John 6:22 - 6:45

Gospel of John — Steve Gregg

Next in this series

John 6:46 - 6:71

00:00

John 6:22 - 6:45

Gospel of JohnSteve Gregg

In John 6:22-6:45, Jesus speaks about the importance of seeking spiritual nourishment over physical needs, using the metaphor of "eating his flesh and drinking his blood" to symbolize the necessity of believing and consuming his teachings for true nourishment. This discourse is also used as proof text by Calvinists for their platform of unconditional election and perseverance of the saints, but it is important to note that the concept of God irresistibly drawing people to him is not consistently presented in the Bible, and people have the ability to choose between rebellion and submission to God. Ultimately, Jesus emphasizes the enduring significance of God's word, which gives eternal life.

Transcript

Last time we looked at the miracle, or we might say miracles that are at the beginning of this chapter, John chapter 6. There was the miracle of the loaves and the fishes that Jesus multiplied the food for the crowd of 5,000 men plus women and children. This led to a popular sentiment that Jesus should be forcibly made king. And Jesus, seeing that this was afoot, sent his disciples across the lake without him, putting as much as possible and as quickly as possible distance between them and this sentiment that was being voiced among the crowd.

And then he himself sent the crowds away and went up on a hill to pray. So it says, so we read in the Synoptics. And then he came to the disciples in the boat as they were struggling against the wind and the waves.

In the fourth watch of the night, just before dawn, he came walking on the water to them. And so there's certainly more than one miracle here. There's even maybe a third miracle in a small way that when he got into the boat, they were then immediately at the opposite shore.

So that is the series of supernatural things that happened that day and that night. And now we have the next day, the same crowds who had been fed on the other side of the lake, that is on the eastern side of the lake in the area now called the Golan Heights. They came looking for Jesus on the east side of the lake, though he had of course walked across during the night.

But they had last seen him on the east side of the lake. They also had seen him send the disciples off in the only available boat. So they assumed that Jesus could not have left the eastern shore since he had sent the disciples with the boat and stayed behind.

And this is where we pick it up in verse 22. On the following day, when the people who were standing on the other side of the sea, that is the Sea of Galilee, really a lake, when they saw that there was no other boat there except the one which his disciples had entered, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but his disciples had gone away alone. This is kind of a long sentence and it's interrupted with this parenthesis in verse 23.

However, other boats came from Tiberias near the place where they ate bread after the Lord had given thanks. Then continue in the first sentence. When the people therefore saw that Jesus was not there nor his disciples, they also got into boats and came to Capernaum seeking Jesus.

Now, the parenthesis there in verse 23 is to let us know that these people didn't walk on the water to get across the lake. They had other boats that had arrived. There had only been one boat there the day before.

The boat on which Jesus and his disciples had come and then the disciples had left on that boat. So that had left no boats there in the late afternoon. But we are told that other boats had arrived.

We don't know if they had mariners in them or if the boats just arrived. Remember, there had been a storm. The disciples had been struggling against a wind from the west blowing east.

Maybe a whole bunch of boats had come on board if the storm was severe enough and had just been driven by the wind over to the eastern shore where they were found. It says other boats had come across. It's possible that these boats were manned.

It's possible that there were other fishermen. But then these crowds, I guess, would have done what they could to hire the boats to take them across to Capernaum. Or if the boats had come without people in them, maybe these people just jumped in and took them across.

It's hard to say. In any case, they commandeered the boats. Now, it's hard to imagine that 5,000 people or 15,000 people all managed to get into small boats and cross the sea.

That would certainly look like an armada crossing the Sea of Galilee. I think it doesn't necessarily say that everybody who had been fed the day before came back. Obviously, the people who had been there would probably refer to some percentage of them, some small number of them, enough that could still be accommodated by whatever number of boats came.

I doubt that there were 1,000 boats on that sea that came across. So it was probably a smaller group now, but it was still a representative group of the same people who had been fed the day before and were coming, looking for Jesus with that very memory in mind. And Jesus, of course, eventually tells them that the whole interest they had in him was merely carnal.

They were just interested in being able to be fed physical food, and that was a disappointment to him, as he points out. Nonetheless, the people did cross the lake back to Capernaum to see whether they'd find Jesus there. And sure enough, he was there.

And when they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, Rabbi, when did you come here? They might more appropriately have asked, how did you come here? He had walked, of course, but they knew that he didn't have a boat, so they might have really wondered that. How did you get across the lake? But he ignored their question, as he sometimes does. You know how when Nicodemus came and interviewed him and gave some kind of a gracious opening statement, Jesus just skipped over all that formality and started preaching to him.

And so also here, Jesus answered them and said, Most assuredly, I say to you, you seek me not because you saw the signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Now, in a sense, eating the loaves and being filled was the sign, and they did see the sign, but probably here seeing the signs means seeing the meaning of the signs, because the word signs here, the Greek word semion, which John uses so frequently when he's talking about miracles. It's John's favorite word for miracles with signs.

And it is a Greek word that actually means, you know, something perhaps miraculous, but it is something that has a message like a sign has like a like a road sign. So these miracles were instructive. These miracles were pregnant with meaning.

And they, of course, had seen the bread and the multiplication of the fish. They had seen that, but they had really only seen, you know, that they were able to eat when they were hungry. They had not really seen the meaning of the signs.

They had not attached any deeper significance to it. And he says, you didn't see the sign. You just got fed.

And that's what you want. Again, it's breakfast time now. You know, the food I gave you yesterday has gone through.

You're ready for more. And that's the only reason you bothered to come. Then he says, do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal upon him.

Now, God the Father has set his seal upon him means that has put his stamp of approval upon me, certified him, putting us, you know, like the good housekeeping seal is essentially saying this has been certified quality and so forth. Now, God had put his seal on Jesus, his certification. Jesus had the authorization and God's seal upon him was no doubt that visible sign that he had done the day before, that he had proven himself to be sent from God by doing these miracles.

But he was authorized by God not to just go around feeding people with loaves and fishes. He was, of course, authorized by God to do that one miracle on that occasion. He did it again one other time with 4,000 people in another place across the, also on the other side of the sea in Piraeus.

That's later and it's not in the Gospel of John. But he's saying that God has authorized him to give them eternal life, has authorized Jesus to do that. As he had said in chapter 5, he said the Father has given the Son to have life in himself, even as the Father has life in himself, so that he can give life to whomever he will.

He said that in chapter 5, verse 21 to a different group. In 521, he said, for as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom he will. So, saying it another way, God the Father has certified Jesus, authorizing him to be the one who could distribute that food which gives eternal life.

Now, of course, we understand that he's not talking about physical food. I hope we do because if we don't, we may end up reaching some views like the Roman Catholics have reached on transubstantiation because they use this chapter, not these words but the ones that come later, to justify the idea that we have to literally eat the physical flesh of Jesus and drink his blood. And as you may know, the Roman Catholic Church has always taught that in the offering up of the Mass, something miraculous happens to the elements of communion of the Eucharist and that the bread actually becomes the body of Jesus and the wine becomes the blood of Jesus so that it becomes actually possible literally to eat the body and blood of Jesus.

But here Jesus introduces the idea of eating something that will give the eater eternal life. As the conversation progresses through the chapter, he makes it very clear that he's talking about eating his flesh and drinking his blood. But what does he mean? Well, we need to keep our eye on all the things he says leading up to that because once he begins talking about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, he already has given enough information earlier in the discourse to let them know what he's talking about, but they've missed it.

So he says there's two kinds of food that you need. You need the kind that nourishes your body, but that's a perishable food. So that's a food that doesn't last forever, nor does the life that it sustains last forever.

But there's another kind of food and that endures to eternal life and the Son of Man can give you that. Now clearly the other kind of food is something else, not physical food. So that Jesus, for example, in chapter 4 had said to his disciples when they brought food back from town, after he'd been talking to the woman of Samaria, he said, I have food to eat that you don't know about.

The disciples thought he meant real food and he said, no, my food is to do the will of my Father in heaven and to finish his work. So he'd already given the example of food as something non-literal. Also in that chapter, he had already talked about drinking living water, but he was talking about a spiritual thing.

So eating and drinking, food and drink are subjects that are not just introduced for the first time in this chapter. Jesus has already spoken figuratively of these activities. Remember, Jesus said to the devil when he was tempted in the wilderness, tempted to turn rocks into bread, he quoted from Deuteronomy chapter 8, where it says, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

So of course man needs bread if he's to live physically, but there's another life he needs to sustain. And so he doesn't only have to feed himself physically, he has to feed himself with something else. What is that? The word of God.

Every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, he has a spiritual need. He has a spiritual life to sustain and the word of God is that food. And that is not different than what Jesus is talking about here.

Although he begins to talk about himself as that bread from heaven, and he talks about that himself as the food and the drink. But of course we know from the Gospel of John already, when he talks about himself, that's not something else than the word. He is the word made flesh.

The food that nourishes the inward man is the word of God. Happened to be incarnated in Jesus at that time. But the word of God has always been, even before Jesus came, that which nourishes the inner man.

And Jesus is saying, you are not paying attention to that. Now, we do know that he is talking about the word because the disciples picked up on it. At the end of this discussion, when most of the people in the crowd misunderstood him, became offended and left him, he turned to his disciples in verse 67 and said, do you also want to go away? And Simon Peter answered him and said, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.

You have the words of eternal life. That's the food that confers eternal life and sustains eternal life, is the words of Christ. So also Jesus had said a few verses earlier in verse 63.

He said, it is the spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you, they are spirit, they are life.

It's the spirit that gives life and my words are that spirit that gives life. So, clearly, labor for the food that nourishes you unto eternal life is very clearly, not only from the later statements of Jesus in this passage, but also from other passages in the scripture, a reference to God's word. It's another kind of food to sustain another kind of life.

So that Job even understood this long before there was even a written Bible, not even one book of the Bible was written in Job's day. But he knew the words of God because he said the secret of the Lord had once dwelt in his tabernacle. That is, God had taken him into his confidence.

God had fellowshiped with him and he had gotten words from God. And he says, in those days, he said, I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. Of course, he ate his necessary food too, but he esteemed God's words more than that.

Jeremiah said, your words were found and I did eat them. And your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart, for I'm called by your name, O Lord God. I ate your words.

David said about the word of God, more to be desired are they than gold and sweeter than honey in the honeycomb. The righteous and spiritual men of the past, even before Jesus came, understood that the word of God is like food. It energizes, it nourishes something else about man that natural food cannot.

Jesus is not introducing something new and radical and strange here. He's saying, you're interested in the kind of food I gave you yesterday. That's just nourishing your body.

That's food that perishes. You need to be laboring equally hard, if not more, to obtain that food, which of course is the word of God, which endures to everlasting life. I remember another place in the Old Testament that speaks this way about God's word.

It says in Isaiah 55, Isaiah 55 verses 1 and 2, or actually even through verse 3. He says, Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters and you who have no money, come buy and eat. Yes, come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend money on what is not bread and your wages on what does not satisfy? Listen diligent to me and eat what is good.

What has he just referred to? Listening to him. What do you listen to? His words. If you listen to me, you are eating what is good.

Why do you spend your money on what is not bread and it doesn't satisfy when you could listen to me and my words could be a feast to you? Listen diligently to me and eat what is good and let your soul delight itself in abundance. Incline your ear and come to me. Here in your soul shall live.

Listening to God's word, receiving his word, your soul shall live. It's the word, it's the food that endures to everlasting life. So this idea of Jesus is certainly not radical or new, but it was not the track their minds were on.

They were coming because it was breakfast time. They knew somebody who knew how to feed them on a very small budget. And so they were hungry.

They came looking for that and nothing more. Now this really disappointed Jesus. He had wished that they had understood that he was something more than just a caterer and that there was some spiritual lesson there for them.

He was going to teach them what that lesson was in this very discourse that comes up, but they had not gotten it yet. There was a very powerful move of God in Germany in the late 1800s and the early 1900s. And there were a couple of men, a father and a son.

Both last, their last name was Blumhart. One was Johann Christoph Blumhart. The other was Christoph Friedrich Blumhart.

I believe the Friedrich, Christoph Friedrich Blumhart was the son. And both of them actually were surprised to have a mighty power of God come upon them. They were Lutheran.

The father was a Lutheran pastor in a sleepy German village. And there was a supernatural event that came upon that village. And the pastor was simply an obedient, humble man and he rose to the challenge.

It actually happened to be a demon-possessed person that had to be delivered and it was a very serious and difficult case. And he applied himself to it until the job was done. And once the deliverance was complete, a revival broke out in this little village called Möttlingen, Germany.

This is in the late 1800s. And this pastor, who had just been an ordinary Lutheran pastor, not a Pentecostal, not a charismatic. In fact, this was before those movements began.

Back in the 1800s, he had people who were sick asking him to pray for them. So he prayed for his prisoners and they got healed of everything he prayed for. And people all over Germany began to come to be prayed for.

And actually, he got kicked out of the church by his overseers because the doctors in town complained that they had no more business because everyone who's sick came to Pastor Blumhart and they got healed by prayer and the doctors had no patience. And so they had no patience for him either. And so they asked his supervisors to tell him to stop praying for the sick.

And he didn't think that was the right thing to do, so he quit the church. And he and his son, who was a grown young man, went and started sort of a retreat in a little inn that was for sale. They bought this inn and it became a place where they lived and raised several generations of their offspring and had anyone who was sick want to come and stay there and get prayed for.

And so there was sort of a Christian community. And the son in particular, when the father was dying, he laid his hands on his son and the power came on his son. And after Father Blumhart was dead, the son became an international phenomenon in Europe, though he wasn't interested in being.

He just wanted to be faithful and preach the gospel. And their passion was the kingdom of God. They wrote and spoke of the kingdom of God all the time.

And they demonstrated the kingdom of God by healing the sick, just like Jesus did. But the son, Christoph Friedrich Blumhart, eventually he became disgusted because people came from all over Europe to be healed, but he found that they were not interested in the kingdom of God. And he actually wrote about this.

He says, you know, I just lost interest in praying for the sick because I found that people were only interested in getting healed. They weren't interested in the kingdom of God. They just wanted to get physical relief from their sicknesses, which is not a bad thing.

You can't begrudge them that. But if their concern about their physical health is eclipsing their spiritual need, he just thought it's not doing them the good that needs to be done. And he just retreated to his little retreat inn.

And for the rest of his life, you know, people did come to him, but he didn't go out where there were crowds preaching. He was so famous that Karl Barth, I think Karl Barth went to hear him. So did Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

A lot of very famous people were positively impacted by Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt because of his powerful ministry. But he reminded me of Jesus here that he became somewhat disgusted that people wanted only to be healed. They only cared about their physical relief.

They didn't care about their souls. And Jesus was concerned about this too. His miracles did bring physical relief and fed hungry people and so forth.

But that people didn't care about the real issues, the eternal life that he came to give them made him rebuke them and caused him to give this sermon, which is a sermon of rebuke that offended them and caused most of them to leave him. So he says, Don't labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal upon him. That is upon Jesus.

Then they said to him, What shall we do that we may work the works of God? Jesus answered and said to them, This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent. Now, that's a pretty well-known scripture. At least I grew up knowing this scripture.

This is the works of God that you may believe on him who has sent. The context of it is this. Jesus said you need to work.

You need to labor to obtain that food that endures to eternal life. And they said, Well, what is that work that God has prescribed for us to do? By implication, to obtain this food that we're supposed to work for, that endures to everlasting life. And he says the work that God has prescribed for you is just to believe.

Unfortunately, some people have decided on the basis of this statement that faith or believing has got to be included in the category of works because Jesus said this is the work of God that you believe. And so, this is particularly an argument used by Calvinists who believe that God cannot place any condition upon us for salvation, even faith, because if we're saved by our faith, then that's a work. And we're not saved by works.

We're saved by faith. And therefore, we can't even be saved by faith because that would be saved by works because faith is a work. So they say.

And they base it pretty much on this scripture. But they're missing the point. Jesus is saying you need to strive and labor to get the word of God, to get that which is going to feed you and confer to you eternal life.

And they're saying what work is it that does that? And he says, well, you know, just continue to use the expression. They said, what work are we to do? Well, the work you're supposed to do is to believe, which isn't really any work at all, really. It's ironic.

It's an ironic statement. Yeah, you got to work to get it. Here's the work you do, just believe.

Believing is not work. And I was once in a debate with a Calvinist in a certain location, and they opened up after for questions so people in the audience could say things and ask. And the guy who was debating was making this very point, saying, you know, we can't believe without God first regenerating us.

You know, that's the Calvinist view. You have to be regenerated before you can believe. And otherwise, if we could just believe on our own, then that's a work, and we could save ourselves by our works, the work of believing.

And I was making the point that the Bible teaches that faith is actually not a work. And one of the guys who asked the question in the audience said, he says, well, maybe the Calvinists, maybe they think faith is work because it's hard work for them to believe, you know. And maybe to them, believing is work.

I think, well, yeah, if I thought the things they think about God, I'd have a hard time believing that too. It would be hard work to believe that. God is, you know, supposed to be, you know, merciful, and yet he chooses to send a whole bunch of people to hell just for his own glory instead of saving them all.

But the point here is that although Jesus says this is the work of God that you believe, he is not saying that when you believe you really have worked some kind of meritorious work. And Paul makes that very clear in a number of places. One is in, of course, well-known place, Ephesians 2, verse 8 and 9. He says, by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.

What is? Now, Calvinists say faith is. That's not what it says. It's not faith that's a gift of God.

Salvation is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Now, is that ambiguous in the original? Is Paul saying that faith is a gift of God? That's what Calvinists believe he meant. But it can't really mean that.

Because faith is a feminine word in the Greek, and the word it, it is the grace of God. It is a neuter pronoun. In the Greek grammar, the pronoun must agree, or it's expected to agree with the noun that it's antecedent.

So, there is a feminine form of it that would go with a feminine noun like faith. But that's not used here. Faith, a feminine noun, is the means by which we're saved.

It, which is not of works, but is the gift of God, is salvation itself. And so, salvation is not of works. It is of faith.

It, salvation, is the gift of God, given through faith, not of works. And in Romans chapter 4, Paul states as strongly as could be hoped, for anyone to ever make a thing clear, that salvation by faith is the opposite of believing in salvation by works. For example, if you look at Romans 3, first of all, 3 and 4, there's some verses here.

Romans 3, 27. Where is boasting then? It's excluded. By what law? Now, the word law here means by what principle? Just like we talk about the law of gravity.

It's a principle. It's not some kind of legislation. This is how the word law is used in this section.

So, by what principle, then, is boasting excluded? Of works? No, but by the principle of faith. Now, he's just made a distinction between the principle of being saved by works and the principle of being saved by faith. Therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith, apart from the deeds, that is the works, of the law.

And then, a little further down in chapter 4, in verse 2, he says, For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something of which to boast, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God, that's faith, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Paul says in verses 4 and 5, Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace, but as debt.

But to him who does not work, but believes, that's faith. A person who does not work, but who believes, on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted to him for righteousness. Paul says there's two possible ways of looking at salvation.

One would be that it's by works. The opposite way is that it's by faith. If it's saved by faith, it's not by works.

So, Paul is very adamant that faith is not a work, not a work in the sense of some kind of meritorious work that earns a wage, and that you could boast about. Faith is simply a beggar putting his hand out to receive a coin from a donor. Is that working for money? A man who goes out and works hard and earns that wage, well, he might boast of how much money he made, because he did make it with his own sweat and his own labor.

But a beggar who just puts out his hand and receives it, faith is just putting out your hand to receive. Is that a work? Well, I guess you do have to lift your hand. That's a little hard.

After all, Solomon said the sluggard buries his hand in his clothes. It grieves him even to put it out to the dish to lift food to his mouth. Solomon's saying that sluggards are so lazy, it's a hyperbole, that they can't even feed themselves.

That's too much work for them. But, of course, that's not really true. Nobody's that sluggardly.

And when a beggar puts out his hand to receive a coin, he's not working for it. He doesn't have something of which he can boast. And so it should not, you know, a statement like this of Jesus should not be pressed into the service of a particular doctrine that doesn't have support elsewhere in Scripture.

He is simply saying, Oh, you want to know what to do to work to get this bread? Here's the work. Believe. And it's an ironic statement, because, of course, believing is the opposite.

It's not work. You don't have to work for it. You just have to believe in Him who is sent.

Now, of course, this is going to be important that we pay heed to. This is his theme. Because he's going to talk about eating his flesh and drinking his blood.

And we're going to have to ask, what does that mean? What it really means is believe. That's what it means, as we shall see. Therefore they said to him, verse 30, What sign do you perform then that we may see it and believe you? What work will you do? Now, I mean, what was wrong with what he did the previous day? You know, well, we'd like to see more than that.

Our fathers ate manna in the desert. As it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat. Now, that is a quotation from Psalm 78, 24.

I'm not sure why they quoted that Psalm rather than say something from Exodus, where it actually tells the story. But that's a good summary of what God did. He, that is God, gave them bread to eat from heaven.

Now, they were saying that Moses did that. Our fathers ate manna. They're suggesting that Moses did that, and the Messiah should be able to do what Moses did.

Because he's the second Moses. And then Jesus said to them, Most assuredly I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.

That's, of course, Jesus. Then they said to him, Lord, give us this bread always. Now, you can see they're doing the same thing that the woman at the well did.

Jesus said, well, you know, I can give you living water. She said, well, you don't have a bucket. Well, nonetheless, I can give you living water that you'll never thirst again.

And she said, oh, give me that water then, so I don't ever have to come here and draw water again. These people are either being sarcastic, or they actually think they should talk about something physical. But it's clear that they are not really asking for something spiritual.

They're thinking of bread, physical bread. And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Okay, you want the bread? Here I am.

I'm the bread of life. You've got to receive me, just like you received that food into your mouth the previous day. You have to receive me into yourself as well.

You have to open yourself up and consume the words that I'm bringing. And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never hunger.

He who believes in me shall never thirst. So what is it that quenches hunger and thirst? Coming to him and believing in him. That's important to note, because later he's going to say the same thing about eating his flesh and drinking his blood.

Whoever does that, it's going to satisfy their hunger and thirst. But that's figurative. What's it figurative for? It's figurative for this.

Eating, coming, and believing. That's how you eat and drink. Both actions are said to be that which quenches hunger permanently.

This is a spiritual hunger, not physical. He's not talking about eating something physically. But I said to you that you have seen me, and yet you do not believe.

He said that over in Chapter 5. Not the exact words, but he pointed out to the Pharisees on that occasion that they had seen and heard the witnesses and his works and so forth, but they still wouldn't believe in him. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will by no means cast out. For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.

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. 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. The Jews then murmured against him because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven.

And they said, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it that he says, I have come down from heaven? Jesus therefore answered and said to them, do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, and they shall all be taught by God.

Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from me comes to me. Now, I wanted to read all of these verses before commenting because this section alone has three of the most important proof texts that Calvinists use to prove unconditional election, irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints, the main points of the Calvinist platform. The first of those that seems to serve them so well is in verse 37.

All that the Father gives me will come to me. And the other part of that is, and the one who comes to me I will by no means cast out. Now that last part they feel is an eternal security verse.

The one who comes to me I will no wise cast out. It's similar to I will never leave you nor forsake you. It's actually a promise that he will not reject those who come to him, of course, on proper terms.

These people were coming to him, but they're going to get cast out because they weren't coming to him on his terms, but on theirs. But he's talking about those who come to him by faith. As he said earlier in verse 35, he that comes to me, he that believes in me shall never thirst.

Now, the one who comes to me, I'm not going to cast him out. He's not going to reject anyone who comes to him on his terms. Now, this does not mean that they will never depart from him.

That's an entirely different question. And, of course, maybe they won't. Maybe that is taught in scripture.

Maybe people will persevere. But this verse doesn't say so. It doesn't talk about that.

It says what his attitude will be toward those who come to him, not what theirs will be when they have come. So this is not some kind of a guarantee that people who come to him will never depart from him, only that he will not be the one to cast them out. It's like when he said, the father who gave them to me is greater than all and no one can pluck them out of my father's hand.

Well, that's just saying that God is stronger than anyone else when they try to pluck you out of his hand. And, therefore, no one can do that. Can you wander from him? This is in the context of my sheep.

Well, of course sheep can wander from him. Jesus told a parable about a lost sheep that wandered off from the shepherd. The shepherd went after him.

Isaiah says, all we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his own way. So, of course sheep can wander away.

But no one can steal them from him. If you're one of his sheep, it is, of course, an open question whether you can wander off and cease to be one of his sheep. But what is not an open question is whether you, while desiring to be with him, can be forced to leave him by either his choice or anyone else's.

No. When you are committed to Christ, he will remain committed to you and no one can remove you against your wishes from him. But this first part of verse 37, all that the Father gives me will come to me.

Now, this statement, all that the Father gives me, is one that is often used as if Jesus is talking about some group called the elect. That concept of the elect is simply read into this concept of the ones the Father gives me. The understanding of most, well, the Calvinists, who are the ones who make most of this verse, the understanding they have is that there are a group of people that from the beginning of the world were chosen by God to become Christians and the rest were not.

And no one can come to Jesus unless they're in that group before they were born. God is, there's a certain number that can't be added to or taken away from. And you may or may not have been born to that destiny.

You may not know. You can't tell. You never know until you really die faithful.

If you die faithful, then you know you were there in the list. If you don't, you've always got to wonder. Because even if you come to Christ, you can't be sure because if you fall away, then you weren't in that number.

And falling away is something that some people do. So, the idea is there's this number that only God knows who they are and how many they are and even they don't know who they are. And yet, they are the ones that God has given to Christ.

And he says, all that the Father gives me, and Calvinists just read into that the idea of all the elect, will come to me. That's like, sounds like irresistible grace. It's inevitable.

If God has elected them, they'll come to Christ. That's the Calvinist doctrine of irresistible grace. You will inevitably and irresistibly be drawn to Christ if you are elect.

If you're not elect, then you won't. And this is the verse they use to prove that. The problem is they're not really paying close enough attention to the terminology Jesus uses and trying to understand what it means.

Because he also says, in verses 44 and 45, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up at the last day. So, you're going to be drawn by God. That's also considered to be a statement about irresistible grace, the drawing of God that's irresistible.

But it doesn't say anything about an irresistible drawing. It just says God has to draw you or you won't come. It doesn't say whether that drawing is irresistible or not.

But that irresistible part is taken from verse 37. But it says then, in verse 45, it is written in the prophets, they are all taught by God. They shall all be taught by God.

Therefore, notice the last part of verse 45, everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Now, who comes to him? In verse 37, it says, all that the Father gives me will come to me. Here it says, all who have heard and learned from the Father will come to me.

So, who are the people that the Father gives him? The ones who have already previously listened to God. Those who are already believers in Israel. When Jesus arrived, there was a remnant in Israel who were believers.

They were the faithful remnant in Israel as opposed to the apostate majority. They were people who had already been listening to God. They were the ones who heard Moses and the prophets.

Remember the story of Lazarus and the rich man. If they don't listen to Moses and the prophets, they won't believe in one who rises from the dead either. Well, that's a statement that's saying, the ones in Israel who would believe in Jesus were the ones who were already listening to God, listening to Moses and the prophets.

There were some who did. They were in the minority, but there were some who were already those who had heard and learned from God speaking to them. They are the ones who come to him.

They're the ones the Father gave him. They were already God's people. They're not God's people because they were on some kind of a hidden list somewhere.

And that, you know, they were on that list from before they were born. They're God's people because they'd already made some choices earlier in their life before Jesus ever was on the scene. They had earlier in their life chosen to be obedient to God.

And because they were, they were already God's people before Jesus came and preached to them. And because they were God's people, God transferred them over to Jesus. You see, in every generation of Israel, even in the Old Testament, there was a remnant who were faithful and usually a majority that were apostate.

There really was, as far as we know, never a time in Israel's history more than, say, a few minutes when most of the Jews were pious and faithful. They didn't have their moments. But God said through Hosea, Oh, Israel, your love for me is like the dew on the grass.

It vaporizes into the air very quickly. It disappears. But there were some who were steadily faithful to God.

They were the faithful remnant when the faithfulness of the population in general went up and down and mostly down. So they were God's people at all times. And whenever a prophet came to Israel in the Old Testament, the faithful remnant listened to him.

Why? Because they were faithful. They wanted to hear the word of God and they wanted to respond. Most of the nations killed the prophets.

Most of Israel wanted to kill the prophets, and that's what they did with most of them. So consistently, in fact, that Jesus said it could hardly be, he said it cannot be that a prophet would perish outside Jerusalem. That is, the people of Jerusalem wouldn't let anyone else have the chance to kill him.

They're so zealous about killing their own prophets. You could hardly find a prophet killed anywhere else. That's how the Jews usually responded to their prophets.

But there was always a remnant who listened to the prophets. They were the ones throughout the Jewish history that were the consistent witness for God. And so when Jesus came, he came to Israel.

And there was a remnant like that. The parents of John the Baptist were like that. Mary and Joseph were like that.

There were others. Simeon in the temple when Jesus was a baby. He was certainly part of the faithful remnant.

Anna was part of the faithful remnant. And when she saw Jesus as a baby, she went out and spoke to others that she knew who were looking for the redemption of Israel. There was a core.

There were some faithful people there. And they were the ones who became Jesus' disciples, just like they would have become those followers of any prophet God would have sent. If they're the faithful remnant, they'll listen to God's prophets.

This time it was John the Baptist and Jesus came. And, of course, they followed him. Now what that means, of course, is the faithful remnant of Israel became what we call the disciples of Jesus.

Also later called the church. But Jesus when he says, those that the Father gives me will come to me, he's not talking about an irresistible grace exercise on people who are unbelievers and forced to become believers by some kind of tractor beam that God had that turned them around against their will. He's talking about people who already were on the Father's side and quite willing to be directed by the Father to the Messiah or to any prophet.

Any spokesman for God, they would have received him. And we see that in John chapter 17, where Jesus also talks about those that the Father has given him. In John 17, in verse 6, Jesus is praying.

And in John 17, verse 6, he says, I have manifested your name to the men whom you have given me. These are the ones that he said, all that the Father has given me will come to me. I have manifested your name to the ones that you have given me out of the world.

He says, they were yours and you gave them to me. Now, they weren't the devil's people. They were God's people.

Before they were given to Jesus, they weren't unregenerate people who happened to be elected and then they were forcibly made to become believers by some divine decree. These were people who already were God's people, God's remnant. And God says, okay, remnant, you people who love me, here's my son, follow him.

This is my son, hear him. And so the Father gave those Jews that were already his, gave them to Jesus. So when Jesus says, all that the Father gives me will come to me, he's just making a prediction that was predictable.

Those who already were faithful to God, those who already had been taught of God, had heard and learned from him, as it says in verse 45, they will come to me. And he had said the same thing in reverse at the end of chapter 5. Because he said in verse 46 to the Pharisees, he said in John 5, verse 46, for if you believed Moses, you would believe me. That is, if you were of that remnant who were true believers in the old covenant, if you were the faithful remnant of the old covenant, the ones who really heard Moses and believed what he said, well, then you would be transferred over to me, you'd believe me too.

Because that's the people who believed Jesus, the ones who already had a heart for God. The disciples of Jesus, the apostles, they weren't just some kind of scumbags that God just touched their hearts to turn around and become Christians. They were part of the faithful remnant.

Before Jesus met them, they were hanging out with John the Baptist. They were people who had already turned to God before they turned to Jesus. And the Father gave them to Jesus.

So there's not something here about some kind of hidden decree of election or something. This is just predictable. The people who already belong to my Father, well, they're going to come to me, obviously.

Because they've already heard and learned from my Father. And so they come to me. So there's no statement here that in any sense supports the notion that the Calvinists try to draw from it.

However, verse 44 needs to be considered because he says, No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. Now, frankly, Calvinists and non-Calvinists would agree with this. Before anyone really comes to Christ, God has done a great deal to prepare them and to attract them to him.

We have no problem admitting this. The difference is that the Calvinist says this drawing of God is irresistible. You see, I would say that God is seeking to draw every man.

Jesus said in John 16, When the Spirit comes, he'll convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment. Well, that's, if you're someone in the world and you're being convicted of sin and righteousness and judgment, that's part of God's way of trying to draw you to Christ. His conviction.

Also, Paul said in Romans 2, The goodness of God is to lead you to repentance. Everyone has experienced mercy from God. And that's supposed to lead you to repentance.

And there's other things, too. There might be any number of ways in which God draws people to Jesus. But those are not irresistible ways.

The goodness of God may lead some people to repentance, but the goodness of God doesn't lead everyone to repentance. Some will not repent, even though the goodness of God should lead them that way. They resist that.

As we see in Romans 2, if you'd look there. In Romans 2, in verse 4, Wait a minute. He says, The goodness of God to you is what leads to repentance.

But you are treasuring up wrath for yourself out of the hardness of your heart. God is good to you, but it's not working. It should, but in your case, it isn't.

This drawing is resistible. And the conviction of the Holy Spirit is resistible. On the day of Pentecost, when Peter preached, it says, The people who heard him were pricked in their hearts.

They were convicted. And they said, What must we do? And they got saved. But later on, when Stephen preached to the Sanhedrin, it says, They were pricked in their hearts too.

And what did they do? They killed him. Both groups were pricked in their hearts. Both groups were convicted by what they heard.

The group on Pentecost were convicted and they got saved. The group in the Sanhedrin heard Stephen. They were convicted and they killed him.

They didn't get saved. Now, it's interesting that when Saul, who was one of them, later was on the road to Damascus and Jesus apprehended him, Jesus said, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the pricks, it says in the King James. Kick against the goads, the ox goad.

You know what an ox goad is? It's a sharp, sticky prod, a cattle prod. It's to get a cow to move when it's stubborn. It's a sharp stick.

Now, if a cow is really stubborn and you're poking it with this goad, this prod, if he kicked against it, his rebellion would only injure him. He'd just puncture himself. He'd just get hurt more by kicking against the goad.

He's better just to let the goad direct him and he won't get punctured. That's the idea. So Jesus said to Saul, he said, it's hard for you to kick against the goads.

What's he saying? You've been goaded by me for some time and you're resisting, you're kicking. Now, in this case, Saul's resistance broke down, but it's clear that the conviction he'd been feeling, probably at least from the time that he'd seen Stephen's face like the face of an angel, saying, Father, do not lay this sin to their charge. That's the first time Saul is seen in the picture at all and he saw that.

That probably convicted him. And he was very adamantly trying to stamp out Christianity, but all the time he was convicted. But he was kicking against it.

God's goading can be kicked against. And some people successfully resist it. God draws us by conviction and by his benevolence and his goodness and his blessings.

This is the thing that's to draw us to him, but it doesn't always work on everybody. Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 23 to Jerusalem in verse 37, Matthew 23, 37. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her.

How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Jesus says, I've been trying to gather you. I've wanted to draw you, but there's something resisting and it's you.

My drawing, my gathering desire is, well, it's not irresistible, obviously. They resisted. Look at Jeremiah chapter three.

I'm sorry, chapter 31, verse three, my mistake. In Jeremiah chapter 31 and verse three, he says to Israel, the Lord has appeared of old to me saying, yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love. This is that God that said to be so full of wrath in the Old Testament by people who never read the Old Testament.

He says, no, I've loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore, with loving kindness, I have drawn you. The goodness of God is to lead you to repentance with loving kindness, with my kindness to you, with my faithfulness to you, with all the blessings I've given you, with all the generosity and grace I've shown you.

By that means I have drawn you. But did they come? Mostly not. And look at Hosea chapter 11.

Hosea is right after Daniel. Assuming you know where Daniel is. In Hosea chapter 11, talking about Israel's early history when they first came out of Egypt, he says in verse three, I taught Ephraim to walk.

Ephraim here is just a term for the whole nation of Israel. And it's talking about after they came out of Egypt. I taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by their arms, like a parent would sort of guide their child in the steps of first learning to walk.

But they did not know that I healed them. I drew them with gentle cords, with bands of love. Here's the drawing of God.

I was drawing them with these gentle cords of love. I was to them as those who take the yoke from their neck and I stooped down and fed them. Now he says, I was drawing them with my loving kindness.

But look at what he says in verse seven. My people are bent on backsliding from me. He drew them, but they backslide.

His drawing is not irresistible. And so, although Jesus said, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him, it doesn't translate into, and if my father draws him, he will necessarily come. It's simply that God's drawing is a necessary but not sufficient cause of people coming.

You know that distinction? It's a necessary but not sufficient cause. No one can come unless that cause is present. It's necessary to have God draw you if you're going to come.

But it's not a sufficient cause of you coming. There has to be another factor. God can be drawing, God can be evicting, but you also have a will yourself.

And so, these verses do not teach what they are popularly made to teach by those who are trying to use them as proof text for the Calvinist theology. By the way, there's another verse in this that is used by Calvinists. It's verse 39, where Jesus said, 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.

Again, the idea of perseverance of the saints. If God gives someone to Jesus, it's God's will that Jesus would not lose any of them. Alright, well then the question is, is God's will always done? God doesn't want Jesus to lose any of the ones that the father gave him.

But, does that prevent them from being lost just because God doesn't want it? Is everything that happens on earth what God wants? I don't think so. Calvinists would say yes. They think his sovereignty means that he makes everything happen that he wants to happen.

That he's ordained all things. But, that's not what sovereignty means in the Bible or elsewhere. But, the point here is, we know for a fact that it is possible for Jesus to lose one that the father has given him.

And, Jesus says so himself in John chapter 17. When he's praying in John 17 and verse 12, Jesus is giving a report back to his father of how he's done. Sort of a progress report.

Reporting back to headquarters. He says, While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name. Those whom you gave me, isn't that the ones that God gave him? Those whom you gave me, I have kept.

And, none of them is lost except one. Except the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled. Okay, so, Jesus said, The will of my father is that of all those he gave me, none would be lost.

But, Jesus says, Well, none of them were lost but one. Out of the 12, one. So, I did pretty good, but not perfect.

And, that wasn't Jesus' fault. He says, I have kept them. I didn't let go of them.

But, one of them ran off. God's will is not the only will that determines things that happen in the world. When God made man, he made man a creature unlike the animals.

The animals don't have any particular will of their own. They do what they're programmed to do. Calvinists think people are too.

But, there was, then why did God make people? He already had creatures in abundance that did what he programmed them to do. Why did he separately say, let's make something else more like ourselves. Let's make man in our own image.

Let's give him dominion. You see, dominion requires some kind of leadership. Requires some kind of ability and responsibility to make decisions and so forth.

He didn't give the animals dominion over anything. Because, they can't bear responsibility. They're not responsible creatures.

They don't have any freedom or ability to do anything except what they're programmed like robots to do. They do it rather perfectly. But, people don't.

Because, he made people capable of choosing. That's the only way he could make responsible parties. You can't have a responsible party if they don't have any ability to make any choices.

You can't hold someone responsible for doing the wrong thing if they had no choice in the matter. There's no responsibility there. So, he made something different.

Let's make someone like ourselves and give them dominion over everything. That means they're going to rule. That means they're going to have to make some decisions.

That means they're going to have to take charge. That means they're going to have to take responsibility. That means they're going to have to have some free choices.

Some choices that I'm leaving to them. I'm not going to be the one who has direct dominion. I'm going to delegate that to them.

That means I'm not going to make all the choices. They're going to make some of the choices. That's what ruling is.

Making choices. And so, of course man isn't programmed to do the right thing like animals are. The animals always do God's will.

Man doesn't. It's God's will that Jesus should lose none. It's also God's will that none should perish but that all should come to repentance, it says in 2 Peter 3. God's not willing that any should perish, but some do.

In 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul said, this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that you should avoid fornication. Well, the will of God is that everyone would avoid fornication. Do they? Apparently God's will isn't always done.

Why not? There must be some other wills involved. And there are. That's why Jesus could say, I willed to gather you as a hen gathers her chickens in a ring.

But you willed something else and it went another way than what I wanted. And so, when Jesus says, this is the will of God that of all that he's given me, I should lose nothing. Well, he's just stating what God wants.

He's not stating what necessarily is. And he states very clearly that God's will was not completely done. When Judas was lost, he was one of those that the Father gave him.

That's what he means when he says, all the ones you gave me, I haven't lost any except one. One was lost. Now, he does say, so that the scripture might be fulfilled.

And some might say, well, that cancels out Judas as an exception because that was the will of God for Judas to do that. So, God's will was for him to lose none except it was his will for him to lose that one because it was to fulfill scripture. But actually, that suggests that the prophecies were made describing what God wanted to happen.

And then God kind of made it happen. I believe that the prophecies about Judas did not prescribe what Judas must do. I think what Judas would do, prescribe what the prophecies must predict.

Judas was a free agent. He could have done what he wanted to do. That's why he was responsible.

If he had no choice, he was not responsible. He couldn't be the son of perdition. It couldn't be worse for him than if he'd never been born, as Jesus said.

He could not be punished legitimately if he was just acting out a role like a robot that was programmed to do it. You can't punish a robot for that. You can't punish a dog for being a dog.

You can abuse the dog if it makes you angry, but you're not a very good person if you do that. You're not being fair. So Judas, he did what he did and it fulfilled prophecy.

Of course, prophecy had to be fulfilled because prophecy is true. But it's not the prophecy that dictated that he must do that. It's the fact that he was going to do that that dictated that the prophecy would predict it.

And one might argue that if we are using that argument that while Judas can be an exception to the general rule because it was predicted that he'd depart, well, maybe there's other exceptions because Paul said in the last days, many shall depart from the faith. Well, maybe a lot of people who were given to him will have to depart to fulfill prophecy too. But of course, it's not that God is going to dictate that these people must.

It's that he predicted that they will because they will. Not, I mean, no one can justly say that Jesus is here predicting that none will be lost just because he said it's the will of God that they should not be. By the way, in case you're worried about it, we're not going to finish this chapter tonight.

We'll get to the Catholic issues next time. But look at Isaiah chapter 66, if you would. Isaiah 66.

God is saying that the Israelites, though, they were still offering sacrifices at the temple. Their lives were so much far from God, so much in rebellion against God, that even their acts of worship were an abomination to him. As it says in Proverbs, the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to God.

These people were wicked and they were still practicing the sacrificial rites in the temple. But he says, you might as well be sacrificing a pig, as far as I'm concerned, because although you're really sacrificing a lamb or a bull, I'm not any more pleased with it than if it was a pig because you're a pig, because you're unclean. Okay? And he says in verse 3, he who kills a bull is as if he slays a man.

Now, what he's saying is, yeah, you're offering bulls, but it's so unacceptable to me, you might as well be murdering a human being, as far as the credit I'm giving you for it. He who sacrifices a lamb, it's as if he broke a dog's neck and offered a dog. He who offers grain offering, it's as if he was offering swine's blood.

I mean, these are grotesque suggestions intended to show how disgusted God is with these people, even though they're offering lambs and bulls and so forth. It says, he who burns incense is as if he blesses an idol. Now notice, this is the verse, the line I wanted to get to in the following verse.

Just as they have chosen their own ways and their soul delights in their abominations, so will I choose their delusions and bring their fears on them, because when I called, no one answered. When I spoke, they did not hear, but they did evil before my eyes and chose that in which I do not delight. Now, who's making the choices here? God would have delighted in them doing something, but they chose the opposite.

He called, suggesting he was trying to gather them, and they would not hear and would not come. He says, they have chosen their own ways, therefore I will choose their delusions. In other words, that's like Proverbs says.

Proverbs says, you know, that God, the preparation's the heart of man, but it's essentially, it's outcome is from the Lord. Man, whatever, man proposes, but God disposes, I think is how it goes. It's not, I mean, that's sort of a summary of what the Proverbs says.

It's not stated that way. But the idea is, they chose their own way, but I'm not gonna let them choose the outcome. They chose the way I didn't delight in, so I'm gonna choose how it's gonna turn out for them.

It's gonna turn out bad for them. And that's how God is. He lets you choose whether you'll be in rebellion against him or submission, but then he is still sovereign.

You can't choose to be in rebellion and choose to get away with it. That part you don't choose. And yet, it's very clear that these people chose their own way, what God did not delight.

He didn't want them to do it. He called them, but they resisted. There's no teaching of scripture that would say that everybody that God wishes to save gets saved.

The opposite is stated so many times. And so, to press these verses in John chapter six into the mold of that kind of a framework is to make Jesus be saying something that he's not saying. And by the way, what a strange thing it would be if he was saying that to these people on this occasion.

Think about it. That's another thing that, whenever people have a wrong doctrine and they find a group of proof texts to prove their wrong doctrine, they're clearly taking the proof text wrong because you can't rightly interpret proof text to prove something that's not right. But what they usually do is they act as if those proof texts stand in a vacuum without any context.

And that somehow, Jesus was wanting to talk about the doctrines of Calvinism here. That he was trying to affirm unconditional election and irresistible grace and perseverance of the saints. What would be the point of him affirming those things here? You see, Calvinists take those doctrines as a comfort to believers.

It's a comfort to me that I will persevere. It's a comfort that if I'm chosen, that I will not drift away from him, that I will be drawn to him. They see these doctrines as doctrines of grace.

These are doctrines, they call them the doctrines of grace. These are the doctrines that give them comfort. Why would Jesus launch into a sermon guaranteeing these people some kind of comfort when he's saying you're totally wrong in your heart? He'd be making no such guarantees to them.

Now, the Calvinist would say, well yeah, but he's saying they are not. These are promises that they can't cash in on because they are not the elect. And he's telling them, the reason you're not coming to me is because you can't, because the Father's not drawing you.

You can't because you're not the elect. If you were, you would come. But what would be the point of saying that to people who can't come? It's like, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, you can't come, but I'm going to hold it against you anyway.

What's the point of giving a sermon like that? It's senseless. I mean, even if it were a true doctrine, why tell anyone? What are you going to accomplish that way? You people can't come. Okay, so why are you talking to us then? Well, I just wanted you to know, you can't come.

God doesn't love you. Don't even try. Oh, of course you won't try because you're not elect.

So, you know, it makes absolutely no sense. If these doctrines were true, it would never make any sense to tell anyone about them. And it certainly wouldn't make any sense for Jesus to be making those points here.

So what he's saying is this. He's saying, among you, there are some of you who've already had the right heart toward God. Some of you have used the opportunities that existed in being in Israel, knowing the law of God, and instead of just ignoring it, you've pursued God.

You've believed Moses. You have positioned yourself among the faithful remnant. Those of you who have done that will certainly recognize me as God's spokesman and will come to me, and I won't cast you out.

There are, however, some of you who haven't done that. But he's not saying, na-na-na-na-na, you can't. Obviously, there'd be no reason to tell them that.

If he's telling them, there's some of you who aren't in that class, by implication, you should be, you'd better be. You're missing out. Those who have already been faithful to God, they're coming to me.

Those who have heard from Him and learned from Him, they're coming to me. If you're not, then just know that this means that you have not yet been faithful even to the earlier revelation. You're several steps behind those who are coming, but that doesn't mean you can't traverse those steps and come to.

I'm not saying that Jesus is saying all that, but all of that is certainly implied, certainly more than Him saying, well, you people, I just want to give a long speech to people who can't respond to me anyway. Just because, you know, I just have a lot of things on my mind. I want to get off my chest.

I think Jesus, you know, I think He really spoke to people because He hoped to get some kind of a response, which would be impossible if what He is saying is what Calvinists say He's saying. These are proof texts for Calvinism, but like all proof texts, they are taken out of context and things are read into them that aren't there. No one can come to me except the Father who sent me draws Him.

Well, fine. I agree with that. No one can come to Jesus and take all the credit for it for themselves.

Like I said, they're a beggar. They're receiving something that God's offering. You know, I could never say that I brought myself to Christ.

I don't even remember when I came to Christ. I had every opportunity handed to me from the time I was born. I was in a Christian home, or at least if I hadn't been, which I was, I could say I was in a Christian country.

You know, if I had not been in a Christian country and I received Christ, because God sent missionaries to me, I wouldn't have come if they hadn't come to me. I mean, no one can come to Christ unless somebody comes to them first in the name of Christ. Nobody is the first cause in their own salvation.

We are called upon to respond to God's prior wooing. The goodness of God is to lead us to repentance, and all people have experienced so much goodness that no one can say, I came to Christ just kind of in a vacuum. No, you didn't.

You received a great amount of blessings throughout your life. One of them is breath. One of them is that you're alive at all.

One is that you're not deaf and you can hear the word preached. One is that the word came to you and you didn't live somewhere where it never came. There's all kinds of things God has done to make you come to him, but he's done all those same things to your next door neighbor too, and they didn't come.

So God can draw and draw and draw, and people can say no and no and no. And so this is his rebuke really to those who were not coming to him. There's more, of course, next time he starts talking about eat my flesh, drink my blood, and then we're getting away from the Calvinist controversy into a different controversy, the Roman Catholic controversy.

What does he mean? Eat his flesh, drink his blood. You see, if the Roman Catholic Church is correct, Jesus ordained the apostles and only them to be able to transform the elements of the Eucharist into the real flesh and real blood of Jesus. And you have to eat the flesh and blood of Jesus to have eternal life in you, Jesus said.

So you need to eat those elements that are consecrated by a Roman Catholic priest because only they have been ordained by a bishop who's a successor to the apostles. This is how it goes. So the Roman Catholic Church has the monopoly on salvation because only there do they have priests who've been ordained by bishops who are the successors of the apostles who have the authority to turn the elements into the body and blood of Christ, which you have to eat to have eternal life.

Your Baptist church can't do that for you. Your Methodist church, your Presbyterian church can't do that. They don't have those priests there.

And so this is the Catholic way of holding a monopoly on salvation. And yet it's a total misunderstanding of what Jesus said here. And I'll show you why when we get to it next time.

I thought we might get it tonight, but what a silly thing to think. So we'll stop there.