Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness. As it is written, ‘He gave them bread out of heaven to eat.’ ”
Jesus therefore said to them, “Most certainly, I tell you, it wasn’t Moses who gave you the bread out of heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world.”
They said therefore to him, “Lord, always give us this bread.”
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will not be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But I told you that you have seen me, and yet you don’t believe. All those whom the Father gives me will come to me. He who comes to me I will in no way throw out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. This is the will of my Father who sent me, that of all he has given to me I should lose nothing, but should raise him up at the last day. This is the will of the one who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son, and believes in him, should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”
The Jews therefore murmured concerning him, because he said, “I am the bread which came down out of heaven.” They said, “Isn’t this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How then does he say, ‘I have come down out of heaven?’ ”
Therefore Jesus answered them, “Don’t murmur among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up in the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Therefore everyone who hears from the Father and has learned, comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father, except he who is from God. He has seen the Father. Most certainly, I tell you, he who believes in me 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 out of heaven, that anyone may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down out of heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. Yes, the bread which I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
The Jews therefore contended with one another, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
Jesus therefore said to them, “Most certainly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you don’t have life in yourselves. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father; so he who feeds on me, he will also live because of me. This is the bread which came down out of heaven—not as our fathers ate the manna, and died. He who eats this bread will live forever.”
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58 31. Our fathers ate manna in the wilderness. Thus…
31. Our fathers ate manna in the wilderness. Thus we see that Christ put his finger on the sore, when he told them that they came like brute beasts to fill their belly; for they discover this gross disposition, when they demand a Messiah by whom they are to be fed. And as to the magnificent terms in which they extol the grace of God in the manna, they do this cunningly, in order to bury the doctrine of Christ, by which he condemned them for immoderate desire of corruptible food; for they contrast with it the magnificent title bestowed on the manna, when it is called heavenly bread But when the Holy Spirit bestows on the manna the honorable appellation of the bread of heaven, (Psalm 78:24,) it is not with this intention, as if God fed his people, like a herd of swine, and gave them nothing more valuable; and, therefore, they are without excuse, when they wickedly reject the spiritual food of the soul, which God now offers to them.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv32, 35, 37, 38, 40, 41, 45, 46, 48, 50, 51, 52, 53, 57 Christ, who is the true and only author and…
Christ, who is the true and only author and giver of eternal life, was signified unto the fathers, in Manna.
He denieth that Manna was that true heavenly bread, and saith that he himself is that true bread, because he feedeth unto the true and everlasting life. And as for that, that Paul 1 Cor. 10 calleth Manna spiritual food, it maketh nothing against this place, for he joineth the thing signified with the sign: but in this whole disputation, Christ dealeth with the Jews after their own opinion and conceit of the matter, and they had no further consideration of the Manna, but in that it fed the belly.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv31–58 31 Our fathers did eat manna in the desert;…
31 Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.
Ver. 31. Our fathers did eat manna in the desert] Here they bewray themselves, and confirm what our Saviour had said of them, Joh 6:26, viz. that they followed him only for provender. Sic sorex suo perit indicio. So the fish sepia {a} is discovered and taken by the black colour that it casteth up purposely to conceal itself.
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{a} A cuttle fish which secrets a pigment of a rich brown colour (used in monochrome water-colour painting). ŒD
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58 Here they magnify Moses; he did not bring them…
Here they magnify Moses; he did not bring them a law only, but confirmed it by signs from heaven to be the will of God, by obtaining for them bread to be mined from heaven to satisfy their hunger, Exo 16:15; Num 11:7; which is also confirmed by the psalmist, Psa 78:25. This Moses did for the whole congregation of Israel forty years together. From hence they would seem to conclude, that they had more ground to believe Moses than Christ, who, though he had indeed lately fed five thousand with five loaves, yet had done no such thing. Not considering that Moses, in what he did, was but an instrument to obtain of God by prayer such a miracle, for supporting his people in the wilderness; and that what he had done, was done by a creating power inherent in himself, by which he multiplied that little proportion of bread which they had, to make it sufficient to feed such a quantity as five thousand, besides women and children; to which effect it bare no proportion.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv32, 34, 37, 38, 41, 44, 45, 48, 52 Upon the Jews mentioning manna to our blessed Saviour,…
Upon the Jews mentioning manna to our blessed Saviour, he takes occasion to make a comparison betwixt himself, the bread of life, and manna, the bread of Moses, and that in three particulars.
1. It was not Moses that gave the Israelites that manna, it was God at the prayer of Moses; but it was God that now offered them the bread of life, were they willing to accept it.
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2. The manna was not given from heaven, that is, from the celestial heaven, but only from the air and clouds, which frequently in the scripture is called heaven; but Christ the bread of life was given, and sent by, the Father from the highest heaven, even the heaven of glory.
3. Manna was not true spiritual food effectively and of itself, but bodily food only: but Christ is real and spiritual bread, which gives life to lost and dead men; which manna did not, could not do. And whereas manna was peculiar to Israel only, Christ gives life to all sorts of persons, Gentiles as well as Jews, The bread of God giveth life unto the world.
Learn hence, That as Christ is the truth and substance of all types in the Old Testament, so particularly, the manna was an illustrious type of Christ. In many things they agree; and in some they differ.
They agree in their original: manna came down from above, so did Christ: manna was freely given, so is Jesus Christ the free gift of God: manna was not fit to be eaten as it lay in the field, but must be ground in a mill, or beaten in a mortar, and baked in an oven before it was fit for food: Christ was ground by his sufferings, bruised on the cross, scorched in the fiery oven of his Father’s wrath, that he might become a fit Saviour for us.
Again, as the manna was gathered by the Israelites daily and equally: it was ruined down about their tents, and every man had his omer: thus is Christ in the ministry of the word daily offered to a lost world, and all that believe in him, shall share alike in the benefit of the justification, sanctification, and glorification from him; but now the manna and Christ differ in this: and the truth excels the type thus: there is a quickening, enlivening virtue, a life giving, and a life upholding power in Christ the bread of life, which was never found in manna, the bread of Israel; and whereas manna only fed the body of an Israelite, and this only for a little time in the wilderness: Christ nourisheth the soul, the souls of all believers, be they Jew or Gentile, bond or free, and this not for a time, but for eternity; The bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv31–58 Then Jesus said unto them, verily, verily, I say…
Then Jesus said unto them, verily, verily, I say unto you,.... It is truth, and may be depended on, whether it will be believed or not:
Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; in which Christ denies that that bread, or manna, did come from heaven; that is, from the highest heavens, only from the air, and was not such celestial bread he after speaks of, and which came down from the heaven of heavens: and moreover, he denies that Moses gave them that bread; it was the Lord that gave them it, as is expressly said in the passage referred to, in the above citation. Moses had no hand in it; he did not so much as pray for it, much less procure it, or prepare it: it was promised and prepared by God, and rained by him, and who directed to the gathering and use of it. This stands opposed to a notion of the Jews, that the manna was given by means of Moses, for his sake, and on account of his merits: for they say (g),
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"there arose up three good providers, or pastors for Israel, and they are these, Moses, and Aaron, and Miriam; and three good gifts were given by their means, and they are these, the well, the cloud, and the manna; the well by the merits of Miriam; the pillar of cloud by the merits of Aaron; , "the manna, by the merits of Moses".''
This our Lord denies; and affirms,
but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven: he not only gave the manna to the Jewish fathers, and not Moses; but he also gives that bread which the manna was typical of, by which he means himself; who may be compared to bread, because of the original of it, or the matter of it, of which it is made, wheat, he is called a corn of wheat, Joh 12:24; and from its preparation for food, being threshed, and winnowed, and ground, and kneaded, and baked; all which may express the sufferings and death of Christ, by which he becomes fit food for faith; and from its being the main part of human sustenance, and from its nourishing and strengthening nature, and from its being a means of maintaining and supporting life: and he may be called the "true" bread, because he is the truth and substance of the types of him; the unleavened bread, eaten at the passover, was typical of him, as he was free from sin in nature and life; and from all error in doctrine; and so was the showbread a type of his intercession, and set forth the continuance of it, its efficacy and acceptance, of which the priests only shared; and so were the meat offerings in the sacrifices, which were offered up day by day: and particularly the manna, the bread from heaven, the Jews were now speaking of: Christ was the truth of that type; that was but shadowy bread, Christ is the true bread, or the antitype of it in its name; whether it be derived from "manah", to prepare, Christ being the bread of life, and salvation of God, prepared in the council and covenant of grace, and by his sufferings and death before the face of all people; or from the words "man hu", what is it? Christ being as little known by carnal men, as the manna was at first to the Israelites: and in its nature, kind, form, and quality; it was round in form, which might be expressive of the perfections of Christ, and particularly his eternity, being without beginning or end; it was white in colour, which may denote the purity and innocence of him; it was sweet in taste, as he, his fruits, his word, and ordinances, are to them that are born again; it was small in quantity, which may set forth the meanness of Christ in his state of humiliation: it was also typical of Christ in its usefulness; it was sufficient to supply a, great multitude, and that for many years, as the fulness of grace in Christ is sufficient for the whole family in heaven, and in earth, in time, and to all eternity; the Israelites all shared in it, and had all an equal portion of it; so all the people of God have an interest in Christ, and equally participate of the blessings of his grace, and shall enjoy the same eternal life and glory by him: one has neither more nor less than another; Christ is all in all, and made alike all things to them: and he may be called the bread "from heaven"; because he came from thence, not by change of place, but by assumption of nature, even from the highest heavens, the third heaven, from whence the manna came not: he is the Lord from heaven, and is such bread as has a virtue and tendency in it to nourish men for heaven, and is truly of a heavenly nature: and this is Christ's Father's gift, and is of pure grace, without any consideration of works and merits in men. Philo the Jew says (h), the heavenly food of the soul, which is called "manna", the divine word distributes alike to all that ask.
(g) T. Bab. Taanith, fol. 9. 1. Seder Olam Rabba, p. 28. (h) Quis rer. divin. haeres. p. 507.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, 40, 44, 45, 46, 50, 51, 52, 53, 55, 57, 58 Our fathers ate manna - This sign Moses gave…
Our fathers ate manna - This sign Moses gave them. He gave them bread from heaven - From the lower sublunary heaven; to which Jesus opposes the highest heaven: in which sense he says seven times, ver. 32, 33, 38, 50, 58, 62, that he himself came down from heaven.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv31, 32, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57 Verse 31. Our fathers did eat manna in the…
Verse 31. Our fathers did eat manna in the desert] Their argument seems to run thus: Thou hast, we grant, fed five thousand men with five loaves and two small fishes; but what is this in comparison of what Moses did in the desert, who for forty years fed more than a million of persons with bread from heaven: do something like this, and then we will believe in thee, as we have believed in Moses.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv32, 34, 36, 38, 41, 48, 51, 52, 54 Joh 6:32-33. Jesus said, Moses gave you not that…
Joh 6:32-33. Jesus said, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven — It was not Moses who in ancient times gave the manna to your fathers, neither was the manna bread from heaven, though it be so called by the psalmist, on account of the thing which it typified: for it dropped from the air only; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven — It was my Father that gave to your ancestors the manna, and he now giveth you the true spiritual, heavenly bread, of which the manna was only a symbolical representation, and which is sufficient to sustain, not a single nation only, but the whole world. For the bread of God — The bread only worthy of that name; is he — Or rather, is that which cometh down, as ο καταβαινων should here be rendered, being a participle, referring to ο αρτος, the bread, which is of the masculine gender: for it appears, from what follows, that our Lord did not intend at once to lay aside the veil, wherein he had wrapped his meaning: for the request made to him in the very next verse, Give us always this bread, shows that he was not yet understood as speaking of a person, which he must have been if his expression had been as explicit as that of our translation. From heaven — Not from the aerial, but from the highest heavens; and giveth life unto the world — Not that which preserveth a mere temporal life to one people only, but imparteth spiritual and eternal life to as many of the whole world as will be persuaded to partake of it; and that from generation to generation.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 44, 45, 46, 48, 49, 51, 53, 56, 57, 58 Our fathers - The Jews who were led by…
Our fathers - The Jews who were led by Moses through the wilderness.
Did eat manna - This was the name given by the Jews to the food which was furnished to them by God in their journey. It means literally, “What is this?” and was the question which they asked when they first saw it, Exo 16:14-15. It was small like frost, and of the size of coriander-seed, and had a sweetish taste like honey. It fell in great quantities, and was regarded by the Jews as proof of a continued miracle during forty years, and was incontestable evidence of the interposition of God in favor of their fathers. The manna which is sold in the shops of druggists is a different substance from this. It is obtained from the bark of certain trees in Armenia, Georgia, Persia, and Arabia. It is procured, as resin is, by making an incision in the bark, and it flows out or distils from the tree.
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As it is written - The substance of this is written in Psa 78:24-25.
He gave them - This was regarded as a miraculous interference in their behalf, and an attestation of the divine mission of Moses, and hence they said familiarly that Moses gave it to them.
Bread from heaven - The word “heaven,” in the Scriptures, denotes often the region of the air, the atmosphere, or that region in which the clouds are. See Mat 16:3; “The sky (heaven) is red and lowering.” Also Mat 3:16; Luk 4:15; Luk 5:18. The Jews, as appears from their writings (see Lightfoot), expected that the Messiah would provide his followers with plenty of delicious food; and as Moses had provided for the Jews in the wilderness, so they supposed that Christ would make provision for the temporal wants of his friends. This was the sign, probably, which they were now desirous of seeing.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 38, 41, 44, 45, 47, 48, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 58 Christ having declared that he was greater than Moses,…
Christ having declared that he was greater than Moses, (since Moses could not promise them bread which should never perish) the Jews wished for some sign by which they might believe in him; therefore they say, Our fathers did eat manna in the desert, but you have only given us bread; where then is the food that perishes not? Christ therefore answers them, that the food which Moses gave them, was not the true manna from heaven, but that it was only a figure of himself, who came down from heaven to give life to the world. (St. Augustine) --- St. John Chrysostom observes, that the Jews here acknowledge Christ to be God, since they entreat Christ not merely to ask his Father to give it them; but, do thou thyself give it us.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 51, 52, 53, 54, 56, 57, 58 Our fathers did eat manna, &c.--insinuating the inferiority of…
Our fathers did eat manna, &c.--insinuating the inferiority of Christ's miracle of the loaves to those of Moses: "When Moses claimed the confidence of the fathers, 'he gave them bread from heaven to eat'--not for a few thousands, but for millions, and not once only, but daily throughout their wilderness journey."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 58 31. Our fathers did eat manna—Just so. In the…
31. Our fathers did eat manna—Just so. In the middle of the second month after their start from Egypt, the Israelites went forth one morning and found a small round thing upon the ground, and they cried, (Man-hu?)
“What is this?” And they found that it was bread rained from the skies; and their question, Man-hu?—manna, became its name. Exo_16:14-15. And this bread was their food until their arrival under Joshua at Gilgal. “The manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten or the old corn of the land, neither had the Children of Israel manna any more.” Jos_5:12. The only trace left on earth of its existence was, (Exo_16:32,) an omer thereof, kept by Jehovah’s command, “for your generations; that they may see the bread wherewith I have fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you forth out of the land of Egypt.” The different vegetable productions to which, from some apparent suiting to the Scripture description the name manna has been applied, have no other title to the name than resemblance.
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Written—Quoted nearly correctly from Psa_78:24-25 : “God… rained down manna for them to eat. Man did eat angels’ food.” Psa_105:40 : “He satisfied them with the bread of heaven.” If Jesus will give them this true Mosaic sign, they will pledge their full allegiance to him as king of the Jews.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv31–58 31. manna] More exactly, the manna.
31. manna] More exactly, the manna.
He gave them bread from heaven to eat] A rough quotation of ‘had rained down manna upon them to eat’ (Psa_78:24). They artfully suppress the nominative (which in the Psalm is ‘God’), and leave ‘Moses’ to be understood. Possibly Neh_9:15 is in their thoughts; if so, there is the same artfulness. On ‘it is written’ see on Joh_2:17. ‘From heaven’ is literally ‘out of heaven.’
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58 (31) Our fathers did eat manna.—He claims to be…
(31) Our fathers did eat manna.—He claims to be the Messiah; but the Messiah was to be greater than Moses, and the sign He has shown is less. The Messiah was to cause manna again to fall from heaven, as their Rabbis taught. They had eaten food which, if miraculously multiplied, was still the food of earth—the common bread and common relish—and this on the grassy sward not far removed from the habitations of men. Their fathers had eaten the manna which came direct from God, and was gathered from the granite rocks of the desert; and the Psalmist had told, and Hebrew children loved to chant, that “bread from heaven was that which He gave them to eat.”
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 51, 52, 53, 55, 56, 57, 58 Our fathers, they continued, ate the manna in the…
Our fathers, they continued, ate the manna in the wilderness; even as it has been written, He gave them bread out of heaven to eat. If Moses did this, the Christ should do more, seeing he makes this exhaustive claim upon our faith. The manna (see Ex 16 Nu 11) appeared like the hoar frost out of heaven. It was gifted with numerous qualities perishable if not immediately used, respecting in mysterious way the sabbath sanctity, attending the Israelites through their forty years" wandering, terminating when no longer wanted, utterly unlike, in quantity and quality, to what is the Oriental manna of commerce (Smith"s "Dictionary of the Bible," art. "Manna"). The psalmists spoke of it (Psa_78:24 Psa_105:40) as virtually coming down out of heaven, as "corn of heaven," as "angels" food." The Targum of Jonathan, Deu_34:6, says, "God caused bread to descend from heaven upon the sons of Israel," and a rabbinical commentary on Ecclesiastes, quoted by Lightfoot and Wettestein: "Redemptor prior descendere fecit pro iis manna; sic et Redemptor posterior descendere faciet manna." Consequently, they make the challenge, not as though Jesus had done no sign, but as though he had not done enough to put himself on an equality with Moses.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv34, 36, 37, 38, 41, 47 Lord, evermore give us this bread
Joh_6:34-35
Lord, evermore give us this bread
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I.
THE VAIN PRAYER. Because
1. It recognizes not the Giver in the bread.
2. It recognizes not the Bread of Life in the giver.
II. THE ANSWER OF JESUS aims to disclose their spirit
1. By insisting on the figure of the bread in His person.
2. By enlarging the figure: bread for hunger and thirst.
3. By explaining the figure: Come to Me, Believe on Me. (J. P.Lange, D. D.)
Three sayings of Christ
I. ABOUT HIMSELF (Joh_6:35).
II. ABOUT THOSE WHO COME TO HIM (Joh_6:37).
III. ABOUT THE WILL OF HIS FATHER (Joh_6:39-40). (Bp. Ryle.)
The true hunger of the soul awakened and satisfied in Christ
I. MANS HUNGER. There is in every finite existence one great appetite. No creature is independent; it must draw life from another. In man, who is a complex being, there are various kinds of hunger.
1. Natural.
(1) Bodily hunger. Even as an upright creature man was made dependent on the fruits of the ground; and now his first question is, How am I to get bread. How much thought and labour are expended on it! It has impelled to every crime. Hunger pressed Israel into Egypt, and that involved mighty issues for both. Hunger brought Ruth into view and linked her with the royal ancestry of Christ. The greatest spiritual conflict in the world was connected with a state of hunger. The central petition of the Lords prayer is Give us this day, etc.
(2) Mental hunger. Mans bodily appetite is typical of mental conditions.
(a) The heart hungers for happiness. Man, when left to himself, is an unhappy being.
(b) The intellect hungers for truth. Man has been made to inquire into, study, and know the truth of things.
(c) The will hungers for liberty. The triumph of a mans life is to prevail over the conditions which would fetter him.
(d) The conscience hungers for righteousness. We are made to act in accordance with the supreme law of the universe, the will of God. All altars, sacrifices, priesthoods are witnesses to that.
2. Unnatural. Great multitudes, instead of seeking for legitimate satisfaction, lay hold of false food, and drug themselves. For these Satan keeps a great variety of delusions.
(1) For low natures coarse animal pleasures.
(2) For intellectual natures there are the sciences, etc.
(3) For light and giddy natures there is the world and all its glory.
(4) For ambitious natures, principalities and powers.
(5) For more serious and half-religious natures penancies, pilgrimages, rites, ceremonies, and good works. The result of eating such false bread is that the mere hunger of the soul is deadened, and a false appetite created, which grows with what it feeds on, and this bread of death instead of supporting the soul consumes it.
3. Supernatural; the longings which exist with any degree of strength only in the renewed nature. Along with the other tastes there may be a love of sin, but this partly consists of a hatred of sin and a love of all that is good, a counting of all things but loss, so that we may gain Christ.
II. THE DIVINE PROVISION.
1. On what ground does God provide for our bodily hunger? For the sake of Christ. He has tasted death for every man, and thus secured an ample day of grace and every blessing, temporal as well as spiritual. Thus in a literal sense Christ is the Bread of Life.
2. Christ is the true food for the human mind.
(1) We can only see the true beauty and deep spiritual meaning of nature through Him.
(2) He is the Bread of Life to the conscience. In Him the sins of the past are washed away and the law magnified and made honourable.
(3) He is the Bread of Life to the heart. The heart that loves not is dead--but Jesus has revealed and communicates the love of God. (F. Ferguson, D. D.)
Bread and water
You call these common things. Their excellence has occasioned their commonness, and their commonness corresponds to a common want in humanity.
I. LET US APPLY THIS SOCIALLY. Look on the greatest feast ever prepared. What are its delicacies? Simply an adaptation, decoration or adulteration of bread and water, and the seated guests are compelled to say, This is well enough now and then, but only now and then, let us have something plain. Bread and water survive. Empires of soups, etc., which are the image and superscription of the cooks, who is bound like other fashionable slaves to produce something fresh, rise and fall; but bread and water are Gods, and they endure.
II. THE APPLICATION OF THIS IS OBVIOUS IN THE HIGHER SPHERES OF CULTURE. Reading and writing are the bread and water of the mind. Your duty to your child is done when you have given this; let him get the rest for himself. But fine cookery is imitated in fine intelligence, and sometimes with like results--mental indigestion. Hence we have imperfect French, caricatured German, and murdered music, and the native tongue and history passed by. When will people learn to prize bread and water and see that it is better to know a little well, than to know next to nothing about a great deal?
III. THESE ILLUSTRATIONS PREPARE FOR THE HIGHEST TRUTH OF ALL, viz., that Jesus Christ is the bread and water, without which man cannot live. He never says that He is a luxury which the rich only can afford. An adventurer would not have seen in metaphors so humble a philosophy so profound.
1. Man needs Christ as a necessity and not as a luxury. You may be pleased to have flowers, but you must have bread. Jesus has often been presented as an ornament, a phenomenon; but He preached Himself, and would have others preach Him, as bread and water.
2. What has been the effect of omitting to declare Christ as bread and water? Leaving the simplicity of Christ, we have elaborated theological sciences, worked out a cunning symbolism, filled the Church with many coloured garments, and constituted splendid hierarchies. All this means that man is a fool, and prefers vanity to truth. Poor souls are left to believe that they can only get to Christ through priests, catechisms, and ecclesiastical mumbling. Take the pure Bible and read it for thyself, and thou shalt see the Lord and eat heavenly bread.
3. History furnishes a most graphic confirmation of these views. J.S. Mill says: Let rational criticism take from us what it may, it still leaves us the Christ. Exactly: it leaves us bread. It modifies the theological cook and confectioner, but it leaves the living water. Men cant get rid of Christ, because they cant get rid of themselves. The Lord allows the chaff to be blown away, but saves every grain of wheat; yet nervous people think that the wheat is lost because the chaff is scattered. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Bread the symbol of Christ
He is to the soul what bread is to the body--its food.
I. Bread is NECESSARY food. Other things may be dispensed with, but all need bread,
II. It is food that SUITS all--old and young, weak and strong.
III. It is the most NOURISHING kind of food: nothing does so much good or is so indispensable to bodily development.
IV. It is food that we NEED DAILY. Other foods are at best only occasionally required.
V. It is the only food we are NEVER TIRED OF; hence it is on every table, unlike every other kind of food. (Bp. Ryle.)
The bread of life a representation of the Saviour
1. All life is valuable in its degree. Vegetable life is superior to dead matter, animal to vegetable life, rational to animal, the life of God to human life.
2. This latter was mans once; but it was forfeited, and is now restored by the Spirit. Hence Scripture loves to present religion under the notion of life; not as a picture that is only resemblance, not as mechanism that is only form.
3. The relation in which Christ stands to this life. He is bread, its nourishment; bread, i.e., bruised corn. He becomes our Saviour by His death.
4. Bread is nothing to us unless eaten, so unless we eat the flesh of the Son of God, etc.
I. THE WAY IN WHICH WE DERIVE ADVANTAGE FROM HIM. By coming to Him or believing on Him.
1. This reminds us that Christ is accessible. Where two or three, etc.
2. It teaches us that faith is not a notion, but a principle always attended with an application of the soul to the Redeemer.
3. This application is not a single address, but a continued exercise. Cometh.
II. THE HAPPINESS HIS FOLLOWERS SHALL ENJOY.
1. They shall never hunger nor thirst again after the world. Having tasted the provisions of Gods house, their language is, Lord, ever more give us this bread. A covetous, sensual, ambitious Christian is one the Scripture knows nothing of.
2. They shall not hunger and thirst in vain. The new creature has appetites, but ample provision is made for them.
3. They shall not hunger and thirst always. The days of imperfect enjoyment will soon be over.
Conclusion; The subject is a standard by which we may estimate
1. Christ.
2. Faith.
3. The Christian. (W. Jay.)
The bread of life
I. IN WHAT SENSE IS OUR LORD THE BREAD OF LIFE?
1. He evidently intimated that there was in Him that which, if properly received, would communicate eternal life (Joh_6:51; Joh_6:53).
2. He obviously points to His sufferings and death as that from which we were to derive our life.
3. For Him to be to us the bread of life depends on two things
(1) That we receive the full pardon of our sins;
(2) that we have a meetness for glory by the sanctification of our souls.
II. WHO ARE THOSE WHO DERIVE BENEFIT FROM HIM? Not all, but only those who come in faith.
1. Before we can do this we must have a sense of our need of Him.
2. Those will not come to Him who fail to see His perfections, believe in His atonement, and hear His invitation.
3. There must be moral effort. Labour. We must evidently turn our backs resolutely on the sins we loved.
4. We must come to Him by the prescribed means--meditation on His Word and importunate prayer.
III. WHAT IS THE BENEFIT of which He speaks. The believer shall never hunger or thirst
1. After sin.
2. Nor anxiously after holiness; only with such a sweet desire as serves to animate the spirit on its road to that state where it will thirst no more. (B. Noel, M. A.)
Bread is for common use
I remember what bread was to me when I was a boy. I could not wait till I was dressed in the morning, but ran and cut a slice from the loaf--all the way round, too--to keep me until breakfast; and at breakfast, if diligence in eating earned wages, I should have been well paid. And then I could not wait for dinner, but ate again, and then at dinner; and I had to eat again before tea, and at tea, and lucky if I didnt eat again after that. It was bread, bread, all the time with me, bread that I lived on and got strength from. Just so religion is the bread of life; but you make it cake--you put it away in your cupboard and never use it but when you have company. You cut it into small pieces and put it on china plates, and pass it daintily round instead of treating it as bread, common, hearty bread, to be used every hour. (H. W. Beecher.)
The soul needs to be often fed
When people are being strengthened of God, they are not content with one meal on the Sabbath; they want another, and perhaps a prayer-meeting or a Sunday-school for a dessert. They are not content with just two or three minutes prayer in the morning; they like, if they can, to slip out of business and get a word with God in the middle of the day. They delight to carry a text of Scripture in their memories to sweeten their breath all the day, and they cannot be happy unless they meditate upon the Word. I think you make a great mistake when you go galloping through the whole Bible, reading half a dozen chapters every day; you do much better when you get a text and ruminate upon it, just as the cows chew the cud. Turn the Scripture over and over, and get all the juice, sweetness, and nourishment out of it, and you will do well. The spiritually hungry man says, I must go and hear some servant of God, and hear what God, the Lord, will speak to me. I must get as much of the heavenly food as I possibly can, for I need it so greatly. (C. H.Spurgeon.)
Hunger a sign of health
Men who are mending find themselves hungry between meals. Oh, the doctor says, that is a capital sign. You will get on now. I love to see Gods people when the Lord is strengthening them, for then they leave off being dainty and fault-finding, and prove the truth of Solomons proverb, that to the hungry man every bitter thing is sweet. Then they come to Monday night prayer-meetings and week evening services. They used to be able to do very well from Sunday to Sunday, and I have known some of them get on with one meal on the Lords day, and like it all the better if that was quickly served and soon over. When the gracious Lord strengthens His people they become very sharp-set. Somebody said on Sunday morning to me, Did you not feel it sweet preaching? I replied, I always feel it sweet preaching the gospel of the grace of God. Ah, but, he said, the people swallowed it all just as it came from your mouth, and they seemed so hungry after it. Truly this makes a preacher happy. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Christ the best food
The old Grecians that had fed altogether on acorns before, after that bread came in amongst them they made no reckoning of their mast any more, but kept it only for swine. And leathern and iron money began to grow out of request amongst the Lacedemonians after that gold and silver came into use. So when a man hath once found the favour of God in his heart, and the love of God in Christ hath once lighted on it, and got assurance of it, he ceaseth then to be greedy of the worlds trash, which is in regard of it but dross or pebble-stones to gold and diamonds, as mast to the best bread corn; yea, rather of far less worth or value to that than either of these are to it. (Fuller.)
Feeding on Christ
If anybody were to say to me, I have a man at home who stands in my hall, and has stood there for years, but he has never eaten a mouthful of bread all the time, nor cost me a penny for food, I should say to myself, Oh, yes, that is a bronze man, I know, or a plaster cast of a man. He has no life in him, I am sure; for if he had life in him, he would have needed bread. If we could live without eating, it would be a cheap method of existence; but I have never found out the secret, and I do not mean to make experiments. If you are trying it, and have succeeded in it so far that you can live without Christ, the bread of life, I fear your life is not that of Gods people, for they all hunger and thirst after Jesus, the bread of heaven. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
False food
During the Irish famine of 1849 the Duke of Norfolk invented a curry-powder of which he boasted that if taken by the starving peasants it would destroy all cravings of hunger. How many remedies for the souls hunger arc mere mockeries of unsatisfying! Curry-powder is poor food at the best. (H. O. Mackey.)
Christ an incorruptible food
Christ is incorruptible meat and drink. All earthly meat and drink is of a fading, perishing nature. The best bread grows mouldy in a little time; the best flesh in time putrefies and taints; the best wine grows eager and sour in a little time, and becomes unfit for the body of man; the very manna itself, when it was kept till the morning of the next day, contrary to Gods command, bred worms, and stank (Exo_16:20). But Jesus Christ knows no corruption. His flesh and blood is now as sweet and pleasant, after so many ages, as it was the first hour it was eaten and drank (chap. 8:27). And it will be as far from corruption at the end of the world as now it is. The manna in the golden pot corrupted not, though kept for many generations. Christ is manna in that golden pot; the humanity in the golden pot of the Divinity shall see no corruption. (Ralph Robinson.)
Soul-satisfying bread
I. THE LORD JESUS IS TO BE RECEIVED BY EACH ONE OF US PERSONALLY FOR HIMSELF. Bread which is not eaten will not stay hunger. Water in the cup may sparkle, but it cannot slake thirst unless we drink it. How do we receive Christ.
1. By coming to Him, which represents the first act of faith. We return to the Christ from whom we have been alienated with a motion of the heart performed by desire, prayer, assent, consent, trust, obedience.
2. Believing on Him, in the sense of trusting Him.
3. Eating and drinking Him. It is monstrous that this should be taken literally, for what greater crime could there be than to eat the flesh of our Saviour? What He meant was receiving Him into our hearts. Now, in eating
(1) The food as a whole goes into our mouths; so as a whole Christ is received into our belief and trust.
(2) We masticate it, and even in this way the believer thinks of Jesus and discovers His preciousness.
(3) It descends into the inward parts to be digested; so Christ is to dwell and rest in the affections till His comfort is fully drawn forth.
(4) The food is next assimilated; so the great truths of Christ are inwardly received till our whole nature draws from them satisfaction and strength.
(5) As a man who has feasted well, and is no more hungry, rises from the table satisfied, so we feel that in our Jesus our entire nature has all it wants.
(6) The two points about Christ which He says are respectively meat and drink are
(a) His flesh, i.e., His humanity. Our soul feeds on the literal historical fact that God was in Christ, and was made flesh and dwelt among us.
(b) His blood, which clearly refers to His atoning death.
II. WHERE JESUS IS RECEIVED HE IS SUPREMELY SATISFYING
1. To our highest and deepest wants, not to mere fancies and whims. Hungering is no shame; thirst is not sentiment.
2. Christ meets the hungering of conscience, which feels that God must punish sin, but is appeased as it perceives that it has been punished in Christ.
3. Men, when awakened, have a hunger of fear, but when they find that Christ has died for them, fear expires and love takes its place.
4. The heart has its hunger, but in Christ its roving affections find rest.
5. There are vast desires in us all, and when we are quickened they expand, and yet are satisfied.
6. This perfect satisfaction is found only in Christ.
(1) Some have tried to be satisfied with themselves.
(2) Some have gone to Moses.
(3) Some have dosed themselves into a torpor with the narcotics of scepticism.
(4) Many stave off hunger by indifference, like the bears in winter, which are not hungry because they are asleep.
Conclusion: All believers bear witness that Jesus Christ is satisfying to them.
1. They never seek additional ground of trust beyond Christ.
2. They never want to shift their confidence.
3. Christ satisfies in the hour of death. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The I am of Christ
This form of expression is not found in the synoptists. It occurs not unfrequently in St. John, and the figures with which it is connected furnish a complete study of the Lords work.
I. I am the LIGHT OF THE WORLD (chap. 8:12).
II. I am the BREAD OF LIFE (verses 35, 41, 48, 51).
III. I am THE DOOR (10:7, 9).
IV. I am THE GOOD SHEPHERD (10:11, 14).
V. I am THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE (11:25).
VI. I am THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE (14:6). VII. I am THE TRUE VINE (14:1-5). (Bp. Westcott.)
Spiritual assimilation
It is not what a man eats, but what he digests, that nourishes him. Now, so it is with that truth which is food for the mind, which is the souls nutriment. There is a certain kind of truth which needs only to be heard, only to he received: facts about the sun or earth, about light and heat and electricity. All that you need to do in respect to these truths is to get them, to store them away in your mind. Thus, for instance, the sun is ninety-two millions of miles from the earth. Receive these facts, and you need go no farther with them. There is no necessary after process of assimilation. They are of themselves nourishment for the mind, without any such after process. But not so is it with moral truth--that truth designed to regulate and govern human action. This is worth nothing, unless it is wrought into the life; unless it be so assimilated as to lose the form of abstract truth, and become principle; unless it passes into, is converted into life. This is the way with bread, when it does any good. It does not remain bread. It turns to flesh and blood and bone. The bread of yesterday is the myriad-hued, the myriad-sided life of to-day. It is the eloquence of the orator, and the strength of the drayman. It is the skill of the artist, and the energy of the ploughman. And it is all this, through the wonderful process of assimilation, through the mysterious force of a transubstantiation, stranger than priest ever taught, or poet ever fancied. Now, the truth of this analogy furnishes an explanation of the fact that so many persons in the world have a great deal of Bible know- ledge, an abundance of moral truth, without having much of spiritual life. In such Cases, truth has remained truth. Doctrine lies within them, as so much doctrine. So moral truth remains as so much unassimilated knowledge in the minds of thousands. And this analogy, besides an explanation, suggests also the great duty we owe to our moral or spiritual being. It is this. The duty of assimilating the moral truth which we have received, of turning it into life. This should be our daily work. Is time nothing, and eternity everything? Do we believe this? Then we should be more careful for an estate there, than for building up one here. Is it true, that with- out holiness no one shall see the Lord? Do we believe this? If so, how important that this truth should be turned into a principle of action in our daily life. And we should come to place very little, if any, value upon the mere possession of truth. Many a post mortem examination discloses plenty of unused food within the body. Still, the man died--died, because his system did not take up and use the bread. So, many a post mortem moral examination, no doubt, will exhibit an abundance of moral truth within the soul. And farther than this I think we should go here. We should come to place comparatively little value upon doctrines, which we are unable to convert into life-force, from which we cannot gather spiritual guidance and strength. If the truth which we possess is not digestible, it is very poor stuff. But, without further amplification here, I ask your attention to the great matter suggested by the text--THE CONDITIONS OF SPIRITUAL ASSIMILATION.
1. And the first I mention is, something to be assimilated. The process denoted by this word is only the changing of one substance into another. Thus, the tree takes the air and the sun-light, and the rain, and turns them into tree, into roots and trunk, branches and fruit, into its own peculiar life. Every leaf on your vine in spring-time is an open mouth, asking for these surrounding substances, that it may convert them into life for itself. It does not want light and heat and moisture, as such. It does not lay them up as such, counting them treasures. No, but silently, surely, swiftly, it assimilates them to itself. The sunbeam, when your flower gets hold of it, is no longer a sunbeam. No; but it is blood in the veins of your rose, it is the blush upon its cheek, it is sweet odour filling the air. Now, not otherwise is it with the life of the soul. This life, like all others, grows by the process of assimilation. But there must be something to be assimilated; and what this something is the text distinctly affirms. It is Christ, who is the bread of life, the bread which is turned into life within the soul. Christ, and not something else; not philosophy, not art, not knowledge. Where in the history of the world has any of these supported moral life? Look at ancient Egypt, ancient Greece. Christ is its food; but this means the true Christ, and a whole Christ. The soul cannot live on the Pope, or what of Christ may come through the Pope. It needs a whole Christ. Then, again, take the case where Christ is shorn of His sympathy, of His boundless love, of His ineffable yearning, and the same result is apparent. The soul starves. Its bread again is only half bread. Then there is another half Christ, the sentimental one. A Christ who is no sin-bearer, who holds no relation to the Divine law as its atonement--a Christ, of whom it can, only by the widest possible metaphor, be said, that He was made a curse--a Christ with no blood I And the same sad result of spiritual life is here again witnessed. Souls are starved.
2. The second condition is a good moral atmosphere. This implies two things. First, that your homes should be favourable to Christian life; and second, that your daily business, outside the home, should be such and so conducted as to be the same. No church, no religious privileges, can do much for any man or woman, who either has no home, or whose home is a bad one. Why, suppose you only gave your body one or two hours a week of pure atmosphere. Could you preserve health? Could you live? If you go from the church into an atmosphere of frivolity and selfishness, of acrimony and impurity, you will be sure to arrest the process of spiritual assimilation. Shun evil and corrupt association. It is said that the Upas-tree is girt in with a circle of dead and rotting carcases of bird and beast. So, upon every side of these corrupt rings, are strewn the dead consciences, the lost souls of men. See to it, then, that you breathe the atmosphere of love and of kindness, of purity and of honesty, day by day.
3. The third condition of spiritual assimilation is activity, the exercise of the new and true life. Duty is a Divine and immutable condition of moral growth. He that saveth his life shall lose it. Selfish idleness will kill any soul. Something you must do for this world in which you live, if you would do the best for yourself.
4. A fourth condition of spiritual assimilation is thought, intelligence. Better believe half of what you do, intelligently, with your whole soul, than believe it all, languidly, ignorantly.
5. The last condition of spiritual assimilation which I mention, and the great one, is the presence of the vital principle--the vital principle which philosophy cannot find out, which chemistry cannot detect. See those two trees. One of them lifts up its bare and shrunken branches; the other is covered with leaves, and the birds sing among its branches. Yet the air, the sunshine, the moisture, all within reach of both of these trees. What makes the difference? Why, in one the vital principle is present, from the other it has departed. Take two members of the same family again. One stands before the cross, only to fall in worship. The other hunts through the soil, wet with the blood of the Saviour, for gold, and lifts up his face to blaspheme, when he finds it not. The cross is life to the one, but death remains in the case of the other.
Two or three remarks in conclusion.
1. It is Christ who is the Bread of Life--not the Church, not truth, not doctrines; but Christ the personal Christ.
2. Christ being the Bread of Life, character becomes a good test of the soundness of faith. He who is pure, who is Christlike in conduct, must have partaken of Him who is the only bread of such a life.
3. Many of us are daily guilty in this matter. We transgress, year after year, the plainest laws of spiritual health and of moral growth. (S. S. Mitchell, D. D.)
The Bread of Life
Every one acknowledges the golden cornfields to be full of the highest spiritual teaching. It is as if He who gave us the Written Word, which we call the Bible--the Book--specially designed the harvest-field to be to it a sort of companion volume; and to that purpose filled it to overflowing with the most striking and beautiful illustrations, which should be at the same time bright enough to catch the attention of the most untutored, and profound enough to richly repay the deepest study of the thoughtful and learned. Nor would our Saviour allow this beautiful supplementary volume to be neglected or overlooked. Let us listen for a moment to what science has to tell us of the character and position of corn in the economy of nature. Corn belongs to the second great order of plants--the lily order; and according to the evolutionists theory it is either a lilyin the making, or in a degenerate and degraded form. This latter theory is the generally accepted one. In process of the ages the corn-plant which was, and is still, of the lily order, gradually developed the invaluable property of producing corn, and did ibis at the expense of its beauty. It separated itself from its beautiful sisters, laid aside the glory of the coloured vesture and elegance which belonged to it as of right, and took instead the russet garments in which we see it now clad; and all in order that it might be of service in its day and generation, and give its own life and substance for the life and support of others. If this were so, what a wonderful little parable we have in its history of the law of self-sacrifice, and of the blessing and reward attending such sacrifice: for what if it that really happens to the corn as a result of its self-surrender? We call it now the staff of life. That is its usual and well-fitting title. To be singled out from all other plants in the world as the very staff of human life were, I say, marvellous honour for so small and insignificant a plant. But more than that; in giving its life as the staff of ours it, becomes itself a partaker of a nobler nature. In eating it we incorporate its nature with ours, so that it becomes part of our very selves--bone of our bones and flesh of our flesh--and in a very real sense it comes in this way to participate with us in theenjoyment of human life. What a striking illustration we have here, then, of some of our Saviours words! Jesus said, He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal; and the life-history of the corn emphasizes this truth in a way so remarkable that no one can help being impressed by it. But we have not exhausted this lesson even yet, nor have we reached a thousandth part of the honour God has designed to bestow upon the self-abasing little plant; for when the Lord Jesus Himself came down from heaven to give His life for the world, and one day stood and looked around Him for a figure by which He might signify something of His own Person and office, He could find nothing better to His purpose than the little corn-plant in its so-called degraded form and russet-dress. I am the Bread of Life, He said, I am the living Bread which came down from heaven. We can well appreciate the aptness of that simile. The plant that had laid aside its lily-dress, and put off all its glory--clothing itself in russet-brown, and stooping very low, that it might give its life for the many--and, moreover, that could even then only become life-giving bread by being first bruised and crushed and broken--I say we can well perceive how fitting a type in all these particulars it was of Him who made Himself of no reputation, etc. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, etc. (John Crofts, M. A.)
The Bread of Life
1. Every living thing is a feeding thing. That it feeds is the test and signal that it lives.
2. Moreover, every living thing, whatever it may be, whether lowest in the scale of existence, or highest, must have food appropriate to itself, or it cannot live. There is a pathetic story which comes to us from the earlier explorations of the vast island of Australia. In the central deserts of that island there grows a strange plant called the nardoo, bearing leaves like clover. The Englishmen Burk and Wells, who were making these explorations, in the failure of other food, followed the example of the natives, and began to eat the leaves and roots of this plant named nardoo. It seemed to satisfy them; it seemed to fill them with a pleasant sense of comfort and repletion. But they grew weaker every day, and more emaciated; they were not hungry, for the plant seemed to satisfy the calling of hunger. But all the effects of an unfilled hunger began to appear in them; their flesh wasted from their bones, their strength leaked till they scarcely had the energy of an infant; they could not crawl on in their journey more than a mile or two a day. At last one of them perished of star- vation; the other was rescued in the last extremity of it. On analysis, it was discovered that the bread made of this plant lacked an element essential to the sustenance of a European. And so, even though they seemed fed, the explorers wasted away, and one of them died, because they were feeding on a sustenance inappropriate.
3. Now all this is true of mans higher and moral nature. The mistake men are constantly making is, that they seek to feed their higher nature upon wrong food, which may satisfy for the time, but in the long run cannot keep back the pangs of a noble spiritual hunger.
4. This is what Christ came into the world to be to men--the appropriate, satisfying, sustaining, upbuilding food for their highest nature.
(1) Christ, the Bread of Life, feeds and fills the human hunger for Divine sympathy.
(2) Divine forgiveness.
(3) Divine helping.
Lessons:
1. Do not refuse the Bread of Life because there are some things in Him you cannot understand, any more than you refuse the bread upon your tables, though there are mysteries in it that no science can explain.
2. See the adaptation to our needs of the great truth of our Lords Divine-human nature. He could not be the Bread of Life to us did He not possess such a nature.
3. Learn the essential meaning of religion. The essential meaning of my physical life is, that I come into contact with food. The essential meaning of my religious life is, that I as really and as utterly come into the Food of my spiritual nature--Christ. (W. Hoyt, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 44, 45, 46, 50, 53, 57, 58 31. Our fathers did eat manna in the wilderness.…
31. Our fathers did eat manna in the wilderness. He may have fed a few thousands on the day before, but what was that to feeding of the whole host of Israel for forty years in the wilderness? Is he as great a leader as Moses, in whose time the manna fell?
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v48 Joh 6:48 - Joh 6:50.
John
THE MANNA
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Joh 6:48 - Joh 6:50.
‘This is of a truth that Prophet,’ said the Jews, when Christ had fed the five thousand on the five barley loaves and the two small fishes. That was the kind of Teacher for them; they were quite unaffected by the wisdom of His words and the beauty of His deeds, but a miracle that found food precisely met their wants, and so there was excited an impure enthusiasm, very unwelcome to Jesus. Therefore He withdrew Himself from it, and when the people followed Him, all full of expectation, to get some more loaves and see some more miracles, He met them with a douche of cold water that cooled their enthusiasm and flung them back into a critical, questioning mood. They pointed to the miracle of the manna, and hinted that, if He expected them to accept Him, He must do as Moses had done, or something like it. Probably there was a Jewish tradition in existence then to the effect that the Messiah was to repeat the miracle of the manna. But, at all events, Christ lays hold of the reference that they put into His hands, and He said in effect, ‘Manna? Yes; I give, and am, the true Manna.’
So this is the third of the instances in this Gospel in which our Lord pointed to Old Testament incidents and institutions as symbolising Himself. In the first of them, when He likened Himself to the ladder that Jacob saw, He claimed to be the Medium of communication between heaven and earth. In the second of them, when He likened Himself to the brazen serpent lifted in the camp, He claimed to be the Healer of a sin-stricken and poisoned world. And now, with an allusion both to the miracle and to the Jewish demand for the repetition of the manna sign, He claims to be the true Food for a starving world. So there are three things in my text: Christ’s claim, His requirements, and His promise; the bread, the eating, the issues.
I. Here is a claim of Christ’s.
As I have already said, in the whole wonderful conversation of which I have selected a portion for my text, there is a double reference to the miracle of the loaves and of the manna. What our Lord means to assert for Himself is that which is common to both of these-viz. that He supplies the great primal wants of humanity, the hunger of the heart. There may be another reference also, which I just notice without dwelling upon it. Barley loaves were the coarsest and least valuable form of bread. They were not only of little worth, but altogether inadequate to feeding the five thousand. The palates, unaccustomed to the stinging savours of the garlic and the leeks of Egypt, loathed the light bread. And so Jesus Christ comes into the world in lowly form, like the barley loaf or the light bread from which men whose tastes have been vitiated by the piquant savours of more earthly nourishment turn away as insipid. And yet He in His lowliness, He in His savourlessness, is that which meets the deepest wants of humanity, and is every man’s fare because He will be any man’s satisfaction.
But I wish to bring before your notice the wonderful way in which our Lord, in this great dissertation concerning Himself as the Bread of Life, gradually unfolds the depths of His meaning and of His offer. He began with saying that He, the Son of Man, will give to men the bread that ‘endures to everlasting life.’ And then when that saying is but dimly understood, and yet awakes some strange new desires and appetites in the hearers, and they come to Him and ask, ‘Lord, evermore give us this bread,’ He answers them with opening another finger of His hand, as it were, and showing them a little more of the treasure that lies in His palm. For He says, ‘I am that Bread of Life.’ That is an advance on the previous saying. He gives bread, and any man that was conscious of possessing some great truth or some great blessing which, believed and accepted, would refresh and nourish humanity, might have said the same thing. But now we pass into the penumbra of a greater mystery: ‘I am that Bread of Life.’ You cannot separate what Christ gives from what Christ is. You can take the truths that another man proclaims, altogether irrespective of him and his personality. That only disturbs, and the sooner it is got rid of, the firmer and the purer our possession of the message for which he is only the medium. You can take Plato’s teaching and do as you like with Plato. But you cannot take Christ’s teaching and do as you like with Christ. His personality is the centre of His gift to the world. ‘I am that Bread of Life.’ That He should give it is much; that He should be it is far more.
And notice how, when He has thus drawn us a little further into the magic circle of the light, He not only asserts the inseparableness of His gift from His Person, but also asserts, with a reference, no doubt, to the manna, ‘I am the Bread that came down from heaven.’ The listeners immediately laid hold of that one point, and neglected for the moment all the rest, and they fixed with a true instinct-although it was for the purpose of contradicting it-on this central point, ‘that came down from heaven.’ They said one to the other, ‘How can this man say that He came down from heaven? Is not this Jesus the Son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?’ So, brethren, as the manna that descended from above in the dew of the night was to the bread that was baked in a baker’s oven, so is the Christ to the manhood that has its origin in the natural processes of birth. The Incarnation of the Son of God, becoming Son of Man for us and for our salvation, is involved in this great claim. You do not get to the heart of Christ’s message unless you have accepted this as the truth concerning Him, that ‘in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,’ and that at a definite point in the long process of the ages, ‘the Word became flesh, and dwelt amongst us.’ He will never be ‘the Bread of Life’ unless He is ‘the Bread that came down from heaven.’ For humanity needs that the blue heavens that bend remote above should come down; and we cannot be lifted ‘out of the horrible pit and the miry clay’ unless a Hand from above be reached down into the depths of our degradation, and lift us from our lowness. Heaven must come to earth, if earth is to rise to heaven. The ladder must be let down from above, if ever from the lower levels men are to ascend thither where at the summit the face of God can be seen.
But that is not all. Our Lord, if I may recur to a former figure, went on to open another finger of His hand, and to show still more of the gift. For He not only said, ‘the Son of Man gives the bread,’ and ‘I am the Bread that came down from heaven,’ but He went on to say, in a subsequent stage of the conversation, ‘the Bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.’ Now, notice that ‘will give.’ Then, though the Word was made flesh, and the manna came down from heaven, the especial gift of His flesh for the life of the world was, at the time of His speaking, a future thing. And what He meant is still more clearly brought out, when we read other words which are the very climax of this conversation, when He declares that the condition of our having life in ourselves is our ‘eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of Man.’ The figure is made repulsive on purpose, in order that it may provoke us to penetrate to its meaning. It was even more repulsive to the Jew, with his religious horror of touching or tasting anything in which the blood was. And yet our Lord not only speaks of Himself as the Bread, but of His flesh and blood as being the Food of the world. The separation of the two clearly indicates a violent death, and I, for my part, have no manner of doubt that, in these great words in which our Lord lays bare the deepest foundations of His claim to be the Food of humanity, there is couched, in the veiled language which was necessary at the then stage of His mission, a distinct reference to His death, as being the Sacrifice on which a hunger-stricken world may feed and be satisfied.
So here we have, in three steps, the great central truth of the Gospel set forth in symbolical aspect: the Son that gives, the Son that is, the Bread of the world, and the death whereby His flesh and blood are separated and become the nourishment of all sin-stricken souls. I do not say one word to enforce these claims, but I beseech you deal fairly with these Gospel narratives, and do not go on picking out of them bits of Christ’s actions or words, which commend themselves to you, and ignoring all the rest. There is no more reason to believe that Jesus Christ ever said, ‘As ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them likewise,’ or any other part of that Sermon on the Mount which some people take as their Christianity, than there is to believe that He said, ‘The bread which I give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.’ Believe it or not, it is not dealing with the Scripture records as you deal with other historical records if, for subjective reasons, you brush aside all that department of our Lord’s teaching. And if you do accept it, what becomes of His ‘sweet reasonableness’? What becomes of His meekness and lowliness of heart? I was going to say what becomes of His sanity, that He should stand up, a youngish man from Nazareth, in the synagogue of Capernaum, and should say, ‘I, heaven-descended, and slain by men, am the Bread of Life to the whole world’?
I was going to make another observation, which I must just pass with the slightest notice, and that is that, taking this point of view and giving full weight to these three stages of our Lord’s progressive revelation of Himself, we have the answer to the question, What is the connection between these discourses and the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper? Our modern sacramentarian friends will have it that Jesus Christ is speaking of the Communion in this chapter. I take it, and I venture to think it the reasonable explanation, that He is not speaking about the Communion, but that this discourse and that rite are dealing with the same truths-the one in articulate words, the other in equivalent symbols. And so we have not to read into the text any allusion to the rite, but to see in the text and in the rite the proclamation of the same thing-viz. that the flesh and the blood of the Sacrifice for sins is the food on which a sinful and cleansed world may feed.
II. So, secondly, let me ask you to note our Lord’s requirement here.
He carries on the metaphor. ‘This is the Bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die.’ The eating necessarily follows from the symbol of the bread, as the designation of the way by which we all, with our hungry hearts, may feed upon this Bread of God. I need not remind you that in many a place, and in this whole context, we find the explanation of the symbol very plainly. In another part of this conversation we read, under another metaphor which comes to the same thing, ‘He that cometh unto Me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst. So the eating and the coming are diverse symbols for the one thing, the believing. When a man eats he appropriates to himself, and incorporates into his very being, the food of which he partakes. And when a man trusts Christ he appropriates to himself, and incorporates into his inmost being, the very life of Jesus Christ. You say, ‘That is mysticism’; but it is the New Testament teaching, that when I trust Christ I get more than His gifts-I get Himself; that when my faith goes out to Him it not only rests me on Him, but it brings Him into me, and that food of the spirit becomes the life, as we shall see, of my spirit.
That condition is indispensable. It is useless to have food on your table or your plate or in your hand, it does not nourish you there: you must eat it, and then you gain sustenance from it. Many a hungry man has died at the door of a granary. Some of us are starving, though beside us there is ‘the Bread of God that came down from heaven.’ Brethren, you must eat, and I venture to put the question to you-not Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the world’s Saviour? not Do you believe in an Incarnation? not Do you believe in an Atonement? but Have you claimed your portion in the Bread? Have you taken it into your own lips? Crede et manducasti, said Augustine, ‘believe’-or, rather, trust-’and thou hast eaten.’ Have you?
Further, let me remind you that under this eating is included not only some initial act of faith, but a continuous course of partaking. The dinner you ate this day last year is of no use for to-day’s hunger. The act of faith done long ago will not bring the Bread to nourish you now. You must repeat the meal. And very strikingly and beautifully in the last part of this conversation our Lord varies the word for eating, and substitutes-as if He were speaking to those who had fulfilled the previous condition-another one which implies the ruminant action of certain animals. And that is what Christian men have to do, to feed over and over and over again on the ‘Bread of God which came down from heaven.’ Christ, and especially in and through His death for us, can nourish and sustain our wills, giving them the pattern of what they should desire, and the motive for which they should desire it. Christ, and especially through His death, can feed our consciences, and take away from them all the painful sense of guilt, while He sharpens them to a far keener sensitiveness to evil. Christ, and especially through His death, can feed our understandings, and unveil therein the deepest truths concerning God and man, concerning man’s destiny and God’s mercy. Christ, and especially in His death, can feed our affections, and minister to love and desire and submission and hope their celestial nourishment. He is ‘the Bread of God,’ and we have but to eat of that which is laid before us.
III. So, lastly, we have here the issues.
‘Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.’ This Bread secures that if ‘a man eat thereof he shall not die.’ The bread that perishes feeds a life that perishes; but this Bread not only sustains but creates a life that cannot perish, and, taken into the spirits of men that are ‘dead in trespasses and sins,’ imparts to them a life that has no affinity to evil, and therefore no dread of extinction.
If ‘a man eats thereof he shall not die,’ Christ annihilates for us the mere accident of physical death. That is only a momentary jolt on the course. That may all be crammed into a parenthesis. ‘He shall not die,’ but live the true life which comes from the possession of union with Him who is the Life. The bread which we eat sustains life; the Bread which He gives originates it. The bread which we eat is assimilated to our bodily frame, the Bread which He gives assimilates our spiritual nature to His. And so it comes to be the only food that stills a hungry heart, the only food that satisfies and yet never cloys, which, eating, we are filled, and being filled are made capable of more, and, being capable of more, receive more. In blessed and eternal alternation, fruition and desire, satisfaction and appetite, go on.
‘Why do ye spend money for that which is not bread?’ You cannot answer the question with any reasonable answer. Oh, dear friends! I beseech you, listen to that Lord who is saying to each of us, ‘Take, eat, this is My body, which is broken for you.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv33, 51 kosmos = mankind. (See Scofield "Mat 4:8").
world
kosmos = mankind. (See Scofield "Mat 4:8").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv35, 41, 47, 52 Jesus the Bread of Life:
Jesus the Bread of Life:
v. 35. And Jesus said unto them, I am he Bread of Life; he that cometh to Me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst.
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v. 36. But I said unto you, That ye also have seen Me, and believe not.
v. 37. All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me; and him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.
v. 38. For I came down from heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me.
v. 39. And this is the Father’s will which hath sent Me, that of all which He hath given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.
v. 40. And this is the will of Him that sent Me, that everyone which seeth the Son and believeth on Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
Jesus now makes a plain, frank statement. He had not said that He would give the wonderful bread that came down from heaven, but He had asserted that this miraculous Bread which came down from heaven had the power to give eternal life. He Himself is that Bread of Life. No matter who it is that comes to Him, he will no more suffer with hunger, just as he that drinks of the living water of His salvation will never again be bothered with thirst. To come to Jesus means to believe in Him as the Savior of the world. All the desires and longings of the soul find their complete gratification in Him and His mercy. But although the Son of God and such perfect satisfaction was brought so neat to the Jews, yet they did not believe. They have seen Him in His ministry of miracles, and they have heard the words of life which issued from His mouth at such times, but they have refused to believe. They should know, therefore, that everything which the Father gives to the Son will come to Him. To come to Jesus is to believe; faith is a spiritual coming. The heart and the will of a person goes to Christ, is joined to Christ. All those people actually come to Jesus whom the Father has given to Him as His own. Faith is the result of God’s merciful selection. It is a call and selection of grace, and therefore none of those that come to Him in faith will the Lord cast out. God’s thoughts are thoughts of peace and mercy only; He has no desire for the death of any sinner. To fulfill this merciful kind purpose of His heavenly Father Jesus has come into the world. It is the will of the Father that Jesus lose none of those whom the Father has given Him. They are all equally precious in His sight, far too dearly bought to be lost. Those, therefore, whom the Father has given to the Son as His own, the Son should raise from the dead on the last day to give them the full enjoyment of the blessings and the glory which are their heritage. For the sake of clearness and emphasis, Jesus repeats the same thought. It is the will of the Father who sent the Son into the world that everyone that looks upon the Son in faith, that accepts Him as the Son of God and the Savior of the world, shall, without fail, have eternal life, shall become partaker of the glories of heaven by and in the resurrection. In Christ we have been chosen unto eternal life.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv32, 35, 38, 41, 43, 46, 48, 50, 52, 54, 57 Truly, truly
Truly, truly
See how you translated this in John 1:51.
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it is my Father who is giving you the true bread from heaven
The "true bread" is a metaphor for Jesus. AT: "The Father gives to you the Son as the true bread from heaven" (See: Metaphor and Translating Son and Father)
my Father
This is an important title for God. (See: Translating Son and Father)
gives life to the world
"gives spiritual life to the world"
the world
Here the "world" is a metonym for all of the people in the world who trust in Jesus. (See: Metonymy)
translationWords
Moses
God the Father
heaven
life
world
lord
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv32, 34, 35, 37, 41, 43, 49, 51, 53 6:32-33 Jesus corrected the people’s argument: God, not Moses,…
6:32-33 Jesus corrected the people’s argument: God, not Moses, fed Israel in the wilderness. The most important quest is to find and consume the true bread of God, who gives eternal life.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.