John 6:22-59--I Am the Bread of Life

John 6:22-59
English Standard Version

I Am the Bread of Life
22 On the next day the crowd that remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. 23 Other boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. 24 So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus.

25 When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” 26 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. 27 Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.” 28 Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” 29 Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” 30 So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? 31 Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” 32 Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34 They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

41 So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” 43 Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me-- 46 not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

​52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” 59 Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.

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We have just seen two signs that Jesus is the Son of God in rapid succession--first Jesus miraculously feeds the multitude numbering 5,000 men and then He miraculously walked on water out to the disciples in the midst of the storm.  Let me add a little more from the Gospel of Matthew to the part about Jesus walking on the water.

28 And Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” 29 He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.” 31 Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” 32 And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. 33 And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”  (Matthew 14:28-33)

So we see that the response of the disciples here is telling that this indeed was a sign that Jesus was the Son of God.   In today's passage, Jesus and the disciples run into the same crowd that He fed and they have been looking for Him ever since then.  They figured out that Jesus had not gotten in the boat with His disciples but they assumed that He had gotten a ride on a different boat after He was finished praying and that He had just somehow booked passage without them seeing Him (if only they really knew how He had slipped past them, but that sign was only meant for the disciples at that moment).

​The crowd started their search for Jesus at Capernaum both because it was probably the nearest big city, and because it had become a sort of "home base" for Jesus since Peter's mother-in-law lived there and it seems like there people there that would give hospitality to Jesus and His disciples as they were passing through.  It's not clear where they found Jesus at, but I assume from both Matthew and Mark that they find Jesus at the town of Gennesaret that is close to Capernaum, as there is much ministry that is recorded there that Jesus does, but John refers to the crowd finding Jesus "the next day."

John focuses on some words of Jesus that the other gospel writers did not.  While they mostly focus in on a conversation that Jesus had with the religious leaders about what defiles a man, John focuses on the hearts of the crowd and tries to get the focus off of their bellies and onto Him and His identity as the Son of God, and the mission that He was on--which did not line up with their agenda and mission.

Jesus starts by telling them to not work for the food that perishes, but to work for the food that leads to eternal life.  The people assume that He's talking about something they must do to gain eternal life, and ask for Him as their Rabbi to teach them what they must do to earn eternal life.  They completely missed the part where Jesus said, "which the Son of Man will give to you."  So Jesus offers to give them eternal life as a gift and their response is, "Yes, tell us how we must earn this gift."  Aren't we much the same way?  We still try to earn our salvation that we could never earn, because we don't want to admit that we are incapable of pleasing God and meeting His standards on our own.  So we see that this debate starts with them focusing on their works where Jesus is trying to get them to focus on His grace and mercy and the certainty of the salvation that He offers that is by grace alone through faith alone and is to the glory of God alone.  It is not a system of works where we earn or can lose our salvation.

Jesus seems to reply that it's God's work, not their work that matters, and His work is that they believe on the One whom the Father has sent--that's God the Son.  So then the Jews change their tune slightly, still focused on works, to say "What sign do you do that we must believe you?"  Seriously?!?!?!  What do you call the miraculous feeding of the five thousand that you all were just part of?  But they are basically saying to Jesus that He only fed 5,000 for one meal, but in their minds Moses fed millions of people in the wilderness every day for forty years (it was not Moses who gave them mana from heaven, but God).  Notice how they have twisted the story though to give credit to man instead of to God.  They ask a question which would later be answered by the author of Hebrews in Hebrews 3:1-6--is Jesus saying that He is greater than Moses?

Jesus corrects them and said that Moses didn't give them anything, but it was the Father who miraculously gave them bread to eat.  Then Jesus said the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven, meaning Himself, and gives life to the world.  They clearly miss that Jesus said "He who comes down from heaven" and did not say "that which comes down from heaven," because they are still focused on physical bread and say, "Sir, give us this bread always."  This is not that different from the reaction of the woman at the well asking for Jesus to tell her the source of the living water that He was talking about so that she wouldn't have to come to the well to draw water day after day.  However, Jesus' reaction to these people is very different than the reaction that He had with the Samaritan woman--it's instead going to more resemble His conversation with Nicodemus where He's going to take the tone of "Have you not read and understood?."

Jesus is going to speak more plainly to them, though still slightly veiled in metaphor that He is talking about Himself, and He's going to do it in a way that's going to shock them and get their attention.  Jesus is going to make His first "I AM" statement of the Gospel of John when He says, "I AM the Bread of Life."  The way that I typed it is the way that it should be read/interpreted because the Jews never used the phrase "I AM" like this because it was the holy, covenant name of God.  To answer their question about if He was greater than Moses, Jesus basically says, "I AM" meaning that He's saying that He is the I AM that revealed Himself to Moses at the burning bush and gave Moses the Old Covenant.  Now Jesus has everyone's attention!  He's just claimed to be God in an unmistakable way!

Jesus the draws a contrast to say they have seen Him and everything that He has done in front of them, and yet they do not believe.  He desires for them to have their spiritual hunger and thirst satisfied by Him, but they must believe, and as we'll see shortly, only those whom the Father chooses will come to Jesus in faith, and all these will belong to the Good Shepherd and they will never be lost or cast out.  Jesus says here that the salvation that He provides is sure because it is based off the will and work of God, not of man and that Jesus is faithful to give eternal life to all those who belong to Him and to raise them up on the last day (a reference to the resurrection of the dead that the Pharisees believed in, but the Sadducees did not).

Once again, we see the people grumble, and their source of consternation seems to be His "I AM" statement as they understand that He claimed equality with God....that He was God.  They seemed to not hear anything else that He said.  They seem to say "We know whose son you are," and they hinted that Jesus was the child of sin between Joseph and Mary and that there was no supernatural explanation for His birth and that the sin of His parents would disqualify Him from being who He said He was.   Jesus not only heard their words but saw their hearts and minds and responded to them by saying that no one was going to come to Him unless they were drawn by the Father, and Jesus was going to raise up on the last day all who belonged to Him.  Jesus did not seem to be upset by the fact that these people did not believe because He knew they didn't belong to Him.

Jesus then returns to the issue of His identity and says that the Prophets, specifically the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 54:13, spoke of Him when the Scriptures said, "The will all be taught by God."  Jesus then says that even to hear and learn what He is teaching requires the election of the Father, and that those who do hear His words and learn from them will come to Him in faith and will believe and receive eternal life.  Jesus then "doubles down" and says that He's the only one qualified to teach them who God is because He is the only person who came from God and has seen God--not even Moses was able to look at the fullness of God's glory and holiness and survive.

Jesus then again returns to the "main point" that whoever believes in Him has eternal life.  He's said that several times in these few verses and yet they continue to miss the main point.  Then Jesus says something that really upsets them.  "Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died."  Why did they die in the wilderness?  Because they were rebellious and failed to believe in the God who promised to make good on His covenant with them.  Instead, that blessing was given to their children.  I again don't think that this is a mistake that Jesus is probably saying "You're not going to receive this blessing, but some of your children might."  Jesus then extends the metaphor further and says that He is the true, living bread that comes down from heaven and that whoever eats of that bread will never die.  All seems okay until He says, "And the bread that I give for the life of the world is my flesh."

Hard stop!  Did Jesus just tell the people that they had to eat His physical flesh, as in cannibalism?!?!  That's certainly what the people thought He said, but that's not what Jesus said at all.  He said that it was sacrifice that He was going to make--His penal substitutionary atonement--that would be this "Bread of Life" that would give them eternal life.  We see this at the Lord's Supper when Jesus metaphorically says, "Take, eat; this is my body."  He's didn't give the disciples literal pieces of His body to eat, but they ate the unleavened bread that was a symbol of Jesus' perfect, sinless body that was going to be broken, crushed and beaten for them.  Luke adds, "This is my body, which is given for you."  So then the Jews are taking something literally that was meant to be a metaphor.  We should not make the same mistake.

The Jews once again grumbled and asked, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" imagining that Jesus was telling them to engage in cannibalism which was forbidden by the Law and was one of the signs that judgment was about to come as the people were so far away from God and His Law that they would kill and eat another human being--especially children like some of the Canaanites did.  Instead of correcting their error though, Jesus extends the metaphor as He is trying to push them to the point of being force to make a choice about Him.  Is He who He claims to be where we must believe what He says, even if it doesn't make sense to us, or is He a lunatic that was talking craziness and nonsense, or is the man maybe not at all who he said he was, and maybe the exact opposite--maybe he was demonized and was trying to get them to do something so awful that God would never forgive them and they would lose any hope of salvation that they had.  The Pharisees will take door number three later in the book of John.  Jesus' own family will take door number two later in assuming that Jesus has lost His mind, but the disciples here seem to clearly choose door number one for we will see a great "confession" from them with Peter as their spokesman in verse 68, "68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have (A)the words of eternal life,"  At that moment, they seemed to get it (well, at least Peter did--though we know Judas Iscariot did not).

Do not be disheartened when different people hear the same words and only a few receive and believe the truth.  It is neither the message, nor the messenger that is the issue, but is an issue in the heart of the person hearing the message that Jesus will talk about in the Parable of the Sower (the Parable of the Soils).  The issue in that parable is not with the sower or the seed, but instead with the soil--the heart on which the gospel lands.  Only if the soil is good will the seed take root and produce fruit--and it WILL take root and produce fruit if it falls on good soil.  That is what we see at play here.  God is the one that must chose His elect and prepare their hearts for the gospel, and there are others that God will chose to allow their hearts to harden and they will not be able to hear the gospel to receive or believe it, and others who will have the gospel choked out by the things of this world, and still others who will appear to have faith but it is not genuine and they will have no root and will die off quickly showing that they never belonged to Jesus, as Jesus promised that all those who belong to Him will be persevere because it is about the will, choice and the work of God, not the will, choice or work  of us.  Let us be assured of our salvation if we are in Christ, but let us also be careful to examine ourselves to see if we are "in the faith" as every good tree will produce good fruit and every bad tree will produce bad fruit.  We who have repented need to be bearing fruit in keeping with the repentance that the Father has granted to us, and we need to be living in a way where we are relying on Jesus for the fulfillment of every spiritual thirst and hunger and be living the eternal life that He gives starting here and now--not waiting for it to come on the last day.