Who is the Son of Joseph?

Tom:

We are continuing with the gospel and our concern here is salvation.  We are going through the gospel of John verse by verse.  Right now we are in John:6:41The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven.
See All....  “The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven?”  Dave, there are a lot of interesting things about this verse.  Number one, Jesus is not being literal here, talking about being the bread which came down from heaven.  He’s not a loaf of bread but we, those who take the Bible literally where it is meant to be taken literally, often are accuse those—well you’re fundamentalists, you take everything literally—but I don’t think Jesus is a loaf of bread.

Dave:

See, that’s a problem and we talked about it last time, I guess. It’s a problem for the Catholics because they have something that no one else has.  They have a priesthood that has the power, they say, to turn that little wafer into the body and blood of Jesus so that you can literally ingest Jesus into your stomach and that, supposedly, gives you another installment of life, spiritual life.  But, all through here it is very clear Jesus is not speaking of physical things.  He’s using physical things to illustrate a spiritual truth.  So, going back up, just for a moment, to remind people, verse 35, Jesus says, “I am the bread of life, he that cometh to me shall never hunger, he that believeth on me shall never thirst.”  Now if he is speaking literally, physically, then if we believe on Jesus we will never need any food or any drink.

Tom:

For the former Roman Catholic, every time I had communion, why did I keep coming back? Why did I go home and have a meal? Because I would have never hungered.

Dave:

That’s right.  So just as you said, he is not a loaf of bread.  He is speaking of something spiritual just as when he talked to the woman at the well, “You drink of this water you will thirst again, the water I will give you, you will never thirst again.”  Obviously, he is not talking about H2O, some kind of physical water.  And this, I guess we have mentioned it before Tom, but this is an error that goes back to the Garden of Eden when Eve thought that physical fruit on a tree could give her spiritual powers.  It’s called sacramentalism. You find it witchcraft, you find it in paganism, the idea of lighting a candle, or having some holy water. or wearing a scapular, or a medal, or going through some sacramental ritual that that has spiritual power in and of itself simply is the basic lie that comes from the serpent in the Garden of Eden.  And Jesus, on the other hand, he is speaking to the multitude and it’s a little bit difficult for us to understand.  You know, the prophet said concerning the Jews because of their rebellion against God, their refusal to embrace the truth, said makes them blind so that seeing they don’t see and hearing they don’t hear and we find a number of times in the gospels, it says whenever Jesus spoke to the multitude—and that’s who he is speaking to right now, to the multitude, not his own disciples, but to the multitude who are following him because they want to be healed, they want to be fed and so forth.  Whenever he spoke to the multitude he always spoke in parables and it says, “that seeing they might not see and hearing they might not hear that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet Isaiah.”  So now, Jesus is speaking in parables, just as when he said, “I am the door, by me if any man enter in,”—He’s not a literal door—“I am the light of the world,”—He’s not a literal light bulb or a searchlight and he is speaking spiritually but using an illustration in a parable.  Now, they say—

Tom:

Dave, verse 42, I find this really interesting that here we have these people saying, they said:  “Is not this Jesus the son of Joseph whose father and mother we know?”  Now, the problem here—these people are just explaining what was on their heart but they were wrong, because obviously, Jesus was of virgin birth, but it says, “Whose father and mother,” so they assumed that Joseph was Jesus’ father.

Dave:

Well, you can understand how people would fall into that way of thinking.  You find it in Luke, for example, even Mary said to Jesus—he’s twelve years old now, he’s in the temple.  They went off and they thought he was with some of the relatives in the caravan and then when they find he is missing they go back and there he is in the temple in a discussion with the rabbis and so forth who are astonished at his wisdom and his understanding.  And Mary says, “Your father and I have sought thee sorrowing.” Well, she knew that Joseph was not the father, but she has—it’s twelve years now, she nursed him as a little baby, she’s heard his rhythmic breathing, you know, sleeping with the other children because there were other children now.  It says Joseph knew her not, that is, he did not have sex with her until she had brought forth her first born son.  So, if he was the first born there were others and in fact, they are named for us.  So, you understand, after a period of time—well, you kind of get into a habit, I guess.  This is a couple living together, they have children.

Tom:

And Joseph fathered the children, Jesus as well.

Dave:

That’s right.  So, you can understand these people and I don’t think Mary went around saying, Well now, wait a minute, wait a minute—they probably didn’t talk about it, I mean, some people knew but most people didn’t.  So, they have a mistaken idea and they say, but we know him.  Now how can you say he came down from heaven?  Again, he’s not speaking literally—we say we take it literally when it is to be taken literally.  He doesn’t mean that he bodily descended from heaven, floated down.  One day he will come back bodily from heaven to bring judgment. But he was born of a virgin into this world, that’s how he came down from heaven.  So, in verse 43 Jesus answers them and says “Murmur not among yourselves.  No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him:  and I will raise him up at the last day.”  He’s saying, “If you reject the drawing of the Father, if you reject the truth…”—for example, he said to Peter when Peter said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” Jesus said, “Flesh and blood didn’t reveal this to you, my Father in heaven revealed this to you.”  And, Jesus is saying to these people, “If you reject the understanding that God gives you, concerning who I am,” I mean, you would get it from the prophets, the teaching was clearly there that the Messiah would be God himself born of a virgin.  If you reject this you can’t know me.  If you refuse the testimony of the Father through the prophets and his scriptures, there is no way that you could know me.”  He refers to the prophets.  “It is written in the prophets:  They shall be all taught of God and you are resisting the teaching of God that he gives you through the prophets, therefore you can’t possibly come to me, you can’t know who I am, you will reject me.”  He goes on in verse 45, “Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.”  It’s pretty clear.  Jesus is saying, “If you listen to the prophets and the Father of course, God is speaking through them, he has inspired them, if you accept what they say you will know who I am.”  He says that on another occasion in Chapter 8.  “You claim to be Moses’ disciples, if you are Moses’ disciples you would believe me, you would accept me because Moses talked about me and you’re not willing to accept what he said.”

Tom:

Dave, in our earlier segment we talked the reliability of the Bible and we had a question.  It doesn’t make any difference where this came from we just want these moral teachings, they’re sublime and so forth.  Jesus was always appealing to the Word of God, “it is written,” over and over again.  Without that, I mean, Jesus has no appeal, then we are all left to—whatever we think.

Dave:

Exactly, and that’s why we have the prophecies—hundreds of them about the Messiah.  So that when the Messiah came there would be no doubt as to who he was.  No prophecies from Mohammed or Buddha or Confucius and so forth, but hundreds of prophecies for the Jewish Messiah identifying him beyond question and that’s what Jesus, as you said, is appealing to.  “If you knew what the prophets said, you would know who I am.”