New Thoughts (01/26/08-01/31/08)
As a starting point for this portion of study, I want to pick up on a thought I expressed in looking at this passage from the ‘you were there’ perspective. If I were there on that shore, who was there with me? What was the makeup of that crowd which remained the next morning? As I see it, it’s a mixed crowd. There are some who have remained because they didn’t experience the physical healing they had come for. They may be too lame to depart. Maybe. Of course, they were not so lame that they couldn’t arrive. No, I think it is more a matter of desperation that keeps this group around. Jesus hadn’t announced that He was leaving, after all, so maybe He’d be back and now they had front-row seats.
The second group to be found on that hillside would be the curiosity seekers. I would include those who were hanging about hoping for another free lunch in that group. They didn’t really have any great physical need such as the first group did. Neither did they have any particular concern for their spiritual need. They just came for the entertainment.
Finally, there were certainly some in that crowd who remained because of what they had heard in the teaching of Jesus. They had caught a glimpse of the Kingdom and they wanted to see more, to know more. They are those that John was speaking of earlier. They heard Him. They saw what He had done and they recognized that the importance of those actions far exceeded the actions themselves. Food and healing were nice, but there was something far greater to be had in the Son of Man. These were the ones who were saying, “This is clearly the Prophet that Scripture promised” (Jn 6:14). They may also be the ones who thought to goad Jesus into claiming the throne (Jn 6:15). They were not perfect in their understanding, but at least they had a start.
What struck me about this picture is that it is very much a picture of the Church in our day. Who’s left? I read and hear all the reports that the Church by and large is in decline. Those who have tried to make it a profession and a business are, of course worried about it. Those who have confused patriotic pride with religious fervor are worried about it. I dare say that they have forgotten where their true citizenship lies! But, the reality is that the Church always has been and – so far as this present age goes – always will be a mixed bag. Like that crowd on the shore, there will be many who have come for all the wrong reasons. In fact, it seems all but certain that this describes the majority. There is a reason God speaks so constantly of a remnant. A remnant is hardly the lion’s share is it? No! It’s the bit that’s left over when the lion’s done.
So, look at this crowd. Look at your church. Who’s left? Those too physically downcast to go anywhere else. Those who see this as nothing more than a show. And, yes, those who are come to seek the King, come to worship in Spirit and in Truth. Why does it shock us so that these last are in the minority? Sadden us, yes. It certainly ought to sadden us. But, it really shouldn’t shock us. Indeed, if we ever think it to be otherwise, we’d better start crying out for a spiritual reality check! If it’s real, then indeed have we lived to see the next revival. More likely, though, we are seeing what we want to see.
Those salvations that come by the week, those hands raised and repeat-after-me prayers offered: what percentage of those come from a real heart of repentance that has truly been called onto the path home by the Spirit of the Living God? What percentage is just emotional outburst, or worse yet, just the entertainment crowd having some fun?
Well, were I the shepherd of such a group, what should I do? Whom should I address? How should I deal with this? Should I reserve my efforts for the True Believers? Surely, with the perception of the Holy Spirit as my guide, I would see the mark of His presence upon them, and thus, I could really focus in on them and forget those whose motives are so suspect. But, then, when I look at the example Jesus has left us, I cannot accept such an approach.
As I saw in the previous study, Jesus did not condemn those who had come out of their physical need. He did not reject them and He did not neglect them. He healed them. By doing so, He got their misconceptions out of the way and gave them the opportunity to hear the things that really mattered as He taught.
Can I say the same for those who had just come to see the show? Looking at what happens in this passage, I think I can. Now, what I don’t see Jesus doing is leaving either of these groups in their ignorance. There are, then, two ways to view what He has done. In one perspective, He has addressed their misconceptions in a fashion suited to free them from those misconceptions and allow them to come to the more complete understanding that ‘the Kingdom is here’, with all that it implies. From another perspective, He has just removed their excuses, thereby making them all the more culpable for any future failure to acknowledge their need for repentance and salvation.
Here is my example for shepherding the church in our own day. Shall we focus on becoming ‘miracle centers’ as some have chosen to do? No! Jesus did not teach in hopes of creating an atmosphere where God could perform miracles. Quite the opposite! He performed miracles to clear the atmosphere for teaching. He addressed the immediate needs of those who were distracted so as to remove their distractions.
So, we see Jesus merciful and, if we can take it in a good sense, condescending towards the foibles of the needy. He doesn’t ignore their need. He doesn’t berate them for being focused on the wrong things. He just deals with their needs and then, with those needs addressed, He turns to the far more important matters of eternal life. He is, after all, a High Priest fully acquainted with our weakness. He knows that if He doesn’t deal with these physical matters, our weak minds will be so full of our pains and sufferings that we will have no attention left for the matter of our spiritual well-being.
Neither does Jesus simply shoo the curiosity seekers out of the area. No! He calls them on it. He pulls the entertainment rug out from under them and points them to the real deal. “You came looking for a free meal. You came hoping for some fireworks, maybe a good dance routine. But, you have the opportunity to find life – real life, eternal life. You have the opportunity to own the Promise that your fathers could only long for.” The question that remains is, “what are you going to do with that opportunity?” This, far more than the hand raising, form filling, repeat-after-me stuff, is what’s going to move somebody from the categories of the wrong-headed to the ranks of the remnant.
The whole point of ministry, it seems to me, is to bring each and every potential sheep to the moment of crisis. If we are not yet amongst the faithful, then all that is preached, all that is taught, should be bringing us to the point where we must decide once for all whether we are going to accept the Truth of the Gospel or we are going to reject it utterly. If we are already among the faithful, then the point must be similarly, to keep us shorn of all our myriad excuses. You know and I know that we are full of them. I think of the Charlie Peacock song (as so often seems to happen) that DC Talk brought to prominence. “I am the king of excuses. I’ve got one for every foolish thing I do.” Break it down! We are a people trapped in sinful flesh, and we are more than willing to give that flesh its rein in spite of our better judgment. We give it rein, and then, when God calls us on it, we display ourselves as the ‘kings of excuses’. Like the children we seek to correct and break of this habit, we come to our Father in heaven with all manner of excuses for the sinful things we do. Ah, God. It was the old man. It was the flesh. That’s not the real me, don’t you know.
Look, I don’t speak this to crush out all hope of heaven. After all, even Paul had to deal with this right through to the end. That’s the crux of three whole chapters in his doctrinal thesis (Ro 6-8). Yes! You’re quite right. It is the fleshly life of the old man coming through. It isn’t the real you, for your real being has been reborn, renewed and refashioned after the heavenly model. Yet, you are without excuse. And what’s more, you know it. How is it, that with all the power of heaven behind you, this dead flesh has overpowered you? The fundamental, unavoidable truth is that dead flesh did not overpower living spirit. Living spirit allowed dead flesh its lead, fully aware that to do so was utterly wrong. But, you did it. Don’t come to the throne with such excuses, because you know they are empty and meaningless in the Light of Truth! Don’t come with excuses. Come with repentance! Real repentance! Not that hang-dog, I got caught and that sucks kind of repentance. Not that I’m sorry You found out kind of repentance. Come with that I can’t stand being like this any more, I can’t stand that I have disappointed You, I’d rather die than ever do it again kind of repentance. Or don’t come at all.
As a father, if there’s one thing I find nigh on intolerable, it’s that “I’m sorry,” that you just know is only coming in hopes of avoiding the consequences my child sees coming. I have no use for such an apology. It means less than nothing. Half the time, you have but to look at the eyes of that child and you know that not only is she not sorry at all, but she’s thoroughly ticked off at the inconvenience of being busted in the first place. That’s not repentance. It’s like saying, “I forgive you,” when everything within you is still screaming over the outrage of whatever you claim you’re forgiving. You haven’t forgiven a thing! Wait until you can, then say it. And, if you are the injured party, don’t be demanding such a falsehood from the one who did you wrong. You merely goad them into utter hypocrisy. Wait until it can be said in earnest, and then accept it. And, should it never come, let your soul be at peace. You have sought to be at peace with that one insomuch as it lies with you.
Now, let me just say that I am thankful beyond expression that my Father in heaven is not so much like I am. I have no doubt that He is just as disgusted by false pretensions of repentance as I. Doubtless, His righteous indignation at such insult is far greater, for His righteousness is far greater. Yet, He does not just reach down and snuff out that insulting child. No! He doesn’t even appear to increase the punishment, given that insolence. He chooses to manifest patience with this child of His. Oh, He may send that child from the room for a time, hoping that in solitude the child may begin to think more clearly, but when that child returns, when that child is ready to be honest, He will be there and His heart of forgiveness will be overjoyed to be able to forgive.
This may come as a bit of an aside, but something interesting or at least amusing arises out of the text as I consider it with the words well-defined. In particular, I note that in verse 24, John tells us these people came ‘seeking Jesus’. Then, in verse 26, Jesus confronts them, and His first message is: Yes, you seek Me, but… Now, I cannot say with dogmatic certainty which sense of that word ‘seek’ is active in each of these instances, but to some degree, it seems that each implies a certain sense. To whit, in the earlier case, they came seeking, in other words, they came with the intention of finding Jesus. When Jesus replies, though, particularly given the continuation of His thought, it is almost as though He has said, “you don’t meditate upon Me, upon My words, so as to find out what this all means.” In other words, it’s the distinction between finding an object and finding its meaning.
Jesus, in making such a reply to them, is bringing this crowd to the point of crisis. Each one there, whatever motivated him to come, will find himself having to decide whether to believe this Rabbi or not. Jesus begins with those curiosity seekers. He makes it clear that He is quite aware of their motivation. They have called Him, ‘Rabbi’, Teacher, yet His message to them is, “you don’t really want to be taught.” He tells them the truth about themselves, a truth they were doubtless quite aware of: they had come solely because they ate so well yesterday, and they’d like to do it again today. They’re looking for more handouts. They have not understood the least portion of the significance of what they witnessed. They don’t want to. They just want the entertainment. If they are seekers, that’s what they’re seeking.
So, Jesus pulls off the disguise, forces them to admit where they’re at, and challenges them to come further. “You came simply because you ate your fill yesterday, because I fed you. You call me Teacher, but you’re not here to learn. You’re here to have lunch. You have not understood what I taught you yesterday, what I showed you yesterday. You’re not here because you believe in Me.” For many of us, that should have our skin crawling.
Have I really understood, am I really here because I believe in Him, or am I here for the show, for the entertainment? If that question seems obvious and easily answered, then try it from this perspective: Am I really here for the Jesus Who Is, or am I insisting on reforming Him after my own image? Is there some part of the Jesus revealed in Scripture, the God revealed in Scripture that I reject or refuse to look at. Are there parts of God’s character that I insist are other than they truly are? Do I accept Him as Love, but reject His wrath? Am I all for Mercy, but have no truck with Justice? There are a thousand and one ways in which we occlude our vision of the real God and replace Him with something more to our liking, and each of those thousand and one ways leaves us in the crowd Jesus addresses here. Each one leaves us in a place where we have not come because we believe in Him. We have settled for entertainment.
Listen! Why do you think the whole movement of the televangelists does so well? Why do you think you are seeing a politician who wears his past status as a preacher like some sort of seal of approval, waving it in front of the evangelical crowds? Why do you suppose all these all-prophecy all-the-time pseudo-ministries garner such attention? It’s because they’re far more entertaining than putting in real effort to know the real God. Hey, they’ve got those really hot worship bands happening. God must be moving there. Where oh where did we ever learn to make that connection? Because we’re entertained God must be pleased? Oh, the message is so hip, so in tune with today. And, this is a good thing? Today is just an expression to gloss over the horribly fallen state of our culture. This is something to be in tune with? Wow! How are you going to change the world? By being a chameleon? By looking just like it, sounding just like it, acting just like it? Who changed?
Well, one thing’s certain: God didn’t. He does not change. His definitions of goodness, righteousness, holiness; they haven’t changed. His definition of sin? No, that hasn’t changed either. What’s more, His definition of a disciple, a true believer hasn’t changed in the least. Believe in the One Whom He has sent. That is the criteria for true belief. That is the mark of the saved. It has never been different and it never will be. When we stand before Him in the last day, that is the only character trait that will matter. Of course, we know that if we have truly believed in Him, it must change our character. Belief that does not produce such fruit in us is no real belief. It’s a dead thing. It’s an imposter. As we go on in this passage, we will hear it repeatedly, “I give life, real life, eternal life. He who believes in Me does not die.” How then can we suppose such a dead faith to be founded upon the Lord of Life?
Listen, there’s a time for gentleness, a time for hand-holding. But, we have long since outgrown that time. It’s time for us to leave behind the entertainments of childhood and grow up! That’s the message Jesus is giving this crowd. Yes, yesterday He accepted their distractions, their misconceptions. He saw how distracted they were by matters of healing so He healed them. That left them with no excuse not to listen attentively when He taught later. He saw that their hunger was distracting them, so He fed them. Hand-holding. Today, though, He’s saying, “Enough!” Today, He’s saying, “Either come for the real deal, or stay home.” It’s time to take responsibility for yourself. Yesterday, you missed the point. Just to make sure you know it, I’m telling you that you missed the point. Now, this time, pay attention. Here it comes again. The Son of Man has come to give you eternal life. So forget about that bread you ate yesterday. It’s gone, and so is that warm feeling in your stomach. Neither one meant a thing. They were transitory matters. I’m here to deal with you on eternal matters.
Now. He’s going to make trouble, not with those that came to see Him, but with those who have been their teachers. “You are working so hard, but it’s all for this naught. You labor and labor, hoping for a bit of bread, but meanwhile, there’s something greater.” Okay, that may be a bit obscure for us. Look at it from this angle, which Jesus makes clearer as He continues. You have been trying to earn your way into God’s favor. You didn’t know any better. That’s what you were taught by those who claimed to know. You’ve listened to the Rabbis, the Pharisees, the scribes. They have written books detailing all the myriad ways in which you must do every least task in life to avoid offending God. But, I’m here with Good News!
See, you all know that you fail to live by those lists every day. You may not know it, but so do those scribes and Pharisees who made the lists! They know it, but they keep it to themselves. Look, I’m telling you that everything you’ve ever done in hopes of pleasing God was doomed to fail. It’s all transitory. It’s all temporary, and you know by now that you wind up having to start all over again. And, so long as you continue on that path, it’s always going to be that way. Well, tell you what: There’s another Way, a Way that’s enduring, a Way that will hold up throughout eternity. I’m here to give you that Way. That’s why God sent Me in the first place. What you saw yesterday? If you had but understood, that was God putting His stamp of approval upon what I’m doing. He has attested to the authenticity of My message in ways that are beyond dispute. All you have left to do is to believe in Me, knowing now that He sent Me.
As Jesus noted, they had seen the sign. They had been there to witness that seal of approval. But, they got stuck on the event itself and failed to consider the meaning. The whole purpose of a sign is to bring our attention to what lies beyond the event. When the event becomes the point, it’s no longer a sign. It’s a counterfeit. It’s smoke and mirrors hoping to distract you from the reality of the scene. When that sign draws you to consider He who made the sign, that’s a different matter altogether. Now, you are witness to His seal. Now, you must recognize that He has confirmed the authenticity of what you have witnessed. Now, it’s a case of, “Yes, this is My doing.” Everything else is just puffed up ego looking for attention.
So, the sign is witness to the seal, and the seal is witness to the authority. This is the fundamental point of those miracles which attested to Jesus. This is the fundamental point of those miracles which attested to the apostles. In each and every case, it was a message from heaven proclaiming that these were official representatives of the kingdom of God. If there are miracles transpiring in our day that can lay claim to being rooted in the God of heaven and His purposes, I declare to you plainly and boldly that they have the exact same purpose. If those who are pointing out the miracles seek to make anything else of those events then we should see the events they point to as fraudulent imitations designed to lead us astray.
Listen! This is exactly what Jesus is doing right here! He knows the signs occurring around Him are real. He knows their real purpose. He knows these folks have missed the point entirely. Rather than accept their misguided adorations, He insists that they recognize the Truth and, if they will offer their adorations, let it be for the True and Perfect reason. Oh! That the Church of today could hear their own situation in His words! “You, My children, are so caught up in physical manifestations, in physical healing, in physical prosperity. My poor children! You have so thoroughly miss the point! You are so concerned with your present that you are neglecting your eternity. These signs haven’t come so that you could be comfortable here and now. They have come to point you toward home.” If you were heading in the right direction already, you wouldn’t need those signs! Consider the Scriptural record. When did the signs occur? Did they come when everybody was seeking God as they ought? No, they came when Israel was at its farthest from its proper course. They came to point the way home, and to mark out those who were still on the right course.
We could hear the miracle as a shout saying, “Here is one who knows the way. Follow him.” Instead, like these people, we settle for being thrilled at the spectacle. Oh look what he did. I want me some of that. Before we know it, we have become like Simon the Magi, trying to figure out how we can buy into that power. We don’t ask the man of God how to find God anymore. We ask him how we can do those miracles he’s doing. Hey! We’ll pay you well if you will only teach us how to do that! I tell you, if that man is truly a man of God, he will react just as Peter did. Far be it from me! How dare you think to buy off the God of heaven? Repent! Oh, and may we, like I am fairly certain the magi did, repent in truth of such wicked thoughts. May we repent of our addiction to the show and put our attention on pursuing the way that is shown!
I will next turn my attention to the matter of faith and works, which I see Jesus addressing here in reasonably clear fashion. Recall that work has a purpose, a focus. We work to achieve something, else it isn’t work. There are at least two words in Greek that we will find translated simply as work. One is ergon and the other is poieo. One distinction we might draw between the two is the focus of the word. Both, after all, are concerned with effort, with exertion. Ergon, it is suggested, is concerned with earning something. Poeio is more concerned with the point, the thing all that effort seeks to accomplish. That is, admittedly, a rather fine distinction. Perhaps earning our check is, for us, the sole point of working. Sad, that.
What that means is that we have missed the point of our vocation. It may well be that we have missed our vocation entirely. A vocation is a holy thing, even if it involves laboring at a mundane task, rather than ministering in the temple. It is a vocation precisely because it is inherently tied up in God’s purpose for our life. It is what He designed us to do in support of ourselves, and in support of His kingdom.
Getting back to the point at hand, though, we need to consider how we should hear this discussion we have been made privy to. It begins with Jesus discussing how these folks are looking at things, and trying to shift their perspective. “You work to earn your bread, but that bread will only last a day or two. Instead, you should be working to earn the things that will sustain you for eternity. That’s what I am here to give you. That’s what the Father was attesting to when I fed you over on the other shore.” This is all about ergon, working to earn something. And, it is in this same sense that the people respond. “Well, what work, what effort should we be putting in to earn as God would have us earn?”
That sounds completely different, doesn’t it? Indeed, looking at the more literal translations of that question, it’s really hard to determine what is on the minds of those asking. “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” I admit that at first blush I read that rather like Eve questioning the serpent in Eden. “OK, then, what must we do to become like God?” If that were the case, though, we would also be right back at the example of Simon the Magi. “Where can I buy that? How much must I pay you to teach me that trick?” But, Jesus has been talking to them about earning their keep, and how they have misunderstood what it is they ought to be earning, and this is the focus of their question.
See, they understand perfectly well how to earn their earthly keep, just as we do. We know all about earning a living. We know all about keeping our spending within the bounds of our ability to pay. We may not live as if we knew that, but we do know it. They really don’t need anybody to teach them how to earn what it takes to keep food on the table and a roof overhead. So, their question is really twofold: If they understood exactly what it was that God wanted them to be earning, they could simply of asked, “So, how should we be earning it? What should we be doing instead?” But, that’s only half the question. There is something in their asking that says they’re still not entirely sure what it is they should be seeking to earn. So, you might hear in that, “What works are they, exactly, that God seeks from us?” And that is exactly the question that Jesus answers.
I should note that when they ask this question, they have shifted to poieo. What should our focus be on? They maintain the sense of earning with the rest of that question, “that we might earn what God wants us to earn.” But, when we read “what should we do?” that ‘do’ is poieo, what’s our proper purpose in working? What ought we be trying to accomplish?
To this, Jesus answers, “This is the work of God.” He has returned to ergon, to earning wages. This is how God wants you to earn your heavenly wages of eternal life: Believe in Him whom He sent. You have seen the attesting signs that He has displayed to declare that one authentic. You really should understand (for this is hardly the first time this sort of thing has happened) that the Father has sealed this One, marked Him as undeniably, fully and completely authorized and authentic. He has left no room for doubt, has He? So, if you would like to shift the focus of all your efforts to things that He cares about, shift your focus to Him. Believe in Him. Give full credence to what He is teaching you, accept it, internalize it, own it. Live it!
Now, vast portions of the Church are still stuck on trying to earn their way into God’s favor. I tend to think of this as an issue that is peculiar to the Catholic / Orthodox side of the faith, but it’s not really. It’s just as much our own tendency, who have come from the Protestant side. It is there in the assumptions of the Arminians. We are saved because we did the work of accepting Jesus. On the Reformed side of that divide, we would deny any such work on our part as having earned our way in, and yet, something inside of us still insists that it must have somehow had something to do with what we did to earn God’s favor. It is next to impossible for us to emotionally connect with the reality that this simply is not the case. We may be able to deal with it on an intellectual level. We can understand the necessity of that being the Truth. To some degree, as we understand it, we even develop a level of thankfulness that this is the Truth, because we know our own weakness. But, the fact of the matter is that we don’t fully believe it.
It’s kind of like what I was listening to R. C. Sproul confessing yesterday when it comes to “All things work for the good of those who are in Christ Jesus”. It’s a truth we cling to, a truth we draw comfort from when things are not going as we would like them to. But, in the midst of disaster, when it comes down to it, we really don’t believe that. When we’re in the places we have seen Joseph and Job cast into, we are hard pressed to claim that this, too, is for our good. It’s the same with faith in Christ being the sole way by which we can earn life eternal. At first blush, we’ll take that. But, then we hear Paul’s great declaration that it is only by this faith, and that we can’t even take credit for that faith, because God gave us that faith as a gift; Well, how can it have nothing to do with us? It just doesn’t parse in our workaday world. Surely, we have to do something to earn God’s favor? Surely, we are still the center of our universe? And Jesus says, “No. Faith is all.”
Perhaps you don’t hear that in what He is saying here. Well, let me take you back a few pages in John’s account of His life and work. “I have greater witnesses than just John the Baptist,” He says to those who level their accusations against Him (Jn 5:36-37). This is not said to belittle John’s testimony. It is to bolster that testimony. Note the first additional testimony He offers. “The works I do as the Father requests them bear witness to Me being sent by Him.” OK, what purpose do we find in those works, again? Do they show that Jesus is earning His way into heaven? NO! It is entirely the opposite case. They stand as proof that He is come from heaven! They are not His way of earning His fare home. They are the very reason He was sent from the Home Office in the first place!
Let me offer another interpretation of that: “I don’t do these works to impress My Father and make Him proud of Me. He’s already proud of Me. If you’d been paying attention, you would have heard Him saying so! No, I do these things for the very simple reason that He told me to.”
I recall another occasion when R. C. had been discussing the popular misconception of Calvinism’s negative impact on evangelism, given our perspective on predestination. If it’s all about those whom God has called on His own initiative, what reason do we have for telling everybody about Jesus? Stumped for an answer, he had offered the reply, “because God said to?” Well, what more reason does one need, his teacher responded. Jesus, in defending His ministry before these accusers, more or less offers the same reason for His doing the works He does. I do this because the Father told Me to, asked Me to. I have required no pay for it. I don’t seek to earn anything by it. I just do it because it is His purpose. This bears witness to Me, but that really isn’t why I do it.
Now, lest you think I have gone overboard with that translation I offered, when I said, “He’s already proud of Me. If you’d been paying attention, you would have heard Him saying so!” Listen to how that passage continues. “He who sent Me also bears witness of Me. But, you have never heard Him or seen Him.” What a thing to say to the official shepherds of Israel! You, who want everybody to know what experts you are on the things of God, you’ve never once in your life heard what He was saying. You’ve never seen Him when He was right there. John had heard Him. John had seen Him. Maybe not in the fullness of His glory, but he had seen and heard. He recognized what was up when that dove alit on Jesus. He had heard and understood that voice from heaven that said, “This is My Son, and I’m so proud of Him.”
Isn’t that exactly what Jesus is talking about here? “He who sent Me bears witness of Me.” He came in the form of a dove and sat upon My shoulder when I began this ministry. He proclaimed His certification of Me then and there. John heard Him. Those in the crowd, many of them heard Him and, like John, understood that the dove was no dove, but the very Spirit of God descended in visible form. Some of you were there, too, watching events unfold. But you didn’t see the point, and you didn’t understand His voice. You never have and, sadly, you never will.
This is all but a reminder of why Jesus taught as He did. By His own statement, He taught in parables to fulfill prophecy: that those who saw Him would not comprehend and those who heard God’s Word in Him would not learn from it. These people had seen something truly incredible in His feeding them from as good as nothing. They had heard Him teach afterwards. But, they had gained absolutely nothing from it. They didn’t care to think about what it might mean that He could do as He did with the bread. They didn’t even pay attention to the lesson He was teaching when their stomachs were full. They saw all those healings He had done and all they could think about was their sick cousin who could sure use some of that. No attention was given to why. No least amount of thought was given to, “Who is this Man?”
Now, this clearly doesn’t describe the whole crowd, because some of them, hearing this rebuke, show a real desire to do better. OK, if we’ve been approaching God all wrong, if our attention has been on the wrong things, then what’s the right way? Explain it to us, that we might pursue it.
I have said before that my initial take on that question didn’t hear it that way. It sounded more like, “How can we do these things we see You doing?” But, that’s really not the case. Here is one point where the Amplified Bible really helps get the real question out. “What are we to do, that we may [habitually] be working the works of God? [What are we to do to carry out what God requires?]” That helps, but to me, it winds up cluttering things up almost as much as it clarifies them. Let me try it again. “What should we be doing, that we may make it a habit to do as God requires?”
That’s a very worthy question. That’s a question that is still worthy of our consideration. Of course, we know the answer already. But, it’s worthy of consideration that we might consider whether we are making progress in that regard.
Well, had they asked that question of a Pharisee, the list with which he would have replied would have been a mile long, if not longer. They would have been utterly crushed by the impossibility of maintaining such an effort, and sensing that defeat, they would simply return to life as they had been living it. After all, what’s the point? But, Jesus cuts all of that crushing load away. There is only one thing they need to do. What a wonderful answer! Hear it as the New Living Translation gives it. “This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the one He has sent.” What? That’s it? No great feats of righteousness? No perfection of obedience? No huge sacrifices to honor You?
That’s right! And, my goodness, but we still don’t quite believe that, do we? Oh, we know He said it, and at some level, we know that if He said it, it must be true. But, we’re still pretty sure there’s something more we need to do to be acceptable to Him. So, we throw all our energy into whatever seems best to us, and all He’s really asking for is faith. Obviously, what He is calling us to is not a life of sitting on the couch in blissful contemplation of His wonders, although I think we could do with some time spent in just such fashion. When He tells them that they shouldn’t waste so much energy pursuing their next meal, it’s not that they shouldn’t pursue their next meal at all. It’s simply that they have become too caught up in the day to day, and have therefore been neglecting their spiritual needs.
This is neither anything new nor is it anything that we have left so thoroughly behind that we need have no concern about it. We are, I suspect, constantly drifting back and forth between two extremes. On the one hand, all the necessities of life, and all the effort required to get ahead catch us up, and before we know it, we’re just too busy for God. You know, we’ve gotten up in the morning, but we’re running a bit late, so we rush through the shower, grab a quick bite and we’re off to work. If we can spare a thought for them, we’ll remember to kiss the spouse and hug the children (if they’re up and waiting for us). But, God… well, He’s not there on the stairs with those eyes that won’t be denied their brief moment of love. So, we forget about Him. You know, out of sight, out of mind. And, off we go! By the time we have stopped long enough to give it a thought, to give Him a thought, we’re so tired that we simply fall asleep the minute we try.
On the other extreme, we have developed a resolve to spend more time with God. And more time. And still more time. In fact, we have come to the point of spending so much time with God that we really don’t get anything done. If somebody hadn’t set a plate of food in our lap, we wouldn’t even remember to eat. We explain that we’re fasting, but really, that’s not quite it. You know, maybe there’s a season for such devotion. There’s times in our lives when Mary really should be our model. But, there’s also times and seasons where Martha’s example is more fitting!
Consider: After Jesus’ ascension, we find 120 disciples gathered in a room in seemingly endless prayer and devotion. They are, as it appears, approaching the second extreme. They have little or no time for anything but contemplating God, adoring God, spending time in His presence. Well, they didn’t stay there, did they? If they had, where would we be? Look! No real prophet of God, as we see them in the Bible, ever attained the office without such times of devoted isolation – alone with God and almost fully divorced from the world. But, they could not possibly have filled the office by staying there!
Jesus is a prime example. Over and over we see Him go off to be alone with Daddy God. But, He always comes back and gets to work again! These are issues the Apostles had to address as the Church grew. Some, upon hearing of the imminent arrival of the Last Day, decided there was no point in working, no point in making a living anymore. They’d just sit there in their house and wait for Him, like those five wise virgins. Never mind that those five wise virgins had done something to earn the money to buy their oil. No. This was the time for waiting in blissful contemplation. And, the Apostle to the Gentiles had to mentally slap them back to wakefulness. Look! The Church is not going to be responsible for your upkeep if you can’t be bothered to do what is in your power. That’s not charity anymore, and we are not bound by decency to do it. If you won’t work, you won’t eat. Plain and simple.
By the same token, Paul commends the work of faith among the faithful. At the same time, he gives us an understanding of what defines a work of faith. “I am ever aware of your work of faith,” he writes, “your labor of love, and your steadfast hope in Christ Jesus” (1Th 1:3). Do you see it? The work of faith is a labor of love. It’s not about earning God’s favor. It’s about knowing God’s favor, and desiring to bless Him in return. How fully and completely He has blessed us! What is there that He has not given us? And what could we ever hope to give Him in return that was of anything near the same value? I mean, really! How many souls could we bring to Him? Honestly, not a one. That we have any impact at all on those we approach on His behalf is all His doing anyway! We can’t even bring Him our own soul, let alone that of anybody else. Not at all! He drew our soul back to Him, Himself. He reconciled us to Him, because we would have none of it.
The only thing we need to do to form a habit of doing what God requires is to believe in the One He sent, Jesus the Christ, the anointed Messiah, King of all kings and Lord of all creation. That’s it! No other action on our part can earn us a thing in God’s economy. We can prophesy until our vocal cords are raw, and it will put nothing in our salvation account. We can preach day in and day out, teach Sunday school every week; we can walk the streets, telling everybody we meet about Jesus, and none of it will move us one step closer to acceptability in God’s sight. How could it? He’s already done everything necessary to make us acceptable in His sight. That’s the whole point! Becoming acceptable to Him was so impossibly far from our capacity that we were doomed. There was no way it was going to happen. The Law was already beyond what we could handle before ever the Pharisees started playing with it. But, in Jesus, God had overcome our impossibility. Nothing more is required of us.
Yet, we will do, and it is right and proper that we will. What is it, then, that makes our works alive? It is the love that moves us to do that work. We are no longer a people trying to earn God’s favor. We are a people so fully bathed in His favor that we can’t help but do things for Him. Isn’t that the very way we define a good leader? He is a leader because those who serve under him have such a great appreciation for him, dare I say a love for him, that nothing could keep them from following his commands. A great teacher is one whose lessons are so compelling, whose manner of imparting those lessons is so endearing that nothing could convince us not to put those lessons into practice. We see the results in his example, and we want so much to be like him. If this is the wisdom that has made him who he is, well, then, that’s the way for me.
These earthly examples are but an echo of the heavenly relationship we have entered into. In Christ Jesus, we have a Leader who is unparalleled. As we come to know Him, as we experience serving under Him, we find that His commands are always perfectly fitted to the situation. We find that He never, ever gives us too much to bear, nor does He give us so little that we feel useless. There are no slackers in His service and there is no favoritism in His assignments. But, He is not one to crack the whip over those in His employ. No. There’s just something about Him that draws the best effort out of His workers. It’s the joy they take in doing the things He asks.
As a Teacher, He is again beyond compare. No other teacher so fully embodied his own principles. The great philosophers of the Greeks were never so completely an example of the things they taught. No other in all history has been so thoroughly free of all contradiction that they could tell their students, “do as I say and as I do.” Paul would set himself up as an example, but never as an example of perfection; only as the example of one striving for the goal. His was an example of human effort with human limitations. He strove for the goal, and we can rest assured that he stumbled at times. But, when he stumbled, he picked himself up and got back after it. In Jesus, we have the example of human effort without the human limitations. He never stumbled, never deviated from His own teaching. What He taught, He lived. What He explained to us as our proper way of life, He practiced before us.
Those who came to learn from Him couldn’t help but notice this. They couldn’t help but notice the difference between His example and that of other teachers they had listened to. “This one speaks with an authority we have not known in any other!” What greater recommendation could one have to adopt the way He taught? What better Teacher could one hope to serve? To do as He asks is a joy, it is a labor of love! That love finds cause in steadfast hope, because our hope is solely wrapped up in the Christ (1Th 1:3). Paul says that he is constantly nothing this wonderful state of those he had taught when he talks to God. This is not to suggest that God needed the reminder, nor that Paul thought He did. It is simply that for a servant of Christ, to see others coming to this right understanding, this right relationship with God is such a joy, that we simply must share it with Him. God! It’s so wonderful! Look, they’re getting it! They, too, have seen Your Son as the only Leader, the only Teacher, they could ever desire to be attached to. Thank You, that You have let me be a part of this! Thank You for assigning me to that duty. It was a joy to do it, and that joy is magnified a thousandfold as I think on the results You are showing me.
Alright, there is the distinction between works of faith and faith in works. Now, if we’ve spent any time at all in consideration of how these two things properly relate, we must surely have been bothered by the contrast between Paul’s unequivocal declaration that salvation is by faith alone with no eye to works (Ro 3:27), and James’ proposal that works perfect faith and a faith devoid of works is a very dead faith (Jas 2:22). This contrast was so problematic that for many years the Church debated whether James’ epistle should be considered a part of the canon of Scripture. He seemed to fly in the face of what the other apostles were teaching. He seemed stuck in the Old Covenant when everybody else had moved on to the New Covenant.
With time, though, understanding came. James was not contradicting Paul. In fact, his words are quite thoroughly in agreement with Paul. James does not advocate putting our faith in works. He does not set forth the proposition that we have to earn our homeward fare after all. All he has said is that where there is a real and living faith, there will be the works of faith. The fruit of the Spirit cannot lie dormant in us. What he is doing is setting out one means by which we can guard ourselves from being fooled again and again.
Look, we all know those who think themselves Christians but show no signs of being so. If they are asked on a survey whether they are Christians, they will answer in the affirmative. They may be of the sort that attend Church twice a year, but yes, momma had them baptized and therefore, they are certainly Christians. Have they ever read His Word? Doubtful. Have they any idea sense of devotion to Him? Not really. They just view it as some sort of cosmic, ‘get out of jail free’ card. Really, they haven’t given eternity a whole lot of thought. Too busy living in the moment. If you asked them whether they had faith in Christ, they would doubtless say they did. If you asked them to define what that faith looked like, they’d probably have a little more difficulty with it, but maybe they’ve heard enough about it to give a reasonably coherent answer.
James says that’s all great. Nice work. But, where’s the evidence? It’s all well and good to say you believe in Him, but if you really do, you really won’t need to say so. It will be clear from your lifestyle, from the way you display His character in your own. Look! We’re not asking for perfection, here. But, we are demanding some signs of progress. If there’s no sign, there’s no faith. Just like the miracles Jesus performed were the seal of His authenticity, our works are as a seal of authenticity on our faith. That’s the bottom line which James spells out. This is but a clarification of Paul’s bottom line. Yes, it is solely by faith that you are saved, but if you have allowed this fact to become an excuse for continuing to live in sin, what claim do you have to faith? Where is the love of Christ in a life that insists on defying His every tenet? The thing cannot be, and so, the cheap grace approach to faith is shown to be an out and out lie. The saddest, most terrible part of that lie is that the one telling it believes it. He is marching onward towards an eternity of separation from the God he proclaims and he doesn’t even realize it.
Don’t you hear that in the message of the sheep and the goats. Many will come to the end thinking they were His and yet, because they showed no signs of it in life, because their every action denied the Christ they professed from their lips, His final answer to them will be, “I never knew you. Depart from My presence, and stay out!” If that doesn’t give you some cause for concern, then I can only say you have even greater cause for concern! However much we have progressed, however certain we are in our salvation, there ought yet to be this concern for the reality of our faith. For, we have been warned how utterly deceptive our own thinking is. The heart is deceptively wicked beyond all measure, and we must understand that the heart, in this case, stands in for every cognitive process we possess. We are masters at lying to ourselves. Like I said, those whose faith is utterly worthless nonsense are just as convinced of their salvation as those whose faith is real.
OK, so this morning I’ve been reading the passage as it appears in the God’s Word Translation, and had yet another of those, ‘wait a minute…’ moments. When they come to verse 29, they present Jesus replying with the words, “God wants to do something for you so that you can believe.” My immediate reaction? Wow, these guys are really pushing their doctrinal position into the translation, aren’t they. I mean, the point they make is true enough. Faith is by grace, a gift of God lest any man should boast in himself, but it just seems so at odds with the this present exchange.
Then, I return to the NASB, and notice that whereas the people asked Jesus how to work the plural works of God, He replies with a singular work of God. In both cases, it is ergon that is being spoken of. The one change I notice is that the question comes with works in the accusative case, whereas Jesus replies in the nominative. What does that really mean, though? Wheeler’s only somewhat helpful notes here say that the nominative case is typically used to show that “the substantive is the subject […] or is related in some way to the subject.” The accusative, it says, “focuses the verbal action’s goal, direction, or extent.” It limits “the action to or by the Accusative substantive.” Substantive: subject, functional noun. Got it.
So, maybe that translation isn’t so very far off. The people are asking what works are directed at God, which might be understood as being pleasing to Him. Jesus, by switching to the substantive, is marking that one work He mentions as being related to God directly, rather as though He had said, this is God’s work, what He does personally. It would not be unusual for us to find Jesus playing with the language along such lines. He was a particularly clever linguist, as we find His conversations displayed.
Quite apart from the literary accuracy, though, this is a good point to bear in mind as I think about matters of faith and works. The one work that matters, the work of faith, is a work we don’t even do ourselves! Imagine that! The only thing we can do that God finds pleasing is really something He does in us. I think that this may be the real matter that needs to be understood in Jesus’ reply. His intention, it seems to me, is to answer both in terms of what we should do to please God and that that one thing that matters is really God’s doing.
All that stuff the Pharisees promoted in terms of living a holy life; Jesus just tossed it away. It doesn’t get you anywhere but frustrated. He’s not saying that holiness and sanctification are no longer a concern, but He is freeing us from a lot of self-inflicted bondage! The thought I’m pursuing here ties back quite solidly to what I was listening to from R. C. Sproul yesterday as he considered the second half of Romans. We are called away from conforming to this world, he reminded us, but we have such a low-brow view of what that means. We settle for displaying non-conformist behaviors that, when you really think about it, should absolutely have us thinking, “uh oh. Pharisee alert!” I mean, we get caught up in how we should absolutely avoid movies, or dancing, or whatever activity happens to gain our attention. For many, it may involve shunning certain forms of music and it some of those forms may even be worthy of shunning. But, by and large we get carried away with this whole nonconformity thing. The biggest problem, as R. C. was pointing out, is that none of these are really matters of a change in our thinking.
They may not even be a matter of changes in our preferences. They are more of a self-imposed exile. Wow, you hear a song that you used to really like in your youth, but somebody or something along the way convinced you that as a good Christian you weren’t supposed to listen to such things anymore. Yet, when you hear it again, well, you know it’s pretty good! There’s really nothing offensive in what it has to say. No, it’s not a hymn and it’s not a praise chorus. No, it probably doesn’t have any overtly Christian themes. But, it’s good music. For some, that realization is going to liberate them from some bonds. For some, having thrown off those bonds, they will immediately cast themselves into bondage to an abused liberty. They will, to follow the example along, not only return to music that is legitimately good, containing nothing to offend the spirit, but they will also return to music that they know full well they shouldn’t.
Here’s what I believe to be a legitimate Christian experience along such lines. We may have gone through that “everything must go” phase, and thrown it all away. You know, it may well be that for that particular period of life, we really needed to be so absolutist about it. With time and spiritual growth, though, it may be that we reach a point where we can accept the good of the music without tolerating the bad. That may not make a whole lot of sense to some people. Let my try to expound a bit. There are songs with lyrics that are sufficiently blatant in their promotion of things that run counter to God’s Law that they really don’t take a lot of discernment to reject. There are others that might be more subtle. I have known those who feel that the artist’s background, if said artist has displayed a fallen lifestyle, must lead us to reject his art as equally fallen. I would contend that the same argument should lead us to reject all art even that which we find in the church, for we are just as manifestly fallen in our lifestyles – if not at the moment then in the past, and as such our arts must be viewed as equally fallen.
Well, consider that in light of some of the Scriptural discussion on such matters. It may not be the most applicable passage, but Joseph’s commentary on his brothers’ actions comes to mind. The intent was for evil, but God used it for good. I bring this up only in regards to the utter irrelevance of the artist’s intentions. Even the most darkened of Gentiles was yet capable of recognizing the light he glimpsed in the distance! Even the Greek philosophers got a few things right! They had shards of the Truth, they just didn’t have the whole. Frankly, neither do we. We see dimly. That’s what God reminds us about. He has the perfect picture and we can be secure in that knowledge, but if we think we’ve got a handle on this whole holiness and perfection thing, we’re fooling ourselves. If we think we’ve cornered the market on Truth, we’re even more deluded.
See, we fall into this mindset that everything outside of the Church must be somehow absolutely wrong. We want it all nicely compartmentalized, all in black and white. But, the real world just isn’t that way. The world is no more universally devoid of any shred of truth than the Church is devoid of any shred of sin. If that were the case, we wouldn’t read about the wheat and the tares. If that were the case, we wouldn’t have the many warnings about false prophets and false teachers and false apostles and ministers of the devil come in disguise to mislead the faithful. But, we want something concrete that we can be doing, just like these folks.
What shall I do to please God constantly? Shall I dispose of all my CDs? No! But, you know what I shall do? I shall listen to and heed the Holy Spirit when He makes a specific point of rejecting something. There are certainly songs I don’t need to hear, just as there are pictures I don’t need to see. Our problem is that we tend to attack the matter in such wholesale fashion that we wind up creating resentments in ourselves. In so doing, we manage to make ourselves angry at God over something that He never did in the first place. We did it to ourselves, and when we went overboard, rather than simply correcting course, we let it become an obstacle, a stumbling block in the way of our pursuit of this God we love.
And, all the while, there’s Jesus reminding us that the only work that really mattered was that one God did when He instilled faith in us that we might turn to the Christ for our salvation. All things are good, Paul reminds us. Look. He didn’t just make that up to support his own habits. No! He wrote as God’s spokesman. Indeed, as a well-studied theologian, he was particularly careful to delineate those occasions where he was speaking his own opinion rather than the opinion of God. And again (for I know I’ve brought it up already in this study), he says everything’s good, it just may not be of any particular benefit to us. The Law was good, but the use that was made of the Law made it a particularly baneful evil for us.
Grace is good. But, look at the attitudes he had to deal with in those who accepted the concept of salvation by grace alone, and then made it their excuse to sin with abandon! That grace was good, but their actions had made it an evil. You know, who produced the foods you eat and why: He says it doesn’t really matter. That’s the real truth. Sure, they may have dedicated it to idols, but God’s bigger than the idols anyway. His power to clean is far beyond their power to pollute. Their intentions, by the way, did not make that food somehow truly evil. No. It is their intentions that were evil. What are your intentions for that food? Are they simply to sustain yourself? What’s the issue then? Now, if you have bought it with the intention of honoring and supporting that same idol, OK, now we need to talk. Paul lays out another measure for us, which we really have to pay attention to: If it pricks your conscience, don’t do it. Even if you know it’s logically OK, don’t do it. Don’t you see? That’s the Holy Spirit’s whisper saying, “No. Don’t go that way.” It’s the word of warning to us that the thing we consider would not be to our benefit, and would tend towards our being mastered.
Oh dear, now I realize that I had actually been considering that passage in an unrelated study. But, that is the conclusion Paul comes to, everything’s good, but not everything’s useful. And, he says, “I will not be mastered by any thing.” Insistence on listening to that thing the Spirit was whispering against? You’ve been mastered. The overreaction of tossing out everything? Perhaps you’ve been mastered again. I don’t know for certain, but it has that feel to it. You’ve attributed a greater power to that thing than to God. How is God honored by that? You’ve treated that thing as though it had within it the power to thwart God, to somehow pull you from Him. Well, what does He say?
What I read is this: “I give them eternal life, and therefore they shall never perish. No one will ever snatch them from out of My hand” (Jn 10:28). That’s the confession of Jesus. First off, notice that you shall never perish because He gave. Eternal life doesn’t hinge on your performance review. It hinges on the simple fact that HE gave it to you. That’s assurance. It’s not license, it’s assurance. Then comes the confidence of our hope: No one will ever take you from Him. No one and no thing. No height nor depth, no fall or rise, no principality sent from the depths of hell can keep you from His Love, can take you from Him.
I’m going to finish here, I think, with the words of Paul to Timothy. Whatever foolishness men may talk, whatever nonsensical theories they evolve when it comes to God, here is God’s own signed and sealed foundational Truth: “The LORD knows who are His” (2Ti 2:19). That’s the seal upon every child of God. The LORD knows. The world may or may not. The child may or may not, at a given moment, but the LORD does, and that’s all that matters. But, Paul doesn’t leave that seal with just the one message. That which I have already quoted is a message of confidence to the sealed. But, there is also a message of admonition, “Let all who name the LORD abstain from wickedness.”
Your future is sealed, your reservations confirmed, and there is no cancellation on those arrangements. While you await that trip, though, remember that you are in His service. Remember that you are a representative of His kingdom however long you’ve been away in this foreign land. These foreigners: much of what they think of your King will be based on what they see in you, His ambassador. So, abstain from wickedness. What does that mean? Does it mean we just refuse to do anything like what we see the locals doing so they’ll know how foreign we are? No! It means don’t do anything wicked. Seek with all your power to avoid sinning. If that effort requires you to fully abstain from certain activities, so be it, but that abstinence in itself is not the point and it is not the requirement. Go, dance! Go and play cards, if those activities do not lead you to sin. Enjoy! Life in the Spirit is not a tedious checklist of thou shalt nots. It’s a life sensitive to His gentle corrections, lest He find it necessary to apply sterner disciplines.
God created Creation for His enjoyment and He placed us in it for ours. More fool us if we insist on making our tour here a living hell. He has not called us to such a life. Oh, be assured there will be trials, there will be tribulations, there will be persecutions. Every day, as Jesus said, will have trouble enough of its own. But, never did He say to utterly reject the world. No! You are still in it. You cannot help but see it, smell it, taste it, experience it. But, you can determine that those things that He marks as off-limits are treated as off-limits.
Think of the example of Eden. Adam and Eve had the run of the place except for one thing. Everything else was permissible and usable for them. Granted, there were many things that they would not do, having absolutely no proclivity for such actions. Killing an animal for its fur or its flesh would doubtless have fallen under that category for them prior to the fall. It simply wouldn’t have crossed their minds, however permissible it may have been. In some ways, it seems to me our own tour on the earth is much the same. The greater part of life experience it is wholly permissible for us to partake of and enjoy the partaking. But, when the fence goes up and the warning signs are placed, we are fools to insist on trespassing and we can expect to pay the consequences. Yet, in all of that, if we are among the elect, called of God, given this gift of believing His Son, even with those consequences we can remain assured that we have not been taken from Him. Blessed be the Lord!
Well, I thought I was finished with this passage, but then I saw something in this morning’s Table Talk which put me right back here. This year, the daily studies in that magazine are focusing on Matthew’s gospel, just now coming up on the temptation of Christ. In that setting, they turned my attention back to the eviction of Adam and Eve, and the curse that was declared upon Adam in particular: “By your sweat you will eat bread until you return to the ground you were taken from” (Ge 3:19a). So, from the fall forward, mankind has been cursed with the need to labor so hard for simple sustenance. Well, consider that in light of what Jesus has just told this crowd: “Don’t work for perishable food, work for eternal food.”
What can I draw from this? In some sense, it seems to me that Jesus is pointing back to this curse, because this is the fundamental reminder of man’s fallen condition. Just as the snake never ceased to crawl in the dust, so man never ceased to work harder than any other creature in order to survive. Now, we all know of the industriousness of various animals in their own efforts, but in a very real sense, no other creature works so hard as mankind. That is behind the fact that Jesus could point to the birds and declare that they don’t labor and sweat and worry themselves to death over where the next meal is coming from. In a purely scientific sense, I suppose one could claim they work pretty darn hard at feeding themselves, finding safe places to nest, and so on. But, the reality of the situation is that God just puts their food in front of them. They almost cannot fail to find a good nesting place. A swallow, flying over the fields gulping down the insects that cross its path is certainly expending energy in doing so, but it just isn’t the same. He doesn’t have to first collect the bugs, then take them home, skin them, dice them, cook them until tender and so on. He doesn’t have to pay somebody for those bugs. They are there and he eats. Done.
Man has been in this labor camp of daily living since the day Adam was sent packing. But, there was that moment in the history of Israel where that daily routine had been changed. Jesus mentions it shortly after the passage here: “He gave them bread out of heaven to eat” (Jn 6:31). The natural order was broken and in a very small way Israel was allowed to enjoy just a bit of what it had been like in Eden. Think about it! God was there with them. They were no longer spending their days laboring for food. Food was given to them. God came and hung out in their camp. It was almost like the old days. Almost.
Now, as Jesus visits the earth, that scene is being replayed. Another opportunity has come. Isn’t that exactly what He’s trying to point out? Look! You didn’t have to work for that meal yesterday. Don’t you get it? Let me spell it out for you: Remember Adam? Remember the curse he bore, the curse he passed on through every generation right down to you? You will labor and sweat and worry yourselves constantly in seeking your next meal. Remember that? Did you labor for yesterday’s dinner? No. Did you sweat? Did you have to worry? Not at all. It was handed to you. You didn’t even have to make the effort to come and get it from Me. I had my servants here, my friends, bring it to you. What did it mean last time something like this happened? God was with Israel. Well, what do you suppose it means this time? God is with you! And, He is, I AM telling you that this is a sea change.
I am telling you that throughout this whole time, My people have totally missed the point of that original curse. It’s not about the physical necessities. It’s about the spiritual necessities. It always has been. Look! Adam had to work before the curse. He was My gardener. What do you think? He just sat around all day? NO! The labor he was cursed to endure was the incredible, crushing effort it would take him to obtain that bread out of heaven. That was always the point. You have made the search for heaven into an earthly endurance test with no thought for the spirit at all. You have been so focused in the externals, the visible appearance of holiness that you have all but forgotten about the real, internal holiness of character that matters. Stop it! Stop it now! Come to the God Who has already done the work! Believe in Him, in His chosen, anointed Messiah. That’s it. That’s all. And, even that matter of belief: He’s done it in you. Take! Eat! The Bread that came down from heaven is right here at your fingertips. Forget that stuff you ate yesterday. It was impressive, sure, but it was just bread. It was just to get your attention, to make you think about what is really going on before your very eyes. Now, I’m not just going to get your attention, I’m going to make sure you get it. That wasn’t the bread from heaven! That wasn’t manna. I AM the manna, the bread from heaven. Only believe.
Holy Spirit, this has been, I think, one of the most awesome periods of study I have enjoyed with You in quite some time! So much You have been showing me that simply had never dawned on me before. I feel rather like this crowd that Jesus is addressing. I’d read it, but I didn’t get it. Thank You for explaining. Thank You for revealing to me that which You have revealed in these pages throughout the ages. No, my God, it is not a new thing, not a revelation in the classic sense, but it is newly revealed to me, and I rejoice. I rejoice because I know this is evidence. This is reassurance that I am indeed a child in Your own courts, a son of God not by birth, but by right, because You have chosen to adopt me and call me Your own. Blessed be Your glorious Name! Thank You, a thousand times thank You! May I find some way to properly express the depths of my gratitude even today. Yes, and Amen, let it be so, my Lord, my King, my God.
