THE KEEPING POWER OF JESUS.
John 6:36-40.
Jesus was still talking to the people who had followed Him from the place where He had fed the 5000+, and had come looking for Him in Capernaum. They had asked when He came thither, and Jesus had berated them because He perceived that they were only interested in the perishing things of this earth – like, perhaps, another free meal. Instead, Jesus offered them something better: everlasting life in Him, the Bread of Life.
JOHN 6:36. “But,” Jesus continued, “ye also have seen me, and believe not.”
1. Their unbelief did not catch Jesus by surprise. They could not, they would not believe Him. Without Christ, man is only able to operate within the limitations of his own predisposition and propensity to sin, and will not call upon the LORD, and cannot serve Him. Left to himself, man is totally unable to choose anything spiritually good for himself: and ‘No-one can come to Jesus except the Father draws him’ (cf. John 6:44).
JOHN 6:37. “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”
2. Believers find that they have already been “given” to the Son (John 6:37). They are ‘chosen in Christ from the foundation of the world’ (cf. Ephesians 1:3-4). Our salvation was not of our own doing, and neither did we deserve it more than any other person, but it is the free gift of God.
This fact is full of consolations for the believer: we are given, we come to Him, we are not cast out. We have eternal life. Jesus re-emphasises this towards the end of the chapter, ‘No-one can come to me, except it was given to him by my Father’ (cf. John 6:65).
3. Jesus teaches the efficiency and adequacy of His sacrifice for His people: “all,” every one of them, “shall come.” Those who thus “come” to Jesus are only those whom “the Father gives” Him (John 6:37).
4. There is a certainty, an inevitability, about their coming to Him: “they shall come to me” (John 6:37). We thank the Lord that there are those in every generation who have been ‘born again’ of the Spirit of God, or else no-one would be saved. Jesus said, ‘Everyone that has heard, and learned of the Father, comes to me’ (cf. John 6:45).
5. Believers in Christ Jesus also have a perpetual promise of preservation by God. “I will in no wise cast them out” (John 6:37). [cf. ‘I will lose nothing’ (John 6:39); ‘I will raise them up at the last day’ (John 6:39; John 6:40; cf. John 6:44)].
JOHN 6:38. “For I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent me.”
In other words, Jesus does nothing independently of the Father. He “came down from heaven” speaks of the unity that has existed between the Father and the Son for all eternity. It is indicated in the saying, ‘Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) to do thy will, O God’ (cf. Hebrews 10:7; Psalm 40:8). It is echoed also in Jesus’ prayer in the garden, ‘not my will but thine be done’ (cf. Luke 22:42).
JOHN 6:39. “And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which He hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day.”
No part of Jesus’ mystical body shall ultimately be lost. He shall “raise it up at the last day.”
JOHN 6:40. “And this is the will of Him that sent me, that everyone which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.”
The people had asked Jesus for a sign, that they might ‘see and believe’ (cf. John 6:30). But they had plenty of signs, but would not believe (John 6:36). However, the promise is still there: whoever “sees” Him with the eye of faith, and puts their trust in Him alone for their salvation, shall have “everlasting life.”
And a glorious resurrection awaits all who will believe.
