Eternal Life
For the Lord’s Day:  the 27^th of February 2005

John 6: 52 - 59

Introduction:  In the first century after the resurrection of our Lord, from time to time the church was accused of being cannibalistic because of the ongoing and regular communal feasting on Jesus’ spilled blood and broken body.  It remained only a baseless charge without any sustainable evidentiary reality.  Of course, this premise is base indeed – and so is the disputation of the Jews in our opening verse:  “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

Now Calvin admits that this is a reasonable question for sincere enquirers after the Christ.  However, we understand from the context that the people asking the question are not interested in the complexities of the Lord’s Supper and the spiritual nourishment that is every believer’s in the person of Jesus Christ.  We may of course explain our understanding of the Lord’s Supper to those sincerely interested.  So simply put, in the fact that we are Calvinists, we may work from the foundations established by those who understand the communion service to be truly spiritual in nature and nurture.  We are not like the Roman Church which supposes that the wine and bread are literally transformed into blood and body, and neither are we like the followers of Luther who while disbelieving the Catholic position, nevertheless incorporate a real presence in, through and under the elements.

No indeed, our blessed hope is built upon the arguments of John and the other Apostles.  And the argument in question here is the spiritual blessing that is given to those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as God incarnate, who died, was raised up from the dead and who ascended into heaven.  While all of this is other worldly in the best sense of our understanding, still the God of heaven did not leave us ignorant, but in and through the scriptures and the Spirit, He has given us spiritual understanding.

To this end, let us postulate this premise.  We all know that if the ordinary human is left without food and water for an extended period of time – that person will soon die.  Without water period, death can come as soon as three or four days.  The lack of food takes a little longer, perhaps three to four times as long as doing without water.  This is a proven fact, understood down through the ages.  What the Apostle John is teaching here is simply this, without the spiritual nourishment of the Holy Spirit and an appreciation for the shed blood and broken body of our Lord Jesus Christ – every human will die in desperate circumstances and spend eternity apart from His knowledge and presence.  That would be hell – as we who belong to Christ can affirm and understand it!

Development:  And this is where those who dispute the doctrines of Christ are going with their criticism!  Now, this is a hard pill for the greater majority of mankind to accept.  After all, the greater majority would have us to understand that any religious believer who is sincere in his beliefs must find his way to eternal bliss.  We have ample evidence in the Middle East that there are plenty of sincere fools willing to blow themselves up for a promise of paradise and forty white raisins, as their so called ‘sacred text’ reads literally!

And it is precisely here in the context of our text and our doctrinal stance:  that apart from Christ there is no means of salvation – that the world takes great exception.  After all, the worldly would argue, there must be more than one way to heaven; other wise there wouldn’t be so many competing religions.  And how dare, any one religion dismiss every other person’s religious fervor as totally worthless.  But, this is exactly what we must teach consistently and faithfully or we give the lie to the clear teachings of both Covenantal records.  “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  (John 14: 6)  I can remember working with liberal pastors who, if they could – they would have erased this verse and this thought from the scriptures.  They simply chose to ignore it, so that they could have the respect of the other religious leaders and the worldly atheists to boot!

We do not have the luxury of worrying about what the worldly might think or disbelieve!  Therefore, we can take the Apostle John at face value and learn three important lessons from our text today.  We begin with verses fifty-three and fifty-four.  “Truly, truly, I say to you; unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.  Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

Now, in the biblical Greek, whenever an author wants to specially highlight a point, he notes the thought with a repetition of the introductory word.  In this case, we have the word “truly” used twice in sequence.  I am reminded of one of the intersections through which I guide my driving students.  One of the local residents clued me into what was going on when a new stop sign was put up where there had been none before.  When one of the neighbors complained to the police and city administration that people were not stopping for the new sign, a crew quickly was dispatched and a second stop sign was hung on the same post as the first!  No doubt, this public service solved the problem one and for all.

Yet, in spite of our Savior’s highlighting the discussion in these two verses with the all important advisory:  “Truly, truly, I say to you,” still the greater majority of mankind will ignore it!  My students don’t ignore the double stop sign, because I have an extra brake pedal in the driver education care.  And if the truth be known, I can use it where there is only one stop sign if necessary!  Just so we understand that this definitive attention grabber is meant for that very purpose:  pay attention to what follows after!

What Jesus is saying here is simply this, if you do not accept the shedding of His blood and breaking of His body, you are completely dead in your sins, without any hope in heaven!  There are people who take exception to the Reformer’s view of salvation: the fact that it is more important what the God heaven thinks of you than whatever you choose to think of Him!  This is an abomination to a large body within the churches of Christ!  It is necessary John is quoting Jesus:  that the Lord of all the earth must die for your sins and that further: you must admit it and agree with the premise.  Otherwise you would have no need for the death of Christ and no purpose in partaking of the Lord’s Supper.

Verse fifty-four goes on to admonish those listening to the Lord that it is only in the body and blood of Jesus that there is any hope of eternal life.  Now we will not go into this symbolism too deeply, but there is more than a passing connection between the tree of life in the garden and the tree standing there on Golgotha outside of Jerusalem when the Lord’s Anointed was crucified.  And that symbolic connection is eternal life in the One of God’s own choosing:  His anointed Messiah: Jesus Christ.  In the Old Covenant, there was no life in the blood of the sacrifices, but in that of Jesus Christ – there is eternal life “flowing” as the old hymn goes “from Emmanuel’s veins.”

Verses fifty-five and six would teach us another subtle lesson.  “For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.  Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.”  One of the things that I learned down on the farm is that sometimes you are truly what you eat, some of us - more than others of course.  When raising chickens I learned that birds fattened on wheat had a different taste.  Pigs fattened on fallen apples the last month of their life are especially sweet indeed.  And calves taken out of the pasture and fattened on grain do indeed tickle the pallet much better than the grass fed. I can even remember the taste of milk when the diet of our cows changed dramatically!  Further, it was once reported in Polynesia that the cannibal natives looked down their noses at wiry Englishmen, who did not have the refinement to prepare themselves for dinner invitations.  You are what you eat, John is admonishing the crowd in this context!  Whoever does not feed on the Lord Jesus Christ – that person does not have the Spirit of Christ within him.

Application:  In our last teaching verses of this section, John reports the further admonition of our Lord.  “As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.  This is the bread that came down from heaven, not as the fathers ate and died.  Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”  Thus far, Calvin writes, “Christ has explained how we are to become partakes of life.  Now He turns to the principal cause” for that life.  Think of this idea in this way:  In the communion text (1 Corinthians 11: 23”) we read Paul writing: “For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you.”  So in the context of these verses, Calvin would have us understand that Jesus would “acknowledge that what He administers to others was also given to Him by another.”  In this case: the Father God of heaven and earth!

Therefore and because of the divine source of Christ and the bread that He offers to us, it is sufficient for life eternal.  The bread of Christ is thus completely different from the manna given in the wilderness wanderings.  All that did was sustain physical life, and none too well as the grumblers proved when they left their bones in the desert.  The bread of Christ, Calvin encourages us “the bread is said to have come down from heaven because it has no savour of the earth or corruptibility, but breathes the immortality of the Kingdom of God.”

And so today, as we come once again to the gracious table of our Lord and Savior, let us perceive in the common elements of bread and wine that which they are meant to sign and seal:  the broken body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the blood which poured from His veins.  And in hearts humbled by the Holy Spirit, let us all affirm that the cross was indeed necessary because of our sins.  And let us pray for forgiveness and then go on to give thanks for the great favor of salvation that God has given to us in and through Jesus Christ.  Amen.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
PREACHING RESOURCES
Calvin, John:  Commentary on the Gospel of John.
Tasker, R.V.G.  Tyndale New Testament Commentaries: The Gospel According to St John.
The Holy Bible:  English Standard Version.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Permission granted to redistribute unedited versions with this notice.
http://www.tulip.org/trf/Jhn/Jhn06h.htm
To Subscribe or Unsubscribe go to:
http://www.four.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/ccrlist/