John 6:22-71: Life Giving Bread From Heaven

(1) Bible Study Questions

Discuss: In a nutshell, the so-called ‘Prosperity Gospel’ is a Protestant Charismatic/Pentecostal movement that teaches that properly believing in Jesus will not only result in salvation and eternal life in the world to come, but also material prosperity now in our present world. Jesus promises not only salvation and eternal life, but also health and wealth, satisfaction and success.

Leaving aside the question of whether it is biblically faithful, what is the motivating power of such a message? How does such a message deal with Christians who are suffering or experiencing material scarcity? What might be the result?

The Chase For Jesus (vv. 22-26)

1. How would you describe the efforts that some from the crowd made to find Jesus? What motivated that pursuit? (vv. 26, cf. 14-15)

Note: The town of Tiberias (cf. vv. 1, 23) was about 16 kilometres, or several hours walk, from Capernaum (Keener 2003: 1:675). The discussion Jesus had with his pursuers took place in the synagogue at Capernaum, presumably the place where they eventually found him (vv. 24-25, 59).

2. Elsewhere in John’s Gospel, pursuing Jesus because of his ‘signs’ or ‘works’ is insufficient and at best only a start to responding to Jesus properly (John 2:23-25, 3:2, 4:48, 5:36, 6:14-15, 20:30-31). How does this crowd compare in the attitude that they bring to Jesus? (vv. 26, 30)

Working For Food Which Lasts (vv. 27-30)

Discuss: How do you feel when you have wasted your time and effort on some pursuit, task, project, or venture? What do you do to ensure that you don’t waste your limited resources?

3. In the context of Jesus’ discussion with the crowd, what is the “food which perishes” that the crowd are pursuing? (v. 27, cf. 11-13, 15, 31, 49, 58)

4. Jesus’ words to his pursuers in verse 27 are also a warning for us. How might we “work for food which perishes”?

5. Is it easy to obtain the food which lasts into eternal life? Why or why not? (vv. 27, 29)

6. What is the crowd’s ‘default’ way of thinking about obtaining this food, and how does Jesus respond to this? (vv. 28-29)

The Request For A Sign (vv. 30-33)

Note: Most of us, but particularly those in the ‘helping’ professions, have experienced that sometimes people selectively ‘hear’ only what fits in with their existing ideas. They are so set in their ways of thinking that it’s almost as if they don’t have the ‘hook’ on which to hang the idea with which they have been presented, or the ‘pigeon hole’ in which to store and then ‘chew over’ that thought in their minds.

Likewise, we all know of people who cannot see the ‘bleedingly obvious’, ‘what’s in front of their nose’, and consequently their problems often stem from a particular ‘blind spot’ and lack of self-awareness, of which everyone else around them is painfully aware.

Such people—they could never of course be me or you, always some amorphous and vague ‘someone else’—cannot seem to see what everyone else can see or hear what their friends and loved ones are all too frequently telling them.

Does this resonate with you? I’m not of course asking you to personally admit to such errors of thinking, and it must be some friend or acquaintance of which you are thinking—or more likely, some pest or problem person in your life—but can you confirm any or all this in your own experience. Are you bold enough to either share it, or even confess to the group?

7. What is surprising about the request for a sign in verse 30? (cf. 6:10-15, 26)

Note: The Jewish crowd properly recalled (v. 31) God’s great sign during the time of Moses of giving “bread from heaven” to Israel in the desert (e.g. Exod 16:4, 15; Pss 78:24, 105:40; Neh 9:15). This was undoubtedly encouraged by the feast Jesus had just provided them the day before (vv. 1-15).

8. How does Jesus correct their thinking about (a) what actually happened in the Exodus account, and (b) what is the true bread from heaven? (vv. 31-33)

Jesus the “Bread from Heaven” and “Bread of Life” (vv. 34-51)

9. What did the crowd want Jesus to mean by the phrases “bread from heaven” and “bread of life”, and what did Jesus actually mean? (vv. 34-35, 41, 48-51)

10. What do ‘Jesus’ and ‘bread’—and the particular ‘bread’ of which Jesus speaks—have in common?

Note: The phrases we are looking at here are one group of the Jesus’ seven “I am” sayings, with which Jesus reveals himself. We have briefly met these earlier in John, and will encounter them again. Jesus used some of these statements to claim to be God and equal with God (cf. John 8:58: Exod 3:13-14). In chapter 6, as his dialogue with the crowd continues, Jesus uses increasingly stark ‘metaphorical language’.

A ‘metaphor’ is a figure of speech which uses a word or phrase in a way that is different to its literal meaning, and yet still describes and communicates a reality or truth, but in a more poetic, exaggerated, interesting, or memorable way. Metaphors take ideas or language from one area of life and apply them in another, and so enrich our communication with one another.

We all use metaphors every day to communicate with one another, and to especially communicate our feelings or emotions.

For example, a person might say, “I tore strips off him”. We know that this does not mean that the speaker violently removed another person’s skin from his body, but that in a conversation, the speaker expressed his anger with a severe criticism or rebuke of the person. In this case the metaphor has become an ‘idiom’, a standard way we use English phrases in our community which is commonly understood.

Jesus as a real human spoke to other real humans in real human language. Likewise, as well as being God’s word, the Bible is an example of human speech, and must be read that way. Metaphors in the Bible must be read in the context of the passage, and in the light of the more plain language that the Bible uses to explain the same thing.

Discuss: Stop and think about what are some metaphors that you regularly use in your normal communication. Share them with the group.

11. What is the response of the crowd to the metaphor Jesus uses and the claims it communicates? (vv. 33-34, 36, 41-42)

12. What reason does Jesus give for the response of the crowd? (vv. 37, 39, 44, cf. v. 65, 12:37-40)

13. What reasons does Jesus give for the response of those who “believe in” or “come to” him? (vv. 37, 44, 45, cf. v. 65)

14. According to Jesus himself, what are the results of “believing” or “coming” to Jesus for those who do so and why? (vv. 35, 37, 39-40, 44, 47, 50, 51)

Note: From beginning to end, salvation is the work of God. It is the Father who enables and draws the believer to Jesus. It is Jesus who willingly accepts all whom the Father gives him. The two persons of the Godhead, the Father and the Son, work together to complete the salvation of those “given to” Jesus (John 6:39). Jesus promises to not lose any who come to him and guarantees that he will raise them up on the last day (v. 39). Paul puts the same idea this way: “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil 1:6 ESV).

Eat Me—The Bread Is My Flesh, Drink My Blood (vv. 51-58)

15. If we were to take verses 51-58 literally—and not metaphorically—what would Jesus be commanding his disciples to do? (vv. 53-57)

16. “The one who eats me […] will live because of me” (v. 57). Do you think any Christian individual or denomination has ever taken Jesus words in their strictly literal sense? Are they able to?

17. Has any Christian individual or denomination taken Jesus’ statement, “I am the vine, you are the branches” (John 15) or “I am the gate for the sheep” (John 10) literally, so that Christians are required regularly to sacramentally “remain” in a ‘vine-that’s-not-a-vine-but-has-literally-becomes-Jesus’ or go through a ‘gate-that’s-not-a-gate-but-literally-becomes-Jesus’ to receive the promised benefits? If not, why not?

Note: Holy Communion is a sacrament of Christ, a means of grace, and a good thing given by God for our strengthening. But is there anything in John’s Gospel that would suggest that the way we obey Jesus is by positing that the risen Jesus in heaven, who is now forever clothed with his truly human resurrection body, changes our bread and wine when we ask him into his own actual body and blood, so that after the change (or transubstantiation), they are truly no longer normal bread or wine (although in smell, taste, and every other empirically observable way, they are unchanged and are still bread and wine), and that by receiving a tiny portion of each regularly, we have obeyed Jesus’ command, so that we can expect all the benefits that come with eating his flesh and drinking his blood? Does John mention the last supper? Does John mention the institution of the Lord’s Supper? While not fatal to such a possibility, (cf. 7:42 on Bethlehem, which assumes knowledge of other Gospels to answer the question), one would have expected an explicit link with the institution of the Lord’s Supper, if there is an absolute necessity to receive the sacrament. Yet elsewhere John considers that what he has given us is sufficient for us to believe and receive eternal life (John 20:30-31). Is there anything in the whole of the New Testament that suggests such a method of obtaining eternal life? The answer to all of these questions is ‘No’. A much more straightforward answer is readily available.

18. On the understanding that Jesus is speaking metaphorically, how does a person eat his flesh and drink his blood? (vv. 29, 35-26, 40, 47, 64, 69)

Note: Augustine explained Jesus’ teaching by saying, “To what purpose do you make ready teeth and stomach? Believe, and you have eaten already.” (Tractates on the Gospel of John, 25.12 at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1701025.htm). John in his Gospel uses the verb for ‘believe’ more than any other New Testament book or author (98 instances in John’s Gospel out of 239 in the whole New Testament, the next most frequent use of the verb being 54 across the 13 Pauline letters). ‘Believing’ is the proper response a person makes to Jesus, and it unites that person to Jesus and thus brings everything Jesus promises to the believer. It is not a metaphor. The way we ‘receive’, ‘look at’, or ‘come to’ Jesus—and also ‘eat’ his flesh, ‘drink’ either his blood or the water that he gives, ‘enter’ through him as a gate, or ‘remain in him’ as a vine—is by believing, trusting, relying, and depending upon his person, words, and works. For us, only ‘believing’ is literal, and every other verb is a metaphorical enrichment of that core response.

19. How does Jesus give his flesh for the life of the world? (v. 51, cf. John 1:29)

The Fallout And The Clearout (vv. 60-71)

Note: The theme of people misunderstanding Jesus’ teaching frequently arises in John’s Gospel. But each time Jesus is misunderstood, there is something in the passage or later in the Gospel which enables us as readers to understand Jesus properly. Consider the following:

Chapter 2: Jesus said, “Destroy this temple” (v. 19), “but he said this about the temple of his body” (v. 21).

Chapter 3: Jesus said, “unless someone is born from above” (vv. 3, 7), “born from water and Spirit” (v. 5), “born from Spirit” (vv. 7, 8), and compare John 1:12-13, “born from God”, and John 7:37-39, where Jesus spoke of the Spirit as “rivers of living water”.

Chapter 6: Jesus said, “the bread which I will give is my flesh, on behalf of the life of the world” (v. 51) and “the one who eats me will also live because of me” (v. 57), illuminated by verse 47, “the one who believes has eternal life” and verse 63, “The Spirit is he who gives life; the flesh does not profit anything”.

20. We started our study with Jesus surrounded by his disciples and pursued by a crowd to the Capernaum synagogue. How do we leave John chapter 6? (vv. 60, 66, cf. 41, 52)

21. What is significant about those disciples who left Jesus? (vv. 64-66)

Note: “If we add to our churches by excitement, by making appeals to the passions, rather than by explaining truth to the understanding; if we add to our churches otherwise than by the power of the Spirit of God making men new creatures in Christ Jesus, the increase is of no worth whatever.” (Charles Haddon Spurgeon Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit 1892 vol 38 p 339, sermon at http://www.romans45.org/spurgeon/sermons/2265.htm accessed on 12 January 2018)

22. What do you think of Peter’s confession? (vv. 68-69)?

Reflect: Once you abandon Jesus, where do you go then? In turning their backs on Jesus, who did the crowd and certain other disciples follow? Where else have we to go?

The book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament reports on a ‘scientific’ and ‘laboratory’ study by someone who had all the options available to him, and gives us the results of his experiment in living life ‘under the sun’ to achieve meaning and purpose.

(2) Sermon Script

Introduction: In Search of the ‘Superfood’

Our media every now and then tells us about the benefit of some supposed ‘superfood’. It is something usually that we all know about, but it has these amazing properties: blueberries for example, or broccoli. See, mum was right. Eating little trees is good for you. Spinach, for example. Well, we all know that. Popeye the Sailor Man taught us that. Pumpkin and tomatoes are often cited as 'super foods'. All of these no doubt are pleasing to the eye and good for food, especially when made to taste like meat.

But what would Jesus’ class as a superfood? And of course, Jesus, says, ‘It’s me!’ The answer is always 'Jesus', no matter what the question is. Looking for good food? It’s Jesus. Looking for good drink? It’s Jesus. Have Jesus for crunch and sip, because Jesus says, "He who munches on my flesh and drinks my blood has life eternal, and I will raise him up on the last day". Jesus says, "My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink" (John 6:54-55). Munch on me, and live forever.

The Crowd Still Seeking A Sign (vv. 30-31)

We pick up the story when the crowd realizes that their Commander-in-Chief has left after feeding the 5,000 strong army. So they chase Jesus across the lake. But when they find Jesus, they only show how little they understood the sign. In their conversation, they say at verse 30:

So they asked him, "What miraculous sign then will you give us that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat’." (NIV)

Hullo! What dull stupidity is this? Didn’t he just feed all 25,000 of them yesterday? Was that not a sign enough? People asking for a sign can’t see the signs that are there. It is a sinful generation that asks for a sign. And Jesus says as much. They came after him because he was good at catering. Jesus is a good meal ticket. They didn’t even come because of the sign that Jesus is from God (John 6:26).

The Work of God: Believe in Jesus (vv. 28-29, 40, 47)

Nevertheless, they ask Jesus for what works God requires. At least this is a more noble thought. At least Jesus has got them to think of more than their bellies. Verses 28 and 29:

Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” (NIV)

Most people who believe in God are wired to ask this question. Most of us, especially self-made men, want to be debtors to no-one. Don’t be a debtor, don’t be a borrower, stand on your own two feet.

And so people ask, "What are the works that God wants me to do? What works must I work to have eternal life? Must I work the 10 commandments? What about the two commandments, love God and neighbour? What about go to church, read the bible, and pray? They are good works, aren’t they?"

Yes, they are! The only problem is you haven’t kept them, and neither have I. And so we try to justify ourselves, by saying, "Well, yes, sure I’ve coveted and I’ve been angry with my brother, but the really big ones I haven’t broken." And the response of the New Testament is, "He who keeps the whole law and stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it."

Of all of the commands, whether of God or man, whether true or spurious, good or bad, Jesus chooses none of them as the works that God requires. He simply says, "Believe in the one he has sent". This is a call to faith alone. It won’t be alone, because it always produces good works. But faith alone justifies us.

Jesus perverts the notions of works by saying, "The work of God is to believe in the one he has sent." You want to do a great work for God? Well take your faith, your trust, your dependence, that great non-work which rests and trusts in who someone else is and what someone is doing for you and has done for you, and put it in Christ. Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling. Have faith, the empty hand that takes hold of Christ’s garment. Have faith, the empty mouth that eats the freely offered bread provided by Christ in the desert. Have faith, the parched throat soothed by Christ’s living water.

And we see why Christ directs us to believe in him in verse 40: Verse 40:

For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (NIV)

Look to the Son, and you will receive eternal life. Look with the eye of faith on the lifted up Jesus – lifted up on a cross, lifted up in resurrection – and you have eternal life. Jesus Christ will raise you up from the grave at the last day and you will have eternal life. That is the promise of God. That is the Father’s will. It is a promise that is broad, wide, and deep. Anyone who looks to the son – that is, believes in him – has eternal life. That is for now and forever.

This is the beginning, the middle, and the end of all our Christianity. Yes, we want to do the works that flow from faith. Yes, we are eager for good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. But none of these good works do we trust for our salvation. Our salvation comes to us through our empty and bare faith in Jesus Christ.

The Gift of God to Jesus: Believers (vv. 37, 39, 44-45, 65)

Sadly, Jesus knows that not all receive him, and have eternal life. Some reject Christ and his word. Even some of his disciples, those beyond the twelve, find Jesus’ words too hard to stomach. "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" Just like the disciples with the teaching about the temple as his body, just like Nicodemus about being born again, just like the Samaritan woman about living water, just like the crowd who followed Jesus across the lake because they want the free food and the bottomless cup to never end, they understand Jesus' words at only the literal level. Jesus seems to be saying that Jesus will offer his flesh and blood for them to eat. He wants them and us to be cannibals, or so it seems.

So Jesus explains why some come to him and others don’t, and why some stay with him and other’s don’t. Verse 37:

All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will not drive away. (NIV)

Verse 39:

And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. (NIV)

Verse 44:

No-one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. (NIV)

Verse 65:

This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him. (NIV)

The Father has a gift for the Son: believers. God the Father enables and draws to Christ believers. "All those the Father gives to him comes to him." Those who are so enabled, so effectually called, have had God work secretly in them by his Spirit. And this special and secret work of the Spirit makes God’s grace ‘irresistible’ for them. It is ‘irresistible grace’. They do not resist because they do not want to resist. God, the one who works all things according to the counsel of his own will, has worked in them so that they will and act according to God's good purpose. The thing that makes them different from the others is not their own free will. It is that God has worked in them and given them the good will. "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me has enabled him." They are born of the Spirit, who goes wherever he wills. So they are born of God. As a result, they believe and they come to Christ. And these, whom Jesus will call "my sheep", will not finally apostasize and fall away from Christ. They may stumble, as Peter did, who denied the Lord, but they will not finally fall. As Jesus says, "I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day."

In theological language, this is the perseverance of the saints. The saints persevere, and come into Christ’s everlasting rest. This explains why some come to Christ, and others, who hear exactly the same word, refuse to come to Christ. God enables one group, but he hasn't enabled the other group … yet.

The Gift of God to Believers: The Real Food, Jesus Himself (vv. 27, 32-33, 35, 41, 48, 50, 51, 53-58)

So believers themselves are a precious gift from the Father to the Son. But the Father has also given a precious gift to the believers. It is his Son. Jesus is the gift of God to believers. He is their ‘superfood’. The bread Jesus came to give was not simply barley loaves. It was himself.

Ultimately, this is the explanation of the feeding miracle. The feeding of the 25,000 pointed to Jesus as the bread of life. Verse 35:

Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty." (NIV)

Again, verse 51:

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. (NIV)

Yet again, verse 54 to 55:

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. (NIV)

Jesus is the bread of life. He is about to give up his life as the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world so that the world can have life. He is about to give his flesh and blood. And now Jesus uses another figure. He is the bread of life. His flesh and his blood are real food, superfoods, really. So eat. And the way you eat is by believing. He who believes, eats. He who comes to him, comes to him by trusting. He who eats, eats by believing in Jesus.

Misunderstanding

Jesus strong metaphor of himself being the bread of heaven, the bread of life, and the even stronger metaphor of eating his flesh and drinking his blood, has occasioned much misunderstanding. It was the occasion of the request for physical food (v. 34). Indeed, it is the reason why some of his disciples walk away.

We must observe that there is actually a change in the metaphor from that of bread, to that of eating flesh and blood. The bread of heaven motif picks up on the manna of the Exodus wandering. The eating of flesh may well pick up on Christ being likened to the paschal lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, that was cooked and eaten in family groups. Given that the eating or drinking of blood was forbidden in Leviticus, it is most likely a reference to the cups that accompanied the Passover meal, with the redness of the wine understandably evoking images of blood. It is important for us to read the imagery in the light of the Passover meal before any links are made with the later establishment of the Lord's Supper.

Some Christians and some denominations would have us think that John chapter 6 is all about what some Christians call the 'Eucharist', 'Communion' or the 'Lord’s Supper'. Those with a particularly high view of Communion, Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, use our passage as proof texts for doctrines such as transubstantiation. But this is premature, anachronistic, and frequently profoundly mistaken.

This passage is not about the Lord’s Supper. Rather, the Lord’s Supper is about this passage. I’ll say that again. John 6 is not about the Lord’s Supper. The Lord’s Supper is all about John 6. The Lord’s Supper is all about Jesus being the bread of life, and the sacrament points us to him. Again, the transubstantiation and real presence type of doctrines confuse the sign and the thing signified. In the end, those denomination do exactly what the supplicants in the story do. They fixate on the sign, the bread, the eating, the food, the wine, and don't pursue what the sign signifies, the risen Jesus himself who is located bodily in heaven.

Remember, John doesn’t record the Last Supper at all. So it’s a bit hard to say that John 6 is all about the Lord’s Supper if the Lord doesn’t actually institute the Lord’s Supper in the last supper as it is recorded in John’s Gospel. The Lord’s Supper points to Jesus as the Bread of Life, not the other way around. So John and Jesus do not point us to the Lord's Supper in the Gospel of John. That is a simple fact.

We also need to understand Jesus' extensive use of various metaphors in John 6, and also John's Gospel in general, for both us as readers, and for the first hearers. Consider the two propositions, Whoever 'looks to' Jesus, and 'comes to' have eternal life. Now, these are and can only be two metaphors for us, because we cannot literally do these things. We can't come to Jesus, as Jesus is now in heaven. We can't look to Jesus, as he is hidden from our sight. So these two things can only be fulfilled by us metaphorically. But other things that Jesus says are clearly metaphorical, not only for us as readers, but also for the first hearers of Jesus' words. Jesus bids his pursuers to drink of his blood and eat of his flesh. This could only ever have been metaphorical, because we cannot literally do these things either, and neither should we want to, and the present readers could not and should not do those things literally.

Later Jesus says, “I am the gate for the sheep”. But he is not a literal gate. He will say, “I am the good shepherd”. But he is not a literal shepherd, nor are we literal sheep. Jesus will also say, “I am the true vine, you are the branches”. But we are not literal branches, and he is not a literal vine.

These are all different ways of saying, “believe in Jesus and you will be saved”. Because believing in Jesus, trusting in Jesus, is the literal response we make. And coming to Jesus, looking to Jesus, eating Jesus, drinking Jesus’ blood, going through the gate, remaining in the vine, all of these are metaphoric descriptions of trusting in Jesus.

So ‘eating of Jesus’ flesh’ (one metaphor), or ‘the bread of life’ (another metaphor), means believing in him and his body broken for us on the cross. And ‘drinking from Jesus blood’ means believing in him and in the blood shed at the cross for us.

I emphasize these things because some people misunderstand both this passage, and also what we do when we share communion. Some people say that the bread and wine actually and literally change into Jesus’ body and blood. It smells like bread, tastes like bread, mice eat it and think that it’s bread, but despite all these appearances, it is literally transubstantiated into Jesus’ body and blood. So you really and literally do eat and drink Jesus. But none of these things are true. The bread remains bread, and the wine remains wine. And the eating of Jesus that we do is not with our mouths, but in our hearts, by faith.

When we go to communion, and join together at the Lord’s Table, we only receive what we bring. What you already have before communion, you receive in communion. You receive nothing at communion you don’t already have. He who has, will be given more. He who does not have, even what he has will be taken away.

What I mean is this: if you believe in Christ, if you take faith in Jesus with you when you walk down the aisle, as you trust in Christ, what you have taken with you to the Lord’s table will be strengthened and confirmed. But if you don’t believe in Christ sitting in your pew, in your home, in your office, you do not take faith down the aisle when you walk to the Lord’s table, and what you receive at the Lord’s table is only bread and wine. And worse, you eat and drink judgment on yourself.

This is not just my opinion. This is the teaching for which our sixteenth century Anglican reformers shed their blood. Look at Article 28, the third paragraph (White Prayerbooks, 95, Green Prayerbooks, 634).

The Body of Christ is given, taken and eaten in the Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is by faith.

We do not believe in transubstantiation. The bread remains bread and the wine remains wine. It is not changed. But if you come to communion with faith, your eat of Christ and receive Christ, because you brought faith with you down the aisle. But if you can’t eat the bread, you still eat of Christ and drink his blood when you have faith, [1] just as when you come to a sermon with faith, you receive Christ, you eat of him, you drink him in, you look to him. Or when you read your bible and pray with faith, or when you remember the promises of the gospel, whenever you do this with faith, you have spiritually eaten Christ’s flesh and spiritually drunk his blood, even though we haven’t had communion. But those who come to communion without faith in Jesus eat only bread, and worse, eat and drink condemnation on themselves [2] (1 Cor 11:27ff).

In other words, we can feed on Christ now, this instant, before communion. So munch on Jesus, the bread of life, now, as you sit there in your seats and listen to this sermon, having read the Bible passage. Consume the flesh and blood of Christ now.

How? Believe that Jesus is the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Trust in Jesus as the one lifted up high on the cross and higher still in resurrection. As I speak, I am offering you his flesh this very instant, to be eaten in your heart by faith. Drink his blood now. It is available to you this instant by faith. For he who believes, eats

Let’s pray.

[1] So the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, at the end of the service for the Communion of the Sick, has this note: "But if a man, either by reason of extremity of sickness, or for wanting of warning in due time to the Curate, or for lack of company to receive with him, or by any other just impediment, do not receive the Sacrament of Christ’s Body and Blood : the Curate shall instruct him that if he do truly repent him of his sins, and steadfastly believe that Jesus Christ hath suffered death upon the Cross for him, and shed his Blood for his redemption, earnestly remembering the benefits he hath thereby, and giving him hearty thanks therefore ; he doth eat and drink the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ profitably to his soul’s health, although he do not receive the sacrament with his mouth." (Book of Common Prayer, 314)

[2] Article 29 or the 39 Articles makes this clear: “The Wicked, and such as by void of a lively faith [that is, those who don’t believe in Jesus], although they do carnally and visibly press with the teeth (as Saint Augustine saith) the sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ [that is, they eat the bread and drink the juice], yet in no wise are they partakers of Christ, but rather, to their condemnation, do eat and drink the sign or Sacrament of so great a thing.”

(3) English Translation

My translation

6:22 The next day, the crowd standing on the other side of the sea saw that there was no other boat there except one, and that Jesus had not gone with his disciples in the boat, but only his disciples went away. 6:23 However, boats had arrived from Tiberias near the place where they had eaten the bread after they had given thanks to the Lord. 6:24 So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus. 6:25 And when they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?”

6:26 Jesus answered them and said, “Truly, truly I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the bread and were satisfied. 6:27 Work not for food which perishes but for the food which lasts into eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For this is the one who the Father, God, has certified.

6:28 So they said to him, “What should we do to work the works of God?” 6:29 Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in he whom that one has sent.

30So they said to him, “What sign, then, will you do, so that we might see and believe you? What will you work? 31Our Fathers ate the manna in the desert, just as it is written, “He gave them bread from heaven to eat.”

32So Jesus said to them, “Truly truly I say to you, Moses has not given you the bread from heaven, but my Father is giving 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 So they said to him, “Lord, always give us this bread!” 35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. The one coming to me will never hunger, and the one believing in me will never ever thirst. 36 However, I said to you that you have even seen me, yet you don’t believe. 37 Every one who the Father gives me comes to me, and the one who comes to me I will never cast out, 38 because I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me. 39Now this is the will of the one who sent me, that I not lose any of his which he has given me, but that I raise [them][1] up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone seeing the Son and believing in him has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

41Because of this, the Jews began grumbling about him, because he said, “I am the bread who came down from heaven.” 42And they said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it now that he says, ‘I came down from heaven’?”

43Jesus answered and said to them, “Stop grumbling among yourselves. 44No one can come to me except the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him up on the last day. 45It is written in the prophets, “And everyone will be taught by God”. Everyone who listens to the Father and learns comes to me. 46Because no one has seen the Father except the one sent from God—he has seen the Father. 47Truly, Truly, I say to you, the one who believes has eternal life. 48I am the bread of life. 49Your fathers ate the manna in the desert and died. 50This is the bread that came down from heaven, so that anyone might eat and not die.

51I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If someone eats of this bread, he will live forever, and the bread which I will give is my flesh, on behalf of the life of the world.

52So then the Jews were arguing with one another, saying “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 53So 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 don’t have life in you.

54The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55For my flesh is truly food and my blood is truly drink. 56The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. 57Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so also the one who eats me, this person also will live because of me. 58This is the bread which came down from heaven, not in the same way as the fathers ate and died. The one who eats this bread will live forever.

59He said these things while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

60Therefore, many of his disciples who heard him said, “This word is harsh. Who can accept it?” 61Now Jesus, because he knew in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Does this trouble you?”62Then what if you see the Son of Man going up to where he was at the first? 63The Spirit is he who gives life; the flesh does not profit anything. The words which I spoke to you are Spirit and are life. 64However, there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning that there some of them who did not believe, and who was the one who betrayed him. 65And he said, “For this reason, I said to you that no one can come to me unless it is given to him from the Father.”

66Because of this, many of his disciples went away from that point on and no longer walked with him. 67So Jesus said to the twelve, “you don’t also want to go away, do you?” 68Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, where will we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69And we believe and know that you are the holy one of God.” 70Jesus answered him, “I chose you twelve, didn’t I? Yet one of you is the devil” 71Now he was talking about Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, one of the twelve, for this man was going to betray him.

[1] Greek, ‘it’.

(4) Exegetical Notes

Bibliography

Bauer, W, Arndt, W F, Gingrich, F W, Danker, F W, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977.

Brown, R E, The Gospel According to John I-XII: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary: Anchor Bible, New York: Doubleday, 1966.

Carson, D A, The Gospel According to John: Pillar, Leicester: IVP, 1991.

Fanning, B M, Verbal Aspect in New Testament Greek: Oxford Theological Monographs, Oxford: Clarendon, 1990.

Morris, Leon, The Gospel According to John: NICNT, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995 Rev ed.

Porter, S E, Verbal Aspect in the Greek of the New Testament, with Reference to Tense and Mood: SBG 1; Bern: Peter Lang, 1989.

Wallace, D B, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996.

Introduction

Our text is the Johannine ‘bread of life’ discourse, but the dialogue quickly becomes a monologue by Jesus (Carson 1990: 283-4). The discourse occurs in a Capernaum synagogue (John 6:59) around Passover time (John 6:4), the second of three Passovers that John narrates. Jesus had miraculously fed 5000 (John 6:1-15), and after withdrawing from them because they wanted to make him king by force, walked on the sea (John 6:16-21). The multitudes, who have political aspirations for Jesus (John 6:15), set out to find him, chasing him in boats, and finding him in the Capernaum synagogue (John 6:25, 59), but Jesus exhorts them instead of seeking food that perishes to seek “eternal food” (John 6:27).

The Christology of this discourse is that Jesus is portrayed as the fulfillment of the Old Testament Scriptures. He is the Mosaic prophet (John 6:14, 31-32), the divine “I am” (John 6:20, 35), and Daniel’s ‘Son of Man’ (John 6:27). Jesus is from the Father and gives life to those believing on him, all consistent with John’s purpose for righting his Gospel, that through these things we might believe in Jesus and thereby have life (John 20:30-31).

The dialogue in John 6:22-71 moves forward through the asking of progressively more difficult questions (and the making of one request), which Jesus’ teaching and responses provoke. A way of analyzing the dialogue is in terms of Jesus’ responses to questions and request put to him.

There is a strong theme in verses 22-71 of discipleship. Believing in Jesus involves coming to Jesus and remaining with him. Discipleship is based on a deeply and intimately personal relationship with Jesus. Compare chapter 15 on the necessity of remaining in Jesus to bear fruit.

Again, there is the theme of misunderstanding. Jesus uses the image of food and eating, as he did with water with the Samaritan woman, and birth from above with Nicodemus, and the hearers in all these situations misunderstand Jesus to be speaking of literal water, bread, or birth. The inquirers need to see beyond the bread, water, or birth to the giver of life itself.

John 6:22-27: Bread of life Q & A #1: Looking For The Right Person For the Wrong Things

The context of the whole dialogue in verses 22-71 is established in verses 1-15 and 22-27, with more specificity given by locating the place of this teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum in verse 59. The day after Jesus feeds the multitude and after Jesus’ night time walk on the water (note v. 22, Τῇ ἐπαύριον, the next day), the crowd across the lake notices that only one boat remains moored at the place where Jesus fed the 5,000 men, and that Jesus did not go with his disciples. Boats which had arrived that day from Tiberius go searching for Jesus at Capernaum (v. 24). They find him and ask Jesus, “When did you get here?” (v. 25). Jesus rebukes them for searching for him for gastronomical, belly-based reasons, and exhorts them to seek him because he can give them eternal life.

Regarding the formal structure of the discourse in verses 22-27, the narrative frame fronts the temporal marker, ‘the next day’, and as the crowd begins to look for Jesus (vv. 22-24), there is the account of a pursuit, a ‘where is Jesus?’ motif. The dialogue is introduced and provoked by the crowd question, “When did you arrive at Capernaum?” (v. 25), to which Jesus’ essential answer is “Seek me for eternal life, not bread” (v. 26).

In the dialogue, Jesus does not answer their question, “When did you arrive?”, possibly because a direct answer would need to refer to his walking on water, and Jesus did not want to impress people with miraculous signs, but certainly because he sensed that the people were already distracted by the signs for appreciating Jesus’ identity and the eternal life he offered. For Jesus’ pursuers had spent much time and effort looking for him, chasing him in boats all the way across lake Galilee to the Capernaum synagogue, because of their desire for a never-ending, all-you-can-eat Messianic buffet. They had shown that the feeding ‘sign’ had distracted them from understanding who Jesus is and what Jesus had come to do.

In verse 23, the participle εὐχαριστήσαντος has good textual support, being found in P75, A, B, among other mss, and the UBS4, 336 gives it a {B} rating.

In verse 25, the question πότε ὧδε γέγονας; (“When did you come here?”) is twofold, as γέγονας is not normally placed after πότε. It effectively asks both “When did you arrive?” and by implication, “How long have you been here?”

In verse 26, Jesus has insight as to why these members of the crowd are looking for him: they saw signs, ate the bread, and their hunger was satisfied. Jesus thus offers them a corrective for their motivation. He wants them to seek for things that last into eternal life.

In verse 27, Jesus reasons that since they have worked hard and taken pains to find the Messianic caterer and wonder-worker—the ‘Magic Pudding’, so to speak—Jesus exhorts them to work for food which lasts into eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to them (v. 27). Work hard and search for, get up and in your boats and look for, the correct thing—the one whom the Father has certified. For ‘the Son of Man’, see Daniel 7:13-14. Regarding the Father’s ‘sealing’ of the Son (note the verb, ἐσφράγισεν, meaning ‘sealed, certified’), this is cultic language. A sacrifice would be ‘sealed’ once it is approved as fit for sacrifice. Compare halal ‘certification’. Jesus is the Passover lamb of God for the sin of the world (John 1:29, 35), and the Father has ‘certified’ him as such a sacrifice by the ‘signs’ which he has given to him.

John 6:28-29: Bread of Life Q&A#2: The Works of God Are To Believe In the Sent One

The members of the crowd who pursued Jesus all the way to the Capernaum synagogue misunderstand Jesus’ admonition, “Work not (ἐργάζεσθε μὴ) for food which perishes but for the food which lasts, which the Son of Man will give you” (v. 27). They focus on the notion of ‘work’, which Jesus’ had emphatically placed at the front of the sentence through the verb ἐργάζεσθε in v. 27), whereas Jesus’ focus was on the fact that the food is a gift of the certified Son of Man and gives eternal life (Carson 1990: 284-5).

In verse 28, the question they ask Jesus emphasizes the notion of ‘works’ and ‘doing’: “What should we do (τί ποιῶμεν) to work the works of God (ἵνα ἐργαζώμεθα τὰ ἔργα τοῦ θεοῦ)?” Note that I have translated ἵνα with the subjunctive as the English infinitive, which is less cumbersome English style. The manner of their question sidesteps the Christological issues which Jesus has raised—they ask what they must work and do, rather than who Jesus is, where he is from, and what has he come to do. They seemingly don’t even pick up on the eternal life that Jesus offers them. Jesus implicitly corrects their question by redefining ‘the work of God’ both Christologically and with the appropriate response to the Christ. “This is the work of God, that you believe in he whom that one has sent.” ‘The work of God’ is at one level not a work at all—it is to believe, to rest and rely the one whom God has sent. It is to look at the lifted up Son of Man and live (John 3:14-16). While all works are the product of belief, and bearing fruit is the consequence of being united to Christ (cf. John 15), and the corollary is also true, that all sin is the product of unbelief, this is a statement about the primacy of belief or faith for Jesus in John.

Belief or unbelief is the primary category of status toward God in John. John does not use the language of repentance to express the human response to Christ, and only occasionally does he use the language of ‘obedience’ (e.g. John 3:36; cf. John 15:10). Jesus replaces their plural ‘the works of God’ (τὰ ἔργα τοῦ θεοῦ: v. 28) with the singular ‘the work of God’ (τὸ ἔργον τοῦ θεοῦ: v. 29) which he defines as ‘to believe in’ (ἵνα πιστεύητε εἰς) him. Believing in Jesus is what God requires, not works. “[The] thought of the passage is almost indistinguishable from Paul: ‘For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law (Rom 3:28).” (Carson 1990: 285)

John 6:30-33: The Bread of Life Q&A#3: Another Request for A Sign

Jesus has already implicitly criticized the crowd because of their poor and inadequate reasons for chasing Jesus (vv. 26-7). Jesus criticizes them because “You are looking for me not because you saw signs, but because you at of the bread and you were satisfied” (ζητεῖτέ με οὐχ ὅτι εἴδετε σημεῖα, ἀλλ’ ὅτι ἐφάγετε ἐκ τῶν ἄρτων καὶ ἐχορτάσθητε). This appears to suggest that Jesus is favourable to those who believe because of signs, but it would be better to see Jesus’ statement as implicitly criticizing the supplicants for getting lost in the content of the sign (the feeding miracle) rather than seeing the sign’s Christological signification about Jesus. They are not seeking Jesus because they have seen signs of the Christ and have been pointed to the Christ in the same way that John the Baptist did. They got lost in the content of the signs and sought Christ for the material benefits that the signs they enjoyed provided. It is possible that Jesus’ mention of them having seen ‘signs’ (σημεῖα: v. 26) has evoked the question, “What sign (σημεῖον), then, will you do, so that we might see and believe you?” (v. 30). Even if this is the case, it gives Jesus the opportunity to relativize the importance of signs, as he guides the dialogue away from ‘signs’—which along with food is the primary interest of his pursuers—to Christology, his own identity and work (vv. 30-33).

In verse 30, the supplicants request a sign of Jesus. This is strange, given they have just witnessed the feeding miracle (vv. 1-15), and they have pursued Jesus for this reason, because they ate the bread. Apparently, for the supplicants, the feeding of the 5000 was either ignored, irrelevant, or insufficient as a sign. It seems to be an stereotypical example of Jews looking for signs (1 Cor 1:22). Their emphasis is on Jesus’ ‘sign’ that he will do (τί οὖν ποιεῖς σὺ σημεῖον) and Jesus ‘work’ (τί ἐργάζῃ).

In verse 31, the supplicants cite the scriptural example of manna as bread from heaven. Jesus does not refuse their request, but corrects their precedent. Moses did not give them bread from heaven (Exod 16:4; Neh 9:15; Pss 78:24, 105:40, where God is said to be the giver). The members of the crowd who ate the bread and now pursue Jesus need to pay attention to the present, not the past (Brown 1966: 1:262). Jesus’ Father is now giving them the true, life-giving bread from heaven. That bread is Jesus himself.

Verse 33 makes this clear. “For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” || ὁ γὰρ ἄρτος τοῦ θεοῦ ἐστιν ὁ καταβαίνων ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καὶ ζωὴν διδοὺς τῷ κόσμῳ. Jesus is the one who has come down from heaven.

John 6:34-40: Bread of Life Q&A #4: It’s ME!

Verse 34 introduces the supplicants’ request (πάντοτε δὸς ἡμῖν τὸν ἄρτον τοῦτον), and verse 35 gives Jesus’ answer (ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ἄρτος τῆς ζωῆς). The supplicant’s request for ‘this bread’ (τὸν ἄρτον τοῦτον: v. 34) is a deduction from Jesus’ statement that his Father is presently giving the life-giving bread from heaven (v. 32-33: Wallace 1996: 673).

Parallel invitations to salvific eating and drinking have been identified in the Old Testament (Isa 55:1; Prov 9:5) and apocrypha (Sir 24:21; Carson 1990: 289; Brown 1966: 269), although of these, Isaiah is most likely, given its eschatological content and general use in John (Carson 1990: 289).

The theme of misunderstanding continues, with the request for physical food (v. 34), allowing Jesus to boldly identify himself as “the bread of life”, and that true spiritual needs can only be satisfied by coming to (i.e. ‘believing in’) him (v. 35). Yet the supplicants still take Jesus’ words at a crass literalistic level.

In verse 34, the vocative κύριε can either mean ‘Lord’ or ‘sir’ (Morris 1995: 323). Given John’s high Christology, there may be a double entendre operating, in that in addressing Jesus as ‘Lord’, the supplicants utter more truth than they realize.

The request ‘always’ or ‘at all times’ (πάντοτε) give (δὸς) (BAGD, 609) reflects the desire for a continual or iterative provision (Fanning 1990: 355), that is, daily, given the paradigm of wilderness manna (Morris 1995: 323 fn 96), rather than continuous provision. Adverb πάντοτε occurs three times with the aorist in the New Testament (Porter 1989: 187). Verb δὸς, the aorist imperative of δίδωμι should be accounted for idiomatically, in that it is an example of a general command (Fanning 1990: 354-5), and should not be seen as indicating a once-for-all gift (Contrast Morris 1995: 323 fn 96). The iterative nature is confirmed by Jesus’ response, that “the one coming to me will never hunger” (v. 35: Carson 1990: 288).

In verse 34, the antecedent of τὸν ἄρτον τοῦτον (‘this bread’: v. 34) is ὁ καταβαίνων ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καὶ ζωὴν διδοὺς τῷ κόσμῳ (“the one coming down from heaven and giving life to the world”: v. 33).

In verse 35, the important phrase ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ἄρτος τῆς ζωῆς· “I am the bread of life” is one of the famous ἐγώ εἰμι statements which takes a nominative predicate (Brown 1966: 535-7; Carson 1990: 289; Morris 1971: 365 fn 92). For the wider significance of the “I AM” statement see The “I AM” Statements in John’s Gospel. Both the Old Testament and Johannine context indicate that the formula connotes Christ’s identity as God the only begotten Son (cf. John 1:1, 18).

The predicate here is ὁ ἄρτος τῆς ζωῆς, ‘the bread of life’ (v. 35, cf. v. 48). The statement builds on verses 32-33, which has already established that “the true bread from heaven” (τὸν ἄρτον ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ τὸν ἀληθινόν) is presently being given by the Father (v. 32), and that the bread of God is a person, the one who comes from heaven and gives life to the world (ὁ γὰρ ἄρτος τοῦ θεοῦ ἐστιν ὁ καταβαίνων ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καὶ ζωὴν διδοὺς τῷ κόσμῳ: v. 33). But what is implicit in verses 32-33, is unmistakably explicit in verse 35.

Unlike in the feeding miracle, where Jesus gave bread, now Jesus is the bread, and his Father is the giver. ‘The bread of life’ means the bread that gives [eternal] life’, not living bread (v. 51: Brown 1966: 269). The ‘bread’ motif trades on the place of bread in the Middle Eastern diet as a staple food. The relationship between eater and thing eaten is intimate—“you are what you eat”. There is thus a necessary relationship between this motif and other means of conveying ‘union with Christ’. Jesus uses these physical metaphors to express the spiritual realities of the eternal life he offers already stated in John 1:12-13, 3:14-16.

In verse 35, the parallelism of the two adjectival participles ‘the one coming to me’ || ὁ ἐρχόμενος πρὸς ἐμὲ and ‘the one believing in me’ || ὁ πιστεύων εἰς ἐμὲ suggests that coming to Christ is a synonym for believing in him. The emphatic future negatives (v. 35: οὐ μὴ + aorist subjunctive πεινάσῃ; οὐ μὴ + future indicative διψήσει) indicate “the strongest negation possible in Greek” (Wallace 1996: 468). Morris argues that there is “no significance in the change” from aorist to subjunctive to future indicative (1971: 366 fn 94). But Porter and Carson argue that the constructions are not identical, as the latter focuses on expectation: “may never hunger […] can expect never to thirst” (Porter 1989: 416; Carson 1990: 289 fn 3). Adverb πώποτε (ever, at any time) with the future indicative is rare (BAGD, 732) and with οὐ μὴ reinforces the point that “belief eliminates lacking” (Porter 1989: 416; Carson 1990: 289 fn 3).

In verse 37, a ‘giving’ of believing humans to Christ by the Father is intimated, suggestive of some form of intra-Trinitarian ‘covenant of salvation’, whether under-developed or not. The teaching of verses 37-40 is quite consistent with the Reformed doctrine of efficacious calling, prevenient grace, divine election, and perseverance of the saints.

The citation in verse 45 (καὶ ἔσονται πάντες διδακτοὶ θεοῦ || And they will all be taught of God) is either a translation of the Masoretic text (וְכָל־בָּנַ֖יִךְ לִמּוּדֵ֣י יְהוָ֑ה) or a loose paraphrase of Isaiah 54:13a LXX, both speaking of God’s universal illumination of his people when the Christ comes. Isaiah 54:13 LXX says, καὶ πάντας τοὺς υἱούς σου διδακτοὺς θεοῦ καὶ ἐν πολλῇ εἰρήνῃ τὰ τέκνα σου || and [I will make] all your sons to be taught of God and your children to be in great peace.

‘’“”—