“Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?” (John 6:67)
This happened in Capernaum. Jesus taught in the synagogue saying He was the bread of life which came from heaven. When He said you must eat His flesh and drink His Blood, He was talking in a spiritual metaphor, but the people didn’t understand spiritual things. They were following Him because they wanted something from Him and not because they believed what He was teaching. “For the bread of God is He which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.” (John 6:33) Jesus was talking about Himself but the people were thinking in natural terms. “Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread.” (John 6:34) Jesus had to explain the spiritual truth to them, but it only caused them to murmur. “The Jews then murmured at Him, because He said, I am the bread which came down from heaven.” (John 6:41) Jesus explain even further, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life. (John 6:47,48) But when He went even further saying that if we eat of His flesh and drink of His Blood, we will live forever, many of His disciples left Him. (John 6:59-66) Jesus knew that there were those who didn’t believe what He was teaching them about the kingdom. “But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray Him.” (John 6:64)
In this discourse Jesus teaches three very important and basic truths. One is that we must eat of His flesh and drink of His Blood for which many left Him because they couldn’t understand spiritual truth. And the other two are contained in the following two Scriptures. “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” (John 6:63) “And He said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto Me, except it were given unto him of My Father.” (John 6:65)
Jesus said we must eat of His flesh and drink of His blood. The Lord’s supper demonstrates that we eat of His flesh and drink of His blood, but we do not in the natural eat His flesh nor drink His blood. We have the Lord’s Supper because Jesus commanded us to remember Him in this manner. “And when He had given thanks, He brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is My body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of Me.” (1Corinthians 11:24) The bread that we eat and the juice that we drink do not turn into His body and blood. To eat means to consume, to absorb and to digest. How do we do this? When we believe on Jesus, what He said, His sacrificial work on the cross, His suffering, His crucifixion, His death and resurrection, and take it as a personal work of salvation, we are eating, absorbing and digesting His body and His blood as our own. We become one with Jesus, just like when we eat and drink something, it becomes part of us, used in our body. The salvation wrought by Christ is ours. Paul wrote that he was in the crucifixion with Jesus. “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless, I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20) And this is what it means to eat of His body and drink of His blood. Our old sinful nature was at the crucifixion with Christ. And it died there. When Jesus resurrected, we resurrected with Him a new person. “Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2Corinthians 5:17) And the indwelling of the Holy Spirit makes us one with God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. “But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.” (1Corinthians 6:17) It’s a spiritual concept of a spiritual phenomenon.
Jesus also said, “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” (John 6:63) God’s Word is alive and powerful. It is able to accomplish what it says. Jesus said that the words that He spoke were spiritual and give us life when we believe them. It is the Spirit that gives life. It is supernatural. The flesh cannot do it. The flesh acts in the natural and in the now, not in the supernatural.
The other great truth that Jesus spoke is that if the Father doesn’t shed His love and mercy on us, we cannot come to Christ. Our salvation depends on the Father’s mercy and pity on us. “And He said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto Me, except it were given unto him of My Father.” (John 6:65) We are blinded by the enemy until our eyes are opened to understand the Gospel. Only God can do that. Our salvation is totally a work of God. We cannot even boast that we came to the Lord. It was God’s grace and mercy. It was the Holy Spirit drawing us to Jesus.
Great spiritual truths are not understood in the natural. They are spiritually understood because they go beyond the natural working of this world. The things that Jesus said caused many to reject Him. But they were spiritual truths they could not understand. It’s the Holy Spirit Who gives us understanding. “But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in Him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.” (1Corinthians 2:10-12) When we accept God’s marvelous gift of love and mercy through Jesus, the Holy Spirit comes to indwell and makes all things known to us.
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