Eating the Bread of Life
John 6:48-59
It is sometimes said that nothing is certain in life except death and taxes. But that is not wholly true. A clever man with a good lawyer can find a way around most if not all of his taxes, but no one escapes death. As George Bernard Shaw remarked, “The statistics on death have not changed. One out of one person dies.”
When we use the words life and death we typically have physical life and physical death in mind. When we say that someone is alive we typically mean that they are breathing. When we say that someone is dead we typically mean that their body has stopped functioning as it should – the heart is no longer beating, the lungs are no longer processing air, the brainwaves have stopped. This is what people typically have in mind when they talk about life and death.
But the scriptures present us with much more complex view of life and death. According to the scriptures our greatest enemy of all is not physical death, but spiritual and eternal death. And the greatest blessing of all is not physical life as we know it, but spiritual life.
To state it another way the scriptures teach that it is possible to be alive physically (the heart beating, the lungs processing air, the brain firing as it ought to fire) and yet to be living in a state of death. Conversely it is possible to be physically dead, and yet alive in the spirit. I suppose I should also say that it is possible to be alive and alive, and dead and dead.
When thinking of life and death our greatest concern should be spiritual life and death, eternal life and death. Though we are most naturally concerned for the well being of the body, we ought to be more concerned for our soul and spirit.
That is precisely what Jesus is concerned with here in John 6. He is concerned with providing spiritual life for people. In a moment I am going to read John 6:48-59. As I do I want you to listen for Jesus’ emphasis on the kind of life He gives.
This is an eternal life or death matter. In 6:48 Jesus repeats what He had said earlier in the chapter, “I am the bread of life.” In 6:50, Jesus says that if you eat of Him as the bread from heaven, you will not die. He states the converse in 6:51, if you eat of this bread, you will live forever. In 6:53, Jesus warns the Jews that unless they eat His flesh and drink His blood, they have no life in themselves. In 6:54, He again states the converse of 6:53, namely that the one who eats His flesh and drinks His blood has eternal life. He reinforces it again in 6:57, “He who eats Me, he also will live because of Me.” And in 6:58 he again contrasts Himself with the manna, which the Israelites ate and died, by saying that the one who eats this bread (meaning Himself) will live forever.
Listen for those things as I read our text, John 6:48-59:
48 I am the bread of life.
49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead.
50 This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die.
51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”
52 The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?”
53 Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.
54 Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
55 For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed.
56 He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.
57 As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me.
58 This is the bread which came down from heaven–not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.”
59 These things He said in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum.
This passage elaborates upon the claim that Jesus made in verse 35 and again in verse 48, “I am the bread of life.” In the preceding passage Jesus presented this teaching in straightforward way. He said it in verse 40, “And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” And again in verse 47, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life.” But many of those who heard Him that day in Capernaum were unbelieving. So in a similar way that He uses parables in the synoptic Gospels, here He uses a startling metaphor to explain His teaching.
In fact, Jesus uses the kind of imagery that, instead of appealing to His audience, would prove appalling to them. He talks about people needing to eat His flesh and drink His blood. This would have been most offensive to his Jewish audience, given that the law strictly forbid the drinking of blood, or the eating of flesh with the blood in it. His teaching here has a twofold effect: it repels those who do not believe and it draws those who do believe.
I would like to ask three questions of this text that I think will help us to grasp what Jesus is teaching here.
What does Jesus offer?
The first question is, what does Jesus offer here?
The answer is that He offers life, eternal life.
These Jews at Capernaum have made it unmistakably clear that what they wanted was for Jesus to do what Moses did. They want to see a repeat of the Exodus event. Moses delivered from Egypt, they wanted a king to deliver them from Rome (6:15). Moses fed them in the wilderness with manna, they wanted to be fed by Christ with bread, not once, but again and again (6:30-31, 34). They were willing to follow Jesus so long as He would do what they wanted Him to do, and be what they wanted Him to be.
Jesus continually points out to them that their expectations of Him were too little, too temporal, too worldly. So in verse 49 Jesus bluntly says, “Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead.” (John 6:49). Jesus’ point is an important one. He is saying, as good and incredible as the manna from above was, it was only physical food. It could sustain life for a time, but it could not deliver from death. It could not in the end deliver from physical death, and certainly it could never deliver from spiritual death. The manna that was given by God through Moses, though good, was certainly limited.
Jesus offers more.
50 This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die.
51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”
Jesus offers life, not just physical life but eternal life. But what does that mean exactly? What is eternal life?
First, notice that Christ is not claiming to keep people from physical death. Physical death, as we have said, is a reality for all human beings. The Bible teaches that it is a consequence of sin in the world. When Jesus says in verse 50 that one may eat of this bread and not die, He cannot mean that those who eat of Him will not die physically.
Notice verse 54: “Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” The phrase, “and I will raise him up at the last day,” is what I want to draw your attention to here. This is a reference to the resurrection of the body when Christ comes again. The last day is the day when Christ comes to judge the world and to usher in the final state – the new heavens and the new earth.
We do not have the time here to discuss the end times in detail – it’s not the point of the text. But notice these two things: One, when Christ offers eternal life we should think, in part, of life lived eternally in resurrected, raised up, physical bodies – bodies, much like the body of our Lord in His resurrection. Two, if it is true that Christ will raise us up on the last day, it must also be true that physical death is inevitable. In other words, Christ is not promising here to save from physical death, but from spiritual death.
Paul puts it this way in his great chapter about the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15):
“50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. 51 Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed– 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”” (1 Cor. 15:50–54)
The second thing that we should notice about the eternal life offered by Christ is that it is something we experience in the here and now, and not just in the future.
Look again at verse 53: “Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.’” This is an interesting thing for Jesus to say to group of people standing before Him, living and breathing. “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have [present tense] no life in you.”
It is not, you will have no life in you (in the future), but you have no life in you now. They were alive, and yet they were dead. Spiritual life and death, eternal life and death are not merely future realities. They are states of being that we experience in the here and now.
Verse 54 says positively what verse 53 said negatively: “Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” Again, notice that “has” is present tense. It is true that the eternal life offered by Christ has a future aspect – those in Christ will be raised at the last day. But this eternal life offered by Christ is experience by those who believe right now. To believe in Christ truly is pass from death to life.
We already saw this in chapter 5, didn’t we? “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life,” (John 5:24).
Death, you see, is not merely a future event, it is a state of being. So also with eternal life. It is not merely a future benefit for the believer, but a current state. You don’t have to wait until you die or until the resurrection at the last day to have eternal life. You can have it today.
Of course we look forward to Christ’s return. We long for the day when all things will be made new – sin and death will be no more – we long for that day when Christ will bring all things to a glorious conclusion. But for the believer, eternal life is something we taste now. In fact, if you don’t have it eternal life in this world, you will not have it in the world to come.
So Christ offers eternal life – life everlasting. Those in Christ have a foretaste of it in the here and now having passed from a state of death to a state of life. Physical death still threatens, but for those in Christ Jesus it has lost its sting. This is what Jesus offers.
How can Jesus provide eternal life?
The next question that must be asked is how can he possibly provide such a magnificent thing?
The answer is that He can provide it because He is the bread of life.
Here in chapter 6 Jesus repeatedly offers Himself as the spiritual food that gives eternal life and eternal satisfaction to all who eat:
27 “Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.” …
32 Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 “For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” …
35 And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. …
48 “I am the bread of life. …
50 “This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. 51 “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”
58 “This is the bread which came down from heaven–not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.”
This is obviously metaphorical, or symbolic, language. Jesus is not really bread, of course, just as He is not physically a door (John 10:7, 9) or a (John 15:1, 5) vine as He will also later claim in the Gospel of John.
Here is the meaning of it. Just as physical bread possesses the qualities necessary to impart physical life, so too, the person of Jesus Christ possesses the qualities necessary to impart spiritual life, eternal life.
Do kids still make mud pies? I remember playing in the dirt and mud as a kid, pretending to cook food out of dirt, do you? There is a reason why we eat bread and not dirt. The obvious reason, besides the taste of the it, is that bread, by its nature and makeup, is able to nourish the body, whereas dirt is not. The physical makeup of bread corresponds to the physical needs of the body.
And similarly there is a reason why Jesus can offer eternal life as no other person can. Only He, having come from above, can provide life from above. Only He corresponds to the need of the human heart and spirit.
And it is in the last phrase in verse 51 that Jesus tells us how He will provide eternal life. “… the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.” He will provide it through the giving of His flesh and the shedding of His own blood.
Christ’s death on the cross is what is He is talking about here. Jesus Christ would give Himself up for the sins of the world, for all those who believe. His body would be broken, His blood spilt. It would be through this substitutionary sacrifice that He would provide eternal life for all who would believe.
Jesus, being fully man, lived as man should live. He obeyed God completely. He did His Father’s will perfectly. And Jesus, being fully God, had the ability – the power – to take upon Himself the sins of the world, and to atone for those sins by dying and raising again the third day.
Jesus Christ is the bread of life, the living bread, true food and true drink, because he is from above. He was no ordinary man.
If Jesus was just an ordinary man, it would do no good to believe in Him. To trust in an ordinary man for eternal life would be like eating dirt for the nourishment of the body. It will not give you life.
How can Jesus Christ provide eternal life? He can provide it because He was and is God come in the flesh. He made atonement for sins through His death, His broken body and spilt blood.
How do we receive it?
The last question is this, how do we receive eternal life?
The answer is that we receive eternal life by believing in Him.
Verse 51: “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever …”
Verse 54: “Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”
What does it mean to eat His flesh and drink His blood? This is a metaphorical, or symbolic, way of saying what He already said in a most straightforward way earlier in the chapter:
Verse 35: “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.” (John 6:35)
Verse 47: “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life.” (John 6:47)
So, to eat of Christ is to believe in Him, to trust in Him, to have faith in Him. Notice the parallels between verse 40 and verse 54: In John 6:40, Jesus says, “And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” The requirement for eternal life is to see the Son and to believe in Him. The promised results are that a believer has eternal life and Jesus will raise him up on the last day. In 6:54 Jesus says the parallel, “Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” These are exactly the same results as in 6:40, but instead of seeing the Son and believing in Him, Jesus substitutes eating His flesh and drinking His blood. Since things equal to the same thing are equal to each other, eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking His blood refer to believing in His death on the cross as your only hope for eternal life.
Let me just take a few minutes correct a false view of what Jesus teaches here. Some interpret these verses to refer to partaking of communion, or the Lord’s Supper. They say that we receive God’s grace of eternal life through this ritual.
Although when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper I will often use these words of Jesus as a reminder what it means to believe in Jesus, I never intend for you to think that by eating the bread and drinking the cup we gain eternal life. Let me be clear, eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking His blood do not refer to partaking of the Lord’s Supper. True, there are parallels that we can draw between the Lord’s Supper as later instituted and Jesus’ words here. As Colin Brown puts it (The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology [Zondervan], 2:535), “John 6 is not about the Lord’s Supper; rather, the Lord’s Supper is about what is described in John 6.”
A.W. Pink (Exposition of John, on monergism.com) gives four reasons that John 6 does not refer to communion. First, communion had not yet been instituted. Jesus instituted it on the night He was betrayed. Those who heard these words on that day would have no context for that. Second, Jesus was speaking here to unbelievers and communion is for believers. Only those who have believed in Jesus Christ and already recieved the gift of eternal life should participate in the Lord’s Supper. Third, the eating here is unto salvation or eternal life, while eating the Lord’s Supper is for those already saved to remember the sacrifice of Jesus. It points to fellowship with Him. Fourth, the Lord’s Supper does not produce the results that are here attributed to eating and drinking Christ. If Jesus’ words here refer to communion, then you gain eternal life by partaking, which contradicts many other Scriptures that show that salvation is through faith in Christ, not through participating in a ritual.
Eternal life comes only through believing in Jesus Christ, not through some mystical experience when we take communion. So, to be clear: Eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking His blood refer to believing in and personally appropriating His death on the cross as your only hope for eternal life.
Have you done that? Have you believed in Jesus, that He died for your sin and was raised from the dead? Do you have eternal life? If not, today is the day for you to believe in Him and be saved.
There’s one last point I want to make about believing in Jesus. And this one is for those of us who already have believed in Jesus and have eternal life. It’s a point emphasized by the tense of the verbs used by Jesus. In verse 51 the word “eats” is in the aorist tense in the Greek, meaning that the eating is described as a snapshot, one-time event. We are to eat of Christ, to believe in Him. And the result is, according to verse 51, “If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. “ The same can be said of verse 50, and 53. The eating is described as a particular event. Salvation happens the moment you believe.
But notice this, as we continue to read we come to verse 54 where the word used to describe the eating of Christ changes, as does the tense in the Greek. Let me read those verses from the ESV (English Standard Version) because its translation is clearer:
Verse 54: “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:54, ESV)
Verse 56: “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.” (John 6:56, ESV)
Verse 57: “As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.” (John 6:57, ESV)
Verse 58: “This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” (John 6:58, ESV)
Instead of the word “eats” we see the word “feeds”. And here is the significant thing – instead of the aorist tense, which describes an event as a snapshot, one time event, we have the present tense used which communicates ongoing activity.
The application is this: We do indeed have eternal life the moment that we believe (aorist tense; eat). But those who have truly believed in Christ feed upon Him continually (present tense; feed).
In other words, the saving faith of a true Christian has more in common with the steady and consistent grazing of cattle than the feeding frenzy of a pride of lions.
It is true, we have eternal life the moment we believe, but true faith is an abiding faith – an ongoing and consistent trust in Christ Jesus our Lord. In fact Jesus uses that word, abides, in verse 56, “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.” To abide means to remain, to last, to endure.
The implication here is that we should eat often. Do you feed your soul on Christ every day? Feed on Christ often in His Word. Don’t be satisfied with the fact that you ate last week or yesterday. You need manna for your soul today.
And don’t wait until you’re starving to eat, but eat at set times. Dietary experts say that breakfast is the most important meal not to skip. Likewise, it’s spiritually healthy to spend at least a short time each morning feeding your soul on Christ.
One final thought: You can’t overeat when it comes to feeding on Jesus! When we sit down to a holiday feast, it all tastes so good that it’s easy to eat more than you should. But with Christ, the more of Jesus that you feed on, the healthier you will be!
May I make some brief suggestions for application before we close?
The first is most obvious. I would urge you to think deeply and seriously about life and death.
Having thought about life and death I would then urge you to believe (trust) in Christ from the heart.
Having believed in Christ from the heart I would then urge you to go on trusting in Christ in from the heart.
