The Gospel of John

The New Human Race

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 19- 70

Genre:

Track: 019

Dictation Name: RR197K19

Location/Venue:

Year:

Let us worship God. One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after. That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to enquire in His temple. Wait on the Lord, be of good courage and He shall strengthen Thy heart. Wait I say, on the Lord. Let us pray.

Our Father we give thanks unto Thee that Thy mercies which are new every morning surround us all the days of our life. Forgive us our Father that so often we take Thy mercies and blessings for granted and we forget how great Thou art and how gracious always unto us. Give us remembering hearts and minds that we may serve Thee joyfully, gladly, gratefully. Make us strong in Thy word by Thy spirit, keep us on the way of faithfulness and truth and we ask this in Christ’s name, Amen.

Our scripture is from the Gospel of John, chapter six, verses fifty nine to seventy one. John 6:59-71, our subject: The New Human Race.

“ These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum.

60 Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?

61 When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you?

62 What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?

63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

64 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.

65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.

66 From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.

67 Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?

68 Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.

69 And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.

70 Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?

71 He spake of Judas Iscariot the son of Simon: for he it was that should betray him, being one of the twelve.”

Man wants to take credit for what God does. Dr. Kay Skilder [sp?] in his book on heaven pointed out that and I quote:

“No man cometh unto the Father unless he be drawn.”

And he pointed out that this verse in John 6:44 can be translated as dragged. No man can come to the Father except he be dragged. That we don’t want the truth when we are fallen men, we are dragged into it. But we want credit for what happens so we insist on seeing ourselves as somehow determinative, as the captains of our fate and souls. No man comes to God however of his own nature, God drags man to Him by His sovereign grace and mercy. We should rejoice in what He has done and to accept His further dragging in terms of His purpose. If we are hosts to a visitor, to a guest in our home, we can limit him to a certain area of the house, we can implicitly make it clear he doesn’t go in and root around in our private affairs but God is the owner not only of all that we have but of us and we are His guests. The setting of our text is the Capernaum synagogue. The conversations of verses twenty six to seventy one began at the sea shore and they continue in the synagogue. We have in John’s gospel the key points of the long discussions. Our Lords stress on God’s determination of all things offended not only the multitude but many of His disciples and we are told in verses sixty and sixty one that they left Him, they were finished with Him because they wanted to believe that it was all of their determination, all their choosing.

Our Lord made clear that it was not, the idea of prior determination by God ids offensive to man in his fallen estate. Because the redeemed are not fully sanctified by any means they too rebel against God’s sovereignty. The disciples themselves said this is a hard message, who can listen to it. Like the multitude they found it repulsive. In Matthew 16:15-23 we see that the disciples found it repellant to hear about the cross or atonement. They tried to silence our Lord. Well, here it is, God’s predestination, His sovereign calling that offends them and both doctrines are totally alien to humanism therefore they are distasteful to men. Our Lord’s response in verse sixty one is ‘doth this offend you’ or as Hendrickson points out, very literally, ‘does this ensnare’. Does this call you to fall into a trap, a trap created by your own thinking and your own logic, your rejection of God’s sovereignty. Now most commentators limit the offense to the idea of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ but this is seriously to limit its application. What our Lord tells us is that God’s sovereignty over us is total, our coming to Him, our growth in Him by our participation in His new humanity and our deadness apart from Him are all offensive to man who wants some credit for his lifestyle. The totality of grace in our approach and life in Christ is too radical a doctrine for most men and that’s not the only point at which they grow astray.

By calling attention to His body and His blood, by using these to set forth later communion, the bread and the wine, His body and His blood, what our Lord is stressing throughout this chapter is that membership in Him is not membership in His deity. We are not divinized when we are in Christ, we are members then of His new humanity, the new human race created by Him the last Adam. We are born in the old humanity of Adam, a fallen human race and Christ the first fruits of the new humanity by making us members of Himself makes us members of the new human race. We are not joined to His divinity, we are not divinized as heresy has so often declared. We are made members of His new humanity and this is why those who fall prey in one or another, there’s dozens of forms of that heresy, believe in their infallibility. Or the infallibility of their institution, their church or whatever else they affirm. Whatever they say, whatever they do, whatever they create partakes of God supposedly and this is evil. Now our Lord pushes the offense even further in verse sixty two.

“What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?”

How will you react to my ascension? A man centered view of Jesus Christ would absorb His mission radically or even totally into history. The multitude with its hope of making Jesus a human king with divine powers was not interested in transcendent nor are men today. Escape may have its appeal but it too is man centered, views of the rapture for example concentrate on man and what happens to him. The ascension points beyond a historical or a man centered focus.

Then our Lord declares that it is the Holy Spirit who at the beginning created all things with the Father and the Son who alone gives life. Man’s created human nature is neither self-regenerating nor creative. Next our Lord makes a very remarkable statement. The words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life, verse sixty three. The Holy Spirit is a person in the Godhead, He it is who gives us the written word together with the Father and the Son. So He is also present to us in the very words of scripture. So that the Spirit and the word cannot be separated and it is heresy to believe that the spirit speaks apart from the word. Our Lord says so. As Calvin noted:

“Our Lord not only connects life with the Spirit but He equates His word with the word and the Spirit.”

Our Lord knew the unbelievers among His disciples we are told in verse sixty four and He knew who would betray Him. At this point many of the disciples left Him, verse sixty six tells us. He did not spare them and He called attention to the presence of one still present, then unnamed, who would betray Him. There was however a very telling confession of faith from Simon Peter who however ignorantly and weakly still had a regenerate faith. His confession admits that he failed to understand much but he also sees no choice. Lord to whom shall we go. Thou hast the words of eternal life and we believe and are sure that Thou art that Christ the son of the Living God. This is an acknowledgment by Peter that however faulty and wrong in their thinking he and others know that Jesus speaks the words of eternal life.

Because He is the Messiah, the son of the Living God. Peter was bewildered and ignorant about much but he was still a believer. Peter was emphatic, we believe and are sure, or we believe and we know that you are the Christ. An important question we need to ask is this, did the people and the departing disciples misunderstand Jesus? Hugh J. Schonfield held that the listeners regarded Jesus’ comments as akin to espousing cannibalism, that is, masticating his flesh and drinking His blood and so on. But they chose to place a false interpretation on the words of our Lord but we must also recognize that if a literal meaning were understood the matter would be one for ridicule and dissent. And they didn’t ridicule Him…they were so put out that they left Him. There’s no question that our Lord’s words were upsetting. A covenant people were to avoid the taste of the blood of animals and they knew that our Lord was not talking about that. He states plainly here that His flesh commonly understood to mean Humanity, here His humanity, and His atoning death, His blood the atonement, are the foundations of our covenant with God. There were very familiar with the sacrificial blood on the altar in the temple. The book of Hebrews is implicit in much of what is said in this chapter but these were not welcome words. They clearly set forth the end of the old sacrificial system and the temple. They witnessed to a new Passover and a new covenant people.

The renewed covenant of Christ requires of the covenant people that they see Him as the bread of life, as the Passover sustenance come to earth. It was close to the time of the Passover, they knew the references clearly better than we do! They must enter our Lord makes clear into this renewed covenant by means of the blood of atonement, His blood, and by partaking of or becoming members of His new human race. The new human race, the new humanity founded by Jesus Christ. But they wanted to control Him, they tried to force Him to be king. And out of that all this discussion ensued. They wanted to control God. This is the king of blasphemy that is rampant in the church. One of the most prominent pastors in the country, whose tapes circulates from coast to coast and abroad, holds that when you say yes to Jesus He is bound eternally even though you renounce Him and commit every crime in the book he writes. You are free now to do as you please but God is bound. There are many variations of that heresy. We cannot say that we are ever more than partakers of His new human race. We are not made divine, we do not partake of things that only belong to the divine sphere. The Spirit and the word are here, we cannot bind them apart from this written word expressive of the person, the spirit, the triune God. All this was clear. The terms were more familiar to those people then they are to people now. They knew what they were rejecting and whom they were rejecting.

Therefore they brought judgment upon themselves and if we follow them in their sin we will invite judgment upon ourselves. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God we thank Thee for this Thy word. We thank Thee that by Thy grace we are members of Thy new human race. We thank Thee Thou hast called us and chosen us and made us a new creation, a new human creation, a new humanity in Christ Jesus our Lord. Make us faithful to Him in all things and joyful in what He has made us. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson?

The whole gospel of John is a magnificent statement not only of Christ as the very word of God, of the identity of the word and the Spirit but also of the fact that a new humanity, a new human race has been created in Jesus Christ and we are called to be members of it. It is the great antithesis to so many of the heresies that have plagued the history of the church and it is ironic that so many of these heretics use the gospel of John in order to try to give it a meaning alien to what it says.

Yes?

[Question] A lot of Christians or supposedly Christians use their interpretation of pietistic love to supersede God’s judgment.

[Rushdoony] Yes. They believe their feelings are more important than the word of God. It’s as I have heard more than once people say ‘I know what it says but I just know the Lord wouldn’t have it mean what it says’. It has to have another meaning. Well, let us bow our heads now in prayer as we conclude.

Our Father, grant that day by day we recognize our responsibility as the new human race to complete that which was asked of Adam and his heirs in which they failed: to exercise dominion, to subdue the earth, to bring all things into captivity to Jesus Christ our covenant head and king. Make us faithful in this calling. And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, Amen.