JESUS, THE BREAD OF LIFE

READ JOHN 6:41-71

41-42) What is the Jew's complaint? Jesus claim to be the bread from heaven, yet they knew His father and mother here on earth. How can He be from heaven? Their problem was they had an earthly perspective and not a heavenly perspective.

43-47) These verses demonstrate the spiritual blindness of the Jews. They had been taught by God from the prophets, the Father had been drawing their people for centuries from His Word and yet they refused to believe. (the quote (v.45) is from Isa. 54:13)

48-71) These Jews were blinded to the truth. Read Hosea 4:4-10 and notice that the people were stumbling over true knowledge. QUOTE: (from Holman Treasury of Key Words) "The Hebrew word kasha, "to stumble," to stagger," "to reel," or "to totter," can also mean "to be feeble" or "to cause to stumble." Failing to continue on a true path, to be sidetracked, or to find offense and turn away from a true path is the root idea. Israel in Hosea's day was sidetracked by their morally culpable refusal to know God the way they should have...A person was openly rebelling against God if he or she did not recognize the true knowledge of God that He had made known. Because of Israel's refusal to know God, He Himself put a stumbling block in their way - His divine judgement (Jer. 20:11). The rebellious people, because of their attitude, "stumbled" kashal over that which was to light their path (Hos. 14:9). Malachi warned that the false teaching of the priest, the spirutal leaders of the people, was also causing God's people to stumble. But God was also ready to help the unrighteous person who turned from his or her wicked ways, assuring them that they would not fall (Ezek. 33:12)."
These Jews were leaders who were in spiritual blindness, refusing to come to the true knowledge of the right path, and were also a stumbling block for the people. Jesus was showing them what the right path was, Himself. This is what Jesus is pointing out throughout the rest of the chapter.
1) You must come to Jesus on God's terms. Not on their terms, not on the terms of an earthly leader.
2) The way of salvation is in God's Word, we are to seek it and allow God to teach us THE WAY.
3) We don't personally see the Father, but come to Him through His Word and through Jesus Christ, His Son. Jesus is the revelation of the Father.
4) Manna in the wilderness came from heaven, but was temporary and could not save for all eternity, but Jesus can, He is the true bread of life.
5) Jesus gives them a real jolt. He talks about eating His flesh. It was abhorrence for a Jew to become some kind of cannibal. Again they were thinging only in the earthly terms not the spiritual truth. "What they failed to see was that the "eating" meant personal appropriation by faith, rather than the consuming of physical food." (The Bible Knowledge Key Word Study) (See John 6:63)
FATHER, THE ONE WHO HOLDS THE RIGHT PATH, GIVE US BOLDNESS TO SPEAK YOUR TRUTH AND GIVE US DISCERNMENT NOT TO STUMBLE OR CAUSE ANOTHER TO STUMBLE. AMEN