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Subject 16 : The Gospel According to JOHN
[Chapter 6-4] Labor for the Food That Endures to Everlasting Life (John 6:16-40)
(John 6:16-40)
“Now when evening came, His disciples went down to the sea, got into the boat, and went over the sea toward Capernaum. And it was already dark, and Jesus had not come to them. Then the sea arose because a great wind was blowing. So when they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and drawing near the boat; and they were afraid. But He said to them, ‘It is I; do not be afraid.’ Then they willingly received Him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land where they were going. On the following day, when the people who were standing on the other side of the sea saw that there was no other boat there, except that one which His disciples had entered, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with His disciples, but His disciples had gone away alone—however, other boats came from Tiberias, near the place where they ate bread after the Lord had given thanks—when the people therefore saw that Jesus was not there, nor His disciples, they also got into boats and came to Capernaum, seeking Jesus. And when they found Him on the other side of the sea, they said to Him, ‘Rabbi, when did You come here?’ Jesus answered them and said, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.’ Then they said to Him, ‘What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?’ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.’ Therefore they said to Him, ‘What sign will You perform then, that we may see it and believe You? What work will You do? Our fathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’’ Then Jesus said to them, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’ Then they said to Him, ‘Lord, give us this bread always.’ And Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen Me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.’”
Through today’s Scripture passage from John 6:16-40, I would like to speak to you about the bread of life. Previous to this passage, the Lord had fed over 5,000 people by blessing just five barley loaves and two fish, and there still remained twelve baskets of leftover. As Jesus healed many sick people while on this earth, multitudes were following Him around. Put differently, Jesus now had a fan club.
With His fan club springing up, Jesus was the real superstar of that age. He had countless fans, from children to the old, men and women alike. Multitudes followed Him around because they could get food to feed their flesh, and also because they wanted to be healed from their illnesses. So out of His compassion for them, the Lord healed their illnesses and gave them food to eat. That’s why many people followed Jesus.
One day, His disciples were sailing to Capernaum before Him. He was praying in the mountain at that time planning to meet with His disciples at Capernaum afterwards. While the disciples were sailing, a storm came over to threaten them, but as Jesus walked to them on water and protected them from the storm, they were able to reach their destination safely.
Meanwhile, the people were looking for Jesus but could not find Him, as they did not realize that He had crossed to Capernaum. So they asked around and sought Him out. When they found Him, they told Him that they had been looking for Him, and said, “Rabbi, were You here? When did You come here?” Jesus then told them spiritual things.
It’s written in John 6:26-27: “Most assuredly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.”
Jesus knew that the people following Him around had come looking for Him again only to find food for their flesh, and so He said to them, “Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life.” Our Lord had come to this earth as the Son of God incarnated in the flesh of man, and He said to the people that He would personally give them imperishable food. So the Lord told them not to labor for the perishable food, but for the food that endures to everlasting life, and He said to them that He Himself would give them this imperishable food. And referring to Himself, Jesus said that God the Father has set His seal on Him, the Son of God. In other words, Jesus told them that God the Father had decided to give the bread of everlasting life to everyone, but only through the Lord.
To Today’s Christians Who Seek Only Carnal Blessings
The people at that time were puzzled by Jesus’ saying, since they were more interested in the bread of the flesh. They had thought that the Lord would have compassion for them and once again bless some food to feed them with fish and bread, but the Lord told them to labor for the food of everlasting life. So they couldn’t help but be disappointed. Moreover, Jesus said that He Himself would give the bread that endures to everlasting life, and so the people who were following Him around couldn’t resist asking Him for more details. So they asked Jesus, “Lord, You told us to labor for the food that endures to everlasting life, but what then must we do to do the work of God?” The Lord then answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom God sent.”
The Lord said that to believe in Him whom God sent is the work of God. In other words, since Jesus was sent to this earth by God the Father, and He is the One who was to blot out people’s sins and give them everlasting life, Jesus said that the work of God is to believe in the One sent by Him. To believe in Him whom God sent is the work of God. However, those listening to what Jesus was saying were puzzled by His saying, as Jesus had told them to labor for the food that endures to everlasting life, and that’s why they had asked Him what they should do. Jesus said that to believe in Him whom God sent is His work.
Our Lord sincerely wanted people to obtain the bread of eternal life by believing in Him. So the Lord said quite explicitly, “If you believe in Me, you will receive everlasting life. I have come to give you the bread of eternal life.” The entire multitude then asked Him in unison: “What sign will You perform then, that we may see it and believe in You? What is it that You are doing on this earth? What do You do that we should be able to see and believe? What are the signs and miracles that You are going to perform? As we know, our forefathers ate the manna in the desert, for it’s written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ Can you do such things? You say that to believe in Him whom God sent from Heaven is the work of God, but can you then really perform such miraculous works?”
So our Lord said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (John 6:32-33). Put differently, Jesus was saying, “It was not Moses who gave you the bread from Heaven. Moses only gave you the food of the flesh. God had brought down the manna when Moses prayed, but that was the bread of the flesh. Only My Father gives you the true bread from Heaven, and the bread of God is He who comes down from Heaven and gives life to the world.” This means that Jesus Himself is the living bread from Heaven, which God the Father sent down to give life to people. Jesus said that He was the bread of everlasting life.
The people then asked Jesus, “Then give us this bread always.” The Lord said, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). None other than our Lord is the very bread of life. So today, I would like to speak to you about this bread of life. Jesus said that He Himself is the bread of life. Since Jesus is the bread of life, He is telling us to eat the bread of life by faith. If you eat the flesh of Jesus and drink His blood by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, then you will receive the remission of your sins and everlasting life. That’s why the Lord said, “He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.” Jesus said all these things in reference to Himself.
The Body of Jesus Has Become the Bread of Life for Us
What we can realize now is that Jesus has become the bread of life for us. The Lord is the true bread of life. Jesus is the true bread of life which, by making us eat His flesh, has enabled us to obtain true life. That He described Himself to be this bread means that He came to this earth incarnated in the flesh of man, accepted all the sins of mankind on His body by receiving His baptism from John the Baptist, and washed away all our sins. So the Lord was saying that He cleansed away our sins by being baptized, and that because He also bore the condemnation of our sins, He has become our Savior.
The Lord said that He is the bread of life. Jesus has become the bread of life for all of us. All who ate the manna died, and everyone who ate the elixir of life in this world also passed away. However, the Lord has delivered from sin and death all those who believe that He came to this earth incarnated in the flesh of man, was baptized by John the Baptist to take upon Himself our sins, and washed them all away on the Cross. Jesus is the Lord who has given true life to you and me by being crucified and shedding His blood on the Cross, bearing the condemnation of our sins in our place, and rising from the dead again. Therefore, today’s believers in the gospel of the water and the Spirit have received new, everlasting life, and they have obtained the water of eternal life to never thirst again forever. The Lord spoke to us of the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
In John chapter six, the Lord had performed the miracle of five loaves of bread and two fish, feeding over 5,000 people. He had fed all these people with only five barley loaves and two small fish, and He had saved their physical lives. This miracle foreshadows how everyone all over the world is saved from sin by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that God’s Church now has and believes in. Now anyone who believes in the gospel of the water and the Spirit is to receive true, eternal life. The gospel of the water and the Spirit is of Jesus Christ who is the true bread of life. Our Lord has saved us once and for all by coming to this earth, being baptized by John the Baptist, dying on the Cross, and rising from the dead again.
People today can now receive everlasting life by believing in Jesus Christ who has become the true bread of life. Many Christians nowadays are convinced that they’ve become God’s people just because they’ve seen false signs and miracles, and they’ve been healed from the illnesses of their flesh. But this is a seriously flawed faith. They think that their prosperity and success are all because of their faith in Jesus, and on account of this, they are convinced that the Lord has made them His children and given them eternal life. Such beliefs are misled.
The Lord said in John 6:37, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.” Who then are these people whom God truly sends to Jesus Christ? They are those who follow what is eternal and spiritual, rather than what is of carnal and perishable. Yet even though our Lord has come to this earth as the true bread of life, many people still remain unable to obtain true, everlasting life, for they neither know Jesus and nor believe in Him correctly. There are so many people who believe in Jesus in vain like this.
However, God the Father sends to the Lord those who are indeed poor in spirit, and who seek spiritual things rather than carnal things. God does not lead to the Lord those who are obsessed with the material wealth or fame of this world. God leads those who are truly sorry before God for their sins, who know that they are bound to hell because of these sins, and who desire to be remitted from them before God. Jesus said, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me.” Whom does God the Father send to Jesus? They are not those who seek only the things of the earth. Nor are they those who follow Jesus only to gain some material benefit from Him. They are those who want to break down the wall of sin separating them from God, to be washed from their sins, to receive the remission of sin from God, and to come before His presence. It is such people whom God sends to our Lord.
God sends to His Son those people who yearn for the blessings from above. Such people who truly yearn to get the problem of their sins solved and to receive the God-given blessings can indeed come out to the Lord; they are grateful and rejoiced for the fact that the Lord has washed away all our sins by being baptized by John the Baptist when He came to this earth; and they cherish this the most. These people do not set their hearts on the things of the world once they receive the remission of sin, but instead, they are always thankful to the Lord and rejoiced that He has blotted out their sins with the gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit, that He has made them God’s children and workers, and that He has enabled them to enter the Kingdom of God to live there.
We should never follow Jesus for any other purpose, to try to become rich, drive a luxury car, or become famous. We must not believe in Jesus and follow Him only as a matter of religion. That’s extremely wrong.
My fellow believers, the end of this world will come soon. Regardless of whether you believe this or not, destruction will come for sure. If you live just a bit longer, you will see this with your eyes, witness it all through TV, and feel it realistically. What’s in this earth is actually nothing. Such things as your fame, your wealth, your children, and even you yourself are not that significant. What’s more important than these things is that you have to wash away the sins that are in your hearts before God. God the Father said that He would wash away our sins through His Son. On account of this promise, the Lord said that He would become the bread of life for us. Jesus Christ, the true bread that came down from Heaven, took upon your sins and mine by being baptized and bore the condemnation of sin by being crucified, and rising from the dead again. He has thus given us true, everlasting life.
My fellow believers, even though it may seem rather absurd to say that everything of this world means nothing, if you compare it to such blessings that have made it possible for you to be remitted from your hearts’ sins, become sinless people, turn into God’s children, and enter and live forever in His Kingdom, then everything that’s in this world is indeed nothing. What is every human existence before God? All human beings were made from dust, born because of God, and they are to return to Him. There is a song in Korea that goes like this: “♬Life is a journey. From where did we come, and to where are we going? ♪On this journey wandering like the drifting clouds, let there be no lingering attachments.♬” As this song goes, life is like a journey. As a traveler journeys through a strange land and returns home at the end of his journey, everyone is here in this world only for a short while, and everyone must return to God eventually. All our lives, yours and mine alike, are like this before God.
However, this world is filled with so many people who cling only to the things of the world and seek the food that will perish, thinking that they would live forever on this earth. Since the Lord said, “I will give you the bread of life,” and He described Himself as the bread of life for this world, such people accepted this passage simply in carnal terms, thinking to themselves, “I wish I could eat this bread.”
We must realize that this bread is none other than the flesh of Jesus and His blood. The flesh and blood of Jesus is the bread of life, the bread of everlasting life, the living bread, and the bread of the remission of sin. It was to teach and speak of this lesson that Jesus had fed countless people by performing the miracle of five loaves and two fish. It was to teach this that He had personally intervened in such historical events and performed signs. So ultimately, Jesus was saying that He was the bread of life, and that He would give it to all of us. And He did so to fulfill the will of the Father. Verses 38-39 say, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day.” Jesus is the bread of life.
I believe that most Christians professing to believe in Jesus today are too foolish. Like the people mentioned in today’s Scripture passage, even today, they seek the bread of the flesh instead of the bread of everlasting life. Jesus had told the people gathered around Him that they should ask for the bread that came down from Heaven. Yet despite this, they were just asking for the bread of the earth. Having tasted the bread of the flesh through the miracle of five loaves and two fish, they kept asking for such bread.
My fellow believers, when we believe in Jesus that is, when we really want to believe in Him, we must recognize and believe in Jesus as our Savior for the purpose of becoming God’s children and entering His Kingdom to enjoy eternal life. At the very least, anyone who wants to believe in Jesus as the Savior must do so in order to be washed from all the sins of his or her heart. You too should believe in Jesus for such purposes as becoming God’s child and entering His Kingdom to live forever. If you otherwise believe in Jesus only to obtain and eat the bread of the flesh, then you believe in Jesus only as a matter of religion, and your faith is a completely flawed matter.
The Lord said, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me” (John 6:37). What kind of people are those whom the Father has sent to Jesus Christ? They are those who seek the things of Heaven. We are now holding a revival meeting. Among the attendees there, those who seek the things of Heaven are not disappointed at this revival meeting. In contrast, those who seek the things of the earth do not even come here. They think that if they believe in Jesus, they would gain a luxurious car, become rich, be healed from their illnesses, buy a house, find a good husband or a good wife, or make a great coup in the enterprise. This is the kind of Jesus whom they follow. They are all leading a flawed life of faith. Such people today cannot come to God’s Church even if they want to. Even if they want to come to God’s Church, God the Father does not send them there. Those who seek the things of the earth can never meet the Lord.
Such people are those who say that they have sin even as they believe in Jesus. These Christians themselves know that they will be condemned by God for their sins. Everyone knows whether there is sin in his or her heart or not. People know that they will face the condemnation of sin from God. We ourselves have to realize whether we really want to believe in Jesus who came by the gospel of the water and the Spirit as our Savior, or we seek to believe in Him for some other carnal purposes. Do you yourself know if you are seeking the things of the flesh, or are you ignorant of this? Of course you know. You yourself know very well whether you are seeking spiritual things or carnal things. Everyone can know him or herself. If you think just a bit more deeply, you can know yourself.
Because everyone has both a body and a soul, if one is trapped in his own flesh, he is more than able to rationalize himself. However, we believe in Jesus in order to receive the remission of sin into our hearts, to become God’s children and sinless people, and to enter and live in His Kingdom. You should never believe in Jesus just to obtain some sort of earthly blessings, as if you yearn for the blessing of this earth while professing Buddhism, some spirits in the mountain, Confucianism, or Shamanism. If this is why you believe in Jesus, you are better off to believe in something else other than Christianity.
Jesus is the Savior who has saved us from the sins of the world. The Bible says, “He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). This means that Jesus is the Savior who saves us from the sins of the world, not someone who will make us materially rich and carnally prosperous and healthy. The Bible says, “As it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).
My fellow believers, the Lord knows us all too well. He knows all about how we are all to live in this world only momentarily like a dayfly and return to Him. So while still living on this earth, everyone must seek and obtain the bread of everlasting life that does not perish, and everyone must eat this bread and wash away his heart’s sins, but how can you wash away your sins? To find the answer to this question, you must only think purely about how you can be reconciled to God, without attaching anything else such as fame or money into your relationship with God.
For us to come out to God, to be approved by Him, and to be made completely whole before His presence, what must we do? We must receive the remission of sin. Could we then be washed from our sins if we try hard on our own? No, this is not possible. What must we do then? The Lord said that He would give us the bread of life. In other words, Jesus Christ who came as the Son of God would give us the remission of our sins, eternal life, and the blessing of becoming God’s children. You must therefore eat the true bread that came down from Heaven by faith.
The Bread That Came Down from Heaven for Our Remission of Sin Is Jesus Christ
What did Jesus Christ do for you and me when He came to this earth? To feed us the bread of Heaven, Jesus took upon Himself our sins by being baptized by John the Baptist. He bore your sins and mine by being baptized from John the Baptist. It was to become the true bread of life for you and me that Jesus received baptism on His own body. By thus receiving this baptism given by John the Baptist, Jesus shouldered our sins and carried them, and He was crucified and shed His blood on the Cross. And three days after being crucified to death, He rose from the dead again.
The Lord is saying, “I came down from Heaven for you, I took upon Myself your sins by being baptized, I was crucified to death and shed My blood to be condemned for these sins, and I rose from the dead again to give you everlasting life.” We must believe in this Jesus Christ who bore all the sins of mankind by being baptized by John the Baptist; who was condemned for these sins by shedding His blood on the Cross; and who gave us everlasting life and the remission of sin by rising from the dead again. We must infallibly believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and in Jesus Christ. Only then can we really receive the remission of sin and obtain eternal life.
None other than this is to eat by faith the true bread that came down from Heaven. Such was the very miracle that Jesus showed on this earth. None other than this is a miracle. People asked Jesus, “Moses brought down the manna from the heavens, and so our ancestors ate it. Then what sign will You perform to make us believe in You?”
What is the evidence that enables us to believe in the Lord as our True Savior? What is the real miracle? The very fact that the Lord has saved us by coming to this earth incarnated in the flesh of man, being baptized at the age of 30, dying on the Cross, and rising from the dead again—none other than these constitute a miracle. Yet even though the Truth is so clearly visible, people still cannot believe in it.
I trust that you don’t just know that the Lord was simply crucified to death when He came to this earth. Jesus took upon Himself your sins and mine once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist. We must believe in this fact. Only then do we become righteous as your sins and mine are blotted out. If people believe only in the blood of the Cross even after we’ve shown them this fact, do they then really believe in Jesus properly? They are trying to be washed clean from their sins by offering prayers of repentance, and everyday they ask only for the things of the flesh, saying to the Lord, “Give me more and more!”
We must eat the bread that came down from Heaven by faith. If the bread comes down from Heaven, people should just eat it by faith. If you try to be saved from your sins by offering something to God, then you are seriously wrong. The bread of this earth will all grow mold and rot away in just a day or two. It only takes a few days for the bread of this earth to begin to smell bad. In contrast, the bread that came down from Heaven is everlasting, for it is Jesus Himself. This bread never goes bad nor does it grow mold. Jesus is the bread of everlasting life. He is the forever-living God. He is the Savior God who has blotted out our sins for eternity. He is the One who has given us true life. We must eat the bread that came down from Heaven by believing in it with our hearts. We must eat the bread of life by wholeheartedly believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, rather than believing in some false faith of our own making. This means that we should not try to make the bread of life on our own.
What Is It That You and I Really Need Now?
Don’t we need the faith that enables us to wash away our hearts’ sins, to become sinless people, to turn into God’s children, to receive everlasting life, and to prepare our bright future in the next world? We need this kind of faith to prepare for the next world. There is a proverb in Korea that says, “It’s better to live in this world than the next world, even if you are rolling in manure.” However, only those who don’t believe the next world would agree to this saying. Regardless of how we may live in this world, our present lives are ephemeral. We had a good meal today, but this, too, is momentary. The food of the flesh is such that no matter how well you eat, it’s all passed out in a day.
What we must realize is that the things of the earth are fleeting. We must eat by faith the bread that came down from Heaven. We shouldn’t try to eat the bread of life by buying it with our meritorious deeds. Nor should we try to buy the bread of life with money. The bread that came down from Heaven is the bread that does not perish forever, and that washes away sin. Whoever eats this bread will receive everlasting life. Yet despite this, many Christians today try to receive the remission of sin by offering prayers of repentance. Far too many people do not know the preciousness of the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
Jesus said in one of His parables that when a pearl merchant found a priceless pearl, he sold everything he owned and bought that pearl. My fellow believers, like this merchant, we must hold onto the gospel of Truth even if we have to sacrifice everything in our lives. We must believe in the amazing Truth of salvation, that Jesus Christ, the true bread of life that came down from Heaven, has saved us from sin by coming to this earth, being baptized by John the Baptist, dying on the Cross, and rising from the dead again. Isn’t this faith worth holding on to and defending? Of course it is!
Because the bread that came down from Heaven is the most precious bread of life, those of us who have eaten this bread can smile and thank God always. We who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit can live a spiritual life all the time. We can always smile. Even in our suffering, we can still find comfort, and even as we have nothing in this world, we can still find true satisfaction. We are able to be truly content in both body and spirit. And it’s all because of Jesus that we have genuine joy and satisfaction.
Today, among those who have met the Lord, there are some people who do not place all their faith upon Jesus. If we want to receive the remission of sin from God, be washed from our sins, and have faith of entering Heaven by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that the Lord has given us, then we must sell everything we have to bet our everything on Jesus Christ. To do so, we must cast aside all the flawed knowledge that we’ve been accumulating until now. We must realize, “What I’ve known so far is nothing. That kind of knowledge is like trash.”
There is a big difference between the gospel of the water and the Spirit and what you may have known until now. But is your knowledge comparable to the gospel of the water and the Spirit? Any flawed knowledge apart from the gospel of the water and the Spirit is worthless to be even compared to the knowledge of the Truth. What is there to compare? Such knowledge will all perish away to disappear, and it will be corrupted with passing time.
Our Lord came to this earth to become the bread of life for us. And by being baptized by John the Baptist, He bore our sins, and He washed them away once and for all. It’s because Jesus took upon Himself all our sins once and for all by being baptized that your heart’s sins and mine have been washed away, and that is how those who believe in this gospel of the water and the Spirit have come to obtain the washing of their sins.
What about you then? Have your heart’s sins been washed away? My fellow believers, we must not believe in Jesus Christ according to our own thoughts, but we must believe in Him through the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Only then is our faith proper in God’s sight. Only then does God the Father say to us, “You are qualified to believe in My Son.” It’s on such people whom God brings down the gospel rain of the water and the Spirit and bestows His blessings. It’s those who hunger for righteousness, who are poor in spirit, and who mourn over their sins that God gives the gospel of the water and the Spirit. For all others, God the Father says that they are not qualified to believe in His Son.
Jesus did this for no other reason than to give eternal life to you and me. The Lord said, “This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day” (John 6:39).
My fellow believers, it’s a marvelous blessing that we believe in the Lord as our Savior, and that we believe in Jesus Christ who came by the gospel of the water and the Spirit. For what could we ever exchange Jesus? Do you think there is anything that’s more precious than Jesus? When we have Jesus on our side who has become the bread of life, would we rely on anything of this world? By becoming our bread of life for us, Jesus has given you and me the remission of sin and eternal life. He is now saying that whoever eats His flesh and drinks His blood will have his future guaranteed. He is saying, “I have prepared everything for you in Heaven.” We must truly understand Jesus Christ who has become our bread of life, and we must believe in Him wholeheartedly. By faith, we must eat Jesus as the true bread of life.
There are many people living in this age. But how many of them really come out to believe in Jesus who is our Savior and our true bread of life? There aren’t that many. In Korea alone, countless people profess to believe in Jesus, and yet a few of them actually come out to the Lord to receive eternal life from Him.
When it comes to believing in Jesus, what’s the most important is the remission of sin. It is from there that our faith begins, and only then can we receive all the spiritual blessings that belong to Heaven. However, Christian leaders today have set aside the most important topic, which is everlasting life, and instead teach carnal lessons, saying, “Jesus increased the bread and fish. He is the Lord who enables us to prosper. If we follow the Lord, we will not lack any more. If we were to be faithful to the Lord, the feast of prosperity never ends. Amen. Halleluiah!”
The Lord has become the true bread of salvation for us. This fact must be the central axis of our faith. For you and me, and to blot out your sins and mine, Jesus took upon Himself our sins by being baptized, shed His blood on the Cross, rose from the dead again, and has thereby become our Savior. The Lord has completed everything, so that we would be able to reach our salvation if only we know this Truth and believe in it. That is the core message that the Lord is speaking of us through today’s Scripture passage.
In John chapter six, Jesus told us to eat His flesh and drink His blood. I’ve expounded on this subject in more detail in another volume titled “Eat My Flesh and Drink My Blood.” Just as the Lord said, “Of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day,” all those who come out to the Lord to receive the remission of sin will indeed obtain it. But those who come out to the Lord for any other purpose will all be forsaken.
My fellow believers, although spiritual faith and carnal faith may seem similar in outside appearance, there is a huge difference. Even if all Christians may seem to believe in Jesus outwardly, the purpose of a spiritually oriented faith is fundamentally different from that of a carnally oriented faith, and therefore there is a tremendous difference between these two types of faith.
No matter what, we must know and believe in Jesus Christ who constitutes the true bread that came down from Heaven. And we must also realize and believe that because He has given us new life, our souls and our bodies will be resurrected to live with the Lord forever. In this time when the Great Tribulation is imminent, those who believe in this serve the gospel by faith and live everyday in hope. I give all thanks to God, for I believe that I will indeed be resurrected on the last day and live forever.
Everyone who believes in the gospel of the water and the Spirit has obtained true, everlasting life and received the remission of sin. I give thanks to the Lord for giving us spiritual bread, so that we may live forever. Amen.
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