From the desk of Pastor Ben

False Disciples Versus The Word of Truth

Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him. And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.” As a result of this, many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore.         (John 6:64-66)

Believing or rejecting the divine Word is the crucial line of demarcation between true and false disciples. True disciples will continue in God’s Word (John 8:31), which abides in them (John 15:7). In stark contrast, false disciples will ultimately reject God’s Word (John 8:37). Scripture is essential for bringing any sinner to salvation:

“Now the parable is this: the seed is the Word of God. . . . The seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart, and hold it fast, and bear fruit with perseverance.”     (Luke 8:11)

“For you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.”     (1 Peter 1:23)

Jesus held the false disciples personally responsible for their rejection of him, not because they could not understand, but because they refused to believe. Their unbelief, however, was no surprise to Him because He always knew who would and wouldn’t have faith. These teachings again underscore the tension between divine sovereignty and human responsibility — God condemns unbelievers because of their unbelief, but they are also lost because He chooses not to draw them to saving faith. So, false disciples are always at odds with God’s Word.

Ask Yourself:
Do you find yourself resisting any clear teaching of Scripture? What are the chief fears or factors at work that keep you from giving your wholehearted best to obedience?

From the desk of Pastor Ben

Offending False Disciples

But Jesus, conscious that His disciples grumbled at this, said to them, “Does this cause you to stumble?”         (John 6:61)

Jesus knows the heart of every person, and in this case it was easy for Him to realize that the people were grumbling at His instructions. He used the Greek word translated “stumble,” which can mean either “to take offense” (Matthew 13:57) or “to give up believing” (Matthew 24:10). Both meanings fit for these false disciples, who were offended by our Lord’s teaching and consequently discarded their superficial faith in Him.

Because one of the Jews’ key offenses was Jesus’ claim to have come down from heaven, He asked them what they would think if they saw Him ascending back to heaven. Implicit in this question seems to be the Lord’s wondering if such a sight would convince these doubters that He indeed come from heaven. Some commentators see in this reference to the ascension an allusion to the crucifixion as well. In other words, Christ’s point would be, “If you false disciples are offended by My teaching, how much more will you be offended by My crucifixion?” (1 Corinthians 1:23)

Jesus knows that the only way anyone’s offense toward Him will melt away is if he yields to “the Spirit who gives life,” rather than his unprofitable flesh (John 6:63). Authentic spiritual life comes only when God’s Spirit gives the Son’s life to believers (Colossians 3:3-4), never merely through “the will of the flesh” (John 1:13).

Ask Yourself:
Why does belief in Jesus require the reaction of stumbling on our part? And what does this necessity take away from the human will and nature that we would much rather keep if we could? Why can there be no true salvation that doesn’t cause us to fall on our knees?

From the desk of Pastor Ben

Defining False Disciples

Therefore, many of His disciples, when they heard this said, “This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?”         (John 6:60)

To be called a disciple doesn’t necessarily mean that someone truly followed Christ. The “disciples” here were superficially attracted by divine miracles and the hope for deliverance from Rome. But Jesus would soon reveal their true status. When hearing His demanding teaching about the Bread of Life and salvation residing only in Him, they were unwilling to commit to it. It finally dawned on them that following Jesus meant more than just tagging along with Him as thrill seekers as He performed miracles.

The people’s reaction is typical of false disciples — as long as Jesus was just a source of various free entitlements (miracles), the selfish disciples thronged to the Lord. But when He pressed them about their sin, their need for repentance, and the necessity to follow Him with their whole hearts (Luke 9:23-25), they found His words to be objectionable and unacceptable.

False disciples are okay with Jesus as the Christmas baby, the moral reformer, or the ideal human role model, but they are unwilling to receive the biblical Jesus; the divine Son and Savior who warns sinners of hell and tells them salvation comes only through faith in Him (John 5:24). Those who reject Christ and His teachings fail Jesus’ own test of genuine discipleship: “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine” (John 8:31). Regular obedience to the Lord’s words always defines the true disciple (1 John 2:3-5).

Ask Yourself:
How many of the people you encounter in life are fine with attaching Jesus (or at least the portions of Him they like and approve) onto their own package of belief systems? What are the big questions this leaves unanswered as they try to live out their desires for a fulfilling life?

From the desk of Pastor Ben

Promises to Those Who Receive Christ – Part 2

“For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats 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 he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me.”
                                (John 6:55-57)

Here Jesus tells us that His flesh and blood are true food and drink — in other words, the spiritual sustenance that gives believers union with Him. Then He goes on to declare, “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.” This fourth promise is one of the most precious of the New Testament. In the Upper Room, Jesus assured the apostles, “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). John later bore further testimony to this: “We know that the Son of god has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life” (1 John 5:20).

Paul’s letters reiterate the believer’s union with Christ:

“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”         (2 Corinthians 5:17)

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of god, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”     (Galatians 2:20)

Of course, God is the source of such promises to believers. Jesus has life in Himself (John 5:26), thus, Christians have life in Him.

Ask Yourself:
If you are not experiencing the freedom that comes from being one with Christ, saved from both guilt and the needless, religious manipulations to gain His favor, what is it costing you in terms of the peace and contentment He is able to provide? How could you go about reclaiming it?

June 6
From the desk of Pastor Ben
Promises To Those Who Receive Christ – Part 1

“Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”         (John 6:53b-54)

Here Jesus begins mentioning several promises to those who spiritually receive His body and blood. First, those who reject Christ have no genuine spiritual life within themselves; therefore, those who do receive Him by faith have such spiritual life. The Lord Himself guarantees them abundant life even now (John 5:24; 10:10).

Second, Jesus promises eternal life to all who receive Him (eat His flesh, drink His blood). The believers’ present experience of abundant life does not end at death, but it simply expands into completeness and lasts forever. In John 6:40, resurrection and eternal life result from beholding and believing in Jesus, and here, the same blessings occur from spiritually eating His flesh and drinking His blood. So, our Lord gives us a genuine parallel between these two expressions.

Third, the Son of God promises to “raise up on the last day” everyone who eats His flesh and drinks His blood. This resurrection to eternal life is the Christian’s greatest hope (Acts 23:6, 24). It should be a certain reminder to us that without resurrection, the gospel is meaningless. As the apostle Paul writes, “Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain.”     (1 Corinthians 15:12-14)

Ask Yourself:
The fullness of what Christ has won for us by conquering death and rising up to eternal life is often lost amid the hectic ness of the average day. Stop today to meditate on the abundance He has bought for you. What are some of the blessings you most often overlook?

From the desk of Pastor Ben
What About Drinking Jesus’ Blood?

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 yourselves.”     (John 6:53)

As with eating His flesh, Jesus spoke symbolically regarding the drinking of His blood. The blood metaphor also speaks vividly of the importance of personally embracing His atoning death. The New Testament often uses “blood” in reference to the final sacrifice of the cross (Matthew 26:28; Romans 3:25; Ephesians 1:7; Hebrews 9:12, 14; 1 Peter 1:19; 1 John 1:7; Revelation 5:9).

The idea of a crucified Messiah was hard to accept for the Jews (John 12:32, 34; 1 Corinthians 1:23; Galatians 5:11). Jesus even rebuked the Emmaus disciples for their hesitancy: “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?” (Luke 24:25-26). The apostle Paul’s evangelism to the Thessalonian Jews focused on b

The verbs for “eat” and b are both tenses in the Greek which denote onetime occurrences rather than continuous action. This clearly suggests the onetime, by-faith acceptance of salvation, not the continual, literal consumption of Jesus’ body and blood, as some church groups claim.

Ask Yourself:
We are certainly affected by the sight of blood. It horrifies and disturbs us. But is it possible that we are not horrified enough by what Jesus endured to eradicate our guilt, nor by the sight of our own sin? Are we not squeamish enough to turn our face away and walk in obedience? Interesting question, isn’t it?

From the desk of Pastor Ben
What About Eating Jesus’ Flesh?

Then the Jews began to argue with one another, saying, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?”         (John 6:52)

As we have already seen, Jesus used the Bread of Life and flesh as metaphors to illustrate a vital point. Simply stated, those who consumed the Bread, or His flesh, were those who appropriated spiritual truth about salvation through Him. But the Jews, because of the ignorance of their unbelief, totally missed the spiritual significance of Messiah’s teaching (John 3:4, 9; 4:11-12).

Also, for hundreds of years now, Catholics and other spiritual communities have misunderstood Jesus’ teaching about receiving His flesh. Catholics point to these, as well as other verses, to support their doctrine of transubstantiation, the false teaching that Christ’s body and blood are literally present in the elements of Communion. But this verse does not even refer to Communion — Jesus used a different Greek word for “flesh” than the word He used for “body” in referring to Communion (Matthew 26:26; Mark 14:22).

Furthermore, two additional considerations tell us Jesus’ words here don’t refer to Communion. First, the Lord’s Table had not yet been instituted; otherwise, the people would have understood Jesus’ meaning. Second, the Lord said anyone who partook of His flesh received eternal life, but we know He did not say the same regarding Communion. The Bible teaches that those who properly receive Communion are already believers (1 Corinthians 11:27-32) and that salvation comes by faith alone (Ephesians 2:8-9). When you eat the bread at Communion, you solemnly remember Christ’s flesh wounded for you.

Ask Yourself:
What are the proper responses to the Communion table, and how has God met you with His grace and refreshment through the partaking of the elements? When we talk about “remembering” Christ’s death, what are some of the most tender, worshipful ways to do that?

From the desk of Pastor Ben
Christ’s Real Sacrifice

“The bread also which I give for the life of the world is My flesh.”
                        (John 6:51b)

Over the centuries, many Christians, as well as those merely having an academic interest or curiosity in Christianity, have wrestled with the nature of Jesus’ atonement. How definitive was it, and was His death an actual satisfaction of God’s justice, accompanied by a real turning away of His wrath from specific sinners? We can answer definitively that Jesus, the Bread from Heaven, offered a genuine payment and full atonement — not one that was conditional — on behalf of God’s chosen people.

God commands people everywhere to repent and believe the gospel. And they have to exercise a certain amount of responsibility to obey that call. But redemption is ultimately the work of God, and Jesus died to accomplish it. His sacrifice on the cross did not merely make salvation possible and contingent on the sinner’s eventual acceptance. Instead, our Lord’s sacrifice actually paid the penalty for all who believe. Humans don’t limit the atonement by their lack of faith; God determines its extent by His sovereign plan.

Jesus did not give His flesh only for Israel, but for people everywhere (John 10:16; 1 John 2:2). He died for them regardless of nationality, culture, or socio-economic standing (Isaiah 45:22; Matthew 28:19; Galatians 3:28; Colossians 3:11). Christ Himself preached, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life” (John 3:14-15; 12:32). The Son is the only Savior for lost sinners across the world.

Ask Yourself:
What would keep someone from being willing to accept that Jesus’ death on the cross is sufficient to cover their every transgression and sin and declare them righteous before the Father? Why do so many insist on adding more to the gospel, infusing human will into the process?

From the desk of Pastor Ben
The Bread of Life Is For Sinners

“The bread also which I give for the life of the world is My flesh.”
                    (John 6:51b)

The New Testament repeatedly states the concept of Jesus sacrificing His flesh, the Bread of Life, for sinners (Matthew 20:28; Ephesians 5:2, 25; 1 Timothy 2:6). Here, He looks ahead to His death (2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Peter 2:24), one of many such predictions (Matthew 16:21; John 12:24; Mark 10:33-34; Luke 18:31-33).

So, it was the Lord’s flesh that purchased our redemption. It would have done us no good had He simply preached the Father’s standards and left us to try and keep them to earn salvation. That’s impossible for us. The only way for sinners like ourselves to be reconciled to a holy God was for Jesus to die “for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18).

The epistles instruct us that “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), and “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Hebrews 9:22); therefore, Jesus Christ became the ultimate sacrifice for sin, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). The Lord offering up His flesh, or the Bread of Life, equals full payment to God for the sin — to the eternal benefit of all who truly believe (Romans 4:25; 1 John 2:2). If we have repented of our sin, trusted in Christ’s sacrifice, and by faith, appropriated His flesh, we can be confident of a complete pardon (Acts 13:38-39; Ephesians 1:7; 1 John 1:9).

Ask Yourself:
Imagine being in such grave danger that you would consider going to someone you know and, if it were possible, asking him or her to die in your place. How would you feel about that person for the rest of your life? What keeps us from always feeling that way about our Lord?

From the desk of Pastor Ben
Appropriating The Bread of Life

“I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats
of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I give
for the life of the world is my flesh.”         (John 6:51)

Here, Jesus uses the simple analogy of daily eating to suggest 5 parallels to appropriating spiritual truth.

First, like uneaten food, spiritual truth is useless if not taken in (Hebrews 4:2). Merely knowing truth without applying it is worse than not knowing it at all — in fact, it results in more severe judgement (Luke 12:47-48).

Second, those who are full are not interested in eating, even as those who are slaves of sin have no appetite for spiritual truth (Luke 6:21). But when people realize they’re lost, the desire for forgiveness, deliverance, and peace drives them to embrace the truth of the heavenly Bread.

Third, physical food becomes a part of your body through digestive process. Likewise, when a person appropriates Christ by faith, he or she becomes one with Him (Galatians 2:20; Ephesians 3:17).

Fourth, the actual act of eating implies trust that the food is safe and edible. In the same way, eating the Bread of Life implies believing in Jesus.

Fifth and finally, there is no such thing as eating by proxy; neither is there salvation by proxy. Sinners must individually and personally take hold of the Bread of Life to obtain salvation (John 6:58; 8:51; Romans 8:13). Psalm 49:7 says, “No man can by any means redeem his brother or give to God a ransom for him.”

Ask Yourself:
How often do you find yourself merely observing Jesus, merely talking about Jesus, merely referring to Jesus — but not participating with Jesus, not letting Him become a part of your bone and marrow, your heart and soul, your reason for getting up in the morning?