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Apr 25, 2021

Scripture Reading: John 6:41-51

This paragraph in John is yet another example of the mystery of human responsibility and divine sovereignty. Jesus chides these unbelieving Israelites for their grumbling. They, like most people today, imagined that Jesus was simply another human being like them. "They said, 'Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, 'I have come down from heaven'?" (Jn 6:42).

People are responsible if they do not heed Jesus' exhortation … "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" (Jn 6:50,51).

Christ offers Himself to all eternal life. But, the corruption of the human heart is so thorough that no one wants this bread … which is Jesus Himself.

"The nature of man since the fall is so corrupt and depraved that even when Christ is made known and preached to him, he will not come to Him and believe in Him without the special grace of God inclining his will and giving him a disposition to come. Moral (per)suasion and advice alone will not bring him. He must be 'drawn'" (J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on John, 1:271).

The inability spoken of in John 6:44 … "no one can come to me" … is the inability of desire. People do not come to Christ because they do not want Jesus. And God holds them responsible for this refusal (Jn 5:40). On the other hand, people are 'drawn' by God by His teaching them who Jesus is. And "everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes" to Christ (Jn 6:45). People in hell have only themselves to blame. People in heaven have only God to praise.