Vv. 24-27: Once the crowd realized that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum in search of Jesus.
When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”
Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”
Vv. 34-40: “Sir,” they said, “from now on give us this bread.”
Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”
Vv. 43-51: “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
Vv. 53-59: Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever.” He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
My Understanding: The people of Jesus’ day were not all that different from the people of today. We watch as God performs miracle after miracle in our lives and in the lives of others we know, and yet we often forget what he has done when we are going through the storms of our lives and are in great need of another miracle of God. Or, we don’t truly understand who Jesus really is and why he came and the significance of the miracles that we see him perform every day, and/or we get caught up in the miracles themselves and we become followers of the miracles of God instead of becoming followers of the God of the miracles.
Jesus knew the hearts of the people who were following after him, and he knows our hearts, too. He knows which ones of us are truly following him because of who he is and those who are following him just for the show, the entertainment value, the miracles of God they see him perform, what they can get, or for what they perceive to be the meaning of being a follower of Christ, though their understanding of who he truly is and what it really means to be one of his followers may be greatly lacking. He knew that some of his followers were just following him because he had fed them, and they wanted more. And, the Lord knows which ones of us are following him, too, just because of what we think we can get out of him.
Jesus told the people then, and he is still telling us today that we should not have a “give me” or “entitlement” mindset when it comes to our relationship with Jesus Christ. We should not follow him just for the blessings or the miracles or for whatever selfish motives we might have in becoming one of his followers. We should not think of Jesus/God as a genie in a bottle who is just there to grant our every wish and desire. That is not who God is and to treat him such is to dishonor him.
Instead of a “give me” approach to faith in Jesus Christ, we should have eternity’s values in mind and heart, and should be willing to give our all to our Lord Jesus Christ in service to him to advance his eternal kingdom, not to advance our own worldly kingdoms. Instead of thinking about what we want him to do for us or to give to us, we should think about and should act upon those thoughts concerning how we can live lives pleasing unto him, loving him and loving people, and giving ourselves to Christ as living sacrifices, no longer conformed to the likeness of this world and to fleshly appetites, but daily being transformed by the renewing of our minds, so that we think in terms of eternity and eternal values instead of having our minds on worldly things that won’t last and are destined to perish.
The people asked Jesus what they must do to do the works that God requires. Jesus answered them by telling them that the work of God is to believe in the one he has sent, namely Jesus Christ. Yet, the people wanted a miraculous sign, and they reminded Jesus of how their forefathers were given manna to eat in the desert. Jesus’ response to that was, again, to take them away from thinking about physical bread that would only temporarily satisfy them, and that would only satisfy physical hunger, and instead he led them again toward thinking about spiritual matters, i.e. those things of eternal value. He told them that Moses did not give them bread from heaven, but the Father is the one who gives them the true bread from heaven. Jesus was speaking about himself, but they did not understand.
So, in response to their request for the “true bread from heaven” who “gives life to the world,” Jesus told them plainly that he was that bread. Just as Jesus told the woman at the well about the “living water” that would never leave her thirsty, he told the crowd which was following him about the true bread from heaven, Jesus Christ, who gives life to those who put their faith and trust in him. For those who would choose to believe in him, they would never go hungry and they would never be thirsty. He was speaking metaphorically just as he did with the woman at the well, for he was speaking of spiritual hunger and thirst, and that only the true bread from heaven could ever satisfy that hunger and thirst in mankind.
Jesus went on to tell them that even though they had seen him, the true bread from heaven, still they did not believe, though some did. The Jews began to grumble about Jesus because of the words he had just spoken to them, and they began to examine his human qualifications, looking at him strictly from a human point of view. Jesus’ response to their questioning that he was the true bread who came down from heaven was to let them know that no one can come to him unless the Father draws him, so even the faith to believe in Jesus Christ is a gift from God.
Then, Jesus took it up a notch, and this is where it separated the sheep from the goats, i.e. separating those who were his true followers from those who were not, and who were following him in form only. Jesus, again, was speaking metaphorically, but some of the people listening to him took his words literally. He told them that they had to eat the bread if they wanted to live forever, and then he told them that the bread was his flesh, which he gives for the life of the world. Try to imagine with me for a moment being one in the crowd that day and hearing Jesus’ words, not knowing who he is and thinking that he was just a man (mankind) like you and me. We have to sympathize, to a point, with his listeners as he told them how they must eat his flesh and drink his blood if they were to be his true disciples, and if they were to have eternal life.
So, what did Jesus mean? These are hard words for us to understand, even though we have the advantage of having the word of God and of knowing who he truly is. Other words for “eat” are accept, believe, absorb or partake, i.e. to share in or take part in something (Encarta). Jesus’ physical body was crucified on the cross for our sins, and his physical blood was shed on the cross for our sins, so when we partake in his body and blood, we are accepting into our lives what he did for us on the cross, and via his resurrection, by being crucified with Christ to our sins and by allowing the Holy Spirit of God to raise us to new lives, free from the control of sin, and free to walk in obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ.
In response to Jesus’ words, many of his followers felt the teaching was too hard for them to accept, they were offended by it, they did not believe Jesus, and so they turned their backs on Jesus and no longer followed him. Oh, what a sad picture this is! How it should break our hearts that so many are deserting true faith in Jesus Christ, because when they understand the true gospel of Jesus Christ and what it requires of Jesus’ followers, they find the teaching too hard, too, which is why so many are watering down the gospel and/or are becoming followers of a watered down gospel message, which they have chosen to follow instead of the hard teaching of the cross of Jesus Christ. The Bible says that the cross is an offense. If people are not offended by the gospel message, then perhaps what is being preached is not really the gospel.
The Lord gave me an illustration a month ago of a train with its cars on a track heading toward the judgment of God. He showed me that this train represented those who are lacking in faith yet who are in the institutional church and who are or who claim to be Christ’s followers, but who are following a gospel of men because they have fallen into the trap of the snare of this false gospel message. The true church is mixed in with those who are not true followers, just like Jesus’ followers were a mixture of true believers and those who followed him only in form or because of what they could get from him. Yet, a time is coming when Jesus, in judgment, will separate the sheep from the goats. Jesus is calling out to his church to repent of their sins and to stop being followers of men, but to accept the true gospel message, which is a hard teaching to accept, but is the only gospel that gives life eternal to those who are willing to accept it and to appropriate it into their lives.
The Train / An Original Work / July 17, 2011
The train is coming down the tracks.
It captures all who in faith lack.
The engine is controlled by man;
Leads each captive to ruin.
The cars, they are God’s holy church,
Which follows men who are on the search
To trap the church in their own snare;
For Christ they do not care.
The track, it leads to God’s judgment
For those who are not repentant,
But follow, each his own stubborn way,
And Jesus they do not obey.
So God is calling to His bride
To turn from sin and in Christ abide;
Stop placing their trust solely in man;
Trust Christ for His forgiveness.
Song Lyrics @ Public Domain
Link to song
He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:
“‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
7 They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men.’
8 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men” (Mark 7:6-8).
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