'Jn 6:22-59

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67. The bread of life (John 6:22-59)

Many Jews were determined to find Jesus and make him king. Although he had escaped from them after the feeding of the multitude, they were out the next day looking for him (John 6:22-24).

Jesus knew that these people wanted him to be king not because they felt any spiritual need, but because they thought he had magical powers that could supply all their daily needs. He urged them not to think just of physical and temporal blessings, but to seek the spiritual and eternal life that he offered (John 6:25-27).

People cannot earn this life through doing good works; they can only accept it by faith (John 6:28-29).

Jesus does not need to make food fall from heaven as in Moses’ day in order to prove his power. He himself is the true bread from heaven (John 6:30-33).

This bread from heaven is not some common everyday thing that people can have simply to satisfy their appetite. It is a spiritual provision available to those who, being drawn by the Father to the Son, give themselves to him in faith (John 6:34-37).

As Jesus does the work that his Father sent him to do, he brings believers into the life of God’s kingdom, eternal life. They have this eternal life now, and they will enjoy it in its fulness following the victorious resurrection at the end of the age (John 6:38-40).

Jesus’ hearers objected that he had no right to speak such words, for he was not God. He had not come from heaven but from a Galilean family, as people well knew. Jesus repeated what he had said previously, to impress upon them that the salvation he brought came from heaven and was the work of the invisible God (John 6:41-47).

However, the only way this salvation can become possible is through Jesus’ giving himself as a sacrifice for sin. People can have eternal life only through Jesus’ death (John 6:48-51).

The true bread that Jesus came to give was his flesh and blood offered in sacrifice. Unless people eat and drink this ‘food’ they cannot be saved. That is, unless they accept Jesus’ sacrifice for themselves in faith, they cannot have eternal life, either now or in the future (John 5:52-59).