You Are What You Eat – Pt. 6

And turn back once again to John,
incredible John chapter 6, where we have been many weeks in consideration
of these rich passages. do not have the time to read
the passage or the chapter in its entirety as we’ve done in
weeks past, I would simply dive headlong into the passage and
pick up by way of reminder that Jesus had done this incredible
miracle, feeding of the 5,000. He garnered a great crowd that
followed his disciples around the edge of the sea. And Jesus
challenges them immediately as he sees them. Look at verse 26,
if you would. Jesus answered and said, truly,
truly, I say to you, you seek me not because you saw signs,
but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Jesus challenges
their earthly thinking. That all they’re really interested
in, their great focus, is just their next meal. They’re only
thinking in terms of bread, food, Well Jesus challenges that and
it essentially falls on deaf ears. They don’t understand at
all. And so they enter into this debate
and dialogue with Christ that really centers around three kinds
of bread. We’ve entitled this series, You
Are What You Eat. And what Jesus was challenging
them on was that essentially they were earthly and natural. They were focused only on the
bread, the real bread, the bread on the table. And Jesus challenges
them and they don’t understand. Look at verse 28, what shall
we do that we may work the works of God? Jesus answered and said
to them, this is the work of God that you believe in him whom
he sent. Jesus couldn’t have been more
clear on that point. And so they begin this confusing
attempt to figure out what Christ is declaring to them. Perhaps
Jesus has some other kind of bread. Perhaps he even is able
to produce and give to them manna. And so they ask, they challenge
him essentially with the gift of manna that Moses had given
to their forefathers. And Jesus corrects that, doesn’t
he? And look at verse 32. Truly,
truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread
out of heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread
out of heaven. For the bread of God is that
which comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world. Jesus was talking about himself,
and he will make that abundantly clear. It’s Jesus Christ, a new
and different kind of bread that he’s speaking about, not the
bread of heaven, not earthly natural bread, the bread of the
earth, not even the bread of heaven such as manna, but Jesus
Christ presents himself as the bread of life. Look at verse
34. They asked for the bread. Lord, always give us this bread.
Keep on giving us this bread. Moses’ miracle lasted 40 years. Can you outdo that? Give us a
perpetual supply of this bread. They completely missed the point.
Jesus begins to plead with them and what he’s doing, as we’ve
seen in weeks past, he’s preaching the gospel. This is a heart of
mercy, the heart of our Savior unfolding before them, pleading
with them. Watch what happens. Jesus said
to them, verse 35, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will
not hunger. He who believes in me will never
thirst. Well, we saw that there is just
no doubt about it. That’s what Jesus is doing is
preaching the gospel to them. And we saw that even in their
willful unbelief, Jesus keeps it up and he keeps on preaching
the gospel for those few that might be in the audience, this
crowd of people that might hear and might repent of their sin
and might come to Christ and might eat of this bread that
he offers. Jesus is preaching the gospel.
We’ve seen it. Look at verse 36. In the face
of their willful unbelief, we see the Savior preaching about
his faithful. In verse 37, we see the sureness
of his gift. All that the Father gives to
me will come to me. It is absolute. There is a surety
to it. There is a certainty to that
gift. We say the giver of the gift
in verse 38, I have come down from heaven not to do my own
will, but the will of him who sent me, which is to preach the
gospel, to gather in believers, to save the lost. We see the
preciousness of the gift. Verse 39, this is the will of
him who sent me, that of all that he has given me, I lose
nothing but raise it up on the last day. Jesus is preaching
the gospel and then he drives the point home by reminding them
of the blessing of the gift. The gift is sure. The gift is
given by God himself. The gift is infinitely precious.
It is us. It is a wholesale gift to Christ
from God. The blessings of the gift are
clear. This is the will of my father, verse 40, that everyone
who beholds the son and believes in him will have eternal life
and I myself will raise him up on the last day. I’ve had opportunity to preach
for 25 years, somewhere in there. And there have been a couple
of occasions where I have been interrupted. Once was not a bad,
necessarily a bad situation, at least no bad or no evil came
of it. There was another situation where
I was flat out interrupted and I had to wait and elders had
to come alongside the individual and calm him down. I’ve had occasions
to be interrupted in my preaching, and when I teach, my style is
completely different. I want to be interrupted when
I’m teaching. When I’m preaching, I’ve got a one-track mind, and
I need to get going. Well, the amazing thing is, here
is the Lord Jesus Christ, God Almighty in the flesh, preaching
the gospel, the only hope for humanity, and in the course of
preaching the gospel, which verses we just reviewed, Jesus Christ
himself is interrupted. We looked at it last week. We
began to look at it, and I want to take a running start at it
in verse 41. I want to look at the passage
in its entirety. But it starts with this interruption. Jesus
is preaching the gospel, the sureness of the gift, the giver
of the gift, the preciousness of the gift, the blessing of
the gift, and suddenly an interruption. Look at verse 41. Therefore,
the Jews, were grumbling about him. Because he said, I am the
bread that came down out of heaven. They were saying, is this not
Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How
does he now say, I have come down out of heaven? Jesus answered
and said to them, do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless
the Father who sent me draws him. and I will raise him up
on the last day. It is written in the prophets
and they shall all be taught of God. Everyone who has heard
and learned from the father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen
the father except the one who is from God. He has seen the
father. Truly, truly, I say to you, he
who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your
fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This
is the bread which comes down out of heaven so that one may
eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came
down out of heaven. If anyone eats of this bread,
he will live forever. And the bread also which I will
give for the life of the world is my flesh.” There’s just no doubt about it.
Jesus was interrupted. We know that because we know
the content, we know the flow of the passage that he was actively
preaching the gospel up until verse 40, and in the midst of
his preaching, there are people wagging and rolling their heads,
rolling their eyes, muttering under their breath, falsely accusing
him, questioning his status, his calling, and Jesus seizes upon it, there’s
just no doubt that he was interrupted. Maybe not verbally, maybe not
with a hand wave to ask a question in the midst of one of his sentences
or statements, but there’s just no doubt that he was interrupted
and Jesus pauses to deal with the interruption. And we looked
at that last week. Why on earth would Jesus pause
to make this lengthy statement that he begins in verse 43? This
correction out of mercy. Now, in a very real way, if you
look at those words, they would put anyone on their heels. They would put his detractors
on their heels. Do not grumble among yourselves.
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws
him. And it would be a stern rebuke
to those who were already showing their hatred for Christ. But
I suggested to you last week, Jesus knew about their grumblings,
but these statements here would be just as encouraging for that
person back in the corner who is beginning to hear the voice
of Christ and is beginning to be drawn and wonder if this individual
might not be legitimate after all. That if He is who He says
He is, then these things are profound indeed. I believe that
what Christ does is more for Him than anyone. And there might
have been several of them. There might have been a number
of them. that we’re already being drawn, drawn by Almighty God.
And we know that it’s absolutely necessary because of our sinfulness.
We know that we are dead in our trespasses and sins. We already
know that unless God draws us, we will not come. It couldn’t
be plainer. No one can come to me unless
the Father who sent me draws him. And all who come will come
for good. They will not be lost in the
end. For that individual sitting in the midst of this head-wagging,
this tsk-tsk attitude of the crowd, this dubious grumbling that was going on,
for that individual that sat back in the quiet and began to
really wrestle with these things, it had to be a tremendous encouragement.
What if that’s what this is? What if God is drawing me? If
God is drawing me, I will come. If God is drawing me, I will
repent of my sin. If God is drawing me, Christ
is real and I will be saved. Spurgeon. Spurgeon said it so clearly when
he said, through the fall and through our own sin, the nature
of man has become so debased and depraved, so corrupt, that
it is impossible for him to come to know Christ without the assistance
of God. What if I’m sitting back in this
corner and I hear the entire crowd, yet my own heart tells
me, this man is real. This man’s words are true. Well,
if you know Christ this morning already, you know, you know that
you have been drawn. You know that God did a work
in your life. You know, the Holy Spirit applied
the word of God to your heart and brought you to knees of repentance. That’s why Jesus says those words.
They were for those in the back, in whose heart and life God was
already working. No one can come to me unless
the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up
on the last day. But there’s a third episode,
a third phase to this interaction, and it really is just the end
of Christ’s sermon. Jesus picks up exactly where
he was preaching the gospel and he finishes the job preaching
the gospel. It’s a merciful reiteration of
the elements of the gospel. I think you can see five there.
And what Jesus does here in what is the key to the entire paragraph
He shows that what the manna was to those forefathers that
they claimed, Jesus Christ himself is to souls who would come to
him in faith. They’re the same. Just as the
manna was absolutely necessary every morning to be gathered
up and eaten, Jesus Christ is absolutely necessary spiritually
speaking. The manna was temporary. temporal,
if you will, earthly. It sustained their physical life,
but it was absolutely necessary. Jesus Christ is absolutely necessary
for eternal life to all who believe. It isn’t just faith, it’s faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ that saves. I suggested to you that
I see five clear elements of the gospel here that Jesus reiterates. The first of which is eternal
salvation is received by faith. I know that’s simple. I know
that that has been reiterated throughout this. Jesus Christ
circles back again in verse 47 and drives the point home. You
still had a crowd that was inclined to work. They were inclined to
do something. What work do you do? What work
can we do? How can we work the works of
God? Jesus Christ says, truly, truly,
I say to you, verse 47, he who believes has eternal life, not will gain
eternal life, not one day will experience eternal life. Once
an individual places their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ for
salvation, they own it, they possess it, they already begin
the process of enjoying eternal life there and then. Now that
digression verses 43 through 46, that theological appeal that
he makes for the sake of the lost among them, that’s ended
and Jesus resumes his important subject that gave way to this
interruption, the proclamation, the declaration of the gospel.
Jesus has mercifully mentioned faith or belief that leads to
eternal life three times. Glance down at this passage,
I want to walk you through it. Look at verse 29. Jesus answered
and said to them, this is the work of God, that you believe
in Him whom He has sent. Let me clarify that just a bit. This is the work of God, and
it really in essence is not a work per se, that you believe in Him,
that is the Lord Jesus Christ, whom He, that is God the Father,
has sent. Faith is absolutely crucial. He says that is the great means
of receiving and enjoying eternal life. Three times he says it,
not only verse 29, but jump down to verse 35. Jesus said to them,
I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will not hunger.
He who believes in me will never thirst. Of course, we looked
at that. He’s not talking about physical
thirst. He’s not talking about physical
hunger. It’s not talking about this eternal
vending machine God that once you come to Christ and place
your faith in Christ, that no longer do you have any needs.
You can quit working. That’s not at all what He’s saying.
He’s saying that when you come to Christ, He is the bread of
life. When you partake of Him, imbibe Him, take Him down into
your innermost, then no longer is there spiritual hunger. No
longer are there spiritual questions. No longer is there spiritual
thirst that is unsatisfied. Christ is all. Verse 29, verse 35, look at verse
40. The third time already in this
short sermon that Jesus addresses faith and the need of believing
Look at verse 40, for this is the will of my father that everyone
who beholds the son, spiritually speaking, and believes in him
will have eternal life, and I myself will raise him up on the last
day. It’s faith that he’s calling them to, and it’s faith that
leads to eternal life, and this, likewise, he has mentioned over
and over again. Look back at verse 27. In verse
27 is initial appeal to focus their lives on more than just
this daily bread, more than just earthly food. That’s what their
life was made up of. It was so superficial. They had
seen this incredible miracle and all they wanted was breakfast.
Look at verse 27, do not work for the food which perishes,
but for the food which endures to eternal life. Do you see Jesus
essentially baiting them with this language? The food which
endures to eternal life? Yeah, we’d like some of that,
please. That’s exactly what it led to.
Jesus mentions eternal life again in verse 40 which verse we just
read in his pleading declaration of the gospel there just prior
to his interruption. This is the will of my Father
that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will
have eternal life. It’s absolutely assured. That’s the gospel that we preach.
We don’t offer to people help. mere help. I remember driving
some years ago in Phoenix and reading a billboard, life is
better with Christ. No, it isn’t. Life is with Christ. It’s a completely different kind
of life. And I don’t doubt that life on
this earth, I would argue, is better to walk with Christ than
to not walk with Christ. But it is life itself and it’s
life itself that Jesus is preaching. And what he’s up against here,
and what we’re up against as we go before this world, we’re
up against a world that is caught up in self-righteousness. How
do I earn my way to heaven? We’re caught up in self-preservation. A life that doesn’t even need
God, really. We’re caught up in a self-centered
salvation. One that grades on a curve and
does just what they believe is necessary. what they think is
good and right, what they deem is appropriate to give to God. Self-righteousness, self-preservation,
self-centered salvation. It’s works righteousness. It’s
what do I need to do to gain eternal life. Well, would that
they all had access to Stephen Sharnock. He sets things right. A great Puritan commentator said
this, God, apart from Christ, is an angry, offended sovereign. He is king. He is almighty God,
says Sharnach. And he says, look, you are in
your natural state in his very angry hand. And you’re doomed. God, apart from Christ, is an
angry, offended sovereign. Unless we behold Him in and through
Christ, the mediator, the terrors of His majesty would overwhelm
us. We dare not approach the Father
except in Christ because of our sins. We just sang about holy,
holy, holy. We dare not approach a holy God. in our sinful condition, in our
natural state, outside of our relationship with Christ, who
do we think we are? That’s what Jesus is saying. Sharna continues, we first fasten
our eyes upon Christ, then upon the Father. If Christ does not
bear our guilt and reconcile us to God, we perish. Before
any man can think to stand before the face of God’s justice, or
be admitted to the secret chamber of God’s mercy, or partake of
the riches of His grace, he must look to the Mediator. He must
look to Christ Jesus. Jesus is speaking here. with
the authority of the One, the only One who has ever seen the
Father face to face and He’s solemnly preaching and proclaiming
that outside of Christ there is no hope. Outside of Him who
has both seen the Father and come from the Father and is going
to the Father there is no hope. We know it. We say it. If you know Christ, you know
these words to be true. Romans 3. Now, apart from the
law, the law didn’t save us. The law never saved anybody.
Now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been
manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. This
is what the Bible says. That’s what Paul says, essentially.
Let me tell you what the Bible says. How do you get saved? the righteousness of God through
faith in Jesus Christ. For all those who believe, for
there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God being justified as a gift by His grace
through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. It’s faith
in Christ. It’s the same thing that Christ
is preaching here and now. Paul merely takes up the great
cause of the gospel. and drives the point home. One Puritan said it this way
so clearly, such we are in the sight of God the Father, as is
the very Son of God himself. Let it be counted folly or frenzy
or fury or whatsoever. It is our wisdom and our comfort.
We care for no knowledge in the world but this, the knowledge
of Christ. That man has sinned and God has
suffered, that God has made himself the sin of men, and that men
are made the righteousness of God. What great truth. It’s by faith. It’s justification
by faith. It’s eternal salvation received,
if at all, by faith that we are justified before a holy God,
but there’s a second element of the gospel that Christ preaches.
Not only eternal salvation received by faith, but that Jesus Christ
is the only way. Now this isn’t going to gain
you any popularity when you go begin to share this with your
Mormon friends or your Muslim friends or, you know, many of
your other friends. The world, even Christian proclaiming
people, don’t like this truth. That Jesus Christ is the only
way. But if you look at verse 48,
what else can possibly be construed through those words, I am the
bread of life. He’s not some bread, as in some
bakery offering so many different varieties of bread. He’s not
one of many. When He says, I am, He’s saying
that He is and there are no others. There are no other alternatives.
Jesus Christ is the bread and He is not just earthly bread. He’s a particular kind of bread.
He’s the bread of life. He is life-giving bread. He is
the Savior. this passage here said one, stands
in an isolation and simplicity which makes it stark in all its
grandeur. It’s a simple statement, isn’t
it? And in the course of this long flowing dialogue, sermon,
if you will, verse 48 is just rather on the face of it, even
in the length of it, rather bland and simple, isn’t it? I am the
bread of life. And we could very easily read
right past that, couldn’t we? But that statement is absolutely
stunning. He is the food that satisfies
the soul and only the food that satisfies the soul. He is the
only real and true, genuine bread. He is the only bread of God. See, this whole started, this
whole thing started with the Jews asking for Christ something. They wanted something from Christ.
Give us something. Give us some bread. Break off
some of the loaves like you did yesterday. And what he ends up
doing is offering the greatest gift ever. greatest gift ever
is himself. And they weren’t ready for it. They wanted something, you know,
if not breakfast, the manna, that would do. We’ll wake up
every morning, gathered ourselves, Jesus, you just get the thing
in motion, all right? And Jesus, what he’s offering to them is
so infinitely much greater. From this point forward, Jesus
drops all the vague references and he begins to zero in. Talks
of himself here in the first person, I am the bread of life. He’s not talking vague anymore.
He’s making it absolutely clear that he is the bread of life.
And what this is, actually, if you go back and look at the passage,
we’ve looked at a couple of verses already. It’s an application
of verse 27. Just glance down at it if you
would. Do not work for the food which perishes, earthly bread,
real bread. But for the food which endures
to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for
on him the Father God has set his seal. They didn’t expect
him to be talking about himself as that bread. But that’s what he is. He’s spiritual
food. He’s spiritual bread. He’s food
that supplies eternal life. The bread of life points to that
spiritual kind of bread, which essentially imparts grace to
the soul and saving grace to the soul. What it points to is
the beauty of the grace of salvation and the grace of forgiveness
and the grace of the process of sanctification. All of that
comes from feasting upon this bread. The bread, when eaten, provides
this continual satisfaction. It’s not like we have to go and
partake of this bread. Even communion itself doesn’t
save us. Christ is far superior to the
manna. The man of satisfied bodily needs,
as we’ll see for just a short season, usually a day, Jesus
Christ satisfies our needs forever. Godly J.C. Ryle said it this
way, he is given to be the great supply of all the wants of men’s
souls. If you’re sitting here this morning
and you don’t know Christ, there are thousands of things pressing
in on your heart and life. You are absolutely hopeless without
Christ. And you know it. Ryle says, he is given to be
the great supply of all the wants of men’s souls. Whatever our
spiritual necessity may be, however starving, famished, weak, desperate
our condition, there is enough in Christ. Faith in Christ shall
supply a man’s soul with a peace and satisfaction that shall never
be taken, that shall endure forever. Jesus Christ is the only provision
for eternal life. He’s the only means of salvation.
There are no others. But there’s a third element of
the gospel that Jesus reiterates. Not only is eternal salvation
received by faith, and Jesus Christ is the only means of that
eternal life, but the third It’s so simple. And in a sense, Jesus
has already said it or alluded to it. And so much like so much
of what he says, it’s a reiteration, but it’s the gospel. Point three is simply this. All
other shadowy symbols are inefficient and ineffective. All other shadowy
symbols are inefficient and ineffective. Look at how he says it in verse
49. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. How blunt is that? How perfectly
blunt is that? And Jesus reasserts his point
about normal everyday bread, even God-given manna. There’s
more to life than just working for your next meal. But even this bread of heaven,
bread miraculously given by God. Jump back, if you would, to verses
30 and 33, 30 through 33, pardon me. They said to him, what do
you do for a sign so that we may see and believe you? What
work do you perform? Our fathers ate man in the wilderness. As it is written, he gave them
bread out of heaven to eat. They were taunting Jesus is what
they were doing. They were provoking him. They
didn’t think he was up to the task. He was kind of a subpar
prophet. And they were tempting him, goading
him to do some kind of a miracle that superseded that which Moses
had done. Jesus said to them, truly, truly,
I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out
of heaven. And it wasn’t even truly bread out of heaven. It didn’t come from the throne
room of God himself. It came from the skies. materialized somewhere between
the clouds and the earth. It wasn’t out of heaven. Jesus
said, it’s my father who gives you the true bread out of heaven.
This little manna that had to be collected every day, couldn’t
be preserved, couldn’t be refrigerated, couldn’t add preservatives to
this. The manna, it nourished the Israelites just temporarily,
and in the end, didn’t protect them from physical death. There
were many who died in the wilderness, not just because of their grumbling,
many who lived perfectly godly lives, ate the manna and ultimately
died. Just like ordinary bread, it
sustained them for a day, for a life on earth, but not unto
eternal life. But the bread of life, it’s a
different kind of bread entirely. The bread of life that Jesus
Christ offers in his own person, as we will see in a moment, it
doesn’t nourish the body. We still need to eat. Jesus makes
that point. But it is the divinely given
nourishment of man’s soul, and once eaten, perpetually supplies
those needs. The manna couldn’t do anything
for the soul, but it was able to sustain those who ate it for
a night. Jesus just makes this graphic
and blunt point. Let’s talk about your ancestors.
They’re dead. The bread, ultimately, the manna,
did nothing for them, spiritually speaking. All other shadowy symbols, it
doesn’t matter what it is. Denominational affiliation. Even
our rites and rituals. Doesn’t matter what Bible version
you read. What matters is the Savior in
whose faith or in whom you place your faith.
That’s what matters. Everything else. All other shadowy
symbols are inefficient and entirely and completely ineffective. Jesus is reiterating the elements
of the gospel and they’re rich and they’re saving. Eternal salvation
is received only by faith. It is only Jesus Christ that
is the provision for eternal life. Everything else is a shadowy
symbol. and therefore ineffective for
salvation. There’s a fourth point. The fourth point is that Jesus
Christ is God the Father’s provision. There are plenty of things that
don’t work. And many of us go about our life trying a variety
of different things to assuage that gnawing feeling in our heart. We’re unable to do away with
it. But there’s only one thing that God has provided. And Jesus
Christ makes it clear that God has provided this one thing. Look at verse 50. Jesus Christ
is God the Father’s provision. This is the bread which comes
down out of heaven so that one may eat of it and not die. Bread, we know, is the sustained
metaphor throughout this entire section, right? It was brought
about by the miraculous feeding of the 5,000, but Jesus took
the metaphor and he builds this gospel presentation. And here
he essentially says, God sent this bread. God sent this bread
out of heaven itself. And I believe based on that,
just the wording of that passage, I believe God, Jesus Christ there
standing in front of him may have even touched his breast.
This is the bread which comes down out of heaven. Because in
a moment he’s going to tell us about his flesh. I am the one
who came down out of heaven, Jesus says. And he has driven this point
home over and over again. It’s been him all along. Verse
32, the bread out of heaven. Verse 33, the bread of God. Verse
35, the bread of life. It’s Him. It’s Jesus Christ and
finally He says, this is the bread. The heavenly orientation point
is likewise a continuing thought. Jesus, remember, is reiterating
the gospel that He’s been preaching. Verse 29, that he was sent. Verse 32, that he is the true
bread out of heaven. Verse 33, he is the bread of
God which comes down out of heaven. Verse 38, I have come down out
of heaven. It was the very thing that the
people in the crowd were grumbling about. I’m the bread that came
down out of heaven. When Jesus uses this So that,
he clearly states God’s intention in taking this bread of life, the purpose of which is eternal
life, and sending it to humanity. This is the bread which comes
down out of heaven. So that one may eat of it and
not die, not physically. But spiritually speaking, one
must take this bread and eat this bread, must realize that
this is God’s Son. This is God’s provision for sinners. And he must take it and eat it.
And he uses that image. He’s still on the image of bread. He’s still using this great illustration,
this metaphor of bread, and he sticks with it to take it and
to eat it. And it becomes to him Life, it
means to accept it, appropriate it, assimilate it into our being
so that we would not die, spiritually speaking. As one said it, by
contrast, Jesus is offering them food that brings about life for
which there is no death. This bread is not of earthly
origin, but heavenly. And when a man once takes it
and eats in the sense of receiving once and for all that Christ,
he will not die. The man who partakes of Christ
has within himself life which is eternal. Jesus Christ stands
before them and says, I am that bread. that bread that I’ve been
talking about all along, that if you take it and eat it, take
it down into your being, you have eternal life. But there
was a fifth point of reiteration in the elements of the gospel
that Jesus is preaching. Not only that eternal salvation
is received by faith, Jesus Christ is the only means of that eternal
life. All other shadows are ineffective
and inefficient. Jesus Christ is God the Father’s
provision. And finally, fifth, Jesus Christ’s
finished sacrifice of himself on the cross. Jesus had to point
to this. That is at the core of the gospel,
that Jesus Christ, it’s not just that he came. It’s not just that
he came and took on human flesh and lay in the manger and became
a beautiful child. It’s that Jesus Christ came and
took on human flesh and ultimately paid our sin on the cross with
a bloody death. Look at verse 51. I am the living
bread that came down out of heaven. If anyone eats of this bread,
he will live forever. And the bread also which I will
give for the life of the world is my flesh. even at the start of that profound
sentence. He starts with that pronoun,
I, which differentiates him immediately from the contrast that is already
woven into this passage, the manna, this so-called bread that
Moses provided. I am the living bread. I am entirely
different. And we now realize that he’s
been speaking of this bread as if it were his own body all along. All along, Jesus Christ has proclaimed
himself as the bread of God. It’s Jesus Christ himself who
says, I am the bread that will give and bring eternal life. He is the bread that came down
out of heaven. And so as the scriptures bear
witness of this union, really, of human and divine in the incarnation,
that is woven through not only John’s gospel, but through the
entirety of our New Testament teaching on Christ, John 1.14.
The word that is Jesus Christ became flesh and dwelt among
us. I love the way one theologian
put it. We are told that when the Word
became flesh, this does not mean that the Word ceased to be what
he was before. As to his essential being, he
was exactly the same before and after the incarnation. He was
God. But simply that he took on a
particular character, that he acquired an additional form without
changing in any way his original nature. He remained the infinite,
unchangeable Son of God. He took on a human body. He took
on flesh. You know the passage, Philippians
2.5-7. have this attitude, an attitude of humility, he ultimately
speaks to, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although he
existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God
a thing to be grasped or cling to, but emptied himself, taking
the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of
men, flesh. In Romans, the opening of Romans,
which verses most people skip through so quickly because essentially
it’s a greeting, or so we think. Romans 1 says, he was promised
beforehand through the prophets and the holy scriptures, his
son, who is born of a descendant of David according to the flesh,
who is declared the son of God with power. through the resurrection
of the dead he really came he really took on human flesh. Nothing can be plainer said one
commentator that the scriptures teach that Christ is fully God
that he is fully man and that he is one person. They assert
of him whatever may be said of God and everything that can be
said of sinless man. They assume that it is a certain
fact that God, that, pardon me, Christ is God and man in one
person. He took on human flesh. Glance
down at chapter, or verse 51 again. I am the living bread
that came down out of heaven. If anyone eats of this bread,
he will live forever. The bread also which I will give
for the life of the world is my flesh. You see, it wasn’t
just about the incarnation. It was about the purpose for
which Christ came and took on human flesh. Puritan Thomas Watson
said, the wise God sought the best way for our redemption,
that Christ should be incarnate. It was not fit for any to satisfy
God’s justice for man. Do you realize that? That if
every human being in the world, save one, died for that one human
being, they would not secure his salvation. Do you realize
that? That’s the truth. That’s the truth. It was not
fit for any to satisfy God’s justice, but man, none could
do it. But God, therefore, Christ being both God and man, is the
fittest to undertake this work of redemption. It was Christ. It’s Christ and Christ alone.
It’s always Christ only. Some try to turn this, what becomes
a difficult saying, hard to take. The bread which I will give for
this world is my flesh, how do we eat that? They turn it into
an attempt, they turn it rather, and they attempt to soften it
and explain it away by suggesting that this is merely communion
talk. That what Jesus was introducing
here was communion. That Jesus is forecasting the
idea of the Lord’s table eating bread and the like in the first
place. The statement doesn’t need to
be taken in a grossly literal sense, that of eating Christ’s
flesh, but neither does it need to be softened and taken as simply
referring to communion and brushed aside. The word translated flesh
here is different than the word used to refer to communion or
to Christ’s body in communion contexts. I’ll give you one example, Matthew
26, while they were eating, Jesus took some bread. After a blessing,
he broke it and gave it to his disciples and said, take, eat,
this is my body. He didn’t say, this is my flesh.
Over and over again, 1 Corinthians 11, Gospel of Mark. Secondly,
though, the word Translated here, flesh, sarx, is used intentionally,
not accidentally by Christ. Jesus used it intentionally and
he really means to say that he is giving his flesh. In what
sense? The word became flesh, dwelt
among us. It’s his real body, it’s his
real flesh that he’s talking about. What he’s talking about is the
gift of himself on the cross, his willful submission to be
crucified for you and me. Romans 8.3, what the law could
not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did, sending his
own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for
sin. The very fact that Christ came
in the flesh, that is a doctrine we fight for, isn’t it? The doctrine
of the incarnation, but the incarnation in and of itself didn’t save
anybody. It was ultimately the fact that Jesus Christ would
go and sacrifice that self-same body on the cross. The body that one day was laid
in a manger One day walked the earth, one day gathered in followers,
and one day died on the cross for you and I. It was his body, said one, offered
up in sacrifice on the cross as an atonement for man’s sins.
It is our Lord’s death, not merely his human nature. It is his death
is our substitute, bearing our sins, carrying our transgressions. What Jesus is preaching is the
gospel in its fullness, that in Christ and in faith in Christ,
that is the only means of salvation, that it is in Christ and no other,
that everything else is faulty and fleeting. Isaiah 53, 6, you
know it. All of us like sheep have gone
astray. Each of us has turned to his own way. but the Lord
has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. Jesus Christ
says, I gave my flesh. And the question is, what have
we done with it? Some would ponder it for a lifetime and think that
even in just pondering it, they have done what was required. Some would revere it, some would
even say that this is good teaching, this is good truth. Yet they
would not submit themselves to it. And there are others, thankfully,
that God has drawn and pulled and drawn to himself. Graphic
word. It’s drawn them to knees of repentance.
He’s drawn them to faith. Faith. In the Lord Jesus Christ
and in him alone for salvation. What is this substitution? Spurgeon
drove home the point. He said, in one word, it is the
great fact in which the Christian’s hope rests. The vicarious sacrifice
of Christ for the sinner, Christ suffering for the sinner, Christ
being made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. Christ offering up a true and
proper substitutionary sacrifice in the place of as many as the
Father gave Him. who are recognized by their trusting
in Him, this is the cardinal fact of the Gospel. And with that, Jesus finishes
His sermon. Let’s pray. O merciful God, we
humble ourselves before so great a Word And Lord, we sense, we
rejoice in our own hearts that so many of us already know this
gospel. It comforts our hearts all over
again. We know that we have beheld and
believed and placed our faith in truth. There are also those
sitting among us who still ponder, who still even doubt, who still
question, who still refuse to submit themselves to Christ in
faith. But Lord, we know that even in
a room this small. We know that there are men and
women. Young and old. Who are pondering
these truths. Who are wrestling with the fact
that Jesus Christ is the only way and that if we place our
faith in him. that we are immediately and instantly
judged as being righteous, worthy of standing before a holy God.
Our sins are forgiven, that we are promised eternity with Christ
in heaven. Lord God, we who know Christ
know it to be true. We pray that you would drive
home the truth to any who do not know it. Draw them to yourself
through the mighty influence of your own Holy Spirit. It’s
in Jesus’ name that we pray. Amen. You would take your hymnals
and turn to 521. We’ll sing verses 1 and 4 of
My Hope is Built on Nothing Less. Let’s stand.