THE DESTINY OF BELIEVERS.
John 6:41-51.
Jesus said, ‘I am the bread of life: he that comes to me shall never hunger; and he that believes on me shall never thirst... For I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent me” (John 6:35-38).
The reaction to this statement was one of antagonism.
JOHN 6:41. “The Jews then murmured at Him, because He said, I am the bread which came down from heaven.”
When John uses the term “the Jews,” he usually means the Jewish leadership. Here in Capernaum, that would be the leaders of the synagogue. The conversation began at the place where Jesus’ pursuers found him and asked when He came hither (cf. John 6:25), but by its end we are told ‘these things said He in the synagogue, as He taught in Capernaum’ (cf. John 6:59).
JOHN 6:42. “And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How then is it that He saith, I came down from heaven?”
This is a sneer of contempt from the religious leaders. ‘Is not this fellow the son of Joseph and Mary? How is it then that He says that He came down from heaven?’
Well, we know otherwise. The accounts of the miraculous birth of Jesus’ given to us in Matthew chapters 1-2, and Luke chapters 1-2, along with John's own account of Jesus’ origins in John 1:1-14, are sufficient to put paid to any notion of Jesus as a mere man.
JOHN 6:43. “Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves.”
Jesus knew, with Divine insight, exactly what they were saying behind His back. No amount of murmuring was going to stop Him from fulfilling His God-given mission. Jesus had harder things to teach.
JOHN 6:44. “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw Him: and I will raise him up at the last day.”
Left to himself, man is totally unable to choose anything spiritually good for himself. But, through the unseen agency of the Holy Ghost, there are those, and will be those, who are drawn by the Father to Jesus. The first risings of faith within our heart may be the beginning of a great struggle, but ‘He who has begun a good work in you’ will bring it to completion (Philippians 1:6). The ‘grace that taught our hearts to fear’ is the same grace that will bring us to ‘victory in Jesus.’ Believers in Christ Jesus also have a perpetual promise of preservation by God. “I will raise him up at the last day.” (John 6:44b).
JOHN 6:45. “It is written in the prophets, And they shall all be taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh to me.”
Jesus affirms the need for divine learning by referring to the Jewish leaders’ own scriptures (e.g. Isaiah 54:13 reads ‘And all thy children shall be taught of the LORD.’) The Father draws us to Jesus the Son through the scriptures, and through the inner promptings of the Holy Ghost.
JOHN 6:46. “Not that any man hath seen the Father, save He which is of God, He hath seen the Father.”
Jesus is here referring to Himself.
John had earlier said, ‘No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him’ (cf. John 1:18).
JOHN 6:47. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.”
Jesus says quite categorically that whoever believes in Him has everlasting life as a present possession. This is Christianity: have faith, believe in Jesus, receive the ever present privilege of life forevermore.
JOHN 6:48-51. “I am the bread of life.
“Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead.
“This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and NOT die.
“I am the LIVING bread, which came down from heaven: if any man eat of THIS bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
Jesus emphasized again that He is the bread of life. Unlike the manna which was eaten by men that are now dead, Jesus is the living bread which when a man “eats” it, i.e. puts his whole trust in Jesus, causes him to live for ever. This is made possible because of the sacrifice which Jesus was going to make: “the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world" (John 6:51).
