John 6:34 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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John 6:34

Comments

Without truly understanding what they are asking for, the people say, Lord, give us this bread. How the Lord strives to make it clear! ‘I am’ – the first of seven great I AMs. ‘I am the bread of life’, the fulfilment of the ancient symbol of the manna. Bread stands for the staple food in every culture. He alone is that bread, the fulfilment of the manna in the wilderness, Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity. ‘He that cometh to me’, not ‘they that come’, but ‘he that cometh’. We come to him as individuals, personally, one by one. He shall have eternal life and provision and happiness.Many think when he said these words, ‘I am the bread of life’, he even pointed to himself. It was so obvious what he was saying: this is eternal and spiritual. Up to a point, they would have grasped that. Don’t think of even the unbelieving Jews as failing completely to understand the significance of his words. They understood the metaphors of salvation, the bread of life, the typical sense that attaches to the manna given to the children of Israel in the wilderness, that it represented a spiritual Messiah. But they did not want it. They did not want this one proclaiming himself to be the Son of God, who was preaching about repentance and remission of sin and the receiving of new life and everlasting life. They did not want to consider those things despite his mighty miracles. They were convinced that as Jewish people they were already saved and safe. It was humiliating to understand the implications of this: that they, not just the Gentiles, they, the Hebrews, the children of Israel, also needed repentance and personal salvation and life, and at this time they rejected him, or at least the masses did.

Application

Bread satisfies hunger and when we come to Christ he satisfies our deepest needs. We see that he is designed by God to fulfil our needs. ‘But I thought I just had to hope and have faith.’ No, when you are truly converted, you know he is blessing you. You have a definite experience. You have a greater insight into life, and you are certain of it.

All can eat bread, the rich, the poor, the educated, the ignorant. ‘Oh, but I want to find the Lord on the basis of my own knowledge, studying, reading books.’ That would be elitist. It is no good knowing about Christ if you do not eat of him, that is, trust in him for life. Eating is a very personal act. If you do not eat, you won’t be nourished. We do not eat Christ with the mouth but with the soul.

Questions

Let no one think that this has anything to do with the Lord’s Supper. [The Lord’s Supper had not yet been instituted and was not spoken of in advance by the Lord. It is true that the Lord’s Supper uses the same metaphor as Christ uses here, but no act of physical eating can convey the spiritual blessing that he is speaking of. That blessing was only obtained by spiritual means, by faith, and Christ confirms in verse 63 that the flesh counts for nothing, and that the words he has spoken are spirit, not flesh, not physical. Neither the physical act of eating of the manna in the wilderness, nor the physical eating of bread or drinking of the cup in the Lord’s Supper are able to confer a spiritual blessing. That blessing comes only through faith in Jesus Christ, faith which appropriates the blessing that comes from his atoning death on Calvary.]

Outline

Purpose

Introduction

John 6:34 Commentary and Bible Study