Grumbling and Grace
John 6:41-47
This is now our sixth message from John 6 and we will have at least three more. Why are we spending so much time in one chapter? One simple reason is that John 6 is a long chapter, 71 verses. The other reason is that John 6 contains so much vital truth about Jesus and what it means to believe in Him. This chapter has set up a great contrast between those who believe and those who do not believe, between true believers and false believers. In fact, the chapter concludes with many would-be disciples of Jesus turning away from Him and following Him no more (6:66). On the other hand, the true disciples are like Peter who confesses, “we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” (6:69).
The belief of the true disciples grows in this chapter and the unbelief of the false disciples grows as well. John MacArthur points out in a series of messages on John the pathology of this unbelief. There are underlying attitudes that dominate the false disciples who will not believe:
They’re drawn by the crowd. They’re fascinated by the supernatural. They think only of earthly things. They have no real desire for worship. They seek personal prosperity. They see God as a bank. They want to make demands on Him. They have no real interest in Christ. They’re not attracted to Christ.
He sums it up by saying, “You can spot a false disciple by the preoccupation of that disciple with what Jesus gives. You can spot a true disciple by the preoccupation of that true disciple with who Jesus is.”
So here in John 6 Jesus is talking with not just with His true disciples, but also with unbelieving skeptics. They ate the miraculous bread when Jesus fed the 5000 and they wanted to make Jesus king. But He didn’t come to be that kind of king, so He withdrew from them. They later sought Jesus in Capernaum, but for the wrong reason. They wanted Him to be the new Moses, who could provide them with a lifetime supply of bread. They had a wrong expectation for who the Messiah should be and what He should do for them. So Jesus corrected their errors and declared that He is the true bread out of heaven who could satisfy their spiritual hunger.
Last time we saw Jesus confront their unbelief (6:36): “But I said to you that you have seen Me and yet do not believe.” He then showed that despite their unbelief, the sovereign plan of the Father would certainly be successful. All that the Father gives to Jesus He would certainly save and keep for all eternity (6:37-40).
Jesus has said in essence in verses 33 and 35 and 38 that he is the Bread of God sent from heaven into the world to give life to the world, and if we will come to Him and believe on Him, feasting on Him, and finding our soul’s satisfaction in Him, we will live forever and He will raise us on the last day.
But instead of getting more and more clarity and more and more agreement, Jesus is getting more and more resistance. Jesus is teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum (6:59), and the opposition to His teaching is increasing.
This resistance in verse 41 is called complaining. It’s a word that means to murmur (6:43), mutter, or grumble. Listen to how Jesus deals with these unbelieving grumblers:
41 The Jews then complained about Him, because He said, “I am the bread which came down from heaven.”
42 And they said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that He says, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”
43 Jesus therefore answered and said to them, “Do not murmur among yourselves.
44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.
45 It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me.
46 Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God; He has seen the Father.
47 Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life.
In this passage we see Jesus speaking to these grumblers about God’s grace. Jesus’ words about the Father drawing sinners to Jesus and giving believers eternal life is a response to their grumbling and their resistance to what He is telling them about Himself. That is what we see here first,
1. Unbelief displays a grumbling attitude (6:41-43).
In verse 41 John uses the word “Jews” again. These are likely the religious leaders in the synagogue at Capernaum where Jesus is teaching. Most of them were hostile toward Jesus. It reminds us of the Jews who grumbled and complained in the wilderness under Moses (Exod. 15:24; Num. 11:1; 14:2-5, etc.).
The cause of the Jews’ grumbling here was that Jesus had claimed, “I am the bread which came down from heaven.” They thought that they knew where Jesus came from. So they murmured to each other, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?” Capernaum was close to Nazareth. Everyone in Galilee knew where Jesus came from. Many of them knew His family. So they couldn’t understand how He claimed to come down out of heaven. In other words, Jesus can’t be from heaven, because He’s from earth. We know His parents. And so they resist what Jesus says. That’s the essence of their grumbling.
Jesus did not correct their misunderstanding about His coming down out of heaven. He did not tell them about His virgin birth. He did not tell them about being born in Bethlehem nor about the angels, shepherds, or wisemen. He did not give them a theological exposition of His pre-existence. Rather, He confronted their attitude (6:43): “Do not murmur among yourselves.”
Kevin DeYoung points out that grumblers invariably overlook two realities of God’s grace: His past provision and His future promises.
The past provision was the bread they ate. Remember the feeding of the 5000 at the beginning of the chapter? They ate as much as they wanted. The bread they ate as Jesus taught them was a manifestation of God’s grace given to them to sustain them for something greater, namely hearing the Word of God from the Son of God. Now they are hungry and they forgot God’s grace in His past provision.
God also has shown His grace in His future promises. How many times in this chapter have we heard Jesus speak about giving eternal life and raising up those who believe on the last day? Future promises allow us to live by faith. Read Hebrews 11 sometime and see how all the heroes of faith rested on the future promises of God even when they saw no fulfillment of those promises in their lifetime.
The reality was that with these grumblers, they could not see any meaning in God’s past provisions… “Give us this bread!” Nor could they see any meaning in the future promise, “I am the bread of life.”
At the root of unbelief is not a lack of evidence, but grumbling attitude that overlooks God’s past provision and disregards God’s future promises. Do you see how dangerous and sinful complaining and grumbling is? To these people it marked them as lost and as unbelievers.
Before I move on to 6:44-45, I need to mention that grumbling is not just a problem for unbelieving skeptics. It’s also a problem for some of us that profess to know Christ (1 Cor. 10:10; Phil. 2:14). If you’re grumbling about your circumstances, you’re not giving thanks in all things. And if you’re not giving thanks, you’re not trusting in the Lord and submitting to His sovereign hand over your circumstances. So we all need to apply Jesus’ words in 6:43 to ourselves as often as needed: “Do not grumble among yourselves.”
So first we see that unbelief displays a grumbling attitude. Secondly we see that,
2. Unbelief cannot come to Christ (6:44-45).
44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.
Jesus wants to show these grumblers the reality. Verse 44 is a response to their grumbling and their resistance to what He is telling them about Himself. It seems that the more resistant they become, the more explicit Jesus becomes about how impossible it is for them to come on their own.
The Gospel has not failed nor is He discouraged because of their lack of spiritual interest. They can’t come to Him because His Father has not drawn them.
We spoke last week about God’s divine grace in salvation. We saw it in verse 37, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me.” Jesus restates it again here and takes things even a step further as states this truth in the negative, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.” It is impossible for anyone to come to Christ on their own. To come, the Father must draw him.
Jesus is saying to them “I know why you’re grumbling. I know why you don’t believe in Me. You’re got a desperate problem that only God can solve. You cannot come to Me unless the Father draws you.” He’s stripping them of their proud spiritual self-confidence, which is the opposite of trusting in Christ for salvation.
The favorite notion of humanity is that we are able to bring ourselves to God. We like to think that our salvation is in our own hand. We can repent, or not repent. We can believe, or not believe. We can come, or not come. All on our own. Such notions are flatly contradictory to this verse. The words of our Lord here are clear and unmistakable and cannot be explained away…. Man never brings himself to God. God must first begin with man.
What does it mean for the Father to draw someone?
Some will hear that verse and think that it means that God woos sinners, much as a young man woos a woman to decide to marry him. But the Greek word for “draws” is used in John 21:6 & 11 of the disciples dragging the net full of fish into the boat and then to the shore. They didn’t woo those fish to jump into the net nor did they coax them onto shore! The word is also used of Paul and Silas being dragged to the authorities in Philippi after they cast the demon out of the slave girl (Acts 16:19). And again of Paul being dragged out of the temple by the angry mob in Jerusalem (Acts 21:30). Obviously, they weren’t “wooing” him!
Leon Morris (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 371, note 110) points out that there is always the idea of resistance with the use of this verb, but the drawing overcomes the resistance. A. W. Pink (Exposition of John, on monergism.com) describes this drawing:
It is the power of the Holy Spirit overcoming the self-righteousness of the sinner, and convicting him of his lost condition. It is the Holy Spirit awakening within him a sense of need. It is the power of the Holy Spirit overcoming the pride of the natural man, so that he is ready to come to Christ as an empty-handed beggar. It is the Holy Spirit creating within him a hunger for the bread of life.
Note that the drawing of which Jesus speaks results in the sinner actually coming to Jesus in saving faith. Jesus states in 6:44 that the one who is drawn to Him, “I will raise him up at the last day.” And, in 6:45 Jesus reinforces the effectiveness of the Father’s drawing when He says, “Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me.”
So we have seen that unbelief displays a grumbling attitude, that unbelief cannot come to Jesus and finally we see that,
3. Belief can only be taught by God.
In verse 45 Jesus says: “It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me.” Here we have the answer to the question: how does God draw people to Christ? By teaching them so that they hear and learn from Him. So the connection between drawing and teaching is clear. The drawn are the taught. They are drawn by being taught.
Now how does this happen? How did it happen for you? How were you taught by God? How might it happen for those you love who have not come to Christ?
Jesus is quoting Isaiah 54:13 (and perhaps also alluding to Jeremiah 31:34) to show these proud skeptics that their own Scriptures supported Jesus’ point in 6:44. Both Isaiah and Jeremiah explicitly promise the day when the God’s teaching will no longer merely be external on tablets of stone, but will be internal written on the heart. God will teach us in the New Covenant first by sending Christ as the sum of all truth, the fulfillment of the law, and then by making that truth real to our hearts. So God says it like this in Jeremiah:
This is the covenant that I will make . . . I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. . . . And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 31:33–34)
Jesus is saying that the truth about Him is contained in God’s written Word and that no one has the mental capacity to understand that truth unless God teaches it to him. The Holy Spirit uses God’s Word to open blind eyes to see the beauty of Jesus so that formerly resistant sinners are drawn to Him. You can know that you’ve been taught of God when you lay aside all self-confidence and come in faith to Jesus as the Savior of whom all Scripture speaks.
As John the Baptist said (John 3:27), “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven.” Or, as Jesus told Peter after he made his famous confession of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matt. 16:17), “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.”
It is God who teaches, who reveals, the truth to the hearts of men so that they may believe. And that truth is found only in Jesus. Look at how He says it in verse 46, “Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God; He has seen the Father.”
This repeats the truth that John stated in the prologue (1:18), “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” Jesus is the only one who can reveal the Father to us (Luke 10:22; John 14:6, 9). We can only come to the Father through Jesus. Jesus says as much in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
John 6:47: “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life.” Here Jesus is describing those who have eternal life: They believe in Him. This again is an implicit invitation to believe, and warning against unbelief. “Believes” is a present participle: “he who is believing.” The moment you believe you have eternal life (John 3:16) but that belief is on-going, trusting in Christ daily.
That invitation extends to you. You don’t have to put your brain on the shelf to believe in Jesus. But you do have to confront your arrogant, grumbling, skeptical attitude. You do have to be stripped of all self-confidence that you are able in and of yourself save yourself.
Christ has come into the world as the fullest revelation of God. To see Him as God and to come to Him is what the world needs more than anything. What everyone needs, as Jeremiah says, is to “know the Lord” — that is, to know that God Almighty, creator of heaven and earth and the king of Israel and Lord of the universe, is incarnate in Jesus Christ. We must be taught by God that Jesus is who He says He is.
That’s what happens for those who are brought into the New Covenant, and that’s how Jesus is saying the Father draws us to the Son. That is how you were drawn to Christ. God taught you. He did so externally by bringing you into contact with Christ in the word. And he did so internally by overcoming your rebellion so you could see Christ for who he really is. That is His drawing you. And when you saw Him for who He is, you came to Him, you received Him. That is how you were saved.
And that is how those whom you love will be drawn to Christ. That is how God saves people even today. God uses His people who know Christ to bring people the word of Christ to others. In fact He commands us to take that good news to the world. When we do, God works through His Holy Spirit to teach the hearts of those who will believe. They respond freely, willingly, to God’s work in their heart. But they only do it because God has taught them to believe.
Our job is to make the word known. To display Christ and his work on the cross as clearly as we can. And to pray that God will do his humbling, teaching, drawing work.
Is He doing that work in your heart today?
