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The Gospel of John, The Period of Controversy, The Claims of Jesus Christ, Jesus as the Bread of Life, Part X, John 6:27-29, Lesson 40
Read Verses John 6:27-35
Verse 6:27 Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.
Jesus Christ tells us what is important. He always gives us that which edifies unto life eternal.
He does not waste time on the frivolous but always instructs for our eternal benefit. His teaching asks the question.
What profit is there if they should gain all the bread in the whole world and all the fish of the sea and lose that which could, by God's grace, endure unto everlasting life?
This is the same message the Jesus proclaims in the gospel of Luke when he says to strive to enter at the strait gate, and again in Luke when he says that every man presseth into it, and when he tells us to seek and ye shall find.
He not only says these important words but he states that he has the full endorsement of God.
Anyone can say these words but when they come from Jesus they come from God.
He reminds them that he has the seal of God upon him.
He tells them "for him hath God the Father sealed."
Sealing means identification and attestation or ratification.
God sealed the 144,000 of Revelation and that seal identified them as God's own messengers as distinguished from apostate Israel.
The mark of the beast in Revelation will be the seal that identifies and attests that the lost belong to the Antichrist.
The king's ring in Esther was used to attest or ratify the kings writing that it was the kings and no man could reverse.
The writings were sealed.
So too Jesus was sealed by the Father at his baptism.
He was identified by the Father as his beloved Son and his perfection was accredited when God said that in him I am well pleased.
The Father sealed him with the Holy Spirit as he also seals us as his own.
The Holy Spirit is our seal.
By this statement he claims authority to act for the Father.
He is divinely authorized to give them the priority of life.
They and we are fully expected to obey his commands.
Verse 6:28, Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? 29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.
Jesus told them to labor for the meat that does not perish.
What are these labors?
What are these tasks that we must do, they ask?
What are these works of God, works that he requires, works that they assume to be God's requirement for obtaining spiritual food
They labored and did tasks in order to gain the bread that molded so they reasoned that they too must labor in the same way for eternal life.
The Jews were doers, they liked to do.
Moses told them observe to do all the words of this law.
It was natural to ask, "What must we do?"
How can we gain favor with God?
What good works must we do?
What is the work of God?
What pleases God?
We must have to do something to show off to God!
We must have to earn his favor do we not?
We have to do work, don't we?
But Jesus simply tells them that the work of God is to believe on the one whom God has sent.
That is what God requires.
Not a work of the hands or the feet or the body but a work of the heart; faith and trust in Jesus as the Son of God and the Savior of man.
God had told them many times that he would send a messenger and this messenger stood before them.
He tells them that the work of God is to receive him, to trust him, to recognize that they have nothing to offer God, that they have sinned against a Holy God and that they must leave the work to Jesus.
But man would rather "do" than "believe."
Doing panders to his pride, it provides him with a platform where he can boast and glory about his work.
If man were to accept another's work he must admit his own work as useless and without merit or usefulness.
He must admit that all of his works are as filthy rags and that any works he performs are hopeless to gain entrance into eternal life.
He must labor to find another who will work for him, one whose works he can appropriate as his own and be saved by another.
Jesus claims that power to save.
Jesus says that he is the one that God hath sent.
Jesus tells them that he is the one on whom they are to believe.
The desire of his heart is not to attract people to what he gives, but to himself.
Not to the things that people can get out of Jesus Christ but to Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
He wants nothing more than to have them exhibit faith and trust in him.
Nothing more complicated than that.
But note their continuing unbelief and blindness as we read in: |