We are still in Chapter 6 of John and we continue in a very theologically dense section of the gospel. Jesus is explaining things that you can write books about and each time He uses only a few words.
John 6:48-51
I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."
Here is the doctrine of substitutionary atonement. In a spiritual sense, we must trust our life to be maintained spiritually by the work in which Christ gave himself for "the life of the world." His crucifixion draws (yes it is the same word) all men unto Him (John 12:32) by the Holy Spirit as God the Father glorifies the Son. Preaching the Cross brings redemption. When we drift away from the Cross, the Blood, and the Atonement we no longer attract the redeemed and those who are being redeemed. Some churches comfort the perishing without preaching the redeemer.
All that Jesus teaches here was foreshadowed in the Law and Prophets. What Jesus teaches in these verses should be more shocking to a modern individual than to a 1st century Jew. All of the animal sacrifices should have prepared living hearts to hear and understand what was being said. They were never to think that the blood of bulls and sheep could atone apart from the Grace of God pointing to the Messiah. But rituals can become dead and their meanings lost on all those whose hearts are far from God. This was a hard saying but this was not a saying without precedence in the Law and Prophets. As we've said before, the atonement is pointed to throughout the Old Testament and the need for a savior was the whole point. The hearts of most of the people were so far from God that they only wanted to be saved from the Romans. The Romans were not the big problem. The big problem was God. Who was going to save them from God? They were in a treasonous rebellion against the God of the Universe. Who cares what Caesar thinks?
Mankind is in a similar situation today. Ultimately "self" is on the throne and unless we have the Grace of conviction we don't think we have a problem with God. We can focus on God's love and forget that He is Holy and Just. Emerson was the one who was on his death bed and was asked by a friend if he had made his peace with God. Emerson is supposed to have said, "I don't know that we've ever had a quarrel". Never forget that you were born quarreling with God and that you must have the Messiah to settle your debt for treason.
John 6:52-59
The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever." Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.
We throw terms like "seeker sensitive" around in the Church these days. These teachings are not what we think of as seeker sensitive. We have some churches that are rejecting substitutionary atonement. At that point, you either must have a different way of finding justification or you simply don't believe you need a savoir or that God is Holy.
Both Baptism and Communion teach us that the only way to live and not be destroyed is in Christ. They are physical testimonies of our utter dependence on the work of Jesus and not one little bit of dependence on our own righteousness.
John 6:60-71
When many of his disciples heard it, they said, "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?" But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, "Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe." (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) And he said, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father."
After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, "Do you want to go away as well?" Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God." Jesus answered them, "Did I not choose you, the Twelve? And yet one of you is a devil." He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the Twelve, was going to betray him.
The Spirit gives life. The Holy Spirit is resurrecting those dry bones. As with Lazarus, the Spirit is working and we get to watch and do what God tells us to do through the Holy Spirit. The flesh is no help at all and by "no help" Jesus didn't mean to indicate that it is a little help. It is no help because the carnal mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. Pardon the KJV.
Jesus explains that our assurance of salvation is found in our response to salvation. If you think that you are a Christian because you figured out that Christianity was the best religion then you are wrong and there is no assurance of salvation there. Even worse, if you simply think you're a Christian because your parents were or because you were born in the United States then you are wrong. Jesus is saying that if you find His words to be Spirit and Life then it is because the Father has forcefully taken you for the Son by the Holy Spirit and the Son will never let you go or lose you. Jesus is telling you these things for your comfort. It is not to upset you. These things are the basis of your confidence in your salvation. He wants you to see salvation and evangelism first and foremost as God's work and not something you accomplish by yourself separate from God.
A lack of understanding of the depth of our fall and the mercy of God is part of the noetic effects of sin. We don't reason well and make many logical errors. For example, here Jesus is saying that if we are so dense that we've had animal sacrifice for over a thousand of years and yet we haven't understood what it was all about then what will be think when the Messiah after paying the sacrifice that we don't recognize as our debt is raised from the dead and glorified? What will He be glorified for? How slow can be be? He told us for a thousand years what would happen and then when He stands before them they can't see past the human to the divine. So what will happen and how will a sinner deal with His glorification for being the propitiation or payment for the sins of the redeemed? It won't make any sense. You'll not have any framework for understanding what has happened. You'll wake up in the middle of a movie with no understanding of the characters or plot.
It is the Spirit who gives life. The understanding of Christ and His work that you possess (if He is your Savior) is produced by the life giving Holy Spirit. That should give you peace of mind. He told you that no one could come to Him unless it is a result of a move of God so that you would not rely on your flesh but rather rely on the Holy Spirit.
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