JOHN 6:45-48
45 "It is written in the prophets, 'And they shall all be taught by God.' Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me. 46 "Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God; He has seen the Father. 47 "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life. 48 "I am the bread of life.
The Father draws souls to JESUS, the One that He sent to reveal the heart of GOD to the people. Those who come to Christ by faith (ACTS 20:21; GAL 3:22) shall experience resurrection “at the last day” (vs. 40). Those who are taught these truths by GOD Himself – GOD the Father, will come to Christ.
The LORD is quoting from ISAIAH 54:13
All your children shall be taught by the LORD, And great shall be the peace of your children.
And this is a prophecy regarding the kingdom of David restored; what we know commonly as the Millennium when Israel will no longer be persecuted by her enemies, downtrodden, bereft of blessings, but rather the very opposite: exalted above all nations, blessed in body, soul, and spirit, in land and government, in wealth and most of all blessed of the LORD Who Himself will teach them, as well as all of the nations (ISAIAH 2:3; MIC 4:2)!
The prophets of the Old Testament gave valid testimony about GOD as they were moved by the Holy Spirit (2 PET 1:21), and yet, as we read in the book of HEBREWS, the testimony from the Son is greater than that of the prophets, even that of Moses (HEB 1:1-3; 3:1-6).
Yet the prophets spoke of the people being taught – not by some prophet who is a man of like passions (such as Elijah; JAMES 5:17) – but by GOD Himself, and the testimony of GOD the Father became exquisitely clear during the days of the LORD’s earthly ministry:
MATTHEW 17:5b
…suddenly a voice came out of the cloud, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!
Peter, James, and John were in the best of company with Moses and Elijah – the quintessential embodiment of “the Law and the Prophets” and yet these were not even close to being in the same category as the Son, of Whom He explicitly directed these men to pay attention to!
Though none of us has ever seen the Father, except for the Son, the One “Who is from GOD” (JOHN 1:18), He is revealed to us through His Son. The LORD Jesus is the authority sent to us from the Father, He is also the spokesman Who speaks on His behalf (JOHN 5:36-37; 8:28).
Those who receive Christ also receive the Father (JOHN 8:42; 14:7-9; 1 JOHN 2:23-24).
Many religions and religious leaders theorize about GOD and believe that they may have some insights about the Maker of all things, but for the LORD Jesus Christ, the statements He made were not theoretical; they weren’t His opinions. He spoke only truth!
He is the Word made flesh and the Word was [always] GOD Himself and yet also with GOD (JOHN 1:1,14). When He speaks of His Father, He addresses the nature of Who GOD is, and He is likewise speaking of Himself (seeing that He possesses the same Nature in attributes, power, and abilities as well as Personhood).
All of the Scripture speaks of Christ (PSALM 40:7; JOHN 5:39), all of the prophets spoke of Christ, every prophecy in some way, directly or indirectly points to Christ: His ministry, His offices, His purpose, plans, and His perfection in contrast to the abject imperfections of the Old Testament judges, kings, prophets and the rest of us. From GENESIS 1 all the way to REVELATION 22, the entire prophetic portrait paints the various shades and hues of the central figure Who is Christ.
He is our Life and our Love and we ‘feed’ of Him (JOHN 6:53-58), partaking of His Spirit that indwells us for the purpose of transforming us into His likeness – His godly, righteous, loving heart; truthful, just, merciful, compassionate, peaceful, joyful – need I go on??
It’s no wonder He is called “the Bread of Life”. In those ancient days, bread was considered a primary staple, far more nutritious than the stuff we buy today in the grocery store. It had good staying power, traveled well and sustained life with all of its healthy grains.
Incidentally this phrase is a sort of play on words: The Hebrew word for bread is “lechem” and the word for life is “lehayim”.
The LORD Jesus said, “He who believes on me has everlasting life” Note, not “will have” but already “has everlasting life”. And if that life could be lost, then it couldn’t be everlasting. Some would say, “Yes, but one can only benefit from that everlasting life if they endure to the end! If they don’t, it can be lost!”
The LORD also stated that every tree that doesn’t bear fruit shall be cut down and cast into the fire (MATT 7:19). No true child of GOD will ever be cast into hellfire (Scripture nowhere states that a child of GOD loses their Parent – that is GOD our Father (i.e., “I am no longer your Father, depart from Me…” *), therefore they shall bear some fruit to prevent such a fate. The fruit of the Spirit is love (GAL 5:22), and one of the characteristics of that love is “faith” which is also translated as “faithful”.
* Note what Jesus says to those who call Him, “LORD, LORD…”. He doesn’t say, “Once I knew you, but no longer.” He says to these mere professors of the faith who declare Him to be LORD with their lips only: “I never knew you” (MATT 7:17-27; LUKE 13:24-27).
The fruit that GOD bears in us is after His kind, that is, after the nature of JESUS and just as He is faithful to us, so every true born again disciple will likewise be (not perfectly necessarily, but persistently) faithful to Him. The everlasting life that was infused in us His saints when we first received salvation through Christ will ultimately be completed in all of its phases (justification and sanctification now; justification established at the point of salvation, sanctification being an ongoing process afterwards and continues until the last phase:), the last being glorification (PHIL 1:6; ROM 8:30), which in the mind of GOD, is already completed! In ROMANS 8, it declares that we are “glorified” not “will be glorified”.
We have dealt with the subject matter of “the bread of life” elsewhere in these JEWELS From The GOSPEL of JOHN, but to reiterate and summarize:
To partake of this Bread of Life, we the church become one in Christ – essentially we become “one bread” (1 COR 10:17) in our LORD. Just as the Head of the church possesses this life, likewise every member (we who are one with Him; 1 COR 6:17) has this same life with all of its qualities.
While this world is in desperate need of this bread of life, their focus is elsewhere, on the things of this world. David Wilkerson said, “There is nothing physical that can bring you satisfaction”.
45 "It is written in the prophets, 'And they shall all be taught by God.' Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me. 46 "Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God; He has seen the Father. 47 "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life. 48 "I am the bread of life.
The Father draws souls to JESUS, the One that He sent to reveal the heart of GOD to the people. Those who come to Christ by faith (ACTS 20:21; GAL 3:22) shall experience resurrection “at the last day” (vs. 40). Those who are taught these truths by GOD Himself – GOD the Father, will come to Christ.
The LORD is quoting from ISAIAH 54:13
All your children shall be taught by the LORD, And great shall be the peace of your children.
And this is a prophecy regarding the kingdom of David restored; what we know commonly as the Millennium when Israel will no longer be persecuted by her enemies, downtrodden, bereft of blessings, but rather the very opposite: exalted above all nations, blessed in body, soul, and spirit, in land and government, in wealth and most of all blessed of the LORD Who Himself will teach them, as well as all of the nations (ISAIAH 2:3; MIC 4:2)!
The prophets of the Old Testament gave valid testimony about GOD as they were moved by the Holy Spirit (2 PET 1:21), and yet, as we read in the book of HEBREWS, the testimony from the Son is greater than that of the prophets, even that of Moses (HEB 1:1-3; 3:1-6).
Yet the prophets spoke of the people being taught – not by some prophet who is a man of like passions (such as Elijah; JAMES 5:17) – but by GOD Himself, and the testimony of GOD the Father became exquisitely clear during the days of the LORD’s earthly ministry:
MATTHEW 17:5b
…suddenly a voice came out of the cloud, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!
Peter, James, and John were in the best of company with Moses and Elijah – the quintessential embodiment of “the Law and the Prophets” and yet these were not even close to being in the same category as the Son, of Whom He explicitly directed these men to pay attention to!
Though none of us has ever seen the Father, except for the Son, the One “Who is from GOD” (JOHN 1:18), He is revealed to us through His Son. The LORD Jesus is the authority sent to us from the Father, He is also the spokesman Who speaks on His behalf (JOHN 5:36-37; 8:28).
Those who receive Christ also receive the Father (JOHN 8:42; 14:7-9; 1 JOHN 2:23-24).
Many religions and religious leaders theorize about GOD and believe that they may have some insights about the Maker of all things, but for the LORD Jesus Christ, the statements He made were not theoretical; they weren’t His opinions. He spoke only truth!
He is the Word made flesh and the Word was [always] GOD Himself and yet also with GOD (JOHN 1:1,14). When He speaks of His Father, He addresses the nature of Who GOD is, and He is likewise speaking of Himself (seeing that He possesses the same Nature in attributes, power, and abilities as well as Personhood).
All of the Scripture speaks of Christ (PSALM 40:7; JOHN 5:39), all of the prophets spoke of Christ, every prophecy in some way, directly or indirectly points to Christ: His ministry, His offices, His purpose, plans, and His perfection in contrast to the abject imperfections of the Old Testament judges, kings, prophets and the rest of us. From GENESIS 1 all the way to REVELATION 22, the entire prophetic portrait paints the various shades and hues of the central figure Who is Christ.
He is our Life and our Love and we ‘feed’ of Him (JOHN 6:53-58), partaking of His Spirit that indwells us for the purpose of transforming us into His likeness – His godly, righteous, loving heart; truthful, just, merciful, compassionate, peaceful, joyful – need I go on??
It’s no wonder He is called “the Bread of Life”. In those ancient days, bread was considered a primary staple, far more nutritious than the stuff we buy today in the grocery store. It had good staying power, traveled well and sustained life with all of its healthy grains.
Incidentally this phrase is a sort of play on words: The Hebrew word for bread is “lechem” and the word for life is “lehayim”.
The LORD Jesus said, “He who believes on me has everlasting life” Note, not “will have” but already “has everlasting life”. And if that life could be lost, then it couldn’t be everlasting. Some would say, “Yes, but one can only benefit from that everlasting life if they endure to the end! If they don’t, it can be lost!”
The LORD also stated that every tree that doesn’t bear fruit shall be cut down and cast into the fire (MATT 7:19). No true child of GOD will ever be cast into hellfire (Scripture nowhere states that a child of GOD loses their Parent – that is GOD our Father (i.e., “I am no longer your Father, depart from Me…” *), therefore they shall bear some fruit to prevent such a fate. The fruit of the Spirit is love (GAL 5:22), and one of the characteristics of that love is “faith” which is also translated as “faithful”.
* Note what Jesus says to those who call Him, “LORD, LORD…”. He doesn’t say, “Once I knew you, but no longer.” He says to these mere professors of the faith who declare Him to be LORD with their lips only: “I never knew you” (MATT 7:17-27; LUKE 13:24-27).
The fruit that GOD bears in us is after His kind, that is, after the nature of JESUS and just as He is faithful to us, so every true born again disciple will likewise be (not perfectly necessarily, but persistently) faithful to Him. The everlasting life that was infused in us His saints when we first received salvation through Christ will ultimately be completed in all of its phases (justification and sanctification now; justification established at the point of salvation, sanctification being an ongoing process afterwards and continues until the last phase:), the last being glorification (PHIL 1:6; ROM 8:30), which in the mind of GOD, is already completed! In ROMANS 8, it declares that we are “glorified” not “will be glorified”.
We have dealt with the subject matter of “the bread of life” elsewhere in these JEWELS From The GOSPEL of JOHN, but to reiterate and summarize:
To partake of this Bread of Life, we the church become one in Christ – essentially we become “one bread” (1 COR 10:17) in our LORD. Just as the Head of the church possesses this life, likewise every member (we who are one with Him; 1 COR 6:17) has this same life with all of its qualities.
While this world is in desperate need of this bread of life, their focus is elsewhere, on the things of this world. David Wilkerson said, “There is nothing physical that can bring you satisfaction”.
We are primarily spiritual beings (encased in bodies of flesh, burdened with a sin nature) and so the only thing that can bring fulfillment is spiritual in nature – but even here, we can go awry, for certainly those partaking of the occult are receiving ‘spiritual’ things.
That spiritual sustenance that alone can bring fulfillment is that which is provided for us by the One Who made us; He Who knows what makes us tick, for it is He that created the ways in which He intended for us to ‘tick’. Sin has gotten in the way of this, and so the need for the spiritual rebirth, so that the GOD-ordained ‘ticking’ can be restored and we function the way our Maker intended to begin with.
The blessing of this restoration is in the truth that we are born of incorruptible seed:
1 PETER 1:18-23
18 knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. 20 He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world but was manifest in these last times for you 21 who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. 22 Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, 23 having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever,
Do we fully appreciate what this is saying to us? Adam was innocent, without sin when he was created, but he was corruptible (not corrupted as yet) and thus he had within himself a will to choose between obeying GOD and remaining innocent or disobeying GOD and becoming guilty and plagued with the corruption of sin.
We saints however are born of incorruptible seed (“the word of GOD which lives and abides forever”) that will persist in conforming us (and there is reward in heaven for those who willingly submit to this conformation by GOD in the transformation of our minds; ROM 12:1-2) until finally on that Blessed Day when we are with the LORD, and this corruption (this body of death; ROM 7:24-25) will put on incorruption (1 COR 15:53-54), wherein the sin nature will be extracted from our being and unlike Adam, will not be capable of being corrupted, or even tempted by sin (were it even allowed in heaven!)!! On that Day we shall be complete in Christ in a visible sense (PHIL 1:6)! GLORY!
Let us therefore hungrily and regularly subsist on the BREAD of LIFE and find the Life in Christ that He longs to fulfill us with! He has a glorious depth that we are able to explore by the Spirit but will never search out altogether the unsearchable riches in Christ (EPH 3:8)!
Next time, we’ll look at JOHN 6:49-51, entitled The LIVING and the DEAD!
The blessing of this restoration is in the truth that we are born of incorruptible seed:
1 PETER 1:18-23
18 knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. 20 He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world but was manifest in these last times for you 21 who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. 22 Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, 23 having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever,
Do we fully appreciate what this is saying to us? Adam was innocent, without sin when he was created, but he was corruptible (not corrupted as yet) and thus he had within himself a will to choose between obeying GOD and remaining innocent or disobeying GOD and becoming guilty and plagued with the corruption of sin.
We saints however are born of incorruptible seed (“the word of GOD which lives and abides forever”) that will persist in conforming us (and there is reward in heaven for those who willingly submit to this conformation by GOD in the transformation of our minds; ROM 12:1-2) until finally on that Blessed Day when we are with the LORD, and this corruption (this body of death; ROM 7:24-25) will put on incorruption (1 COR 15:53-54), wherein the sin nature will be extracted from our being and unlike Adam, will not be capable of being corrupted, or even tempted by sin (were it even allowed in heaven!)!! On that Day we shall be complete in Christ in a visible sense (PHIL 1:6)! GLORY!
Let us therefore hungrily and regularly subsist on the BREAD of LIFE and find the Life in Christ that He longs to fulfill us with! He has a glorious depth that we are able to explore by the Spirit but will never search out altogether the unsearchable riches in Christ (EPH 3:8)!
Next time, we’ll look at JOHN 6:49-51, entitled The LIVING and the DEAD!
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