SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/18/2016 7:21 AM
My Worship Time Focus: The Promises
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: John 6:53-59
Message of the verses: “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 yourselves. 54 “He who eats 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 “He who eats 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 he who eats Me, he
also will live because of Me. 58 "This is the bread which came down out of
heaven; not as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live
forever." 59 These things He said in the synagogue as He taught in
Capernaum.”
I was
looking on my online Bible program to see how many times the word “hidden” was
found in the NASB, in the New Testament and found it was there 23 times. The reason that I did that is because of what
we see in this section that we are looking at today. We see in this section of verses that the Lord
did not stop to explain that He was teaching in a metaphor about His death on
the cross, but continued on in this metaphor and did not let up, making it
difficult for those who were listening to Him understand what He was talking
about. Do you think that that would have made a difference to these people who
were only looking for another free meal?
Let’s look at some verses in the 12th chapter of John to show
that Jesus was more plainly talking about His death and then we will get the
reaction of what the people told Him: “32 "And I, if I am lifted up from the
earth, will draw all men to Myself." 33 But He was saying this to indicate
the kind of death by which He was to die. 34 The crowd then answered Him, "We have heard out of the
Law that the Christ is to remain forever; and how can You say, ’The Son of Man
must be lifted up’? Who is this Son of Man?"” Like I said these things were hidden from the
Jews because of their unbelief, and that is what we are seeing in our verses
today.
Leviticus
17:10-14 speaks of how God feels about anyone drinking blood or even eating meat
with the blood in it, so from that passage and others in the OT and NT too we
see that Jesus could not have been speaking of literally eating His flesh or
drinking His blood. John MacArthur
writes “Jesus, of course, was not speaking of literally drinking the fluid in
His veins any more than He was literally eating His flesh. Both metaphors refer to the necessity of
accepting Jesus’ sacrificial death. The
New Testament frequently uses the term ‘blood’ as a graphic metonym speaking of
Christ’s death on the cross as the final sacrifice for sin.” He then goes on to give a very long list of
verses that speak to this truth in the NT.
“His sacrifice was the one to which all the Old Testament sacrifices
pointed.” Out of that long list of
verses I want to quote the ones found in the book of Hebrews to get the picture
of how the “blood” pictures the death of Jesus Christ for payment of our
sins. “12 and not through the blood of goats and
calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having
obtained eternal redemption (Heb. 9:12). “14 how much more will the blood of
Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God,
cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? (Heb. 9:14).” “19 Therefore, brethren, since we have
confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, (Heb. 10:19). “29
How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled
under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the
covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?
(Heb. 10:29).” “12 Therefore Jesus also,
that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the
gate (Heb. 13:12).”
The
following quote from John MacArthur helps us understand more about how the
Greek language also shows us that what Jesus was talking about was His death on
the cross and the necessity of accepting it for eternal life. “It should be noted that the verbs translated
‘eat’ and ‘drink’ are aorists, not present tense verbs. That suggests a one-time appropriation of
Christ at salvation, not the continual eating and drinking of His body and
blood portrayed by the Roman Catholic Mass.”
Now as we
conclude this Spiritual Diary we want to briefly look at four promises that are
given here from our Lord, the first one is expressed negatively, and the rest
positively. Jesus says that those who
reject Him “have no life in” themselves.
So if we look at in the positive way those who do accept Him do have
life, eternal life.
The next
promise is similar as He says ““He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has
eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” Jesus is saying in this verse that the
abundant life promised in the first promise will continue even though a person
dies. Let us look again at verse forty
as they are parallel verses: “40 “For
this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes
in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last
day."” MacArthur writes “The
results in the two verses are the same:
eternal life and resurrection.
But in verse 40, those results come from beholding and believing the
Son, while in verse 54 they come from eating His flesh and drinking His
blood. It follows, the, that the eating
and drinking of verse 54 are parallel to the beholding and believing in verse
40.”
Now the
third promise is that Christ will raise up on the last day everyone who eat His
flesh and drink His blood, is repeated here for the fourth time in this passage
(see verses 39, 40, and 44), so we see here and in other places that the
resurrection of the dead into eternal life is the hope of the believes of all
ages. I will site just one verse on this
being our hope and it comes from Titus 2:13 “13 looking for the blessed hope
and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus.” There were some who had doubts about the
resurrection of the dead and so Paul wrote the entire 15th chapter
of 1 Corinthians to speak of the resurrection.
We can look at verses 12-19 “12 Now if Christ is preached, that He has
been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no
resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not
even Christ has been raised; 14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our
preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. 15 Moreover we are even found to be
false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ,
whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead
are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; 17 and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is
worthless; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have
fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If we have hoped in Christ in this
life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.”
MacArthur
writes “Jesus introduced the fourth and final promise by declaring that His
flesh is true food, and His blood is true drink—the sustenance that provides
the very life of God to the believer. In
light of that, the Lord declared, ‘He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood
abides in Me and I in Him.’” This
promise of abiding in Christ is seen later on in John’s gospel in 14:20 and
then also in chapter 15 too as Jesus talks about the vine and the branches.
Now to
finish up these verses we see that in verse 57 we see that Jesus declared the
very source of His authority for Him to make such promises, and that is the
Father.
MacArthur
concludes his commentary on this 21st chapter of his commentary with
these words: “The Lord concluded this
magnificent teaching by repeating the thought of verses 49 and 50. The invitation is as clear today as it was
that memorable day in the synagogue…in Capernaum. The one who pursues material things will die
as surely as the rebellious Israelites died in the wilderness. But ‘he who eats the bread which came down
out of heaven…will live forever.’”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I am thankful to the Lord for finally
understand what Jesus was talking about in this sermon, and thankful for the
eternal life that I have through the shed blood and broken body of my Savior
and Lord, Jesus Christ.
My Steps of Faith for
Today: To continue to learn from the
Lord more about Himself and to better love Him.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “John the Baptist” (Mark 1:7).
Today’s Bible question:
“To what country did Naomi and her family go during a famine?”
Answer in our next SD.
4/18/2016 8:45 AM
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