Feed On My Flesh
John 6:48-59

INTRODUCTION: Good morning church. John chapter 6. John has told us that his purpose in writing has been to instill true saving belief in the reader. We left off last time in John 6:47 where Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.”[ESV] This is what John wants the reader to see.

John is also teaching us what false faith looks like. Our observation has included various people in encounters with Jesus, the Samaritan woman, Nicodemus and the paralyzed man at the pool.

Jesus is now in the synagogue at Capernaum. The crowds have come across the Sea of Galilee to be fed just like they had been fed miraculously the day before with the miracle that fed the 5000. Jesus tells them that He is the bread of life who has come down from heaven and the reason they do not come to Jesus is because the Father has not drawn them (6:44). In John 6:47-52 we're in the middle of this story as Jesus is having this discussion, and He has an audience that is full of unbelief. They are disputing against Him because of describing Himself as, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” For Him to have come down from heaven as the bread of life means He's the son of God. He is the Messiah.

I. Continuing Unbelief (John 6:48-52) – “48. I am the bread of life. 49. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” 52. The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”” Let's stop there. This first section shows us the problem of continuing unbelief.

A. They still are not listening to what Jesus is saying as He continues to try to teach them. He's trying to bring them into a spiritual understanding, trying to get them to understand that the ultimate problem is their spiritual death. Notice how He words that in verse 51 – “If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.” Obviously, He is not talking about physical life here.

1. If you will see Me as the bread of life, if you will understand who I am, you will have spiritual life, eternal life. You will live forever if you comprehend this.
2. He's trying to show them the superiority of who He is as “the bread of life” in contrast to what the Israelites received in the wilderness under Moses. Those people all died.

B. Let’s think about the wilderness for a moment. Why did the fathers who ate manna in the wilderness die? Obviously, they were going to die physically anyway. I don't care if they ate the manna in the wilderness or not, everybody is going to die at one point or another. Why they died in the wilderness is what Jesus is driving at.

1. I’m sure you remember the story. Read with me Hebrews 3:16-19, “For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.”
2. When we read the story of them in the wilderness what is the thing that we read about them doing over and over? They are complaining and grumbling.

a) They come to the Red Sea and complain - Moses, you took us the wrong way. We are all going to die out here. Then the miracle of the Red Sea.
b) What are we going to eat? We are in the middle of nowhere. Here comes the manna.
c) We are sick and tired of eating mana, here comes the quail. There is no water.

3. They are complaining constantly, why? Because they are filled with unbelief. They don't believe that God is going to provide what they need. Unbelief is why they are grumbling. We can make a couple of observations here.

II. Grumbling is a symptom of continuing unbelief – Back in verse 41, what are the people doing about Jesus? It says “So the Jews grumbled about Him…” Why are they grumbling? They are grumbling because of their unbelief.

A. John 6:36. “But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.” John in his gospel continues to use imagery from Israel’s history recorded in the Old Testament to show Jesus is the Son of God. Here we see Israel is acting toward Jesus the exact same way it acted toward God when they were in the wilderness in the days of Moses.

1. The people are persisting in unbelief as seen in their grumbling and… the result will be the same. They will miss out on the life the Father is offering through Jesus.
2. Grumbling is symptomatic of unbelief because it shows that we do not have faith in God. It shows that we do not believe that God will provide, do not believe that God has our best interests at heart and that God is not paying attention to our circumstances. That is what we are saying to God when we grumble and complain.

B. Verse 51 sums up the message. Jesus is the living bread that came down from heaven. Jesus has said this more then once but now He is going to be very direct about what it means for Him to be the living bread. “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” “And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” Jesus is going to give His body as the means of life for the world. This throws the crowd completely out of sorts.
C. Verse 52. “The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”” Every time Jesus gives a declaration in this chapter the response is; you've got to be kidding me. Here they do it again. How can He say that we're supposed to eat His flesh? Again, we are seeing the author showing us the lack of spiritual depth in this audience. Repeatedly throughout these six chapters we are observing people whose minds and hearts are in darkness, do not care about God and cannot receive what God is teaching because they're blinded by the world.
D. They're unwilling to think through what Jesus is saying. Jesus shows this in so many places.

1. We see that when we study the parables. Remember when the disciples come up to Jesus and say why do you always tell these parables? His response is “I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.”
2. Parables acted as a sort of spiritual filter. People with calloused hearts and preconceived notions could hear the literal story and dismiss it, while the humble would be drawn in and seek for deeper meaning. I'm seeing who is going to try to learn and understand what I'm saying.

E. Jesus does not explain Himself here in a way that makes this scene simpler. Verse 53. “So Jesus said to them, “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.”” Did that make it easier to understand?

1. Watch how it keeps going. “54. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 57. 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. 58. 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.” 59. Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.”
2. Did Jesus make it easier to understand? He just made it even harder and more challenging. They are continuing to take it at surface level, not thinking, not receiving, not listening to what Jesus is saying. Which leads us to our second observation.

III. Lack of spiritual seeking and spiritual depth - Our first observation was grumbling, complaining is symptomatic of continuing unbelief. A lack of spiritual seeking and a lack of spiritual depth - is also a symptom of continuing unbelief. The inability to want to dig in and try to figure out what Jesus is saying.

A. Sometimes people need the sledgehammer of the word of God to knock us out of this shallow, physical, material existence and perception and to open our eyes to something far bigger. Life is busy and at times intense, and focused on that, we are not seeing the greater thing. We're not seeing the spiritual plane. We're not listening to the word of God with spiritual ears and spiritual hearts.
B. We take scripture on the basic level of just the words and do not see what it is telling us, (often more plainly than we think), as an aggregate. God did not make His word so hard that people can not understand it, but it can be challenging.

1. Nicodemus, you must be born again. How can I go back into my mother's womb? Come on now Nicodemus, get off the physical plane here. Come up to the spiritual level and think this through.
2. Woman at the well. Wouldn't it be great to not ever have to take a bucket and go to get water out of the well? Come on lady, come on up to the spiritual level. We are talking about the fountain of living water.

C. There is an important lesson here before we continue. We learn that the goal is not to dumb down the scriptures and oversimplify everything God said. God’s word is challenging not because God makes things hard but because our hearts are spiritually dull. When we hear things that are hard or confusing, we should not give up but dig deeper. We should not want sermons dumbed down to watery mush.
D. We don’t want our Bible classes to be plain and basic. Jesus never did that. He never dumbed down God’s teaching. I know there are times when the teaching feels like it is over our heads. Don’t let that be discouraging but awe-inspiring and fill you with a desire to learn it. That is why I really like our type of bible class where everyone is involved and can ask questions about anything.

IV. What True Belief Looks Like (John 6:53-59) - Let's look at what Jesus means by all this because in this final section from verses 53 to 59, Jesus is now explaining what true belief looks like.

A. He's done it in a way that on the surface looks complicated. “… unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” What do you mean by that? Far from modifying the startling metaphor Jesus had adopted, He extended and restated it dogmatically.

1. Taken literally, the passage would be cannibalistic and repulsive, therefore requiring a spiritual understanding of it.
2. What He's doing is showing symptoms of continuing unbelief. You're grumbling and complaining and you lack spiritual depth and insight when I'm trying to teach you these things.

B. Over the years many well-respected commentators have voiced differing views about these verses. One popular opinion is that Jesus is talking about the Lord’s Supper. We can quickly see why this would be an attractive interpretation. Eating His flesh and drinking His blood sounds very much like the memorial of the Lord’s Supper where we take the bread to remember Christ’s body and take the fruit of the vine to remember Christ’s blood that was shed to establish the new covenant. Others say that is not the case.
C. Let’s look at this idea for a moment. Jesus in these verses is referring to bread and saying I am the bread of life.

1. In Hebrew “bread” has two meanings. First a food composed of flour mixed with water and baked and second meaning is food of any kind. What does food do? It sustains life. We can readily see that He is comparing Himself as the bread of life with something we all know, food to support physical life. After all, they came to Him looking for more food as with the feeding of the 5000.
2. He also tells them to seek the food that endures for eternal life, and He says the Father gives you the true bread from heaven. The implication is this has something to do with the spiritual. Jesus is metaphorically comparing the food we take into our bodies which the body then uses to support physical life with Himself as spiritual food which supports our spiritual life unto eternity. Simplistically, and I think more accurately stated, we need food for physical life, and we need Christ for spiritual life.

D. Next, we see Jesus is using the idea for how we take in physical food to describe our need to take Him in. How do we take in spiritual food? To start with Peter writes in 1^st Peter 2:2, “like a newborn baby, desire the pure milk of the word. Nourished by it, you will grow into salvation,”. The Hebrews writer in Hebrews 5:13-14 says, “Everyone who lives on milk is not used to the word of righteousness, because they are babies. But solid food is for the mature, whose senses are trained by practice to distinguish between good and evil.”
E. Next let’s look at the Lord’s Supper. Jesus instituted this with His followers, “Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take and eat. This is my body.” He took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from this, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many so that their sins may be forgiven.” (Matthew 26:26f) And with the command “Do this in remembrance of me”.
F. In the 6th chapter of John Jesus is using the Metaphor of taking in food for physical sustenance to taking in Him for spiritual sustenance. In the Lord’s Supper Jesus is instituting for His followers, an ordinance to remember His sacrifice and death. You might say the first illustrates a need and the second is a reminder of what is accomplished by fulfilling that need.
G. He says in verse 53, “… 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.” The subject is still eating, still food and it is a spiritual subject. True faith is a life that is completely consumed by Christ. That's what He's simply expressing.
H. In verse 40, Jesus said that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life. Same construction when then He says here, whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. Are these two different ideas? Not at all.

1. It is a metaphorical reference to the soul-saving benefit procured on behalf of the human family by Christ's atoning death on the cross and the shedding of His blood. The eating and drinking refer to the soul's proper appropriation of that benefit.
2. If you understood who I am, you would consume me. You would just eat, drink, breathe and live everything about Jesus because He is the one who will give you eternal life.

V. True Food - That's what verse 55 continues with. “My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.” Jesus is truly what you need. He is what you need for living now. He is what you need for eternal life. He is what your soul needs. He is everything you need. He is that true food and for Jesus to say I'm the true food means there's no other food that's of any value or usefulness.

A. I thought about it like this, what would happen to us if all we ever ate were donuts? I mean besides the smile on our face that is. If all you ever ate were donuts, is that true food? It's food, but it is incomplete, and things are not likely to go well for you. It might be delicious and you might enjoy it, but your health is likely to suffer and, in the end, shorten your life. Yet, it is food.

1. There are all kinds of things in this world that are food. Jesus says I'm the true food. If you immerse yourself in all those other foods and all those other things that this world has to offer and you engage in that in this life, you might think you're satisfied just like eating donuts.
2. Eating donuts makes me happy and comfortable. I have joy from that, but it's not true food. Sooner or later, it's going to kill you. You're going down the wrong path.
3. Jesus comes along and says He is the bread of life that comes down from heaven. He says I'm the true food. There is nothing else but me. I'm the only thing that will satisfy your life. I'm the only thing that will give you life. I'm the only thing that will spare you from the disaster to come. Consume me. Follow me.

B. He is telling them to be immersed in Him. Eat, Drink, Live, and Breathe Jesus.

1. That's what true belief looks like. Verse 56 continues that. “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in them.” This is a great picture. It shows you are in a relationship.
2. Jesus told them earlier that the reason they could not believe was because the father had not drawn them, they had not been taught of God. They have not learned. We talked about that last week.

C. You have no relationship with me. You think you're close, but you're far away. You haven't been taught by me. Now apply what we see in these verses. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood, whoever eats, drinks, breathes, lives Christ, abides in Christ and Christ abides in them. This teaches us that the life of Christ is not about externals.

1. We cannot point to something in our life and say, I was baptized on X date and since I'm baptized, therefore I'm saved and I'm fine and I'm good. No. Your life must be consumed with Christ. That's what true saving faith looks like. Breathe Christ. Live Christ. That is the picture of what a true disciple looks like.

D. The message that He wants them to understand is they think they have a relationship with God. They think that they have true saving faith, but they do not because they do not see Jesus as the all-satisfying God who provides all that you need for life and godliness.

1. Instead, they are consumed by the things of this world. Therefore, Jesus says, feed on my flesh and drink my blood so that you can abide in me. If you do that you have a relationship with the father.
2. There's a relationship with Jesus when we are consumed by Christ. Notice verse 57 amplifies that. It gives the explanation perfectly. “As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father,…” Stop right there in this parallel. How does Jesus live because of the father? What He's saying is my life is completely consumed in the will of my father. I live because of my father. Everything I do is about my father. What my father says, what my father wills, my father's purpose, I live for that. I live because of that.
3. Apply that to us and that's what He's telling us as well. Our life is to be consumed in Christ.
4. Think back to chapter 4. They are in Samaria and the disciples have gone away into the city to buy food. Remember when the disciples come back and they're bringing Him food and Jesus says I've already eaten. They ask each other, who brought Him food? Notice the spiritual boldness that John points out repeatedly. Jesus says some amazing words here, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.”
5. That's how Christ lives. That's how we live and everything about our life is completely about Christ. That we live and we are consumed in Him and our joy and satisfaction are found in Christ alone.

CONCLUSION:
That's what true saving faith looks like. A couple thoughts from verse 53 where He says, “… unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” Unless we are consuming Christ we have no life. We have nothing to stand on by ourselves. The only way we can possibly have life, the only hope that we have of life, is to be consumed with Christ. It is not our righteousness; it is not our goodness that gives us life.

When we attach ourselves to a relationship with Jesus, everything changes. We need the bread of life. We're dead in our sins. We are in the misery of our sins, but complaining and grumbling shows unbelief. We need to look at our lives and be cautious about this.

All the terrible difficulties that sometimes we complain about are really nothing. Or as Paul said, they're nothing to be compared with the glory that's to be revealed to us. Do we believe that God will carry us through? Do we truly believe that God is with us? Do we believe that He will carry us home? Of course, He will.

Second, lacking spiritual depth reveals our unbelief as well. Faith is all about a life consumed in Christ. Faith is all about obedience to him, loving Him, consumed by Him, because He is more precious than anything. He is true food. We must open our eyes and recognize there is nothing else more valuable, more useful, or more important than Jesus. He is your life.

We're singing an invitation song. Those who have come to Jesus as well as those who have not, take stock of your life. Do you see Him as the all-satisfying God? Do you see Him as your bread of life?

The world tells us there's all kinds of good food. God says, my son is true life. He is true bread. He is true food. Eat, breathe, and live Jesus Christ. Lift up your eyes from the things of this world.

Pray to God to say, I need to see you as all-satisfying. I need to see you as the bread of life. Read His word and see how good the Lord is. Start moving toward a deeper relationship with Him. To stop remaining on the present level that we may be spiritually.

If you have not seen Jesus as the all-satisfying bread of life, we invite you to turn away from your sins. Be immersed in water to have your sins washed away and begin that walk with Him. A walk that gives you eternal life. A walk that gives you hope and life that you do not have otherwise.

Whatever your need we invite you to come while we stand and while we sing.

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Reference: Brent Kercheville