The reason our Lord speaks verse
27 is because of verse 26 and what's before. He fed a great
multitude. He went across the sea. Many
of them followed Him and looked Him up. And the Lord said in
verse 26, you're seeking Me not for spiritual things, but you're
seeking Me because you saw the miracle and because you ate and
had your bellies filled. You're seeking me for that. Then
the exhortation in verse 27. Labor not for the meat that perishes,
but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which
the Son of Man shall give unto you. For him hath God the Father
sealed. Now verse 53 and following. Then
Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, except
you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood,
you have no life in you. Whoso eats my flesh, drinks my
blood, hath eternal life. I will raise him up at the last
day. For my flesh is meat indeed,
and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinks
my blood dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father
has sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eats me, even
he shall live By me, this is that bread which came down from
heaven and as your father, not as your fathers did eat manna
and are dead. Now that's important. Your fathers
ate manna and are dead. He that eats of this bread shall
live forever. These things said he in the synagogue
as he taught in Capernaum. Many, therefore, of his disciples,
when they had heard this, said, this is a hard saying, who can
hear it? Now there's our text, our thought,
our verses, and our chapter. Our emphasis today, as I have
stated already, is to be upon what people call a hard saying
as they listen to the teaching of our Lord. Difficult to hear. Difficult to know. Difficult
to understand. Difficult to know exactly what
this all means unto us. And before we settle in on the
text in John chapter 6, I'd like to just quote a few more verses
of Scripture along that line. So let's consider some other
sayings that we meet with in the Scripture. In 2 Peter chapter
3 and verse 16, the Apostle Peter said of Paul's writing, Even
as our beloved brother Paul speaking in his epistles in which are
some things hard to be understood. Paul has written some things,
says the Apostle, that are hard to be understood. In 1 Corinthians
chapter 2, And verse 10, Paul mentions, quote, the deep things
of God. Yea, even the deep things of
God. In Proverbs chapter 1 and verse
6, we read of a wise man who will, quote, understand a proverb
and the interpretation, the words of the wise and their dark sayings. There's another one in Psalm
78 and 2 and 49 and 4. Some say that the word translated
dark sayings there in that particular place means an enigma or a mystery,
something that is a way of teaching at that particular time in history. Deuteronomy chapter 29 and verse
29 speaks of the secret thing that belonged to God and other
things that it is given unto us to know. And then there's
another aspect of this matter that I'll mention very quickly,
and that is like in Matthew 11, and verse 25, that Jesus said
there are certain things that are hidden from the wise and
the prudent and are revealed unto babes. So God does hide
certain things from certain ones while making revelation unto
others. And then, of course, here is
the conclusion that is to be made, and that is, as our Lord
said, Blessed are your ears, for they hear, and blessed are
your eyes, for they see. Blessed are they that have ears
to hear. unto whom God has given a revelation
and has opened them up. Proverbs said again, the seeing
eye and the hearing ear, the Lord has made even both of them. So if you can see and hear the
things of God, Proverbs 20 and verse 12, it is a result of the
work or the revelation of God. Now, we begin in our passage
in John chapter 6, and let us consider the overall context
of the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John. It is a very rich vein
of ore that is to be mined in this particular place in the
Word of God. In this chapter, John records
One of the few miracles of the Lord that he includes in his
gospel, and that's here in chapter 6, the feeding of the 5,000. And it contains another of the
several great I am's of the Lord that are included in the gospel
of John. Verse 35, I am the bread of life.
Again, In verse 48, I am that bread
of life. And in verse 51, I am the living
bread that came from God down from heaven. Now the Lord delivers. a discourse on him being the
bread of life and I'm not sure. It begins either at verse 26
or at verse 32 and it runs down through verse 59. These things
spake Jesus in the synagogue. Now the occasion of the Lord
saying these things was the recent feeding of of the multitude using
only a small lunch from a young lad that was there in the crowd,
verse 9 through verse 11, which was so multiplied in some great
way, some supernatural way, by the power of the Lord that actually
everyone ate all that they wanted and twelve baskets in excess
were gathered up from that crowd, and when they had all eaten to
their full satisfaction. Now you see the reaction of the
people, that while some took him to be the or that prophet,
that was to come into the world back in verse 14, which of course
is a quotation from Deuteronomy chapter 18 and verse 15. When they saw that, they desired
to make him a king, even by force. That's in verse 15. And some
only liked the prospect. of having their physical needs
met. And that's in verse 26. And he
would be a great worldly asset, they thought, unto him and the
people of Israel and the nation, that he might be able to supply
all of their carnal needs and rout their enemies from having
an oversight on them. Now, this is kind of the same
spirit prevails today in the health and the wealth movement.
They want Jesus to make them healthy, wealthy, and prosperous,
and give them fine things and a wonderful life in this world. Verse 27 is a sort of a pivotal
or a transitional verse as we look upon it wherein the Lord
transitions now from the physical to the spiritual. He transitioned their thinking
and their mind away from the material and the earthly and
the physical and under that spiritual bread or food that is everlasting
life. One for the body but the other
for the soul and for the spirit. One that perishes with the eating
as in verse 27 labor not for toil not for that perishing bread
but that bread that endures and remains unto eternal life. Then see the source of that bread
of life, which the Son shall give unto you. Now the Lord makes
a stupendous claim here in this
place and again repeats it in this chapter of the scripture. He is the giver of eternal life. He is the bread of life. With the subject at hand, He
is that living bread that has come down from heaven. Verse
35, He that comes to me shall never hunger again. He shall have his hunger perpetually
satisfied and shall never hunger again. But look at the last words
in verse 27. Him has God the Father sealed. Meaning the Son, Christ, the
Messiah, the very Son of God is sealed by the Father. That is, He acts in the name
and the authority of God the Father. He is sealed and he is
set apart to this work. And he acts as God's direct representative
in this matter of dispensing the bread of life. What he does
or what he hears from the Father, that he does and that he said. Now, the Jews bring up the fact
here. Look, our fathers ate manna in
the wilderness, and no doubt they are citing a passage of
scripture. Psalm 78 and verse 24 and 25
says this, And he rained down manna upon them to eat, and had
given them the food, or the corn, of heaven. Man did eat angels'
food, sent them meat to the full." Psalm 78, 24, and 25. Again, in Nehemiah chapter 9
and verse 15. And gave them bread from heaven
for their hunger. In Exodus 16 and verse 4. You have the beginning of the
manna, and you have the laws governing its gathering, its
eating, and its use. And it lasted 40 years until
they reached the border of the land of Canaan, Exodus 16. And verse 35, and for all those
40 years, manna fell every day except the Sabbath day in the
camp of Israel. Then notice, our Lord here responds
in two points concerning the manna that was given unto Israel. And I'd like to read verse 32
and 33. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you,
Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but my Father gives
you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he that
comes down from heaven and gives life unto the world. Now point
one here that the Lord is making and that is that that bread or
that manna to Israel in the wilderness which the fathers ate and were
sustained in the body, it was not the true bread of God. It was not the true bread of
God, not that that gives eternal life. For verse 32, my father
gives the true bread from heaven. And verse 51, I am the living
bread which came down from heaven. Now the manna in the wilderness
only preserve their bodies and their natural life. and their
natural ability. It nourished only the flesh. It went into the belly, not into
the heart. Then it went out in the draught,
as our Lord says in Mark 7 and verse 19. So let us consider
something written long ago by a man named John Brown in his
writings, the Discourses and the Sayings of our Lord. And
that is that the life giving bread from God comes down from
heaven and is in a far higher sin, the manna, than that was
given in the wilderness which they ate. John Brown said the
manna was formed in the atmosphere, or he called it the aerial heavens. and lighted in their camp each
and every day. The lower heavens, as another
man said, not actually from the very heaven of heavens and the
throne of God. And before we get upset, consider
a couple of things. A. The rain in the day of the
flood of Noah says there, God opened the windows of heaven. Do we imagine that the rain actually
came from the heaven of heaven and from the throne of God? And
then B. The fire and the brimstone upon Sodom is said to be rained
upon Sodom from the Lord God out of heaven. Genesis 19 and
verse 24, which according to the concordance can mean the
lofty place or the high place, the sky, the place where the
celestial bodies dwell, and revolve in their appointed course. But again, the point of contrast
is this. Moses did not give you the true
bread of life. Moses did not give you bread
that led to life eternal. God sent the true bread of eternal
life in Jesus Christ, his blessed and only Son. Now point two,
concerning the manna. In John 6, 49, your fathers did
eat manna in the wilderness. Now he grants that they had manna,
manna from God, manna from heaven. but not of their raising, not
of their mixing, not of their forming, and such like. Manna
from on high supernaturally formed out of nothing and delivered
unto them daily. However, In spite of this, every
day, they had manna and they had quail. Good diet to eat. In spite of that, they died.
Now the Lord emphasized that. They ate, they lived their mortal
lives by that, and they died. They ate the manna and are dead,
lying in their graves. They ate their bread or manna
from heaven, still they died. A fact that no rational Jew could
possibly deny. Both things are true. They ate
the supernaturally provided manna from heaven, still they died. That is, they are dead. Not only
did they all eat the manna and succumb to physical death, but
many of them who ate of that physical manna actually perished
in their sin in eternal death. Contrasted with that, the Lord
says, I am the bread of life. Moses did not give you the true
bread. I am the bread of life. I'm the bread of life, verse
35, verse 48, verse 51. all of those statements as we
have already read. And then in verse 58 is the summation
of his lesson. This is that bread which came
down from heaven not as your fathers did eat manna and are
dead. He that eats of this bread shall
live forever." Now the contrast is very clear. They who ate manna
means and then they all died. They ate it every day of their
life, including Moses, who was given the instruction and directions
toward that. And Aaron, the high priest, ate
it, and they too are dead. True descendants of Abraham ate
that manna in the wilderness And they all died, if I may wax
poetic, with their stomachs full of the manna that God sent down
in their camp. Yet one who eats the true heavenly
bread, which is the Lord Jesus Christ, shall live forever, shall
never die. And of course the Lord himself
speaks not of physical death, but of spiritual death and life. For saints die physically as
well as do sinners. They die the physical death in
the same way, sometimes more horrible than the wicked. Now,
I kept seeing in this chapter more and more likenesses and
resemblances to that woman of Samaria at the well in John chapter
4 of his Gospel, looking at the same kind of reaction to both
the Lord and his hearer. The difference is being this,
in John chapter 4 it was one person only, a single audience,
a woman, a woman of Samaria come to draw water at the well, one
person only. In John chapter 6, it is a multitude. Many people. How many lasted
to that synagogue service? I don't know. In John 4, the
spiritualized element there was water, and the spiritualized
element in John chapter 6 is bread, or the bread of life,
living bread. For example, let's make some
comparison. In John 4 and 12, the woman said, Our father Jacob
gave us this well and drank himself." In John 6.31, the Jews said,
our fathers did eat manna in the wilderness. In both cases,
however, they died. In John 4.14, The Lord told a five times married
woman, the water that I give you shall be in you a well of
water springing up unto eternal life. And in John 6 and 54, whoso
eats my flesh has eternal life. In John 4 and 11, The woman said
to Jesus, look, the well is deep. You have nothing to draw with.
Whence have you this water? And here in John 6, 52, how can
this man give us his flesh to eat? You don't have a bucket
or rope. How can you draw from the deep
well? How can you, this man, give us his flesh to eat? Again,
John 4, 15, the woman said unto him, Sir, give me this bread
or water that I thirst not, neither come here to draw again. And
in John 6 and 34, they said unto him, Lord, evermore give us this
bread. The likenesses. Now the conclusion,
this American woman Never expected to meet Messiah sitting thirsty
on the curb of Jacob's well. Never in a million years would
she have ever expected that. And the people of Nazareth. The people of Nazareth never
expected to see a fellow townsman claiming that he is from God
and is the Messiah. Now two things in John 6 proved
hard sayings unto the Jew in Nazareth. Let's look at verse
41 and 42. The Jews murmured at him because
he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. And they
said, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and
mother we know? How is it that he said, I came
down from heaven? Now we talked about this a week
or so ago. They were familiar with him as
a member of the family of Joseph and of Mary. He had grown up
in their town. and they knew about it. And they
could not reconcile his claim to being the bread of life and
coming down from heaven with what they had seen of him in
their town. Who is he making himself to be? What kind of claim is this? They say from one that we have
known most of our life. He lived in our town. How this
claim that he came down from heaven. When was he in heaven? Can anything good come out of
Nazareth, they ask, in John chapter 1. And there are other factors
that might have weighed in on their attitude toward Jesus of
Nazareth and their reaction unto him, such as, number one, his
lowly circumstances. This man was not raised in exuberance
of influence or any of that sort of thing. He was not raised in
a king's house like Moses was in the book of Exodus. He came
from and was a member of a lowly family in Israel. They were not
wealthy and they were not prominent people in that city. They were
not socialite, they were commoners as we might say. Descendants
they were of the diminished glory of the house and line of David
who had fallen into a low ebb. Joseph a carpenter who and marry
a homemaker with their children. Isaiah calls the Lord, in Isaiah
53 and verse 1, a tender shoot out of a dry ground. If you can
just picture that in your mind. John Brown writing on Isaiah
53 and verse 1 said, the image in the prophet's mind is of a
little slender shoot from the root of a decayed tree that seemed
dead." And that was the house of David in that particular time. We used to call them suckers.
A little sucker come up out of the side and we think nothing's
going to come of it, it'll bear no fruit. A lot of times you
just break it off, you know, from plants. in the garden of
the country. But secondly, there's another
thing. Not only are we looking at his
low circumstances, but his lowly personal appearance may have
stumbled them as well. Isaiah adds this, in Isaiah chapter
53 and verse 2, that great, great prophecy. This, from the Jew. He has no form or comeliness. and when we shall see him there
is no beauty that we should desire him. Now these words are understood
by those knowledgeable with the Hebrew as meaning he had neither
form nor splendor that we should regard him nor appearance that
we should desire him." In other words, there was nothing about
his physical that marked him as being the extraordinary one
that he was. Paul said in Philippians 2, 7,
and 8, he was made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion
as a man, he humbled himself. The Samaritan woman took him
to be a man and a Jew. As she saw him, she recognized
that nationality. There are two extremes as to
the appearance of the God-man that have existed in Christendom
of old, from a long time ago. Number one, there's the view
of some of the early writers, and I call it some of their name,
Justin Martyr. Clemens, Tertullian, that the
Lord's body had some kind of deformity. That as He appeared
among men, He had some kind of a deformity, and that's how they
interpret Isaiah's prophecy. But the second one, a view conceived
in the fourth or the fifth century, and held probably to this day,
that the Lord had the most extraordinary physical appearance, and even
might have glowed, and might have been glowing around him,
neither of which we believe to be true from the scripture. The
confession of the penitents in Isaiah 53 is they at first stumbled
at the lowly appearance of the Messiah. In that, there was nothing
in his physical appearance to capture their notice, to win
their regard, or to awaken their admiration. I read one old-time
writer named Durham expressed it this way, quote, the lack
of comeliness does not refer to any personal defect in the
Lord's human nature, but concerns also the manner of his life,
that he was lowly and that he was common, minus any external
grandeur, pomp, or splendor which the world esteems as valuable,"
unquote, so that our Lord did not glow as he walked about. The Lord humbled himself in all
that he did. even in the family that raised
him in the flesh, and even in his outward appearance and carriage
of himself. Why did no one suspect that he
was Messiah before this time until he openly declared? And you know, all of this greatly
stumbled and offended the Jew that heard the claims of our
Lord to that generation that he appeared to, and especially
to his becoming the bread of life and having come down out
of heaven. Now the Jew put great stock in
the manna that fell among them that their fathers did eat in
the wilderness, calling it bread from heaven in verse 31, and
challenging the Lord in verse 30. What sign do you show? What do you work? That is, that
we should believe on you, follow you, serve you, and worship you.
What will you show unto us as confirmation? Now, question. Do they count the manna in the
wilderness that came to their fathers? A greater miracle by
far than Jesus' recent feeding of the 5,000. Many of them have
been witnessing that he did it one time. One time and one time
only. And that it came every day except
the Sabbath unto Israel. Every day except the Sabbath.
Manna was on the ground and the Lord fed 5,000 this one time
and He used existing food while the
manna came invisibly known to them. A smaller number the Lord
fed, for the manna fed thousand upon thousand, day after day
after day. And it lasted 40 years, all the
time that they were in the wilderness. Whatever the Lord repeated, repeatedly
calls himself the true and life-giving bread out of heaven, from God
to give eternal life, not just to the Jew, but to the world,
came to give life unto the world. Verse 35, I'm the bread of life,
he that comes to me shall never hunger. Verse 48 through verse
50, I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in
the wilderness and are dead. This is the bread which came
down from heaven that a man may eat thereof and not die. Verse 51, again, I am the living
bread which came down from heaven. Now this is a hard saying indeed. For how can this man give us
his flesh to eat? And in verse 53 through verse
58 are the hardest saying of all. We read them in the beginning. What is it to eat his flesh and
drink his blood in this context of the Blessed Scripture? Now
we know it is not cannibalism, not literally the eating of the
flesh or the actual eating of the flesh of the Lord. And we
reject that doctrine of transubstantiation invented by the Catholic that
in the mass the wafer and the wine actually become literally
the blood and body of the Lord while retaining the appearance
of the wine and of the wafer. We reject also the consubstantiation
of the Lutherans that comes and is actually present in the supper
of the Lord, the bread, the body, and the blood of our Lord. So
let's look at some words that are important and relevant to
the context, such as hunger and thirst in verse 35, eat and drink
in verse 54, come and believe, and even in verse 45, heard and
learned. and come unto me. Now the hunger
and the thirst are not physical, but they are spiritual. Matthew
5 and verse 6. Blessed are they that hunger
and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. They
drink iniquity like water when they're unconverted. Job chapter
15 verse 16. Therefore, the eating his flesh
and drinking his blood are not literal and actual in either,
nor is the wine the actual blood, nor is the bread the actual flesh,
but the symbols of them unto the church. He says, verse 54,
55, And 56, who eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal
life. Verse 55, my flesh is meat indeed,
my blood is drink indeed. And verse 56, he that eats my
flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me and I in him. So let's look at verse 35 again,
where the Lord speaks of he that comes to me. He that believes
on me. and appends the words, he that
comes to me shall never hunger, he that believes on me shall
never thirst. And verse 40, everyone who seeth
the sun and believes on him hath everlasting life. Now the point
is, to eat and to drink is synonymous with coming and believing in
this passage of the scripture. But this coming and this believing
is not the easy believism preached in the Armenian world today,
as the Lord throws divine sovereignty into the mix here in this chapter
that we look at, that none believe or come apart from an inward
supernatural work of God. You see verse 35, he that comes
and believe. Verse 36, you have seen me and
you believe not. But, verse 37, all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me, him that cometh I will in no wise
cast out. There is again verse 40, this
is the will of him that sent me that everyone that seeth the
Son and believes on him may have everlasting life and I will raise
him up at the last day. Verse 44, no man can come to
me except the Father which has sent me draw him and I will raise
him up. We read the other day, verse
64 and 65 of this chapter, There are some of you that believe
not, for Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that
believed not and who should betray him. And he said, therefore,
I say unto you, No man can come unto me except it were given
unto him of my father. Now, verse 37 alone has three
of the doctrines of grace in it, taught by the Lord. Election,
irresistible calling, and persevering. Now, the point in his saying
these things The unbelief of many will not overthrow the will
or the purpose of God. For all that are given to him,
it is the will of God that they come. Be not surprised at these
sayings of mine, the Lord seems to say, for they need the unction
of God. to understand divine drawing
in order that they might submit unto the Lord. These sayings
of mine are in accord with the will of God, my only Father,
and what he has given me to do I have come and am doing it. Let me ask you to consider something
as we draw nearer close this morning. Let's think about this
in each one of our individual lives. The fact that you are
not a Christian believer, that you have no desire for Christ
or heart for the gospel or love for the church. Is it because
you just haven't decided yet to take an interest in those
things? Is it because you just haven't decided yet which way
you want to go and what you want to do about religion? Or is it
that you're not ready yet, like some people say? Or is it that
God has not, as of yet, done a work in your heart or in the
heart? Which is it? You say, I just
haven't decided yet. I'll get around to it in time.
What if God never works that work? Oh, that he would. Oh,
that he would. That work must be done for one
to have an interest in Christ. We call it regeneration, call
it the new birth, new life, whatever. But see how the world hates the
message of Christ. Oh, they love little baby Jesus
and they love the social reformer and all of that. They really
hate the message of Christ, that he's the only way to God and
the only way to heaven, that he alone saves and he saves only
by grace, not out of anything that we are or have done or that
we could do. Now these are hard sayings to
the believer, to the unbeliever, and to the religionist. Some
say that word hard means stiff or dry and they declare these
things to be hard to hear, hard to understand, hard to accept,
hard to receive. As Peter said, Paul wrote some
things that are hard to be understood and that results in them perverting
it to their destruction. Certain things hard to be understood,
which they that are ignorant and unlearned pervert to their
destruction. They just make it to mean whatever
they want it to mean, though they can't understand it and
actually give the true meaning, but they make it to mean something
and actually twist it to the perversion of themselves and
maybe unto others as well. Yes, these are hard sayings,
but not to the child of God who has an ear to hear, a heart to
understand, a mind to see, an eye to see. Thank God for them
being revealed. We have no problem at all with
our Lord saying, I'm the bread of life. He that eats of me has
everlasting life and shall never hunger. We have no problem with
that at all. Though it be a deep and mysterious
saying.