The Bread of Life (IV)
This is a transcript. It may contain some inaccuracies.
If you were to receive training in how to share the gospel, how to share your faith with others, the instruction, sadly, is often along the lines of showing unbelievers how easy it is to trust Jesus. It's not a big deal. Just, you know, trust Him. Give them examples of how every day we trust in people we don't even know. See, it's that simple. You know, you tell them something like this: you trust the companies that make your food, you trust your doctor and the pharmacist, and you trust the mechanic who fixes the brakes on your car, so just trust Jesus like that. Simple.
Some of these evangelistic methods also advise not to focus on the person's sin, or his need of repentance, or the wrath of God, the judgment of God. Don't use the word hell—that might scare away any potential convert. Rather, just tell them about God's love. God loves you. Just embrace Him, you know? Trust Him. Keep it positive. Focus on how Jesus will meet their needs for a happy marriage and successful career and a life that is free of trouble and pain. Now, after you, quote-unquote, "close the deal," then you could talk about the other stuff a little bit. But have you ever noticed how Jesus often took the opposite approach? He's going to teach us about evangelism today, our Lord.
See, when the rich young ruler, you remember, asked what he needed to do to inherit eternal life, Jesus said to him—you remember, right?—He said, it's easy. God loves you, young man, and I love you, too. Just believe in Me and you've got it. You're in. That's it. No, no. He told him to keep the commandments, and when the young man claimed that he had done that, Jesus replied. He went deeper, right? He put His finger on the real issue. He said to him in Luke 18:22, "One thing you still lack: sell all you possess and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven. And come, follow Me."
What Jesus did is He exposed the young man's heart and his idol, where his treasure is, and called him to acknowledge his sin and repent, and turn away from that and submit to the sovereign Savior. He told him to count the cost. You remember, elsewhere, He told the unbelieving crowd in Luke 9:23-24, "If anyone wishes to come after Me,” - well, tip your hat to Jesus. No, He says, "Let him deny himself, and take up his cross"— an instrument of death — daily, not like you know well I’ve done it ten years ago, no, no, daily, and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it." Death to self. Death to self. Not so easy, is it?
Jesus often seems to have made it hard to believe. You see, He never softened the message. He never softened His demand for complete, total, unwavering commitment and submission in order to win more followers. He never diluted the message. Today's thinking among professing Christians, even in the evangelical church, sadly, is we just want everyone to come to church and be happy and not be offended by what they hear. And rather than being concerned that unbelievers hear the real truth of God and the whole counsel of God, they're more interested that they hear something that never steps on their toes. They want some nice little ear-tickling verbiage.
That is not, however, what the Bible is designed to do. That is not the way the Bible is to be handled. Preaching the Word of God is not designed to tickle ears, to use Paul's words. You know what it's designed to do? It's designed to cut souls open. To cut souls open.
That is why when you read in Acts chapter 2 concerning the sermon, the day of Pentecost, Peter's sermon, after he proclaimed the Word of God unequivocally and the full counsel of God, what was the response? The people were pierced to their heart. They were cut. Their ears weren't tickled. Their heart was pierced. Never is there a hint in the Bible that the Word of God has as its goal not offending the hearers. The purpose of the Word of God is to reveal the truth of God, to share the truth of God. And when the truth of God is revealed to sinners, it is most assuredly going to either cut and cut very deep or it's going to offend. This is truth from a holy God.
The teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ were never designed to tickle ears. His teachings were never designed to flatter others, Jews or Gentiles. Those teachings were designed to communicate God's truth. And our Lord taught the truth with uncompromising directness. And here He is in the scene that was read in your hearing with unbelieving skeptics. They ate the miraculous bread, remember. He fed them the day before. They ate the miraculous bread and wanted to make Jesus king, but He didn't come to be the kind of king they wanted Him to be, the kind of king they were looking for. And so He withdrew from them, and the next day they sought Him in Capernaum, but for the wrong reasons. Still, they wanted Him to be the new Moses who could provide them with a lifetime supply of food, bread.
They had a wrong expectation for who the Messiah should be and what He should do for them, so Jesus addresses that. He addresses that, and He does that by asserting that He is the true bread out of heaven who could satisfy their spiritual hunger. Then what He did is He confronted their unbelief in verse 36: "But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe." And then, you remember as we studied together, He brought up the sovereign plan of God, who had given some to His Son as a gift to Jesus, whom He would certainly save and keep for all eternity. That's verses 37 to 40. His mission would certainly still succeed even in the face of unbelief, in the face of skepticism, even in the face of rejection, because Jesus came to fulfill the Father's sovereign will, and the Father's sovereign will will be fulfilled.
In this context, these Jews were grumbling about Jesus. They thought they knew His origin. I mean, after all, we know Him. He's the son of Joseph and Mary. How then could He say that He's the bread of life that came down out of heaven? And so they challenged our Lord's claims. Sometimes Jesus followed the principle of not casting your pearls before swine, but here in this case, He witnesses to them. He addresses the situation, although not in the way many modern evangelical professing believers do or would advise. Rather than telling them how much God loved them, Jesus restated His teaching about God's sovereignty over our salvation. He showed them their inability to come to Him apart from God's sovereign grace, which is, by the way, a subject today that unfortunately some pastors won't bring up at all, but especially they would advise others that you shouldn't bring it up at all when you're evangelizing.
But Jesus breaks that man-made rule here by telling these skeptical Jews that they cannot come to Him unless the Father who sent Him draws them. And in doing so, He really gives us a lesson on how we ought to witness to skeptics. As we will see together, our Lord Jesus witnessed to skeptics, unbelieving skeptics, by confronting their attitude, by showing them their spiritual inability, and by pointing them to faith in Himself as their only hope of salvation.
We will look at this under our next heading: the purposeful confrontation, this is 41 to 47. And here, by the way, we see the fourth question that the crowd asked. The fourth question is a question of identity, and that's found in verses 41 and 42. Just to remind us, their first question was a question of curiosity back in verse 25, "When did You come here?" Their second question was a question of religiosity in verse 28, "What should we do so that we may work the works of God?" Their third question was a question of perversity in verse 30, "So they said to Him, 'What then do You do for a sign so that we may see and believe You? What work do You perform?"
And here now is their fourth question, a question of identity, and that’s verses 41 and 42. The Jews were grumbling about Him because He said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They were saying, 'Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He now say, "I have come down from heaven?' In other words, how can He claim to be of ultimate miracle heavenly origin? How? We know His family. How can He claim a heavenly origin? He's one of us. He grew up here with us in Galilee. We've never seen any sign while He grew up, and now He's just saying, "I am the bread of life. I came out of heaven."
Well, look at our Lord's response. He confronts and explains their unbelief. Christ witnessed to these skeptics, these unbelieving skeptics, by confronting their attitude. He confronts their attitude. That's an important principle. Look at verse 43, "Jesus answered and said to them, "Stop grumbling among yourselves."" Now, keep in mind, by the way, that John uses the word "Jews" consistently to refer particularly to those who were hostile toward Jesus. In this context, he also may want us to think back and hearken to those Jews who grumbled in the wilderness under Moses and brought the judgment, the judgement of God upon their heads,Exodus 15 and Numbers 11.
The cause of the Jews' grumbling here in this text was our Lord's claim to be the bread that came down out of heaven. They thought that they knew the origin of Jesus as the son of Joseph and Mary, so they just couldn't understand how He claimed to come down out of heaven—which He repeats over and over and over again, by the way, in this chapter. You find this in verses 32, 33, 38, 50, 51, and 58. They were setting themselves up as capable of judging Jesus' repeated claim because they did not know about His virgin birth. John had already told us that the eternal Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and if these Jews were willing to embrace the truth, they would have known that His claim was absolutely true.
Jesus did not correct their misunderstanding about His coming down out of heaven. He doesn't deal with that, but notice what He does. He doesn't let them control the conversation. He sets the tone. Instead of correcting their misunderstanding about His coming down out of heaven, rather, what He does is confront their attitude. He goes right to the attitude. Verse 43, "Stop grumbling among yourselves." Gogguzo is the Greek word. It's an onomato-poetic word, we call it that, derived from the sound made when murmuring and grumbling in a low, indistinct voice with the idea of complaint—to grumble, to mutter.
It is used in an absolute sense in 1 Corinthians. That word, 1 Corinthians 10:10, carries the idea of complaint, and that same word is used in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, in Numbers 11:1, and we know what happened there. This type of grumbling is not just a simple dissatisfaction with the fact that something doesn't happen. This is a grumbling that is utterly ungodly and always due to the fact that people think that what is just is not being done. In other words, if we were to put it in context, they do not believe that faith in Jesus Christ, the Messiah, is really fair or just in being right with God.
You know something about grumblers? Grumblers invariably set themselves up as sovereign over God. Grumblers invariably set themselves up as sovereign over the Sovereign One. It goes something like this, ‘If God only saw things my way, I wouldn't be in this mess. If God only took account of my insights, this problem would get cleared up right away.’ You see, grumblers are not in submission to God's sovereign rule. In fact, they want to tell God how to run the world so that things will go the way they want them to go.
Grumblers arrogantly imply that they know more than God knows. If you grumble about your circumstances, it means that God doesn't know what He's doing, that you know better. These grumblers thought that they were competent to pass judgment on Jesus, so He confronted their grumbling attitude. The point is, grumblers will not believe in Jesus even if they've seen Him feed 20,000-plus people with five loaves and two fish. Even if they watched Him heal the sick, they wouldn't come to believe in Jesus unless and until they repent of their grumbling attitude.
So Jesus puts His finger right on the issue. At the root of unbelief is not a lack of evidence, beloved, but an attitude that wants to tell God how to run the universe—at least my corner of the universe.
In John 7:17, Jesus states, "If anyone is willing to do His,” the Father's, “will, he will know about the teaching, whether it is of God or I speak from Myself." At the root of proper, correct understanding about Jesus that leads to saving faith in Him is whether we are willing to be obedient to the Father's will. Next time you're carrying on a conversation with an unbelieving person, a skeptic, and they raise an objection to the faith, to your Christian faith, an objection in the line of evolution, the problem of suffering, and if God is good, why there are so many people suffering, errors in the Bible, etc., try this reply, ‘Are you saying that if I can give you reasonable answers to that issue, then you will repent of your sins, submit to the Lord Jesus Christ, and follow Him? Is that what you're saying?’
Invariably, they will say, well, there are other issues too. In other words, the issues are not the issue. The issues are really simply smoke screens to hide the fact that the skeptic doesn't want to submit and bend the knee to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. You see, if he can control Jesus to provide him with what he wants out of life, maybe he might profess to believe. But then he's not believing in Jesus as Lord, but rather in a Jesus who is Aladdin's genie. So in witnessing to such grumbling skeptics, confront their underlying attitude of not wanting to bend the knee to Jesus—accountability, submission to the Lordship—and Jesus commands them to cease their grumbling. We sometimes think of grumbling as, you know, a tiny sin, a nothing burger, a little sin, but it was grumbling that kept the first generation of Israelites out of the promised land. Just as the sin of grumbling kept Israel out of the promised land, it would keep the grumblers out of the promised life that Jesus offers.
But before I move on to verse 44, I need to mention that grumbling is not just a problem with unbelieving skeptics. It's also a problem for many that profess to know Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 10:10, Philippians 2:14 – Beloved, if you're grumbling about your circumstances, you know what that means. It means you're not giving thanks in all things, because you cannot be, at the same time, thankful and grumbling. And if you're not giving thanks, you're not trusting in the Sovereign Lord, and you're not submitting to His Sovereign design. You're not submitting to His Sovereign hand over your circumstances.
And you know what else it means? It means that what you profess concerning Romans 8:28, you deny in practice—that all things do work together for good for those who love the Lord. So there's a word of application in the words of Christ in verse 43. To put it in Paul's language, for us believers, Philippians 2:14-15, "Do all things without grumbling or disputing." Why? Why, Paul? "So that you will be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world."
If you sit at the kitchen table at your workplace and join in the grumbling chorus, then you're not shining as light. And Paul says, "Do all things without grumbling or disputing, so that you are blameless and innocent children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation." You stand out. Let all of that be the black velvety backdrop on which the diamonds of God's grace shine all the more brightly—the grace that has transformed you as His child.
Grumbling—this Greek word is an interesting word. It simply means expressing dissatisfaction with your circumstances, whether you express that dissatisfaction under your breath or whether you express it to others. You can express it under your breath, no one else hears it. Or you can express it to others—it's that attitude. And then Paul doesn't stop there in that Philippians text, he adds that disputing is also off-limits for us as believers. To dispute is to direct that dissatisfaction that we have with our circumstances and direct that against God. Now, whether we do it to Him personally, directly, or whether we do it with those people around us, we basically argue with God and His purpose and His plan. We call His plans and His acts into question. The most common way that's done is in a phrase that you hear everywhere all around you, and it's this phrase, ‘It's just not fair.’ That's how you hear it—maybe the introduction to it or the end of it— ‘It's just not fair.’
Secondly, Christ's witness to these skeptics is not only by confronting their attitude, but—this is incredible—by stripping them of all spiritual self-confidence. By stripping them of all spiritual self-confidence. Look at verse 44, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day." Will you please note that Jesus basically repeats verse 44 in verse 65, except that in verse 65 He changes the Father's drawing with the Father's granting. Coming to Christ is a sovereign gift. It's unavoidable; it's there.
Why would Jesus tell unbelieving skeptics that they are unable in and of themselves to come to Him? I mean, think about it. You could see why He would talk privately with His disciples about such a profound theological truth. But why would He bring this up with these skeptics? Unbelieving skeptics need to be stripped of their proud self-confidence, and Jesus does that. I really think this is the main reason He tells these skeptics that no one has the ability to come to Him unless the Father who sent Him draws them.
Why? Because skeptics like that are proud of their mental ability. They view believers as uneducated simpletons—naive people, you know. In fact, some of them would even use the word stupid. They say things like this, ‘If they had half a brain, they could see how unreasonable it is to believe that this carpenter from Nazareth came down from heaven. You don't believe, actually, the stuff about Noah's Ark and the animals, do you? Do you really believe that the Israelites crossed the Red Sea and it was split in two? Do you really believe that? You don't believe that, do you? You don't believe that the world was created in six literal days? You don't believe that, do you? I thought you were smarter than that.’
Skeptics think that their intellect is sovereign over God. They base their understanding of God—even if He exists in their mind—on evidence and logic. But if a skeptic were able to come to Jesus Christ through his own intellect or willpower or decision or cleverness, he would come how? In pride. In arrogance, which is, by the way, antithetical to gospel repentance. The Bible yanks the rug of pride out from under all of us, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him."
You see the word? Well, in English, two words. It's one word in the Greek. "No one." Outis. "No one" is the strongest—this Greek word—the strongest negative there is, meaning not even a single one. Outis. And the verb tense for "draw" is aorist, meaning a one-time drawing. As we will see, that is always successful. This is a very subjective drawing for an individual with subjective conditions—misery and guilt and depression and threat of hell. And you see the verb "can"? Dunamis, from which we get the word "dynamite," used here negatively, means that one does not have the power, does not have the ability or the capability to come to Christ left to ourselves.
Some of the best work on this verse is done by J. C. Ryle. Listen to what he says concerning John 6:44, and I quote, "Until the Father draws the heart of man by His grace, man will not believe. The nature of man since the fall is so corrupt and depraved that even when Christ is made known and preached to him, he will not come to Him and believe in Him without the special grace of God inclining his will and giving him a disposition to come. Moral suasion and advice alone will not bring him. He must be drawn. This is no doubt a very humbling truth, and one which in every age has called forth the hatred and opposition of man. The favorite notion of man is that he can do what he likes—repent or not repent, believe or not believe, come to Christ or not come—entirely at his own discretion. In fact, man likes to think that his salvation is in his own power. Such notions are flatly contradictory to the text before us. The words of our Lord here are clear and unmistakable and cannot be explained away. This doctrine of human impotence, whether man likes it or not, is the uniform teaching of the Bible. The natural man is dead and must be born again and brought to life. He has neither knowledge nor faith nor inclination toward Christ until grace comes into his heart.”
And he goes on to say, “Man never of himself begins with God. God must first begin with man. God must first begin with man. Adam, where are you? God sought Adam. God is the one who seeks the sinner.” He goes on to say, “And this beginning is just the drawing of the text. It is a drawing which the Father effects through the man's own will by creating a new principle within him. By the unseen agency of the Holy Ghost, He works on man's heart without the man himself knowing it at the time, inclines him to think, induces him to feel, shows him his sinfulness, and so leads him at length to Christ. Everyone that comes to Christ is so drawn.”
So Jesus is saying to them in verse 44, I know why you're grumbling. I know why you don't believe in Me. You've got a desperate problem that only God can solve. You cannot come to Me unless the Father draws you. And He's stripping them of their proud spiritual self-confidence, which is the opposite of trusting in Christ for salvation. And to come utterly empty-handed.
"Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the poor in spirit." Meaning you come to the Lord empty-handed, saying, I have nothing. I am nothing. I can do nothing to give me a right standing before You. I depend completely on Jesus Christ and His saving grace. And unbelieving skeptics as well need to realize their inability to come to Jesus Christ apart from the Father's powerful drawing.
Some who argue that God does not force Himself on anyone, but that we all must make our own decision to believe in Jesus, say that God's drawing means that He woos sinners. He woos them, right? He, much as a young man, you know, tries to woo a woman to decide to marry him. To try to win her, right? Well, here's the problem. Based on this verse, it's the word draw - helkuō. Helkuō is the Greek word used in John 21:6, John 21:11, referring there to the disciples dragging the net of fish into the boat and then to the shores. They did not woo those fish to please decide to jump into the net, did they? To cooperate maybe, by wiggling their way onto the shore? The word is also used, that same word, helkuō, of Paul and Silas being dragged to the authorities in Philippi after they cast the demon out of the slave girl in Acts 16:19. And Paul also was dragged—same word—out of the temple by the angry mob in Jerusalem, Acts 21:30. Obviously, they weren't wooing him.
Leon Morris points out that it is always the idea of resistance with the use of this verb, helkuō, but that there is not one single example in the New Testament where the resistance was successful. He says, “Always the drawing power is triumphant.” As here. And A. W. Pink describes this drawing, he says,"It is the power of the Holy Spirit overcoming the self-righteousness of the sinner and convicting him of his lost condition. It is the Holy Spirit awakening within him a sense of need. It is the power of the Holy Spirit overcoming the pride of the natural man so that he is ready to come to Jesus Christ as an empty-handed beggar. It is the Holy Spirit creating within him a hunger for the bread of life." End of quote.
And would you please note that the drawing of which Jesus speaks here is effectual. It is effectual. It always results in the sinner actually coming to Jesus in saving faith. The resistance is overcome. In other words, this word always contains within it the idea of a successful force.
Astoundingly, men like William Barclay say, with reference to the usage of this term draw, and I quote, "Always there is this idea of resistance. God can and does draw men, but men's resistance can defeat the pull of God."
That's not the God of the Bible. Leon Morris rightly says, “There is not one example in the New Testament of the use of this verb where the resistance is successful.” Take your Bible, look, go ahead, look. Maybe you want to take this on—take it on. If you disagree, take your Bible, go through the Bible, look for any instance in which the resistance is successful. When the Lord Jesus says, "No man can come to Me except the Father who has sent Me draws him," that drawing is always, always a successful drawing.
John Calvin says, “As far as the manner of hearing goes, it is not violent so as to compel men by an external force, but yet it is an effectual movement of the Holy Spirit turning men from being unwilling and reluctant into willing. Jesus states in John 6:44 that He will raise up the one who is drawn to Him on the last day. That shows us that He means raised up to eternal life. And in verse 45, He reinforces that this is effectual when He says, "Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me." It's inevitable.
You know what that also means? It's the same unbroken chain of redemption that Paul outlines in Romans 8:29-30, where he writes, "Because those whom He [God] foreknew, He also predestined." By the way, the word foreknew doesn't mean knowing beforehand. It doesn't mean that at all. It means God setting His affection upon someone—sovereign affection, sovereign selection. "Because those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers; and those [these are the same those] whom He predestined, He also called, and those whom He called, He also justified; and those whom He justified, He also glorified."
Jesus says here that belief in Christ, eating the bread, coming to Him, is not a humanly generated action. God has put iron filings, as it were, in the sinner's heart before he could be attracted to the magnet called Christ. Again, Leon Morris puts it well. He says, "People do not come to Christ because it seems to them a good idea." No, beloved, God must draw them. God must draw them, and to do so, God uses, as it were, the iron filings of divine enlightenment or teaching. Verse 45.
Sinful man is totally lost. In fact, Isaiah compares him to a sheep: "All we like sheep have gone astray" - Isaiah 53:6. You know what's interesting? Here's what's interesting. If a cow or a dog or a cat or a horse or a deer or a pigeon gets lost, it can find its own way back home, but not a sheep. A lost sheep must be found and brought back home, and so it is with lost sinners. God must find every single one of them and take them to the Lord. God must find every single one of them and take them to His Son.
I grew up among mechanics—my brothers. One time, I remember, this came to my mind as I was really preparing. My brother dropped a bolt into a dirty black tub of old oil, and he wanted that bolt desperately. It slipped and fell, and so that bolt instantly sunk out of sight to the bottom of the filth. And so he took a magnet and drew that dead bolt out of the mire, cleaned it, and then put it to use. That's exactly what God does with the sinner. The sinner is in deep sin, cannot get out, so God magnetically, as it were, draws the sinner to His Son. And when the sinner comes to His Son, He cleans that sinner up and puts that sinner to use for His glory.
Our Lord also makes another point. Unbelieving skeptics need to realize that the Scriptures are the only source for the truth about Jesus that leads to salvation, and that's in verse 45, "It is written in the Prophets. AND THEY SHALL ALL BE TAUGHT BY GOD. Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me." They are the ones who come to me. Jesus is referring to Isaiah 54:13 and perhaps to Jeremiah 31:34, to show these proud skeptics that their own Scriptures supported Jesus' point in verse 44. You see the word "all"? The pas is the Greek word. It refers to true believers, as the second half of the verse shows. God draws all whom He draws to believe in Jesus by teaching them through His Word. The Holy Spirit uses the Word of God to open blind eyes to see the beauty of Jesus, so that formerly resistant sinners now are drawn to Him, they're captivated by Him.
And you can know that you've been taught of God when you lay aside all self-confidence and come in faith to Jesus as the Savior of whom all the Scripture speaks. Again, our Lord is stripping these proud skeptics of their own intellect or power of reason as the basis for their own salvation. If someone can reason his own way to salvation, then he will take pride in that reason. But Jesus is saying that the truth about Him is contained in God's all-sufficient Word, God's written Word, and that no one has the mental capacity to understand that truth unless God teaches it to him. Isn't that what we pray even as believers? God, give me light when I come to read the Scripture. Me, a finite, limited person, bombarded by my remaining corruption, distracted by the world, my mind is depraved, fallen in Christ, and so I need the help of the Spirit. Give me light. Give me light.
As John the Baptist said in John 3:27, "A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven," right? Or as Jesus told Peter after he made his famous confession—remember, of Jesus as the Christ, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," in Matthew 16:17. And Peter was really proud. He got the right answer, right? He was so proud. Jesus said to him right away, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven." Good answer, Peter, but watch out. Don't take the credit for it. It was given to you.
If you're proud of your spiritual knowledge, even if you are truly born again, you don't know what you think you know. Genuine spiritual knowledge always humbles us in the presence of God and causes us to wonder why He ever chose to reveal Christ to our souls. You see, the more you know, the more you realize how little you really know and how much you really don't know.
So Christ witnesses to these skeptics by confronting their attitude, by stripping them of all spiritual self-confidence. They say, ‘Jesus, we don't believe You,’ and Jesus says, ‘I'll tell you why you don't believe Me. It's because the Father hasn't opened your eyes.’ This is the sub-theme of the whole debate. God gives faith. God's sovereignty gives true faith. Only God the Father can open the eyes to see the heavenly, the eternal, the spiritual. All they can see is Yeshua of Nazareth, the carpenter. They can't see Bread from Heaven standing in front of them. The reason they don't believe, Jesus says, is all they have is carnal vision. Because to see who He is, to come to Him for who He is, they need the drawing, the teaching, the enlightening work of the Father.
And again, here we see both God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. We hold them together hand in hand, and they're not enemies—they're friends. God the Father must draw you, and then you must come. God the Father must teach you, and you must hear and learn. Remember, verse 37 puts it clearly: "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me,” you have to come, “I will never cast out." Now take verse 37 and verse 44, put them together—they're versions of each other. "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me." "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him." So you put the two together, and here's what we learn. Sinful man never thinks it's a good idea to come to Jesus by himself, left to himself. Sinful man never wakes up one morning and says, "You know what, I'm gonna go to God. I'm gonna turn to God. That's what I'm gonna do today. Yes, I myself believe that it's a good idea to go to God." No, no, God has got to put in your heart something. He's gotta put it in your heart, and when He does, you will definitely come.
You see, God cures you from the rabies of unbelief, and once He cures you of the rabies of unbelief, instead of biting His hand, you will kiss His hand. When God removes the insanity of unbelief from your mind, your clear-thinking mind will see the beauty of Jesus and voluntarily, willingly, from the heart, come. Psalm 110:3, "Your people will offer themselves freely in the day of Your power." That's the work of God. And when you do, Jesus says He will not—never—turn you away.
So verses 36 and 45 develop the word "them" back in verse 31, right? That's why you have to be here every Sunday so you can see the full picture, right? So I develop the word "them" of "He gave them bread from heaven to eat." The "them," the recipients who eat and believe, are those given to Christ by the Father. The banquet table is loaded, but God must draw us to the table—we will not come even though we are starving. Christ, on His part, gladly embraces the Father's will that not one of those whom He has chosen will be lost. In fact, Jesus goes so far as to give His unbreakable promise to raise every single last one from the dead on the final day.
Maybe I could say it this way, your salvation, child of God, as a believer in Jesus Christ, your salvation is in good hands. The Father wills—He cannot be defeated. His will cannot be frustrated. The Son promises—He cannot and will not break it. No one of the elect will be overlooked.
The "them," the recipients, those who believe, those that are drawn and chosen by the Father, gifted to the Son—they, in the end, will, they shall receive eternal life. Now, in this case, with these people, the majority of them who are listening to Jesus this day, they don't get that comfort. They don't get that assurance because of their blatant rejection. You see, proud human hearts say, Jesus, we haven't chosen You. We haven't made up our mind. You know, it's in our control. We are the masters of our own destiny. And Jesus goes to the root of their rotten pride and says, ‘You are spiritually impotent’ (verse 44).
He goes on in verse 45, and He says, and you are spiritually ignorant. He says, the reason you're not coming to Me is that you've not heard and learned from the Father. You have the Scriptures, you think you know the Scriptures, but the reality is that you don't know them. You've not been taught of the Father. You're not only impotent, but also you're ignorant. If that weren't enough, He says to them in verse 33, you are spiritually dead also. You're spiritually impotent, spiritually ignorant, and you are spiritually dead. "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves." Real life comes from real faith given by the Father and the real Messiah, Jesus—and Jesus is not done.
He’s gonna push back harder against their carnal desires for food and for the temporal.
And here we see Christ witnessed the skeptics by not only confronting their attitude, not only by stripping them of all their spiritual self-confidence, but also by pointing them to faith in Himself as their only hope of eternal life. And that’s verses 46 and 47. Very briefly, two points. He witnessed the skeptics by showing them that He’s the only one through whom we can know the Father. Look at verse 46, “Not that anyone has seen the Father, except the one who is from God; He has seen the Father.” To have seen the Father and to be from God is to be out of Heaven. Your origin is out of Heaven, isn’t it? This repeats the truth that John states in the prologue, John 1:18, “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father.” He has exegeted Him. “He has explained Him.” Jesus is the only one who can reveal and mediate the Father to us.
Luke 10:22, “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” John 14:6, “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me.”’” And in verse nine of the same chapter, Jesus tells Philip, “‘He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” We cannot come to the Father through mysticism, through philosophy, or human reason. We can only come to the Father through Christ Jesus, our Lord. There’s a fundamental doctrine which teaches that no mere sinful, finite man can look upon the absolute holy deity of God the Father and live. They are questioning His heavenly origin, and Christ says, I’m the only person who has ever seen God the Father. None of you ever have. This truly lays claim to His deity. I am God.
And Christ encouraged skeptics with the promise that whoever believes in Him has eternal life as a present possession. That’s verse 47, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life.” You see, I don’t know about you, you can go back and check this yourself—again and again in this chapter, truly, truly statements of Jesus begin with these two words, truly, truly. I’ll come back to that in a moment. But by saying truly, truly here, Jesus was calling their attention to His next words. He’s describing those who have eternal life—they believe in Him.
This is a truly, truly statement, meaning Christ is stressing dogmatic certainty. This is, whenever you come across truly, truly from the lips of Christ, this is like bold, underlined, italic, capital letters. Pay attention, don’t miss this. This is the only way to have eternal life. He’s stressing dogmatic certainty. You see the word believes? Pisteuōn is a present participle, which indicates that we don’t just believe in Jesus at one point, at the point of salvation. Rather, this is an ongoing, daily matter. Oh yeah, you know, he used to believe in Jesus, but now he stopped. Well, that was a counterfeit faith. Because saving faith is a present participle. What this means is the one who continually believes that Jesus Christ is the only one who can give eternal life to a person—that’s the one who has eternal life.
Now, some may emotionally respond to truth about Jesus, but that does not mean they have eternal life. It is the one who continually trusts in Jesus Christ as Savior who does have eternal life. One who does not continually trust in Him doesn’t have it. You may take some time and examine yourself to see if you have eternal life by asking and honestly answering one simple question: What do you continually trust in to take you to Heaven? What do you continually trust in to take you to Heaven? The salvation answer is: My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. The moment you believe, you have eternal life. Jesus says of His sheep who hear His voice and follow Him, "I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand." That invitation extends to you if that's you today.
You don't have to put your brain on the shelf to believe in Jesus, but you do have to confront your arrogant, grumbling, skeptical attitude. You do have to be stripped of all self-confidence, recognizing that you are unable in and of yourself to make a rational decision to come to Jesus. But there's more than sufficient apostolic testimony. You don't have to put your mind on the side—it is a sanctified mind. But to come to Him in faith, you must cry out to the Father to do a sovereign work of grace in your heart.
Let me come back to those two words, Amen, amen —"Truly, truly," "Verily, verily, I say to you." Let's have Spurgeon conclude our message this morning. Listen to what he says, "The words 'verily, verily,' as they were solemnly used by our divine Lord, indicate an utterance of special importance. If Jesus says 'verily, verily,' or 'truly, truly,' there's something coming to which we should attend with all our hearts. The subject which He thus introduces is our possession of eternal life and our being delivered from condemnation by faith in Himself. Can any theme be more important? Many questions may be asked, but they can all afford to wait till we get the answer to that first inquiry: What must I do to be saved? What shall it profit a man if he compasses the whole world of knowledge and knows not the way of life? If he wins the world in this life, what will that avail him if he misses the life everlasting? It is very considerate on our Lord's part to call us with such great solemnity to think about our souls and eternal life. Let us attend to His appeal. Come hither, dear hearer, and bend over the words which Jesus commends to you with a double nota bene, saying 'verily, verily.' Our Lord used this 'verily, verily' to denote a clear and certain revelation. There must be an end to all doubt when Jesus says 'verily, verily.' His ordinary word is true, for nothing but truth can come from Him who is the Truth. But when He uses the strongest assertion, 'verily, verily,' then we must regard the statement with special reverence if we be indeed His loyal subjects.
When Jesus says 'verily, verily,' we see two armies of verities gather around His royal standard. His declaration is to be accepted as indisputable, immutable, infallible truth.” Do you not agree to this? And then he says, “The doctrine which leaves salvation to the creature and tells him that it depends upon himself is the exaltation of the flesh and a dishonoring of God. But that which puts in God's hand man, fallen man, and tells man that though he has destroyed himself, yet his salvation must be of God—that doctrine humbles man in the very dust, and then he is just in the right place to receive the grace and mercy of God. It is a humbling doctrine."
Has God humbled your heart and drawn you to Jesus? If not, may I lovingly tell you stop grumbling. Start praying that He will do it for you, and do it right now. Let's pray.
Lord, thank You that this has been such a wonderful morning, a wonderful day, and it's not over yet as we again return and rejoice this evening. But Lord, we thank You for Your Word, so powerful, so clear, so consistent. Its divine authorship is unassailable, and we thank You for giving us the truth.
I pray for those who are here who may have come looking but have not believed, have not received, have not eaten, have not taken Christ not only as the bread that nourishes the soul but the blood that cleanses the soul. May nothing about the gospel be a stumbling block, but may the gospel be a welcome message, fully embraced. May it be, I pray, Lord, today that there's some person or persons who've heard this who will eat, who will receive Christ as Lord, as Savior, and receive Him as the source of their eternal life.
And we thank You, Lord, that we, Your people, are secure in that life, because if we do believe, if we do come, it's because You have drawn us, Father. You've given us to the Son, and You, blessed Son, You will keep us and hold us and raise us up at the last day. We thank You for the glory of the gospel and the opportunity that we have to celebrate what You have done today again.
Father, now we ask that You would do Your work in Your way, draw many to Yourself. We give You praise for privilege, undeserved, unearned, the gift of grace that has granted us salvation when we were Your enemies. We thank You and we bless Your holy name. We ask these things in His name and for His glory.
Some of these evangelistic methods also advise not to focus on the person's sin, or his need of repentance, or the wrath of God, the judgment of God. Don't use the word hell—that might scare away any potential convert. Rather, just tell them about God's love. God loves you. Just embrace Him, you know? Trust Him. Keep it positive. Focus on how Jesus will meet their needs for a happy marriage and successful career and a life that is free of trouble and pain. Now, after you, quote-unquote, "close the deal," then you could talk about the other stuff a little bit. But have you ever noticed how Jesus often took the opposite approach? He's going to teach us about evangelism today, our Lord.
See, when the rich young ruler, you remember, asked what he needed to do to inherit eternal life, Jesus said to him—you remember, right?—He said, it's easy. God loves you, young man, and I love you, too. Just believe in Me and you've got it. You're in. That's it. No, no. He told him to keep the commandments, and when the young man claimed that he had done that, Jesus replied. He went deeper, right? He put His finger on the real issue. He said to him in Luke 18:22, "One thing you still lack: sell all you possess and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven. And come, follow Me."
What Jesus did is He exposed the young man's heart and his idol, where his treasure is, and called him to acknowledge his sin and repent, and turn away from that and submit to the sovereign Savior. He told him to count the cost. You remember, elsewhere, He told the unbelieving crowd in Luke 9:23-24, "If anyone wishes to come after Me,” - well, tip your hat to Jesus. No, He says, "Let him deny himself, and take up his cross"— an instrument of death — daily, not like you know well I’ve done it ten years ago, no, no, daily, and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it." Death to self. Death to self. Not so easy, is it?
Jesus often seems to have made it hard to believe. You see, He never softened the message. He never softened His demand for complete, total, unwavering commitment and submission in order to win more followers. He never diluted the message. Today's thinking among professing Christians, even in the evangelical church, sadly, is we just want everyone to come to church and be happy and not be offended by what they hear. And rather than being concerned that unbelievers hear the real truth of God and the whole counsel of God, they're more interested that they hear something that never steps on their toes. They want some nice little ear-tickling verbiage.
That is not, however, what the Bible is designed to do. That is not the way the Bible is to be handled. Preaching the Word of God is not designed to tickle ears, to use Paul's words. You know what it's designed to do? It's designed to cut souls open. To cut souls open.
That is why when you read in Acts chapter 2 concerning the sermon, the day of Pentecost, Peter's sermon, after he proclaimed the Word of God unequivocally and the full counsel of God, what was the response? The people were pierced to their heart. They were cut. Their ears weren't tickled. Their heart was pierced. Never is there a hint in the Bible that the Word of God has as its goal not offending the hearers. The purpose of the Word of God is to reveal the truth of God, to share the truth of God. And when the truth of God is revealed to sinners, it is most assuredly going to either cut and cut very deep or it's going to offend. This is truth from a holy God.
The teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ were never designed to tickle ears. His teachings were never designed to flatter others, Jews or Gentiles. Those teachings were designed to communicate God's truth. And our Lord taught the truth with uncompromising directness. And here He is in the scene that was read in your hearing with unbelieving skeptics. They ate the miraculous bread, remember. He fed them the day before. They ate the miraculous bread and wanted to make Jesus king, but He didn't come to be the kind of king they wanted Him to be, the kind of king they were looking for. And so He withdrew from them, and the next day they sought Him in Capernaum, but for the wrong reasons. Still, they wanted Him to be the new Moses who could provide them with a lifetime supply of food, bread.
They had a wrong expectation for who the Messiah should be and what He should do for them, so Jesus addresses that. He addresses that, and He does that by asserting that He is the true bread out of heaven who could satisfy their spiritual hunger. Then what He did is He confronted their unbelief in verse 36: "But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe." And then, you remember as we studied together, He brought up the sovereign plan of God, who had given some to His Son as a gift to Jesus, whom He would certainly save and keep for all eternity. That's verses 37 to 40. His mission would certainly still succeed even in the face of unbelief, in the face of skepticism, even in the face of rejection, because Jesus came to fulfill the Father's sovereign will, and the Father's sovereign will will be fulfilled.
In this context, these Jews were grumbling about Jesus. They thought they knew His origin. I mean, after all, we know Him. He's the son of Joseph and Mary. How then could He say that He's the bread of life that came down out of heaven? And so they challenged our Lord's claims. Sometimes Jesus followed the principle of not casting your pearls before swine, but here in this case, He witnesses to them. He addresses the situation, although not in the way many modern evangelical professing believers do or would advise. Rather than telling them how much God loved them, Jesus restated His teaching about God's sovereignty over our salvation. He showed them their inability to come to Him apart from God's sovereign grace, which is, by the way, a subject today that unfortunately some pastors won't bring up at all, but especially they would advise others that you shouldn't bring it up at all when you're evangelizing.
But Jesus breaks that man-made rule here by telling these skeptical Jews that they cannot come to Him unless the Father who sent Him draws them. And in doing so, He really gives us a lesson on how we ought to witness to skeptics. As we will see together, our Lord Jesus witnessed to skeptics, unbelieving skeptics, by confronting their attitude, by showing them their spiritual inability, and by pointing them to faith in Himself as their only hope of salvation.
We will look at this under our next heading: the purposeful confrontation, this is 41 to 47. And here, by the way, we see the fourth question that the crowd asked. The fourth question is a question of identity, and that's found in verses 41 and 42. Just to remind us, their first question was a question of curiosity back in verse 25, "When did You come here?" Their second question was a question of religiosity in verse 28, "What should we do so that we may work the works of God?" Their third question was a question of perversity in verse 30, "So they said to Him, 'What then do You do for a sign so that we may see and believe You? What work do You perform?"
And here now is their fourth question, a question of identity, and that’s verses 41 and 42. The Jews were grumbling about Him because He said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They were saying, 'Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He now say, "I have come down from heaven?' In other words, how can He claim to be of ultimate miracle heavenly origin? How? We know His family. How can He claim a heavenly origin? He's one of us. He grew up here with us in Galilee. We've never seen any sign while He grew up, and now He's just saying, "I am the bread of life. I came out of heaven."
Well, look at our Lord's response. He confronts and explains their unbelief. Christ witnessed to these skeptics, these unbelieving skeptics, by confronting their attitude. He confronts their attitude. That's an important principle. Look at verse 43, "Jesus answered and said to them, "Stop grumbling among yourselves."" Now, keep in mind, by the way, that John uses the word "Jews" consistently to refer particularly to those who were hostile toward Jesus. In this context, he also may want us to think back and hearken to those Jews who grumbled in the wilderness under Moses and brought the judgment, the judgement of God upon their heads,Exodus 15 and Numbers 11.
The cause of the Jews' grumbling here in this text was our Lord's claim to be the bread that came down out of heaven. They thought that they knew the origin of Jesus as the son of Joseph and Mary, so they just couldn't understand how He claimed to come down out of heaven—which He repeats over and over and over again, by the way, in this chapter. You find this in verses 32, 33, 38, 50, 51, and 58. They were setting themselves up as capable of judging Jesus' repeated claim because they did not know about His virgin birth. John had already told us that the eternal Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and if these Jews were willing to embrace the truth, they would have known that His claim was absolutely true.
Jesus did not correct their misunderstanding about His coming down out of heaven. He doesn't deal with that, but notice what He does. He doesn't let them control the conversation. He sets the tone. Instead of correcting their misunderstanding about His coming down out of heaven, rather, what He does is confront their attitude. He goes right to the attitude. Verse 43, "Stop grumbling among yourselves." Gogguzo is the Greek word. It's an onomato-poetic word, we call it that, derived from the sound made when murmuring and grumbling in a low, indistinct voice with the idea of complaint—to grumble, to mutter.
It is used in an absolute sense in 1 Corinthians. That word, 1 Corinthians 10:10, carries the idea of complaint, and that same word is used in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, in Numbers 11:1, and we know what happened there. This type of grumbling is not just a simple dissatisfaction with the fact that something doesn't happen. This is a grumbling that is utterly ungodly and always due to the fact that people think that what is just is not being done. In other words, if we were to put it in context, they do not believe that faith in Jesus Christ, the Messiah, is really fair or just in being right with God.
You know something about grumblers? Grumblers invariably set themselves up as sovereign over God. Grumblers invariably set themselves up as sovereign over the Sovereign One. It goes something like this, ‘If God only saw things my way, I wouldn't be in this mess. If God only took account of my insights, this problem would get cleared up right away.’ You see, grumblers are not in submission to God's sovereign rule. In fact, they want to tell God how to run the world so that things will go the way they want them to go.
Grumblers arrogantly imply that they know more than God knows. If you grumble about your circumstances, it means that God doesn't know what He's doing, that you know better. These grumblers thought that they were competent to pass judgment on Jesus, so He confronted their grumbling attitude. The point is, grumblers will not believe in Jesus even if they've seen Him feed 20,000-plus people with five loaves and two fish. Even if they watched Him heal the sick, they wouldn't come to believe in Jesus unless and until they repent of their grumbling attitude.
So Jesus puts His finger right on the issue. At the root of unbelief is not a lack of evidence, beloved, but an attitude that wants to tell God how to run the universe—at least my corner of the universe.
In John 7:17, Jesus states, "If anyone is willing to do His,” the Father's, “will, he will know about the teaching, whether it is of God or I speak from Myself." At the root of proper, correct understanding about Jesus that leads to saving faith in Him is whether we are willing to be obedient to the Father's will. Next time you're carrying on a conversation with an unbelieving person, a skeptic, and they raise an objection to the faith, to your Christian faith, an objection in the line of evolution, the problem of suffering, and if God is good, why there are so many people suffering, errors in the Bible, etc., try this reply, ‘Are you saying that if I can give you reasonable answers to that issue, then you will repent of your sins, submit to the Lord Jesus Christ, and follow Him? Is that what you're saying?’
Invariably, they will say, well, there are other issues too. In other words, the issues are not the issue. The issues are really simply smoke screens to hide the fact that the skeptic doesn't want to submit and bend the knee to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. You see, if he can control Jesus to provide him with what he wants out of life, maybe he might profess to believe. But then he's not believing in Jesus as Lord, but rather in a Jesus who is Aladdin's genie. So in witnessing to such grumbling skeptics, confront their underlying attitude of not wanting to bend the knee to Jesus—accountability, submission to the Lordship—and Jesus commands them to cease their grumbling. We sometimes think of grumbling as, you know, a tiny sin, a nothing burger, a little sin, but it was grumbling that kept the first generation of Israelites out of the promised land. Just as the sin of grumbling kept Israel out of the promised land, it would keep the grumblers out of the promised life that Jesus offers.
But before I move on to verse 44, I need to mention that grumbling is not just a problem with unbelieving skeptics. It's also a problem for many that profess to know Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 10:10, Philippians 2:14 – Beloved, if you're grumbling about your circumstances, you know what that means. It means you're not giving thanks in all things, because you cannot be, at the same time, thankful and grumbling. And if you're not giving thanks, you're not trusting in the Sovereign Lord, and you're not submitting to His Sovereign design. You're not submitting to His Sovereign hand over your circumstances.
And you know what else it means? It means that what you profess concerning Romans 8:28, you deny in practice—that all things do work together for good for those who love the Lord. So there's a word of application in the words of Christ in verse 43. To put it in Paul's language, for us believers, Philippians 2:14-15, "Do all things without grumbling or disputing." Why? Why, Paul? "So that you will be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world."
If you sit at the kitchen table at your workplace and join in the grumbling chorus, then you're not shining as light. And Paul says, "Do all things without grumbling or disputing, so that you are blameless and innocent children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation." You stand out. Let all of that be the black velvety backdrop on which the diamonds of God's grace shine all the more brightly—the grace that has transformed you as His child.
Grumbling—this Greek word is an interesting word. It simply means expressing dissatisfaction with your circumstances, whether you express that dissatisfaction under your breath or whether you express it to others. You can express it under your breath, no one else hears it. Or you can express it to others—it's that attitude. And then Paul doesn't stop there in that Philippians text, he adds that disputing is also off-limits for us as believers. To dispute is to direct that dissatisfaction that we have with our circumstances and direct that against God. Now, whether we do it to Him personally, directly, or whether we do it with those people around us, we basically argue with God and His purpose and His plan. We call His plans and His acts into question. The most common way that's done is in a phrase that you hear everywhere all around you, and it's this phrase, ‘It's just not fair.’ That's how you hear it—maybe the introduction to it or the end of it— ‘It's just not fair.’
Secondly, Christ's witness to these skeptics is not only by confronting their attitude, but—this is incredible—by stripping them of all spiritual self-confidence. By stripping them of all spiritual self-confidence. Look at verse 44, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day." Will you please note that Jesus basically repeats verse 44 in verse 65, except that in verse 65 He changes the Father's drawing with the Father's granting. Coming to Christ is a sovereign gift. It's unavoidable; it's there.
Why would Jesus tell unbelieving skeptics that they are unable in and of themselves to come to Him? I mean, think about it. You could see why He would talk privately with His disciples about such a profound theological truth. But why would He bring this up with these skeptics? Unbelieving skeptics need to be stripped of their proud self-confidence, and Jesus does that. I really think this is the main reason He tells these skeptics that no one has the ability to come to Him unless the Father who sent Him draws them.
Why? Because skeptics like that are proud of their mental ability. They view believers as uneducated simpletons—naive people, you know. In fact, some of them would even use the word stupid. They say things like this, ‘If they had half a brain, they could see how unreasonable it is to believe that this carpenter from Nazareth came down from heaven. You don't believe, actually, the stuff about Noah's Ark and the animals, do you? Do you really believe that the Israelites crossed the Red Sea and it was split in two? Do you really believe that? You don't believe that, do you? You don't believe that the world was created in six literal days? You don't believe that, do you? I thought you were smarter than that.’
Skeptics think that their intellect is sovereign over God. They base their understanding of God—even if He exists in their mind—on evidence and logic. But if a skeptic were able to come to Jesus Christ through his own intellect or willpower or decision or cleverness, he would come how? In pride. In arrogance, which is, by the way, antithetical to gospel repentance. The Bible yanks the rug of pride out from under all of us, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him."
You see the word? Well, in English, two words. It's one word in the Greek. "No one." Outis. "No one" is the strongest—this Greek word—the strongest negative there is, meaning not even a single one. Outis. And the verb tense for "draw" is aorist, meaning a one-time drawing. As we will see, that is always successful. This is a very subjective drawing for an individual with subjective conditions—misery and guilt and depression and threat of hell. And you see the verb "can"? Dunamis, from which we get the word "dynamite," used here negatively, means that one does not have the power, does not have the ability or the capability to come to Christ left to ourselves.
Some of the best work on this verse is done by J. C. Ryle. Listen to what he says concerning John 6:44, and I quote, "Until the Father draws the heart of man by His grace, man will not believe. The nature of man since the fall is so corrupt and depraved that even when Christ is made known and preached to him, he will not come to Him and believe in Him without the special grace of God inclining his will and giving him a disposition to come. Moral suasion and advice alone will not bring him. He must be drawn. This is no doubt a very humbling truth, and one which in every age has called forth the hatred and opposition of man. The favorite notion of man is that he can do what he likes—repent or not repent, believe or not believe, come to Christ or not come—entirely at his own discretion. In fact, man likes to think that his salvation is in his own power. Such notions are flatly contradictory to the text before us. The words of our Lord here are clear and unmistakable and cannot be explained away. This doctrine of human impotence, whether man likes it or not, is the uniform teaching of the Bible. The natural man is dead and must be born again and brought to life. He has neither knowledge nor faith nor inclination toward Christ until grace comes into his heart.”
And he goes on to say, “Man never of himself begins with God. God must first begin with man. God must first begin with man. Adam, where are you? God sought Adam. God is the one who seeks the sinner.” He goes on to say, “And this beginning is just the drawing of the text. It is a drawing which the Father effects through the man's own will by creating a new principle within him. By the unseen agency of the Holy Ghost, He works on man's heart without the man himself knowing it at the time, inclines him to think, induces him to feel, shows him his sinfulness, and so leads him at length to Christ. Everyone that comes to Christ is so drawn.”
So Jesus is saying to them in verse 44, I know why you're grumbling. I know why you don't believe in Me. You've got a desperate problem that only God can solve. You cannot come to Me unless the Father draws you. And He's stripping them of their proud spiritual self-confidence, which is the opposite of trusting in Christ for salvation. And to come utterly empty-handed.
"Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the poor in spirit." Meaning you come to the Lord empty-handed, saying, I have nothing. I am nothing. I can do nothing to give me a right standing before You. I depend completely on Jesus Christ and His saving grace. And unbelieving skeptics as well need to realize their inability to come to Jesus Christ apart from the Father's powerful drawing.
Some who argue that God does not force Himself on anyone, but that we all must make our own decision to believe in Jesus, say that God's drawing means that He woos sinners. He woos them, right? He, much as a young man, you know, tries to woo a woman to decide to marry him. To try to win her, right? Well, here's the problem. Based on this verse, it's the word draw - helkuō. Helkuō is the Greek word used in John 21:6, John 21:11, referring there to the disciples dragging the net of fish into the boat and then to the shores. They did not woo those fish to please decide to jump into the net, did they? To cooperate maybe, by wiggling their way onto the shore? The word is also used, that same word, helkuō, of Paul and Silas being dragged to the authorities in Philippi after they cast the demon out of the slave girl in Acts 16:19. And Paul also was dragged—same word—out of the temple by the angry mob in Jerusalem, Acts 21:30. Obviously, they weren't wooing him.
Leon Morris points out that it is always the idea of resistance with the use of this verb, helkuō, but that there is not one single example in the New Testament where the resistance was successful. He says, “Always the drawing power is triumphant.” As here. And A. W. Pink describes this drawing, he says,"It is the power of the Holy Spirit overcoming the self-righteousness of the sinner and convicting him of his lost condition. It is the Holy Spirit awakening within him a sense of need. It is the power of the Holy Spirit overcoming the pride of the natural man so that he is ready to come to Jesus Christ as an empty-handed beggar. It is the Holy Spirit creating within him a hunger for the bread of life." End of quote.
And would you please note that the drawing of which Jesus speaks here is effectual. It is effectual. It always results in the sinner actually coming to Jesus in saving faith. The resistance is overcome. In other words, this word always contains within it the idea of a successful force.
Astoundingly, men like William Barclay say, with reference to the usage of this term draw, and I quote, "Always there is this idea of resistance. God can and does draw men, but men's resistance can defeat the pull of God."
That's not the God of the Bible. Leon Morris rightly says, “There is not one example in the New Testament of the use of this verb where the resistance is successful.” Take your Bible, look, go ahead, look. Maybe you want to take this on—take it on. If you disagree, take your Bible, go through the Bible, look for any instance in which the resistance is successful. When the Lord Jesus says, "No man can come to Me except the Father who has sent Me draws him," that drawing is always, always a successful drawing.
John Calvin says, “As far as the manner of hearing goes, it is not violent so as to compel men by an external force, but yet it is an effectual movement of the Holy Spirit turning men from being unwilling and reluctant into willing. Jesus states in John 6:44 that He will raise up the one who is drawn to Him on the last day. That shows us that He means raised up to eternal life. And in verse 45, He reinforces that this is effectual when He says, "Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me." It's inevitable.
You know what that also means? It's the same unbroken chain of redemption that Paul outlines in Romans 8:29-30, where he writes, "Because those whom He [God] foreknew, He also predestined." By the way, the word foreknew doesn't mean knowing beforehand. It doesn't mean that at all. It means God setting His affection upon someone—sovereign affection, sovereign selection. "Because those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers; and those [these are the same those] whom He predestined, He also called, and those whom He called, He also justified; and those whom He justified, He also glorified."
Jesus says here that belief in Christ, eating the bread, coming to Him, is not a humanly generated action. God has put iron filings, as it were, in the sinner's heart before he could be attracted to the magnet called Christ. Again, Leon Morris puts it well. He says, "People do not come to Christ because it seems to them a good idea." No, beloved, God must draw them. God must draw them, and to do so, God uses, as it were, the iron filings of divine enlightenment or teaching. Verse 45.
Sinful man is totally lost. In fact, Isaiah compares him to a sheep: "All we like sheep have gone astray" - Isaiah 53:6. You know what's interesting? Here's what's interesting. If a cow or a dog or a cat or a horse or a deer or a pigeon gets lost, it can find its own way back home, but not a sheep. A lost sheep must be found and brought back home, and so it is with lost sinners. God must find every single one of them and take them to the Lord. God must find every single one of them and take them to His Son.
I grew up among mechanics—my brothers. One time, I remember, this came to my mind as I was really preparing. My brother dropped a bolt into a dirty black tub of old oil, and he wanted that bolt desperately. It slipped and fell, and so that bolt instantly sunk out of sight to the bottom of the filth. And so he took a magnet and drew that dead bolt out of the mire, cleaned it, and then put it to use. That's exactly what God does with the sinner. The sinner is in deep sin, cannot get out, so God magnetically, as it were, draws the sinner to His Son. And when the sinner comes to His Son, He cleans that sinner up and puts that sinner to use for His glory.
Our Lord also makes another point. Unbelieving skeptics need to realize that the Scriptures are the only source for the truth about Jesus that leads to salvation, and that's in verse 45, "It is written in the Prophets. AND THEY SHALL ALL BE TAUGHT BY GOD. Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me." They are the ones who come to me. Jesus is referring to Isaiah 54:13 and perhaps to Jeremiah 31:34, to show these proud skeptics that their own Scriptures supported Jesus' point in verse 44. You see the word "all"? The pas is the Greek word. It refers to true believers, as the second half of the verse shows. God draws all whom He draws to believe in Jesus by teaching them through His Word. The Holy Spirit uses the Word of God to open blind eyes to see the beauty of Jesus, so that formerly resistant sinners now are drawn to Him, they're captivated by Him.
And you can know that you've been taught of God when you lay aside all self-confidence and come in faith to Jesus as the Savior of whom all the Scripture speaks. Again, our Lord is stripping these proud skeptics of their own intellect or power of reason as the basis for their own salvation. If someone can reason his own way to salvation, then he will take pride in that reason. But Jesus is saying that the truth about Him is contained in God's all-sufficient Word, God's written Word, and that no one has the mental capacity to understand that truth unless God teaches it to him. Isn't that what we pray even as believers? God, give me light when I come to read the Scripture. Me, a finite, limited person, bombarded by my remaining corruption, distracted by the world, my mind is depraved, fallen in Christ, and so I need the help of the Spirit. Give me light. Give me light.
As John the Baptist said in John 3:27, "A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven," right? Or as Jesus told Peter after he made his famous confession—remember, of Jesus as the Christ, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," in Matthew 16:17. And Peter was really proud. He got the right answer, right? He was so proud. Jesus said to him right away, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven." Good answer, Peter, but watch out. Don't take the credit for it. It was given to you.
If you're proud of your spiritual knowledge, even if you are truly born again, you don't know what you think you know. Genuine spiritual knowledge always humbles us in the presence of God and causes us to wonder why He ever chose to reveal Christ to our souls. You see, the more you know, the more you realize how little you really know and how much you really don't know.
So Christ witnesses to these skeptics by confronting their attitude, by stripping them of all spiritual self-confidence. They say, ‘Jesus, we don't believe You,’ and Jesus says, ‘I'll tell you why you don't believe Me. It's because the Father hasn't opened your eyes.’ This is the sub-theme of the whole debate. God gives faith. God's sovereignty gives true faith. Only God the Father can open the eyes to see the heavenly, the eternal, the spiritual. All they can see is Yeshua of Nazareth, the carpenter. They can't see Bread from Heaven standing in front of them. The reason they don't believe, Jesus says, is all they have is carnal vision. Because to see who He is, to come to Him for who He is, they need the drawing, the teaching, the enlightening work of the Father.
And again, here we see both God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. We hold them together hand in hand, and they're not enemies—they're friends. God the Father must draw you, and then you must come. God the Father must teach you, and you must hear and learn. Remember, verse 37 puts it clearly: "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me,” you have to come, “I will never cast out." Now take verse 37 and verse 44, put them together—they're versions of each other. "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me." "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him." So you put the two together, and here's what we learn. Sinful man never thinks it's a good idea to come to Jesus by himself, left to himself. Sinful man never wakes up one morning and says, "You know what, I'm gonna go to God. I'm gonna turn to God. That's what I'm gonna do today. Yes, I myself believe that it's a good idea to go to God." No, no, God has got to put in your heart something. He's gotta put it in your heart, and when He does, you will definitely come.
You see, God cures you from the rabies of unbelief, and once He cures you of the rabies of unbelief, instead of biting His hand, you will kiss His hand. When God removes the insanity of unbelief from your mind, your clear-thinking mind will see the beauty of Jesus and voluntarily, willingly, from the heart, come. Psalm 110:3, "Your people will offer themselves freely in the day of Your power." That's the work of God. And when you do, Jesus says He will not—never—turn you away.
So verses 36 and 45 develop the word "them" back in verse 31, right? That's why you have to be here every Sunday so you can see the full picture, right? So I develop the word "them" of "He gave them bread from heaven to eat." The "them," the recipients who eat and believe, are those given to Christ by the Father. The banquet table is loaded, but God must draw us to the table—we will not come even though we are starving. Christ, on His part, gladly embraces the Father's will that not one of those whom He has chosen will be lost. In fact, Jesus goes so far as to give His unbreakable promise to raise every single last one from the dead on the final day.
Maybe I could say it this way, your salvation, child of God, as a believer in Jesus Christ, your salvation is in good hands. The Father wills—He cannot be defeated. His will cannot be frustrated. The Son promises—He cannot and will not break it. No one of the elect will be overlooked.
The "them," the recipients, those who believe, those that are drawn and chosen by the Father, gifted to the Son—they, in the end, will, they shall receive eternal life. Now, in this case, with these people, the majority of them who are listening to Jesus this day, they don't get that comfort. They don't get that assurance because of their blatant rejection. You see, proud human hearts say, Jesus, we haven't chosen You. We haven't made up our mind. You know, it's in our control. We are the masters of our own destiny. And Jesus goes to the root of their rotten pride and says, ‘You are spiritually impotent’ (verse 44).
He goes on in verse 45, and He says, and you are spiritually ignorant. He says, the reason you're not coming to Me is that you've not heard and learned from the Father. You have the Scriptures, you think you know the Scriptures, but the reality is that you don't know them. You've not been taught of the Father. You're not only impotent, but also you're ignorant. If that weren't enough, He says to them in verse 33, you are spiritually dead also. You're spiritually impotent, spiritually ignorant, and you are spiritually dead. "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves." Real life comes from real faith given by the Father and the real Messiah, Jesus—and Jesus is not done.
He’s gonna push back harder against their carnal desires for food and for the temporal.
And here we see Christ witnessed the skeptics by not only confronting their attitude, not only by stripping them of all their spiritual self-confidence, but also by pointing them to faith in Himself as their only hope of eternal life. And that’s verses 46 and 47. Very briefly, two points. He witnessed the skeptics by showing them that He’s the only one through whom we can know the Father. Look at verse 46, “Not that anyone has seen the Father, except the one who is from God; He has seen the Father.” To have seen the Father and to be from God is to be out of Heaven. Your origin is out of Heaven, isn’t it? This repeats the truth that John states in the prologue, John 1:18, “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father.” He has exegeted Him. “He has explained Him.” Jesus is the only one who can reveal and mediate the Father to us.
Luke 10:22, “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” John 14:6, “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me.”’” And in verse nine of the same chapter, Jesus tells Philip, “‘He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” We cannot come to the Father through mysticism, through philosophy, or human reason. We can only come to the Father through Christ Jesus, our Lord. There’s a fundamental doctrine which teaches that no mere sinful, finite man can look upon the absolute holy deity of God the Father and live. They are questioning His heavenly origin, and Christ says, I’m the only person who has ever seen God the Father. None of you ever have. This truly lays claim to His deity. I am God.
And Christ encouraged skeptics with the promise that whoever believes in Him has eternal life as a present possession. That’s verse 47, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life.” You see, I don’t know about you, you can go back and check this yourself—again and again in this chapter, truly, truly statements of Jesus begin with these two words, truly, truly. I’ll come back to that in a moment. But by saying truly, truly here, Jesus was calling their attention to His next words. He’s describing those who have eternal life—they believe in Him.
This is a truly, truly statement, meaning Christ is stressing dogmatic certainty. This is, whenever you come across truly, truly from the lips of Christ, this is like bold, underlined, italic, capital letters. Pay attention, don’t miss this. This is the only way to have eternal life. He’s stressing dogmatic certainty. You see the word believes? Pisteuōn is a present participle, which indicates that we don’t just believe in Jesus at one point, at the point of salvation. Rather, this is an ongoing, daily matter. Oh yeah, you know, he used to believe in Jesus, but now he stopped. Well, that was a counterfeit faith. Because saving faith is a present participle. What this means is the one who continually believes that Jesus Christ is the only one who can give eternal life to a person—that’s the one who has eternal life.
Now, some may emotionally respond to truth about Jesus, but that does not mean they have eternal life. It is the one who continually trusts in Jesus Christ as Savior who does have eternal life. One who does not continually trust in Him doesn’t have it. You may take some time and examine yourself to see if you have eternal life by asking and honestly answering one simple question: What do you continually trust in to take you to Heaven? What do you continually trust in to take you to Heaven? The salvation answer is: My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. The moment you believe, you have eternal life. Jesus says of His sheep who hear His voice and follow Him, "I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand." That invitation extends to you if that's you today.
You don't have to put your brain on the shelf to believe in Jesus, but you do have to confront your arrogant, grumbling, skeptical attitude. You do have to be stripped of all self-confidence, recognizing that you are unable in and of yourself to make a rational decision to come to Jesus. But there's more than sufficient apostolic testimony. You don't have to put your mind on the side—it is a sanctified mind. But to come to Him in faith, you must cry out to the Father to do a sovereign work of grace in your heart.
Let me come back to those two words, Amen, amen —"Truly, truly," "Verily, verily, I say to you." Let's have Spurgeon conclude our message this morning. Listen to what he says, "The words 'verily, verily,' as they were solemnly used by our divine Lord, indicate an utterance of special importance. If Jesus says 'verily, verily,' or 'truly, truly,' there's something coming to which we should attend with all our hearts. The subject which He thus introduces is our possession of eternal life and our being delivered from condemnation by faith in Himself. Can any theme be more important? Many questions may be asked, but they can all afford to wait till we get the answer to that first inquiry: What must I do to be saved? What shall it profit a man if he compasses the whole world of knowledge and knows not the way of life? If he wins the world in this life, what will that avail him if he misses the life everlasting? It is very considerate on our Lord's part to call us with such great solemnity to think about our souls and eternal life. Let us attend to His appeal. Come hither, dear hearer, and bend over the words which Jesus commends to you with a double nota bene, saying 'verily, verily.' Our Lord used this 'verily, verily' to denote a clear and certain revelation. There must be an end to all doubt when Jesus says 'verily, verily.' His ordinary word is true, for nothing but truth can come from Him who is the Truth. But when He uses the strongest assertion, 'verily, verily,' then we must regard the statement with special reverence if we be indeed His loyal subjects.
When Jesus says 'verily, verily,' we see two armies of verities gather around His royal standard. His declaration is to be accepted as indisputable, immutable, infallible truth.” Do you not agree to this? And then he says, “The doctrine which leaves salvation to the creature and tells him that it depends upon himself is the exaltation of the flesh and a dishonoring of God. But that which puts in God's hand man, fallen man, and tells man that though he has destroyed himself, yet his salvation must be of God—that doctrine humbles man in the very dust, and then he is just in the right place to receive the grace and mercy of God. It is a humbling doctrine."
Has God humbled your heart and drawn you to Jesus? If not, may I lovingly tell you stop grumbling. Start praying that He will do it for you, and do it right now. Let's pray.
Lord, thank You that this has been such a wonderful morning, a wonderful day, and it's not over yet as we again return and rejoice this evening. But Lord, we thank You for Your Word, so powerful, so clear, so consistent. Its divine authorship is unassailable, and we thank You for giving us the truth.
I pray for those who are here who may have come looking but have not believed, have not received, have not eaten, have not taken Christ not only as the bread that nourishes the soul but the blood that cleanses the soul. May nothing about the gospel be a stumbling block, but may the gospel be a welcome message, fully embraced. May it be, I pray, Lord, today that there's some person or persons who've heard this who will eat, who will receive Christ as Lord, as Savior, and receive Him as the source of their eternal life.
And we thank You, Lord, that we, Your people, are secure in that life, because if we do believe, if we do come, it's because You have drawn us, Father. You've given us to the Son, and You, blessed Son, You will keep us and hold us and raise us up at the last day. We thank You for the glory of the gospel and the opportunity that we have to celebrate what You have done today again.
Father, now we ask that You would do Your work in Your way, draw many to Yourself. We give You praise for privilege, undeserved, unearned, the gift of grace that has granted us salvation when we were Your enemies. We thank You and we bless Your holy name. We ask these things in His name and for His glory.
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