Feeding on the Bread of Life
(No. 2706)
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, DECEMBER 23, 1900.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
NOVEMBER 6, 1881.
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believes on Me hats
everlasting life. I am that bread of life." John 6:47, 48.
OBSERVE carefully the order in which our Lord puts the two blessings He
mentions–first, life through believing on Him, and then food to
sustain that life. First, "he that believes on Me has everlasting
life," and next to that, "I am that bread of life." Life comes first
and food follows afterwards. It is impossible for a dead man to feed,
or to be fed– only the living can eat and drink. I once went into the
monastery of the Capuchins at Rome and there I saw certain of the
departed brotherhood dressed in their regular habits, although they had
been dead, some of them a hundred years, some fifty, and one gentleman,
I think, had scarcely been dead more than a year or so. But there they
sat, with their breviaries in their hands, just as if they had been
alive! Yet I did not see any preparations for feeding them. It would
have been as ridiculous to attempt to feed them as it was to keep them
there at all!
Now, when we preach the Gospel, unless you have spiritual life, you
cannot feed upon it. And if you were to come to the Communion Table,
unless you were truly alive unto God, you might eat the bread and drink
the wine, but with real spiritual food, the body of Christ, and the
blood of Christ, you could have nothing to do. We do not give food to
people in order to make them live. That would be a useless experiment,
but, because they are alive, they take food in order to sustain and
nourish the life which is already in them. Always remember, dear
Friends, that the best spiritual food in the world is useless to those
who are spiritually dead. And one very essential part of the Gospel is
that Truth of God which our Savior so plainly taught, "You must be born
again." All attempts at feeding the soul are of no use until the new
birth has been experienced! Even that precious, priceless bread of life
cannot be assimilated unless the soul has been quickened by the Spirit
of God. Judge, then, my Hearers, whether you are alive unto God, or
not. Before you can rightly know the Truth, before you are qualified to
learn its mysteries, pray that you may be made to live by faith in
Jesus Christ–for before food comes life.
But, next, after life there must be food, for, just as surely as there
will be no use for the food without the life, so will there be no
continuance of the life without the food. Men have played great pranks
with themselves and have even experimented upon the possibility of
living for 40 days without food–an experiment which I, for one, have
no kind of wish to imitate! Neither would I recommend any of my hearers
to attempt it, for the probability is that if one man should manage to
survive his 40 days' fast, there will be 40 other men, who try to do
the same, who will be in another world long before the end of that
time! God meant us to eat if we wish to live. When He made men and
women, He made the fruits of the earth on which they should feed. And
afterwards He gave them the flesh of beasts that they might feed
thereon, but they must be fed if they are to continue to exist.
So is it with the soul–but the soul must be fed on spiritual meat.
Souls cannot eat what bodies can eat. But, still, they must eat. All
the qualities in a spiritual man, which are gracious, need food. Faith
needs the Truth of God to believe. Love needs a revelation of love to
keep it burning. Hope needs to be reminded of the things to be expected
in the future, so that it may continue to hope. And every Grace within
a spiritual man is clamorous for spiritual food that it may feed upon.
If there are any of you who profess to be spiritual men and women, and
yet you say that you can live without reading the Bible, without
attending the House of Prayer, without any outward means of Grace, all
I can say is that I
do not want to try your system of living, for I should be starved by
it, even if you are not! And I would not recommend any Christian to try
to see how long his spirit can live without spiritual food. No, our
Lord's order is, first, life–then food. And this implies that where
there is life, there must be food. Those two things are very simple,
yet many persons live as if they did not know them.
Next, if you look at the text, you will see that there is
everlastingness in the life. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that
believes on Me has everlasting life." Yet there is need of food all the
same. The everlastingness of the life does not change the fact of its
need of spiritual food, for here the two things are put side by
side–"He that believes on Me has everlasting life. I am that bread of
life." The life of the Believer is everlasting, yet it needs food to
sustain it. Does any of you say, "God has saved me, the Holy Spirit has
quickened me, and I shall never perish. Therefore I need not feed upon
the Word, I need not be watchful, I need not be careful"? My dear
Friend, you err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the analogy of faith.
It is quite certain that those whom Christ has quickened by His Spirit
shall never die, but it is just as certain that they would die if they
did not feed upon Christ and sustain their life by that means! The two
things are not contrary, the one to the other. I charge you, Beloved,
to be as vigilant in the keeping of yourselves as if you were really
your own keepers! Be as earnest that you slip not with your feet as if
there were no promise that God would keep the feet of His saints. Be as
diligent in prayer and holy living as if everything depended upon
yourself. Yet forget not to fall back upon the grand Truth of God that,
after all, your safety does not depend upon yourself, but it rests in
the hands of Him who has undertaken to keep you from falling and to
preserve you even to the end. Your new life is everlasting, yet you
must feed it!
Now think for a minute or two of the converse of that Truth. Because
your new life must feed–which is clear from the text, where Christ
says, "I am that bread of life"–do not, therefore, infer that your
life is not everlasting. All the precepts of the Word of God which
admonish us to persevere are consistent with the fact that the saints
shall'persevere. All the exhortations to feed on spiritual food are
quite consistent with the blessed fact that you shallso feed and that,
so feeding, your souls shall live forever. Has not a man two eyes?
Surely it is that he may see the whole of a truth and not merely one
side of it. I believe that some people fall into great mischief because
they shut one eye and will never open it– and if anybody tries to
point out the other side of the Truth of God, they cry, "Oh, he is not
sound!" But, my dear Friend, for my part, I am always quite satisfied
when I have the Scriptures at the back of my teaching. I do not care
even the snap of a finger for what you may call unsound, or what
anybody else may call unsound, so long as it is in accordance with the
Word of God! And you may depend upon this fact, that paradoxes are not
strange things in Scripture, but are rather the rule than the
exception.
Very often, those things which appear to contradict each other are only
two sides of the same Truth of God, and he who would get at the Truth,
itself, must look at them both, and follow them both. If you are
Christ's sheep, you shall never perish, neither shall any pluck you out
of His hands–yet it is to you that such a warning as this is
addressed– "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil
heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God." And it is to you
that the injunction is given, "Labor not for the meat which perishes,
but for that meat which endures unto everlasting life." And while
laboring for it, bless God that you already have it, seeing that you
have Christ in your possession, and He says, "I am that 'bread of
life.'"
Notice, Brothers and Sisters, how Jesus Christ, our Divine Lord and
Master, is everything to His people. Our life, that is Christ–"He that
believes on Me has everlasting life." Our food for that life–that also
is Christ–"I am that bread of life." I have come even to love my own
necessities, for they seem to be like pedestals whereon the image of
Christ may stand! If I did not need Christ, how could He be my life? If
I did not need food to sustain that life, how could He be the bread of
life to me? The greater my necessities, the deeper is my sense of His
fullness! The more I become dependent upon Him for everything, the more
I see of His all-sufficiency. You know that if there were no great
hollows and deep places on the face of the earth, there would be no
room for the seas and oceans. And if there were no deep places in our
soul's need, where could be the fullness, the manifested fullness, of
the Lord Jesus Christ? Rejoice, then, my Brothers and Sisters, that
Christ made you alive from the dead! And then raise another song of
thanksgiving because He keeps you alive. Bless His name for grafting
you into the vine. And then bless Him for every drop of sap as it comes
flowing out of Him–the Stem into you–the branch. Christ is ALL!
Christ is ALL! Christ is ALL and to His name be praise forever and
ever!
Perhaps someone asks, "How do we feed on Jesus Christ?" And there are
some who say that we feed upon Christ in what is called, "the
sacrament." I do not like that word, "sacrament," as applied to the
ordinance of the Lord's Supper. Regardless, there is no mention in
Scripture of such a thing as a "sacrament." It is an old heathenish
word, applying to the oath which a soldier swore to be faithful to his
commander. I like neither swearing nor sacraments, and I do not like
either one of them anymore than the other, for both of them are
contrary to the Word of God! Out of that word, "sacrament," a great
mass of mischief has grown up–it is a bed of rottenness out of which
all sorts of evil fungi have sprung. Let us keep clear of that, once
and for all!
Some men tell us, however, that in what they call, "the sacrament of
holy communion," the communicants feed upon Christ. Listen. My text was
spoken by Christ before the Lord's Supper had been instituted–a long
while before He broke the bread and poured out the wine as a memorial
of His death, He had uttered these remarkable words–"Verily, verily, I
say unto you, Except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His
blood, you have no life in you." But there was spiritual life in the
Apostles, even then, was there not? Yet they had never eaten of what is
called the "sacrament," for it was not instituted at that time! As
there was true life in them, they must have eaten of Christ–and there
being no Lord's Supper then instituted, it is clear that there is a way
of eating of Christ's flesh and drinking of His blood, altogether apart
from the communion!
Now, having said so much by way of correcting a common error, I want
you just as clearly to understand that the Lord's Supper, as afterwards
instituted, was manifestly intended by Christ to be a picture, setting
forth by outward and visible signs, the way of feeding upon Him. It is
not actually feeding upon Christ, for that took place before there was
any Lord's Supper, but it is an admirable picture of that feeding upon
Christ and to all time it remains one of the choicest methods–one
method only, mark you–one of the choicest methods by which
spiritually-quickened souls are helped to feed upon Christ. We often
feed upon Christ while hearing sermons. We feed upon Christ as we read
good books. We feed upon Christ in the public prayers of the sanctuary,
and in the secret communion in our own chamber. If we are as we should
be, we are always feeding upon Christ! And part of the meaning of that
petition, "Give us this day our daily bread," is, "Give us this day to
feed upon Christ." Though we come to no Communion Table, much less
approach an altar of sacrifice, we are spiritually and really fed upon
Christ in other ways. Still, I say again that this communion service is
a very choice way of feeding upon Christ. And I want to try to show
you, by this picture, how it is that souls feed spiritually upon our
Lord Jesus Christ.
Baptism is a picture of how souls receive spiritual life. The Lord's
Supper is a picture of how that new life is sustained. Both ordinances
are only pictures, symbols, emblems–nothing more! Our immersion, by
its symbolic representation of death, burial and rising again out of
the water, sets forth how we live by dying to all but Christ, and rise
again to live in Christ in newness of life. That is the beginning of
the new life. And then comes the Lord's Supper as a picture of how the
soul feeds upon the body and blood of Christ. Baptism is the door of
the house and the Lord's Supper is a meal in the inner chamber for
those who have been raised from the dead and quickened into life in
Christ Jesus. Do not imagine–I do not suppose that I have a single
hearer who thinks so–but do not imagine that there is any magic in
Baptism, by which water makes men, women, or children, into children of
God, heirs of Christ, and inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven! And do
not suppose that there is any magic about the bread and wine–wafers
and wine and water I think some use–but do not think for a moment that
there is any magic in them! They are merely pictures setting forth
important Truths of God, for souls cannot eat bread and souls cannot
drink "the fruit of the vine." What are these emblems and symbols here
for? Only as helps to thought, reminders of certain great facts,
memorials of wondrous deeds which are brought to our recollection, so
that our memories–and through them our souls–may feed upon these
great Truths of
God!
Now, after this unusually lengthy preface, which seemed to be necessary
to the full understanding of our subject, I want to point out to you
the picture, which the Lord's Supper sets before us, of our feeding
upon the bread of life.
I. And, first, WE FEED NOT WITHOUT A BLESSING. In coming to the
Communion Table, the first thing we do is to give thanks–to ask a
blessing–the blessing of God upon the sacred feast. Now, Soul, if you
are really alive unto God by Jesus Christ, you cannot feed upon Christ
without the Divine blessing. As you could not, at the first, come to
Christ without the Father's blessing, so you cannot even now feed upon
Christ without the Holy Spirit's Divine assistance. If I were to sit
down and say, "I am going to feed upon Christ," and opened at the very
sweetest chapter in the
whole Bible, I might read it through and yet not be feeding upon Christ
at all. If I were to say, "I will get to my knees, and in my chamber I
will enter into fellowship with Christ, and spiritually eat His flesh,
and drink His blood," I might stay on my knees till they ached, but,
apart from the blessing of God, I should get no good out of the action.
So, first, when we come to this Communion Table, we ask God to bless
what we are about to do, for, unless He shall draw us, we shall not be
able to run after Him. Unless He shall open our mouth, we shall not be
fed with the bread of Heaven. I charge you, therefore, O beloved
Brothers and Sisters in Christ, whose hearts are longing for communion
with the Well-Beloved, ask your Heavenly Father, by the effectual
working of His blessed Spirit, to visit you with power, and life, and
blessing! When you open the Bible, let it be with this prayer upon your
lip–"Quicken me, O Lord, according unto Your Word!" When you draw near
to God in private devotion, let it be in complete dependence upon the
Spirit of God. When you listen to sermons, when you come to the
Communion Table, let it always be with a glance to Heaven for the
blessing of the Lord to rest upon it all, for all is nothing unless God
shall bless it to you.
II. Secondly, WE FEED ON JESUS WHO DIED FOR US. The Blessing is asked.
Now what follows at the Communion? Why, next, bread is taken, and
broken. That bread is the emblem of the body of Christ. But what is
that wine cup? It is the emblem of the blood of Christ. So, you see, we
have flesh there without blood, and blood there, as it were, drained
out of the flesh. What do the two emblems together make up? Why, death
If we were to dip the bread in the wine, it would be no proper
observance of the Lord's Supper–but these two emblems are separate,
the one from the other–because they are intended to symbolize to us
the death of Christ. Now, Brothers and Sisters, the food of your faith
is to be found in the death of the Lord Jesus for you and, oh, what
blessed food it is! Some of us know what it is to be bowed down in
despondency almost to despair and I, for one, bear my testimony that
under such circumstances, nothing revives me like a sight of my Master
on the accursed tree! Unless He died for me, I, for one, am eternally
lost. I can see no merits of my own which I dare present to God, for I
am a mass of sin, and I should be a mass of misery, were it not for
those dear wounds of His, and that bloody sweat, that Cross and
passion!
Think much of this great central Truth of the Atonement, for it is the
food of your soul. The bread and the wine cannot spiritually feed
you–all they can do is to help you to remember the sufferings and
death of Jesus and, by remembering them, to show forth His death till
He comes. It is in this way that your faith is nourished, your hope is
nourished, your love is nourished, your whole soul is nourished in
every gracious and holy way! Read the life of Christ as recorded by the
four Evangelists, but feed most on the death of Christ. Study the
example of Christ, yet that is not your food–let your food be His body
broken for your sake, His blood poured out in grievous agony, even unto
death, as Atonement for your sin. The Lord's Supper is a very beautiful
and impressive method of instruction to us because, as there we have to
feed upon emblems which set forth a cruel death, so our souls must
feed, by contemplation, upon the real death of Christ, and all good
things within us must be sustained by faith in that death!
III. Now we will go a step further–WE FEED UPON CHRIST BY RECEIVING
HIM SPIRITUALLY INTO US. We have looked at what is on the table. The
next thing, in order to celebrate the Lord's Supper, is that we must
eat, and we must drink. It would be no observance of the Supper if I
were to break the bread and leave it on the table, or if the wine in
the cup should stand there simply to be looked at. No, the bread must
be eaten, the wine must be drunk. Learn, therefore, that if your soul
is to be fed, you must take Christ into you–you must not merely think
of Him as belonging to somebody else, but as your own Savior, whose
death was in your place, who loved you and gave Himself for you. Make
bold, by faith, to cry, as Thomas did, not only, "Lord and God," but,
"My Lord, and my God." Say, "In this blood, which He shed, I wash away
my sin. This body of His, which He gave to death, He gave up for me.
And in His sufferings my heart confides because these sufferings were
endured for me."
It is palpable to everyone that there is no feeding of the body by just
rubbing a loaf of bread outside of it. You have to break up the loaf
and get it into yourself. And there is no feeding the spirit by merely
believing the doctrines of the Word and knowing the facts of the
Gospel–you must accept Him who is the very essence of the doctrines.
You must receive Him to whom all the facts relate. You must, indeed, by
faith take Jesus Christ into yourself! O Beloved, this is the way to
feed on Christ! Your new life will be vigorous enough and strong enough
when this is the case with you.
IV. Further, WE FEED UPON CHRIST BY DELIBERATE THOUGHT. I remind you
that in the eating and the
drinking at the Lord's Supper, there is much deliberation to be
manifested. It is not a helter-skelter rush, and a hurried feeding.
There are two signs, two symbols, both of which very wonderfully
represent Christ's suffering. I have often
sketched for you the process by which we get our bread–it is very
significant and instructive. The wheat is taken, and cast into the
ground and buried. It is subject to frost and snow, and all manner of
ills. It springs up. It grows. It ripens. Then comes the sickle and it
is cut down. Being cut down, it is carried away upon the loaded wagon
and thrown upon the threshing floor. Then it is beaten with the flail
till each grain of wheat is separated from the straw. Then the wheat is
taken and put into the mill, and in the mill it is ground to fine
flour. Nor have its pangs and tortures ended. It is made into dough and
kneaded. And then it must go into the oven to be baked. Through all
sorts of painful processes it must go till it finishes up with being
broken to pieces and with being ground between the teeth of the eater.
In this way it becomes a most significant symbol of the sufferings of
Christ. His life is, all through, a story of grief–"Surely He has
borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows," and you and I are to think
over that history of Christ with due deliberation and care as we ponder
the symbolism of the broken bread.
Then comes the cup. Here, the grape has been crushed in the winepress
till its ruddiest juice has been poured forth, its very heart's blood
being shed beneath the extreme pressure. This is another picture of
Christ's suffering–of His suffering even unto death. So the one
picture has two panels and many subdivisions, as if the Lord would say
to us, "If you want to feed your soul upon Christ, you must think a
great deal about Him. You must not merely say, by faith, 'Yes, Christ
is my Savior.' That is well, so far as it goes. That Truth will give
you life, but you must see who He was, and what He was, and what He
did, and why He did it, and what He is doing now, and what He has yet
to do. And so, by taking it in detail, you will feed your soul very
wonderfully." Look at many half-starved Christians. Why you can see
each rib, you may tell each bone in their spiritual anatomy. They have
scarcely enough life to be able to sing in a whisper–
"'Tis a point I long to know,
Oft it causes anxious thought,
Do I love the Lord, or no?
Am IHis, or am Inot?'"
Now, if they thought more of Christ–if they broke up the Truth about
Him more than they do–if they looked more into His passion–if they
studied His wondrous Person–if they relied upon His promises–if they
rested in His work more in detail by contemplation, they would grow to
be spiritual giants–they would be "strong in the Lord, and in the
power of His might."
Is there not much instructive teaching, then, in this Supper, as far as
we have gone? But, I want you, dear Friends, to notice that everypoint
about the Lord's Supper is full of gracious spiritual meaning.
V. Next, WE FEED UPON CHRIST BY RECEIVING THE COVENANT. When the Lord
Jesus Christ passed the
cup to His disciples, He said to them, "This cup is the new testament
(that is, Covenant,) in My blood, which is shed for you." Listen to the
word, "Covenant, Covenant." Brothers and Sisters, are you very hungry?
Do your souls want the richest food that God Himself can give you? I
will tell you of a cupboard where there is locked up bread such as they
never ate in the wilderness! It is better even than the manna. Take
your Bible and go through its many chambers, and up and down the
corridors of its wondrous teaching, and you will see, over one coffer
that stands there, this word, in golden letters, "Covenant." That is
the place where God specially meets with His people. "He has given meat
unto them that fear Him: He will ever be mindful of His Covenant." The
man who can fully understand the word, "Covenant," is a theologian!
That is the key of all theology–the Covenant of Works by which we
fell, and the Covenant of Grace by which we stand–Christ fulfilling
the Covenant for us as our Surety and Representative, fulfilling it by
the shedding of His blood, which is typified by the cup, and so leaving
for us a Covenant wholly fulfilled on our side, which is Christ's side,
and only to be fulfilled now by God! And what God has to fulfill is
this promise of the Covenant–"A new heart also will I give you, and a
new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart
out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put
My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you
shall keep My judgments, and do them…And you shall be My people, and
I will be your God."
Ah, Brothers and Sisters! This is what we call "a feast of fat things,
a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on
the lees well refined." Some of our fellow Christians have very poor
spiritual digestion–they cannot feed upon this sort of food. When they
try to partake of it, they fancy that it is too rich for them, so they
say, "It cannot be good food for souls." Yes, but there are some of us
who, by reason of age and use, have had our senses exercised, and we
have now grown old enough to digest the strong meat of the Gospel, and
we are glad to get our teeth into it whenever we can! I like to go down
to the Covenant storehouse and to lay hold of these blessed things! And
I urge you,
Brothers and Sisters, to do the same. If you really want to feed your
soul, take care that you try to understand the Covenant, for the Lord
Jesus gives you a hint that the richest wine is found there by saying,
as He was passing the cup, "This cup is the New Covenant in My blood."
VI. Yet again, WE FEED UPON CHRIST AS WE SIT AROUND HIS TABLE. To my
mind there is something very beautiful and suggestive in the right
posture for the observance of the Lord's Supper. What is that? Coming
up here and kneeling as if there was something to worship? That is a
relic of old Romanism that ought to be done away with by all
Protestants! What is the proper way to observe this ordinance? Why,
just sitting around the table on which the emblems are spread. Look at
that remarkable picture of Leonardo de Vinci–a picture which I have
seen hanging up in a Romish church, as you may see it in many Romish
churches. It represents Christ and all His disciples sitting at a
table, and that is the right posture for us. How did they at first eat
it? They reclined–they lay along, in the easiest possible posture that
they could take, sustaining themselves upon the left arm, and so
feeding, one with his head on his neighbor's bosom. Now, translating
the Oriental into the Western fashion, the nearest approach to that is
to sit as much at your ease as you can–and the spiritual meaning of
that posture is this–You are saved men and women. The life of God is
in you, therefore, rest. "We who have believed do enter into rest." And
whenever you want to feed on Christ, do not feed on Him in a hurry. Do
not fidget. Do not worry. Do not stand with your loins girt, and with
your staff in your hand, as the Israelites were to eat the Passover in
Egypt. You are out of Egypt–you are past the wilderness, for we who
have believed in Christ have entered Canaan–and are at rest.
VII. Once more, WE FEED UPON CHRIST AS WE SIT TOGETHER TO OBSERVE THIS
ORDINANCE. A very blessed way of feeding upon Christ is pictured by our
sitting together around this Communion Table. One person could not
celebrate the Lord's Supper, for a primary part of it is fellowship
with others. "We being many are one bread, and one body." If you want
to feed rightly on Christ, do not keep to yourself, and do not try to
keep Christ to yourself. No, Brother, Christ Jesus is not Head over
only you! He is the Head of the whole body, which is His Church. I
believe that, sometimes, when you cannot pray alone, you would be
helped if you would associate others with you in your supplications.
There is a way of feeding upon Christ by getting others to come in and
feed too. Mind that and let your communion with Jesus, while it should
be alone full often, not be always alone, but lay hold upon your
Savior, and take Him to your mother's house, and to the chamber of her
that bore you, and there will He show you His great love. He may come
to Peter or Magdalene alone, but He most of all delights, on the first
day of the week, to stand in the midst of His assembled ones, and to
say not merely to any one of them, but to them all, "Peace be unto
you." Live in holy love with all who love Christ so shall you be helped
to feed upon Him, remembering that we are made to sit together in the
heavenly places in Christ Jesus our Lord.
VIII. The last point is this–WE FEED NOT UPON CHRIST WITHOUT PRAISE.
When we come to the close of the Lord's Supper, we always do what our
Lord Jesus did. After supper, they sang a hymn. So the right way to
close the celebration of the Supper is to sing a Psalm of praise. And,
dear Friends, whenever you want to commune with Christ, take care that
you praise as well as pray. Mingle thanksgiving with your
supplications, for Jesus loves to hear the praises of His people. I am
afraid we lose a great deal of communion with Christ because we do not
give Him more praise. I heard a Brother say, the other day–and, oh,
how greatly did I enjoy his conversation when he said it!–"There are
some times, when I am alone with God, when I cannot pray. I do not feel
as if, just then, I needed anything of Him. Then," he said, "I always
sing, or in some way or other praise God. And I find communion with God
in praise to be as profitable to my soul as communion with Him in
prayer. And, oftentimes, before my praise is done, my prayer begins to
spring up like a living well." Try that plan, Brothers and Sisters, for
it may help you still more blessedly to feed upon Jesus Christ.
I wish that all my congregation knew the sweetness of feeding upon
Christ. Every man feeds on something or other. You see one man getting
his Sunday newspaper–how he will feed on that! Another goes to
frivolous amusements, and he feeds on them. Another man feeds upon his
business, and upon the thought of his many cares! But all that is poor
food–it is only ashes and husks. If you did but possess true spiritual
life, you would know the deep necessity there is of feeding upon
Christ. But you do not possess that life, you say. No, then do you know
what will become of the dead? What will become of the dead? And after
death comes corruption. The old Jews, in the times of the kings, took
the corrupting bodies of the dead out into the valley of Hinnom–and
there they kindled great fires, that the corrupting corpses might be
burnt. And something like that, only far worse, will be the lot of
everyone who is not quickened of the Spirit of
God and made to live with Christ! You will go to the place "where their
worm dies not." That is the place of corruption–"and the fire is not
quenched." that is Tophet's flame. God save you from it! But there is
no salvation from it except for those who have life through believing
in Jesus–"He that believes on the Son has everlasting life: and He
that believes not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God
abides on Him." God save you, dear Friends, from that awful doom, for
His dear Son's sake! Amen.
HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"–282, 295, 942.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN6:41-65.
Verse 41. The Jews then murmured at Him. That is, at the Christ.
41, 42. Because He said, I am the bread which came down from Heaven.
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?
They did know His mother, but they made a mistake, which may have
seemed a very slight one to them, when they said that they knew His
father. Yet that is how nearly all great errors spring–from some
slight and apparently trivial addition to the Truth of God. They did
know Mary, but they did not know that Jehovah was the Father of the
Christ.
43, 44. Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not among
yourselves. 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 Note the unflinching
boldness of Christ! He did not say to these people, "Well, you have
some cause for murmuring and I will explain the matter to you." On the
contrary, He faced them with the Doctrine of Sovereign Grace, and told
them that He did not expect them to understand Him, for they could not
do so except the Father, who had sent Him, should draw their hearts
towards Him!
45. 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. So, in fact, He said to them, "You have not been taught
of God. The Father has never drawn you, otherwise you would have
received Me." So does the brave Champion thrust the naked sword of the
Truth of God into their very souls!
46, 47. Not that any man has seen the Father, save He which is of God,
He has seen the Father Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believes
on Me has everlasting life. Let me read those precious words again,
catch at them, you timid and trembling ones–"Verily, verily, I say
unto you, He that believes on Me has"–now, in present possession–
"everlasting life."
48, 49. I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the
wilderness, and are dead. He does not say, "Our fathers." He comes out,
as it were, as much from the Jews as from the Gentile ungodly world,
and He says, "Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are
dead."
50, 51. This is the bread which comes down from Heaven, that a man may
eat, and not die. I am the living bread. Bread that contains life
within itself and is, therefore, most potent to sustain a life like
itself–"I am the living bread."
51, 52. Which came down from Heaven: if any man eat of this bread, He
shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is My flesh, which I
willgive for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strivedamong
themselves, saying, How can this Man give us His flesh to eat? wonder
if they perceived that this declaration of Christ involved His death,
for He did not speak of giving them His living body, but His "flesh."
There are some who find their main comfort in the Incarnation of Christ
and, certainly, that is a very comforting Truth of God. But, without
the death of Christ, it affords no nourishment for the soul. Atonement,
Atonement–there is the kernel of the whole matter! Christ must die and
then He can give us His flesh to eat!
53, 54. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you,
Except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you
have no life in you. Whoso eats My flesh, and drinks My blood, has
eternal life; and I will raise Him up at the last day. His soul shall
live. His spirit shall never die. And though his body shall die, the
force of the eternal life within the man shall quicken even his mortal
body into an immortality like that of his spirit.
55-60. For My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He
that eats My flesh, and drinks My blood, dwells in Me, and I in Him. As
the living Father has sent Me, and I live by the Father, so he that
eats Me, even he shall
live by Me. This is that bread which came down from Heaven: not as your
fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eats of this bread shall
live forever These things said He in the synagogue, as He taught in
Capernaum. Many, therefore, of His disciples, when they had heard this,
said, This is an hard saying; who can bear it? And a hard saying it
really is until we are instructed by the Spirit of God to understand
it! The Roman Catholic has made it into a gross and carnal saying,
teaching men that they really, actually and corporeally, eat the flesh
and drink the blood of Christ, which is horrible blasphemy, and nothing
less! But they who are taught of God see the inward meaning of the
Truth peeping up from behind the letter, and know what it is to receive
into their hearts, though not into their bodies–into their thoughts,
though not into their mouths–the very body and blood of Christ.
61-63. When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples murmured at it, He
said unto them, Does this offend you? What and if you shall see the Son
of Man ascend up where He was before? It is the Spirit that quickens.
The Spirit in us gives spiritual meaning to the Word, and life to us
also–"It is the Spirit that quickens;"–
63. The flesh profits nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they
are spirit, and they are life. They are not carnal. They are not gross.
They have in them an inner sense which is full of life and spirit.
64, 65. 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. And He said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto
Me, except it were given unto Him of My Father. "No man"–no, not even
an Apostle–not the one who ate bread with Christ and was His familiar
friend–not even he could come without being drawn by God. And Judas
did not come to Christ. In the sense in which our Lord used the word,
Judas never really came to Him, but perished in his sin. The Father
must draw us with Divine cords, or else to the Son we shall never come.