A HARMONY OF THE GOSPELS

GG. Christ’s Discourse As The Bread Of Life

2. Christ’s Exposure Of Insight And Blindness

(John 6:41-71)

I. Introduction

A. The second part of Christ’s Bread of Life discourse involved His claim to give eternal life as the Bread that came down from heaven, which claim produced contrasting responses in those who heard Him, John 6:41-71.

B. Those who accepted Christ’s teaching had spiritual insight and those who rejected it were spiritually blind, and we view this passage to discern the dynamics involved in this contrast for our application and edification:

II. Christ’s Exposure Of Insight And Blindness, John 6:41-71.

A. When Jesus claimed that He was the Bread of Life that had come down from heaven (John 6:35, 38), many of His hearers “began to grumble about him” (John 6:41 NIV), for they believed He was the son of Joseph and Mary, a regular Hebrew couple they knew, that Jesus could therefore not have come from heaven, John 6:42.

B. Christ responded to this grumbling by asserting that He had truly been sent by God from heaven, Jn. 6:43-46:

1. Jesus told the crowd to stop grumbling, for no one could come to Him unless God the Father Who had sent Him drew him to Jesus, and that Jesus would raise him up from the dead on the last day, John 6:43-44.

2. In fulfillment of prophecies like that in Jeremiah 31:34, Jesus said that believers would be taught by God, so everyone who had heard God the Father and learned from Him came to Jesus in His earthly ministry, John 6:45-46. Thus, God the Father had taught those believers in Himself to be drawn to put their faith not only in Him, but also in His Son Jesus, what occurred in Christ’s earthly ministry!

C. Jesus then asserted that He gave eternal life as God’s Son and the Bread of eternal life to those who believed in Him in superiority to the manna Moses had fed the people of Israel in the wilderness, for that generation of Israel had still died although they had eaten that manna, John 6:47-51a.

D. When Jesus figuratively said that the Bread He gave was His flesh that He would give for the life of the world, the crowd that had failed to believe that Jesus was the spiritual Bread of life began to argue sharply that He could not give them His material flesh to eat to provide them eternal life, John 6:51b-52 NIV.

E. Christ was speaking figuratively of people partaking of the provisions of the atonement He would provide through the sacrifice of His body on the cross, and He extensively taught this figurative claim in John 6:53-59.

F. That claim was so misunderstood by the faithless crowd that they did not accept it (John 6:60), and when even the disciples grumbled over it (John 6:61), He asked them how they would handle seeing Him as Son of Man ascend to heaven where He was before, proving He had come from heaven, John 6:62! Jesus explained that He spoke figuratively in talking of eating His flesh, that the Spirit and not the flesh gave life. The words He spoke were full of the Spirit and of life were people to believe them, but some of those present did not believe, what included Judas who would betray Him, John 6:63-64. Jesus added that this unbelief proved His earlier John 6:36 claim that they did not know the Father or He would have led them to believe in Him, John 6:65.

G. After this discourse, the contrast between those believers who had been discipled by the Father and those unbelievers who had not been thus discipled was plainly exposed in the lives of His hearers, John 6:66-71:

1. At this time, many of Jesus’ alleged disciples turned away from Him, for being unbelievers, they did not understand His teaching (John 6:66), and Jesus asked the Twelve if they would also leave, John 6:67.

2. Demonstrating the truth of Jesus’ claim that true believers in the Father were led of Him truly to believe in God the Son, Peter answered in faith, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God,” John 6:68-69 NIV.

3. Jesus replied that though He had chosen the Twelve, one of them was a “devil,” referring to Judas Iscariot, an unbeliever who had not been taught of the Father and who would eventually betray Jesus, John 6:70-71.

Lesson: Those who had believed in- and had been discipled by the Father were led by Him to trust in Jesus and to accept His teaching where those who did not believe in the Father could not understand or accept Jesus’ teaching.

Application: (1) Unbelievers and even some of the disciples grumbled at Jesus’ teaching where Peter accepted it, so we must realize that unsaved people and carnal believers do not and cannot understand and accept spiritual truths where believers led by the Holy Spirit understand and accept them (1 Cor. 2:14-16). (2) If we cannot understand or accept spiritual truths, we need to be saved or confess our unbelief to God. (3) If other professing believers do not grasp or accept spiritual truths, we must view them as unsaved or carnal and relate to them accordingly.