Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, as it is written, He gave them bread out of heaven to eat.
Jesus has just fed a crowd on a hillside. The next day they ask Him for proof, and they quote Scripture about the manna their ancestors ate. Two questions sit inside that request: what counts as a sign from God, and who gave the bread from heaven.
They asked for a sign less than a day after eating their fill from five loaves. One writer points out how strange that timing is, and what the Lord did with it.
Only the evening before, five thousand men, besides women and children, had eaten their fill in the wilderness. They had seen that miracle, and every one of them had gained from it. Yet now they ask such a question, and point back to past history. Could we ever have imagined it, if we did not know our own hearts? He had every right to turn away from people who spoke like this. But grace in Him was active. He had their souls' best interests at heart... The true bread was out of heaven, and so it far surpassed the manna they had mentioned. It was for them, if they would receive it, the gift of His Father. It could give spiritual life to them, and to the world.
By naming the manna, the crowd measured the miracle of the loaves against it and found it small. One writer fills in the argument they left unspoken:
This is how unbelief always works. It is never satisfied with the signs of God, however fitting and magnificent they are. It may refuse to ask for a sign when God offers one, and it despises the signs He does give. This time they did not say outright what they meant. But their thought seems to have been something like this: "You ask us to believe. Yet after all, what was the miracle of the loaves compared to that of the manna? Give us food from heaven, as Moses did, for forty years; and then it will be time enough to speak of believing. Do a work to match his, if you cannot surpass it."
They asked for something to see. The problem was not a lack of evidence. It was the kind of Christ they were looking for.
Christ Himself was the sign that God had stepped in with grace. The signs He did made it plain that a divine Person was present in grace in a lowly Man. They had no sense of their need. They did not know the Scriptures, and they were full of their own importance. So they could not see the sign. They wanted a Christ who would come with outward display and power over their enemies. Such a Christ would put honour upon Israel. Instead, Christ came in lowliness, and they stumbled at His humiliation.
Their own quotation says "He gave them." Yet in their mouths Moses becomes the giver. One writer points to what must change before anyone can feed on that bread.
Their thoughts were too full of Moses. "He gave them bread from heaven to eat," they said. But before they could really eat of the manna, they had to fall into the paths of love, into thoughts of the Father, and not of Moses. For it is love that leads us to the cross. Moses never gave that bread. The law never spread the feast. It is love that does that.
The crowd used the manna to argue against Jesus. But the manna had a meaning of its own, set on the day God first gave it.
This then is the meaning of the manna: the bread which God gave the Israelites to eat in the wilderness. It is therefore the proper wilderness food for the Lord's people... The manna, it is clear, is a picture of Christ — of Christ as He was in this world. He is the One who came down from heaven, and as such He becomes the food of His people as they pass through the wilderness.
Their quotation stops at "to eat." One writer points out the words they left out.
They tell Him, "Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness." They failed to add what the Lord reminds them of: "and are dead." They had not found life in the law, the manna, or the well that sprang up. They ate the bread of the mighty, angels' food, but they had died like men... But here in their midst was the Bread come down from heaven, "so that one may eat of it and not die."
- Sign — They asked for proof a day after eating a miracle. He had every right to turn away; grace answered instead.
- Comparison — Their quote shrank the miracle: match Moses' forty years, they said, and then we will believe.
- Blindness — The sign stood in front of them, in a lowly Man. They wanted outward display, so they stumbled at His humiliation.
- Credit — Their own words say "He gave them," yet their thoughts were full of Moses. The law never spread that feast; love does.
- Life — The manna pictures Christ, come down from heaven to feed His people. Their fathers ate it and died. Anyone may eat this Bread and not die.
Jesus therefore said to them, Verily, verily, I say to you, [It is] not Moses that has given you the bread out of heaven; but my Father gives you the true bread out of heaven.
The crowd has just eaten the loaves, and now they ask for a bigger sign: the manna their ancestors ate in the desert. Jesus corrects them on two points: Moses gave no bread from heaven, and the bread His Father gives is of a different kind.
The question sounds religious, but it was really a bargain. They wanted forty years of free food before they would believe.
This time they did not say outright what they meant. Their thought seems to have been something like this: "You ask us to believe. Yet, after all, what was the miracle of the loaves compared with that of the manna? Give us food from heaven, as Moses did, for forty years; and then it will be time enough to speak of believing. Do a work to match his, if you cannot surpass it."
The first correction is about who the giver was. Moses stood in the same position as everyone else in the desert — with his hands open.
"It was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven." He was only a receiver of it, like the people themselves, who lived on it for forty years. It was God's gift, and sadly the people who lived on it despised it — just as their descendants were now despising "the true bread."
The word does not accuse the manna of being false. In this Gospel it marks the difference between a partial thing and the finished thing it pointed to.
In this Gospel especially, it plainly means the fulfilment as distinct from the promise. It means the perfect and complete as distinct from the partial. We begin with "the true Light." John the Baptist was a light from God but he was not the true Light... There was "the bread of God." The manna was the bread of God, was it not? Indeed it was. But it was not the true Bread, because the Lord Jesus Christ set it aside completely when He came and said, I am "the true Bread."
One commentator weighs the force of the words "Truly, truly," and what made the manna fall short.
Again, with a double "truly," or "most assuredly," He insists that Moses was not the giver of the manna. But the same God who gave the manna was His Father, who has now given the true Bread from heaven. The manna could rot, so it was not "the true bread." The bread of God is the living person who has come down from heaven (v. 33), the giver of life. So He is One who had life in Himself, life that is eternal and cannot decay.
Notice which name Jesus gives to the giver: "my Father." That name carries far more than a supply of food.
But the Father's name is linked with far deeper wonders. The revelation of that name tells out all the riches of grace. "My Father gives you the true bread from heaven." What was that? The answer is at hand. "For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." To provide for a dying world, the Father sent His only Son from heaven.
Ordinary bread keeps alive someone who is already alive. Here the picture goes past what any loaf can do, and past the borders of one nation.
In natural things bread only sustains life; it does not give life at all. But the spiritual always goes beyond the natural. The picture from nature points our thoughts to the divine fact, but can never hold its fullness. Jesus was here as both the Giver and the Sustainer of life. And this was in relation to the world, not just to the small Jewish nation among whom He moved.
This verse opens a sequence. The chapter names the same image four times, each time with a new turn.
The first is in John 6. That wonderful chapter sets the Lord before us as bread in a fourfold way — "true bread," v. 32; "the bread of God," v. 33; "the bread of life," v. 35; "living bread," v. 51. Our Lord spoke of Himself in this way as One whom His own could receive, so that they might gain spiritual life in their souls and then be kept in that life.
- Not Moses. The man they credited with the manna was only receiving it himself. The gift always came from God. Those who ate it despised it, just as their descendants now despised the true Bread.
- Not the manna. "True" here means the fulfilment against the promise, the complete against the partial. The older bread could rot, which showed it was not the real thing.
- The Father gives. Jesus names the giver as "my Father." That name tells out all the riches of grace — far deeper wonders than bread in the desert.
- The gift is a Person. The bread of God is the One who comes down from heaven. He is the Giver and the Sustainer of life, not just food that keeps existing life going.
- For the world. The gift is not for one nation but for a dying world. The chapter names Him true bread, bread of God, bread of life, living bread — to be received, then fed on.
For the bread of God is he who comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world.
Jesus had just fed the crowd with loaves, and now they ask for a sign to match Moses and the manna in the desert. His answer changes the terms: the true bread from heaven is a Person, and the life He gives reaches the world.
The crowd wanted to know whether Jesus could match Moses. One writer shows how the Lord takes that comparison apart.
How simple, yet how weighty and final, is His answer to their unspoken thoughts about Moses! They took the miracle of the manna to show that Moses was greater than our Lord. "It was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven." He only received it, like the people themselves, who lived on it for forty years. It was God's gift, and sadly those who lived on it despised it, just as their descendants were now despising "the true bread."
The same writer notes that Jesus does not simply swap Moses for the Father as the manna's supplier. He moves to something far greater than daily food.
Was this more, in reality, than His feeding all His creatures every day and every hour? "You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing." So vast are the Creator's stores, and so easy their application in Providence to the creature's need! But the Father's name is linked with deeper wonders far.
The verse makes two claims about this bread. No one but Jesus fits either one.
The Bread of God is Jesus Himself. Of all men, these two great marks are His alone: He comes down out of heaven, and He gives life to the world.
"Comes down from heaven" tells us who Jesus is, not just where He came from.
The Lord presents the great truth of His Incarnation. He is not just a Man raised up on earth, as Moses and others were; He is the One "who comes down from heaven". He is truly a divine Person, yet present as a Man on earth — a Man of an entirely new order, a heavenly Man.
The direction matters. One writer points out the words Jesus did not use:
In John 6 Christ does not say, "The bread of God is he who went up to heaven," but "he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."
The manna fell inside one nation's camp. The Bread of God does not stop there.
The manna fell from heaven in the desert for Israel only. In those barren wastes, which gave their tens of thousands no food, the chosen nation ate the food of angels. But God gives the Bread of God to the broad world of sinners, of every land and every language. Now, in this greater wilderness, in this place of soul-hunger and of moral death, all who come to Jesus receive life.
The offer reaches that far because the need does. Privilege gets nobody in, and the lack of it shuts nobody out.
The Father's provision for a dying world was to send from heaven His only begotten Son. His appearing here was as the lowly Son of man. The fact was of worldwide interest. All alike needed this bread from heaven, and all alike were welcome. God did not send this gift to Jew or Gentile as separate, privileged groups. He sent it to the whole human race as perishing.
The verse speaks of His coming down from heaven. One writer explains why that alone could not save us.
As bread, as a figure, He had come down from heaven, incarnate in the world. The bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. This bread means Him who came forth from the Father, and came into the world, the Word made flesh, the Son of God. He was the living bread come down from heaven. But incarnation alone was not enough to save us. He must die, or He would have remained alone. The bread He gives is His flesh, which He had taken, and He gives it for the life of the world. Here we have the cross, the propitiation made for sin.
Bread here is a figure. One writer says plainly what it does not stand for.
The Bread of life is not a rite or a sacrament, but the Incarnate Word. He is the object of faith presented, so that needy, starving souls may have life eternal. The manna in the wilderness was a witness to Him, though those who ate it and died there knew little of that. … Faith receives in Him this rich gift, life eternal.
- Source. The bread never came from Moses; he only received it like everyone else. The Father is the Giver, and His gift is His Son.
- Descent. Two marks belong to Jesus alone: He comes down from heaven, and He gives life. He is a divine Person present as a Man of a new order.
- Reach. The manna fell for one nation inside one camp. God gives this bread to sinners of every land and language, and welcomes them not as privileged but as perishing.
- Cost. Coming down was not enough by itself to save us. He must die — the bread He gives is His flesh.
- Result. Life, not just food. The bread is a Person to trust, not a rite to perform, and all who come to Him live.