Subject 16 : The Gospel According to JOHN
[Chapter 6-20] The Word of Eternal Life: The Flesh and The Blood of Jesus (John 6:60-71)
(John 6:60-71)
“Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can understand it?’ When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, ‘Does this offend you? What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you who do not believe.’ For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him. And He said, ‘Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.’ From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more. Then Jesus said to the twelve, ‘Do you also want to go away?’ But Simon Peter answered Him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus answered them, ‘Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?’ He spoke of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, for it was he who would betray Him, being one of the twelve.”
When Jesus came to this world and performed the work of the salvation, He was hated by many who did not believe in Him. In the Gospel of John chapter 6, people showed hatred toward Jesus because He said that He was the bread of life. It is true that there were a lot of adversaries when Jesus spoke of the Truth that saved us from sin through His flesh and blood. So, when Jesus said that He would receive persecution and die on the Cross and resurrect in three days, even Jesus’ disciples thought that was odd and tried to restrain Him from doing this.
We have heard and understood through the Word we shared this morning that Jesus gave us the eternal life by feeding us His flesh and blood. But this was the very period when many of those who followed Jesus left Him. Many people admired and followed Jesus when Jesus healed many who were sick, demon-possessed, and pitiful. They also followed Him when He fed the people by performing the miracle of five loaves and two fish, and spoke of God’s Kingdom.
But when Jesus told them to eat and drink His flesh and blood, no one understood this, and even the disciples of Jesus were just mumbling among themselves because they could not understand this. That’s why Jesus told the disciples, “Is the Word that I spoke to you becoming a stumbling block for you? Then what would you do if you saw me going up to the Heaven where I came from? The things that I say to you are for you. I say these things to save you and the future generations from sin, cleanse your sins and make you the children of God, and give you eternal life. Why can’t you understand what I am saying? I am not talking about the things of the flesh. Instead, I am saying these things to save your souls from sin.”
And the Lord said in John 6:65, “And He said, ‘Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.’” It means that God the Father guides the people who really believe in Jesus to come to Him. Actually, many people volunteered to become Jesus’ disciple before He said such things, but many, except for the 12 disciples, went away when Jesus told them to eat His flesh and blood.
So many people followed Him in admiration when He performed numerous miracles, healed people, and cast out demons, and they accepted His Word when Jesus said He was the Son of God. But all that passion and support disappeared as soon as Jesus said, “I will give you My flesh and blood. Eat and drink them, and you will receive eternal life.” The people just said, “He’s telling us to drink His blood. He says that we must eat and drink His flesh and blood to receive eternal life. I thought He was a decent fellow, but I am really disappointed about that fellow named Jesus,” and left Him. As they left Him, they just expressed their disappointment, saying, “There is no hope in Him. Let’s go.”
Then Jesus said to His disciples, “Do you also want to go away?” Then Peter answered, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Peter must have understood the meaning behind the question. But don’t forget that all those who tried to receive only the food for the flesh had gone away.
See Who the People That Do Not Still Believe in the Gospel of the Water and the Spirit Are Even Today
People that believe in Jesus, who has come by the gospel of the water and the Spirit as their Savior, are truly beautiful. So I do not reject any who believe in and preach the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and I want to walk together with them. However, look at the people who are still sinners even after believing in Jesus. We also believe in Jesus as the Savior, sing praises and pray in same manner as the mainstream Christians do, but they go against us and keep distance from us when we preach the gospel of the water and the Spirit. That’s because they think it is different from what they believe. There is no problem when we just share fellowship with them in trivial topics. But the situation changes as soon as we try to share the gospel of the water and the Spirit with them, preach the flesh and the blood of Jesus, and say that we must eat and drink the flesh and blood of Jesus. Many people regard us as strange and are prone to go against us. They criticize and question why we say that we have to eat Jesus’ flesh, why we have to emphasize that Jesus took over the sins of the entire humanity when he received the baptism from John the Baptist, and why we say this so specifically and say that we cannot be cleansed of sin if we do not believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit when everyone else says that we receive the salvation if we just believe in Jesus.
Not only that, they also don’t understand why we say that we don’t have sin when people cannot help but sin and therefore live with sin even if they believe in Jesus. And they do not try to understand why we try so hard to explain biblically and logically the fact that the people who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit do not have sin. It is so unfortunate. They are people who do not try to understand why we repeatedly try to emphasize that all our sins transferred over to Jesus at the time He received the baptism from John the Baptist, and that all the people who believe this have received the remission of sins and also received salvation from the judgment for those sins.
They say, “Be generous and just say that all the people who believe in Jesus can receive salvation from sin. Let’s approve such a faith even if there is sin in them. Even though there is sin, let’s say that we have received salvation if we just believe in Jesus. Let’ acknowledge that we have become brothers and sisters as long as we just call the name of Jesus. Then we could join together and unite. Why should you insist on ‘the gospel of the water and the Spirit’ and be isolated from mainstream Christianity? All the people dislike you because you preach such gospel.” But those of us who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit must accept even such hatred in order to preach this gospel because that is the right thing to do.
We Must Now Share the Gospel of the Water and the Spirit throughout the Whole World
The five thousand that Jesus fed miraculously with two fishes and five loaves of bread was the number that just counted the men among the crowd that were fed. All the people that were fed at that time probably numbered more than 15,000, if we include all the women and children. How great a number of men and women, young and old, must have wanted to follow Jesus? I mean, how excited they must have been to think they would soon become successful if they just followed Jesus. They believed that their poverty would be solved and that they had met truly a great teacher worth following to the end. But how do you feel about the fact that they did not understand and left Jesus when He said, “I give you My flesh and blood. Eat and drink them. Then you shall receive eternal life. But those who do not eat and drink my flesh and blood cannot receive eternal life.”
As you know, we are doing literature ministry throughout the world. There are many Christian leaders and laymen today who acknowledge our ministry because the contents of our books are all Biblical and they contain the Truth. Throughout the world, many Christian broadcasting companies, seminaries, some big denominations, all seem ready, eager to acknowledge the gospel we are preaching. Furthermore, if anyone who puts together a thesis subject related to the gospel of the water and the Spirit in a manner as we do, it would be more than sufficient for the person to win the Ph. D. degree in Hermeneutics. That’s because this subject is the pivot of the New Testament and the Old Testament in the Bible. This is the truth, not just my imagination.
But still many Christians react harshly on listening to our admonition that asks them to eat the flesh of Jesus. Why? That’s because their faith turns out to be false if they accept the gospel of the water and the Spirit as the Truth. It’s because they cannot receive the remuneration if they emphasize that their congregations should believe in the fact that Jesus took all the sins of the world when He was baptized by John the Baptist. So, many people reject us because we identify those who do not believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit as sinners.
But many ministers throughout the world now believe and follow the gospel of the water and the Spirit as the right gospel like the many multitudes of crowds that followed Jesus. God wants many more to do this. We must know that Jesus said to the crowd at that time, “I will give you My flesh and blood. Therefore, go out and work for the food that does not perish and do not work for the food that perishes. Haven’t you followed Me until now for the food that will perish eventually? You now should work for the food that gives you eternal life. Eating the bread of life is to believe in the One that Father has sent to you. Father has sent Me to give you My flesh and blood. Therefore, you shall receive the remission of sins and eternal life when you eat My flesh and drink My blood.”
However, it is written, “From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.” All those countless numbers of people that used to come and follow Jesus left in no time when He said, “Eat and drink My flesh and blood.” I don’t know how many female disciples there were beside the twelve disciples. But, anyway, most of them left Jesus after that. But to Jesus’ question, “Do you also want to go away?” only Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
That’s right. Where else would we go when the Lord gives us the Word of eternal life? All the Words that Jesus spoke are the Words of eternal life. And they are the Words of the remission of sins. Jesus told us to eat His flesh and blood to give us the remission of sins. Believing in Jesus Christ who came by the water, blood, and the Spirit is the way to eat His flesh and blood. We can eat, by faith, the Truth of salvation that blotted out all our sin: Jesus Christ took them upon Him through the baptism He received from John the Baptist and freed us from all our sins with His resurrection after dying on the Cross. This is the faith of eating the flesh and the blood of Jesus.
It is very important for us to now eat the flesh and the blood of Jesus by faith. We must definitely believe in the implications of Jesus’ flesh and blood. There is no option of believing or not believing because these facts are indispensable to our salvation.
Do you believe this? I believe this also. I must write enormous number of books in order to critique and discuss the things theologians have said about this matter so far, and because so many people have already strong confidence in their salvation only through the blood of Jesus on the Cross without the baptism of Jesus. Therefore, I would have to say much to critique them without criticizing them. I should write, “Doctor so and so has written a book regarding so and so biblical topics, and he said this and that in particular page. But he is misinterpreting the meaning of the Lord’s Word in such and such way. Furthermore, the faith of those who follow this kind of wrong teaching cannot but be also erroneous.” But I have no time to do so. And I am not just trying to point out their wrong points. But as a person who believes in the flesh of Jesus and as a person who has drunken the blood of Jesus, I just want to preach the gospel of the water and the Spirit throughout the whole world, and hope many people will believe in this Truth together with us.
But even Christians do not like to hear the gospel of the water and the Spirit these days because they seek only the food that perishes even though they say they want to follow Jesus. They only expect such things as becoming wealthy by believing Jesus, having bountiful food, becoming healthy, receiving material blessing, casting out demons, and so on. That’s why they go against us when we preach the gospel of the water and the Spirit. This is the same behavior as that of those many people who followed Jesus at that time seeking the food that would perish. Jesus told them to work for the food that gives eternal life instead of the food that perishes.
What is working for the food that gives eternal life? How should we do God’s work? The Bible says that believing in the One that God has sent is doing the God’s work. Then, whom did God send? God sent many servants of God to this world, especially John the Baptist and Jesus Christ and resolved the problem of all the sins of humanity. Jesus came to this world and took all the sins of humanity by receiving the baptism from John the Baptist, dying on the Cross, and being resurrected from the dead. And He now sits on the right hand of the God’s throne. He became our Savior. We receive eternal life by believing in Jesus Christ, that is, by eating the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ.
The Word of eternal life lies in the Lord. As you know, this is such a grateful thing. We receive salvation through the Lord’s Word because the Word of eternal life is in the Lord.
There is a Christian program called “Holy Bible” that unfolds the Bible like a drama broadcasted through a Christian broadcasting company. Recently, they are showing a movie about Paul and I have also watched this program. But as I watched this program, I came to think that “we cannot reveal all of God’s Word through film” because it only shows visible things and cannot really introduce the gospel of the water and the Spirit. We can say that the people who have watched the TV program may have attained certain amount of knowledge about the Scriptures through this program, but the Word of eternal life must be found solely in God’s Word.
Anyway, I want you to know that there is the gospel of the water and the Spirit in the Lord and that we can receive eternal life and really follow the Lord by believing and eating the Lord’s flesh and blood that He gives. We know well that the Lord is the Holy One of God like the way the disciples had believed in Jesus as God, not as a man. The disciples understood and believed in Jesus in that manner, and therefore, they received salvation.
Even if you could not believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and even if you could not understand the gospel of the water and the Spirit, that is solely your responsibility because God has fulfilled all of your salvation perfectly from His standpoint. Our Lord saved us with His flesh and blood, but one of His twelve disciples called Judas Iscariot did not believe this fact. He sold Jesus and eventually fell into destruction. Remember Jesus’ Word that says, “It would have been better if such person were never born.”
We must enter the Kingdom of God and live eternally by believing the gospel of the water and the Spirit. I want you to become such people through faith. We must become the people who eat and drink the flesh and the blood that Jesus gives with faith, who truly receive the remission of sin, and who truly do not have sin in our hearts. And we must become the children of God, by receiving the Holy Spirit as a gift, and in the end, attaining and enjoying the eternal life. We must understand properly that God has given to us the blessing of salvation by giving us the flesh and the blood of Jesus.
This sermon is also available in ebook format. Click on the book cover below.
Copyright © 2021 by The New Life Mission