41 Therefore the Jews were grumbling about Him, because He said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They were saying, “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 and said to them, “Stop grumbling 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 shall 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 the One who is from God; He has seen the Father. 47 Truly, truly, I say to you, he who 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 which 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 also the bread which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.”
52 Then the Jews began to argue with one another, 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 yourselves. 54 He who eats 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 He who eats 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 he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me. 58 This is the bread which came down out of heaven, not as the fathers ate and died. He who eats this bread will live forever.” John 6: 41-58 LSB
John 6: 41-58
V. 41 Therefore the Jews were grumbling about Him - That's funny, after they just brought up that Moses gave there fathers Manna in the wilderness. This seems familiar. God didn't do things the way the early Israelites wanted either, and they complained, were ungrateful, and those that knew to fear the Lord prostrated themselves in response, some tore their clothes as a sign that they realized how wicked a thing the complaining was. They told Jesus they wanted the bread, and He told them that He is the bread. In other words, they needed to believe on Him, they needed to listen to, hear and then do what He says. They throw tantrums and grumble like their forefathers instead.
…2All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in this wilderness! 3Why is the LORD bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and children will become plunder. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?” 4So they said to one another, “Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt.”…
…5Then Moses and Aaron fell facedown before the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel. 6Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes 7and said to the whole congregation of Israel, “The land we passed through and explored is an exceedingly good land.… Numbers 14: 2-7
…9We should not test Christ, as some of them did, and were killed by snakes. 10 And do not complain, as some of them did, and were killed by the destroying angel. 11Now these things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.… 1 Corinthians 10: 9-11
…15to execute judgment on everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of every ungodly act of wickedness and every harsh word spoken against Him by ungodly sinners.” 16These men are discontented grumblers, following after their own lusts; their mouths spew arrogance; they flatter others for their own advantage. 17But you, beloved, remember what was foretold by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ… Jude 1: 15-17
V. 41b I am the bread that came down from heaven - That Manna foreshadowed Him. It is said of Him that in Him was life, that everything was made for Him and through Him, and these people are dead, they don't even know to be hungry for the bread He represents. They believe things about Him because He has done miracles, but they don't believe Him when He speaks, and what He says is more important than the miracles, the miracles speak volumes, but they should cause them to listen to the One Who performs them.
He said, "I am (ego eimi - see comments on Jn 6:20) the bread (artos) that came down out of heaven." - Their grumbling was because they recognized that Jesus was making a supernatural claim and reacted with hostility just as the Jews had done in Jerusalem (Jn 5:18+). They saw Him only as a Man and failed to recognize He was also God, and so they grumbled when He expressed words that had the clear ring of God about them!
Pulpit Commentary on Jesus' declaration - This was a reasonable putting together of the three assertions: "I am the Bread of life" (ver. 35); "I have come down from heaven" (ver. 38); and "The bread of God is that which cometh down from heaven" (ver. 33). "The Jews" did not misunderstand his meaning. They understood it perfectly, and rebelled against it. (John 6 Commentary)
J Vernon McGee has an insightful comment - You see, He taught that He was God and that He came down from heaven. May I say to you, in this section here He is teaching His virgin birth. There are those who say the Lord Jesus never taught that He was virgin born. What do you think He is saying here, friend? The Jews understood what He was saying. They asked how this could be when they knew His father and His mother. Well, it's by the virgin birth. - Precept Austin
V. 42 Is not this Jesus, the Son of Joseph - Everyone believes themselves to be such grand skeptics that reject Christ. "He was just a man with good ideas, some new agers think He was tapped into the ether, and these Jews think He's a prophet, they see a miracle worker, and remember, these skeptics wanted to make Him king just a little while ago. Do they really need some great proof? I don't think that's their problem, in fact, I think they would, have and will believe in a host of people who tell them what they want to hear. They want Rome kicked out and free food, and they see that He has power, but they will only believe in a Messiah that does according to their whims, and He keeps saying things that are contrary to what they want. Wait a minute, this is Joseph and Mary's Son, we know them so we know His origin they think. Are they going to dig any deeper than that, was it not predicted that the virgin would bring forth a Son? Did God not refer to Him as the Seed of the Woman in Genesis? They think He is lying then when He says, "I have come down from heaven."
…13Then Isaiah said, “Hear now, O house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of men? Will you try the patience of my God as well? 14Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call Him Immanuel. 15By the time He knows enough to reject evil and choose good, He will be eating curds and honey.… Isaiah 7: 13-15
14So the LORD God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and every beast of the field! On your belly will you go, and dust you will eat, all the days of your life. 15And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” Genesis 3: 14-15
V. 43 Stop grumbling among yourselves - You aren't saying anything, yours is a shallow search for proof against Jesus. "I met his mom, so I know the truth." Really, did you ask her and this is what she said? "No, but I saw His dad, Joseph, there too." Oh, so you asked him, and this is what he said. "No, but." I have yet to meet a skeptic that doesn't swallow a whole lot of other ridiculousness when faced with facts that go against what they want. People love the assumptions that move in the same direction that they do, and are filled with joy when they meet those of a like mind. When they hit a dead end in their reasoning, pride bolts in to save them, and they just hop on a tangent, repeating themselves over and over again, saying it louder and louder, shutting down the truth wherever they cross paths with it.
17For the gospel reveals the righteousness of God that comes by faith from start to finish, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.” 18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness. 19For what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.… Romans 1: 17-19
V. 44 No one can come to Me unless the Father Who sent Me draws him - He sees their unbelief and is giving them the real reason for it. What He says here would tear down the pillars of most mega churches today, it flies in the face of Arminianism, of easy believism. The real reason you will only believe if I do what you want, look like what you want, and say what you want, is because you haven't been born from above. The Father hasn't taken your heart that is adverse to truth and caused it to want truth. He hasn't taken your hatred of God and caused you to love Him instead. He hasn't convicted you of sin in order to see what a beggar you truly are, and how much you need Jesus. Oh, you want a savior, a messiah, but only to save you from poverty, boredom, hunger and Rome. You want power like Simon the Magician, like most of the evangelical and prosperity gospel churches today. God will have to draw you, take your heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh, in order for you to accept Jesus call to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow. In order to believe in Him as God and Lord, to obey Him, God will have to change you.
…25I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols. 26I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and to carefully observe My ordinances.… Ezekiel 36: 25-27
…43Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you are unable to accept My message. 44You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out his desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, refusing to uphold the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, because he is a liar and the father of lies. 45But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me!… John 8: 43-45
V. 45 And they shall be taught by God - It is a work of God, not of man to change the mind to things eternal. We repeat what God says, and this is an approach here to witnessing that you never read about in EE. Jesus giving of the gospel to Nicodemus and here to the people that sought more miracles and food, will turn many away from Him, something to think about.
Spurgeon - “This was as much as to say, ‘The Father has never taught you. You have learned nothing from Him, or you would come to me; but in your rejection of Me you prove that you are strangers to the grace of God.’” - Precept Austin
V. 46 Not that anyone has seen the Father - He is the invisible God, Who makes Himself known through His Creation, His Word, and the Word become flesh, His Son.
14in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. 15The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16For in Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him.… Colossians 1: 14-16
V. 46b Except the one Who is from God; He has seen the Father - They are of the same divine essence, nature. This places Christ on a whole other plane and they just want to see Him as the carpenter's son. They don't like what He is saying, but He is speaking from the sort of authority that the human mind cannot contain, but should joyfully obey. What He is saying points to His origin in deity, and this makes them uncomfortable. If they won't accept His words then they aren't accepting Him or the Father Who sent Him.
…14Keep this commandment without stain or reproach until the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15which the blessed and only Sovereign One— the King of kings and Lord of lords— will bring about in His own time. 16He alone is immortal and dwells in unapproachable light. No one has ever seen Him, nor can anyone see Him. To Him be honor and eternal dominion! Amen.… 1 Timothy 6: 14-16
…26Yes, Father, for this was well-pleasing in Your sight. 27All things have been entrusted to Me by My Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. 28Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.… Matthew 11: 26-28
V. 47 Truly, Truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life - Now this is where many hang themselves because didn't He just give the reason for their unbelief in verse 44 and 45, that the Father must draw them? I use to think, "how can a man be judged for his unbelief if he can't believe unless drawn? Or how can a man be judged for his unbelief if he hasn't ever heard what he is supposed to believe in? How is that fair?" Fair is this, God created everything, made man in His own image, put a very simple boundary there, and told him not to cross it. He also warned him that in crossing it he would die. The Bible teaches that the wages of sin is death, that everyone born in Adam is born into a sinful nature and proves it out by sinning. So to be fair, everyone is owed death, and the Bible makes it clear that we are born dead in our trespasses and sins. If you go back to John 3 you will see that Jesus gives the same gospel message to Nicodemus, that he must be born again, born from above, out of Adam and into Christ. One can see in both these instances that God only owes man death, punishment of sin, and He does not owe man life. The word to our parents in the garden boils down to belief, that if you believe God then you do what He says. These people ask Christ for signs in order to believe, yet He has performed many, but when He speaks they are turned off. Their belief is shallow, and their confession as well, they don't even believe the God they say they believe in, because this is His Son and they don't believe Him. Unbelief is therefore the fruit of the unregenerate heart. Sin has already been judged. God pronounced His judgment on sin in the garden. He revealed His sincerity about this in the flood, and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. God has every right to judge your unbelief because it shows who your real daddy is, it's not God. Belief is always shown forth in truth and obedience, unbelief always reveals the heart of stone. Belief decides are actions, if we believe a thing is sin, if we are God's children and God hates sin, then we hate sin. Belief, like love is always in the active. Like I said before, belief that requires God to obey you or to accept your sin, is unbelief. Belief that only wants to miss out on hell, that carves out it's own little Jesus, that wears a cross around it's neck rather than repenting, that is to God, unbelief. Yes, He can tell you to believe because you should, and your unbelief reveals that you have not been born again. Think carefully, at the fall in the garden everything should have come to an end, and that would be just, that is what I would expect of perfection, of Holiness, but God in His wisdom and great pleasure, to His infinite glory has chosen to bring some corpses to life while other corpses insist that they need more proof and remain in their unbelief. The miracles saved no one, but they proved that the speaker was Who He said He was, but this is the most humbling of doctrines, because even in seeing they would not believe, because it would go against their nature, so everyone leaves believing something else. Everyone leaves believing what they want to believe, and no one wants God. Did He show enough evidence, absolutely, but they hate the true God, like R.C. Sproul said, no one is getting what they didn't want. They didn't want God, but Jesus pointing this out to them, well, if they really were the truth seekers they want to believe they are, they should have asked to be granted belief. You don't come to Jesus because you figure something out, because you want fish and bread, because your smarter than your friends, you come because you were chosen of the Father. Believe.
…15No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not understand what his master is doing. But I have called you friends, because everything I have learned from My Father I have made known to you. 16You did not choose Me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit— fruit that will remain— so that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you. 17This is My command to you: Love one another.… John 15: 15-17
A missionary in Africa experienced great difficulty in trying to translate the Gospel of John into the local dialect. He faced the problem of finding a word for believe. He continued to do his best, but he always had to leave a blank space when he came to that particular word.
Then one day a runner came panting into the camp, having traveled a great distance with a very important message. After blurting out his story, he fell completely exhausted into a nearby hammock. He muttered a brief phrase that seemed to express both his great weariness and his contentment at finding such a delightful place of relaxation. The missionary, never having heard these words before, asked a bystander what the runner had said. “Oh, he is saying, ‘I’m at the end of myself, therefore I am resting all of my weight here!'” The missionary exclaimed, “Praise God! That is the very expression I need for the word believe!” And so he was able to complete his translation.
To believe correctly, you must first admit that you are a sinner and that you cannot do anything to save yourself. Then turn from your sin and cast yourself wholly and unreservedly on Christ for salvation. - Precept Austin
V. 48 I am the bread of life - Things to believe about Him. The life, eternal life, is in Christ. We have to believe that we are sinners in the eyes of a Holy and just God. This is before the institution of communion, the Lord's Supper, but there is a similar message. We have to believe that He is life, that we partake of His life, and that in order to do so we partake in His death, that is the satisfaction of our sins against a Holy and infinite God. Those who die in their unbelief will forever go on sinning in it as well. They will believe there is a God but they will hate Him and think Him unfair. God hates murmuring and we should see why.
Spurgeon - Every man feeds on something or other. You see, one man getting his Sunday newspaper; how he will feed on that! Another goes to frivolous amusements, and he feeds on them. Another man feeds upon his business, and upon the thought of his many cares! But all that is poor food; it is only ashes and husks. If you did but possess true spiritual life, you would know the deep necessity there is of feeding upon Christ.”
V. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died - The one who truly believes does not come with demands, but humility, brokenness. Do you really just want that physical bread? It won't grant you eternal life.
V. 51 The bread that I will give for the life of the world is My flesh - More to believe, that the actual Messiah must die, just like the prophet Isaiah foretold. Those who repent come to see that, that there is no other way.
10Then I will pour out on the house of David and on the people of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and prayer, and they will look on Me, the One they have pierced. They will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for Him as one grieves for a firstborn son. 11On that day the wailing in Jerusalem will be as great as the wailing of Hadad-rimmon in the plain of Megiddo.… Zechariah 12: 10-11
13Behold, My Servant will prosper; He will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. 14Just as many were appalled at Him— His appearance was disfigured beyond that of any man, and His form was marred beyond human likeness — 15so He will sprinkle many nations. Kings will shut their mouths because of Him. For they will see what they have not been told, and they will understand what they have not heard.… Isaiah 52: 13-15
V. 53 Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood - He is not backing down on this, Jesus would have failed EE. What about the message of having a better life, finding a good husband, a better job, self realization, or how special you are? No one clears a room like the Son of God.
V. 57 He who eats Me, will live also because of Me - We are slow often in getting to know Him, but He is everything, and sadly many believe something else is, but we live solely because of and for Him. It was not just His death I needed, but also His life. It was not just the pictures of the ram and the lamb without blemish, nor serpent that Moses lifted up, but Christ His very self, His words, and the drawing of me by His Father, the working of the Holy Spirit within me. They will leave not even asking Him to explain, just thinking He speaks as one who is unclean, someone promoting cannibalism.
Spurgeon - Faith's Checkbook - WE live by virtue of our union with the Son of God. As God-man Mediator, the Lord Jesus lives by the self-existent Father who has sent him, and in the same manner we live by the Saviour who has quickened us. He who is the source of our life is also the sustenance of it. Living is sustained by feeding. We must support the spiritual life by spiritual food, and that spiritual food is the Lord Jesus—not his life, or death, or offices, or work, or word alone, but himself, as including all these. On Jesus, himself, we feed.
This is set forth to us in the Lord’s Supper, but it is actually enjoyed by us when we meditate upon our Lord, believe in him with appropriating faith, take him into ourselves by love, and assimilate him by the power of the inner life. We know what it is to feed on Jesus, but we cannot speak it or write it. Our wisest course is to practice it, and to do so more and more. We are entreated to eat abundantly, and it will be to our infinite profit to do so when Jesus is our meat and our drink.
Lord, I thank thee that this, which is a necessity of my new life, is also its greatest delight. So I do at this hour feed on thee.
…23For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night He was betrayed, took bread, 24and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” 25In the same way, after supper He took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”… 1 Corinthians 11: 23-25
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