Choice Teaching for the Chosen
(No. 2606)
A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JANUARY 22, 1899.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
OCTOBER 21, 1883.
"It is written in the Prophets, 'And they shall be all taught of God.'
Every man, therefore, that has heard and has learned of the Father,
comes unto Me." John 6:45.
I SUPPOSE that you never noticed any great literary excellence in
Bradshaw's Railway Guide. "No," you say, "one writing would be very
much out of place in such a book as that–it is meant to be a plain
direction to travelers. When we consult it, we do not wish to be
entertained, we want to be guided as to the best and quickest route to
our desired destination." Well, that is the sort of sermon I am going
to try to preach–one which, I trust, shall be a guide to Heaven to
some who hear it, or who may afterwards read it–I long, above all
things, that through my words many may find rest and peace in Jesus
Christ our Lord.
Notice, dear Friends, what our Savior was aiming at in this discourse.
The Jews had been murmuring at Him. Certain followers of the scribes
and Pharisees, who always opposed Him, had been whispering among
themselves and finding fault with Him. Our Lord did not condescend to
come down to their level and parley with them. They pretended that
their difficulty was that He was well known among them, that He was the
son of Joseph, the carpenter, and that they knew His mother and His
brothers and sisters. Our Lord does not appear directly to answer them,
but He takes quite a different tack. He says, "Murmur not among
yourselves about this matter. Do not imagine for a moment that I am
disappointed because you do not believe in Me, and do not suppose that
your unbelief will at all frustrate My Father's purpose or surprise
Him. You may reject Me if you are determined to do so, but your folly
and sin will make no difference to anybody except yourselves. On your
own head shall be the guilt of your own blood. I knew that you would
not believe in Me. I quite expected that you would not receive Me, for,
'No man can come to Me, except the Father which has sent Me draw him:
and I will raise him up at the last day.'" And, Beloved, in a similar
manner, when we are pleading with you that you should believe in
Christ, we must weep over you as Jesus wept over Jerusalem! And we may
say, as Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, "We were gentle among you,
even as a nurse cherishes her children," but when you come to this
terrible decision–that you reject Christ and will not have Him reign
over you, then we fall back upon the eternal purposes of God–and we
tell you that you have not received either the electing love of God or
the effectual working of the Holy Spirit. And you are left to perish in
your sins!
To the ungodly and the unspiritual this may sound like rather harsh
language, but should not men be treated with some measure of harshness
if they spurn the Christ who is set before them and, in their unbelief,
wickedly reject Him? True love is all the more loving because it is
outspoken and sometimes seems even severe. There is a spurious sort of
love current, nowadays, which consists in saying, "Ah, yes, you are all
right and I am all right! You say, 'No,' and I say, 'Yes,' but, no
doubt, we are both equally correct. You are black and I am white–or I
am black and you are white–but, in these days, black iswhite, and
white is no color at all! Let us make things smooth and pleasant all
round. You praise me and I will praise you! It does not really matter
what you believe, or what you think–we shall all get right at last."
That kind of talk, or the preaching which comes practically to the same
point, is infernal cruelty to immortal souls! I dare not use a milder
term to describe it. It may be cried up as charity, but there is no
charity in it! It is a shameful selfishness which, for the sake of ease
and popular favor, cries, "Peace, peace," when there is no peace, and
seduces men to their own destruction–playing merry tunes to them when,
all the while, they are dancing down to death and to Hell!
Our Lord Jesus Christ was not a preacher of that order. When men
refused Him, He flashed the red light of the Truth of God in their
faces and made them know that if they rejected Him, they rejected their
only hope of mercy–and if they turned against His Grace, it was
because they did not know its power and were not under its influence.
He taught these people, who murmured at Him, that they never would
believe in Him unless the Father taught them. He plainly declared that
the Father would teach all His own and that if those who were listening
to Him did not come to Him, it would prove that the Father had not
taught them, that they were not God's chosen and, therefore, they would
perish in their carnal and guilty ignorance of Him!
Now coming to the text, I shall ask you to notice, first, thepromise of
the Father's teaching of His ownpeople. "It is written in the Prophets,
'And they shall be all taught of God.'" Then, secondly, we shall
examine the teaching itself. "They shall be all taught of God." And,
thirdly, we shall consider the grand result of the teaching. "Every
man, therefore, that has heard, and has learned of the Father, comes
unto Me."
I. To begin, then, there is in the text, THE PROMISE OF THE FATHER'S
TEACHING OF HIS OWN PEOPLE.
Christ says, concerning this promise, "It is written in the Prophets."
I greatly admire that sentence because if there was ever anyone in this
world who might have spoken on His own authority, without quoting
Scripture, it was our Lord Jesus Christ! "In Him dwells all the
fullness of the Godhead bodily" and, therefore, all His sayings are the
utterances of Omnipotence and He often, when upon the earth, made use
of that great double Amen, "Verily, verily, I say unto you." Yet this
Divine Teacher, who spoke as never man spoke, continually quoted from
the Old Testament and supported His own teachings by quotations from
"the Law and the Prophets," and the Psalmists and other Inspired
writers. In this case, addressing Himself to the Jews, He says, "It is
written in the Prophets." The tendency, nowadays, even among preachers,
is to depreciate and dishonor Holy Scripture. I am often saddened as I
find how many are quibbling at one part or another of the Sacred Word.
To my heart, there is nothing more authoritative or more conclusive
than this little sentence, "It is written." If God's message to men is
written, that is enough for me–and my great concern shall be to find
out what that message is! Every man must have Infallibility somewhere.
Some find it in the Pope, but I frankly confess that I have never seen
the slightest sign of it there! Some find it in what they call, "the
church." I am sure I do not know in which church to look for it, for
all of them seem to me to be very, very fallible. I find Infallibility
only in the Inspired Word of God! Here is a harbor where I can drop
down my anchor feeling certain that it will hold. Here is a place where
I can find sure footing and, by the Grace of God, from this confidence
I shall never be moved. "It is written in the Prophets," is quite
enough for me! I trust, Beloved, that it is also sufficient for all of
you.
That we may learn the lesson that our Lord intended to teach, let us
look at the Words which He quoted. He said, "It is written in the
Prophets." And, truly, the passage or its equivalent may be found in
more places than I shall be able to refer to, now, but will you kindly
look, first, at the 54th Chapter of Isaiah, at the 13th verse? Ah, I
see the eyes of you Bible-lovers flash and I think I hear you say,
"Fifty-fourth of Isaiah? Why, of course, that follows just after the
53rd of Isaiah!" Precisely so and, that 53rd of Isaiah, as you well
know, is all about Christ's Substitutionary Sacrifice. There we have
the full-length portrait of the bleeding Substitute–"But He was
wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the
chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are
healed." Many of you know by heart that blessed chapter, so full of the
doctrine of God laying upon Christ the sin of His people, and of Christ
bearing all their iniquities that they might be forever free. Well,
immediately after that great central Truth of the Christian faith,
comes this 54th Chapter–"Sing, O barren, you that did not bear; break
forth into singing, and cry aloud, you that did not travail with
child," There is no better place for any to sing than at the foot of
the Cross, gazing by faith upon the crucified Savior! O Earth, with all
your barrenness! O heart of steel, with all your hardness! "Break forth
into singing," for there is heavenly joy and there is the promise of
Heaven, itself, in the death of Him who lived, and loved, and died for
us!
Further on in the 54th Chapter comes this 13th verse, from which our
Savior quoted, "And all your children shall be taught of the Lord; and
great shall be the peace of your children." This is apromise to the
Lord's ownpeople. The teaching of Scripture is that Christ died for His
chosen. "Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it." God's
promise, "All your children shall be taught of the Lord," is made to
His own Church and to all who are the children of that Church, namely,
all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life! All God's
chosen, all whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life, all
whom Christ has redeemed by His blood, shall be, each according to his
measure, in due time taught of the Lord.
That is the meaning of the promise as we get it in Isaiah's prophecy.
First, it follows the Doctrine of Substitution and, next, it is made to
God's chosen people.
Now will you turn over a few pages in your Bible, and read what is
written in the 31st Chapter of the prophecy of Jeremiah, beginning at
the 31st verse? "Behold, the days come, says the Lord, that I will make
a new Covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:
not according to the Covenant that I made with their fathers in the day
that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt;
which My Covenant they broke, although I was an husband unto them, says
the Lord: but this shall be the Covenant that I will make with the
house of Israel. After those days, says the Lord, I will put My Law in
their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their
God, and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every
man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for
they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of
them, says the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will
remember their sin no more."
So, you see, this promise is joined with other blessings of the New
Covenant Notice that when our Savior quoted the prophecy, He commenced
with the word, "and." Now, as a general rule, when you make a
quotation, you do not begin with, "and." That is a copulative
conjunction which joins one sentence to another, yet our Lord begins
with an, "and," as if to hint that there was a great deal going before
it of which He could not speak fully, just then. There is "an
Everlasting Covenant, ordered in all things and sure," which God has
made with Christ Jesus, His Son, on our behalf. And all who were
represented by Christ became, by virtue of their union with Him,
partakers in all the blessings of that Covenant. Our side of it has
been fulfilled by Christ, our Representative. He has done the Father's
will perfectly and He has been able to say, concerning the part
entrusted to Him, "It is finished." The side of the Covenant which has
yet to be fulfilled is God the Father's portion–and that runs thus, "I
will, and they shall"–"I will be their God, and they shall be My
people. I will put My fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart
from Me. I will instruct them so that they shall not need to have
anyone to say to them, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know Me,
from the least of them unto the greatest of them." What a wonderful
promise this is! It is perfectly unconditional and freely made by the
Father concerning all His chosen!
As it stands in these two prophecies, as our Savior quotes it, it is a
promise made to each individual of the chosen seed. "They shall be all
taught of God." Then there shall not be one true child of God who shall
not be taken into the Lord's school and be taught and trained by the
Divine Father! Perhaps someone asks the very important question, "Do I
belong to that blessed number?" Let me reply by making another enquiry,
Have you been truly taught of the Lord? If so, you belong to the chosen
company. If you have not been taught of the Lord, I cannot tell whether
you are His or not. None of us can climb to Heaven and unroll the
eternal parchments, to tell whose name is written there. And until
there is some open and overt evidence of your being the Lord's, I
cannot declare that you are. But by this test shall you know–if you
have been taught of the Lord, you are one of His children, you are in
the Covenant of Grace, and you shall have your full share of every good
thing which the Lord has there laid up for His own.
That, then, is the promise of the Father's teaching.
II. Now, in the second place, let us briefly examine THE TEACHING
ITSELF. "They shall be all taught of God."
I want you to notice, first, that this teaching is practically the same
thing as God's drawing. Let me read the previous verse. "No man can
come to Me, except the Father which has sent Me draw him. And they
shall be all taught of God." The way in which God draws men to Christ
is not merely by persuasion, but by instruction. The Father does not
draw us to Christ by a force which is contrary to our nature and
will–we are not sticks and stones–and He does not treat us as if we
were. We are rational, responsible, free agents and He deals with us as
such, never snapping even the finest strings in the instrument of human
nature, so far as it is human nature. So, when He draws men, He draws
them by teachingthem!
I will show you how the Lord does this. He first teaches the poor soul
what a great sinner he is–and that makes him look for a great Savior.
He teaches that poor sinner the impossibility of his being saved by his
own works–and that makes him look for the works of somebody else. He
teaches that poor sinner that He has authorized Christ to stand in his
place and, by His life and death, to meet all the Law's demands on that
sinner's behalf–and the poor sinner says, "Why, that is exactly what I
need!" So, while the Lord teaches him, He is really drawing him and, in
like manner, there ought to be a great deal of teaching in all our
attempts to draw men to Christ–I mean, in our efforts to be the
instruments of drawing them. If I stand here and simply shout,
"Believe, Believe, Believe," I cannot expect that any good and lasting
result will come of my shouting. I must tell people what they are to
believe! I may try to persuade men to do this and to do that–and there
may be great force in the persuasion, but, unless they understand the
reason for my pleading, little will come of it. God's way of working
should be our way of working and He draws men by teaching them! Observe
that very carefully.
Now notice what kind of teaching is here promised. It is Divine
teaching. "All your children shall be taught of the Lord." "They shall
be all taught of God." There is no teaching but that which will ever
save the soul. My dear Hearer, you may listen to the best preacher who
ever lived, but unless God shall apply the Truth of God to your heart,
you will not receive it. You may study the best books on theology as
long as you like, but unless God the Holy Spirit shall give you the
keys of this treasure house, you will never get at its precious things
and secure them as your own. Means are to be used–as I will show you
in a minute or two–but you must not trustin the means–you must not
even rely on the best study that you can give to the Word of God,
itself, as the sure means of your knowing the Truth. Over and above all
that, you need the instruction and illumination of the Holy Spirit! "He
shall teach you all things." But unless you have His teaching, you
cannot and you will not know the Truth of God. I would like, if I
could, to unlearn everything concerning the things of God that I have
taught myself. I desire with all my heart that all I know may be what I
have learned of the Spirit of God and, dear Soul, if ever you are to
come to Christ, you will have to unlearn a great deal that you have
been teaching yourself, for nothing will be of any real worth to you in
the matter of your eternal salvation but what the Holy Spirit, Himself,
shall write on your heart and teach you. So, the promise of the text
concerns Divine teaching.
Yet notice, also, that it is teaching through the usual means. "Every
man, therefore, that has heard, and has learned of the Father, comes
unto Me." "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God."
Though my hearing will not save me, yet, ordinarily, it is the channel
by which God's Spirit works to the saving of the soul. Though my
reading of the Scripture will not, of itself, save me, yet it is the
usual way by which God enlightens the understanding through the Holy
Spirit. Never neglect the means of Grace, I pray you, but, at the same
time, never get into the condition that some are in who feel quite
happy so long as they have been to a place of worship on Sunday, who
return home and go to bed, just as if they had done all their duty for
the day and had no need of anything further. They are like men who go
to market, but do not buy anything. Or like persons who go into a
field, but do not work in it. They are quite satisfied with having been
to the market or the field. It must not be so with you, dear Hearers.
If you want to find Christ–if you want to go to Heaven when you
die–never be satisfied with mere hearing of the Word, but pray God the
Holy Spirit that through the hearing you may be taught of the Lord.
The most blessed thing about this Divine teaching is that it is
effectual teaching. If you are taught by the ablest divine, you may yet
learn nothing. But if you are taught of God, you will really know what
you learn. If He teaches you what your sin really is, you will know
it–perhaps even to despair. If He teaches you the meaning of His Law,
you will know it as you lie at the foot of Sinai trembling. And if He
teaches you the fullness of Christ, you will know that, and you will
rejoice that He is just such a Christ as you need! Men are sure to
learn whatever God teaches them by His Holy Spirit. There shall not be
one who shall pass through His school and yet remain a fool. Though
they were all fools when they entered it, yet, before they leave it,
they shall be so instructed as to the way of holiness that they shall
not err therein. My heart continues praying even while I am preaching,
"Lord, teach me," and then it adds, "and, Lord, teach these people,
too. Come and be their Instructor, for what can they know except that
which You teach them ?"
III. So I shall conclude with this last point–THE GRAND RESULT OF THIS
TEACHING. We have read the promise of the teaching. We have thought
over what kind of teaching it is. Now let us enquire–What is the
result of it? "Every man, therefore, that has heard and has learned of
the Father, comes unto Me."
Some men say that they have been taught of God and then they go on to
prove that what they know is of their own inventing. Our Lord's test
concerning His disciples is, "By their fruits you shall know them." And
this is the fruit– every man who has heard the Word, and who has been
taught of the Father, comes to Christ! Therefore, if any man preaches
that which does not lead you to Christ, do not listen to it, for
evidently he has not been taught of God. And, if you find in any book,
teaching which makes you think less of Christ than you did before, burn
the book! It will do you no good, and it may do you a great deal of
mischief. All sound teaching leads to Christ, for if, when the Father,
Himself, is the Teacher, the consummation of our scholarship is that we
come to Christ. Surely, when we poor creatures are the teachers, we
must be even more bound to begin and end with Christ Crucified. You
were asking me, just now, whether you had been taught of the Father.
You wanted to know whether you were one of His children. Well, here is
the test– have you come to Christ? If so, you have been taught of God!
Coming to Christ is a very simple thing. It is the easiest thing in all
the world, yet no man ever performed it until God the Father instructed
him and taught him that sacred art. To wash in Jordan was a very simple
thing, yet at first proud Naaman would not do it–he turned away in a
rage! To believe in Jesus is a very simple thing–little children have
believed in Him, persons who have scarcely been intellectually above an
idiot have, nevertheless, been able to believe in Jesus! And yet, with
all its simplicity, men never exercise it until they have been taught
of the Father. I suppose it is because faith is so easy that they
despise it. Naaman's servants said to him, "If the Prophet had bid you
do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much rather, then,
when he says to you, Wash, and be clean?" And it is only when the
Divine Spirit humbles the heart and makes the man feel that he must
stoop to anything so long as he may but be saved, that, at last, he
goes down to wash in Jordan according to the saying of the man of God,
or to believe in Jesus Christ according to the command of the Gospel.
You are taught of the Lord, my dear Hearer, if you believe in Jesus
Christ, that is, if you come and trust Him. And, if you do not trust
Christ, you may be a Doctor of Divinity, but you have never been taught
of the Lord. He is not to you "very God of very God," your sole and
only Savior. It you do not trust Christ, you are a stranger to the
Divine Light of God–that assuredly must be the case. You cannot be
right in the rest unless you are trusting in Him. But, if you are truly
believing in Him, then you are taught of the Lord. It is very wonderful
how God brings His people to this point of trusting Jesus. I heard a
little story which might have fitted very well into my morning sermon
[Sermon #1745, Volume 29–
Abijah–Or Some Good Thing Towards the Lord] but it was told to me
after I had finished my discourse, so I will repeat it to you now. In a
London court there was a little girl who had been to Sunday school and
who had found Christ as her Savior. She heard that there was a poor
woman lying very ill and all alone, up two flight of stairs, so the
child went up to the room and pushed the door open. She did not show
herself, but said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be
saved." A nurse came in the afternoon, to attend to the poor creature,
and she fetched in a city missionary to see the woman, for she talked
so strangely, the nurse thought. When the good man came in, the woman
said, "I am so happy, I am believing in the Lord Jesus Christ and I am
saved! An angel came to the door and I heard him speak, and he said,
'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved,' and I did
believe on Him, and I am saved!"
It was not an angel at all, it was that little girl! But it did not
matter in the least who said it, for it was just as true whether an
angel or a child spoke the words. I long that God should lead you, my
dear Friend, to feel, "It does not matter how the Gospel comes to me,
for if it is true, I believe it and I accept the Christ whom it makes
known to me." Some of you probably think that if an angel were to come
flying through the Tabernacle and were to alight just against your seat
and say to you, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be
saved," you would believe at once. But it would not make any difference
in your believing, would it? It is the same message as I, who am,
indeed, in the Scriptural sense, one of the angels or the Churches, put
before you. You do not mind who brings the letter that is full of good
news! I never trouble to send out to enquire the color of the postman's
hair if he brings me a letter–I take it and read its contents– and
you need not stop to ask whether the message comes to you by an angel,
or a babe, or a minister, or whoever it is! "Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and you shall be saved"! And, if you do believe on Him, then I
know that the Father taught you, I am persuaded that you are one of
God's elect and I can turn and say to you, "Yes, though I have not read
the secret roll of the redeemed, if you believe in Christ, your name is
there," for there never was a soul yet that came to Christ except the
Father drew him. And the Father never drew one by mistake and He never
will! This is the blessed consummation of all God's teaching–that the
taught ones come to Christ!
But notice, before I close, that the Lord says, "Every man, therefore,
that has heard and has learned of the Father, comes unto Me." He does
not merely come once, but he keeps on coming. Do not make any mistake
about faith in Christ, as if it were one single act and then were done
with. The faith that saves the soul is an all-the-day faith and an
everyday faith. If you believe in Christ, your faith must be of the
kind that believes today, tomorrow and forever. If you say, "I believe
that I believed in Christ 20 years ago and, therefore, I am saved," I
do not believe anything of the kind! Unless you stillbelieve, you never
truly believed in Christ Jesus, for the faith that God works in the
soul is a continual faith! It has its ups and downs and, sometimes,
like the moon, it is eclipsed, but it comes out of the darkness, again,
and shines as brightly as ever! And, further, if you did ever really
believe in Christ, you believe in Him now. "To whom coming," says the
Apostle–not, "having once come to Christ, we now run from Him." But,
"to whom coming," always coming, always trusting, always believing!
And why is this? Because we are always being taught of the Father! I
trusted Christ when I knew comparatively little of God's Word. And I
confess that I still know but very little of its boundless height,
depth, length and breadth, but I believe that as I grow to know more
and more, I shall trust more. If that is not the result of your
knowledge, it is not the knowledge that the Holy Spirit gives you! It
is the knowledge that puffs up. If it were the Holy Spirit's teaching,
you would rely more and more upon Christ and rest more entirely on Him.
I pray for you, my dearly-beloved fellow Church members, that you and I
may be taught of God till we grow less and less, and come to be nothing
at all in our own esteem–till we vanish away into Christ and Christ
becomes more than our necessary food, our life, our joy, our
All-in-All!
Everyone who is taught of the Father, in proportion as he is so taught,
comes nearer and nearer to Christ until he comes perfectly to Christ in
the Glory yet to be revealed. O blessed Master, we are still coming to
You. We are, everyday, coming nearer to You. Your Spirit is making us
more like You and making us long more for You! Your Father is creating
in us more and more of a hungering and thirsting after You. Though we
are very lame and do sadly limp, yet still we are coming to You. We can
only feebly fly, yet still we are flying towards You and we expect that
when You shall appear, and sit upon the Great White Throne, You will
recognize that we are coming to You and You, Yourself will say to us,
"Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you
from the foundation of the world." We are coming, Lord, to You! Come to
us! Yes, come quickly, even so, come, Lord Jesus! Amen and Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN6:25-51.
These people had crossed the Sea of Galilee and gone to Capernaum,
"seeking for Jesus." It seemed a very hopeful sign that they should be
willing to make such efforts to find Christ, but see how the Lord
Jesus, Himself, regarded it.
Verses 25, 26. And when they had found Him on the other side of the
sea, they said unto Him, Rabbi, when did You come here? Jesus answered
them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, You seek Me, not because
you saw the miracles, but because you did eat of the loaves, and were
filled. What very plain talk this is! Our Lord does not try to gain
popularity by the concealment of truth, but He tells these people to
their faces, "You are only following Me because of what you get out of
Me." "Oh," some worldly-wise man would have said, "that is a very
imprudent speech–it will drive the people away." Just so and Christ
seemed to say, on more than one occasion, "If people will be driven
away by the Truth of God, let them be driven away." John the Baptist
had declared that Christ had His fan in His hand and that He would
thoroughly purge His floor. And if that floor is to be purged, there
must be a driving away of the chaff! Our Lord's example should teach us
to speak in His name nothing less and nothing more than the Truth of
God in all love and kindness. After thus pointing out the true motive
which made the people seek Him, our Savior uttered a very singular
paradox.
27. Labor not for the meat which perishes, but for that meat which
endures unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto
you: for Him has God the Father sealed. Is it not strange that Christ
says, "Labor not for the very thing which you cannot get without
laboring for it"? And then He says, "Labor for that which you cannot
get by laboring for it"? He virtually tells us that it is so, by adding
the words, "which the Son of Man shall give unto you," plainly proving
that it does not come as the result of human labor, but as the free
gift of the Son of God. He that is wise will discover the meaning of
the paradox, but he that is blind will stumble over the letter of it
and not discern the spiritual interpretation.
28. Then said they unto Him, What shall we do, that we might work the
works of God? ' 'We want to do the best works, the noblest works, the
most acceptable works in all the world! Tell us what we should do in
order to perform a God-like work."
29. Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God. "The
highest and best work which you can accomplish is"–
29. That you believe on Him whom He has sent. Faith is the noblest of
the Graces! It is the very essence of true worship! It contains within
itself the germs of all excellence–and the man who believes in Christ
has done that which is more pleasing to God than anything else in all
the world!
30, 31. They said, therefore, unto Him, What sign do You show, then,
that we may see, and believe You? What do You do? Our fathers ate manna
in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from Heaven to eat.
Do you see the drift of their talk? They are still looking for the
loaves and fishes and, therefore, whatever Christ may say, they turn
the discourse round that way. If they can get from Christ something to
eat, they will believe in Him–what groveling, earth-bound creatures
they were!
32, 33. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you,
Moses gave you not that bread from Heaven; but My Father gives you the
free Bread from Heaven. For the Bread of God is He which comes down
from Heaven, and gives life unto the world. "The best and noblest
bread–the bread which has Deity in it–the bread which can feed your
souls, and sustain you with everlasting life, 'the Bread of God' is He
which comes down from Heaven and gives life unto the world.'"
34. Then said they unto Him, Lord, give us this bread. They said this
not knowing what they said, and not understanding what He meant. Bread
for the body was all that they wanted. Their cry was, "Give us bread,
and we are content." They had no spiritual appetite for Christ, "the
Bread of God."
35, 36. And Jesus said unto them, I am the Bread of Life. He that comes
to Me shall never hunger; and He that believes on Me shall never
thirst. But I said to you, that you have seen Me, and believe not.
These were the very people whom He had fed on the other side of the
sea–yet they were craving for more. That kind of bread cannot stay
their hunger for long. They had not received Him as their Savior,
otherwise they would have been well content with Him and would have
asked for nothing more.
37-39. All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me; and Him that
comes to Me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from Heaven,
not to do My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me. And this is
the Father's will which has sent Me, that of all which He has given Me,
I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.
Christ will not lose one whom the Father gave Him, no nor any part of
one. He will not lose the body of any of His people any more than He
will lose the soul of any.
40. And this is the will ofHim that Me, that everyone which sees the
Son, and believes on Him, mayhave everlasting life: and I will raise
Him up at the last day. Christ will never have finished His work upon
Believers till He has raised their bodies from the grave and glorified
them like His own resurrection body. He will never cease from the work
which He has commenced on any of His people till He has laid the top
stone in the glorious perfections of Heaven! And this Truth of God is
the joy of our hearts even now.
41. The Jews then murmured at Him, because He said, I am the Bread
which came down from Heaven. They muttered, murmured, whispered,
growled among themselves at this saying of Christ.
42. And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father
and mother we know? How is it, then, that He says, I came down from
Heaven?This is just the way with men–they judge by outward appearances
and if the Gospel comes to them as a thing beloved of poor men, if it
is preached without much eloquence, if the service is without the
attractions of sweet music or of gaudy attire–straightway they say
there can be nothing in it! O blind bats, when God veils Himself in
human flesh, can it be otherwise?
43. Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not among
yourselves. "I never thought you would believe in Me. I never imagined
that I should win your confidence."
44. No man can come to Me, except the Father which has sent Me draw
him. "You are not drawn unto Me, therefore it is clear that you are not
the subjects of Divine Grace. You think you are judging Me, but in so
doing you are really judging and condemning yourselves." Whenever men
sit in judgment on the Gospel, they soon let us know what kind of
spirit possesses them. It is not Christ who is on trial–it is they,
themselves–and when they rail at Him, they do but prove that the Grace
of the Father has never drawn them to Him. "No man can come to Me,
except the Father which has sent Me draw him."
44-46. And I will raise Him up at the last day. It is written in the
Prophets, "And they shall be all taught of God." Every man, therefore,
that has heard and has learned of the Father, comes unto Me. Not that
any man has seen the Father, save he which is of God, He has seen the
Father. "Do not suppose that even when you are taught of God, you will
know the Father as I know Him, or see Him as I have seen Him." That
Divine glance at Deity is not for us.
47. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believes on Me has
everlasting life. This was how our Lord spoke straight to the faces of
those who had derided Him and said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of
Joseph, whose father and mother we know?" With the strongest Words
which He was in the habit of using, He says, "Verily, verily, I say
unto you, he that believes on Me has everlasting life."
48-51. Iam that Bread oflife. Your fathers ate manna in the wilderness,
andare dead. This is the bread which comes down from Heaven, that a man
may eat, thereof, and not die. Iam the living bread which came down
from Heaven: if any man eats of this bread, he shall live forever: and
the bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life
of the world.