Jesus, the Bread of Life | John 6:1-71
The “disciple whom Jesus loved,” known as John, either John the brother of Zebedee, the Apostle, or John the Elder, was writing his recollections of his experiences with Jesus so that those who hear or read would believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and would find eternal life in His name (cf. John 20:31). He began by speaking of the Word of God, the Creator, the life and light of men, who took on flesh and dwelt among us as Jesus of Nazareth (John 1:1-18). He then described the calling of the first disciples, Jesus’ first sign at the wedding in Cana, the events which took place while Jesus was present at the Passover in Jerusalem, and Jesus’ return to Galilee via Samaria (John 1:19-4:54).
Perhaps the events John would describe in John 6:1-71 also take place while Jesus was in Galilee at this time; canonically, Jesus would return again to Jerusalem and heal a lame man on the Sabbath at Bethesda, teaching about the judgment and resurrection to come and witness regarding Himself in John 5:1-47, and then ostensibly returned to Galilee before then crossing to the other side in John 6:1.
John related Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand, an event also narrated by the other three evangelists (John 6:1-15; cf. Matthew 14:13-21, Mark 6:30-44, Luke 9:10-17). The other evangelists related the story in terms of Jesus withdrawing while the disciples went out and fulfilled their commission and when He was informed of the death of John the Baptist; according to John the Evangelist, the Passover was near (John 6:4). Many had gathered to hear Jesus preach and to receive healing from Him; He then asked His disciples how they could provide food for so many, and Philip could not imagine how two hundred denarii would have been enough for all of them (a denarius was a day’s wage, so imagine around eight months of a living wage; John 6:1-7). Andrew identified a boy who had five barley loaves and two fish; Jesus exhorted all to sit down, and He gave thanks and then distributed the loaves and fish to everyone’s satisfaction, and twelve baskets of leftover bread pieces were collected (more than which existed originally; John 6:8-13).
The Jewish people perceived the miracle they had experienced, and they confessed Jesus as the Prophet whom Moses promised would come to them in Deuteronomy 18:15 (John 6:14). They would have seized Him and made Him the king of their desires, the Davidic king who would restore the “halcyon days” of the Israelite Empire of the 10th century BCE; as opposed to accepting this fate, He withdrew from them, for such was not the will of the Father (John 6:15).
At evening the disciples prepared to return to Capernaum, and so they set off in a boat; the sea became quite rough; they saw a figure in the distance and became afraid (John 6:16-19). Jesus spoke to them and assured them it was He, walking across the water in rough seas; when He got into the boat, they had immediately arrived in Capernaum (John 6:20-21).
The Jewish people looked all over for Jesus and eventually found Him in the synagogue in Capernaum (John 6:22-25. 59). Jesus discerned their motivations: they did not want to see signs but to eat bread, so He told them to work not for food which perishes but the imperishable food the Son of Man would give them (John 6:26-27). After they asked Him what they would need to do, Jesus told them God’s work was to believe in the One whom God had sent (John 6:28-29). The Jewish people then asked for a sign so they might believe in Him (ostensibly having forgotten about the bread they just ate, or deeming such insufficient), appealing to how their ancestors ate manna in the wilderness as attested in Psalm 78:24 (John 6:30-31). Jesus exhorted them to understand how the Father was giving them the true bread from heaven; such Bread is the One who came down to give life to the world (John 6:32-33).
The Jewish people said they wanted this bread always (John 6:34), yet perhaps not after Jesus’ explanation: He is the bread of life (John 6:35). Jesus affirmed how those who come to Him will never be hungry or thirsty; yet they had seen Him and did not believe (John 6:35-36). Jesus made theological sense of all this: those whom the Father gives to the Son will receive life, for it is the Father’s will for all who would receive life to come and accept Jesus who would raise them up on the last day (John 6:37-40).
Those Jewish people who were hostile to Jesus grumbled about His teaching, presuming they knew Him since He was the son of Joseph (John 6:38-42); He discerned this and re-affirmed His instruction: none could come to Jesus unless the Father would draw them, and such would be raised on the last day (John 6:43-44). As attested in Isaiah 54:13, all would be taught by God, and those who learn from the Father come to Jesus; at this point in the narrative John hastened to add a parenthetical comment re-affirming how only the Son has seen the Father lest any imagined otherwise (John 6:45-46).
Jesus then expanded on His primary theme: He is the Bread of life (John 6:47-48). Those who ate manna in the wilderness died; those who eat the living bread, Jesus’ flesh, would live forever (John 6:49-51). The idea of eating Jesus’ flesh indeed provoked quite the response from those hostile to Jesus, wondering incredulously how this might be so (John 6:52). Jesus doubled down: only those who eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man can have life in themselves, for His flesh and blood are true food and drink, and He would reside in those who eat His flesh and drink His blood, and they would reside in Him; as Jesus lived because of the Father, those who consume Him will live because of Him for eternity (John 6:53-58).
Many have directly connected Jesus’ instruction in John 6:47-58 with the Lord’s Supper, or Eucharist, and for understandable reasons. Yet we would diminish the force of Jesus’ instruction if we simply conclude He referred to the Lord’s Supper; Jesus has a more profound reference in mind, one which would later animate and give power to the Lord’s Supper. Behind and underneath the whole narrative in John 6:1-59 lay Deuteronomy 8:3:
So he humbled you by making you hungry and then feeding you with unfamiliar manna. He did this to teach you that humankind cannot live by bread alone, but also by everything that comes from YHWH’s mouth.
According to the mutual understanding of Israel’s heritage and Scripture, Jesus and all the Jewish people listening to Him would recognize the need to be sustained by that which proceeded from the mouth of YHWH. Creative power came from YHWH speaking (cf. Psalm 33:6-9); Israel rightly perceived life in the Word of YHWH.
And according to John the Evangelist, the Word of YHWH by means of which all things were created and had life became flesh and dwelt among us as Jesus of Nazareth (John 1:1-14, 18). Such is how Jesus could be the Bread of life; He is the embodiment of the Word of God, and only in that Word can anyone find true and enduring life. Jesus’ flesh and blood were the embodiment of the Word of YHWH, and so people must consume His flesh and blood if they would share in relational unity with God and find eternal life in Him. The Lord’s Supper embodies and exemplifies the consumption of the body and blood of Jesus and our joint participation in Him (cf. 1 Corinthians 10:16-17); yet our consumption of Jesus, the Word of God, must go well beyond the Lord’s Supper. We must find life sustenance from all which Jesus said and did and go and do likewise!
We can understand, however, why many of the Jewish people present would have found Jesus’ instruction difficult to stomach. Such distaste went beyond those who were hostile or indifferent toward Jesus; even many of those who were His disciples proved offended at it (John 6:60). Jesus did not exactly work to assuage their concerns or fears: if they could not accept this, how could they endure seeing the ascension of the Son of Man (John 6:61-62)? Jesus affirmed His words as spirit and life; those who could not accept them did not really believe in Him; thus Jesus re-affirmed how only those whom the Father allowed would come to Jesus (John 6:63-65).
Many disciples no longer followed Jesus after this (John 6:66). For a moment it is worth stepping back and looking at the whole episode: at the beginning a multitude followed after Jesus; when He fed them bread, the people were glad to pursue Him. Yet once He taught difficult things, the people abandoned Him as did many of His disciples. Jesus did not accommodate His message to make it more palatable, for what else could be said? The people, and even many of His disciples, could not imagine how Jesus’ instruction could be true. They remained blinded by the god of this world and could not perceive the light of God in Christ (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:3-6).
Jesus then turned to the Twelve, thus named as such for the first time in John’s Gospel, and asked if they wanted to turn away as well (John 6:67). Peter’s response on behalf of the Twelve in John 6:68-69 is notable:
Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God!”
Note well what Peter did not say: he did not say they fully understood. He did not say he had his knife and fork ready to dig into eating the Son of Man! He did not say what Jesus taught was simple or easy. Instead, Peter exemplified the kind of faith which all who would come to Jesus and receive life in Him must have: Jesus has the words of eternal life. Jesus is the Holy One of God. Thus, where else can we go?
Most of us trust far more based on our knowledge and agreement than we would care to admit. Such was the way of the disciples who abandoned Jesus at this moment. They believed Jesus was the Christ as long as what He said and did were broadly in alignment with their understanding. Then Jesus crossed “the line”: the point at which confidence in Him would demand significant challenges to what they accepted or were willing to accept. They affirmed their trust in what they knew and understood and thus abandoned Jesus.
What Peter confessed was true faith: the Twelve did not fully understand, and perhaps even did not fully agree. But they prioritized who Jesus was and what they had experienced regarding Him over their understanding and/or agreement. They proved willing to subject themselves to Him and to accept what they found challenging or impossible to understand.
At some point in our lives we will come to “the line”: faithfulness to Jesus would require us to go beyond what we believe to be accurate and true. We will then reveal who we are at that point: either we reject Jesus or seek to make Him in our own image to continue to accept what we believe to be accurate and true and thus abandon Jesus in truth, or we remember Jesus has the words of eternal life and is the Holy One of God, and we continue to trust despite our misgivings and lack of comprehension.
Jesus did not respond as we would perhaps have imagined. He confessed how He had chosen them, and yet also confessed how one of them was a devil (John 6:70).
John the Evangelist did not want any of his readers to be in any kind of doubt: he had already parenthetically remarked how Jesus had already known who did not really believe in Him, and who would betray Him in John 6:64, and in John 6:71 John identified Judas ben Simon Iscariot as the one who would betray Jesus. John truly has it out for Judas; from John we will later learn of Judas’ embezzlement from the common treasury (cf. John 12:4-6), so that most of the demonization of Judas comes from John. It is certainly notable how John continued to experience the pain of Judas’ betrayal so many years after it happened; nevertheless, we should not allow his embittered characterizations, which reflect understanding of these events after the fact, to color Judas’ standing as a disciple. When Jesus made it known to the Twelve how one of them would betray Him, it is not as if everyone then immediately looked at Judas Iscariot; each wondered if it could be him or his companion (cf. John 13:22). Thus Judas Iscariot looked and acted like every other disciple. We should not even assume Judas did not really believe in Jesus; while the profit motive was certainly in mind for Judas, he might well have acted as he did in order to force the issue and catalyze the great confrontation which would lead to Jesus inaugurating the Reign of God. In truth, Judas’ betrayal did indeed catalyze that great confrontation which led to Jesus inaugurating the Reign of God, but it happened through His suffering, death, and resurrection, not glory over the Roman host. By common confession, Judas did not expect his betrayal to actually lead to Jesus’ death (cf. Matthew 27:3-4); he probably imagined Jesus would yet again escape the authorities as He always had before.
Yet consider Jesus throughout this whole experience: from the moment of selection until the bitter end, He knew Judas would betray Him. And yet Jesus never treated him any differently from any of the other disciples. He loved Judas; He taught Judas; He watched while Judas would proclaim the Name of the One whom he would later betray. Jesus knew Judas was the snake throughout and yet still held him close.
Judas was not the only disciple who would prove to be a satan, or adversary, to Jesus; Simon Peter himself would tempt Jesus away from suffering and would later deny any association with Him (cf. Matthew 16:21-23, John 18:15-27). Both Judas and Simon Peter would come to grief; Judas’ grief was worldly and led him to kill himself, but Simon Peter exhibited godly grief and turned back to Jesus and was restored by Him (cf. John 21:15-19). Thus all of us must choose whether we will take our grief from sin and immerse ourselves in it to the point of death or turn away from it to find healing in Jesus.
Thus Jesus is the Bread of life. Not everything about Jesus is easy to accept or maintain; but if we truly want life, and to share in it abundantly and eternally, we must consume Jesus the Word of God and find life in Him. Yes, that will include and involve the Lord’s Supper on the first day of the week. But it must be much more than that: we must conform ourselves to His image, speaking and acting as He spoke and acted, if we would truly find life in the embodied Word of God. May we find sustenance in the words of life which Jesus spoke and embodied, and dwell with Him forevermore!
Ethan R. Longhenry
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