John Lim
John 6:34-47 (2 of 4)
So now, the drama truly begins as our Lord Jesus engages the people in one of the most significant dialogues recorded. This dialogue is deep and complex as the infinite mind of God comes to interact with finite mind of man through Jesus Christ.
In John 6:33, Jesus declared,
“For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and
gives life to the world."
Upon hearing such a statement, who could stand quiet without shouting something back to Jesus? Look at the initial response of the people upon hearing our Lord’s bold claim in verse 34.
“Sir,” they said, “from now on, give us this bread.”
Something happened in their heart as they were listening to our Lord describe this bread from heaven and how it gives life to the world. Perhaps people got hungry listening to this very attractive bread. It was something that tugged at their hearts. Look at verse 35 to see our Lord’s response to this request.
“Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes
to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.
Here our Lord makes the first claim that He is the bread of life. What a declaration! Not only does he make this definitive statement but he also explains what this bread does for one who takes this bread. In providing a very concrete implication of what he is saying, he says that
“He who comes to me will never go hungry,”
Can you imagine such state of being where you will never go hungry? When we go to him, we will never go hungry. Hunger is one of the most basic and fundamental human needs. There really is nothing so depressing and feeling dehumanized than being hungry. It is a powerful human condition which we have all experienced at certain time in our lives. And nothing touches us with stronger feelings than seeing a child go hungry or seeing an emancipated human being. It touches a raw nerve in all of us. We all believe that no one should go hungry if we can help it. In an ideal world, we would not have any children or people who go hungry. We don’t wish hunger or starvation on anyone because we know the suffering and pain that entails. So hunger elicits a very powerful emotion in all of us. It is also a very powerful motivation for all of us to go out and work.
Therefore, people who heard Jesus could relate to that as they perhaps also have experienced that power of hunger. And Jesus also adds,
“and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.”
It is interesting that our Lord Jesus uses two powerful basic needs of man. Hunger and thirst are two most basic and powerful needs we have. Food and water: what could be more basic to human survival than that? And also our Lord now connects the dots for us so as not to leave any shadow of doubt as to what he is talking about.
Jesus states very clearly that He is the bread of life and that he who believes in Him will never be thirsty. He is also saying that He is the water.
We’ve all experienced thirst which is also very powerful basic human drive. As our body is made up of water, we need water for our survival and existence. We can go without food for some days but without water, we cannot last for very long.
If people have any doubt as to what Jesus means to us, here is none more clearer and certain than what our Lord Jesus says. He is the bread and water, the very essential things we need to have in order to survive. Isn’t it also interesting how our Lord answer those people who claimed,
“Sir, from now on give us this bread.”
We have their words but we do not have their expressions or the context in which they said something like this. How did they make that statement? I wish we could have seen their faces and observe their body gestures as to how they told him this. The only thing we can possible say definitively is by the way our Lord Jesus responds to them to this request for this bread. Did they truly mean what they said? Were they desperate and truly long for this bread and water?
Our Lord Jesus Christ is not man like us but He is the Son of God who held our known and unknown universe in the palm of His hand even when He came to our world as a baby. His power has not been diminished or reduced because of His humanity but He is still the God-Man. Therefore, He is able to see through man and know what was in his heart. So, observe what he says to them.
Look at verse 36.
“But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe.”
No person can make a declarative statement like this to someone else without knowing what was in that person’s heart. We could not make a statement like this and even if we did, we could be wrong as we are not able to judge the heart of man. We are mere mortals and therefore we can never make this kind of statement about someone else but because our Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God who sees what is in our hearts and beyond, He can make this statement as a fact. What he says of the people is true and it is the truth regarding them.
Nothing can be more disheartening to our Lord Jesus than this even as He is making this statement. What sadness and sorrow our Lord Jesus must have felt as he simply states where people are!
They have seen Him, and still they do not believe. Not only does he answer them clearly without any shadow of doubt that He is the bread and water with which people can never be hungry or never go thirsty, he goes one step further and makes a powerful statement that they do not believe him. What a heart breaking statement!
How much our Lord Jesus wants to see people believe Him! And yet, in spite of all the supernatural and spectacular miracles they have witnessed time and time again, they continue to flock to Him to get their physical needs met. They are simply coming to Him because He performs these fabulous miracles and they are amazed at the same time when they witness these miracles at that particular point in time but soon, afterwards, they continue to wallow in midst of their own earth bound lives without much deeper thought to what comes after this life.
Yes, we need bread and water in order to live in this world but when are we going to lift up our eyes from temporal things and ponder eternity? When and if we know that indeed our physical life is finite and will come to an eventual dead end, how should we prepare for eternity that awaits us?
Among those people who sought Him out, there might have been many who had seen our Lord Jesus on several occasions and shaking their heads at the unbelievable miracles. And they kept on coming back to see more and more but where does that all lead eventually? Is our Lord Jesus nothing more than a miracle performer not unlike the entertainer who provides a great show for their amazement? Is that what our Lord Jesus all about?
This is the hardest thing for a man to do. The work of God is to believe in the one God has sent. The work of God is to believe in Jesus. Jesus is the bread of life that comes from heaven with which we will not go hungry.
He is the water of life with which we can never be thirsty. Can we possibly ask for more from our Lord? God has not asked us to do something to earn this gift of eternal life. Jesus is not demanding that the way to heaven is for sale to the highest bidder. If the ticket to the
But Jesus is not standing at the gates to the Kingdom of God and demanding the ticket of lofty price.
Jesus is not selling lottery ticket to heaven either. Jesus is not going around and giving them a long list of things they must do and must not do to receive this gift of eternal life. He is simply stating that a provision has already been made. It is to believe Him and He is lamenting how the people will not believe Him even though He has freely shown them the way to
What is now very interesting at this point is that He sheds light in his next profound statement. Look at verse 37.
“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes
to me I will never drive away.”
What a powerful and beautiful statement from our Lord Jesus. He is now taking us deeper into His truth that we have to really examine what He says and ponder deeply. What He says here is not a simple statement but has very deep implication. Let me show you.
“All that the Father gives me will come to me.” What do we make of this? Everyone that the God the Father gives Jesus will come to Jesus. Those whom God has given to Jesus will come to Jesus. Those whom God has given to Jesus will be compelled to come to Jesus and believe on Him. By the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, those whom God has given to Jesus will come to Jesus and believe on Him. It is not because of miracles or because of signs but because of something deeper than that. May saw spectacular miracles but they still did not believe on Jesus. He then says, “and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.
What our Lord Jesus says here is quite profound. We whom God has given to Jesus will come to Him and I am saying simply that we whom God has given to Jesus will be compelled to come to Him.
It is as if there is a homing device in all those whom God has given Jesus. We live in this life in different set of circumstances. From the moment of our birth until this time in our lives, we have walked different path. No person’s life is same as that of another. We’ve experienced our own set of hardships and disappointments. We’ve had our shares of joy and sorrow from losing someone near and dear to us unexpectedly. We may in the future experience joys and sorrows extent of which we do not know yet. But somewhere, at certain moment in our lives, we came to Jesus or will if we haven’t yet already.
Who knows what that moment was like other than each one who now believes in Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior? It is as if that homing device suddenly was activated and we came to Jesus and believed Him.
And the marvelous truth is that whoever comes to Him, He will never drive away. What a comforting thought that when we come to Jesus, He will not drive us away from Him.
There is a great truth about the message of the Gospel here. The message of the Gospel is being proclaimed even this day and people who hear this message of the Gospel respond or are compelled to respond because God has given them to Jesus and those are the people who will come to Jesus and those who come to Jesus will not be driven away.
As we come to Jesus, we have full assurance that Jesus will not turn us away but receive us into His everlasting arm, welcoming us into His fold. What a great compassion He shows us. No matter where we are and where we have been or what we have done, He simply receives us.
And Jesus gives a further explanation about this precious message of the Gospel. Look at verse 38-39.
“For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do
the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent
me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise
them up at the last day.”
Our Lord Jesus says that He came down from heaven not of His own accord but to do the will of God who sent Him. And the will of God is that He shall lose none of all that God has given Jesus Christ but raise them up at the last day.
What a glorious statement by our Lord Jesus! The will of God is that Jesus shall lose none of all that God has given Him but to raise them up at the last day. The message of the Gospel is that it gives hope to those who would come to Jesus. When we come to Jesus and believe in Him, we will never be disappointed.
What He offers is life eternal in that we would be raised up at the last day. The hope of eternal life springs in our heart even as we look and listen to the spoken words of Jesus 2,000 years ago. Even as we grow weaker with time, we have this confidence that Jesus who died on the cross will raise us up at the last day even after we depart from this world. That voice of our Lord Jesus Christ rings true even this day though we are removed from that time. That truth about the message of hope is still alive and well.
All those who will come to Jesus will not be driven away nor be lost but God will raise them up at the last day and Jesus continues on in verse 40.
“For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son
and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him
up at the last day."
God’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life and Jesus will raise him up at the last day. Who are we looking to, for eternal issues of life or what are we looking for in the matters of eternity? Look at verses 41-47.
At this the Jews began to grumble about him because he said,
"I am the bread that came down from heaven." They said, "Is
this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we
know? How can he now say, 'I came down from heaven'?"
"Stop grumbling among yourselves," Jesus answered. "No
one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him,
and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets:
'They will all be taught by God.' Everyone who listens to the Father
and learns from him comes to me. No one has seen the Father
except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father.
I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life.
Look at verse 43.
Jesus shares with us a very special revelation about the inner working of salvation in this verse.
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.”
This is an eye-opening revelation. Often times we think we are the ones who came to believe on him and were saved but what Christ says is quite different. We think we came to Christ on our own initiative when in fact, biblically speaking God is the one who draws us to him. Do we come to Christ because we reasoned in our mind that it would be a nice step to take? Of course not! It is God who draws us to Himself.
Now, let us ponder on this issue just a little. We all came to know Christ at different times in our lives. When we were going through some very difficult times, we turned to Christ or we thought we took the initiative but understanding this passage helps us to realize something more.
If that difficult time did not happen in our lives, would we have turned to Christ? If indeed we did turn to Christ, can we say then that particular moment happened in God’s divine providence to compel us to come to Him and turn to Him?
If our life had been going so well, there is not time for true reflection, is it a good thing? We turn to Christ in our times of trouble and struggle. Ultimately God is in control of our situations and circumstances. He is the one who draws us to Him that we might receive the ultimate gift of redemption and salvation.
If and when we look at our lives in this way, we will come to conclude that God draws us to him through those moments and grants us peace that only He can provide in midst of our sorrow and suffering.
Today, we can rejoice in the fact that indeed God so loved us that He directed our paths in life to truly see Jesus Christ as our savior that we trusted in Him for our salvation. The message of salvation is proclaimed even now. Look at verse 47.
“I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life.”
Do we believe in Jesus Christ? When we do, it is not by our volition but because God draws us to Jesus and because we believe, we have everlasting life. Amen.
'성경묵상연구 > 사복음서' 카테고리의 다른 글
| [Jn 6:48-59] I am the Bread of Life (0) | 2008.10.05 |
|---|---|
| [마 19:1-12] 우리 가정! 주님 뜻안에 있을 때 가장 행복하다.(김동열) (2) | 2008.10.04 |
| [Jn 6:25-33] The Work of God is This (0) | 2008.09.21 |
| [눅 1:46-55] 마리아의 노래와 전인적 구원 (경배도우미) (0) | 2008.09.21 |
| [마 18:15-35] 신앙의 기형현상을 극복하자(김동열) (1) | 2008.08.19 |