Clough John Lesson 33
Dwelling in Christ – John 6:41-59
Before we continue we’ll take a few minutes to go through some memory work on John. Last time we introduced the concept of association of the absurd, the illogical, exaggeration and so on, applying the system of Jerry Lucas to the Gospel of John. Actually his system applies to himself, we’re just simplifying for our congregational use. On Wednesday nights we worked with Matthew; on Sunday nights we’re working with John and we’re developing certain keys that we use; with John the key letter which we’ll define later on is F and for each chapter designate the numbers, and for each number we have a phonetic counterpart, T or D [can’t understand word] and N for two. So last time we came up with the word F and T, so we got the word “foot,” then we made a logical association between foot and the word which is the subject of chapter 1. And we thought of a foot with words all over it. Then, the second part of chapter 1, which concerns John the Baptist baptizing, one way of doing that is think of a foot baptizing people, and it works out real well because there are five disciples that appear and you can think of the toes dropping off and floating downstream after Christ. And so you’ve got the five disciples linked with John’s ministry. So that should remind you that whenever you see foot that you’ve got John 1 in mind, and when you think of John the Baptist now you’ll locate in Scripture exactly where he is, you can also cite now where the disciples first meet Jesus Christ.
John 2 deals with an F, and an N and so we
get the word “fan.” And fan becomes the
key word, it’s concrete and you can easily visualize and we associate fan with
two topics in chapter 2; the two topics in chapter 2 are the wedding that goes
on there and the cleaning of the temple.
And so it’s not too hard in copying and following Lucas, something the
more ridiculous you make it the easier it is, so you imagine a bride and a
groom that are fans. And they’re getting
married in back of a volcano, so you can think of
I’ve never been much for memorizing individual verses of Scripture because my observation of what happens after while is that you lose the big picture of what’s going on. It’s fine if you want to but I don’t think that’s the key point; the point is the overall argument and the reason why I think I’m right is because the Gospels themselves are written to be memorized by systems that they had current in that day. For example, some time if you want to see one of the memory systems that they used using exactly the key system, Psalm 119. Psalm 119 is written deliberately to be memorized by a key system; in that case they were using the Hebrew words, you can’t use it in English because when we translate it we kill their system. But in the original language if you wanted to memorize Psalm 119 in the Hebrew each section begins with a Hebrew letter of the alphabet and so you start off with Alef, that’s the first letter of the alphabet and all the verses in the first section begin with Alef. Then you go down with Bet, and then Gimel, and Dalet and all the Hebrew words, and this was written to be memorized systematically. We also find Jesus Sermon on the Mount was written to be memorized, not in verse by verse form but in overall idea. So if you want to play games use your sanctified or unsanctified imagination, then go ahead, but however you do it, get started learning to think your way through the Gospel. My introduction to this system was because I’ve observed people who are in pain, people who are dying and they are unable to listen to tapes, they’re unable to take in the Word of God, they’re unable to read their own notes and therefore in that kind of a situation it’s only the Word of God that you have in your heart that counts. And if it isn’t there then you have no means of sustaining yourself in time of pressure.
Let’s look at John 6:40 where we left off
last time. John 6 is one of the two
great chapters in the Bible on politics.
John 6 is against democracy and 1 Samuel 8 is against totalitarianism. Both chapters are balancing one another. John 6 is written to attack the autonomous
spirit involved in democratic ideas, democratic ideas as we are talking about
them refer to the sufficiency of man to legislate, that man has within his
limited ability together in society enough data, enough knowledge, enough
insight to come up with standards of right and wrong and so on, that all truth
is relative to the group, and we deny that.
That is an axiom of human viewpoint democracy and it’s against God’s
Word. No Christian can really a true democrat
in the Greek sense of the word because you can’t be a democrat in the Greek
sense of the word and also believe in the Word of God at the same time. So John 6 undermines that and when the
chapter begins Jesus Christ is at the height of His popularity. He’s never more popular numerically in the
nation
In John
Now we come to the
murmuring and the Jews respond to Christ exactly the way they responded to
Jehovah… exactly the way they responded to Jehovah in the Old Testament. So there’s an emphasis on continuity; in the
one sense Jehovah is the same as Jesus, in the other sense the rebellious
people of the Old Testament are the same as the rebellious people of the New
Testament. There’s a continuity flowing
in both directions. Now after they
murmur they murmured because Christ said I am the bread that came down from
heaven and beginning at this point they show what is always true of human
viewpoint. Human viewpoint is always
weakest where it thinks it’s the strongest.
And this crowd, the basic problem they have is they want Jesus to fit
into their mold. They have their plan
based on human viewpoint premise, they have their idea of what the kingdom
ought to be like and Jesus, come hell or high water, is going to fit into their
plan, they think. And Jesus Christ is
NOT going to fit in their plan, in fact He says you’re going to fit in mine or
you’re going to be thrown out. So it’s a
contest of agenda. Who’s agenda is going
to prevail. The agenda of the mob or the
agenda of Christ; one or the other but they both cannot prevail. So as they murmured because Christ said I am
the bread who came down from heaven, meaning I am the one who has authority
over you, they didn’t like to hear that.
And so they think they’ve got a refutable fact, they think they’ve got
something to go back to that completely and totally negate the claims of
Christ. As so often happens, people who
are anti-Biblical in their thinking always go back to one or two points and
it’s precisely those one or two points where they are weakest.
Now watch what they do,
they say in John
But in small towns,
particularly in rural areas people develop a certain kind of arrogance where
they think they know it all and nobody from the outside could possibly tell
them anything because they know everything from the time of day on to E=MC2
and they’re in no need for any person on
the outside to inform them on anything; they have everything under control and
they have an autonomous and very proud attitude, a really arrogant attitude. And this part of the country has a lot of
this arrogance in a lot of the small towns around here. And many of these small towns are very good
and healthy in many ways because of the rural background and nearness to God
but they are also unhealthy in various ways because of the various local
arrogance that develops, the “I will do it myself” attitude, this independent
attitude that I will do it regardless and I will now bow my knee to the
authorities of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the authority of His Word or anybody
else’s authority except my own. And of course with that kind of an attitude the
gospel is never going to go far and for that reason you find a lot of the local
areas here having very, very, very extremely poor Bible teaching because the
pastors, some of whom I have talked with, say it’s impossible to teach these
people anything because they know it all, they know more than the pastor.
And certain
denominations just trade off; it’s commonly known among certain denominations
that if you want to get out of the rut just do a lousy job and get promoted to
some place else where you can get out of here in 2 or 3 years. And as a result in some of these areas you
have a pastor come into the church every 2 or 3 years and the congregation has
the attitude when he walks in, well we were here before you were and we’ll be
here after you are and you can’t teach us anything. And as I told one pastor of a small town
close by Lubbock, I said the best thing you can do is stomp all over them, just
go in there and preach the Word, make sure you’re in context and just let ‘em
have it with both barrels; tell them they’re a bunch of ignoramuses that don’t
know anything, idiots don’t know Genesis from Revelation, they don’t know grace
from works, and just open up and you’ll get rid of the crowd that you don’t
want around, just drive them off. I told
him it took me eight years to do it here and so that’s what you have to do as a
pastor. You have to develop your own
style and people that don’t like it can leave; it’s one or the other, either
the congregation leaves or the pastor leaves, and so if it’s a contest I’ll
make sure I’m the one that stays. And
this is the whole principle that has to operate. And because seminary students have never been
taught this, they’ve been taught to kiss the feet of the board, they’ve been
taught to yield their principles anytime to a local group of characters that
think they know it all with the result that the Word of God is not being
taught, and it’s a very sad situation as you begin to talk over this situation as
you begin to talk over this situation with the pastors of some of these small
churches; men who are trying their best to teach the Word of God, utterly
unappreciated, utterly unhelped by the congregation, it’s atrocious, and those
people are going to pay a price for it, they’re going to pay a serious price
for it because they’re out of line.
Well, it’s the same
thing here, in verse 42 you have this local arrogance that develops; why, we’ve
lived in this town all our lives, we know everything there is to know about
this town. And it’s precisely that
arrogance that masks their negative volition because you see, the point is that
they don’t know; the true Father of the Lord Jesus Christ is God the Father. And therefore He can say “I come down from
heaven” because I was virgin born by the Holy Spirit. This undermines the principle. This principle often carries over, this
problem of arrogance into something like evolution. The people who are for
evolution always are so certain of the uniformitarian principle. They are so
certain that the present is the key to the past; they are so certain that the
universe has always gone on the way it has gone on, it’s a matter of faith and
it’s precisely that point that undermines the whole concept because the
universe hasn’t always gone on with that and because their foundation is wrong
their entire house is wrong.
John
John
Then he goes on, notice
by the way this phrase, “I will raise him up.”
Look in verse 39, you’ll see, “I will raise him up at the last
day.” Look at verse 40, “I will raise
him up at the last day.” Look at verse
44, “I will raise him up at the last day.”
Look at verse 54, “I will raise him up at the last day.” Why the emphasis of constantly raising him up
on the last day and raising him on the last day? It’s because Jesus Christ is saying to these
people that I am going to take care of you physically, you are going to get
your physical resurrection body, but the spiritual principles come first. This is what the amills have never been able
to understand. You’re going to have a
physical kingdom in history but that physical kingdom cannot come until the
spiritual comes first; the spiritual always precedes the physical. So right now at this era, during this Church
Age, a covenant, people that are beneficiaries of the New Covenant are being
called out as the royal family to rule that future kingdom. But the family has to be trained, they have
to be brought out into the open, they have to be tested, they have to
understand Scripture and respond to Scripture by faith and then the physical kingdom will come. It’s the same principle here Christ
says. You believe in Me first and I’ll
take care of the end point. You take
care of this first point. So He cites
both ends of His plan.
Now John 6:45, He backs
His dogmatic statement of verse 44 up by saying, “As it has
been written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God.” Now if you’ll turn back to Isaiah 54:13
we’ll see where that was taken from.
This is a prediction of the millennial kingdom, and during the millennial
kingdom, according to this prediction, you have the operation of the New
Covenant. Part of that New Covenant is
universal spiritual training. And so we
find in verse 13, “All thy children shall be taught of the Lord.” Who were the children? The children are the believers who begin the
millennium. And they will all be taught
of God. Now to be taught means not only
that God will do the teaching but that they will do the receiving. So this verse, according to Christ’s own
interpretation is saying that when the millennium begins, when the New Covenant
comes into full effect, there will be every person in the population, 100%
regeneration, and this means that it will be a basic responsiveness to the Word
of God like the world has never seen. It
is going to be absolutely fantastic; you are going to have people who are
engaged in every industry… now don’t think of the millennium as some reverting
back to growing grapes in first century Palestine some place; I’m sure they’ll
have vineyards but the point is they’ll have mechanized agriculture, and
they’ll have a lot of industry, heavy industry.
And by the way, much to the chagrin of a lot of people there’s going to
be big business in the millennium. This
is another little favorite song and dance that’s going on, that all our ills
are due to big business. Now if it
wasn’t for big business you wouldn’t have half the food on the table you
have. It’s big business that has brought
us the oil; it is big business that has brought us most of our food; it is big
business that puts the clothes on your back; big business has done a lot of
things; big business supports small business, and it’s big business that makes
the country great. It’s big business
every time you pick up a telephone and use it.
Did you ever stop to think of it; that telephone be there and long lines
wouldn’t be there and intercontinental communications wouldn’t be there without
big business so don’t you knock big business.
Yea, there are some clods in big business but there are some clods in
little business. There’s nothing
inherently wrong with big business; far more evil than big business is big
government.
We have, then, in the
millennium a wonderful condition where you have big business, small business,
there will be free enterprise, you will have produces; everybody will be a producer, people will be responding to the
Word of God; they will be subduing the earth, there won’t be social parasites
living off of someone else’s tax money. There will always be people who are
productive in every way. The people who
are the artists and the musicians will come out with some of the most brilliant
creations the human race has ever seen. There will be an immense time, when
humanity corporately will flourish, but it all starts spiritually; they shall
all receive doctrinal teaching and they will bow their knee to it, that is they
will pick it up, they’ll learn it, they’ll use it, and this is what makes the
millennium great; there will be a universally responsive population.
Now let’s go back and
look at the context of John 6, Jesus takes this verse and uses it for His claim
of verse 44. He says that “No man can
come unto Me unless the Father drag him, as it is written,” or He’s saying,
right after verse 45, showing why He says it, “It is written,” “It has been
written, that they shall all be taught of God.”
In other words, Jesus is arguing that in the future
That’s why He concludes
in verse 45 by saying, “Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned
of the Father, cometh unto Me.” So the
principle Christ is making is that that New Covenant, the New Covenant promised
by John the Baptist, the New Testament promised by the Old Testament prophets,
this New Covenant is coming and we can draw a little door here and say only
people going through that door are people who are on positive volition to the
Word of God and therefore Jesus says since I am calling out the people for that
future kingdom the only people on My platform are going to be people who submit
to Scripture. So He says I am not
impressed by the numbers game. I’m not
impressed because I have 10,000 plus people at My feet on the hill on the other
side of
Let me get the end of
verse 45, “Every man that has heard, and has learned of the Father, is coming
to Me,” notice in the process of time there are people being called out from
the nation Israel. Here’s a person on
positive volition, here’s one who responds, here’s another one who responds and
so on, and these people are responding to Christ and they’re coming to Christ,
they’re believing. Remember, “come” and
“believe” are synonyms here. And then you have many, many other people here,
the mob who far outnumbered the believers and they’re doing nothing. There’s a separation that’s occurring. Now once again, because of confusion let’s go
back over the points on the doctrine of election. What is this coming that is mentioned here
and the dragging of verse 44; does this negate human volition?
Let’s go back to the
first principle of the doctrine of election. Election rests upon the creation
and fall concept. You cannot understand
election apart from this; Isaiah 55:8-9, “My thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways My ways, saith the LORD.”
So since we are operating on two different systems we have to go back to
origins and this means that God, not man, makes history. This is creation and fall; God, not man,
shapes history, so that when history is over, the shape it has will be due to
God’s creation. For example, no matter how you handle it with all this
maneuvering and fancy footwork that goes on to try to get around the problem there’s
no way you can solve this problem. Did
God or didn’t He know that He would create people that would go to hell? He obviously knew that people would go to
hell; they freely chose to go to hell but they go to hell. And so therefore God sovereignly chose to
create people whom He knows will go to hell; deliberately He creates them. Now why does He do this? Because of His glory; it is not said in
Scripture exactly why He does it but He does it, period, and therefore since He
does it, therefore we have to go back to His prerogative as a Creator to make
the kind of history He chooses to make. But because He is also just we know
it’s going to be absolutely righteous.
Creatures who go to hell, by the way, go to hell because they reject His
grace.
And then we have the
fall and we understand from the fall that because we all are involved in Adam’s
sin in some way, as Paul says in Romans 5, then none of us deserve
salvation—none of us deserve salvation!
You don’t deserve it, I don’t deserve it, none of us deserve it. None of us have anything to commend ourselves
to God apart from the credits given to us through Jesus Christ. On our own we are bankrupt.
The second point is
that election is the basic promise behind all other promise…the basic promise.
And Jesus Christ wants us to exalt in that, Luke 10:20, and the basic principle
in Romans 8:28. It is the promise that
underscores all other promises. When the
disciples are rejoicing over answered prayer in the immediate past Christ says
don’t’ rejoice over that, you rejoice that your names are written in the book
of life, you rejoice over that; make it a point of rejoicing. Now if a person did that today in some
circles I’m sure you would be branded as arrogant and over-confident. Yet Christ in Luke
The third point is that
election means it’s 100% certain, nothing, no object of God’s election will
ever wind up in a position for which it was not elected, Isaiah 42:12-13. Election means 100% certainty; it will come
to pass; it depends on God’s Word and God’s Word can’t fail.
The fourth principle
about election is that it’s God’s totally free decision. God does not have a standard in back of
Himself, He’s not forced, coerced in any way, Romans 9:11-16. God chooses to make what He wants to make the
way He wants to make it. He has chosen
responsible history; within that responsible history creatures, by their own choice,
wind up… but the whole overall shape of the whole big thing is God. He has set it up that way; most people don’t
like that responsibility but that’s what He’s given us.
The fifth principle is
that we have a content to election that is shown in history. The content of election equals use of the
faith technique, etc. In other words,
it’s a loving relationship that you can see, you can see people coming to
Christ and so on. Election shows up as
real choices, not robots. When you see
real choices happening there you’re observing election being revealed.
In John 6:46 Christ departs from His talk just a little bit, just to clarify
one thing and this further irritates the audience because He says, “Not
that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the
Father.” What He wants to do is make sure that no one
misinterprets verse 45; in verse 45 He says every person will be taught by
revelation but then in verse 46, but be careful, there are two kinds of
revelation. There are two kinds of
knowledge. There is what we call, and
there are two technical words for this, immediate revelation and mediate
revelation. Let me explain the
difference because Christ make the point here in these two verses. In verse 46 He is claiming for Himself
immediate revelation.
In other words, He gets
revelation direct from God; God the Father.
He doesn’t need any intermediary transfer system. He gets it direct, it comes from within Him
because He’s God. I don’t use the word
direct revelation because we use that for something else so I don’t want to get
that term messed in here. Immediate
revelation, it comes from within His own character and being. He says I see God all the time, it’s part of
my immediate being. He says all other
people, believers, who are taught of God have it by mediate revelation, that is
they are mediated through means of a teacher, the Son in the Trinity. All revelation passes from the Father thru
the Son to us, so all revelation we get is mediated by means of the Son; that’s
the doctrine of the Trinity. And of
course you can see why this would irritate the people, He’s saying I am unique
here, not only have you had to be dragged into the kingdom, you clods, but I am
the One who is unique. You see, if
Christ wasn’t who He claimed to be, He’s a nut.
Nobody goes around making these kind of claims for themselves. The next time you get around somebody says
well I believe Jesus is a good man or something and it’s the appropriate time
to do this, open up the Scripture and let them read some of these passages, just
let them read this passage. A good man
saying something like this and not being who He claimed to be? Ridiculous!
John 6:47, He starts
out His last little thing very smoothly and quietly and then builds. Notice the “Verily, verily,” that’s the
signal that something really good is coming because He pauses to make sure
everybody gets the point, He gives it in one simple sentence and then He’s
going to amplify. He says to make it
clear, “Verily, Verily,” “Amen, amen,” I mean this so clear the decks and get
everyone straightened out, that’s what it means; something important is
happening, “I say unto you, He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life.” Now He’s said that about four times before
but apparently the crowd hasn’t gotten it because they’re still murmuring. So He makes the dogmatic claim once again
that it is only by trusting in Me that you have life for eternity. This is one of the reasons He keeps saying
I’ll raise you up at the last day, He says that’s what I mean, eternal life,
life that will go on and include that future resurrection. “The that believes on Me” has it. So now He no longer uses the word “come,” He
gets down to the word “believe.”
Then in John 6:48 He
begins to move and it’s this passage, from this point on that has been used,
for example in Roman Catholicism it is used to justify why in mass the elements
that are served become the body and blood of Christ and that when you’re taking
mass you’re actually eating the body of Christ.
That teaching is based by Catholic theologians on this chapter,
particularly these verses coming up. And
because this chapter is so very important I want to proceed slowly and show you
one thing about this chapter if we don’t learn anything tonight, one thing
beginning with this verse I want you to see.
This is talking about trust in Christ’s finished work, not communion
service. This is a discussion, not of
communion nor of the elements of communion, but of Christ on His cross. Communion is only for Christians but He is
going to present in here that He is the bread of life for the world and that
can’t be communion because communion by definition isn’t given to the
world. Communion is NOT the subject of
this passage. Now I will grant you that
communion pictures some of this truth, yes.
But that’s a far different thing from saying that this is speaking of
communion. It’s not doing that. This is speaking of the real thing behind
communion.
John 6:48, “I am that bread of life.” Now what does He mean by saying “I am that
bread of life.” All right, what has been
the theme of this chapter, go all the way back to the beginning of verse 4;
remember this whole incident began on that hillside when Passover was
approach. What was Passover
commemorative of? Passover was
commemorative of Exodus. What happened after God gave the people access out of
Another thing about food and why it teaches orientation to grace is that it is continually needed. And for this reason, since we continually need day by day God’s grace, it is becomes a picture of us feeding on His grace. A third reason why food is used in Scripture is because it’s an absolute requirement of life. You can’t do with out; the second reason is that it’s continuous in its need; the third reason is that it’s needed, absolutely needed. So for these reasons food and the eating thereof are repeatedly used, and as you will now see, Christ picks up this common thing out of every day life and says now, you people want to get straightened out on what grace is, let Me run this by once more. And so He starts.
“I am that bread of life,” why does He use “that” bread of life? Because He’s referring back to the manna, not the manna as such but the truth that the manna was teaching. Why did God have these people go up and pick this goo off the front of the ground in front of their tent every morning? And He never gave them more than that; people tried to store it up and they didn’t have freezers and it went bad. It was a tremendously balanced food. If somebody could figure out what the nutrition supplements were that God put in the manna you’d be infinitely wealthy. But God had some way of feeding people with complete dietary provision in this manna, one substance. All you had to have besides eating manna was water. But what God was showing was that the people out in the middle of that wilderness had to be totally dependent upon the manna that came from heaven down; it was a graphic picture that we are down here receiving on a moment by moment by moment by moment basis. All right, when He said “I am that bread of life,” he means I am the spiritual reality taught back in the days of the manna, when you fed on the manna you were feeding on Me.
Turn to 1 Corinthians 10:3-4 and you’ll see how Paul brings out this truth. Not just John develops this but Paul develops the teaching also. Notice in verse 3-4, same principle, same truth, Paul uses a few different words but the same idea. They “did all eat the same spiritual food,” spiritual food Paul, I thought it was physical food. No, says Paul, as they ate the physical food they were learning about the spiritual food, and so he says in verse 4, they “did all drink the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.” So when Christ in John 6 makes the identification He’s saying you people don’t get the point. The point about that whole deal with the manna was to make you learn orientation to grace. And so now He says I am the object of all of that, now that I’m here you should have learned your lesson and we should get together, but we’re not getting together and it’s because you haven’t learned your lesson. I’ve come on schedule but you haven’t learned the lesson of historical revelation very well.
So John
…literally, the brad I
will give is My flesh” and I will give it for the life of the world.”
Now John 6:52, look at the reaction he’s got, “The Jews therefore strove among themselves,” this means they fought each other over this, they had a knockdown drag out discussion theologically, literally taken I mean, they were actually physically punching one another by the time this got started. And I want you to notice Christ didn’t say now boys, you shouldn’t do that? He just keeps right on irritating them some more. By the time He finishes here He has mob action on His hands. Now why does He do this? You don’t find Jesus always doing this; don’t take this as normative every time He got up to speak. At this point He’s doing it because He had to break up the democratic spirit. He had to divide the crowd and He sure is doing it. “… saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” They’re taking it literally like the woman at the well, cannibalism.
John 6:53, “Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily,” so watch it, here comes another one, and He’s going to really do it up good this time, “I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh” no longer the body now, but “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.” Now to Jew who had always eaten kosher meat, from which the blood had to be drained and drained well, can you imagine how this went over. You are not going to eat meat says Jesus, you’re going to eat it with the blood in it, that’s what’s going to happen. So you can tell there’s quite a little antagonism going on between Jesus and the crowd at this point.
Now He goes on and does it even one better in John 6:54 and this one’s completely missed in the translation. “Whoso eats My flesh, and drinks My blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” Now this is really something because the word for “eat” here is a word which means to munch, it is not the word to eat as usually used in the text of Scripture and it means to enjoy something that you’re enjoying it out loud. It is a word that has two connotations. First it has the connotation of… well, just kind of being a little gross, just letting everyone know that saliva is going around your mouth and food is too. And the second connotation, the most important one is that you’re enjoying it like crazy. You’re enjoying it! So to say this to a group of orthodox Jews who had been raised on kosher meat, to say that you are going to eat blood meat and you are going to enjoy it, you can’t imagine anything more designed to irritate somebody than this.
But He had to do this because people are that thick; we all are that thick potentially. It takes somebody to irritate us, to hit us right between the ears before we are going to wake up grace and this is a principle of grace orientation because what this means is that you are going to love grace; you’re going to sit there and munch on it and it’s the picture of a believer, not literally eating Christ’s flesh but so enjoying what Christ gives it’s like constantly sitting and being a “grace muncher.” That’s what it is, fantastic enjoyment of grace. So Christ is demanding that we not only become oriented to grace but that we love it. And you see, this is what makes… we still have people in our circles and I don’t know what it will take before they can relax in God’s grace. And over and over again you see passages like this where Christ wants you to accept His grace and love it. Now what an easier way of life, this way, than trying to desperately all the time come up with your own gimmick, your own little thing, this program, that program, this taboo, that taboo, or something else and not relaxing and trusting in grace. But every single time we get into a truth like this you can see what happens, you can see it in this congregation, less so than most; most congregations just freeze up.
I had fun talking to a pastor about the foreskins of Michel the other day and the dowry present and all the rest of 2 Samuel and he just about came unglued. I said here’s the text, here’s my Hebrew text, here’s Kittel, and if you don’t understand the Hebrew word here’s BDB you can look it up for yourself, why don’t you check that passage out; how about checking out the place where Abner says I’ll be damned if I know, Sir, when Saul asked him some idiot question. Here, check the word out, I didn’t make that up, just read the Hebrew, that’s what you’re supposed to do as pastor. Oh I couldn’t teach that to my people. What kind of people do you got that you can’t teach the Word of God to? What group of clods do you have? By the way we have some literary astute people in the congregation and they just told me this week that the word “clod” was used by John Milton for Adam and so now you see we’re on a firm scholarly base to call people clods.
So John 6, back to munching in verse
54. “Whoever munches eats and enjoys My
flesh and enjoys drinking My blood, has eternal life, and I will raise him up
at the last day.” I kind of wanted to get
that point across several times. Verse
5, “For My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is
drink indeed. [56] He
that eats My flesh, and drinks My blood, continues in Me, and I in him.” The dwell is the word meno, it means to continue.
What He’s saying here is that when you eat, like the woman at the well
when you drink, you drink of this well, woman, you drink of the water that I
will give you and it will become in you a well of water forever and ever and
ever, you’ll never have to come take a drink.
Remember the woman caught on and she said oh boy, give me a drink so
that I never have to come here again.
The principle was once and for all, point action, continuing results,
and the same thing is here. “Eat,” says
Jesus, “Eat of My flesh and drink My blood,” and you do it once and you will
continue in Me forever and ever and ever and ever. That’s the principle, once
and for action with continuing results.
[57, “As the living Father hath sent Me, and I
live by the Father: so he that eats Me, even he shall live by Me.”]
John
Next week we’ll begin with what happened to the disciples; they couldn’t take it either and so He wound up having to straighten the disciples out on grace.
So as we finish this section, once again examine your own hearts to see whether this frosts you or melts you, one or the other and it will show you whether you’ve yet caught on to the grace principle. With our heads bowed….