38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.
38 For
The word “for” introduces the reason why Jesus will preserve all those the Father gives Him.
I have come down from heaven,
Jesus repeated the idea that His origin was in eternity past. Out of His preexistence in eternity with the Father, the Son stepped foot on earth to do the Father’s will. The Greek tense indicates that Jesus’ coming down from heaven was a settled condition.
not to do My own will,
Jesus’ coming was strictly to do the Father’s will, not His own will. He does not operate independently of the Father.
but the will of Him who sent Me.
The will of the Father is that Jesus would be the Savior of the world giving eternal life, the bread from heaven. It is the will of the Father that no one coming to Christ will be lost for eternity (v. 39).
PRINCIPLE:
To reject the Son is to reject the Father.
APPLICATION:
Jesus’ hearers saw, yet they did not believe. They witnessed the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 men, but they missed the point. They saw nothing beyond physical food.
Christ refuses none who come to Him. He does not chose those who are affable or amiable to Him. He came to do the Father’s will, which was to pay for sins by His death on the cross.
