of us. We become children of God and we read his word and obey it and God helps us through life and when it is time to die, we go to live with God forever. Hebrews 9:22 says that blood is required in order to get forgiveness/remission of sins,
Once again, if we accept Jesus, internalize him, receive him, yea eat him, we have ETERNAL LIFE. The people were talking about physical life, Jesus was talking about SPIRITUAL life. Look back at the passage--when asked what we have to do to do the works of God, Jesus said,
"He that
BELIEVETH on me hath everlasting LIFE."
When we believe on Jesus Christ, he actually lives inside of us, never to be purged like physical bread.
Because I believe, Jesus lives in me. As we continue on in this passage, we will see that the Lord makes clear he is talking spiritually.
JOHN 6 VERSES 52 THROUGH 69
This caused the unbelieving Jews to say, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" They are still thinking about physical life and physical bread. Jesus is talking about spiritual life and spiritual bread. He has told them over and over that the work of God is to believe on him and they repeatedly refuse to believe on him and persist in seeking physical bread.
In v. 55, Jesus said, "My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed." Many people were offended at the thought of this. Because of their unbelief, they were still thinking in the physical realm.
What about the disciples that left him? Was it because they had to literally eat his flesh and drink his blood? No! They left because just like the others they did not believe in the Lord. Because they did not believe, they could not understand what Jesus was saying (see I Cor 2:14).
In verse 63, Jesus asked the disciples that murmured, "Doth this offend you? It is the SPIRIT that quickeneth [gives life]; THE FLESH PROFITETH NOTHING:
the words that I speak unto you, THEY ARE SPIRIT, and they are life."
He told them plainly that he was not talking literally. He said, "...the words that I speak unto you, THEY ARE SPIRIT." He also told them here that the physical flesh profits NOTHING, ZERO, ZILCH, NIL, NADA--NOTHING!
"Then what did Jesus mean in John Chapter 6?"