The New Testament has so much
from our Lord in this chapter, but we can only take a part of
it. Verse 35, Then Jesus said unto
them, I am the bread of life, he that cometh to me shall never
hunger, he that believeth on me shall never thirst. But I
said unto you that ye also have seen me, And believe not, all
that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that comes
to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven,
not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father's will
which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me, I should
lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that
sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth
on him, may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up
at the last day." The Jews therefore murmured at him because he said,
I am the bread which came down from heaven. And they said, that
is the Jews, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father
and mother we know? How is it then that he says,
I came down from heaven? Jesus therefore answered and
said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves, No man can come to
me except the Father which hath sent me draw him, and I will
raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets,
and they shall all be taught of God. Every man, therefore,
that hath heard and hath learned of the Father cometh unto me. Not that any man has seen the
Father, save he which is of God. He has seen the Father. And of course, the Lord is talking
about Himself. Now, in this passage of Scripture,
one thing is very quickly evident immediately as we read these
texts. And that is, the number of times,
even in this short passage of the Scripture, that the Lord
refers to teaches and confirms what we are accustomed to calling
the doctrines of grace. One after another, our Lord declares
openly to the people the various aspects of them without apology. He does not couch it in less
offensive words. He speaks it out and speaks it
openly without watering it down or without weakening it in any
way. And even clustering together
what we call the doctrines of grace, that we might gather the
sweet fruit off of this tree of our Lord's blessed teaching. For example, if you look at verse
37 here in John chapter 6, I believe we have three of the doctrines
of grace in this one verse of Scripture. John 6, 37. A. There is election. All that
the Father giveth unto me. Then B. There is Irresistible
grace are calling. They shall come to me. And then see, there is preservation. I will in no wise cast them out. Now there runs the gamut of salvation. What the Father gives me shall
come to me. I will in no wise cast them out. He also emphasizes that He will
accomplish all that the Father had sent Him down from Heaven
to do, in verse 39. And He makes a strong declaration
of human inability in the 44th verse of this great chapter.
Now, these texts here, John 6, follow after the feeding of the
5,000. Do you remember that miracle? We studied it here a while back. A miracle in which our Lord multiplied
a little boy's small lunch, to not only feed all the multitude,
but to have twelve basketfuls left over or remaining. Twelve baskets more than he began
with after feeding the five thousand. And the matter was carried over
to the next day. If you look back at verse 22
of this chapter, there was a good bit of fallout And it continued
from both the miracle itself and from the application which
the Lord makes. And the controversy then shifts
to Capernaum, if you will look at verse 17 and again at verse
24 in this same chapter, when the people saw the miracle of
bread. That our Lord fed 5,000 with
a little boy's lunch. Some of them said, In verse 14
of the chapter, truly this is that prophet that should come
into the world. For the prophets had spoken of
a special one. Moses had promised a special
prophet like unto himself. But then in verse 15, some were
of a mind to draft the Lord that He might become a king. And Jesus perceived their intention,
withdrew Himself, sent His disciples over the sea, and they came to
Capernaum. And many followed there. Many
followed and came across the sea. And the Lord, when He meets
with them, exposes their motive. And He rebukes their blindness
and their half-hearted embrace of Him and His person. Then in
verse 26, He said, you saw only the carnal side of the miracle. They were more impressed by what
was in their belly than what was in their soul. And they craved natural bread
more than the spiritual. So in verse 27 then, the Lord
exhorts them to focus upon that spiritual bread rather than upon
the carnal. In verse 28, they ask, what must
we do that we might work the works of God? What is it that
you recommend us to do? What is it that you are exhorting
us to do? Verse 29, Jesus says, Believe
on the one whom God has sent. And of course, that was Himself.
Then in verse 30 and 31, They asked the Lord for a confirming
sign, such as to surpass the miracle of manna by Moses when
their fathers ate manna. And their fathers ate manna not
out of a basket passed out by human hand, but their fathers
ate manna that actually came down or rained down from heaven. In verse 32 and 33, The Lord
corrects them. He says, Moses did not give you
that spiritual bread, but Moses gave you that material or physical
bread. The true bread is He that comes
down from heaven and gives His life for the life of the world. Then in verse 34, as we move
along, so much resembles the conversation that went on between
the Lord and the Samaritan woman back in John chapter 4. And their respective responses,
the Jews here, the woman of Samaria in John chapter 4, are so much
alike. She, the woman of Samaria, said
to our Lord after hearing Him awhile, Lord, give me this water. that I come not hither to draw. And they," that is the Jews here,
said, Lord, evermore give us this bread. To which the Lord
tells them, I am the bread of life. Now verse 36 is a strong
rebuke as well as an expression of their carnality. In spite
of their limited responses and seeming acceptances of his teaching,
and though they were not open haters and violent enemies of
our Lord, but even in seeing and hearing him in person. Yet they were not true believers
either, having not believed on him in a spiritual way, in spite
of seeing the mighty works that our Lord had just performed. Now this proves something if
we might make a point before we move along, and that is that
miracles of themselves, and even sound teaching in and of itself,
will not convert a sinner to Christ apart from an inward work
of divine grace. Mere outward influences and outward
sentimentality and outward emotion are not sufficient to make one
a true believer in Christ. The gospel can be preached ever
so truthfully, but it may be heard in word only, as in 1 Thessalonians
chapter 1 and verse 5. And some in the Lord's day even
attributed His casting out of demons to the work of Beelzebub,
the prince of devils, when they saw it in Matthew 21 and 24. The Lord cast out demons. And
His enemies said, oh, He's doing that by the power of Beelzebub. And then beginning in our text
at verse 37, the Lord interjects the sovereignty of God into the
issue. down through verse 45. Our Lord makes that strong connection. And though it may not seem obvious,
there is a definite connection and relation between verse 36
and verse 37. Don't miss it. In verse 36 He
says to them, You have seen Me and believe not. That is, you
have not come to Me. You have not believed upon Me. You have not believed that I
am the bread of life that has come down from heaven. You have
not tasted that the Lord, He is gracious. You have not sought
the meat that endures unto eternal and everlasting life. And yet, in verse 37 of the chapter,
I shall not want for a people. He's telling them, you have seen,
you have heard, you have not believed. That does not mean
that I will be without a people. Even though you believe not,
I will have disciples and I will have followers. Your unbelief
will not frustrate the will of God that He has sent me to do. Not that the Word of God has
failed because you have not believed. For he says this, All that the
Father giveth me shall come unto me. Now the Lord here is, as
Calvin said, distinguishing between the elect and the reprobate. He says to them, You do not believe
or come to me, but all given to Me by the Father, they come
unto Me." And the Lord makes the same kind of distinction
in John chapter 10, if you remember. As He says to those opposing
Him in John 10, verse 26 through verse 28, you believe not because
you are not My sheep. Now don't turn that around. He
did not say, you are not My sheep because you do not believe. But
He said, you do not believe because you are not My sheep. He says, My sheep hear My voice. I know them. They follow Me. I give unto them eternal life.
They shall never perish. And by the way, these are sheep
before they are found by the Lord, or before they are converted
or believed. So even so, in John 6, 37 through
verse 40, the Lord declares, all of them given to Him by the
Father will come unto Him. For I came down from heaven to
do the will of Him that sent Me. In verse 38, His will is
that I should lose none of it, but raise it up at the last day."
That's in verse 39. And the Father's will is that
everyone that believes on the Son may have eternal life, and
I will raise Him up at the last day. That's in verse 40 of the
text that we read. Now before we move on and close
in more, focusing upon our text, let's look at something in verse
37, please, where it is expressed in a very special way in the
Greek, where those knowledgeable of the Greek say that the first,
all that the Father gives me, such expositors as J.C. Ryle and as David Brown and John
Gill and Linsky, these that are familiar with the Greek languages,
point out that there is the neuter singular that is used in this
place. And it means everything or the
whole. All, everything, the whole that
the Father hath given unto me. The whole mass given unto Christ
and viewed collectively. What Gil calls the whole body
of the elect. Or the whole election of grace. Then, also in verse 37, comes
a masculine gender, he or him. First he says, all, the whole,
or everything that the Father giveth me shall come to me. And
he, particularly and in the masculine gender, will come unto me, and
I will not ever cast him out." Now in verse 41 and verse 42,
the unbelieving Jews of that day murmured at the Lord's teaching
and at Himself, being offended at the Lord's words. They were
insulted, offended. They took offense. at what the
Lord was teaching, especially at His claim of being the true
and the living bread, having come down from heaven. Because,
look, in their ignorance and in their blindness, they could
not in their mind reconcile His claim with the fact that He was
known as Jesus of Nazareth. They could not reconcile that
He had come down from heaven to do God's will when they said,
we know Him. This is Jesus. We know His mother. We know His Father. And Matthew
13, 15-56, they said also, we know His brothers and we know
His sisters. And in Luke 4 and 22, they knew
Him as Joseph's son. The idea is He was raised. here among us. And yet he claims
to have come down from the Father out of heaven. Thus it is easy
to see why so many see Jesus as no more than a common, ordinary
type of man. Even in our day, that's all people
grant to Jesus. That He just was a common, ordinary
man like all others. For they remember He was born
a babe in Bethlehem's manger, raised in the home of Mary and
of her husband Joseph. And they see no further than
His manhood or His humanity. They fashion Him a man like themselves
and no more, and possessed with human feelings and emotions like
all other men are. Now this is essentially the view
of reprobates and apostates from the truth as it is in Christ
and in the gospel. For one's view of Jesus Christ
more than anything else identifies their confession of Christianity. So the Lord Jesus confronts them
and he explains their murmuring And he tells them why they do
not believe on Him or come to Him, why they cannot believe
upon Him, even though He has come down from the Father out
of heaven. But especially notice in the
text why they did not espouse Him as one come from God. Why they did not come to Him,
believe on Him, Why they had no heart or mind for the Savior. No spiritual heart or mind for
the Savior. Just how much can you feed us?
How much can you help us by your miracles? And wouldn't you like
to be king and deliver us from Rome? And see how the Lord answers
them. First, in verse 43, if you would,
He bids them cease their murmuring. as to whether he was come from
God or was merely a lowly son of Joseph. You will notice he
does not reason with them. He does not seek to persuade
them. He does not try to shame them
or rebuke them into believing. He does not appeal to their national
patriotism as Jews, nor does he appeal to them to make some
sort of a decision right there on the spot, or to exercise their
free wills unto salvation. He says nothing of any of these
things. Instead, in verse 44, the Lord
takes occasion from their action and reaction to declare the total
inability of the natural man to savingly come to or savingly
believe on the Lord apart from electing inward grace. The Lord tells them very clearly,
you cannot come or believe except you are drawn by My Father. Look at it. Murmur not among
yourself. Your reaction is normal for no
man, no one, Not any can come to Me or believe on Me except
unless or until the Father draw him unto Himself. Compare this with verse 65 in
the same chapter. No man can come to Me except
it were given to him by the Father. Many went away from our Lord,
when they heard His deep teaching, and walked with Him no more,
the Scripture said. He said to the disciples, some,
will you also go away? No, they say, you have the words
of eternal life. And that's when the Lord tells
them, no man can come unto Me except it were given unto him
by My Father. Years ago, I preached a series
of sermons one after another, showing that the Lord Himself
taught all five of what we call the doctrines of grace. And in
John 6.45 and 6.65, the Lord declares the doctrine of human
inability, of spiritual impotence on the part of those dead in
their sin, that there is not in any unregenerate person, the
ability to believe or to come or receive the Lord apart from
a supernatural, inward divine work of God's grace. A spiritual
renewal must take place in the heart and in the soul. A renewal
that only the Spirit of God can effect. He cannot come in his
own strength. He cannot respond to the Gospel
or the Word of God by his free will, for his will is enslaved
along with all of his other faculties. It should be pointed out, this
inability is not just physical, but it is a moral inability,
or should we say it is a spiritual inability to come, for one, to
leave their sins and to come unto the Lord. For as the Lord
spoke, there were those who had come to Him. They had come with the moving
of their feet. They had come across the Sea
of Gennesaret. They had paddled their boat.
They had come, in that physical sense, to Capernaum. And they
sought out the Lord back in verse 24. But as to the spiritual matter,
the Lord as a food provider is all they sought out of Him. A
miracle worker, even a candidate for king who could elevate their
nation to a grand status. Now this is one of the evils,
my brothers and sisters, of the invitation system come practiced
in our day nearly everywhere. For it is generally thought that
coming down an aisle and coming to the front is synonymous with
coming to the Lord. Or that coming to membership
in a church is one and the same with coming to Christ. All can
do these things. They can move their feet and
shuffle and do such. But none can believe And none
can come to Christ except God draw them. And that's in verse
45. And it can't be any plainer than
how it is written. Accept it. Be a gift of God. Again, in verse 65. For faith
is not native to the unregenerate, natural, and carnal heart. Now this is a very offensive
truth to natural religion and to moral people in the world.
For the favorite notion of people is that they have a free will
which alone decides whether they shall be saved or not saved,
whether they shall believe or not believe, whether they shall
repent or not repent. And it is taught that God must
not violate the free will of man in the saving of a sinner. I would submit to you two areas
where it is violated grossly, and that is sickness upon a bed
and the matter of death. Who is there that willingly enters
into that? Again, this is an humbling truth,
for man has a soul to be saved, or a soul to be lost, and he
cannot control the saving of his soul, cannot set it in motion. cannot even kindle in himself
the desire to be saved. He cannot come to the only one
that can save them, and if left to themselves, left under their
own desire and the power of their sin, they will perish. He can never, or she can never,
stir their own heart to seek after God. It must be a work
of the Father. Now, coming to v. 45 and v. 46. In v. 45, the Lord confirms what He
had said about inability. And He does so by referring to
the words of the prophet. Notice how our Lord does it.
It is likely that our Lord had in His mind that verse in Isaiah
54 and v. 13. At least this was one of
them. And it says this, And all thy
children shall be taught of the Lord. And that's what our Lord
is quoting here in verse 45. And see the connection between
children and taught. All thy children shall be taught. Then notice the Lord makes an
application in the last half of verse 45. Each one having
heard and having learned," that is,
each one that is taught by God, gives evidence of that teaching
by coming unto Me. Now in this passage there is
stated two things that are requisite or necessary to coming unto Christ. For one to come to Jesus and
their soul to be saved. Two things are requisite in our
text right here. A. The Father must draw. The Father must draw any that
will come unto Christ. Verse 37, The elect will come
to Christ, but not of their own will or desire. They will be,
for they must be, drawn by the Father to come to Christ. This
is stronger than the word we sometimes hear preachers talk
about the Holy Spirit wooing people. That the Holy Spirit
woos you. That that's all that He does.
If you look up the meaning of wooing, and Arminians talk about
the Holy Spirit is trying to woo you. He is wooing you this
morning to come. Arminians talk about, for to
woo is to seek the wind, the love, or the favor of one While
the word draw here in our text, which the Lord used, is the word
helco. That's one word. Helculo is another
word that is used in the New Testament, meaning to pull or
to drag. Now let me show you where that
word is used in other places, and it will give us a better
idea when our Lord said they must be drawn. In John 18 and
verse 10, it is the same word as Peter drew his sword. They would come to arrest the
Lord. Out of its scabbard, he drew
the sword out of its sheath. It is again in John 21, verse
6 and verse 11, both times applying to the drawing or the pulling
of a net full of fishes and drawing them or dragging them into the
shore. And in Acts 16 and verse 19,
you have that same word again which is translated, draw, in
John 6, 44 and 5, when Paul and Silas were arrested and they
were brought unto the rulers. And we read this, they caught
Paul and Silas and drew them into the marketplace unto the
rulers. They took hold of them and they
brought them. They took hold of them and they
guided them along to the rulers in the marketplace. Then there's
a second thing. They must be and they are taught
of God. Not only must God draw them,
but He must also teach them. For they cannot come except they
be drawn, neither can they learn of Christ, and come unto Him,
except they be taught the things of God." Isaiah said they shall
all be taught of God. Let us remember one tenet of
the covenant, the new covenant that God would make with Israel.
Jeremiah 31-34 quoted in Hebrews 8 and verse 11 is this, and they
shall not teach every man his neighbor or his brother, saying,
Know the Lord, for they all shall know Me from the least to the
greatest." That's a tenet of the New Covenant. God will put
His law in their heart. He will write His law upon their
heart. This is another way in which
the New Covenant differed from the Old. Under the old covenant,
there was more oral instruction given by the priest, while under
the new, the knowledge of the Lord will be conveyed by inward
illumination and by special revelation. For the Lord's promise, Jeremiah
31, 33, Hebrews 8 and 10, I will put my laws into their minds and write them
in their heart, and He promises, they shall know Me. Now these things cannot be separated
from the great internal work of regeneration that is performed
in God's people. It is a sovereign work of God
that proceeds faith, and it proceeds repentance, and it proceeds conversion. For these are not the causes,
but they are the fruit of regeneration. These things do not cause regeneration,
but they are the fruit. No one is teachable on the things
of God until they have a heart to know God. And none can have
a heart to know God until they are quickened, until they are
given that heart, until they are taught by the Lord. Paul
is clear on something in 1 Corinthians 2 and 14, and that is, speaking
of a spiritual wisdom there in that passage, he said, the natural
man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, and because
he cannot know them, they are foolishness unto him, and they
are foolishness unto him because they are Only spiritually discerned
are known. And of the first verse so many
times, the word translated discovered appears in the New Testament.
It is versely rendered, examine, search, judge, question. That's the word that is used
there in 1 Corinthians 2 and verse 14. They are spiritually
discerned. Now, the natural mind is incapable
of savingly understanding the mysteries in the hidden wisdom
of God and the salvation that is in Jesus Christ. And the sentiment
of the prophets, of the Lord, and of the author of the book
of Hebrews is, as John Brown, one of my favorite writers, put
it, that the kind of knowledge which is the glory of the new
covenant is knowledge which is not communicated from preacher
to preacher or brother to brother orally, but comes directly from
the Great Teacher, whose grand characteristic is that they whom
He teaches, He makes able to learn and to understand. Yes, concerning the special knowledge,
the Lord Himself spoke about it in John chapter 6 and verse
46, that He does not mean that such would be personally instructed
by God. Not that God would overly talk
to them or catch them up in the heavens or meet them up on a
fiery mount as He had done in other places in the Scripture.
And then, we must close, but there is text like 1 John 2,
20 and 21, and verse 27, to prove they need no human teachers.
Verse 20, you have an unction, an anointing, you know all things. Verse 21, You know the truth. And verse 27, you have received
the anointing, same as the word unction in verse 20 of that chapter. Need not, they say, have human
teachers at all. And they use these texts to pooh-pooh
the idea that they might have human teachers. But it seems
that these texts were meant to fortify them against false teachers
and doctrines of devils and antichrists. which were prevalent in their
day, and that it would be the Holy Spirit that would teach
them the truth of the gospel, and that when they heard error,
they would weigh the truth of the gospel against that error,
and therefore know the truth from the error. Conclusion. This inability of man cannot
be cured by mere words, even if they are gospel words or sound
theology, Just as blindness cannot be cured by shining the brightest
light imaginable in the eyes of the blind, and deafness cannot
be cured by making the loudest noise you can right outside of
the ear. There must be an effectual work
of God's Spirit. There must be an internal work,
an infusion of grace, a raising of the dead faculties up so that
they are spiritual. and imparting of a principle
of new life may come, whereby the heart out of that principle
is then inclined unto Christ and abhorrent of its own sins,
and embraces the Lord in the gospel when it is preached and
they believe. We should not expect any to respond
favorably to the gospel unless the eternal God is pleased to
open their heart, unstop their ears, and open their eyes. They would be acting contrary
to their nature until the Lord opens their eyes, ears, and understanding. Now, we can say but one thing
from this. Praise God for opening the hearts
of many. been given to Him. They have
been drawn. They have come. They have been
kept. And the Lord teaches us these
things in these passages of the Scripture, John 6 and again in
John chapter 10. So the Lord stood with us on
the doctrines of grace. Or maybe we should say we stand
with Him. He taught these things. The inability
of man, the depravity of man, He taught the perfect atonement. He taught irresistible grace.
He taught the preservation of the saints of God. All that the
Father giveth me shall come he that cometh. I will in no wise,
in no wise, in no wise, emphatically will I cast out. All right, thank
you for your attention. Let's stand together please for
a final prayer.