John 6:32–51

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."

"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."

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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 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.

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.

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 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 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.

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.

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.

Thinking only of the natural life, the people say, "Lord, always give us this bread." They had no sense of their spiritual needs. So they saw nothing of His glory and missed the meaning of His words.

Yet these striking, life-giving words produce no real faith in these people, even though they ask, "Lord, give us this bread always" (v. 34). It was not Himself they wanted, but what He might give them. Could He not keep multiplying the loaves and fishes to satisfy them? They only confirm what He said in verse 26: they cannot hide their earthly mindedness at all.

At first their answer seems all you could wish for. Like the woman of Samaria they ask for the gift He had spoken of, and unlike her they do not expose their ignorance. "Lord," they say, "always give us this bread." Two cases can look so alike and still be completely different! And He who "knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man" could not be deceived.

This is their last effort to get what they were after — bread for this world, bread always. But unbelief is wrong in every way. It is life that God is giving, and nothing less meets the true need of man. And this life is in Christ, not from Him. It does not exist apart from Him, handed out from Him, so that anyone could have it independently of Him. In Him was life; in Him only is life found. He is the Bread of life.

This awakened at least their natural desires, and they said, "Lord, always give us this bread." He answered with the words of our scripture. Turn to Exodus 16 and you will see that God gave the manna to satisfy the hunger of the people. In Exodus 17 water comes out of the rock to quench their thirst… So He declares that the manna and the rock that was struck were pictures of Himself, standing there in front of them, and that in Him they find their answer and fulfilment. That means anyone who receives Him has every craving and desire of the soul fully satisfied, and for ever. But, as the context shows, He can only be received as the manna after He is known in death.

The Bread that endures to eternal life was standing among them, and how eagerly they ran after the bread that perishes! They say: "Lord, always give us this bread." But they could only see it as bread to keep human life going here in this world. When they saw it was not this, it lost its interest for them… The disciples heard words of eternal life; the worldly-minded crowd heard "a hard saying" they would not listen to.

He Himself is the Bread of life, able to fully satisfy the need of every hungry and thirsty heart. Yet He sadly tells the Jews that they too had seen Him. That seeing of course takes in His works of power and grace, and every outward quality that proved His great glory. Still they did not believe. They saw no beauty in Him personally. Dense indeed is the darkness of mere materialism!

A miracle is not the proper or direct ground of divine or gospel faith — the faith the Spirit works, the faith that saves the soul. No. The faith that saves the soul takes hold of the Son of God in the way that only sinners convinced of their guilt and need do. It is knowledge that the conscience itself makes. All of John's Gospel has been showing us this. So in this very chapter the Lord does not work the miracle the crowd wanted. Instead He talks with them in a way that uncovers whether their conscience had been reached. Were they following Him as sinners who needed life, or only as an admiring and interested crowd?

No language is as cutting as the language of rejected mercy, of love repulsed and slighted! Here was this blessed One. His errand to this world was nothing less than this: to be the expression of His Father's love and the Saviour of lost men! He carried His credentials in every gracious word from His lips and every action of His perfect, spotless life. The miracle of the loaves had drawn a crowd who followed Him across the lake from selfish motives. They admitted that they had "seen" Him. But sadly they "did not believe." When they understood that He was the bread of life, they showed plainly that this was not the food they had come for.

Sadly, the crowd that saw Him had no faith in Him. Their privilege in seeing Him only added to their guilty unbelief. And there is more to add. The atoning work is now done. He is dead, risen and glorified, and preached among the nations. So it is a greater sin still where He is not believed on in the world.

Sadly, man left to himself rejects Christ when He comes as a man, just as later he rejects Him in death (verse 52) and as ascended (verse 66). The Lord has to say, "You have seen Me and yet do not believe."

Here we see the contrast between the breakdown of man and the steadfast, unchangeable will of the Father. In verse 36 Jesus said to those around Him, "You have seen Me and yet do not believe." At once He went on to add, "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me." Man, the responsible man, may fail, as he always has. But God's purposes will surely be accomplished. Hold this in the soul by the power of the Holy Spirit, and it will bring continual joy to our hearts. Through grace it gives us both strength and stability. It sets our feet upon a rock — the rock of God's power and love.

This is the key, and it has two sides. We only know the truth when we hold both. Take one side and leave out the other, and the teaching is incomplete. The result is likely to be error on one side or the other... The theologian who sees only the divine decrees pays little attention to the encouragement the Lord gives to the person who comes to Him. The man who argues for what he calls free will tries to cancel out the statement that all the Father gives to Christ will come to Him — if he does not ignore it altogether.

There is the sovereign grace of the Father, which has given certain people to the Son, and every one of them comes to Him. As far as they themselves are aware, many different things draw these happy people to Him, and those things differ in almost every case. Yet beneath it all, as the ultimate explanation, lies this gift of the Father to Christ — a love gift, we may call it.

If blessing depends on man's responsibility, then it is all over; no one will be blessed. But, as always, when man stands fully exposed, God falls back on the purposes of His own heart. He will not allow all to perish; nor will He allow that the coming of the Son of Man shall be all in vain.

Suppose I ask someone who has no peace with God, "Have you come to Christ?" If that person can answer, "Yes," then I can say: "This shows that you are one whom the Father has given to Christ. He said, 'All that the Father gives me will come to me' — and you have come to Him."

Whatever their nationality or their character — Jews or Gentiles, fallen women or hardened thieves, Pharisees or tax collectors — if they only come to Christ, He will receive them. Their coming is the proof that they are the Father's gift to the Son.

All that the Father has given come, and the Son casts out none who come. This is not only because of His own grace and personal love for them. It is because they are the Father's gift, and because the very purpose of His coming down from heaven was to carry out the Father's will, and so reveal the Father's heart... There is no possibility of any slip between the Father's gift and the Son's reception.

When He said, "whoever comes to me I will never cast out," it meant three things. First, I will receive him. Second, I will hold him fast. Third, I will never give him up — "never cast out."

The Son had come down from heaven of His own choice, and yet He was the Sent One of the Father. It was the Son's will to come, but to do His Father's will. The will of the Son and the will of the Father were not different. But the Son had come to reveal the Father, and to make known in everything what the Father wanted to do. The Father's will could only be shown and carried out in a place of complete subjection and obedience. The Son took that place.

The blessed Lord took His human body, "born of woman, born under the law" (Galatians 4:4). He did this so that obedience might become possible for One who had not only made all things, but also upheld them all "by the word of his power" (Hebrews 1:3). Before taking human form, He had never been in a position to obey. Once He had taken it, His delight was to carry out to the very end the will of the Father who had sent Him. The Psalm puts it this way: "Behold, I have come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me: I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart."

He was not someone who had no will of His own, as people sometimes say. He had a will as a true man, but He subjected His will to the will of the Father. He never exercised His will independently. He would not have been a perfect man if He had had no will. Think of Him never acting on His own will!

Jesus never did His own will, though, as we know, blessed be His holy Name, His will was absolutely perfect. He was a perfect servant, from first to last. His rule of action was the word of God. His power of action was the Holy Spirit. His only motive for action was the will of God. So the ruler of this world had nothing in Him.

People miss the beauty of that well-known passage — "whoever comes to me I will never cast out" — because they do not read the context. "Whoever comes to me" is only the last half of the verse. The whole verse is seldom quoted. First comes, "All that the Father gives me will come to me." Suppose I ask someone who has no peace with God, "Have you come to Christ?" If that person answers, "Yes," I can say, "That shows you are one whom the Father has given to Christ." The Father sends these sheep to Christ, and in receiving them He is doing the Father's will. How would He be doing the Father's will if He cast out those whom the Father had given Him?

This is why He stayed two days longer where He was, even after the cry of these sorrowing hearts had reached Him. In coming down to this scene, He came not to do His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him. So He would not act at the promptings of His own heart. He had taken the place of obedience, and He waited for the Father's word before answering the appeal. Cold must be the heart that is not moved by this shining out of His moral glory. Here is infinite greatness joined with the lowliest grace and humility.

The Father has given souls to the Lord Jesus. His will is that the Lord should lose not one, but should raise it up at the last day. He cares for those given to Him. He guards them, so that the enemy does not destroy them and their own folly does not lose them. He keeps even the body that lies in the grave, so as to raise it up again at the last day. In doing all this the Lord Jesus is the Servant doing the Father's will.

The Lord Jesus has His own personal love for the sheep, proved in life and in death. Apart from that love, in this memorable passage He presents Himself as responsible to the Father — willingly so, no doubt. He is responsible to keep every member of the loved and valued flock through all the changing circumstances of this life, and to present them in resurrection glory at the last day.

It is beautiful to see how perfectly the Son of the Most High becomes His Servant, now to save, as later to administer the glory. He chooses none for saving; He leaves all with Him Who sent Him. "All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out." One side is the security of the children. The other is the free grace of the gospel.

In John 6:39-40 the main difference, I think, is between the negative and the full positive. The negative says of "all that he has given me" that "I should lose nothing, but raise it up" — the "it" agrees with the "all" looked at as one whole. In the positive He brings in the person: "everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him." There the question is not about being lost, but about the present possession of eternal life.

It might seem that as generation after generation of God's people pass away, and are forgotten by men, that they are forgotten by God. The Lord's words assure us that it is not so. Not one is lost or forgotten. They will appear again at the last day. The resurrection power exercised by the Lord will be the final proof that He has lost nothing.

In John 6, as I see it, the Lord is putting a blessing in resurrection in place of any royal Jewish blessing... He does not come and set up the Jews. The Father draws, and a man comes to Him. He blesses that man in the power of eternal life, raising him up when this busy and rebellious scene comes to its close.

In John 6 our Lord refers to the resurrection no fewer than four times, and each time it is the resurrection of His people. The way He speaks shows that this resurrection is their own distinctive privilege. The "last day" is not, as people commonly suppose, a day of twenty-four hours right at the close of all things. It is the great closing period. In it God makes clear the character and results of what man and Satan have done, of His own eternal purposes, and of His gracious workings throughout the periods before it.

Before, it was the Father's purposes that could not fail. Here it is the Son of God held out as the object of faith. If someone looked through the Lord's lowliness, saw the Son and believed on Him, that person would have everlasting life, and the result would be the same. In the first case it is a matter of the Father's purposes and His acts, and of what Jesus does in raising them: the Father gives them, Jesus raises them, not one of them is lost. Next comes the Son held out to people, along with man's responsibility.

The first thing is the doorway into eternal life, which is seeing the Son and believing on Him. By "seeing" we mean discernment. It means God has opened a person's eyes, as He opened the eyes of the blind man in chapter 9, to see that Jesus of Nazareth, the Man Christ Jesus, is the Son — the Son of God. Not everyone who met the Son in human form saw this, for the natural eye saw only a lowly Man. The one who saw was the one who received the testimony that Jesus truly was God's Son.

There were many who looked at Jesus and did not discern that He was the Son… It was the Father's revelation to Simon Peter that enabled him to say, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." That was a special revelation, no doubt. But in anyone at all, only the Father's work can enable him to see the Son and to discern the glory of Christ's Person, so that he believes on Him.

Do these words apply only to people of the family of Jacob? Or do they rightly reach as far as the whole human race?… "Whoever" means whoever. We must take "Every man," "he that," and the like in the widest sense. The Lord Jesus, we now understand, used language that foretold how far-reaching the thoughts of God and His purposes of grace were.

He has everlasting life. Someone may say he could lose it. But the Lord shuts out that way of dodging the truth by adding, "I will raise him up on the last day." That is, He ties the final blessing to having eternal life now.

In John 6 our Lord speaks of the resurrection four times, and each time it is the resurrection of His people. The way He speaks shows that this resurrection belongs to them as their own privilege… The "last day" is not, as many suppose, a day of twenty-four hours right at the close of all things. It is the great closing period, when God brings to light the character and results of what man and Satan have done, and of His own eternal purposes.

Eternal life does not belong to this world. Its home is in heaven, in the Father's house, so its full enjoyment, according to the thoughts of God, is still future… Even now we have the well that springs up inside us, and by the power of the Holy Spirit we can enter into the joy of eternal life and taste it in our measure. But to know it as the Father purposed, we must wait until the Lord Jesus Christ returns as Saviour and changes our lowly bodies.

Wonderful, must we not admit, had been the revelation just given. A man, who stood before them, was the bread of life. He had come down out of heaven... But there were Jews there who heard those words unmoved. Those who came from Judaea are meant here, in contrast to the Galilean crowd. They seized the chance to disturb the meeting by their murmurings.

Long ago in the wilderness, an unbelieving and sinful generation murmured at the heavenly manna. That same generation now murmured in the presence of the Bread of God, come down from heaven. He came to fill with good things those who were hungry and thirsty for righteousness.

Their pride refused to be in debt to one so lowly. They were so pleased with themselves that they saw no need for anyone to come from heaven to meet their case and be their Deliverer and Redeemer — much less for anyone to die on the cross... So when the lowly Jesus presented Himself as the Saviour of their souls and the Giver of everlasting life, this was a deliverance they felt no need of, and a Deliverer they had no taste for. They did not hunger for such bread; they did not thirst for such life-giving drink.

They could see what His language implied: that He existed in heaven before He was a man on earth. In other words, He was claiming divine glory as His own — glory veiled in His lowly place and condition as Son of Man. Against that implied claim they set what they supposed His origin to be.

So they set the circumstances as they knew them (and they knew them badly) against the truth of Christ. It was judging by appearances, and so it was unrighteous judgment. He was the son of Mary — truly and properly man; otherwise His work would not have availed for man. He was not the son of Joseph except legally; but this He was, so that He should be Messiah according to the law. If He had truly been the son of Joseph, as He was the son of Mary, He would not have been Son of God, or a divine Person. This was the foundation of everything. Without it the Incarnation would be a lie and the Atonement would be worthless.

The Jews judge by appearances and reason according to nature. So they cannot accept that anyone has come down from heaven. This is still the difficulty. The natural man can understand the family line of Christ according to the flesh. But he rejects the great truth that Christ is a divine Person, come in flesh, and so far more than the legal son of Joseph or the actual son of Mary.

They only saw the Man Jesus, and thought they knew His parents. They completely missed that He was the Son, come of David's seed according to the flesh. In this way they made it plain that they had no part or share in this matter. They were strangers to that drawing of the Father, apart from which no one actually does come to Christ.

They set the circumstances as they knew them (and they knew them ill) against the truth of Christ. It was judging according to appearances, and so it was unrighteous judgment. He was the son of Mary — truly and properly man; otherwise His work would not have been of use for man. He was not the son of Joseph except legally; but this He was, so that He should be Messiah according to the law. Had He really been the son of Joseph, as He was of Mary, He would not have been the Son of God, or a divine Person. But this was the foundation of everything. Without it the incarnation would be a falsehood and the atonement worthless.

The Jews, judging by appearances and reasoning according to nature, cannot accept the fact that anyone has come down from heaven. This is still the difficulty: the natural man can understand the genealogy of Christ according to the flesh, but he rejects the great truth that He is a divine Person, come in flesh, and so a great deal more than the legal son of Joseph or the actual son of Mary.

Their pride would not be in debt to one so lowly. They were so pleased with themselves that they saw no need for anyone to come from heaven. Still less did they see any need for anyone to die on a cross, to meet their case and be their Deliverer and Redeemer... They did not hunger for such bread.

Critics would have had the Lord reveal His supernatural birth here. But would that have suited men in the state of mind these were in? It could only have provoked their scorn.

They did not speak to the Lord directly. They showed a clear refusal of the truth of His incarnation... The Lord's quiet answer exposed their real state of soul, the cause of their murmuring: "Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day"... The matter, then, was perfectly simple. The Father must draw a person before he will bow to the truth of the Lord's incarnation. God had not done that work in these objectors. For those who have, the difficulties melt away. The soul that is simple before God accepts His word without hesitating. It still cannot fathom the mystery of the Son — God and man in one Person.

Questions may be raised and settled well, even about Christ's genealogy. But unless God does a work in a man, he will never have eternal life in Christ Jesus as one drawn by the Father to the Son. A man may be religious, or not. He may look into the royal descent of Jesus and satisfy himself about it. In his soul he can still stay far from the Saviour. Those who questioned about the Lord were very religious, but they were in darkness and death of soul.

Unbelief can only destroy and trouble; it cannot give life or comfort. Man under Satan is the source of unbelief, which always leads away from Christ, not to Him. But as the Father sent Christ, so He draws the believer to Christ, who raises him up at the last day. It is not man's worth or work or will, therefore, but the Father's grace, by which one comes to Christ. The whole blessing, in short, is of sovereign mercy.

Notice that Jesus says, "You will not come." I fully believe that they are responsible for it... Now certainly God does not stop anyone from coming, but the disposition of man's heart is such that he will not. This is why the work of God is necessary, and why it is said, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him." Perhaps you will say, everyone is drawn. No — the one who is drawn comes, and Jesus will raise him up on the last day: he is saved.

This then is the key, and it is twofold; and only in this largeness do we know the truth. If either side is taken to the exclusion of the other, the teaching is imperfect... The theologian who sees only the divine decrees pays little attention to the encouragement the Lord gives to the individual who comes to Him. The advocate of what he calls free will tries to neutralise, if he does not completely ignore, the declaration that all the Father gives to Christ will come to Him.

No one hungers for the bread of life enough to come to the Saviour unless a sense of urgent need draws him. That sense of need is found only in those whom the Father draws... God deals with the soul in this way. These humbling discoveries of self and sin lead to open confession of total ruin. That is what accounted for anyone coming to Christ.

The Father draws (verse 44); the Son speaks (verse 63); and the Spirit gives life by applying His words in power to the soul.

Notice: if you come to Jesus, it is proof of two things. First, that the Father has given you to Him (v. 37). For "no one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him" (v. 44), and no one comes unless the Father grants it to him (v. 65). Second, it is proof that you are taught of God (v. 45). If you have not come, is it not because you do not believe God?

Here we learn that the teaching about the Bread from heaven involves the truth of the resurrection of the body. For the body, as well as the soul of the believer, is to share in everlasting life. So four times over in this chapter (6:39-40, 44, 54) the Lord declares, "I will raise him up on the last day."

The last day is the last day of the present age. It is a general term for the end of that age, not just the final twenty-four hours.

The Lord quotes Isaiah 54:13: they will all be taught by God. It is a prophecy of Israel's blessing in the coming thousand-year kingdom, linked with their new faith in the Lord Jesus. Meanwhile it is just as true that everyone whom the Father has taught will come to the Son. But the word "all" cannot be applied today as it will be in that coming kingdom.

The way the Father draws is by divine teaching, as the word says: "they will all be taught by God." The Father gives light to the soul. He convicts it of its need of Christ. He reveals the glory of Christ. So the soul is driven by need and drawn by grace to Christ.

As the Father sent Christ, so He draws the believer to Christ, Who raises him up at the last day. So it is not a person's worth or work or will that brings anyone to Christ. It is the Father's grace. In short, the whole blessing is sovereign mercy, and that is what the prophets wrote. All true teaching comes from God. All are taught by God, Who never forgets what is due to Christ.

No one hungers for the bread of life and comes to the Saviour unless a sense of urgent need draws him. That need is found only in those whom the Father draws… Everyone in Israel who had heard God's voice within not only came to Jesus, but was overjoyed to do so. Take Nathanael as an example (John 1:49). God dealt with his soul under the fig tree. Those humbling discoveries of self and sin, leading to an honest confession of total ruin, are what accounted for anyone coming to Christ.

Notice this. If you come to Jesus, it proves two things. First, that the Father has given you to Him (v. 37). For "no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him" (v. 44), and no one comes unless the Father grants it (v. 65). Second, that you are taught by God (v. 45). If you have not come, is it not because you do not believe God?

The Holy Spirit remains with us. Among other privileges of the greatest value, He enables the believer to enjoy the whole revelation of God, in the measure of his faith by grace… See that you do not sink below your privileges. Enter into them by faith. This does not rest on your own opinion or on the authority of other men. There is much blessing in the fellowship of God's people, but God's teaching must be individual: "they will all be taught by God."

The Lord guards this truth from any physical idea of it. Being taught by God does not mean that any man has seen the Father. The teaching is spiritual.

Then He explains that this drawing is done by divine enlightenment. The prophets had spoken of being taught by God. Everyone who had heard from the Father and learned from Him came to Jesus. And yet no one had actually seen the Father except Himself, who was from Him.

What treasures these few words unfold. Souls may be taught by God, drawn by the Father, and so come to Christ. Even so, the Father is not directly revealed, so as to be seen. The Father never became a man, as the Son did. He remains God, never shown in visible form. Only in the Son do we see the Father — the Son who stooped to "come down from heaven" and be here a Man on earth.

An infinite distinction between this blessed Son of Man and all men on the earth, where in grace He had humbled Himself to come. He had seen the Father. Back in the depths of that eternity, when the Word was "with God" and the "eternal life" was "with the Father," He — who now humbly speaks of Himself as "He who is of God" — saw what no creature can see. He saw the Father. What deep secrets of love and blessedness and glory these short, simple words hold!

Here I may mention how fully able the Son of God, now become Man, is to bear witness to God and declare what He is — to reveal Him to man. He is Himself a divine person, one of those who dwell in the unapproachable light. So He knows God in a divine way, with absolute knowledge in the essence of His being. He knows what God's moral nature and character are. He could say, and did say, "We speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen" (John 3:11).

A Divine Person knows all things in Himself, as they are in themselves. He does not know as the prophets did. They received their commission, vision and message from One outside and above them... But Jesus spoke what He knew. Coming from God, and being Himself God, He knew the Divine nature perfectly, and was here a man to reveal it to men. He alone of all born of women had this ability, as Son and as the image of the invisible God — a place not only above others, but His alone.

"No one has ever seen God" (John 1:18). But here we have One who had seen the Father (John 6:46). He had always dwelt in the Father's bosom. He could bring Him to light before the eyes of men, so that those who saw Him saw the Father. It was God drawn near to men in the Person of the Son become Man in order that He might bring God near to man.

The Lord quotes Isaiah 54:13, that all shall be taught by God. It is a prophecy of Israel's blessing in the millennium, linked with their newly awakened faith in the Lord Jesus... But the word "all" cannot be used today as it will be in the millennium. The Lord says so in verse 46: only those who are of God had seen the Father; others were still in darkness.

The Lord then solemnly repeats, "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life" (verses 47, 48). In truth, as the promised One, He was always the object of faith. As the eternal Son He had always given life to the believer. But now He was the Word made flesh. He was the Son of God, and this as man in the world. Rejected by Israel, He announces that He is the giver of eternal life. This is the grand point: not the kingdom merely by and by, but eternal life now in the Son.

How awful to hear someone whittling away the plain meaning of "whoever believes has eternal life"! This is not a promise, but a revealed fact. The Lord did not say that the one who has the faith of eternal life will have this life by and by. To confuse His present assurance with Old Testament prophecy is to give up the gospel for the law.

We do not have to wait until we get to heaven either to receive this divine life, or to learn whether it is ours or not: we have it now, and we have the assurance of possessing it now by the word of God.

Give this your earnest attention. It is a weighty fact. What you must believe is not something about yourself, but something about Christ. Do you simply and heartily believe in Jesus? Do you trust Him? Are you thoroughly satisfied with Him? If so, you have eternal life, and you should from this moment know it and rejoice in it. Our Lord does not say, "Whoever feels he is one of My sheep will have eternal life."

It is not a question of the amount of your faith. It is a question of how trustworthy the person is that you place your confidence in. One man takes hold of Christ, as it were, with a drowning man's grip. Another only touches the edge of His garment. But the sinner who does the first is not one bit safer than the one who does the second. Both have made the same discovery: while everything in themselves is totally untrustworthy, they may safely trust Christ, calmly rely on His Word, and confidently rest in the eternal effectiveness of His finished work. That is what it means to believe on Him.

If a ceremony were meant here, it would carry a twofold and fatal error: that no one who failed to take the Lord's Supper could have life, and that whoever does take it has eternal life and must rise in the resurrection of the just.

The Lord's Supper does indeed refer to Christ's death, which this part of John 6 refers to as well. But He speaks only of faith in Him who died for sin and sinners, so that believing on Him they may have life. So the Lord's assurance of eternal life is not given to the person who takes communion as such, but to the believer. Turn away, then, from every substitute for Himself, who is the only Saviour.

No one can challenge this, for He Himself is the Bread of life, the source of the sustenance of that life. Since He who sustains the life is eternal, the life also is eternal.

Some say a believer reflects Christ's life by strict self-discipline: a man rids himself of his evil dispositions, and once he has ground down the old nature, the new one shines out. But that is not what this passage says. It is by feeding upon Christ that eternal life grows into strength and activity.

The Lord then solemnly repeats, "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life" (verses 47, 48). In truth, as the promised One, He was always the object of faith. As the eternal Son He had always given life to the believer. But now He was the Word made flesh. He was the Son of God, and this as a man in the world. Rejected by Israel, He announces that He is the giver of eternal life. This is the great point: not the kingdom at some future day, but eternal life now in the Son. That life cannot be separated from Him — and He is now a man.

Here our Lord presents Himself as the full, present object of faith: "I am the bread of life"; "he that believes." The "I am" includes His flesh. That is, He has come and is now here. Faith rests on Him as one who has come in the flesh and been made visible — the life that was with the Father, now made visible. He is "the bread of life." He does not say simply "life," but the constant sustenance of life: life from God, life from the Father, really made visible, seen, and able to be touched.

Scotland is the land of cakes, and there is great variety in them, but you can do without them; you cannot do without bread. Bread is a necessity; you can do without treats, but you must have bread. It is basic, and the Lord says, I am the Bread of life, an absolute necessity to life. He presents Himself like that. Do we know Him as the One who is absolutely indispensable to us? He is all-sufficient, blessed be His name — but do we know Him as needed for life itself?

Now turn to chapter 6. Here we have Christ as the Bread of life. In chapter 5 it is more the Word of life, Christ as the quickener or life-giver. In this chapter 6 He is not only the giver but the sustainer of life. Jesus is the Bread of life. He was to be eaten. He had come within reach of man's appropriation... If man is to live by bread, he must partake of it; it may be set before him, and he may not eat it, and if he does not eat it he must perish of hunger. Nothing can satisfy the hunger of a man's soul but Christ.

The discourse in the later part of John 6 seems to let us see in the Lord Jesus the fulfilment of the manna. But (as always) the reality appears to be so much greater than the picture. For example, "Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die." Again, the manna was for Israel only; not for Amalekites, or Moabites, or any Gentile nation. But Jesus says, "I am the living bread that came down from heaven... And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."

Hunger and thirst belong to man's natural life in this world. They are not only of the body. There is also the natural desire for what will satisfy the soul — a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy. Man may gratify his natural desires; he can never satisfy them. But the life that the Lord Jesus came to give was one in which there is true satisfaction. Every desire of the heart is satisfied not only by Him, but with Him.

They tell Him, "Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness." They failed to add what the Lord reminds them of — "and they died." They had found no life in the law, in the manna, or in the well that sprang up for them. They ate the bread of the mighty, angels' food, but they had died like men, and their bodies fell in the wilderness. These mercies could not deliver them from death, because of the perversity of the flesh.

They had pointed to the manna, and behind it to Moses as its giver, to belittle Christ. He returns to that subject now, to press the contrast on them for their own sakes... The manna was a witness to God's power and grace, and a real picture of Christ Himself. Yet in actual use it only nourished for a few years that poor, fleeting, feverish, forfeited life. That life begins at our birth and ends at our death. It is a candle burning down from the moment it starts to shine. It is "a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes." Is it for this life, or to keep it going, or for the brief pleasure it gives, that people toil, fret and wear themselves out? Is it for this that they despise heaven with all its glories, and refuse or neglect Christ and His great salvation?

The Jews had brought up the manna in the wilderness. The Lord now uses it in sharp contrast with Himself. Their fathers were dead, though they shared in the manna. He was the bread come down from heaven, and to partake of Him meant deliverance from death. Their fathers were dead in soul as well as in body. They ate the manna, but they had no faith (see Hebrews 3:19). The person who eats the bread that came down from heaven never dies in soul, whatever happens to his body.

The crowd had drawn attention to the manna. The Lord reminds them that the manna kept people alive, but it never saved anyone from death. He, however, the living bread, as He now presents Himself, could give eternal life to those who eat of it. But as with the manna of old, so with the living bread, something more was needed before it could be eaten. The manna was first pounded in a mortar, or ground in a mill, and then baked in a pan (Numbers 11:8). The One who is the living bread had first to die.

The second half of John 6 seems to justify seeing the Lord Jesus as the antitype of the manna. And, as always, the antitype turns out to be far greater than the type... Again, the manna was for Israel only; not for Amalekites, or Moabites, or any Gentile nation. But Jesus says, "I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."

So if the Lord was pictured by the manna, He went far beyond anything it could do. The ancestors of the Jews ate the manna in the wilderness, but it could not keep death away, for they died like everyone else. Christ is the Bread that comes down out of heaven so that a person may eat of it and not die. Eternal life is in the Son of God, and no less so because He was then the Son of Man. Rather, the grace of God was more clearly seen in Him that way; for if He was a man, was it not so that men might eat of Him and not die?

Their ancestors were dead, though they had shared in the manna. He was the bread come down from heaven, and to share in Him meant deliverance from death. Their ancestors were dead spiritually as well as physically, for they had no faith (see Hebrews 3:19) though they ate the manna. The man who eats the bread come down from heaven never dies spiritually, whatever happens to him physically.

Here it is Christ come down from heaven, the incarnation, setting aside every idea of promise. It is the great and mighty fact that in the Person of Jesus people saw the One who had come down from heaven, the Son of God become Man. We see the same in the first chapter of the First Epistle of John: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life... the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us."

The Bread of life is not a rite or a sacrament, but the Incarnate Word. He is the object of faith set before us, so that needy, starving souls may have eternal life. The manna in the wilderness pointed to Him, though those who ate it and died there hardly knew it. The Lord Jesus is the Bread of God that comes down out of heaven and gives life not to Israel only but to the world.

It is entirely an individual matter, and each one must face it for himself. We have either accepted in faith the death of the Son of Man as the way of life or we have not. When He gave His flesh at Calvary, it was with the whole world in view. But we must take it for ourselves, as He said, "so that one may eat of it and not die" (John 6:50)... It is a question of receiving the truth into our hearts by faith. The truth is made known, and the true believer takes it as his own. That is the eating and drinking spoken of here.

Christ is the bread of God that came down from heaven, so that a man should eat of it and not die. But that could not happen until He had died and risen again. But now that He has died and risen again, you and I are called on to eat and drink, to take what God provides... There is God's side, and your side. He gives; you have only to take and enjoy.

He speaks of Himself as the living bread come down from heaven. Yet in the same sentence He says that He, the One who came down from heaven, will give His flesh as bread for the life of the world. Two natures stand here in His Person: manhood and eternal deity. Yet no one can separate them in His actions.

In coming down, in becoming man, He was the bread of God, His Father's gift. But there was bread which He Himself would give: His own flesh, which He would give for the life of the world. This giving of His flesh was the laying down of His life. It was His yielding Himself up to death. So He might become to sinners — to fallen, perishing men — what bread would be to a crowd of people starving with hunger.

The crowd had drawn attention to the manna. The Lord here reminds them that, though it sustained life, it never did preserve from death. He, however, the living bread, as He now presents Himself, could give everlasting life to those who eat of it. But, as with the manna of old, so with the living bread: something more had to happen before anyone could eat it. The manna was first pounded in a mortar, or ground in a mill, and then baked in a pan (Num. 11:8). He who is the living bread had first to die; for to profit by Him as the bread of life they must eat His flesh and drink His blood.

There is a marked change in our Lord's discourse. He turns from His incarnation to His death. In both cases He speaks of eating. In scripture it is the well-known picture for making something your own, or for close fellowship. He was not only the Living Bread that came down out of heaven, that one might eat and live for ever. He would give His flesh for the life not of Jews only but of mankind, or as He says "for the life of the world."

The tense of the verb "eat" in verses 51 and 53 is worth noticing. Darby's New Translation translates them as "if anyone shall have eaten…" and "unless you shall have eaten…". It means an act of taking Christ for yourself, done once for all. This act must happen if a person is to live toward God. There is no life without taking hold of the death of Christ by faith. This, however, does not rule out eating as a habit. The word appears four more times, in verses 54, 56, 57 and 58. The life received has to be fed and kept up. So the one who has eaten still eats… He has believed, and he goes on believing.

Eating Christ's flesh and drinking Christ's blood (John 6:53-54) gives life. Eating of the supper does not. As the Bread from heaven, the Lord presents Himself to the world (John 6:33, 51). But He set up the supper for disciples only… No one should eat of the supper who has not first eaten of His flesh and drunk of His blood. For who has a part now in the blessed results of His death, but those who believe on Him?