Therefore the Jews were grumbling about Him, because He said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 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’?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Stop grumbling among yourselves. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. 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. Not that anyone has seen the Father, except the One who is from God; He has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 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.”
John 6:41-65
Then the Jews began to argue with one another, saying, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” 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. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. 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. 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.”
These things He said in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum.
Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this said, “This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?” But Jesus, knowing in Himself that His disciples were grumbling at this, said to them, “Does this cause you to stumble? What then if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before? The Spirit is the One who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him. And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.”
Introduction
As a continuation of the teaching Jesus began with the crowds who followed Him, He doubled down on this teaching that He is the true bread which comes down from heaven. He compares Himself to the manna which the fathers ate in the wilderness: where that bread was given until it wasn’t, His offering of His flesh is good for all time. Where the manna sustained but could not satisfy, His offering both sustains and satisfies. He is greater than the manna because He is greater than Moses. Those who ate the bread in the wilderness died in the wilderness, but those who partake in the suffering of Christ live forever.
In comparing Himself to bread, Jesus maintains the analogy. He will soon offer His body up for the sake of those who would believe, and receiving that most wondrous gift is much like receiving the manna from heaven.
Eating His flesh
Have you ever wondered what the manna tasted like? Have you ever wished you could try it? Exodus 16:31 says it “was like coriander seed, white, and its taste was like wafers with honey.” This sounds quite pleasant to me. I’ve often thought maybe baklava might be a good substitute: wafers glued together with honey and nuts. But as much as it sounds lovely to taste this miraculous bread God sent down from heaven, it is important to remember that what we have in Christ is so much greater than what the Israelites had in the wilderness.
When Jesus tells the crowd that the one who eats His flesh and drinks His blood has eternal life, this is not a subtle reference to an institution He has not yet given in the Eucharist. Instead, it is a continuation of the metaphor. The way to eat His flesh and drink His blood is to accept the willful gift of His suffering and death on the cross. There on Calvary He offered up His broken body. There on the tree He spilled His most precious blood. And all those who believe in Him, trusting in His glorious work, are made new. It is by faith we feast on the sacrificial lamb, and it is by faith we are healed.
Hand-picked by the Father
But not everyone can accept this. Not everyone can receive a God who made Himself fragile and broken for the sake of His creatures. And that is why Jesus told the people, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.” Before coming to Jesus, the Father draws us out. Only the ones whose hearts are taught to love what is good can recognize the infinite beauty in Christ. This is what Jesus means when He quotes Isaiah 54.
The difficulty of this teaching is what caused many of his disciples to push back and ask who can even listen to it. But that is the point. Only the ones who receive life from the Spirit profit from His words. His words, which “are spirit and are life” can only benefit the ones who are first chosen by the Father and renewed by the Spirit. Even Judas who walked among them, listening to every word Jesus said, having been given authority to drive out demons and heal the sick along with the others (Mark 6:7-13), could not believe because it had not “been granted him from the Father.”
And as hard as this teaching is for us to hear, it is also a teaching of great comfort. Note all the definitive statements in Jesus’ words: “and I will raise him up on the last day” (44); “everyone who has learned from the Father comes to Me” (45); “he who believes has eternal life” (47); “if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever” (51); “and I will raise him up on the last day” (54); “he who eats this bread will live forever” (58). There is great certainty in the fact that if the Father has revealed Christ to you and you believe, nothing can stop Him from giving you life. Paul puts a pin in this when he writes to the Roman Church:
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:38-39
It can feel out of control knowing even our own faith is something given as a gift from God (Romans 12:3). But a small shift in perspective gives us incredible confidence knowing that because it is all according to God, all who are kept safe in Him can do nothing to mess it up. Philippians 1:6 is a good word of encouragement here, “for I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”
May the Lord bless you and conform you into the image of His Son.
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