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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadSpurgeon Verse Expositions - John 6:41 - 6:65
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Joh_6:41. The Jews then murmured at him, —
That is, at the Christ, —
Joh_6:41-42. 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 saith, 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. They did know Mary, but they did not know that Jehovah was the Father of the Christ.
Joh_6:43-44. Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves, 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,
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.
Joh_6:45. 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.
So, in street, he said to them, “You have not been taught of God; the Father has never drawn you, else would you have received me.” So does the brave Champion thrust the naked sword of truth into their very souls.
Joh_6:46-47. Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath 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 believeth on me hath “ — now, in present possession, — “everlasting life.”
Joh_6:48-49. 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.”
Joh_6:50-51. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat there, 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” —
Joh_6:51-52. 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 Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
I 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; 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.
Joh_6:53-54. 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. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath 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.
Joh_6:55-60. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth 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 eateth 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 hear it?
And a hard saying it really is until we are instructed of the Spirit of God to understand it. The Papist has made it into a gross and carnal saying, teaching men that they really, and 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 months, — the very body and blood of Christ.
Joh_6:61-63. When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth; —
The inward, Spiritual meaning gives life to the Word, and life to us also: “It is the spirit that quickeneth;” —
Joh_6:63. The flesh profiteth 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.
Joh_6:64-65. 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 he 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 cords divine, or else to the Son we shall never come.