Jesus tells
the crowd that they sought Him because they wanted their bellies filled and
also that He would serve them! They wanted what He could give them, not come to know Him and serve Him and others. Jesus wants the crowd to seek the spiritual and serve Him
and others. He wants us to be attracted to Him not what He can do for us. Our
satisfaction is in Jesus not in experience or physical food. Jesus’ works were
great, but His words were even greater. His words are spirit and life. (John 5:39) Life came into the world
through God, the Spirit and the Word of God (Jesus) in Genesis 1. Jesus in His flesh body and the Holy Spirit came to earth to do the will of God. What Jesus does and says
are the Word and ways of God. He also had the fullness of the Holy Spirit as He walked the earth.
This crowd asks
Jesus what they must do to do the works of God.v28 Jesus responds, “The
work of God is this: believe in the One He has sent.” Our only access to
God is through faith in Jesus. He is the work of God! “Without faith, it is impossible to please God.” Hebrews 11:6 Faith
is needed, not works.
Sign
What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe
you? What will you do?” v30 Asking for a sign will base faith on sight. Real faith is
faith without sight. Jesus responds, “But
as I told you, you have seen Me and still you do not believe.” V36
Harmony of the Father
and Son
“All that the Father gives to Me will
come to Me, and whoever comes to Me, I will never drive away. For I have come
down from heaven not to do My will but to do the will of Him who sent Me. And
this is the will of Him who sent Me, that I shall lose none of all that He has
given me, but raise them up at the last day. For My Father’s will is that
everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and
I will raise him up at the last day.” Vv33-40
Jesus is the very life of God came down from heaven. His Father’s will is
also His will and that of the Holy Spirit because they never work against one
another. They are One and have one will. In John 6:44, Jesus says, “No
one comes to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.” It is the work of
God not man’s! We don’t come to Christ on our own initiative. God in His
sovereignty draws us, and our human response is to come to Him. Jeremiah 31:30 says that God draws us
to His Son with loving kindness. Jesus will never drive away any person the
Father gives to Him. He will lose none because they are God’s gift to Jesus.
God has entrusted us to His dearly beloved Son. Jesus will raise us up on the
last day to eternal, resurrected life. He proved His identity when He was
resurrected and raised up to the Father in heaven. We who believe in Jesus will
also be resurrected and raised up on the last day. Those who don’t believe in Jesus at the time
will also have a hard time believing in Him when He rises from death and
ascends into heaven.
Grumbling
The Jews present grumbled because Jesus said He is the Bread that came
down from heaven. They had just reminded Jesus that their forefathers ate the
manna sent from heaven in their wilderness journey. Jesus is far greater than
the manna God sent in the wilderness. He is the Living Bread of God as the
Eternal Word of God sent from heaven who will sustain us through our journey in
the wilderness of earth.
When Jesus
again says, “I am the bread that came
down from heaven,” the Jews responded, “Is
this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can He
now say, “I came down from heaven?” John 5:41-42 Because of their unbelief,
they saw Jesus in the natural as the son of Joseph and Mary. Jesus was
conceived by the Holy Spirit not by Joseph. The Holy Spirit who is from heaven
planted the Word of God (Jesus) in the womb of the virgin Mary and the Word of
God took on flesh in Mary’s womb. The Word of God and the Holy Spirit still
takes on flesh – our flesh when we do it. When we “do” the Word, it takes up
residence in us and we are changed into a more spiritual being. The Body of
Christ (Jesus) took on flesh and grew in the womb of Mary. Jesus also came from
heaven even though He was birthed as a human through Mary. He was always the
One God with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
Jesus tells
the Jews to stop their grumbling! They grumbled to Moses in the wilderness
about the Giver of Bread, just as they are now grumbling against Jesus, the Eternal
Bread of heaven.
Jesus then
says, “It is written in the Prophets: ‘They
will be taught by God. Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from Him
comes to Me. No one has seen the Father except the One who is from God; only He
has seen the Father.” John 6:44-46 Jesus is referring to Older Testament
scriptures to show that He is fulfilling them in their seeing and hearing.
·
Isaiah 54:13: All your sons will be
taught by the Lord, and great will be your children’s peace. In righteousness
you will be established.
·
Jeremiah 31:33-34: I will put my Law
in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they will
be My people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor or a man his brother,
saying ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know Me from the least of them to
the greatest,” declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will
remember their sins no more.”
Jesus is the
fulfillment of these prophetic utterances given by God to Isaiah and Jeremiah.
Jesus is teaching the Jews here. Notice
that God said through Isaiah that His people will be established in righteousness.
The Word of God is established in us when we do it! If we just hear the Word,
it is not established in us. It comes to life in us when we do it and thus is
established within us. In so doing, we grow in righteousness. 1 Corinthians 2:10-13, “The Spirit searches
all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts
of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the
thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of
the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has
freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom
but in words taught us by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual
words.” We know our human thoughts
through our fleshly spirit. Likewise we know the ways of God through the water
of His Holy Spirit and Word who feed our spiritual hunger and our spiritual
thirst. The Holy Spirit searches all
things including the deep things of God.
It is the Lord’s
deepest desire that the Jews whom He loves will come to believe in His Son
Jesus. Jesus wants to remove the spiritual blinders from their eyes. He draws
them with loving kindness, just as we are to do. There is no other way to the
Father except through His Son Jesus. Jesus was with the Father before the
beginning of time and creation. He was full of the Holy Spirit and Truth as He
walked the earth. No one was resurrected and ascended to the Father until Jesus
did. All who had died before Jesus had to follow behind Jesus when He ascended
to the Father, just as we are to do today by walking in His ways to the glory
of His Name.
God gave the
Jews an earthly promised land, but He desires more to give them an Eternal
Heavenly Promised Land through His Son. The Heavenly Beloved New Jerusalem is
eternal (forever). God used the earthly
Israel and Jerusalem to point to the Pure Heavenly Israel and the New Jerusalem.
What is made of the dust of the earth remains dust, but what is made in the
spiritual is forever. The spiritual Israel and New Jerusalem is forever and
both Jews and Gentiles who have been born again by the Holy Spirit and covered
by the blood of Jesus will be there. Alleluia to the Lamb!
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