Verily, verily, I say to you, He that believes [on me] has life eternal.
Jesus speaks to a people who were rejecting Him. He does not argue. He answers with an oath and a single condition. Two words carry the verse: "believes" and "has." Both have been argued over ever since.
So why the solemn repetition? One commentator points to what was new in that moment.
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.
The verb is present tense. One writer meets head-on the idea that it points to a gift still to come.
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.
The practical result is that a believer does not live in suspense about it, and does not need to die first to find out.
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.
Notice what the sentence does not say. It does not describe a feeling about yourself; it names a Person and asks whether you are resting on Him.
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."
That also settles the anxious question of whether one's faith is strong enough.
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.
Later in the chapter Jesus speaks of eating His flesh and drinking His blood, and that language has often been attached to the Lord's Supper. Commentators reading verse 47 as the key to what follows warn against letting any ceremony take the place named here.
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.
The next sentence — "I am the bread of life" — is not a change of subject. It explains why the life given in verse 47 carries the word "eternal."
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.
The same Christ who gives the life also makes it grow.
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 Speaker. "Truly, truly" is Christ's own oath. He does not promise a future kingdom. He announces Himself as the giver of eternal life now.
- The object. You believe something about Christ, not something about yourself. Christ never makes your feelings the test.
- The measure. What counts is not the size of your grip on Him but His trustworthiness. A touch of His garment leaves you as safe as a drowning man's clutch.
- The tense. "Has," not "will have" — a revealed fact you can know today, not a prize held back until later.
- The supply. The One who gives the life also sustains it. The life is eternal because He is eternal. It grows by feeding on Him, not by grinding down the old nature.
I am the bread of life.
Jesus has just said that whoever believes has eternal life. Now He names what He Himself is — not a gift held out beside Him, but the food.
One writer sets the two lines side by side. What is new is the speaker: a man in front of them, rejected by His own nation.
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.
The exact wording matters. Why "bread" and not simply "life"?
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.
Of all foods He could have named, He chose the one nobody can live without.
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?
Bread on the table feeds nobody. One writer contrasts the chapter before: there Christ gives life; here He also keeps it going.
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.
Manna was the bread God gave Israel to eat in the desert. It pictured Him, but the picture fell short in two ways: it could not keep people alive, and it never reached past one nation.
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."
Physical hunger is only the picture. There is a deeper appetite, and feeding it is not the same as satisfying it.
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.
- Person — He does not hand out life as a separate item; eternal life is in the Son and cannot be had apart from Him.
- Sustenance — He says "bread," not simply "life," because bread is what keeps life going day after day.
- Necessity — you can skip treats; you cannot skip bread. He presents Himself as both needed and enough.
- Eating — bread set before a man who will not eat leaves him to starve. Chapter 5 gives life; chapter 6 keeps it going.
- Reach — the manna fed one nation, and they still died. This bread comes down from heaven for the life of the world, so that one may eat and not die.