John 10:22-42 " The Problem of Selective Hearing"

Selective hearing is the phenomenon that occurs when we only hear what we want to hear. It’s a type of mental filtering in which we tune out someone’s opinions or ideas, when they don’t agree with our view of seeing things.  Science has proven that our brains are able to tune out conversations. Our brains provide us with the ability to focus on specific conversations, while multiple conversations compete for our attention. I live next to busy highway with vehicles equipped with varying decibels  rumbling by, some which seem to be coming right through our bedroom. Generally though, my brain and my hearing have learned to shut out the traffic noises.

In this passage we find a classic case of selective hearing by the Jews when it comes to hearing what Jesus  has to say.  

10:22-24  The Setting - The  Feast of Dedication

From John 7:2 we know that  Jesus came to the Feast of Booths (Tabernacles) which is in October, and now it is the Feast of  Dedication which happens about two months later – in December, in winter. The Feast of Dedication is not one of the ancient feasts of the Jewish faith. This feast was started by Judas Maccabaeus a Jewish priest in commemoration of the cleansing and rededication of the Temple, after it had been desecrated by Antiochus IV (Epiphanes)  the Seleucid ruler of Syria and Palestine from 175-164 B.C. Antiochus IV attempted to hellenize the Jews by force. He killed thousands that resisted him. And then he did something utterly horrendous. He desecrated the Jerusalem temple by putting a statue of the Greek god Zeus in it. He sacrificed  pigs in the holy of holies and he forced the Jewish priests to eat  the meat. [1] Judas Maccabaeus the temple worship in 165 B.C. and from this  the feast of Dedication (or Hannukah) had its origin.

Jesus is walking in the temple in the colonnade of Solomon[2]. This was an area in which rabbis would meet and teach their disciples.  “The Jews gathered around him and said to him, ‘How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.’”  This is really a strange request  since nothing could have been clearer  than that, which Jesus had done and said thus far. He had in fact been  exercising the ministry of the Messiah.  No man ever did the things that Jesus  did by way of supernatural  manifestations. No one ever spoke like Jesus (John 7:46), and so this question, ‘Are you the Messiah?’,  is in fact not one of clarification, but merely a seeking  for more  ammunition for accusation against Jesus.  These Jews here have already made up their mind that Jesus is not the Christ – the Messiah, and if He now makes such a claim, then they will have reason to kill Him. There are none as deaf as those that will not hear. Selective hearing, hearing what you want to hear  is a very scary phenomenon.  They have their minds tuned out of Jesus. They are looking for a warrior personality like Judas Maccabeus, whom they are remembering now at this feast of Dedication. They want a political Messiah who will lead them in the overthrow of the oppressive  Romans.  This blinds them  to the fact that God  has chosen  a very different way   to save Israel.

John 10:25-26: The Rebuke

Jesus knows this and therefore He responds to them very bluntly.  “I told you, (i.e. you heard me) and you do not believe; the works that I do in My Father’s name, bear witness  about  me, but you do not believe, because you are not of among my sheep.”

Incidentally, the whole matter of the lack of hearing is rooted in the prophecy of Isaiah 6:9-10. Jesus told His disciples in Matthew 13:11-13 concerning these Jews, “To you it has been given to know the secrets  of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. 12 “For to the one who has, more shall be given, and he will have abundance; but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 13 “This is why I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.”

As we have been making our way through the Gospel of John we have seen that there is ample evidence concerning His identity as seen in John 1:1ff. But they refuse to believe the evidence.  And so Jesus now plainly points out the reason for their unbelief: “… you do not believe, because you are not among my sheep.”  Their selective hearing is influenced by a hardened heart.

John 10:27-29:  The  True Sheep  of Jesus

Who then are the sheep? What characterises them? Jesus describes the character of His sheep: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.”

Jesus had described the nature of His sheep earlier in John 10:1-18.  Again, He points out that His sheep hear (not selective hearing- but real hearing) His voice. And correspondingly He says, “As shepherd I know them”, and therefore Jesus is saying to these Jews here, “I don’t recognise YOU as being my sheep.”  Jesus then points out that His sheep follow Him. 

Following is the consequence of listening to Jesus. I followed Jesus in June1978 when I first heard His voice. But these Jews  at Solomon’s colonnade were  neither listening to nor following Jesus.  They were not sheep.

Jesus tells us now  in 10:28  that there is a particular blessing attached to this hearing and following of Christ. The true sheep of Jesus are given eternal life. All human souls will exist eternally, but only those that are Jesus’ sheep will spend eternity with Jesus. Those who reject Him and refuse Him  will spend their  eternal days apart from Him, in the agony of hell [3]. Hell  among many other things is truth known too late! 

Jesus not only gives eternal life to His sheep, but He guarantees them eternal security: “No one can snatch them out of my hand.”  That  promise is further guaranteed in 10:29, “My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. This is double security. Secure in Jesus and secure in the Father. 

In fact it is actual triple security, because John will tell us later  that we are kept by the Spirit (cf.  John 14:15-26;16:5-15).[4] If you are one of Jesus’ sheep, then you are safe in the shepherd’s hands, for the security of your salvation is bound up in the very character, nature and work of the Tri-une  God Himself. Absolutely nothing, including yourself, can take you out of His hands once you are there.

In saying this, Jesus is continuing to declare what He has said over and over again to these Jews. The work that He is doing is the Father’s work. It is a declaration of His identity as the Messiah. It is a declaration of His deity. But since they are not hearing Him, He is now willing to say it very plainly!

John 10:30:  The   Bold Declaration 

“I and the Father are one”. This is as plain as you can have it. There is no ambiguity in this statement. Here we have the nature of the relationship between Jesus the Son, and God the Father revealed. They are different persons, but of one essence. Jesus is not the Father, but He has complete equality with the Father, being of the same substance and essence. Jesus is God.  Again , connect this  with the  opening verses  of John -  “ In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God” (John 1:1).

John 10:31: Their Response

They said, “Tell us plainly”, and Jesus tells  them plainly, and now what do they want to do?  They want to stone Him (cf. 8:59)  

John 10:32-33: Jesus’ question and their  accusation: Jesus faces them and  asks them: “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to  stone me?”. They respond, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself equal to God.” They had heard Him absolutely right! They had heard a claim to Deity. But still they  regarded Jesus simply as a man making a blasphemous claim to be God. They had their minds made up.  

John 10:34-38: Jesus’ next level of defense

“Is it not been written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’?  If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came - and  Scripture cannot be broken-  do you say of Him, whom the Father  consecrated and sent into the world,’ You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?

Jesus is here quoting from Psalm 82.  Here God rebukes those He had placed in authority in Israel, because they had been unjust in their judgments, and He warns them that they will face His judgment. In verse 6, in speaking to these judges of Israel, God says, “I said, ‘You are gods, and all of you are sons of the Most High.” The argument Jesus makes is this. God Himself calls these judges “gods” (Elohim)  because they were appointed by God as judges in Israel’s Theocracy. Jesus then contrasts Himself with them. They had only received a divine commission to rule according to God’s law. But Jesus  did not only receive a divine commission. He was the divine Commissioner!  Jesus is from God Himself. He is the Word of God in human flesh (John1:14). Jesus is saying that they would not accuse a judge of Israel for applying Psalm 82:6 to Himself because of the position they held as God’s representative, so how could they accuse Jesus of blasphemy when He has an infinitely higher position as the one sanctified and sent by God into the world? But Jesus does not stop there. He goes back again to the proof of His claim to be the Son of God in John 10:37-38:  “If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe me; but if I do them, though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father. ”Do you see what Jesus is doing here ? He is being  very, very patient with these rebels  against God.

John 10: 39 - Their Response  

Still they did not hear Him. They sought to arrest (note - not kill!)  Him - and again He escaped from their hands. They couldn’t, for Jesus’ time had  not yet come. It would be another four months before Jesus’ time would come and they would seize Him and bring Him to an unjust trial where He would once again be accused of blasphemy.

John 10:40-42 - The Response of Others

John concludes this section by showing that not everyone in Israel was responding to Jesus in the same way. The religious leaders had rejected Jesus,  and so would the majority of the people. However, God always has a  remnant that will follow Him in faith. That is what we see  now in these last verses. 

Jesus left Jerusalem to go to the place where John the Baptist had first been baptizing at Bethany, about 75 kilometers away.   And there, many believed in His Name.  Here, unlike the temple  there  is soil in which faith  can grow. This was the place where John’s message was  first preached  and  embraced and respected. John did not draw attention to himself, but to Jesus (John1:29-34; 3:22-36). No wonder that it was here that  faith in Jesus flourished.

Tell me plainly, is the preaching, the pointing to Christ producing the fruit of faith and  the following  of Jesus here among us at Eastside? Does He know you? Let every man, every woman, every child examine themselves.  

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[1] Daniel prophesies  of him in Daniel 11:21-45; see particularly Daniel 11:31

[2] John 10:23; Acts 3:11; 5:12), was a colonnade, located on the eastern side of the Temple's Outer Court (Women's Court) in Jerusalem, named after Solomon, King of Israel.

[3]  E.g.  Matthew 25:46

[4]  See also Romans 8:38

John 6:52-71 "The Saddest and Gladdest Passage in John’s Gospel "

Life in our fallen world is a curious mixture of gladness and sadness, of joy and of sorrow.  At one moment we can feel up – the next, down!  At one moment there is death, the next moment there is a birth. Sometimes we enjoy abundance, and then there are times when we have too little. This is life. Gladness and Sadness go together.[1]  The church has experienced such times throughout her history. Jesus certainly saw this in His earthly ministry.  Charles Spurgeon, in a sermon, makes the comment upon our text that,

“Churches have summers, like our gardens, and then all things are full; but then come their winters, and alas, what emptyings are seen! Have we not all seen the flood when the tide has come far upon the beach, and have we not all marked the ebb, when every wave has seemed to fall short of that which preceded it? Such ebbs and flows there are in the history of the kingdom of Christ. One day, “The kingdom suffers violence, and every man presses into it;  at another time men seem to be ashamed of the Christian faith, and they wander off into a thousand delusions, and the church is diminished and brought low by heresy, by worldliness, by lukewarmness, and by all sorts of evils. Often may the chronicle run thus: “Then all the disciples forsook Him and fled“. It is well then, at times when those that did run well are asked by the Master: “will you also go away”? Ah, dear friends, some of you are very steadfast now while this church flourishes. How would it be if your pastor were dead, or his name in ill repute? How would you be if there was a decline in all the work of the church? Have you no backbone enough in you to be faithful if all others were faithless…. Can you fight a losing battle?… Alas! What numbers swim with the tide! How very few swim against the current. Well may the Saviour ask the question of us today, for we are as frail and fickle as others. Well may he ask it now, for worse times than these may be drawing near – “will you also go away?“”[2]  

This introduces us to our text which reveals the saddest and yet also the gladdest statements in John’s gospel.

What we have just read indicates that Jesus’ followers weren’t pleased with His teaching. They were grumbling[3] against him (6:41,61). This reminds us immediately  of the  grumbling of the Israelites against God in the desert[4]. They said to Jesus, “This is a hard saying. Who can listen to it?” (6:60).This did not mean that they could not understand Jesus’ teaching. They did understand, but they would not accept it. That is the case with so very many people. We notice then that there was an ‘ebb tide’, a low point, even in Jesus’ ministry. Those who once called Him Lord, Rabbi and ‘the prophet’ are ready to walk out on Him. 

Jesus plainly asks them, “do you take offense[5] at this?” (6:61).The Greek word here  is  ‘skandalon’.  It was the name for that part of a trap to which the bait is attached.[6] He is asking them, “Is what I am saying to you scandalous? Does it trap you?  Do you find my words offensive?” The answer is – yes, they did find  Jesus’s words offensive. They are ready to walk out on Him, despite the fact  that they had seen His miracles, and have heard His teachings. I am constantly amazed to see how little it takes to swing a crowd’s opinion. All the capital that Jesus had gained with them had evaporated in an instant.

Allow me to briefly remind you what caused the scandal – the offence:

At the beginning of Chapter 6 Jesus had miraculously fed 5000 people. They were amazed and they followed Him, mainly because they were looking for a perpetual food supply and a hero.  Jesus tells them not to seek temporary bread, but the eternal bread which comes from heaven – that is, Himself! That is always the problem. People are always inclined to seek the gifts more than the Giver.  Jesus tried to explain that they actually did not need miraculous manna, nor a fallible human leader called Moses, as in the times of the Exodus.  Yes, they needed something to eat, and He had miraculously provided food for them on the previous day, but they actually needed much more than this physical bread.  They needed Him – the Living Bread, the food that endures to eternal life (6:27). They needed food that would sustain them for more than this life – for eternal life!

This is also true for you who hear this. Listen! Jesus came to deliver them and us from far more than hunger and sickness. He came to deliver us from the eternal hell to which the whole of humanity is heading. He came to provide eternal life.  In so doing, He invites us (speaking figuratively) to feed on Him. By this He means  that we  must  take Him into  our  very lives, into  our  own  hearts,  in order to receive  this eternal life.  When He put it to them in this graphic way in 6:53-56, saying that they needed to “eat His flesh and drink His blood”, they thought this to be scandalous and offensive to them. They interpreted His words, not in the way He intended them to be received – with love and grace and in truth.  Instead they received His words rigidly and literally, for they did not want to see it in any other way.   They did not combine His words with faith.

All that they could see and think was this, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can He now say, “I came from heaven?’ (6:42).They considered Him a mere man, even though His actions and words   should have convinced them that He was the Messiah. We learn here that mere outer appearances must never be our final criteria for judging.   In the end, because they were merely focused on appearances, they show that they did not really want Jesus. They only wanted that which He could do for them. To which Jesus answers, “Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” (6:62,63) 

The Ascension of Jesus will in fact happen very soon - 40 days after He rose from the dead.  But right now they will not accept that Jesus has come from heaven (6:33,38,50,58). They will not accept Him as the Living Bread that has been given by God the Father. That is why Jesus says, “What if you see me ascend to where I was before (i.e. with God the Father)?”  

Why can they not see this?  

Jesus now repeats essentially the same thing which he has already said to Nicodemus in John 3:1-8. “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”  Jesus is  saying that spiritually dead people cannot understand  these things which He is saying. Therefore they cannot understand His figurative language.  For this reason they could also not understand His parables[7]. The Holy Spirit needs to give life.  Only those that are born again can see! And Jesus continues, “But there are some of you who do not believe…” (6:64a). Understand this. Spiritual deadness always issues in unbelief. It is not the hardness of Jesus speech, nor my repeating of His profound words that is the problem. It is the hardness of our hearts that causes such a reaction. Instead of taking Jesus into our hearts we reject Him. And the John, the Gospel writer now adds this: “For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray Him. This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him.” (vv.64b,65 cf. 6:37,44).

This is the doctrine of sovereign election. If ever there was a doctrine that has caused many to be offended, it is this one. Many are offended by the thought that they cannot make their own way to heaven. They are offended by the thought that Jesus alone can give them eternal life - that He alone is the way to God (cf. Jn. 14:6). The sobering truth is that no one wants to go to heaven…God’s way. And so we say again, our sin blinds us; it closes our ears; it hardens our heart. We need to be born again in order to see all this.

In this passage Jesus' words are falling on hard and unproductive soil (6:66,67). This is what Jesus has already taught in the Parable of the Sower and the Seed.[8]  And that is why this is the saddest text in the entire gospel. How near they all were to Jesus, and yet how far!  We had hoped that they would see, hear and understand these spiritual and life giving words. The saddest words then are these, “After this  many  of his disciples turned back  and no longer walked with Him” (6:66).  Like shallow soil hearers they had no  root and therefore  no fruit. They showed promise for a time – but no more than that. Never let this surprise you when it happens in our own day. It even happened under our Lord’s ministry. Many over the years have come to listen to our preaching of the word… and have left, fruitless. The fact that they were called disciples ought not to unsettle us. Had these disciples then lost their salvation?  The Greek word for disciple simply means follower or learner. It does not necessarily imply that these followers were converted.  In fact, by their action they showed that they were not true disciples.  They left Him, because they could not reconcile what they wanted to believe with what He taught. There are many people who don’t like what the Bible plainly teaches. There are those that don’t like the fact that Jesus is equal with God, and that the Holy Spirit is a real person on whom we depend to see Jesus for who He is. There are those who dislike the teaching of God’s sovereign drawing of His people.  There are those that dislike the fact that God can use suffering for good. There are those that think that the Bible is too chauvinistic. There are those that cannot settle with the Bible’s clear teaching on gender identity, and so on.  Augustine had a good response to this, “If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don't like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.” If you become offended by what you perceive to be difficult doctrines, you will leave the Christian faith very soon. And so we note that the desertion is massive! In response to this Jesus asks His 12 disciples: “Do you want to go away as well?”  

The gladdest statement: The greatest statement of faith in John’s gospel

Peter gives the answer on behalf of the 12, and this proves to be a glad and a full confession of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here is the mark of the true believer. He cannot quit! Responding to our Lord’s words, Peter says in 6:68,69, Lord to whom shall we go?  He says in effect, “We confess that we do not understand you at times. You offend people who we think are important.  You say things that are hard to understand at times, but we have never found anyone who can do what you do. You meet our deepest needs. To whom else can we go? “You have the words of eternal life”.   We cannot deny your words. Nobody speaks like you do. Nobody understands us like you do.  Where else can we go? We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God…”. If you have found Jesus to be like that, where else can you go?

What have we learned from this text?

(i)     A sad truth: How dead and unresponsive man is by nature to spiritual truth – even when Christ is right among us. Note that, even among His closest disciples - the 12 disciples there was a devil, called Judas.  

(ii)    A glad truth:  As soon as we have  come to know Christ through the help that the Holy Spirit gives, we know  that there is no other way to go. We are drawn by the Father and  we have been given life by the Holy Spirit .  We gladly   take Him into us. We confess His Name. We are nourished by His Word and we know where we are going.

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[1]  See Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

[2] Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Vol.  28/1882 p.110

[3]  Gr. Gonguzō – to mutter , murmur, grumble … to say  something in a low tone  - an onomatopoeic word

[4] See Numbers 14

[5] Greek: skandalizei – from which we get the English word  ‘scandal’

[6] Vines’s Greek Dictionary

[7] see Matt 13 : 10 – 17

[8] Mark 4:13ff

John 6:22-59 "This is the Bread of life!"

Following the dramatic crossing of the sea of Galilee, or lake Tiberias (6:16-21), we find Jesus on ‘the other side of the sea (6:25). It is here that the stage for the first of His weighty seven “I Am” sayings“[1]  is  set... “I am the bread of life”.  

Our passage essentially makes one BIG point: Jesus announces Himself to be the Bread of Life  (6:35,48,51). By this He declares Himself to be more than food. He declares Himself to be the sum and substance  of  our  life. 

The ‘I Am’ statements  are nothing  less than  a declaration in which Jesus identifies  with the I AM of Exodus  3:14, where Yahweh, the God of Israel reveals Himself to Moses as,  “I AM WHO  I AM”. We are once again confronted by the claims of Christ, and we must make up our mind concerning Him. Jesus cannot remain weightless among us. Either He is who he says who He is, or else He is a liar or worse still- He is a lunatic.  As a young student I was very helped by this quote from C.S. Lewis[2] :

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

So, Jesus’ disciples had just witnessed two spectacular manifestations of Jesus’ power (feeding of the 5000; walking upon the sea in a storm) which should have deepened their faith in Jesus. This  might have been necessary  for two reasons[3]: (i)  they may have sensed disappointment that Jesus would not fulfill the  popular expectations  they  may have shared  with  the crowd who wanted to make Jesus their king (6:15)  (ii)  Jesus was about to make  statements  that would cause  massive defection from the ranks of His followers (6:66).

Our text is structured around a series of  six questions by the Jews concerning the claims of Christ, and  the answers which Jesus  gives them in response.  

QUESTION 1 (6:22-27): “When did you get here? (6:25) Our passage begins with a baffled crowd. They had previously seen Him on the eastern side of Lake Tiberias where they had witnessed the miracle of the loaves and fishes (6:1-15), and now He was gone. After a search they found him at or near Capernaum[4]  on the western side of the lake. As they ask Him, ‘when did you come here?, instead  of answering their question,   Jesus confronts them very directly  concerning their true motives for seeking Him. “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill at the loaves.” (6:26). Jesus is telling them plainly that what they were seeking from Him wasn’t eternal life but free food.  So, He tells them, “Do not work for the food that perishes (i.e. barley loaves and fish), but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on Him God the Father has set His seal.”

We are reminded that interest in Jesus is not always spiritual in nature. They were fascinated by the miracles and the free food. They were taken up with the idea of having a king or another Moses- like figure leading them and providing heavenly manna for them.  Right now they could not see, nor accept or believe in Jesus, even though the evidences were overwhelming.  And you have now sat through 6 chapters of exposition of John’s gospel. You too have read and heard the extra ordinary credentials of Jesus Christ in Chapter 1. You have read   concerning the extra ordinary miracle  of the water into wine (Chapter 2) and the healings in chapters 4,5 and 6  and the  various discourses where Jesus  explains  Himself and His work to the Nicodemus  (a Jew) and to  the Samaritan Woman  (a gentile). When you look at Jesus what and who do you see?  

At this  point Jesus enters into this  discussion with them  about  the food  which they  truly need, which will culminate with  this  amazing claim  in  6:35 , “I am the bread of life.”   But right now in 6:27 Jesus introduces the food which He (the Son of Man on whom the Father has set His seal) gives.  He tells them “not to work for the food that perishes, but (to work) for the food that endures to eternal life.”

QUESTION 2 (6:28,29). Notice how they latch on to the word ‘work’:  “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?”  i.e. “what good works can we do to earn the blessing of which you speak?” The assumption is that we get something from God if we do something for God.  That is the default position of our hearts. What can I do?  

We find  a similar habit,  when in our society we are invited for a meal, the first question asked is,  ‘What can I bring’?  We find it very hard to receive freely, and especially this in the matter of receiving the gift of eternal life, freely!  Jesus’ answer in 6:29,  “This is the work of God i.e. this is what you can do: Believe in Him who  God has sent!  

Believe! That word is the golden thread which runs through the chapter cf. vv. 36,47,64,69.   Do you see the irony in Jesus’ words here? Believing is not really ‘a work’. But for their sake Jesus called believing ‘the work of God’. In reality it is no work at all. It is simply trusting God in Christ. Very well then… BELIEVE.

QUESTION 3 (6: 30-33) : “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat”.  We want to believe, but we want to be fed for 40 years – as in the desert, when Moses led   1 million of our people.   If you really are the prophet foretold by Moses (see 6:14), then you must do this and be this to us.  So, prove that you are like Moses. Give us another sign, one just like you did across the lake.

At this point (6:32), Jesus needs to challenge their false interpretation of the OT event.  “It was not Moses that had provided bread to a million people, but God who gave you the manna – the bread from heaven[5]. They are missing the point. They read the Scriptures wrongly. Theirs is the problem that was already pointed out in 5:39-40!  And Jesus, by implication is saying, “I, who gave you full bellies on the others side of the lake am not just a prophet like Moses. I am your Creator (who came down from heaven v.33) who miraculously provided this bread, as I indeed gave your forefathers Manna in the desert for 40 years.” This was   what Jesus sought to communicate all the while, while His listeners intrigued by His miracles were more interested in the material things which He could supply. They were only interested in food that perishes, and in so doing they were missing the point! They were not hearing or seeing Jesus for who He was.  But they try anyway …

QUESTION 4 (6:34-40): “Sir may we have this bread always?”.  Here is Jesus’ most direct response to them: “I AM the Bread of Life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst” (cf. Samaritan woman in  4:14). What they needed to do right there and then was to commit themselves unconditionally to Christ.  The one thing  necessary to enable  them to live forever in the presence of God is to receive  Jesus as the bread of life. “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life.” There is sadly, a BUT in the picture…“BUT, I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe…” (6:36). These people had seen  and heard so  much of what Jesus  did and said   BUT still they did not believe  Him. 

WHY?  Here comes the ultimate answer...

Because they needed divine enablement. This is the essence of  what Jesus says  in 6:37-40: This portion of Scripture  teaches us that man’s will and inclination  to seek  God  is so bound by his sinful and rebellious nature that nothing less  than  divine enablement would help him  to see. All Jesus’ healings of the blind, deaf and the lame and the raising of the dead are ultimately illustrations of man’s spiritual state. What can a blind man, a deaf man, a lame man a dead man do to escape their condition? NOTHING!  What can a spiritually dead and unresponsive man do to inherit eternal life? NOTHING! They all need help. They need divine help. And this is precisely the thing that Jesus begins to address now. And the answer is this, “Look to me! I am the bread of life. Everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him has eternal life.”(6:40)

QUESTION 5 (6:41-51): This statement in 6:40  induces grumbling among the Jews (6:41). “How can we look to HIM? He is Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?” (6:42). Again Jesus  gives the answer: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw Him” (6:44 repeated  in v.65). The point is this-  To raise a spiritually, dead, unresponsive human being takes nothing less than a miracle - a miracle like all the other miracles, and a miracle is by definition something that human beings in their own strength, power or authority cannot do. Jesus is speaking here to people who are religious, but they  are not  born again (John 3:1-8) . They are not going to inherit eternal life unless they look to the Son. And here is the great difficulty. They MUST look to the Son to have eternal life. But  they will not look to the Son  because they are blind, deaf, lame and dead.  So, they need the  mercy of God to draw them. They (and we) need to look to the God of Moses  to do the impossible, and   so in 6:45  Jesus says, “It is written in the prophets  (Isaiah 54:13), ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone  who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.”  The hearing and learning  comes through divine ability. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, who points us to Jesus, described in John 3:1-8. Again and again, Jesus affirms that He is the life giving Bread upon whom they must feed (read 6:48,51)  to have eternal life.

QUESTION 6 (6:52-58): “How can this man  give us his flesh to eat?“  They  think literally. Jesus, of course, means  it  in a spiritual sense. He is not thinking about  cannibalism.  He is saying that  we have to take Him into ourselves. We need to receive Him into the core of our  being. In that sense alone we need to feed on Him.  You have to take Jesus into you. You have to receive Jesus into your heart. 

Sadly there  are none as blind as those that will not see this. And so they  grumble. 

We  will consider this  question and the far reaching conclusions to  the end this chapter in greater  detail in our next sermon. Be amazed at  their unbelief  Be amazed at the turning away from Christ.
But  YOU- YOU  ask yourself. Have I  believed in Jesus? Am I into Him?  Am I participating  in Him- His Life, His death, His resurrection? 
Unless you do, you have no  assurance of  heaven and eternal life. 
Come to Jesus  NOW!

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[1] The 7  ‘I Am’ sayings (ergo eimi) : John 6:35 (I  Am the Bread of Life)  ; 8:12 (I Am the Light of the World) ;10:7 (I am the Door for the Sheep); 10:11 (I Am the good Shepherd) ; 11:25 (I Am the Resurrection and the Life) ; 14:6 (I Am the Way the Truth and the Life) ; 15:5 (I Am the Vine)

[2] Lewis, C.S. : Mere Christianity p.52 ,Fount Paperbacks 1989

[3] Yarbrough, Robert: John p. 71

[4] Mark 6:53 says that  Jesus meets the crowd at Genesaret, a few kilometres from Capernaum

[5] Ex. 16:4-5; Num. 11:7-9