Reading for Aug 14: John 635-40

35 And Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen Me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. 39 This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. 40 And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day."

 

Comments:

Here Jesus comes right out and tells the crowd what He meant about receiving the bread of life. They thought Jesus was referring to an actual piece of physical bread that would give them food for an eternity. So, Jesus unambiguously tells them, "I am the bread of life" and whoever comes to Him will never again hunger or thirst. He is not talking about a desire for food and drink, but about the need to know God; a "hunger and thirst" for knowledge.

What follows in Jesus' discussion is some great and deep theology, let's go through it piece by piece.

1. Comes and believes (v35) - to "come" to one place you must leave another. To come to Jesus one must first leave sin, that is repent; and then one can summit fully to God. The other side of the coin is belief. To believe in Christ is to completely trust Him as the one and only Savior and the Son of God. Both coming and believing, repentance and faith describes man's part in the process of salvation; they must both be together. One without the other is useless.
   
2. "All that the Father gives Me…" (v37) – this teaches that those of us who have come Jesus have been chosen and given to Him as a gift from His Father. Every soul saved is an expression of love to the Son from the Father.
   
3. "…will come to Me" – the gift (us, the Church) will be delivered to the Son. The Father cannot make a mistake with His gift, it will come. If that is the case then man cannot have anything to do with it, it has to be all God. If it was left up to man no one would come to Christ , as it says in Romans 3:11, "there is none who seeks for God."
   

   Well you might be asking, what about the coming and believing? Isn't that the job of the person, so therefore he/she is doing something to receive salvation? Actually, scripture teaches that both repentance (Acts 11:18, 2 Tim. 2:25) and faith (Eph. 2:8-9, Phil. 1:29) are granted by God. Therefore, God is completely sovereign is the act of salvation. But isn't there some sort of human responsibility? Yes, absolutely; scripture repeatedly calls on people to repent and to "call on the name of the Lord" (Acts 17:30, Matt. 4:17, Mark 6:12, Rom. 10:13). So how do we rectify this seemingly impossible paradox?
   

4. "…I will by no means cast out" – The Son will not refuse or get rid of the gift; He will accept it lovingly. He will not refuse anyone who sincerely "comes and believes" but remember the gift is from the Father, the gift cannot give itself.
   
5. "all that He has given Me I lose nothing" – Jesus is incapable of losing anything. To say that He can is to say that He is a failure at doing what He says He will do. Jesus says, "I lose nothing"; it doesn't get much plainer than that.
   
6. "not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me" – Jesus came to earth to do the will of the Father and nothing else.
   
7. "This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing"- again Jesus emphatically stating that He will not lose what the Father has given him.
   
8. "everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life" – again belief is essential to obtaining the "bread of Life."
   

In conclusion, we (the Church) have been chosen to be God's gift to Jesus and He has made it possible for us to present ourselves to Jesus by giving us the ability to repent and believe. Then once the gift is given, Jesus holds on to that gift never letting go.