Episode 536: Claim and Complaints | Tim Henderson

Introduction

Alright. So those of you who grew up watching broadcast TV, do you remember that every once in a while you'd be watching a show that you knew was part of a series and it was therefore gonna be on next week and the week after and the week after that? But sometimes the hour would end in a state of incompletion and three little words would appear on the bottom middle of your screen. What'd that say? To be continued. I used to hate that.

I have a particularly painful memory of watching The 6,000,000 Dollar Man. And I think it was the one with that like octagonal robot tank thing with the arm. You know what I'm talking about? And it's like ten till the hour and you're like, man they got a lot of problems to wrap up. And then you realize, oh no. I got to wait like another week to find out how this story is gonna end, okay.

Well, if you have any painful memories of that you're about to have deja vu because our storyline this morning will just simply not fit into one sermon. John six is a large, complicated, and incredibly important part of John's total narrative. And so Saloop and I are gonna preach the same passage twice. I'm hitting it this week. He's gonna pick it up again next week because it's just too much to kind of fit in here.

Rather than do like the top half and the bottom half, we're kind of dividing it more thematically. Today, I'm gonna look at Jesus' claims, which show up in verses 35 to 40. That's what Laura just read to you. And then we're gonna take a look at the two primary complaints that the Jews have in response to these claims. And then Sloop next week is gonna look at the claims again, but he's gonna follow it up with taking a look at the consequences that flow into our lives because of the truths of Jesus' claims. Okay? So claims, complaints, and consequences. But over two weeks. Okay? To be continued.

The Claims of Jesus

Take a look again at verse 35. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you've seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.

And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life. And I will raise him up on the last day.

There's a ton of stuff in there. There's so many lines in here. Here's the central claim that I want you to notice. Jesus says, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

Jesus is claiming to be food. And not just any food but eternally satisfying food. Not only that, but he promises that he is perfectly submitted to his Father from whom he has come down. He says that he will be infinitely welcoming to all who the Father gives him. He says that he can and in fact he will raise the dead, and that everyone who looks to him and believes in him will live forever. Now it's quite a list. Right? This is a lot of pretty audacious claims.

And I'm curious. If you look at this — stay keep your eyes up here. Don't look at your Bible. Don't cheat. Just look at this. These are the things that he is claiming. And the Jews to whom he is speaking are not gonna appreciate this at all. Okay? When you look at that, can you guess what would be their first complaint? Of all of that, what is the thing that they're like, nuh-uh. I don't buy it. The food. Right? That's what you would think. That's actually their second complaint.

I would not I don't think I would have figured to guess this just by looking at that list. But in fact, the thing that he is most urgently has to defend is that he came down from the father. This is their first lament. All right? Take a look. I'll show you where it begins. He actually begins making this claim a little bit earlier in verse 33. Just listen to how much discussion there was on this singular point.

For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. — John 6:33

Verse 38. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. The Jews grumbled about him because he said, I and the bread that came down from heaven. They said, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, I have come down from heaven? Isn't it interesting that that was their chief complaint?

Jesus doesn't defend it. He just asserts it three more times.

This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever. — John 6:50-51

What is being disputed here, you guys? What is the implication of the claim that He came down from heaven? It's that He's God. This is a claim of preexistence, really. It's a little bit of a play on words because he's hearkening back to the manna that came down from heaven. And when that phrase was used, it simply meant that the manna was a gift from God.

But Jesus is not merely claiming to be a gift from God. He's claiming preexistence. He's claiming to be God. Now, you might know that each one of the four gospels kinda has a different angle, a different portrait that it paints of Christ. Matthew depicts Christ as king. Mark takes the opposite side and points out that Jesus is a servant. Luke includes details that emphasize the fact that Jesus is a human being.

And John emphasizes over and over that Jesus is God. And this claim, the deity of Christ, that is what really is at stake in Jesus' remark that he came down from heaven without any real possibility of mistake. Jesus is claiming to be preexistent. He is saying that his natural home is not this earth, but it's heaven. That heaven is his hometown. It is where he is from. It is where he has spent eternity before this little blip of a moment that he comes to walk among us, to dwell with us.

This is a driving theme of John's gospel. Just remember, this is literally the way he starts the book. Right? We've probably referenced this multiple times.

In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. — John 1:1

The next verse. No one has ever seen God, but God, the only Son, who is at the Father's side, has made him known. Again in chapter three, no one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven, the Son of Man. Right?

This gets Jesus into trouble over and over again. And honestly, it's kind of understandable that it would, right? They took this as a profound blasphemy. They understood what he was saying and it was a little bit much for them to believe. But it wasn't blasphemy. It was core reality. Because Jesus is God from God, light from light, true God from true God.

Do you recognize those phrases? We say them a lot. He was begotten, not made, of one being with the Father. Through him all things were made. And then hear this next line, you've said it a thousand times.

For us and for our salvation. — Nicely concluding the statement about Jesus' origin

What's the next line? That's it. He came down from heaven. He was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man. Jesus is claiming to be God because he is God. And they didn't like it.

Once we work through that, then their second complaint comes. And that's the one that you would have expected. Right? And it comes surely.

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? — John 6:52

Now that's where I would have thought they started because truthfully Jesus' claims here are just so jarring. He's not kinda easing into this. He just kinda comes at this really, really hard. And they're like, put aback by it, right? Super kind of aggressive language that they don't know what to do.

And once again, when they do finally get around to complaining about this, Jesus does not defend it. He just reasserts it over and over and over.

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. — John 6:53

Then he says,

Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. — John 6:54

It's like, okay, Jesus. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Now you might begin to get uncomfortable.

Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. — John 6:56

Okay, okay, okay. Whoever feeds on me, he will also live because of me.

And there's more. He keeps doing this, right? And it is meant, I mean clearly he is not trying to ease in on this, right? He is trying to be abrupt. He's trying to be strident.

There's more that he says here. But I want you to consider what does he mean when he says it? When he says, this is the punchline of this whole message, really of this whole passage. What does it mean? And why does Jesus use such jarring over-the-top language to be so insistent that we must eat his flesh and we must drink his blood?

Let's do this first. Let's dispense with what he doesn't mean.

What Jesus Does Not Mean

Jesus is not talking about communion. John six is not about the Lord's table. It is not about the Eucharist. It doesn't have anything to do with this shared meal that he's going to institute in like two or three years.

Some of you are probably thinking, yeah, obviously. And others of you are thinking, are you sure you're Anglican?

And the answer is yes, I'm sure. I love Anglicanism. I love Thomas Cranmer, the founders of the Church of England from which we draw our history here are heroes of mine. Thomas Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley — his close friends, William Tyndale who translated the Bible into English. These guys are absolute legends.

They are heroes of mine. They are heroes of mine. The sacrifices that they endured and the things they taught, the effort that they put in to rescuing the simple, foolish gospel of salvation by grace through faith alone. I could not love them and appreciate them any more.

My life is just a giant personal debt to each one of them. And I praise God for their courage, for their sacrifice, their sufferings, and their teaching. My life and your life is so improved because of their unflinching faithfulness at enormous cost.

Every one of those men that I mentioned was killed because they would not back down on the gospel of salvation by grace through faith. And we will have more to say about them in our foundations class in a few weeks. I hope that you're joining us for that at the 10:00 hour.

In a few weeks, we'll get to kind of the history of Anglicanism. We'll have more stories to tell. But what I just want to tell you right now is much of their work — the work of the original Anglicans, the first men that established the Church of England — much of their work has been co-opted by those who lived in the centuries between us.

Thomas Cranmer is the theologian. He is the church leader to whom we owe the English Reformation. And he was a giant. And he explicitly and repeatedly said that John six has nothing to do with communion.

If you don't believe me, he wrote a 262-page book called A Defense of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Savior Christ. And despite the excessive use of prepositional phrases, it is the most thorough and developed and strident and unambiguous work in which he lays out his view of the Lord's table.

I think many of our higher church brothers might be surprised by what they would find if they should choose to read that book. I was surprised when I read it. But I was also delighted because Cranmer was on point. Okay? I'm going to give you some excerpts from his book. Several, actually, so get comfy. Here's what he says.

Christ in that place in the sixth of John spoke not of the material and sacramental bread nor of the sacramental eating. For that was spoken two or three years before the sacrament was first ordained. But he spoke of spiritual bread. Many times repeating, I am the bread of life which came from heaven and of spiritual eating by faith.

Cranmer asserts that Jesus was not talking about physical eating but spiritual eating. He asserts it like this. He says, Jesus's words are not to be understood that we shall eat Christ with our teeth grossly and carnally, but that we shall spiritually and ghostly with our faith eat him.

Cranmer goes on. He's going to point out that down in verse 60 of John six. So he kind of walks through all this. Where the disciples themselves were grumbling. We'll get to that in like about two weeks. This passage, the disciples were grumbling. He says that Jesus makes it plain there. That the Spirit gives life and that the flesh counts for nothing.

Cranmer says this, but Christ himself taught clear contrary in the sixth of John that we eat not him carnally with our mouths, but spiritually with our faith. Saying, verily verily I say unto you, he that believeth in me hath everlasting life. I am the bread of life.

So if Jesus isn't talking about communion, what is he talking about? Again, to quote Cranmer, Christ himself doth testify the matter so plainly that whosoever eateth his flesh and drinketh his blood hath everlasting life. And that to eat his flesh and to drink his blood is to believe in him. And whosoever believeth in him hath everlasting life. He's saying it's a metaphor. He's saying the symbol described in the language of eating his faith and drinking his blood is fulfilled in the act of believing in him.

Here it is even more plainly. And this will be my final Quran rabbite here. The eating of Christ's flesh and drinking of his blood is not to be understood simply and plainly as the words do properly signify that we do eat and drink him with our mouths. But it is a figurative speech that we must believe in our hearts that his flesh was crucified and his blood shed for our redemption. And this our belief in him is to eat his flesh and to drink his blood.

What Jesus Does Not Mean

Okay. That is good Anglicanism. So do you need to eat his flesh and drink his blood? Yes. You bet you do. How often? At a quarterly communion service? At a monthly communion service? At a weekly communion service? No. All day, every day.

For to eat his flesh is to believe in him. It is not to chew a piece of bread. It is not to swallow a sip of wine. It is to recognize and to embrace the reality that you need him. Him. Not a symbol of him or a reminder of him or a token of him. Not a ceremony about him or a depiction of him. You need him.

Now, those other things may be helpful to you and you can have them. That's fine. Jesus does talk about the communion meal elsewhere. He established this shared meal. And when we partake of it together in fellowship, we do so in obedience of his command that we would eat the bread and drink the cup in remembrance of him.

But friends, what you need is him. For apart from him, you can do nothing. John six is not saying celebrate communion. It is saying, believe the gospel. It is saying embrace the reality that he sustains your life. Love the reality that he is yours for the taking. Reject the lie that you don't need him. Cast off the fear that you can't have him.

Eat him. Drink him. We could also say inhale him. Hide your life in him. Cling to him and never let him go. John six is saying, develop a taste for him. It is saying, savor and delight in him. For he is nourishing. He is delicious. He is the agent that repairs our lives more even than the calories, proteins, and fats that you consume. He is the fuel on which we run. He is your only good.

Lewis, perhaps my favorite Anglican, he says this.

It is not simply that God has arbitrarily made us such that he is our only good. Rather, God is the only good of all creatures. And by necessity, each must find its good in that kind and degree of fruition of God, which is proper to its nature. The kind and degree may vary with the creature's nature. But that there could ever be any other good is an atheistic dream.

George MacDonald, in a passage that I cannot now find, represents God as saying to men, you must be strong with my strength and blessed with my blessedness, for I have no other to give you. That is the conclusion of the whole matter. God gives what he has, not what he has not. He gives the happiness that there is, not the happiness that is not.

And then Lewis concludes by giving three options. The only three options that exist in this world. Number one, to be God. Number two, to be like God and to share his goodness in creaturely response. Number three, to be miserable.

These are the only three alternatives. If we will not learn to eat the only food that the universe grows, the only food that any possible universe ever can grow, then we must starve eternally.

Friends, that is the menu. You may eat Jesus or you may starve. And the assumption that a weekly way for checks this off is silly. We need Jesus. We need to spend daily time with him in his word. We need regular community with his people. We need to be filled with his Spirit as we represent him among the lost.

We need to actively trust him, believing that what he says is true. And that all that contradicts him is a lie. We need to rest in his consolation, preferring him over money, sex, power, pleasure, self-righteousness, unrighteousness. We must wean ourselves off the hyper-palatable garbage that does not nourish and leaves us empty.

We need to trust him and take him and depend upon him so absolutely that people could say of us that we eat his flesh and we drink his blood because he has become for us life itself.

Conclusion

Jesus said, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger. And whoever believes in me shall never thirst. 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.

May God bless his low church and her exalted Savior who is better than any ceremony that the imaginations of man can devise. And may he be our highest good, our constant joy, the nourishment of our souls, for there is no other food.

We love you Jesus. Amen.