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I Am the Bread of Life
Some interesting things going on in this passage today. First I'll deal with the obvious stuff, but I also want to take a moment to related this statement to another issue.
The first key to understanding this passage is to not forget that it immediately follows the feeding of the five thousand miracle. What Jesus says here is in response to the expectations of the people after that miracle.
"The full force of Jesus’ sermon comes alive if we keep in mind certain details. Jesus is in the Capernaum synagogue (6:59), and it is Passover. At this time the Jewish community has been studying the Scriptures that pertain to the departure from Egypt (through the sea) and the flight into the desert...
...Judaism understood that there was a storehouse or “treasury” of manna in heaven that had been opened to feed the people during the era of Moses. The Israelites had been fed with 'bread from heaven.' This treasury would be reopened with the coming of the Messiah: 'The treasury of manna shall again descend from on high, and they will eat of it in those years' (2 Baruch 29:8). This would be a messianic second exodus, in which blessedness would rain down from on high. An early Jewish commentary on Exodus 16:4 says, 'As the first redeemer caused manna to descend … so will the latter redeemer cause manna to descend' (Midrash Rabbah Eccles. 1:9)...
...Jesus’ interpretation of the manna follows rabbinic lines perfectly. First, the true source of the manna was not Moses but God. It is God who sends bread...If God is truly the source of true heavenly bread and if Jesus has been sent by God, the shocking turn in 6:33 should come as no surprise. The bread of God is a person (“he who comes down from heaven”), a person who gives life to the world. With a stroke of genius, Jesus has done precisely what he has done throughout the Gospel: He [uses] some feature of Jewish belief and ritual and reinterprets it to refer to himself. He is the manna from God’s treasury for which Israel has been waiting. He has been sent by God as manna descended in the desert." [1] (emphasis mine)
And so Jesus reaches the killer point: I am the bread of life. This is a very difficult teaching that many people CANNOT accept (v. 52). People will leave Him because they think that He is advocating cannabalism. We'll get some of that feeling in tomorrow's reading.
Now that we've dealt with the basic meaning of the passage, I wanted to deal very briefly with a second issue here. When we last covered the "Last Supper", I dealt with three basic views of what goes on during our celebration of the "Lord's Supper". This passage here is one of the key passage in understanding the difference between views, particularly "Transubstantiation" (Roman Catholic) and "Memorialism" (LIALC and most evangelical protestant churches). It all comes down to this question: is Jesus using a literary device in this passage or not? Is Jesus making a straight out statement that should be taken at face value, or is He speaking in metaphor? Those that believe in transubstantiation would say that there is no metaphor here: we are truly being commanded to actually eat Jesus' flesh and drink His blood, hence they believe that the bread and wine are actually transformed into those things and that doing so is a means of obtaining grace and attaining eternal life. I disagree. We believe in "memorialism", which would see that reading of this passage as being overly literal. Jesus is using metaphor here. Why do I/we think that? Let's take a look at the "I Am" statements that Jesus makes throughout the Gospel of John:
• I am the bread of life (6:35; 41, 48, 51)
• I am the light of the world (8:12; 18, 23)
• I am the gate for the sheep (10:7, 9)
• I am the good shepherd (10:11, 14)
• I am the resurrection and the life (11:25)
• I am the way and the truth and the life (14:6)
• I am the true vine (15:1, 5)
I've bolded the statements that we would most likely NOT take to be literal. We could see Jesus perhaps as a literal shepherd. We could (depending on what exactly you mean by it) see Jesus as literally being the resurrection, life, way, and truth. We would NOT generally take the other ones that way. Is Jesus actually made of light? Is Jesus actually a literal gate? Is Jesus a vine? Unless we do some semantic gymnastics, I don't think any of us would say so. Jesus is clearly speaking metaphorically in several of these "I Am" statements. I would also add that John chapter 4 relates very directly to this issue as well: Jesus offers the woman the "water of life". Does He actually give her water? No. I believe it is VERY reasonable to take the statement in today's passage this way as well. I know this is a slightly tangential issue, but I think an important one as we seek to understand the Bible as a whole.
So what does all of this mean for us?
"If bread is what we need to survive in order to feel well and wholesome, the pursuit of bread becomes complicated when people determine that their needs include things unnecessary for true life. It would be as if the crowd asked Jesus for an ice cream break. Would he serve this too? Christians in the West are familiar with this theme, but we have difficulty diagnosing it in ourselves. Living in a consumer society fueled by sophisticated advertising and relative affluence, we have been given the means and the motivation to pursue countless forms of bread. If I simply possess this car or that cologne, my self-image will be healed and my sense of safety and well-being renewed. Once we possess these things, of course, their seductive appeal evaporates, and we move on to new targets of gratification.
Christians are not exempt from the seductions of the material culture around us. We define the “bread” we need with lives of remarkable indulgence." [2]
Life is found in only one place: Jesus Christ. Will we seek to find life there, or will we believe the promises and lies that will only come up dry and full of death?
I Am the Bread of Life
Some interesting things going on in this passage today. First I'll deal with the obvious stuff, but I also want to take a moment to related this statement to another issue.
The first key to understanding this passage is to not forget that it immediately follows the feeding of the five thousand miracle. What Jesus says here is in response to the expectations of the people after that miracle.
"The full force of Jesus’ sermon comes alive if we keep in mind certain details. Jesus is in the Capernaum synagogue (6:59), and it is Passover. At this time the Jewish community has been studying the Scriptures that pertain to the departure from Egypt (through the sea) and the flight into the desert...
...Judaism understood that there was a storehouse or “treasury” of manna in heaven that had been opened to feed the people during the era of Moses. The Israelites had been fed with 'bread from heaven.' This treasury would be reopened with the coming of the Messiah: 'The treasury of manna shall again descend from on high, and they will eat of it in those years' (2 Baruch 29:8). This would be a messianic second exodus, in which blessedness would rain down from on high. An early Jewish commentary on Exodus 16:4 says, 'As the first redeemer caused manna to descend … so will the latter redeemer cause manna to descend' (Midrash Rabbah Eccles. 1:9)...
...Jesus’ interpretation of the manna follows rabbinic lines perfectly. First, the true source of the manna was not Moses but God. It is God who sends bread...If God is truly the source of true heavenly bread and if Jesus has been sent by God, the shocking turn in 6:33 should come as no surprise. The bread of God is a person (“he who comes down from heaven”), a person who gives life to the world. With a stroke of genius, Jesus has done precisely what he has done throughout the Gospel: He [uses] some feature of Jewish belief and ritual and reinterprets it to refer to himself. He is the manna from God’s treasury for which Israel has been waiting. He has been sent by God as manna descended in the desert." [1] (emphasis mine)
And so Jesus reaches the killer point: I am the bread of life. This is a very difficult teaching that many people CANNOT accept (v. 52). People will leave Him because they think that He is advocating cannabalism. We'll get some of that feeling in tomorrow's reading.
Now that we've dealt with the basic meaning of the passage, I wanted to deal very briefly with a second issue here. When we last covered the "Last Supper", I dealt with three basic views of what goes on during our celebration of the "Lord's Supper". This passage here is one of the key passage in understanding the difference between views, particularly "Transubstantiation" (Roman Catholic) and "Memorialism" (LIALC and most evangelical protestant churches). It all comes down to this question: is Jesus using a literary device in this passage or not? Is Jesus making a straight out statement that should be taken at face value, or is He speaking in metaphor? Those that believe in transubstantiation would say that there is no metaphor here: we are truly being commanded to actually eat Jesus' flesh and drink His blood, hence they believe that the bread and wine are actually transformed into those things and that doing so is a means of obtaining grace and attaining eternal life. I disagree. We believe in "memorialism", which would see that reading of this passage as being overly literal. Jesus is using metaphor here. Why do I/we think that? Let's take a look at the "I Am" statements that Jesus makes throughout the Gospel of John:
• I am the bread of life (6:35; 41, 48, 51)
• I am the light of the world (8:12; 18, 23)
• I am the gate for the sheep (10:7, 9)
• I am the good shepherd (10:11, 14)
• I am the resurrection and the life (11:25)
• I am the way and the truth and the life (14:6)
• I am the true vine (15:1, 5)
I've bolded the statements that we would most likely NOT take to be literal. We could see Jesus perhaps as a literal shepherd. We could (depending on what exactly you mean by it) see Jesus as literally being the resurrection, life, way, and truth. We would NOT generally take the other ones that way. Is Jesus actually made of light? Is Jesus actually a literal gate? Is Jesus a vine? Unless we do some semantic gymnastics, I don't think any of us would say so. Jesus is clearly speaking metaphorically in several of these "I Am" statements. I would also add that John chapter 4 relates very directly to this issue as well: Jesus offers the woman the "water of life". Does He actually give her water? No. I believe it is VERY reasonable to take the statement in today's passage this way as well. I know this is a slightly tangential issue, but I think an important one as we seek to understand the Bible as a whole.
So what does all of this mean for us?
"If bread is what we need to survive in order to feel well and wholesome, the pursuit of bread becomes complicated when people determine that their needs include things unnecessary for true life. It would be as if the crowd asked Jesus for an ice cream break. Would he serve this too? Christians in the West are familiar with this theme, but we have difficulty diagnosing it in ourselves. Living in a consumer society fueled by sophisticated advertising and relative affluence, we have been given the means and the motivation to pursue countless forms of bread. If I simply possess this car or that cologne, my self-image will be healed and my sense of safety and well-being renewed. Once we possess these things, of course, their seductive appeal evaporates, and we move on to new targets of gratification.
Christians are not exempt from the seductions of the material culture around us. We define the “bread” we need with lives of remarkable indulgence." [2]
Life is found in only one place: Jesus Christ. Will we seek to find life there, or will we believe the promises and lies that will only come up dry and full of death?
[1] Gary M. Burge, NIV Application Commentary: John (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000), 197-198.
[2] Ibid, 210.
[2] Ibid, 210.
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