04 - John 6:28-29

There are three questions:

1. What did Jesus mean by ‘the work of God’?
2. What did Jesus mean when he told the people to believe?
3. Were they sensible sinners who were told to believe?
4. ‘The work of God’ – what is it?
   There are two alternatives. Either it is the work which God himself does, or else it is the work God requires men to do. If the former, then since the Jews asked Christ what they had to do (John 6:28), they must have been asking how they could do what only God can do, and Christ told them how to do it. A most remarkable suggestion! Did they want to create? Did they want to rule all nations? Or what? The notion is absurd. We can dismiss it. What is more, Christ’s answer, to ‘believe in him whom he sent’, can hardly be described as God’s own work. Sinners have to believe, not God!