We
are at Kam’yne in Ukraine, a village near Zaporozhye. We were passing out invitations to youth and
church meetings when we encountered a man who was obviously Orthodox. He saw on our invitation “Acts 16:31: believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you
will be saved.” He contradicted
this, saying these were the words of Jesus’ followers but that in John’s Gospel
Jesus said that we must believe AND do something ourselves. When we asked him where it said this he
referred to today’s passage: we must “eat the bread” the man said, meaning the
bread of the Eucharist. Was he
right? Absolutely not. Here’s why.
·
John is the Gospel
of Belief telling us numerous times that eternal life is the present
possession of those who have believed (e.g. John 3:16; 5:24). Further, John 1:12 says that faith in Jesus’
name makes us children of God. The
purpose of John (20:30-31) says that by faith we have life in His name. Our
passage (v47) says the same: he who
believes in Me HAS everlasting life. Then He says, I am the bread of life. In
other words it is believing in the bread
of life that brings eternal life.
·
Jesus says plainly (v58) not to take this
literally, as eating literal food. He
says, not as your fathers ate the manna,
and are dead. As is so often the
case, something physical or earthly in the Old Testament has a spiritual or
heavenly understanding in the New.
·
This being the 500th Anniversary of
the Reformation we should note what some of the reformers pointed out. They said that to take this literally, as do
Catholics and Orthodox, is to be called to cannibalism. Just think about it.
·
But still, how are we to understand Jesus’
words? We would say that He is spiritual
bread and spiritual drink.
o How
else can Jesus say that by faith we have eternal life and that by eating His
flesh and drinking His blood we have eternal life (v54). It is because the eating and drinking are
pictures of faith even as the bread and blood are pictures of His provision.
o In
addition, let us ask about other similar statements of Jesus in John’s
gospel. Is Jesus really a grape vine and are we really
branches of the vine (15:1)? No. Is Jesus an actual door (10:9)? Is Jesus an actual good shepherd and we
actual sheep (10:11)? And on and
on. These are some of the most wonderful
pictures of Jesus because they tell us magnificent truths about our Lord. But they are just that: pictures! If you are going to take John 6 literally and
say the bread and cup is the actual or becomes the actual body and blood of
Jesus then you will need to establish sheep shearing ministries to shave off
all the body hair of the church members.
This doctrine is one to be avoided at all
costs, because to believe in faith PLUS works is to deny the work of
Christ. It is to trust in a gospel that
will not save. Preachers of any other
gospel are to be accursed (Gal. 1:8).
No comments:
Post a Comment