John 6:28-35
The Bread Of Life
John 6:28-35 MKJV Then they said to Him, What shall we do that
we might work the works of God? (29)
Jesus answered and said to them, This is the work of God, that you believe on
Him whom He has sent. (30) Therefore
they said to Him, What sign do you show then, so that we may see and believe
you? What do you work? (31) Our fathers
ate the manna in the desert, as it is written, "He gave them bread from
Heaven to eat." (32) Then Jesus
said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, Moses did not give you that 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.
(34) Then they said to him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. (35) And Jesus said to them, I am the bread
of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes on Me shall
never thirst.
The crowd
are always trying to turn the conversation back to “give us bread” (v.31 &
v.34) they are focused on having God meet their physical needs. But Jesus is
trying to point them to the meeting of their spiritual needs.
The crowd
starts off with a polite question to the Rabbi “What
shall we do that we might work the works of God?” I think this was meant to
impress Jesus with their piety, flatter Him a little, and put Him in a good
mood so they would get what they wanted – which was bread. As a missionary I
have sometimes been asked to preach in a church and later found out this was
just “buttering me up” in the (vain) hope that they would get funding from
Australia or America. This question to Jesus is quite similar.
Jesus replies with the quite curt: “This is the
work of God, that you believe on Him whom He has sent.” Faith is Jesus as the Son of God enables us
to “work the works of God”, indeed without such faith we “can do nothing” (John
15:5). The true work of God is faith, and all other works flow from that one
main work of trust in God.
For
instance as a missionary I must first trust the Lord and step out in faith, as
I step out in faith and trust God, then from the work of faith flow the other
works of teaching, mercy and compassion. The work of faith begins and under
girds the whole enterprise- and if that faith should flag, then I end up with a
bureaucracy not a ministry.
The
next two verses boil down to them trying to strike a bargain with Jesus around
the proposition: “Give us bread and we will believe in You”.
(30) Therefore they
said to Him, What sign do you show then, so that we may see and believe you?
What do you work? (31) Our fathers ate
the manna in the desert, as it is written, "He gave them bread from Heaven
to eat."
Jesus
then decides to use this as a jumping off point to preach the gospel:
(32) Then Jesus said
to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, Moses did not give you that 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.
This is
very similar to the same “hook” Jesus used with the woman at the well except
that “living water” is replaced with “bread from Heaven” and later “bread of
life”. Jesus of course is referring to Himself as the true Bread from Heaven
(thus making this a good passage for Communion.) Jesus is the One who came down
from heaven to give spiritual life and nourishment to all who believe.
The
“manna in the wilderness” was simply a type of the true Bread from Heaven,
which is Christ. Thus is the Old is fulfilled in the New.
“and
gives life to the world” – Christ gives life to the world, to all who will
receive it in this world, and without Christ the world is life-less. Without
Him we are utterly dead in our trespasses and sins - but by grace He has given
us new life and raised us with Him to sit in heavenly realms (Ephesians
4:1-7).
1 John 5:11-12 MKJV And this is the record, that God has
given to us everlasting life, and this life is in His Son. (12) He who has the Son has life; he who does
not have the Son of God does not have life.
Totally missing the point the crowd asks: “Lord, evermore
give us this bread.” And Jesus responds:
“I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he
who believes on Me shall never thirst.”
The spiritual hunger of mankind is met in Christ and finds
more than enough to satisfy even the most ravenous spiritual appetites. There
is so much to Christ that we can never devour it all.
There
is a dearth of preaching about Jesus, His attributes and character and miracles
and nature – and the people are hungry and thirsty while some pastors share
ideas and stories and notions and talk about good things but not God things.
Paul preached nothing but “Christ and Him crucified” and I try to make sure
every sermon of mine has Christ at the center.
Jesus
is the food and drink of the Christian soul and if we are to feed our sheep we
must feed them Jesus. Let’s focus our sermons and bible studies on Jesus Christ
and His salvation and we shall see true church growth in both grace and number.
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