John 6:43-45 - Stop grumbling

6:43,44

Jesus, as He did on several occasions, “makes matters worse”, in the sense that He gives no quarter to the perspective of the thinking of the religious leaders. Their thinking was totally wrong. First He tells them to stop grumbling, it was achieving nothing. The basic fact of the matter was that no one could come to Jesus unless the Father drew them. There are two points of offence here. The first is the reiteration of the fact that Jesus was sent by the Father, and the second is that coming to Christ is primarily in God’s hands not ours. Our destiny is in God’s hands. We need to recognise our dependence upon the Lord in all respects. The Father draws men to Christ, and on the last day Christ will raise that person from the dead. Let me note again that this does not obviate us from human responsibility. At the same time the teaching in John does not fit with the concept of “prevenient grace”. This is the concept that grace operates by making it possible for us to believe in Christ, the teaching of Jesus in John is far stronger than that. 

6:45

“It is written in the prophets”. The words following are not a direct quote, but Is 54:13 and Jer 31:33,34 contain the idea that we need to be taught by God. Ezekiel also foretells God giving us a new heart. We need to learn from God. The Jewish leaders thought that they knew it all, that they could teach. Many theologians today think that they know the truth, that people need to learn from them, not learn from God. Does this mean we don’t need teachers in the church? Of course not, but if we are involved in teaching it is the word of God that we teach, and we point people to God. And the people have a personal relationship with God, they are not dependent upon us as go-betweens. And the sign that someone has learnt from God is that they come to Jesus, for it is the Father’s will that we put our trust in Christ.

Genesis 26:26-35 - We've found water!

26:26-29

Abimelech had previously sent Isaac away, but now he comes to Isaac with the commander of the army. Isaac is somewhat bemused by this turn of events, and so he queries Abimelech. They may have been keeping an eye on Isaac and seen how things were working out for him. They wanted to have a treaty with him, thinking either that this would somehow protect them, or enable them to share in Isaac’s blessings. The attitude of the state to the church can sometimes be similar. There are times when the state wants the church, and times when they want to send the church away.

26:30-33

Isaac exercised hospitality towards them, then in the morning they made a treaty, and Isaac then sent them away peacefully. So there was a kind of reversal of the situation, with Isaac being the one dictating the situation. That day Isaac’s servants came to him delighted that they had found water. So the place was called Beersheba which can mean “well of the oath” or “well of seven”.

26:34,35

Our lives are usually a mixture of blessing and trouble. Things were no different for Isaac and Rebekah. They have been walking in the light of the Lord and seeing things progress, but now we read of their son Esau. He married two Hittite women. This was a failing on two counts. The first is having two wives, the other is marrying Hittite wives. This was a source of grief to Isaac and Rebekah.

John 6:41,42 - I came down from heaven

6:41,42

“So the Jews grumbled about Him”. “The Jews” are the religious leaders, rather than the ordinary people. They objected to Jesus saying He came down from heaven. Their grumbling is reminiscent of the Israelites who grumbled their way into, through, and out of the wilderness. The root of the grumbling is twofold. The primary part is that they did not want to admit that they needed someone from heaven to sort them out. We get a similar thing today when sceptics will object to our saying Jesus is the only way to heaven, or that we need to listen to God and have a responsibility to Him. This causes a reaction in man who wants to decide for himself how things should work.  The second part of the objection is that they knew who his human family was. So they could use this as an excuse to reject Jesus’ claim. But man is not just material. This is uniquely true of Jesus who was born as we are all born, but came from heaven, He is God incarnate. But it is also true of all of us. We are not just material, and when someone is born again by the Holy Spirit things change. Paul says he no longer viewed Jesus from a purely human perspective, and should no longer view anyone from a purely human perspective (2 Cor 5:16).

Genesis 26:23-25 - Do not be afraid

26:23,24

There had been a small victory for Isaac and he had trusted God. The Lord now appears to him to encourage him further. This is similar to the Lord’s appearance to Abraham after his rescuing of Lot and meeting Melchizedek. Although Isaac had acted in faith and had prevailed it is easy for fear to creep in, so the Lord assures him to “fear not”. Why? The Lord would be with him, and would bless him. This is similar to God’s words to Abraham that He was Abraham’s shield and his great reward. The promises would be fulfilled “for my servant Abraham’s sake”. It is not just a matter of our faith, but it is a generational thing as well. We are influenced by our forebears, and our faithfulness influences future generations.

26:25

“So he built an altar there”.  And his servants dug wells there in Beersheba. We should dig wells in the place of God’s blessing. We should not dig them in places where the world promises to bless us. We do this if we go along with the world’s thinking, and it never ends well. We trust in the Lord, and seek our sustenance from him. If we dig wells in the world’s kingdom they will ultimately let us down and poison us.

John 6:39,40 - Shall have eternal life

6:39

“This is the will of Him who sent me”. This verse should be one of great security to us, for these are very solemn words, words which express the determined purpose of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is determined not to lose us, nothing can drag us out of God’s hands. And He is set on raising us on the last day. These are the things that are in the heart of Jesus.

6:40

Jesus then expresses more or less the same thoughts, but this time from the perspective of the will of the Father. First it is the Father’s will that everyone who looks towards the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life. There are perhaps echoes of the incident when Moses held up the brass serpent and those who looked to it were saved from the deadly disease (Numbers 21:9). And it is the Father’s will that Jesus raises them up on the last day. We see the complete unity of purpose between the Father and the Son.

Genesis 26:12-22 - The Lord has given us room

26:12-14

Isaac had obeyed the Lord by not going down to Egypt. We have also just read the incident where he acted in a less than godly manner in lying about who Rebekah was. We need to be careful how we understand the relationship between blessings and obedience. First, it is far better to obey than not to obey. Here that shows itself in the material blessings that Isaac received. Secondly, one act of disobedience, or failure, does not necessarily negate everything. However, we should also remember the outcome of Moses’s failure to obey God, and God’s subsequent banning of Moses from entering the Promised Land. We should definitely not draw the conclusion that we can “get away” with disobedience. God is perfectly willing to bless materially and sometimes does. In our opposition to prosperity teaching we must not forget this. At the same time we must be aware that there are far greater blessings than material ones. Knowing God and becoming more Christlike are the greatest blessings that we can receive. Isaac’s blessings also caused the Philistines to envy him.

26:15-22

The outworking of the Philistine’s envy becomes immediately apparent. They blocked up the wells that Abraham had dug, and water was a supremely valuable resource. Abimelech now orders Isaac to leave. He saw that Isaac was much greater than the Philistines and felt threatened by him. Isaac moved to the valley of Gerar and settled there. Isaac re dug the wells that Abraham had dug, but disputes continued, this time from the herdsmen of Gerar. Isaac dug several wells before making one that did not produce contention. Perhaps the key lesson is that Isaac persisted, yet did not seek contention. Eventually he found a place where he could settle.

John 6:37,38 - I shall lose none

6:37

This verse is very much a predestination verse. Jesus came to fulfil the plan of the Father. Some might think that if people did not believe Jesus then that signified some sort of failure on Jesus’ part, but that is not the case. Everyone who the Father has given to Jesus will come to Him, and anyone who comes to Him will not be rejected. We should also note that predestination, or the sovereignty of God, never takes away from human responsibility.

6:38

Jesus was often accused of seeking to do His own will. “Who did He think He was?” could be described as the attitude of the religious leaders. But nothing could be further from the truth, for Jesus came not to do His own will, but to do the will of the Father, the will of the One who sent Him.