Tonight’s passage deals with partaking of the Bread of Life. Jesus said He was the Bread of Life. When we talk about partaking of the Bread of Life, what are we talking about? (How one comes to know Jesus personally.) And that is the focus of this passage. Just how do we come to know Jesus personally?
READ 41-43. Jesus had just made the claim that He came down out of heaven. He referred to Himself as the Bread of Life. He called God His Father. The religionists rebelled against Him. In v. 41 it refers to them grumbling against Him There was a general discontent in this crowd. They were upset and confused. They misunderstood Jesus, they rejected Him, and they opposed what He was saying. They radically disagreed with the statement Jesus made about how He came “down from heaven.”
Why did they question this particular statement? Because they knew Jesus personally—not in a spiritual sense but in the physical sense. They grew up around Jesus. They saw Him grow up. They knew His earthly father, Joseph, and His mother, Mary. They saw Him as a mere man just as they were, having been reared by human parents. How could He possibly claim to be “from heaven”?
Their problem was really twofold:
1. They were ignorant of the incarnation.
2. They were so fixed on His origin, on where He had come from, that they lost sight of His mission, which was to feed and nourish men spiritually (to save and give life.)
So in v. 43 Jesus appealed to the crowd to stop grumbling. He loved these people and he wanted them to listen to the truth. As long as they grumbled, they would never be willing to listen to the truth.
The same is true with us. As long as we are grumbling about something, we lose sight of the truth that God needs us to see. The lesson is still clear, “Be still and know that I am God.”
READ 44-46. Here we go again. A person must be drawn by God. This leans on predestination again. The truth of predestination in the Bible is not so much a statement of theology or philosophy as it is a message that speaks to the spiritual experience of the believer.
If the pure logic of philosophy and theology is applied, then predestination says that God chooses some for heaven and others for hell. But this is simply not what God means in the passages dealing with predestination. What God wants believers to do is to take heart, for He has assured their salvation. This is what He means by predestination. But there is a stipulation in this.
The person who comes to Christ is a person who has been drawn by God, a person who has experienced the divine initiative. In other words, a person does NOT act alone, coming to Christ by his own effort and energy, not by his own works, whether mental or physical labor.
According to the Bible, a person is a dead spirit; so they can do nothing spiritually just as a dead body can do noting physically. The natural person prefers self and sin; so if a person with a dead spirit is to come to Christ, they have to be acted upon and drawn by God. Both God and man have a part in salvation. Let’s spend a few minutes looking at both God’s part and man’s part in salvation.
GOD’S PART
1. God’s part in salvation is to draw man. Why does God have to draw man? Because man naturally resists the gospel. We see man’s resistance in the word “draw.” The word “draw” has the idea of both initiative and rebellion, of constraint and resistance. For example, the pulling in of a net loaded with fish involves both actions of pulling and resistance. A person being dragged to court encounters both actions of pulling and resistance.
Now how God draws a man is clearly stated. In v. 45 is says that God draws a man by teaching. The teaching may come from the voice of a preacher, the observation of nature, the reading of Scripture, or a bunch of other sources. But one thing is always common; the movement of God’s Spirit upon the human heart, teaching the need for God and drawing the heart toward God for salvation. The Spirit of God teaches a man and moves upon the heart of a man.
a. The Holy Spirit makes the gospel alive to a person’s mind so that he sees it as never before. A person sees, understands, and grasps as never before that God sent Jesus to save and to man life. Do you remember the point in your life when suddenly the Scripture started making sense? At what point was that?
b. The Holy Spirit convicts a person of sin, of righteousness and of judgment, that is, of his need to be saved.
c. The Holy Spirit attracts people to the cross of Christ through its glorious provisions.
d. It is the Holy Spirit that stirs a person to respond by coming to Christ.
So that is God’s part in salvation. What is man’s part?
MAN”S PART – Man’s part in salvation is threefold.
1. A person must first hear the voice of God when God draws. When the pull or movement of God’s Spirit is felt, a person must listen to the conviction of the Spirit.
2. A person must learn of God. But a person can only learn of God through Christ. If a person really wants to learn of God, they have to come to Christ first. Why do you suppose that is? No man has seen God. Only Christ has seen God. The Bible speaks of one not understanding the Scripture until they have become one with Christ. Then their eyes, ears, and heart are opened to understand what they read. (Eph. 3:4; Lk. 8:10; Lk. 24:45)
3. So a person must hear the voice of God when He draws them, they must learn of God, and thirdly, a person has to come to Christ. They must yield to this drawing of God. Being self-centered and rebellious, man likes to feel independent. That’s a lot of the reasoning behind a person not coming to Christ. But those who submit to God’s drawing, those who come to Christ, are accepted by God and are accepted to partake in the feast at His table.
READ 47-51. And it is here that Jesus is clearly telling us that a person must believe in Christ to have eternal life. Jesus calls us to pay attention when He says, “I tell you the truth.” What He now says is critical: a person must believe four things.
1. A person must believe that Christ is the Bread of Life. This is the bread that saves and gives man life. Notice how Jesus didn’t try to complicate things. He made them as clear as possible. He was very straightforward in His claim that He was the Bread of Life. There is no hesitation, no holding back, no reservation. He said, “I am.” Notice how He refers once again to the manna. Eating physical food will only sustain man temporarily. Man still dies. He makes the point that man shouldn’t be concerned with physical food.
2. A person must believe that Christ is “out of” heaven, that Jesus has come to deliver man from death. One grammatical note that needs to be made is the word “eat.” In the original Greek writings, this verb is in the aorist tense. In other words it means that a person eats and receives of Christ once-for-all. It’s a one-time experience.
3. A person must believe that Christ is the Living Bread, the One who gives life to man forever.
a. The Bread is living. It is life. Again the literal Greek translation reads, “The Bread, the Living.”
b. Again, the Bread came down from heaven. Again, the Greek tense of the word literally means came once. The incarnation had never taken place before, nor will it ever take place again. This Bread coming from heaven was a one-time-only event.
c. The Bread came to provide spiritual and eternal life.
d. The offer of eternal life is conditional, “ IF anyone eats of this Bread, THEN he will live forever.”
4. That last thing to be said about this passage tonight is found in v. 51. A person must believe that Christ gave His flesh for the life of the world. It is His flesh which He gives for the life of the world.
So let’s recap how one can partake of the Bread of Life, that is, how someone can come to know Jesus personally.
1. God draws man to Himself.
a. The HS makes the gospel alive to a person’s mind.
b. The HS convicts man of sin.
c. The HS attracts man to the cross.
d. The HS stirs a person to respond.
2. BUT, man’s part is to hear the voice of God.
b. To learn of God.
c. And finally to literally come to Christ.
A person must believe in Christ.
Believe that He is the Bread of Life.
Believe that Jesus came down out of heaven.
Believe that Jesus gave His life for us.
It sounds like a lot to remember, yet it’s oh so simple to know Jesus as you PERSONAL Savior. I hope you have all made that choice. If not, we give you the opportunity to so, right now, as we pray.
