Listen or read the following transcript as D. A. Carson speaks on the topic of The Bread of Life from John 6:1–15
“Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the miraculous signs he had performed on the sick. Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. The Jewish Passover Feast was near.
When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, ‘Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?’ He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do. Philip answered him, ‘Eight months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!’
Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, ‘Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?’ Jesus said, ‘Have the people sit down.’ There was plenty of grass in that place, and the men sat down (about five thousand of them). Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.
When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, ‘Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.’ So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten. After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, ‘Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.’ Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.”
So reads the Word of God.
It is a remarkable thing that our relatively prosperous, industrialized Western world entertains ideas about food that virtually no other society in the history of the human race has ever entertained. Ask any 5-year-old, “Where does food come from?” The answer will be “Tesco” or “Sainsbury’s” or “The co-op.” Or even, “Plastic packages.” It wont be “Plants and animals” or “The farm.”
Or suppose a Chinese gentleman fresh from Beijing were to ask the question, “What is the staple diet of England?” What on earth would you answer? “Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding?” No. “Meat and two veg?” “Fish and chips?” “Sweets?” “Steak and kidney pie?” I don’t know, but in many parts of the world the answer would be monosyllabic. Or you might get two words. “Bread and fish.” Or, “Yams.”
Ask yourself the question, “What happens to our food if there is catastrophic drought and ravaging flood?” What? The prices go up. We just don’t think in terms of starvation. Or we may ask a little more particularly. We may ask, “Well, it depends where. If it happens in Florida, we start importing more oranges from China.”
Why do we work? Well, to buy things. We do not think, “In order to have enough to eat today.” One more. “What is your favorite snack food?” “Snack food?” In most parts of the world the very idea is grotesque. Now, this is not to say that our ideas about food are morally wrong. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not suggesting that for a moment. By and large, they are entirely appropriate to our industrialized society.
But we must see when we read the Bible, especially a passage like this, that it was first written in a non-industrialized, agrarian society. (A relatively poor one at that.) Almost all the themes that I have mentioned by my questions surface in this passage. The passage itself speaks to us far more volubly when we bear in mind the context in which these questions were raised.
In the first century, bread (as in this passage) was one of two staple items; the other was fish. Bread and fish are the very elements that Jesus multiplies. One of them is the one on which he then discourses at length. What one works for? One works to eat in a poor family. This work theme comes up again and again.
Food is not a snack item; it’s what sustains life. Without it, you starve. On top of all of that, the links are then made in the rest of the chapter that tie together Jesus and manna: Old Testament provision by God and this miracle. We must keep this framework in mind if we are to understand what Jesus means when he says, “I am the bread of God.”
1. Jesus is the One who mediates God’s life to us because he is himself God’s manna.
We pick up at verse 25. “When they found him on the other side of the lake …” Because he had crossed over during the night. “… they asked him, ‘Rabbi, when did you get here?’ ” Jesus does not respond to their question but challenges their motives. Verse 26: “Jesus answered, ‘I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.’ ”
At one level, of course, they did see the sign. They enjoyed the food from it, but they didn’t see what it signified. They didn’t see its significance. They didn’t see what it pointed to, so they didn’t see it, in that sense, at all. They saw it only at the level of meeting certain physical needs. They were pleased at the prospect of a messianic figure who could, perhaps, someday provide all that they wanted and turf out the Romans and make their lives quite comfortable.
They were prepared, in fact, to make him king by force, we saw in verses 14 and 15, but they didn’t see beyond that point. So Jesus gives another perspective. Verse 27: “Do not work for food that spoils …” Do not work and think merely at the level of this perishable world. “… but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”
Now, his point is that they are to fasten on an appropriate goal, but they hear the word “work.” They’re thinking in terms of “works,” so they respond, “Well, all right then. What must we do to do the works that God requires?” The naivetÈ is formidable. They display no doubt as to their intrinsic ability to meet any challenge that God might set them. “If you set us a certain challenge, go ahead, lay it on. We’ll meet it.”
Jesus responds. Verse 29: “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” What you must do is to believe in the One he has sent; that is what you must do. He makes the thing immediately Christ-centered. They want the blessings; he focuses on himself. What you must do is trust the One God has sent.
Well, if that is the sort of thing he’s going to say, he must surely provide some kind of accreditation. You don’t go around making massive claims without some kind of accreditation. So they reply, “What miraculous sign will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do?” Then they add, “We’ll give you a hint. Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: ‘he gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ ”
In the flow of the narrative, the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 has triggered the memory of another miracle from their Bible: the provision by God of manna in the desert. Now that was a wonderful miracle. They had seen it yesterday. “We’d like to see round two today. It would a wonderful demonstration of your messianic qualifications.”
Later rabbis argued that the latter Redeemer (the Messiah) would call down manna from heaven as the former redeemer did. Whether such views were current in the first century it is impossible to say. In any case, the crowd was inviting Jesus, at the very least, to repeat his miraculous provision of the day before and thus validate himself. Jesus responds in verse 32, “I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.”
He wants their eyes off the human mediators of the past to God, who is the source of all the provision. Then he changes also the focus on the provision. “For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives his life to the world.” The true bread from heaven then, is Jesus himself. He mediates God’s life because he is himself the manna from the Old Testament.
This explains, then, something at least of the significance of the feeding of the 5,000. It’s not that he provides food; he is the food! What does that mean? At the purely material level, of course, he provided the food, the nourishment, and they ate. They think on that level. But now he is insisting that both the manna of the Old Testament and the bread that he provided the day before point to another level, to himself providing sustenance on another level.
He is himself bread from God. He is himself the One who mediates life. Just as bread nourishes our physical life, so he himself nourishes our spiritual life. He has not yet explained how; he will do so shortly. He is making the claim. This is extremely important because it ties in with a lot of other themes in the gospel of John and, indeed, in the New Testament.
When you and I think of prophecy or prediction, we tend to think of verbal prophecy, of verbal prediction, and then a fulfillment that comes along later in an event. Whether we are talking about so-called astrological predictions in the local newspaper, soothsayers who say sooths, or we’re talking about some sort of person with a crystal ball at the local fair.… It doesn’t matter. We think of verbal predictions and then an event that finally fulfills them.
But many of the prophecies of the Scripture are cast at another level, at a pictorial level, an institutional level, so that in the New Testament (in John’s gospel, in fact) Jesus himself claims to be that to which the manna points. He claims to be that to which Passover points. He claims to be that to which the serpent in Numbers points as he is lifted up himself on a cross. He claims himself to be the Israel, the Vine of God. He claims to be the Good Shepherd.
He claims so many of the institutions and structures God has disclosed in antecedent history are all pointing in one direction: toward himself. Now, in part, that gives us a kind of way of reading the whole Bible. I think I could justify that from within the Old Testament Scriptures themselves; but what he is doing is teaching us how Christ-centered this revelation is.
In this particular matter, he says, “Just as God provided the manna for our fathers under the old covenant a millennium and a half ago, so also now under the new covenant God has provided manna. This manna provides nourishment for eternal life; this is God’s provision. You must turn to him and receive that provision in faith.” That’s the fist thing he says.
2. Jesus is the One who mediates God’s life to us because he does his Father’s will.
We pick it up at verse 34. “Sir, they said, from now on give us this bread.” They still do not understand that he is talking about himself; he will make that clearer yet. At this point, they think he is still talking about some bread that somehow he will provide, and they’d like it from now on. “You did it yesterday. Do it today. Do it tomorrow. Do it the next day. I won’t have to work. Provide it. Keep doing it. We’re all for it. You promised it. We’ll take it.”
“Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life.’ ” He is now unambiguous. “I don’t simply provide it. I am the Bread of Life.” “He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never go thirsty.” Now you’re seeing a move away from the merely metaphorical level. You are hearing the bread discourse. “I am the Bread of Life. But it is he who believes in me, not simply he who chews me or he who eats me …”
He will go back to the metaphorical level, but he breaks from it to show that this is part of a theme with the entire gospel. One must trust him. It is, at the end of the day, a metaphor. Jesus is not literally bread. “I am the Bread of Life, and if you really trust me you will discover that I nourish you and give you eternal life. But as I told you, you have seen me, and still you do not believe.” Now let me read through the next verses, because I think they are sometimes misunderstood. Verses 37–40:
“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
Verse 37 is the verse that people argue about. Some people argue that John was a Calminian. That is, halfway between a Calvinist and an Arminian. The Calvinist part surfaces in the first part of the verse, allegedly. “All that the Father gives me will come to me.” A very Calvinistic sort of utterance, relying on the sovereignty of God and the election, and so forth.
The second part is the Arminian bit. “And whoever comes to me I will never drive away.” All sides agree that this is a figure of speech called a litotes. A litotes is a figure of speech in which you affirm something by denying the opposite. “Oh, how many went to the concert last night? Not a few!” Which means many. So when Jesus here says in verse 37, “Whoever comes to me I will never drive away,” what does he mean?
It is usually assumed that he means something like, “I will invite them in. I’m not going to drive them away. I won’t repulse them. I’ll welcome them.” So, the Calvinist: “All that the Father gives to me will come to me.” The Arminian: “I’ll gladly welcome anyone who comes.” It won’t work. It won’t work because this expression “I will never drive away,” when it is negated, is really saying, “I will keep them in!”
“All that the Father gives to me will come to me, and whoever thus does come to me, I will keep them in. I won’t drive them out. I’ll keep them in.” Verse 38: “For I have come down from heaven not to do my will, but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me. And I will raise them up at the last day.” Verse 40 again: “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
In other words, Jesus says that all that the Father has given to him will come to him, and he will certainly keep them because he came down to do his Father’s will and his Father’s will is that of all those the Father has given him, he should not lose one. He will keep them, and he will raise them up at the last day.
Jesus is the One who mediates God’s life to us because he does his Father’s will. Now some people are daunted by this sort of utterance, which sounds so sovereign and almost fatalistic. John still speaks of the importance of belief. God’s sovereignty and human responsibility are never set at odds in John’s gospel.
But it is very important for us to recognize that, at the end of the day, to have this life from God rests in the first place on Jesus’ obedience to his Father. The obedience that took him to the cross. The obedience that sent him as a sacrifice for us. The obedience that keeps us as the Father gives us to him. We can trust him. He is trustworthy.
Moreover, it is not just for this life but for the life to come. “I will raise them up at the last day.” If Jesus is the Bread of Life, it is important to break from the metaphor now and then and see that, at the end of the day, this turns on a profound relationship between Jesus the Son and his Father. Jesus obeys his Father. He takes on the commission the Father gives him.
It is as impossible for those whom the Father has given to the Son to lose their faith, to lose their salvation, and fall away as it is for Jesus to disobey his Father. As it is for Jesus to fail to obey his Father. He says, “I have come down from heaven to do my Father’s will, and this is my Father’s will: that of all those he has given me I should not lose one.”
3. Jesus is the One who mediates God’s life to us because he gives his life on our behalf.
Pick up at verse 49: “Your forefathers ate the manna in desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which any man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
Now listen to how literal the language is. “Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ Jesus said to them, ‘I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever.’ ” Do you see how literal that is? What does it mean?
It has engendered endless debate in the history of the church about how much of this is referring to the Lord’s Table. I think it rather misses the point. The point is this: In an agrarian world, everyone knows that for you to eat, something else dies. If you go and eat a hamburger, a cow has died, and some grain stalks have died.
The only thing that you ingest that has not died is the occasional mineral, a bit of salt now and then. Everything else you eat means something else has died. If it doesn’t die, you die; it’s either your life or the food’s life. That is understood when you live on a farm. It’s a little harder when you take it out of cellophane.
Jesus is pushing the metaphor, but he explains it, too. “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he will live. This bread is my flesh which I give for the life of the world.” Do you hear that? It is within the metaphor of the bread, but it is also in line with a whole lot of other themes that lead to the cross.
In chapter 10, Jesus is the Good Shepherd who gives his life for the sheep. In chapter 12, he’s the corn of wheat that falls into the ground and dies. In chapter 11, he is the One who dies so that the nation may live. So here, he gives his flesh for the life of the world. This is simply on the way to the cross; it points to the cross as truly as Holy Communion points to the cross.
Jesus is the Bread of God. He dies, that we may live. In the first instance, we feed on him, not by resorting to cannibalism, nor by resorting to a rite that he himself has commissioned the church, but by trusting him because he died on our behalf. We trust him. He died, bearing our sins in his own body, dying our death so that we might live. Because he died, we live.
This means if you are not a Christian, what you must do is come to terms with Jesus as the Bread of God. Raise your heart heavenward in prayer and ask God to feed you with that Bread. Receive that Bread by faith, this Bread that died so that you might live.
If you are a Christian, it means coming back to basics again and again and again and understanding that all that we have in Christ Jesus (a forgiveness now of the Spirit whom he has bequeathed, of life still to come when he raises us on the last day) is ours because he is the Bread who dies. We receive him by faith. His death meant our life. We feed on him, and we are sustained unto eternal life. Amen.
