Hard Sayings Of Jesus
"Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is a hard saying; who can hear it?" (John 6:60.)
The trouble with these disciples, as is the trouble with so many disciples, the Lord's sayings seem hard because they do not understand them. And without making the proper effort to understand the Lord's sayings, many disciples do today, as they did then: "From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him." What Jesus had said, was, "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." The people took this literally. The people wanted to think that the Lord wanted to make cannibals of them. It served as an excuse to soothe their conscience in going back on the Lord. They were looking for something to justify what they wanted to do, and in this teaching they thought they had it. "This is a hard saying; who can hear it?" They said. They quit the Lord.
What Jesus was really teaching was, "I am that bread of life . .. . that bread which came down from heaven." (John 6:48, 68.) Not literal bread like the manna, however. We are not eating literal bread when we eat of Christ. Neither are we eating literal flesh and drinking literal blood when we are eating the flesh of the Son of man and drinking his blood. Flesh and blood while the spirit is in the body represents life. And, spiritually speaking, to partake of Christ's flesh and blood signifies spiritual life. Jesus says, "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." To obey the words of Christ is to have spiritual life. And to obey the words of Christ is the meaning of "eating my flesh and drinking my blood." This not only includes the communion service on the part of Christians, but obligates the Christian to do everything else the Lord enjoins upon the Christian to do.
Jesus made a number of very pointed statements against false teachers, and no doubt these false teachers thought of these statements as being "hard sayings." You may easily recall what Jesus taught in Matthew 23:15. "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves." It would be hard to use plainer language than this recorded here. I have done some preaching that was mild compared to this, and I was accused of being a hard preacher. If what I said made me a meddler, what does the above language make Jesus? No wonder Jesus taught his disciples to "beware of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees."
Then the language of Jesus in Matthew 23:33 is considered by many a "hard saying." It says, "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell." I have never been this bold and this strong in my speech. In conversing with a follower of Charles T. Russell at one time, the man taught me that "hell meant the grave." Of course I knew this wasn't so. I asked this man why he was teaching infant damnation? He denied teaching infant damnation. But he was, if hell means the grave. Infants go into the grave. (Their bodies, I mean.) If the grave means hell, then infants go to hell. And Jesus teaches there is damnation in hell. So, any one that teaches that the grave is hell is teaching infant damnation. So these false teachers think of this as another hard saying of Jesus.
Some consider that when God calls a man a "fool" it is a hard saying. The wealthy man, who thought only of himself, and was building "bigger" for his own selfish ends, no doubt thought the following was a hard saying: "But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul will be required of thee: then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided." And just as penetrating are these words which follow: "So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God." (Luke 12:16-21.)
Our Lord gave some sharp teaching against making a display, and this teaching is hard against those who wish to make a show in religion, and against those who wish to be thought of as an important somebody in religion. Says Jesus of false teachers, "But all their works they do for to be seen of men." (Matt. 23:5.) These love the "uppermost rooms at feasts, the chief seats in the synagogue, and greetings in the market places." These make a showy display of the outside of the cup; they are the whited sepulchres, but within is "extortion and excess and dead men's bones." Yes, to many people these are hard sayings. But kindly remember the Lord was doing this preaching.
Those religionists who like to wear titles are in for some more hard sayings of our Lord. These hard sayings are directed by our Lord against Jews, Catholics, and Protestants. Jesus rubbed the Jews with this saying, "Be ye not called Rabbi." But the Jews disobeyed the Lord then. This people is still disobeying the Lord. The Jews handle the term Rabbi so freely in religion, and apply it to men, that you would suppose that our Lord had said be called Rabbi, instead of: "Be ye not called Rabbi."
Our Lord rubbed the Catholics when he said, "Call no man your father upon the earth." Yet the Catholics will father the Pope and priest just as though our Lord had never said anything about the matter one way or another. When I quote my Lord along this line, I'm considered a hard preacher. Since I received such a command from my Lord, what does such preaching make him! I have no objection to being classified with my Lord other than I am not worthy of such honor.
Protestant preachers and people should not use the term Reverend for themselves, for, "Holy and reverend is his name." Man does not deserve the title of Reverend. That belongs to God. Yet like the Jews and Catholics, so do Protestants disobey God.
Our Lord said, "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." This is a hard saying against those who want to be saved without baptism. One man who said you could be saved without baptism was asked to read and explain John 3:5. This man was an honest kind of a soul, and after reading the verse, said, "Well, I'll just have to admit that this is one scripture that is hard for me to get around." Question, "Why do people try to get around scriptures?