John 6:41-51. Phobic or Genuine Concern?

Today there is much confusion over the difference between a phobia and a concern. It is surely reasonable to be concerned about extra-marital sexual relationships yet this can be interpreted as a phobia. It is reasonable to be critical of bad behaviour of a particular person who happens to be Jewish but that is not necessarily anti-Semitic.

A Bishop of Birmingham once made this mistake when he said,

‘Much of the New Testament is anti-Semitic’

Jesus, himself a Jew, was critical of the wrong thinking of many Jews in authority; he repeatedly said they were wrong, yet that is not the same as being anti- Semitic. As Jesus is explicit as to who he really is, opposition increased markedly. He has just fed the five thousand miraculously and then, in the synagogue at Capernaum Jesus explains what it is that God primarily wants in all people,

“The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” John 6:29

The crowd clearly understood what Jesus was saying,

“What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do?” John 6:30

Jesus continues to put himself right at the centre, using the name of God for himself.

“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” John 6:35

Jesus emphasises why this decision to become one of his followers is essential,

“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 them up at the last day.” John 6:40

This is similar to what Jesus had said in Jerusalem,

“Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.” John 5:24

I remember being told by a school teacher that Jesus never claimed to be God. That teacher cannot have read John’s gospel!

Reactions

What Jesus taught and did caused a division amongst his hearers, who all had the same evidence. Some followed him but others became increasingly antagonistic.

“At this the Jews there 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.” John 6:42-43

John here uses the word ‘grumble’ deliberately as this was the exactly the reaction the Children of Israel had against God’s appointed leaders, when they were troubled in the wilderness.

“All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron . . .” Numbers 14:2

“ But the whole assembly talked about stoning them.” Numbers 14:10

“The LORD said to Moses and Aaron: ‘How long will this wicked people grumble against me? I have heard the complaints of these grumbling Israelites.” Numbers 14:26-27

Now this same grumbling was against Jesus, because he claimed not just to be a prophet but to be the Son of God.

The Jews were saying that, as Jews, they followed Moses but Jesus turned this round and is in practice asking,

‘Did you follow Moses? Clearly not, as you grumbled against him all the time. You never stopped grumbling against God’s appointed leader and now you are repeating this all over again.’

Much of the Old Testament is about the unbelief of the Jews. That is not anti-Semitism, which is an ugly thing, but a true appraisal of the facts. In the past many societies have been blatantly anti-Semitic and have ruthlessly persecuted Jews simply for being Jewish. This culminated in the holocaust produced by the neo-paganism of Nazi Germany, but it does still continue in certain groups both in the UK and throughout the world. Anti-semitism can be so subtle. When I was a boy I used to enjoy reading the ‘short stories of Sapper’. The author, Cyril McNeile, had been a British soldier and during the First World War he wrote short stories based on his experiences in the trenches with the Royal Engineers. These were first published in the Daily Mail under the pseudonym ‘Sapper’ and later as books. Even these have a streak of anti-semitism as the majority of those who were Sapper’s enemies and those he mocked had Jewish names.

The Bible however is not anti-Semitic, God is criticising people, whether they be Jews or not, and these criticisms are valid. The New Testament is just as critical of people in the young Christian churches who have turned their backs on God. People of all nations have been inclined to murmur against Jesus, just as the Jews murmured against both Moses and Jesus.

Jeremiah constantly rebuked his own countrymen, so much so that they thought he was unpatriotic.

Stephen in Acts 7, just before he is martyred, reviews the whole history of the Jewish people, emphasising that they repeatedly rejected the prophets that God has sent to them. He did not do this to gloat but to warn the Jewish leaders that they were on the same destructive road if they reject Jesus. Stephen was stoned to death!

Paul’s usual approach was to go to the synagogue in the towns he visited in order to show, from the Jewish Scriptures, that Jesus is their true Messiah. Some believed the evidence he presented about Jesus but many violently rejected him and his message. It was this reaction that forced Paul to share the message with Gentiles and any who would listen. However when Paul talks about his fellow Jews, it is nearly always with tears in his eyes. He is Jewish and loves his own people and longs that they should recognise their Messiah and the righteousness he could give them ‘as a gift’. However many persisted in seeking to establish their own righteousness by keeping to their religious laws! There was much plain speaking, with sorrow, but never triumphalistic pleasure.

John chapter 6 is not anti-Semitic but about people being anti-Christ; Jesus was a problem for some in Israel, just as he is in our world today.

Contempt

As the crowd listened to Jesus, some became contemptuous,

“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?’’” John 6:42

Because they thought they knew about Jesus’ background they concluded that Jesus’ claims were ridiculous. ‘They knew!!’ Similar dogmatism is rife today. Astounding arrogance persists, people saying such silly statements as,

“We now understand science, so we don’t need God.”

What we have come to understand is a little of the way the world works, the laws of nature, but we know very little about how these laws came into being and how they are all precisely right so that our world can exist as it does. There is no evidence for rejecting the role of God, it is also contemptuous wishful thinking.

God’s Role

It is astounding to hear the excuses people still make today as to why they won’t even consider the claims of Jesus. Many Christians become discouraged when they invite friends to come and hear the gospel explained, meeting with ridicule and scepticism. Jesus has two interesting things to say to us as we face this difficult dilemma,

“No-one can come to me unless the Father draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me.” John 6:44-45

Verse 44 gives the negative,

“No-one can come to me unless the Father draws them.”

Verse 45 gives the positive,

“They will all be taught by God.”

John has written this so that it applies universally, in all times and in all places. “No-one” clearly means not only Jews but all people. ‘Everyone’ applies to the whole world. The good news, or gospel, about Jesus Christ is good news for everybody.

Jesus is stressing a very important point here. No one will come to and remain in Christ by their own will, true conversion is always initiated by God. Many churches have used great music and psychological means to draw people in but only those in whom a true work of God has happened will stay the course. There has to be a movement of God’s grace in a person before they can truly come to Christ.

In the New Testament, every time that the word ‘draw’ is used it is in the context of ‘drawing’ something that is resisting. We humans naturally resist the rule of God, we are spiritually dead and without God working in us - none has any hope of salvation.

Some have inferred that there is little they need do in speaking to others about Christ because this passage insists that it is God’s initiative that counts. Jesus did not intend for it to be taken this way. Just as God called Paul, a rebel against God’s Christ, so he can call those who are contemptuous and resistant today. All people need to hear the message about who Jesus is so we need to share the news. However there is not a single Christian who has not been drawn by the Father against their natural resistance. There is no other way that stubborn hearts will permanently turn to Jesus Christ.

The clear implication of this is that if we want to see our churches grow and our friends and families turn to Christ and so be saved, we have a duty to pray and keep praying that God will work. Private prayer and church prayer meetings that are not imploring God to apply what we have said and done to themselves and their need for forgiveness and a relationship with God are a charade. God is concerned more about saving people thatn Aunt Maud’s bad knee!

The next verse teaches the same truth; it is an extraordinary statement.

“It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me.” John 6:45

Jesus is quoting from the prophet Isaiah, where the prophet talks about the future glory of God’s people,

“All your children will be taught by the LORD, and great will be their peace. In righteousness you will be established: tyranny will be far from you; you will have nothing to fear.” Isaiah 54:13-14

Jesus explains this passage by emphasising that this new status, of being one of God’s people, is open to ‘everyone’ who hears God speak to them. The effect will be that they will turn to Jesus, God’s only Son.

In the Old Testament very few people had direct access, to hear from God or to be given revelations by God. People would have to go to Shiloh or to the home of one of God’s ordained prophets. Under the New Covenant, that Jesus introduced, not only would all Christians receive the Spirit of God but all would be directly taught by God : God would speak to their hearts.

In the New Testament there is obviously external teaching being given continuously through sermons, Bible Studies and discussions but, although these may be stimulating, they are inadequate to make a person a child of God. There must be an inward working of the Holy Spirit who applies these words to our hearts and causes us to respond to them. When God is speaking to people’s hearts they will want to turn to Jesus, that is the clear teaching here. How irritating it is to hear people say that you can make the Bible mean anything; in contrast these words are blatantly clear,

“Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me.” John 6:45

This cannot mean anything else. Everyone who has heard the true God will become a Christian. Jesus is saying that God only points people to himself, so this would exclude such groups as Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists. Later Jesus made this abundantly clear when he said,

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” John 14:6-7

The Jewish authorities clearly understood what Jesus was saying when he said,

“I and the Father are one.” John 10:30

They picked up stones to stone him and they gave their reason,

“We are not stoning you for any good work, but for blasphemy because you, a mere man, claim to be God.” John 10:33

The Problem

If all people are by nature resistant to God and all are ignorant of God, what chance do we have to lead them to Christ? Nagging won’t work, constantly repeating Bible verses won’t change people. The simple answer is that we cannot change people; only God can turn people’s hearts. We can entertain them, draw them into our churches by our activities and music, but only God can permanently turn people’s hearts to him. This is why, as the Parable of the Sower reminds us, many will hear the word of God, some will respond for a while but most will then fall away. Just a few keep going to produce ‘fruit’ for God.

This is why the Bible stresses the need for prayer. If all Christians supported their sharing and teaching about Christ with real believing prayer to the Father, who is able to turn people to himself, then perhaps we would see more responding to Christ’s gospel! We must keep going to our heavenly Father and say,

“Lord, my friends are so resistant, they are so hard, they are blind, please change their hearts.”

They may be delightful in every other way, just like the Jews in the first century. It is ultimately only God who draws people to himself and it is God who teaches.

A Warning

In the next verse John suggests that there were some going around the early churches suggesting that either they have seen God or that they have a direct line to God. They were purporting to be special and to have been taught directly by God! They might say, ‘I’ve had a vision of God and he said to me . . .!”

“No-one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father.” John 6:46

We must not believe such people who claim to have a hotline to God. Only the incarnate Jesus has this and he permitted his apostles to record for all time what he taught them. God now speaks to us through his Word – the Bible. We may have good ideas and initiatives but these must always be tested both against Scripture and with others of God’s people. No-one should be seduced into following any in churches who claim to have had a direct illumination from God. Anyone who says, ‘The Lord has told me . . .’ must be treated with great suspicion. All true teaching about God is from Jesus Christ who alone came from him; only he has seen the Father. No wonder Jesus can say as he does in the next verse,

“I tell you the truth . . .,” or ‘Very truly I tell you. . . ” John 6:47

Jesus alone is the truth. This is why the prime purpose of a church is to teach people the Word of God and encourage them to live by what it teaches. To understand and believe what God has said is vital,

“ . . . the one who believes has everlasting life.”

Christ is central

In the following verses Jesus yet again places himself in the centre.

“I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live for ever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.’ John 6:48-51

Jesus is saying that he alone is the ‘bread of life’. The Greek is very emphatic, ‘I and I alone’ can give you this bread. Jesus is claiming the name by which God introduced himself to Moses at the Burning Bush when Moses asks God his name,

“God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM This is what you are to say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.” Exodus 3:14

By using God’s holy name in the way he does Jesus is saying, that he is the same God.

Test

This passage reminds us that we can all know whether God has taught us and whether he is doing a saving work in us.

1. We will recognise who Jesus is and where he comes from.

This divides all people. Some give their own explanations and excuses why they will not to submit to him,

‘Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven?’ John 6:42

“Then the Jews began to argue sharply amongst themselves, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ John 6:52

This contrasts with what Jesus has said and with what all true Christians accept,

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven.” John 6:51

Christians recognise that Jesus has come both from Nazareth and from heaven.

2. We will recognise what Jesus can therefore give us.

Manna was ordinary food that perished if kept for long, but there is a ‘bread’ anyone can ‘eat’ and never die. Eternal life is what Jesus can give us when we commit ourselves to him.

“No-one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.” John 6:44

A true Christian can look back and see that the Father has drawn them to Jesus Christ. He is both my Saviour and King. He is holding me to himself, even though, of myself, I could not remain faithful for even 24 hours. I know that he will raise me on the last day. I am thrilled that God has chosen me and drawn me into Christ’s eternal kingdom and I want to live in a way that honours him.

Elsewhere Jesus’ disciples were beginning to understand and asked him,

“Who then will be saved?”

Jesus looked at them and said,

‘With man this is impossible but with God all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26

our only hope is to throw ourselves on God’s mercy that is available in Christ.

BVP