Episode 46 - The Bread from Heaven Gives Eternal Life - John 6:41-51

John 6:41   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.”

If you’ve followed along in this study, you are aware that occasionally I’ve pointed out “evidence” that John, as he writes about Jesus, is frequently pointing us back, directly or indirectly, to the Old Testament (a.k.a. Hebrew Scriptures) to reveal that not only are those Scriptures historical, but they are also a prophetic foreshadowing of Jesus. The point is to show through what Jesus says and what he does and the circumstances that unfold have parallels to what has happened before and that these cannot be contrived or coincidental for people to accept them as historical truth and start a new world religion in such a short time as happened with Christianity.

Here again in this passage is evidence of that connection with what God has done before to what is happening at this current time. Remember, that Jesus said, “If you believed Moses, you would believe me because he wrote about me.” Not long after that Jesus, like Moses, was an agent of feeding a large multitude of people in a wilderness area where there was not food readily available. Miracles happened during the Exodus and near the Sea of Galilee with Jesus. These people recognized the significance of what he did just like the Israelites recognized Moses as God’s prophet who God used to part the Red Sea and so many other signs. How did the Israelites respond? In Exodus chapters 15-17 there are seven occurrences that mention how the people “grumbled.” Some texts say they “grumbled against Moses and Aaron.” But, Exodus 16:8 make it clear that they are really grumbling against the Lord.

So, what are these people doing after being miraculously fed by Jesus, proclaiming that he is the Prophet like Moses who is to come, and want to make him their king? They are grumbling. Jesus tells them that he is the bread of life that has come down from heaven. All of a sudden, he is not worth trusting or listening to. Regardless of the revelation that has been given them, they ignore that and reason from their previous limited knowledge of him and they let their pride over rule what God has revealed to them. Knowledge does NOT necessarily lead to acceptance, belief, faith. Faith requires knowledge of God’s revelation. But having that knowledge does not necessarily lead to faith. So, what’s the secret of that knowledge affecting faith? I think Jesus answers that question right here. 

In verse 44, he says, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” There is a necessity of God working to open the hearts and minds of people in order to receive His truths. This is what John meant in his prologue when he wrote, “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12-13) Why is this important? It reveals that people don’t just come to God on their own or, in other words, don’t find their own way to heaven. More importantly, it should evoke an attitude of thankfulness that God is drawing us to Him; that he loves and cares about us to give us everything we truly need. It should humble us to realize that we are no better than anyone else; that we somehow have not earned or deserve God’s grace because He has done what we need to be right with him and be made His children.

Jesus pushes against their thinking and their bias. He responds to their so-called knowledge of their ancestors and their desire for food and their request to “give us this bread always” by telling them that the miraculous food their ancestors ate in the wilderness was only adequate for so long. They still died. But, the bread of life that he was offering is his flesh that gives eternal life to those who eat of it and Jesus will raise them up from the dead on the “last day” and they will live forever. That’s an amazing claim. Do you believe that?