Last week we started studying Jesus’ discourse in Capernaum. Most people consider the Sermon on the Mount one of the greatest sermons Jesus ever preached – and it was. On the Sermon on the Mount Jesus explained the policies of God’s Kingdom. But here in Capernaum, Jesus is defining how we should regard Himself. The people that followed Jesus to wanted to be fed fish and bread again, just as they had been fed in Bethsaida. Jesus wanted to explain to them – and to us – that He did not come just to fill our bellies. Jesus came to sustain our souls.

John 6:40-42 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeS the Son, and believeS on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day. 41 The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. 42 And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven?

Saving Faith Must See Jesus As He Is

Word Study: Jesus declared that the WAY to “everlasting life” is to “see” (Greek theōreō) the Son. This word means to “perceive with the eyes”, to see Jesus as He actually is. You cannot believe on Jesus unless you first know Who He is. We are creatures that must see and perceive to believe. When Satan tricked Eve into eating the forbidden fruit, he called on her to believe him above God. The Bible says that

Genesis 3:6 … the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes …

Before she ever plucked the fruit, she carefully examined it with her eyes. Because is looked good, Eve put her faith in Satan – and Adam followed suit. Adam WATCHED his wife carefully, and then based on what he saw he himself put his faith in the devil. And thus the fall of humanity came about.

Illustrate: The devil knows that the source of faith comes from the eyes, then the heart. If it looks good, we will often give in to Satan’s temptation, and touch the forbidden. There are some beautiful animals that live in Central and South America called poison arrow frogs or poison dart frogs. They are beautifully colored, greens and blues and tri-colored on a black skin. The golden colored frog is the most toxic, which secretes the alkaloid poison batrachotoxin. The American Museum of Natural History notes that

“The golden poison frog (Phyllobates terribilis), contains enough poison to kill 20,000 mice or 10 people. It is probably the most poisonous animal on Earth …”

To be saved, you must LOOK (theōreō) on Jesus, and perceive Him as Who He is. Then perceiving Him correctly, you embrace Him, believing on Him.

It is only Jesus Who is the Giver of “EVERLASTING LIFE”. Jesus said that – if you believe on Him – “I will raise him up at the last day”. Jesus makes this statement three times in this chapter. Here, and in …

John 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

John 6:54 Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.

There will come a day when you will die. The Scripture says:

Hebrews 9:27 …. it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:

Everyone will have a “LAST DAY” on this earth. Yet your soul is eternal. King Solomon wrote of our “LAST DAY” and said:

Ecclesiastes 12:7 (Berean Standard) before the dust returns to the ground from which it came and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

You are made in the image of God, and your soul cannot be destroyed. It will return to the God Who made it. We are made in His image (Genesis 1:27). So our bodies will cease and return to dust. But our souls will go to God. If we have received Jesus Christ as He really is – believing on Him as Messiah and Lord – then “He will RAISE US UP on the LAST DAY”. Jesus is “the bread which came down from heaven”.

Word Study: Yet the Galileans do not “see” (Greek theōreō) Jesus as God’s Bread from Heaven. They “MURMUR” (Vs 41) (Greek gongyzō), to “mutter or grumble beneath the breath”. Their reason for grumbling is found in their words: “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know”. They knew Jesus of Nazareth. Some perhaps grew up with Him. They thought that His Father was Joseph the Blacksmith, and Mary Joseph’s wife. As Jesus grew up in Nazareth He did no miracles as a child, and did not begin to function as the Messiah until He came of age and was baptized by John the Baptist. These people had not perceived or “seen” (Greek theōreō) Jesus as He truly is. There are many in this world that reject Christ, because they assume Him just another founder of another world religion. But Jesus is much more than this.

Jesus is God the Son sent of the Father to this earth to save His people from their sins.

John 6:43-44 Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves. 44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

These people are “grumbling and finding fault” because they are unable to see Jesus as He is. Six times in our context Jesus said that “I came DOWN FROM HEAVEN” (verses 33, 38, 41, 50, 51, 58). The Jews believed that when the Messiah came, He would come in the clouds and rescue Israel. But Jesus quietly grew up in Nazareth. So they did not receive Jesus as the True Messiah, but as a Healer perhaps. They were blind to Who Jesus really is.

Word Study: Jesus said, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him”. The word “draw” is the Greek helkuo, which means “to take by the hand and pull near or out”. The same word is used in:

John 21:6 (ESV) … they cast {the net}, and now they were not able to HAUL (helkuo) it in, because of the quantity of fish.

John 18:10 (ESV) … Simon Peter, having a sword, DREW (helkuo) it and struck the high priest’s servant and cut off his right ear. …

Acts 16:19 (ESV) … they seized Paul and Silas and dragged (helkuo) them into the marketplace before the rulers.

No one can come to God unless He open our eyes to Jesus. God must helkuo, draw us to His side, and we must choose to receive Him as He is. The natural man – that is, those in the flesh – cannot understand the Messiah. The Apostle wrote:

1 Corinthians 2:14 … the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

The “NATURAL MAN” or “SOULISH PERSON” (Greek psychikos) cannot receive the “things of the Spirit of God”. The lost cannot grasp the need for salvation through Christ, nor the reality that He is the One and Only Messiah. We are all born into this life cherishing our flesh, while hating the things of the Spirit of God. The Scripture says the lost are the ENEMIES of God (Romans 5:10). It is God Who must “ENLIGHTEN THE EYES OF THE HEART” (Ephesians 1:18) so that Jesus may be seen as He is.

God opens the eyes, but does not force that Christ be received. To receive Jesus as He is is a choice that YOU must make!

Alford’s Greek Testament notes:

“That this ‘drawing’ is not irresistible grace, is confessed even by Augustine himself, the great upholder of the doctrines of grace. ‘If a man is drawn, says an objector, he comes against his will. (We answer) if he comes unwillingly, he does not believe: if he does not believe, he does not come. For we do not run to Christ on our feet, but by faith; not with the movement of the body, but with the free will of the heart…Think not that thou are drawn against thy will; the mind can be drawn by love.’”

Just as Jesus gave sight to the blind, God opens the eyes of the lost so they might perceive Christ as Lord and Savior. Then that person must come to Him believing what they have perceived. The Christian is a person who treasures Jesus. The lost person uses Jesus. They come in, get what they can from Him, then wander off to live their lives like the other lost. The Christian, however, TREASURES Jesus. Pastor John Piper artfully puts it this way:

“Saving faith has in it the affectional dimension of treasuring Christ. Where Christ is not received as treasure, he is being used. This is not saving faith. It is tragic that many think it is. Saving faith always views Christ as having supreme value. That is how he is received. To embrace Christ as a second- or third-tier treasure is not saving faith. It is an affront.”

“Saving faith receives Christ as a treasure, but not as second to lands, oxen, or spouses. He is valued above them. Or he is rejected. Embracing him as one among many useful treasures is worse than useless. It is worse because it gives the impression that he is willing to be used. He is not. He will be received as our supreme treasure, or not at all.”

Users of Christ are Losers of Christ. He will not be used, but He will be treasured. People know that there is a God Who created all things (see Psalm 19:1-4; Romans 1:20), and people are therefore without excuse. But the seeking heart must be drawn by the Father, convicted of sin by the Spirit (John 16:8).

John 6:45-48 It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me. 46 Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father. 47 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. 48 I am that bread of life.

Jesus quotes from Isaiah 54:13, “All your children [shall be] taught by the LORD, And great [shall be] their peace”. God must CALL a person to Christ. God must ENABLE a person to receive Christ. But God does no COERCE a person to salvation. The saved must say, “Yes, Lord”. Jesus goes further by saying:

Not that any man hath seen the Father,
save he which is of God

No one can see the Son unless the Father DRAWS them. But it is equally true that NO ONE HAS SEEN THE FATHER unless He IS OF GOD. Jesus “IS OF GOD”. His parents were not Mary and Joseph, but Mary and the Holy Spirit of God. The Angel of God told Joseph:

Matthew 1:20 … Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.

Jesus Christ is Eternal God become perfect and sinless Man. Jesus Christ “IS OF GOD”. In His deity He has always existed with both Father and Spirit. In His humanity He was made to be spiritually consumed by those whom God will save. Jesus calls Himself “THE bread of life”. When Jesus fed the 5000+ in Bethsaida, He fed them all. At the end of the meal there were twelve baskets of bread fragments left over. God was showing Israel that Jesus was all they needed. Israel wanted to use God for PHYSICAL blessing, but Jesus came to give SPIRITUAL blessing.

John 6:49-51 Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. 50 This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.

The reason that God fed Israel manna in the wilderness was to prepare them for the coming of Christ. Though Israel ate the mysterious “manna” (the word means “what is it?”), the people still died in due season. Why? Because there is no way to eternal life outside of believing faith in Christ Jesus. Jesus said, “the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world”.

Jesus Christ gave us His flesh to eat through the Cross of Calvary. We eat of Christ when we see Him dying for our sins, and receive Him as our Risen Sin Substitute.

Pastor Warren Wiersbe wrote:

““When God gave the manna, He gave only a gift; but when Jesus came, He gave Himself. There was no cost to God in sending the manna each day, but He gave His Son at great cost. The Jews had to eat the manna every day, but the sinner who trusts Christ once is given eternal life. … It is not difficult to see in the manna a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ. The manna was a mysterious thing to the Jews; in fact, the word manna means ‘What is it?’ (see Ex. 16:15). Jesus was a mystery to those who saw Him. The manna came at night from heaven, and Jesus came to this earth when sinners were in moral and spiritual darkness. The manna was small (His humility), round (His eternality), and white (His purity). It was sweet to the taste (Ps. 34:8) and it met the needs of the people adequately.”

John 6:52-56 The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? 53 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. 54 Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. 56 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.

Though Jesus was not speaking literally, He was using eating to describe the true nature of saving faith. Saving faith is like eating. When you eat something, that food becomes a part of who you are. If you stop eating, your body will consume itself in order to find sustenance. Thus you must eat daily, and must continue to eat to live. In Saving Faith, you spiritually consume Christ. You drink Him in. You consume Him spiritually, and He becomes a very real part of your life. There are some who believe they can come to Jesus only sporadically and incidentally and be a child of God. This is not true. Do today as many do with their faith: eat one meal today, then skip a month of eating before you have another morsel. How will you fare? Not well. You will lose weight, and probably lose your life. If you HAVE TO HAVE Jesus, then it is true that “He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him”.

John 6:57-59 As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. 58 This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever. 59 These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum.

Pastor C.H. Spurgeon noted:

“In eating and drinking, a man is not a producer, but a consumer; he is not a doer or a giver forth; he simply takes in. If a queen should eat, if an empress should eat, she would become as completely a receiver as the pauper in the workhouse. Eating is an act of reception in every case. So it is with faith: you have not to do, to be, or to feel, but only to receive.”

In any meal, there is the raw food then the One Who produced it, cooking it to make it edible. The Father sent the Son. The Son willingly came. The Holy Spirit created the Body of Christ. The Sinner crucified the Savior.

In every aspect of salvation, the glory belongs to God, not to us. Salvation is offered freely.

I saw the following illustration:

SEEING a loaf of bread will not fill your belly.
KNOWING THE INGREDIENTS of that bread will not bless.
TAKING PICTURES of the bread does not satisfy your hunger.
TELL OTHERS about the bread will not bring peace.
SELLING the bread will not profit your life.

There is only one thing that will bless. You must personally use the bread as it is to be used. You must EAT that bread, and let it become a part of your life. Nothing else will bless you.

John 6:60-65 Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it? 61 When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you? 62 What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? 63 It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are Spirit, and they are life. 64 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. 65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.

As Jesus spoke, He emphasized that His Words came from the Holy Spirit, not from human viewpoint or His earthly opinion. The Scripture tells us that “Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him”. Yet Jesus did not back down from the truths He spoke in order to satisfy itching ears. When they murmured Jesus asked, “Doth this offend you?”. Yet He did not temper what He said. Evangelist Leonard Ravenhill said:

“If Jesus had preached the same message that ministers preach today, He would never have been crucified.”

Neither Jesus nor the Apostles wasted much time trying to be people pleasers. They preached the harsh Biblical truth, regardless as to what others thought. Galatians 1:10 notes “If I were still trying to please men I could not be Christ’s servant.” (TLB). And 1 Thessalonians 2:4 says “we speak as messengers from God, trusted by him to tell the truth; we change his message not one bit to suit the taste of those who hear it; for we serve God alone, who examines our hearts’ deepest thoughts” (TLB). The salvation of the soul is so important that we dare not twist the Words of God to please others (2 Timothy 2:15; Colossians 3:23; Ephesians 6:7).

Word Study: When the people at the Synagogue of Capernaum heard Jesus teach, they said “This is an hard saying”. They did not mean it was HARD to understand, but that it was HARD (the Greek skleros) to hear and accept. People despise the truths taught in the Bible. If they could have Heaven, and at the same time the freedom of their unrepentant sin, then they would love it. But this is not Scripture. The Bible says:

1 Corinthians 1:30 (ESV) … because of {God} you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption

When you are saved by faith in Christ because of God’s drawing, you gain “righteousness” and “sanctification” and “redemption”. You belong to God, and now you walk with God. Yes, you have Heaven. But you are changed to walk in a right relationship with God. The Bible says:

2 Corinthians 5:21 (ESV) For our sake {God} made {Jesus} to be sin who knew no sin, so that in {Jesus} we might become the righteousness of God.

A salvation that does not bring about a changed life is no salvation at all. God does not tell us that the saved can do as they please. God tells us that the saved do as GOD PLEASES.

John 6:66-69 From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. 67 Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? 68 Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. 69 And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.

If you are saved, you will walk with Jesus. Period. You will treasure Him. You will want to know more of Him. If God to you is just a thing to be used, like your I-Phone, your Social Media, a fork or a spoon, a car or a truck … then you are not saved. The saved treasure Jesus. May God the Holy Spirit ensure you each have a KNOW SO salvation this very day. Amen and Amen!