John 6:41-47
Unless The Father
John 6:41-47 MKJV Then the Jews murmured about Him, because
He said, I am the bread which came down from Heaven. (42) And they said, Is this not Jesus the son
of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How now does this One say, I have
come down from Heaven? (43) Jesus
therefore answered and said to them, Do not murmur with one another. (44) No one can come to Me unless the Father
who has sent Me draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day. (45) It is written in the Prophets, "And
they shall all be taught of God." Therefore everyone who hears and learns
from the Father comes to Me. (46) Not
that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God, He has seen the
Father. (47) Truly, truly, I say to you,
He who believes on Me has everlasting life.
The Jews
did not believe but made comments about His earthly origins. Instead of
addressing their question Jesus goes to the root source of their unbelief – not
being taught of God.
Some
people have zero spiritual intuition. Literal to the last they “just don’t get”
even the most obvious of the parables and entirely miss the signs of times.
Other people are spiritually sensitive and attuned and pick things up very
quickly; they have a life-long curiosity about meaning, spirituality and deeper
religious matters. These are learners in spiritual things are “being taught by
God”.
That is
why Jesus says things such as:
Matthew 11:15 MKJV He who
has ears to hear, let him hear and
Matthew 13:12 MKJV For
whoever has, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance. But
whoever does not have, from him shall be taken away even that which he has.
There are
those who are being drawn by God to Christ, and those who are oblivious to
spiritual matters. From an early age I was interested in Greek and Roman myths
and spirituality in general, then in existentialism, then in astrology, the New
Age, Zen and finally Christianity. I was always very sensitive as a young
person and spiritually curious. This I believe was God at work in me slowly
drawing me to Himself.
Each of
us, who are in Christ – and reading this, are being taught by God (v. 45 above) and this devotional is just one
small part of His instructing you. As I used to say to my bible college
students in Australia – unless God teaches you, you will learn nothing.
I noticed that
about one-third of bible college students really “get it” and grow while
two-thirds are hardly changed at all by two years in the Scriptures. This is
largely independent of the lecturer’s style. Those who are spiritually hungry
will learn even from a poor lecturer. But those who are self-satisfied would
hardly learn even from John Stott himself. (That is not to say we should
lecture badly).
All spiritual
growth is a divine miracle. It took Jesus 3 seconds to raise Lazarus but three
YEARS to get His disciples to learn the truth and to truly believe in Him!
Coming to Christ
is God’s work in us: “No one can come to Me unless the Father who has
sent Me draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day. (45) It is written in the Prophets, "And
they shall all be taught of God." Therefore everyone who hears and learns
from the Father comes to Me.”
God communicates with our spirit
to teach us the things of Christ:
1 Corinthians 2:9-10 MKJV
(But as it is written, "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard," nor
has it entered into the heart of man, "the things which God has prepared
for those who love Him." But God
has revealed them to us by His Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, yea,
the deep things of God.
God reveals to us, the deep things of God, things
that eye has not seen, nor ear heard! He does this through the Holy Spirit so
that we might know the things of God. (1 Corinthians 2:9-16)
“Therefore everyone who hears and learns from the
Father comes to Me.” (As I did!) Though we may wander down many wrong tracks if
we truly follow the voice of conscience and truth and spiritual sensitivity we
will always end up face to face with Jesus Christ at the end of the day.
On our own we cannot get there, we will be as
argumentative and blind as the Jews in John’s gospel. Everything works against
us finding God on our own - our mind is fallen, our light is dim, our efforts
are insufficient, our flesh is strong, and the world is full of spiritual
deception that lures us away from the truth.
The only
way that the sinner can find grace is if the Father draws him. This is known as
preeminent grace (pre-before, veno – to go) that is the grace that goes before
conversion to draw us to God. None of us can say “I have such a high IQ that I
managed to find faith in God through my own cogitations.” We can only say “I
believe because the Father taught me, and showed me Christ.”
Yet we have to be willing to be taught and we have to
choose to believe. Which is why Jesus ends up today’s passage with: Truly,
truly, I say to you, He who believes on Me has everlasting life.
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