Author: JC Ryle

We see in these verses, the obstinate blindness of the unbelieving Jews. We find them defending their denial of our Lord’s Messiahship, by saying, “We know this man whence He is: but when Christ cometh no man knoweth whence He is.” And yet in both these assertions they were wrong!

They were wrong in saying that they “knew whence our Lord came.” They meant no doubt to say that He was born at Nazareth, and belonged to Nazareth, and was therefore a Galilean. Yet the fact was, that our Lord was born at Bethlehem, that He belonged legally to the tribe of Judah, and that His mother and Joseph were of the house and lineage of David. It is incredible to suppose that the Jews could not have found this out, if they had honestly searched and inquired. It is notorious that pedigrees, genealogies, and family histories were most carefully kept by the Jewish nation. Their ignorance was without excuse.

We learn first in this passage, that honest obedience to God’s will is one way to obtain clear spiritual knowledge. Our Lord says, “If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.”

The difficulty of finding out “what is truth” in religion is a common subject of complaint among men. They point to the many differences which prevail among Christians on matters of doctrine, and profess to be unable to decide who is right. In thousands of cases this professed inability to find out truth becomes an excuse for living without any religion at all.

The chapter we now begin is divided from the preceding one by a wide interval of time. The many miracles which our Lord wrought, while He “walked in Galilee,” are passed over by John in comparative silence. The events which he was specially inspired to record are those which took place in or near Jerusalem.

We should observe in this passage the desperate hardness and unbelief of human nature. We are told that even our Lord’s “brethren did not believe in Him.” Holy and harmless and blameless as He was in life, some of his nearest relatives, according to the flesh, did not receive Him as the Messiah. It was bad enough that His own people, “the Jews, sought to kill Him.” But it was even worse that “His brethren did not believe.”

That great Scriptural doctrine, man’s need of preventing and converting grace, stands out here, as if written with a sunbeam. It becomes all who question that doctrine to look at this passage and consider. Let them observe that seeing Christ’s miracles, hearing Christ’s teaching, living in Christ’s own company, were not enough to make men believers. The mere possession of spiritual privileges never yet made any one a Christian. All is useless without the effectual and applying work of God the Holy Ghost. No wonder that our Lord said in another place, “No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him.” (John 6:44)

These verses form a sorrowful conclusion to the famous discourse of Christ which occupies the greater part of the sixth chapter. They supply a melancholy proof of the hardness and corruption of man’s heart. Even when the Son of God was the preacher, many seem to have heard in vain.

Let us mark, in this passage, what an old sin backsliding is. We read that when our Lord had explained what He meant by “eating and drinking His flesh and blood,” “From that time many went back and walked no more with Him.”

The true grace of God no doubt is an everlasting possession. From this men never fall away entirely, when they have once received it. “The foundation of God standeth sure.” “My sheep shall never perish.” (2 Tim. 2:19; John 10:28) But there is counterfeit grace and unreal religion in the Church, wherever there is true; and from counterfeit grace thousands may and do fall away. Like the stony ground hearers, in the parable of the sower, many “have no root in themselves, and so in time of temptation fall away.” All is not gold that glitters. All blossoms do not come to fruit. All are not Israel which are called Israel. Men may have feelings, desires, convictions, resolutions, hopes, joys, sorrows in religion, and yet never have the grace of God. They may run well for a season, and bid fair to reach heaven, and yet break down entirely after a time, go back to the world, and end like Demas, Judas Iscariot, and Lot’s wife.

We learn from these verses that some of Christ’s sayings seem hard to flesh and blood. We are told that “many” who had followed our Lord for a season, were offended when He spoke of “eating His flesh and drinking His blood.” They murmured and said, “This is an hard saying: who can hear it?”

Murmurs and complaints of this kind are very common. It must never surprise us to hear them. They have been, they are, they will be as long as the world stands. To some Christ’s sayings appear hard to understand. To others, as in the present case, they appear hard to believe, and harder still to obey. It is just one of the many ways in which the natural corruption of man shows itself. So long as the heart is naturally proud, worldly, unbelieving, and fond of self-indulgence, if not of sin, so long there will never be wanting people who will say of Christian doctrines and precepts, “These are hard sayings: who can hear them?”

Few passages of Scripture have been so painfully twisted and perverted as that which we have now read. The Jews are not the only people who have striven about its meaning. A sense has been put upon it which it was never intended to bear. Fallen man, in interpreting the Bible, has an unhappy aptitude for turning meat into poison. The things that were written for his benefit, he often makes an occasion for falling.

Let us first consider carefully, what these verses do not mean. The “eating and drinking” of which Christ speaks do not mean any literal eating and drinking. Above all, the words were not spoken with any reference to the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. We may eat the Lord’s Supper, and yet not eat and drink Christ’s body and blood. We may eat and drink Christ’s body and blood, and yet not eat the Lord’s Supper. Let this never be forgotten.

Truths of the weightiest importance follow each other in rapid succession in the chapter we are now reading. There are probably very few parts of the Bible which contain so many “deep things” as the sixth chapter of John. Of this the passage before as is a signal example.

We learn, for one thing, from this passage, that Christ’s lowly condition, when He was upon earth, is a stumbling-block to the natural man. We read that “the Jews murmured, because Jesus said, I am the bread that came down from heaven. And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that He saith, I came down from heaven?”–Had our Lord come as a conquering king, with wealth and honours to bestow on His followers, and mighty armies in His train, they would have been willing enough to receive Him. But a poor, and lowly, and suffering Messiah was an offence to them. Their pride refused to believe that such a one was sent from God.

Three of our Lord Jesus Christ’s great sayings are strung together, like pearls, in this passage. Each of them ought to be precious to every true Christian. All taken together, they form a mine of truth, into which he that searches need never search in vain.

We have, first, in these verses, a saying of Christ about Himself. We read that Jesus said, “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to Me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst.”

Our Lord would have us know that He Himself is the appointed food of man’s soul. The soul of every man is naturally starving and famishing through sin. Christ is given by God the Father, to be the Satisfier, the Reliever, and the Physician of man’s spiritual need. In Him and His mediatorial office,–in Him and His atoning death,–in Him and His priesthood,–in Him and His grace, love, and power,–in Him alone will empty souls find their needs supplied. In Him there is life. He is “the bread of life.”

These verses form the beginning of one of the most remarkable passages in the Gospels. None, perhaps, of our Lord’s discourses has occasioned more controversy, and been more misunderstood, than that which we find in the Sixth Chapter of John.

We should observe, for one thing, in these verses, the spiritual ignorance and unbelief of the natural man. Twice over we see this brought out and exemplified. When our Lord bade his hearers to “labour for the meat which endureth to eternal life,” they immediately began to think of works to be done, and a goodness of their own to be established. “What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?” Doing, doing, doing, was their only idea of the way to heaven.–Again, when our Lord spoke of Himself as One sent of God, and the need of believing on Him at once, they turn round with the question, “What sign showest Thou? what dost Thou work?” Fresh from the mighty miracle of the loaves and fishes, one might have thought they had had a sign sufficient to convince them. Taught by our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, one might have expected a greater readiness to believe. But alas! there are no limits to man’s dullness, prejudice, and unbelief in spiritual matters. It is a striking fact that the only thing which our Lord is said to have “marvelled” at during His earthly ministry, was man’s “unbelief.” (Mark 6:6)

We should mark first, in this passage, what knowledge of man’s heart our Lord Jesus Christ possesses. We see Him exposing the false motives of those who followed Him for the sake of the loaves and fishes. They had followed Him across the Lake of Galilee. They seemed at first sight ready to believe in Him, and do Him honour. But He knew the inward springs of their conduct, and was not deceived. “Ye seek Me,” He said, “not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.”

The Lord Jesus, we should never forget, is still the same. He never changes. He reads the secret motives of all who profess and call themselves Christians. He knows exactly why they do all they do in their religion. The reasons why they go to church, and why they receive the sacrament,–why they attend family prayers, and why they keep Sunday holy,–all are naked and opened to the eyes of the great Head of the Church. By Him actions are weighed as well as seen. “Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh at the heart.” (1 Sam. 16:7)