This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Lord’s Supper” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, February 4, 1996.
About this sermon
The series closes with Peter’s call to lay down his life for the sheep, an extension of Christ’s own continuing ministry, including its ministry of judgment. Throughout John 6, Christ has been pushing his hearers past bread, flesh, and blood, to the Spirit and to heaven itself.
Sermon transcript
This morning we are reading from John’s Gospel, chapter 6, beginning with verse 53. Give your attention to God’s holy word. John 6, verse 53. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.
Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, that dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven, not as your fathers did eat the manna, and are dead. He that eateth of this bread shall live forever.
These things said he in the synagogue as he taught in Capernaum. Many, therefore, of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is a hard saying. Who can hear it? When Jesus knew that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you?
What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before? It is the spirit that giveth life; the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. But there are some of you that believe not, for Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not and who should betray him.
And he said, Therefore said I unto you that no man can come unto me except it were given unto him of my Father. From that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him. Then Jesus said unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go?
Thou hast the words of eternal life, and we believe and are sure that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? He spake of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, for he it was that should betray him, being one of the twelve.
Because of our celebration of the Lord’s Supper this morning, rather than continuing our messages on Matthew chapter 2, we turn to John 6 for the purpose of completing our communion meditations on this passage. You may not have been keeping track of these messages during our observances of the Lord’s Supper.
For two years now, these messages have been focusing on John chapter 6. This morning I present to you the twelfth and last message in this series. We will be resuming our series on Matthew 2 next week, Lord willing. My point has been that John’s Gospel is pressing throughout its entirety toward chapter 21. You may want to have that chapter in front of you as we make our way through this message this morning, the last chapter in John’s Gospel. Specifically, my contention has been that John’s Gospel deliberately has chapter 21 in view and is pressing toward that conclusion, and specifically in that chapter, toward a consideration of the ongoing, continuing ministry of the Church. You will recall how this particular theme of the ongoing ministry of the Church comes out in this last chapter in John.
We move from Peter’s announcement at the beginning of that chapter, verse 3, where he says, “I am going a fishing,” to the risen Christ’s rebuke of Peter at the end of the chapter, verse 23, where Christ says, “If I want the beloved disciple, that is, John, to remain until I come, what is that to you?” In the process of moving from Peter’s announcement at the beginning to Christ’s rebuke at the end, we have indeed covered a great deal of ground that focuses upon the issue of the Church’s continuing ministry.
The chapter begins with Peter’s disorientation, his lack of focus, and his return to his former life, to things as they were. His inability, seemingly, to move forward beyond his life as a fisherman, despite the resurrection of Christ and even despite what Christ has said specifically to him on other occasions. But by the end of this chapter, Peter has been taught by the risen Christ himself about what it means to be a true shepherd for Christ’s flock. Peter will then enter a ministry over which Christ is absolutely sovereign, a ministry that, in Peter’s case, will be utterly costly, claiming his very life. There are several important points you should take away from this twenty-first chapter, as it focuses our attention on the Church’s continuing ministry. The first is quite startling.
The resurrection was not enough. The resurrection was not enough. Even after the resurrection, Peter is confused. He does not seem to know what he should do with himself. Even after a personal encounter with the risen Christ, as recorded in this chapter, Peter remains difficult, slow to understand, argumentative, and defensive.
Only through a continuing ministry from Jesus, one that constantly directs and rebukes, will Peter be able to stay on course and minister to and serve the Church of Christ. If even such a remarkable event as the resurrection, or even a personal meeting with Christ, fails to bring what is needed, what will bring what is needed?
Only Christ’s great gift to the Church, the Holy Spirit, whose presence especially in the latter chapters of John’s Gospel works to bring to mind what Jesus has said and done. What is needed in Peter’s case, as it is in the case of the Church, is the Spirit who continually exhorts, encourages, comforts, and rebukes through the Word.
That is, in and through the Scriptures. Consider the impact of this as John’s Gospel concludes. Here, in John chapter 1, Peter is subordinated. The most prominent of the disciples is himself subordinated to the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scriptures, which is the foundation of his ministry for his Savior. You see the consequence. Does the impact of this register with you?
In John’s Gospel, the last word of Christ to Peter, imagined by some to be the first Pope, is a rebuke. The overall tone and character of this passage is to convince you that Peter, as great as he is, is flawed and failing, and subordinated, in regard to the ministry of the Church, to the ministry of the Holy Spirit speaking through the Word. This is a Protestant position, not a Roman Catholic position. The Gospel of John is a prototypical Protestant gospel. It is an anti-papal document.
In this chapter, the purpose of John’s Gospel speaks powerfully not only to church leaders who would follow in Peter’s footsteps or serve in an office within the Church, but also to the Church’s membership, to those whom Jesus describes in this chapter as his lambs and sheep.
In other words, it speaks to you. Specifically, it speaks to you about your Savior’s love for you, in that he calls you his lambs and his sheep. You therefore belong to him. His care for you is through those whom he has called to serve you in his likeness, as mediated through the power of the Spirit according to the Word. This is what you should expect as Christ’s flock. In fact, this is what you should demand. It is yours by Christ’s revelation and disposition.
The image of lambs and sheep used by Jesus in this chapter is not intended to suggest that you, as church members, are merely dumb beasts that without resistance are blithely led to the slaughter by incompetent, negligent, or even cruel shepherds, or by those who are particularly interested in their own welfare and their own reputations.
The ministry that you should expect and count upon is the one that you observe in Christ himself, the one that Christ is determined to bring to expression in Peter and in all others who would follow in his train. Much has been rightly said about the failure of church leaders in this century. As they have ventured off into the lap of liberalism, or into the carnival atmosphere of religious vaudeville, thus turning ministry into showmanship. But you must remember that you, as a congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, and as God’s people generally, must remember that you bear some responsibility for allowing, for tolerating, and even in some cases encouraging such ministry. The word of the living Christ comes to Peter so that he might know how to minister. That word stands in your midst so that you might recognize true ministry when you see it and insist upon it.
And finally, with regard to this twenty-first chapter in John, I want you to notice the centrality of Jesus Christ himself. For he is the source and the substance of true ministry. This is emphasized in the chapter by Christ’s sovereignty. He is the one who is sovereign in the events that transpire. He is the one who tells the disciples, after they have labored all night without catching any fish, to let their nets down on the other side of the boat. And, behold, they draw in a great number of fish. Jesus is the one who is sovereign, as the nets are drawn to the shore, and he already has breakfast prepared for the disciples. His sovereignty is evident, as he makes reference to the fact that those who come to him are, after all, his lambs and his sheep.
They belong to him, not to Peter, not to anyone else. There will be conformity on Peter’s part to Christ himself, as Christ makes plain to Peter: when you were young, you went where you wanted. When you were old, you will be taken where you do not want to go, and your arms will be stretched. John and the early Church understood exactly what that meant with regard to Peter. He would die a death that resembled Christ’s.
Thus the intention in the 21st chapter is not merely to speak about the continuing ministry of the Church, but to speak to us about that one who is the source and substance of that ministry, Jesus Christ. Those who would minister are merely entering into his ministry.
Thus it is always to his glory and credit and all of grace. If John’s gospel has been moving us toward its conclusion, which we find in this 21st chapter, is it not fair to say that all of the preceding material from chapters 1 through 20, in their own way, calculate to convince us of the very things that we find here at the conclusion? And if this is true, then what about chapter 6? Past messages in this series have already pointed out the many deliberate connections between chapter 21 and chapter 6. Without reviewing those obvious parallels for you this morning, let me simply say that chapter 6 in John powerfully proclaims Jesus Christ to be both the source and the substance of God’s eternal provision and our eternal enjoyment. And that we are beckoned by this sixth chapter of John to come and to feast upon him.
But how will we feast upon him? That becomes the question of John 6. In the continuing ministry of the Church, how will we feast upon him? How will Jesus Christ be ministered to his people in order to benefit them? How will he do this specifically if, being raised, he is also ascended to heaven? How will those who have office—those who are called to official ministry in the Church—serve Christ’s flock in this regard? How will Christ’s flock appropriate and appreciate this ministry?
John 6 begins, as you know, with the feeding of the 5,000, the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes. But can Jesus’ ministry and the ministry of those with office who follow him operate at the level of bread and fish? For it to do so means that the bread and the fish will be but tokens of Christ’s ability to supply physical provision for the resolution of temporal earthly hunger. We cannot stop at bread and fish. For the multitudes and the disciples in this chapter have a greater hunger still—one which can be satisfied only by Him, that is Christ, and by the deepest participation in Him.
His flesh is true bread, and his blood is true drink, he says. You must move from the bread and the fish to the flesh and the blood. The movement in John 6 is deliberate. Hear them as you make that move in this chapter. These provisions of flesh and blood are meant then to set before us eternal delight in God Himself, as found in Christ.
But as with the bread and the fish, so also with the flesh and the blood. You cannot stop with the bread and the fish, and likewise you cannot stop with the flesh and the blood. Can Jesus’ ministry and the ministry of those who with office follow after him operate at the level of the flesh and the blood, simply and purely? For it to do so means that the flesh and the blood will be but tokens of Christ’s sacrificial death for a salvation undefined and unassured. Here will be a ministry, then, that tends to focus upon and end in the cross, and that only.
So Christ keeps pressing His argument. He presses on in His argument, just as He will in His ministry. Jesus’ ministry does not end short of resurrection and ascension into glory, thus neither will His argument. We must not stop with the flesh and the blood; we must go on to glory, or as Jesus says in verse 63, we must press on to the Spirit. The Spirit mediates to us through the Word, the flesh and blood of Christ, for our true and proper provision in our communion with Him.
Beyond the bread to the flesh and the blood, but then beyond the flesh and the blood to the Spirit with the Word for proper and true feasting upon the glorified living Christ. Not a mere earthly meal, not a sacerdotal partaking of mere flesh and blood, but a banquet in the Spirit by the Word for the full satisfaction and glory with the Savior who reigns in the realm of the Spirit, having come there through the piercing of His own flesh and the shedding of His own blood for the sins of His people. True ministry perseveres with the argument of Christ, as true ministry perseveres with the life of Christ until it reaches its appointed end in ascended glory. And true ministry labors in light of these things.
Christ’s true people desire nothing less. You do not want mere bread. You do not even want mere flesh and blood, even the flesh and blood of Christ. You do not want to stop at the cross. You want to go on to glory. Do you not? You hunger for the true things, for the ultimate things, for the eternal things. Even as you partake of this supper, you see past the bread and the cup to heaven. As we conclude this message, I want you to notice the parallel development in John 6 and John 21.
In John 21, neither the resurrection by itself nor a personal visit from Christ was sufficient to produce true ministry in Peter. Only the abiding presence of Christ in the Spirit through the Word could accomplish that. In John 6, neither the bread by itself nor the flesh and blood, merely conceived, could provide God’s eternal provision or our eternal enjoyment. Only Jesus Christ in the Spirit through the Word, only Jesus Christ glorified into the realm of the Spirit, in whom and with whom we have communion through His Word, can do so. Won’t you press on, for the sake of this ministry here, toward these higher matters?
Surely we cannot desert our Savior, but are compelled with Peter to confess: Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. All that we need, O God, is wonderfully set before us in Your Word. And therefore, O Lord, we would not think of Your Word less than we ought. We glory in You, in Christ our Savior, in the ministry that He performs for us on our behalf. And we delight, O God, in the significance of the Word to us, that all servants, whether apostles or disciples, are subordinated to that Word, and we also are subordinated with them.
But Father, we ask that the Word would always prove to be to us no dead letter, but living and vital, even as the Spirit makes it alive so that it may richly and wonderfully communicate to us our union with our Savior in glory. And Father, may it please You to grant ministers of Your Word who understand these things and press on in regard to them. And at the same time, grant congregations who understand these things and insist upon them. This we ask through Christ, the one who even now ministers to us.
The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.