An Offensive Saying
For the Lord’s Day:  the 13^th of March 2005

John 6: 60-65

Introduction:  This passage reminds me of an experience related by a dear friend in the pastorate.  He had had dinner with an old and valued college friend and in the process explained the Gospel of grace from the same attitude and revelation contained in our text for the day.  At the end, the friend announced that what he had just heard was the most offensive doctrine ever to be shared with him.  Well does commentator RVG Tasker explain that the word “hard” in verse sixty can actually be translated as “offensive.”

John Knox once offered the rendition:  “who can be expected to listen to it?”  And Calvin, who translates the key word here as “harsh,” carefully observes that it is not the saying that is offensive, but “it was in their hearts … that the harshness lay.”  As we shall see, as the text unfolds, this matter of hearing the Lord arightly and then going on to accept His revelation – this is the great dividing point between the elect and the reprobate.

Now what is this doctrine, shamelessly despoiled as an offensive saying – which so offends the audience who had willingly come to the synagogue to hear Jesus speak and preach?  Briefly, in the context of this whole chapter, it is the revelation that the process of salvation is more tied up with the person of Christ and the purpose of God, than it is in the hearts people who listen and decide they do not lake the conditions of the New Covenant demonstrated in Christ’s shed blood and broken body.  Ah yes, they would accept His death, even as the Greeks highly regarded the death of Plato.  However, what they are not willing to accept is the revelation that God is in the person of Christ and furthermore: that the Father has already determined who shall be admitted to the eternal kingdom of heaven, which is to be administered by the Son in this life and the next.

We could probably find much more in and about the Gospel of grace that is offensive to the worldly minded.  There would we be as well, unless the Holy Spirit had not already informed our hearts and minds to accept these doctrines.  Well does Calvin suggest that “since the same hardness is natural to us all, if we judge the doctrine of Christ according to our feelings, his words will be just so many strange and incredible statements.  All that remains for us, therefore, is that every one commit himself to the guidance of the Spirit, that he may inscribe on our hearts what otherwise would never have even entered into our ears.”

I remember some outlandish studies and claims several decades ago, that real learning had to be subliminal, in other words – it had to enter our mental capacity outside of our conscious ability to consider and weigh what we would believe and remember.  And so, all sorts of pillow speakers and tape messages were sold to enhance our intellectual ability while we were sleeping.  One of my college friends arranged to listen to an instructor’s lectures the night before the exam.  Nothing else was done, and his exam score proved his experimental experience was futile.

In another decade, a science fiction writer dreamed up a protein disk that could be implanted in the brain.  The expensive disk would contain a complete college education along with the appropriate politically correct attitudes, all for the betterment of mankind!  While we should and could throw up our hands at the outlandish humanistic theories in how to educate, manipulate and improve mankind – still, when the Creator God of the whole universe informs us that He has not only the will, but also the ability to put a new heart in us, we should listen.  We should still listen even if by all the world’s standards: it would be considered “offensive” for the God of all glory to choose His servants and call them into His eternal service.

Development:  The Lord Jesus Christ responds to their hardness of heart and abject denial of God’s will and purpose, by suggesting something even more astounding.  “Do you take offense at this [doctrine]?”  He asks!  “Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?”  He is of course referring to His future resurrection and even ascension.  Here Jesus simply calls the worldly to consider His heavenly glory that will be witnessed by the disciples and reported down through the ages to all the world.

And yet, as we understand the further reports in not only the Gospels, but also the letters of the Apostles, even these carefully recorded facts are disdained by those who would neither believe in Him nor accept His Lordship.  The world has not changed much since the time of Christ in this regard.  Many are the scholars who would transform the radical revelations of God in Christ to just another worldly religion intended to comfort sinners in their lost condition.

To all of mankind, in every age and place, the Savior of sinners gives this practical advice:  “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is of no avail.  The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”    Calvin notes that Augustine would paraphrase “’the flesh’ alone, and by itself ‘is of no avail’ because it must be accompanied by ‘the Spirit.’”  Since, Jesus is referring back to the sacramental feeding on His flesh and blood; we should consider this verse in that context.  So, certainly, we understand in our participation of the Lord’s Supper that the bread recipe and the alcohol content of the fruit of the vine. In addition, by the traditional reasoning of Calvin – the real presence of Christ in the elements is essentially spiritual.  And further, that in participation, those who know not Christ taste only the bread and wine, while the elect receive something much, much more.  The Spirit would teach us as Calvin admonishes us, the body of Christ “is food, because by it life is procured for us, because in it God is reconciled to us, because in it we have all the parts of salvation accomplished.”

Now there is a further meaning here in the context of this verse, that I would like to draw out, if you will be patient.  We certainly understand the implications of the last sentence in verse sixty-three:  “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”  Now let us be careful to note that the “words” mentioned here are those of the Father and the Son, recorded in the Old and New Covenants, as well as the whisperings of the Holy Spirit to the hearts of the elect.

Just as the common elements of “bread and wine,” even set aside by prayer, avail nothing by their natural abilities – so too are the words used by mere men pointless in bringing the elect into the kingdom.  Certainly, the good Lord uses some people more than He uses others in the ongoing process of different people’s salvation.  Certainly, in times when the Gospel is in season, and especially when the presence of the Spirit is more evident – then the Church grows abundantly by the spiritual power that is displayed and applied.  However, in those seasons when such is not the case, still the ministry of the church goes on and it doesn’t matter what words the ministers of Christ use from the pulpit – they cannot engineer conversion or spiritual growth in a desert.  Not that does not mean that the elect cannot benefit, but what I am saying is this:  we in the church are charged with speaking the Word boldly, counting upon the Spirit to apply it and make it more than a mere academic or emotional exercise.

Application:  At the end of verse sixty-three, the Lord abruptly breaks off His teaching and pointedly observes:  “But there are some of you who do not believe.”  And further in the last verse “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”  All the preaching in the world cannot avail a large portion of mankind.  Even the preaching and teaching of the Son Himself falls on ears deaf to the Gospel call!  Therefore, Calvin instructs us that whenever “we see so few people in the world profiting by the Gospel, we ought to remember that this arises from the depravity of men.”

And there before the whole world, the Son of God announces the reason:  “No one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”  Calvin puts this in the uncommon thinking as well:  “Faith is an uncommon and remarkable gift of the Spirit of God, that we may not be astonished that the Gospel is not received in every place and by all.”  Once, at the height of the Reformation, one of the Reformers in Geneva was asked how widespread did he think true conversion had penetrated.  Perhaps twenty-five per cent, was the unexpected answer.  When I was a Chaplain’s Assistant in the Army during the sixties, the work load of a Chaplain was carefully calculated and men were assigned on the basis of a twenty-seven per cent interest and need.  This figure is certainly within my experience over the years, and while in times of revival it might go higher as the good Lord ordains it – still the salvation experience is an uncommon one at best.  Certainly, the national statistics indicate a higher participation, but there are many who would find our meditation this morning to be the height of offense!  But the fact remains, supported by the testimony of none other than the Son of Man Himself:  no man, woman or child can arrive at faith by their own reason and desire.  Because everyone is blind until their hearts are illumined by the power of the Holy Spirit which comes upon those whose names were recorded in the book of life before time began.

One last word before we close, and it is the fifth from the end of our text:  “granted.”  This word indicates the aspect of “free grace” by which He loves us and even as the Gospels and Letters of the New Covenant indicates:  what we obtain by the gift and grace of God, no man gains for himself by his own industry.  But, grace must always be put in the right context.  It is an undeserved present wrapped up in the Covenant of Life and presented by and through the Sovereign will of the Triune God.  May we receive the great gift and treasure it all the more because the God of heaven and earth has first loved us and has chosen us to spend eternity in His presence.  Amen.

Covenant Reformed Fellowship (PCA), Ashland, Ohio  20 March 2005
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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.

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