The Bread of Life (I)

This is a transcript. It may contain some inaccuracies.

One of the most important issues in our era is the issue of entertainment. Entertainment. The evangelical church has in many ways conformed to our entertainment-mad world, reflecting the world by restructuring worship, the worship service, all of church life, in the hope that if the world finds us fun enough, cool enough, then somehow they'll find Christ fun enough, cool enough, and maybe they'll believe in Him as a result.

A.W. Tozer wrote these insightful words on the subject in the middle of the 1900s. Listen to what he said—very salient words. And I quote:

"It is now common practice in most evangelical churches to offer the people, especially the young people, a maximum of entertainment and a minimum of serious instruction. It is scarcely possible in most places to get anyone to attend a meeting where the only attraction is God. One can only conclude that God's professed children are bored with Him, for they must be wooed to meeting with a stick of striped candy in the form of religious movies, games, and refreshments. Any objection," he goes on to say, "to the carryings on of our present golden calf Christianity is met with a triumphant reply, ‘But we are winning them.’

And Tozer asks, winning them to what?

“Winning them to what? To true discipleship, to cross-carrying, to self-denial, to separation from the world, to crucifixion of the flesh, to holy living, to nobility of character, to a despising of the world's treasures, to hard self-discipline, to love for God, to total commitment to Christ? Of course, the answer to all of these questions is no."

Tozer makes a very important point. The purpose of Christian preaching, the purpose of Christian worship, is not to draw a casually interested crowd. It isn't. That's not the purpose. A church growth movement has tried to make that the purpose of the church and worship, but that is not the purpose. That is absolutely not the purpose.

The purpose of Christian preaching, the purpose of Christian worship, is to lead people to a life-changing devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ. Today's entertainment-based church—what Al Mohler called a "mick worship of a mick deity"—doesn't cut it. It isn't biblical.

In fact, as we study our text for today, what we will realize is that Jesus regularly and consistently refused to make it easy, convenient, or cool to follow Him. The truth is that Jesus, in fact, worked hard to drive away the false, to drive away the casual entertainment seekers. And He labored to draw the true as well.

When you read the Gospels, you realize He intentionally worked to drive away the false. When the crowd sought Jesus for the externals, the peripheral, the worldly things that they thought Jesus could give them—bread here in this case, in this chapter, to fill their tummy—Jesus cast a stone of stumbling in their path. Their desire, in this case for bread, needed to be replaced with a desire for Bread—small "b," capital "B," Bread needed to be set aside—small "b," capital "B" Bread, Jesus Himself, needed to be what they desperately sought.

Casual, mercenary, self-focused interest in Christ needed to be replaced completely with a deep, deep God-given heart commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. The wheat of true disciples had to be sifted out of the chaff—the chaff of the superficial, skin-deep, entertainment-engrossed pseudo-disciples.

Notice the end of the chapter, chapter 6. Jesus points this out for us. That's exactly what happens. There's a sifting process for us here. Look at verse 59, for instance: "These things He said in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum." Verse 60 continues: "Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, 'This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?'" Go down to verse 66: "As a result of this, many of His disciples went away and were not walking with Him anymore." In fact, in the verse that follows, Jesus challenges the twelve and says, "Do you also want to go?"

Several weeks ago, when we looked at chapter 5 of John, I mentioned that chapter 5 was a key transition or turning point in this Gospel. The reason is that in chapter 5, Jesus forced the religious leaders back into a corner with the event of healing on the Sabbath. He forced them into a corner, to either accept Him or reject Him. Tragically, they rejected Him.

Here in chapter 6, Jesus does exactly the same thing, only this time it's not the leaders—it is with the crowds, the people. He forces them into a corner and forces them to say: I will either be aligned with and have allegiance to Jesus Christ, or I will not. He refuses to revel in or even accept their superficial attention. He will not keep them hanging around with the promise of more miracles and more signs. No. Instead, He intentionally throws down the gauntlet of commitment, as it were, and in a shocking way with these people He says in verse 54: "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life." That statement would have been absolutely shocking to them.

In this sermon, Jesus uses the challenge of commitment to draw the true on one hand and to drive away the false.

Now, before we get to the sermon itself, let me remind us of the setting from our last week's study. The day before, remember, Jesus had healed. He taught. And He miraculously fed thousands of people. The crowds, consisting primarily—but not exclusively—of superficial, miracle-chasing disciples, they wanted, you remember, to make Him king.

To foil their attempt, Jesus first sent His susceptible disciples in the only available boat, and then He withdrew to a mountain by Himself. Then He himself went to the disciples who were stranded in the midst of a violent sea—the Sea of Galilee—because of a violent storm. Jesus crossed the Sea of Galilee, walking on the water and the angry waves. You remember, the disciples then received Him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached its intended destination.

Not to be put off so easily, the crowds, there on the eastern shore, did not give up. They got into the boats that had come across from Tiberias the next morning and crossed to Capernaum themselves, on the northwest shore. They went to Capernaum, the headquarters of Jesus, in search of Him, and, having tracked Him down at the synagogue, they immediately demanded more miracles. That was what they were after, after all, right?

In truth, these superficial, entertainment-driven pseudo-disciples were actually becoming a hindrance to the earthly ministry of Jesus. They were a hindrance to His labor, they were kind of in the way, a distraction for the true disciples. Jesus is not after big crowds. Jesus is after true, authentic, genuine hearts. And so, as we saw last time, He told them to stop working for bread and He told them to start pursuing Bread—capital "B." He told them to start believing and pursuing the Bread of Life. Verse 27 of this chapter says: "Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal."

Now that brings us to another image that Jesus uses for belief, for faith. Last time we saw the image of coming to Jesus. Now we have to get this right to understand John 6. The other image that He uses for belief is eating and drinking, and this is key. Make sure that we don't miss this. This is another image that He uses for belief, having faith in Christ, and that is eating and drinking.

Since the whole discussion is about the miracle that Jesus performed and their desire for a repeat of it—they want to be fed again for free—Jesus takes that image and He says: "Listen, stop seeking temporal life by eating temporal food. You need to seek eternal life by eating eternal food." So, you need to do a spiritual kind of eating and drinking—eating and drinking Jesus Himself. That’s another way of saying: believe. Have faith. Receive. Repent. Trust.

You and I take food into ourselves for sustenance and life, and in the same way, you must receive and embrace Jesus spiritually into your being to have eternal life. An example is verse 51. We'll consider it closely when we get there, Lord willing, but look at verse 51 for a moment: "I am," He says, "the living bread that came down from heaven." Now watch the language: "If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever, and also the bread which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh."

So Jesus says to the crowd: stop being carnal. Stop thinking of your belly. What you really need is eternal life, and work—labor—toward that. You remember what they said last time, right? In the previous section, they said: "Oh, works, works, what works must we do? Give us the list; we'll do it." Jesus says: "One work, which is no work at all: believe in Me, come to Me, feed on Me." But they don’t have real faith.

All of this now brings us to their third question under the heading: the perverse question, verses 30 and 31. Look at their third question. It’s a question of perversity—a perverse question. You remember the first question was a question of curiosity: "When did You come here?" (verse 25). Their second question was a question of religiosity, right? (verse 28): "What should we do so that we may work the works of God?" Now we have a third question in verse 30—a question of perversity.

They said to Him, in verse 30: "What then do You do for a sign, so that we may see and believe? What work do You perform?" Fast forward: Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1, "The Jews asked for a sign." Jesus offers eternal life, but sadly, these people are far from thinking about that. They’re far more preoccupied—far more interested—in temporal, right-now life.

We want bread. We want food. They’re hoping that Jesus would take up the role of a revolutionary leader. They want to make Him king. As Moses led their fathers to freedom from the bonds of Egypt in the Exodus, so they hope that Jesus would lead a successful resistance movement against the Romans, freeing them from their despised Gentile masters. Here, they demand further confirmation of Jesus’ power.

We want to make You king, and we will make You king; we just want to confirm that what You did yesterday was not just a yesterday thing, but that You can do it today and tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after. So they said to Him (verse 30): "What then do You do for a sign, so that we may see and believe?” — that we may see and believe — “What work do You perform?"

Now, one would have thought that all the healing Jesus had done in the past weeks—even the day before—all of that would have been more than enough. It wasn’t. They want confirmation—more confirmation. In fact, they have something very specific in mind, not just confirmation. They not only ask for a miracle or a sign; they are bold—brazen—so bold as to suggest to Jesus exactly which miracle would prove that He is indeed God’s Messiah, that would prove and continue to prove Him to them.

In verse 30, they ask, “What then do You do for a sign so that we may see and believe You? What work do You perform?” Then they give Him the specific detail of what they have in mind: “Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

Behind this request for a sign was the Jewish expectation that when the Messiah came, He would renew the miracle of the manna. In spite of Jesus’ miraculous feeding of the 20,000-plus people, they’re asking for more. This is what they have in mind: yes, You fed 20,000-plus people; You fed us, right? Oh, but Moses—Moses fed the nation. Can You beat that? Can You top that miracle? If You can do this, then we’ll believe You.

Jesus fed a large crowd; Moses fed the entire nation. Jesus did it once; Moses did it for 40 years. Jesus provided ordinary food; Moses gave them bread out of heaven. So they’re essentially saying, “Okay, Jesus, You gave us a little sign—let’s see You now do a big one, like Moses did. Then we’ll believe in You.”

Listen to J.C. Ryle’s words:

“They were always deceiving themselves with the idea that they wanted more evidence and pretending that if they had this evidence, they would believe. Thousands in every age” —listen to this, and maybe some perhaps sitting here this morning— “thousands in every age do just the same. The plain truth is that it is lack of heart, not lack of evidence, that keeps people back from Christ.”

Do it again, do it again, Jesus. Give us a food miracle, but now on a greater scale.

But no sign is going to be given to them. As always, Jesus refuses to be a tool for entertaining the crowds or for serving any other human self-serving agenda. They didn’t get the first one. Remember, as we saw last week, in the words of one commentator: “Instead of seeing in the bread the sign, they had seen in the sign only the bread.” They didn’t interpret it rightly, so why should Jesus fill their bellies for one more day?

Again, Jesus tries to get their focus off signs, off miracles, off the temporal, the visual fixation on this life. And therefore, He responds to their request for more bread—for free bread forever—by offering them something else: true Bread, Himself. This is a conscious, intentional move to draw the true and drive away the false on the part of Jesus.

His sermon—the Bread of Life sermon, as it is normally called—offers bread, capital B, in place of small-b, bread. It begins in verse 32. As we begin to look at this marvelous sermon, let us do that first of all under the heading “The Powerful Declaration.”

Now, before we jump right in, we need to see the key to understanding the sermon of Jesus. We need to set the table a little bit, before we get into the sermon. It’s really one of the most fascinating sermons recorded in all of Scripture. In it, Jesus exposits the text that they offer Him in verse 31. You see the text they offered Him? “He gave them bread from heaven to eat.” That’s the text they offer Him. He exposits this text, expounds this text—this Old Testament text, word for word, in this sermon. That’s what He does.

Now, you know that Jesus taught in different ways depending on the situation. Sometimes, as God’s living Word, Jesus spoke direct, authoritative revelation—He is God Himself. Sometimes, He told parables or stories He made up that had significant theological and profound practical points. Most often, Jesus explained texts from the Old Testament as an expository preacher. “You have heard it said, but I say to you,” and He interprets it, giving the right interpretation. He did that, for example, in Nazareth, in Luke 4, teaching in the synagogue about Himself from Isaiah 61:1–2.

Now in this case, Jesus is following His synagogue habit of expounding a text. Not only does He expound the Old Testament text that they offer Him, but He does so word for word. The text that the crowd challenges Jesus with is from either Psalm 78:24–25 or Exodus 16:15. Based on this text, they demand a manna-like miracle: bread from heaven, just like Moses gave to their fathers in the wilderness during the Exodus.

“Jesus,” they say, “we want You to do what You did yesterday. We want You to do it again, and we want You to do it every day—for the whole nation.”

Jesus takes this text and applies it to Himself word for word. To understand how He does this, I must introduce us to one technical term this morning: type. Type.

You know well that, in the Old Testament, God sometimes used events, people, or things—such as implements in the tabernacle—to foreshadow something, right? These looked ahead to something that Jesus would be or do. For example, the Passover lamb.

The Passover lamb—and, in fact, all the lambs of the sacrificial system—they looked ahead. They were types. That’s the technical term. They were types of Christ. They foreshadowed Him. These types were intended by God to point ahead to what Jesus Christ, the ultimate Lamb of God, would do on the cross.

And you remember Jonah’s three-day stay in the belly of the fish? According to Jesus in Matthew 12, that was a God-intended type—a foreshadowing of His own three-day stay in the tomb and then His glorious resurrection.

Now, as you know, some interpreters go wild with this and see types everywhere. Every bowl, and pole, and curtain in the tabernacle turns into something, into some sort of type. But the key to legitimate biblical types is this: they are a God-intended connection. They are a God-intended connection.

There’s a God-intended correlation between Christ on one hand and the Old Testament person, event, or thing. And here’s the key beloved: it’s not an interpreter-imagined connection. It’s not an interpreter-imagined connection.

Because we can sit down with our Bible and imagine a million things in the Old Testament connected in some way to Christ and then let our imagination run wild. That is not legitimate types. Legitimate types is a God-intended connection.

Well, you might say, the next question on your mind is, how do we know that God intended an event or a person in the Old Testament to be a type? The answer is: He tells you.

When God intends a type, He tells you that He intended it to be a type. For example, we know that Christ is the fulfillment of the sacrificial lamb type—the Passover lamb. How do we know this?

Remember, John the Baptist looked at Jesus and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God.” And in 1 Corinthians 5:7, it says that Christ is our Passover Lamb. So when God intends a type, He will tell you so you don’t have to guess.

That means we have to study the Word of God very hard. Right? We need to be diligent students. You’re on safe ground if you let the New Testament identify for you what God intends to be a type, rather than letting your imagination run all over the place.

Here, what Jesus does for us is that He identifies a God-intended type. What is it? Manna. Manna.

Historically, God gave manna in the wilderness, to the nation of Israel in the wilderness. Real bread, supernaturally provided bread, to real people. However, Jesus says, God did that, and it was important then, but God intended that also to foreshadow, to look ahead, to a greater provision of bread. That was a God-intended picture: bread from heaven that saves your life. That’s a God-intended picture looking forward to the greater heavenly bread—Jesus Christ Himself, the Bread of Life.

God intended that, Jesus said. God orchestrated the history of Israel and did the miracle of manna specifically to point ahead to what He would do in Christ, Jesus, God the Son.
That’s how Jesus preaches this text. He preaches this six-word text in the Greek, six words. Manna is a type of Himself. Something intended by God, looking ahead to Jesus Christ.
Now, with that understanding, I trust we're ready for the sermon. Let me give you how He does it, word for word, and then we’ll work our way through it. We’re not going to finish everything today. We’re just going to start today.

Number one, look at how He exposits the text—the text that they gave Him. Remember the text that they gave him in verse 31: "He gave them bread from heaven to eat."

The giver of the bread—that comes from the word "He gave."
The identity of the bread—that comes from the word "bread." He gave them bread.
The recipients of the bread—the word "them" in the text. Who’s the "them"? He explains that.
The origin of the bread—they didn’t get it from a bakery; it came from heaven.
The embracing of the bread—the imagery of eating; the word "to eat."

He exposited this text, really, word for word: “He gave them bread from heaven to eat.” That’s Jesus’ text, and He will walk them through this, with these five points, word for word. It is indeed a powerful sermon, intended to draw the true and drive away the false.

So, they say, Jesus, we want some miracle. Here’s what we want. In verse 31, "Our fathers ate manna in the wilderness, as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat." And, Jesus is going to take them from bread to bread, right?

So, the giver of the bread, we find that in verses 32 and 33. The first point of Jesus’ sermon comes from an explanation of the words "He gave." He is the giver of the bread, and this part of the sermon is found in these two verses, 32 and 33. Look at the text with me.

Jesus then said to them, "Truly, truly,” — ‘āmēn, āmēn,’ verily, verily, amen, amen — “I say to you, Moses has not given you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. The true bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."

Jesus, now, is redirecting their attention from Moses to God here. God is the true giver of bread. Moses was just one of His little agents down here on earth. God gives daily bread to you and me in our day—not in a supernatural way, but He also gives the eternal bread: the Messiah.

He is saying, first, that it wasn’t Moses who gave them the manna—God did. And second, the manna wasn’t the true bread because the people who ate it still died. But Jesus, whom God sent, gives eternal life to the world. That is, to all people everywhere who believe in Him, who embrace Him.

Both manna and Messiah were provisions from the Father, but the gift of manna was but a faint shadow of the gift of the Messiah. That foundational, essential fact has to be established.
So, Jesus explains who the “He” is in the words "He gave." The bread of God—life-giving, life-sustaining bread—comes from heaven. God gives that bread, and Jesus Christ, as we will see, is the bread of God.

Now, their response to that comes in verse 34. They’re still thinking only of manna—the five loaves from yesterday. Then they said to Him, Lord, always give us this bread. The little word "then" is the Greek word "un", often translated as "therefore" or "consequently." Based on their literal interpretation of the bread of God that brought life, they quickly responded with a request, much like who?

Back in chapter 4, remember the Samaritan woman initially, who cried, sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty, nor come here to draw. Did Jesus give her water? No. But instead, what did He do? He exposed her sinful past. He exposed her sinful heart. He exposed her wretched state, which caused her to see Him as the Messiah from whom she received after spiritual water.

But unlike the Samaritan woman, the crowds here failed to understand spiritual bread and instead saw their pantries forever filled with bread (small "b"). They said to Him, Lord, always give—aorist imperative, do it now—always give us this bread.

In other words, give us this bread all the time. Give us that bread every day. Which, I mean, you think, on the surface, well, that sounds like the Lord's Prayer Jesus taught His disciples, right? Give us this day our daily bread.

Well, not quite. Their heart is in the wrong place. They’re short-sighted. They have self-serving motives, and they miss the whole thing. Always give us this bread — ‘pantote,’ the Greek word translated "always" — every day, all the time, for life. Free food for life.

Clearly, the crowd reasoned that since this was physical bread, it would need to be given to them daily and continually, like the manna from heaven had been given for 40 years. Perhaps they thought that, instead of six days out of seven days of manna, Jesus would top Moses by giving bread seven days out of seven. Always—’pantote.’ All the time, uninterrupted.

Of course, they still had no clue that Jesus Himself was the true bread that they were asking for—and desperately needed—or should be asking for. Clearly, they were not asking to receive and believe in Him as their Savior, as He Himself makes clear in verse 36.

Once again, we see their spiritual blindness. They missed Jesus' deeper spiritual truth in verse 33 and were still thinking of their stomachs at the expense of their souls. Not much has changed, has it? People still are preoccupied with their stomachs at the expense of their souls.

They were thinking temporally, not eternally. And had they understood the offer of Christ, they would have asked Him for eternal life desperately, not temporal bread.

But as Paul said later, "The natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him” — 1 Corinthians 2:24 — “and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” The Holy Spirit must give illumination, otherwise, a blind man can’t see. These people were natural men who missed the supernatural significance of the Savior's statement and would soon declare that Jesus' explanation was utterly foolish. They got offended.

And, having focused their attention on the Father as the giver, Jesus moves away from the words "He gave" and now starts to explain the word "bread." What is it that God gave them? Bread. The identity of the bread—they have the wrong thing in mind. They’re still thinking about the five loaves from yesterday. Jesus has to redirect their minds to something entirely different. Look at verse 35. Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me will never hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst."

The passage they quoted from the Old Testament refers to the historical manna of the Exodus. Jesus, however here, points out that God’s provision of life-saving bread from heaven was, yes, both important then for Israel, and a God-intended picture of what He would do in Christ Jesus.

Manna was heavenly, God-provided bread, our Lord said. But, I am the heavenly, God-provided bread (capital "B"), of a far higher ultimate form. One that does not give life for a day or a week or even for 40 years. “I am the bread that gives eternal life." And so, Jesus identifies Himself in the typology.

And here, beloved, we have one of the ‘Ego Eimi’ (the "I Am"s) of the Gospel of John. Remember, there are seven of them:

"I am the light of the world."
"I am the gate."
"I am the good shepherd."
"I am the resurrection and the life."
"I am the way, the truth, and the life."
"I am the true vine."

And here it is in our text: "I am the bread of life." And, He’s going to say it again, by the way, in verse 48: "I am the bread of life." And again, in verse 51: "I am the living bread."

Now, the main idea here is that Jesus is true food. He is true life—the bread of ‘Zoyi,’ not ‘Vayos.’ He uses the word ‘Zoyi,’ not ‘Vayos,’ for life. ‘Vayos’ is natural life, biological life. He uses the word ‘Zoyi,’ He is referring not to physical life, but to spiritual life, eternal life, found only in Christ and attained only by faith in Him.

And it is no accident that He keeps using ‘Ego Eimi, ‘Ego Eimi’, because what is He referring to? His deity, His godness—Jehovah, God, "I Am that I Am." The Jews are not going to miss that. This is all about identity. Who do you place your faith in? That's what matters. It’s about real life, real faith, and the real Messiah. And for real life, you must really feed on real food—the bread of life.

And notice, as the bread of life, Jesus satisfies all desires, as was quoted earlier in the call to worship. He satisfies everything, everything, all the desires. He satisfies. He says to them, look at verse 35, "He who comes to Me will never hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst". As one commentator said, and I quote, "Faith eliminates any sense of lack." The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

Now, let me underscore something very important at this point in the Sermon of Christ. The figure of speech that Jesus uses here—the bread and the eating of the bread— the figure of speech becomes, frankly, overpowering at the end of His sermon. And He’s deliberate.

Remember, He’s separating the chaff from the wheat. It becomes overpowering later in the chapter. He says to them things like this, verse 53: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves.”

This verse, verse 35, in our text today, is a stake in the ground that keeps us tethered. Critical. You ask, "Why?" It keeps us from straying when it comes to interpreting the powerful figurative language at the end of the sermon.

Notice that here, at the beginning of the sermon, Jesus says, "I am the bread of life." When He says that, He’s not referring to eating, as He begins. What is He talking about in verse 35? Notice the verbs. Look at the verbs in verse 35. You can underline them and connect them because this will keep you tethered, keep me tethered, when it comes to the figurative language and how it becomes overpowering at the end of the sermon.

Look at the verbs: I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me will never hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.He who comes to Me —He who believes in Me.
You see, the eating imagery later in the chapter is just that—imagery. All it’s intended to communicate is coming to Jesus, believing in Jesus, trusting Jesus, embracing Jesus. No actual eating and drinking in view.

Our Lord is not talking here about communion or the Lord's Supper. He’s not talking about transubstantiation as taught in the Roman Catholic Church or any other denominations, or anything like that. This is a sermon about coming to and believing in Jesus.

This is not a sermon about communion, though I think it explains the imagery of communion. It’s not a sermon about the Lord's Supper. It’s a sermon about coming to Jesus, believing in Jesus. And here, Christ drives that stake in the ground so that you don’t get distracted and wander away into error later on.

Context is really important when studying the Scripture. I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me will never hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.

So the first two points of Jesus' sermon, then, are:
He gave—God the Father is the giver.
The bread—identifying for them Himself as the source and sustainer of eternal life.
As men fed them in the wilderness, so Jesus feeds and strengthens them eternally. The bread of God is the Lord Jesus Christ, whom the Father sent to redeem us from the curse of the law and death by sin. The manna, that typical bread, had no power against even physical death. They all died in the wilderness who ate that bread. But Christ, Jesus, is the true bread, for He bestows eternal life.

He says, "I am the bread of life." He is the "I Am," Jehovah. He is the bread that came down from God. He is the bread that gives spiritual, eternal life. He is the bread that nourishes, sustains, and satisfies.

Our Lord would have us know that He is the appointed, necessary food for man's soul. The soul of every man is naturally starving and famishing because of sin, and Christ is given by God the Father to be the satisfier, the reliever, the physician of man's spiritual need. In Him and His mediatorial office, in Him and His atoning death, in Him and His priesthood, in Him and His grace, love, and power, in Him alone, empty souls find their needs supplied and satisfied. In Him alone, there is life. Jesus is the bread of life.

Bread is used in Scripture to represent that food that which is basic, necessary. It is the food that sustains life, the food that satisfies hunger. That is Christ, our Savior. We must have Him, or we will die in our sins. He is the Savior who meets the needs of every class.

And bread is food that we need daily. "Give us this day our daily bread." Other foods we may eat occasionally, but we want bread every morning and evening in our lives. And by the way, keep in mind the context. This is a Middle Eastern society. This is an environment and climate where they eat bread every single day. Even to this day, bread is essential. Whenever you go to have a meal, you will have bread. There’s never a day in our lives that we do not need His atoning sacrifice, His righteousness, His intercession, His grace. He is indeed the bread of life.
And having said all of that, I know it will all fall on deaf ears except for those who hunger for the bread. See, all things spiritual are known only by experience. Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God, whom God sent into the world to quicken those who are dead in trespasses and sins and to give them eternal life. He gives eternal life to all whom the Father has given Him (John 17:2). If we would have this life, we must come unto Him; we must eat of this bread.

Let me ask you this morning, do you know anything about this spiritual hunger? Do you know anything of this spiritual hunger? Do you feel anything of craving and emptiness in conscience, heart, and affection? Let me tell you something. If that is you, you need to understand something. That is why you are frantically seeking to satisfy those cravings elsewhere. And you’re thinking in your head, if I only make more money, if I only have this person, if I only have this relationship, if I only have this education, if I only have this fame, if I only have, then I will have my craving satisfied.

Listen, even if you're not there, let me tell you something. Even when you get there, should the Lord allow you to get there, you will quickly discover it wasn’t all that you thought it was, and you will be disappointed. The only bread that satisfies is the bread from heaven. Give your life to Jesus. Turn to Him and be saved. Feed upon Him. Feed upon Him. He alone can relieve, supply, and satisfy your deepest longings and needs, which is to be forgiven, cleansed, and reconciled to your Creator. You must come to Him by faith. You must believe on Him. You must give your life to Him.

So coming, let me tell you one thing, based on the authority of the word of God: If you were to come to Him and commit your life to Him, He Himself pledges His unalterable word that you shall find lasting satisfaction both for time and eternity in Him. For it is written: "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me" (verse 35) "will never hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst."

Not hunger, not thirst. The NASB puts it as "not," and the LSB puts it as "never." And there's a reason for that because there are two negatives in the Greek. Jesus used the double negative, ‘ou me’ — not never. This combination signifies absolutely never.

You give your life to Jesus. You embrace Him as your Lord and your Savior. You come to Him with your deepest longings and needs, and He will satisfy those needs and longings, and you will never, ever hunger and thirst. And remember, the one making these incredible promises is called in Revelation "faithful and true." He's faithful and true.

Don't be like the crowd that day. They've seen Jesus miraculously provide bread and fish for a huge multitude. They've watched Him heal many of their sick. But Jesus' tragic assessment of them is in verse 36, and I'm going to close with this today. Time is not on my side. I don't know where time flew, but, verse 36: "Seeing but not believing." Let us look at the tragic, or the piercing, assessment. Jesus, entirely in the spirit of verse 26, to which in all probability verse 36 refers, states, "But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe."

But, ‘allá,’ a Greek little word, is a strong term of contrast. It's like an about-face or a 180-degree pivot. Jesus reverses direction in His discourse. In verse 30, the unbelieving Jews asked Him for a sign in order that they might see and believe. Here, Jesus says that He had already told them that they had seen Him, the greatest sign of all, and yet they did not believe.
If the Son of God, if God the Son, could stand before them in perfect manhood and not be recognized by them, then it was doubtful that any sign He would perform would convince them. He came to His own, and His own received Him not.

Listen, people do not reject Christ because they lack solid evidence for believing in Him. Sometimes skeptics will say, "Well, show me a real miracle and I'll believe." No, they wouldn't. They wouldn't. People reject Christ because they love darkness rather than the light. People apart from Christ are spiritually dead in their trespasses and sins. Unless God intervenes, they'll remain dead in their sin. They cannot understand spiritual truth (1 Corinthians 2:14) because Satan has blinded their eyes (2 Corinthians 4:4).

And in John 8:43, Jesus asked the unbelieving Jews, "Why do you not understand what I am saying?" Then He answers His own question: "It is because you cannot hear my word." In this instance, He did not say, because you will not hear my word. He said, because you cannot hear my word. And that's why He says what He says in verse 44 of our chapter. We will see that next time, Lord willing: "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him."

Because of sin, it’s impossible for anyone to believe in Jesus apart from God’s opening their blind eyes. In the words of Charles Wesley's hymn And Can It Be, "Before Christ sends His quickening ray, we are fast bound in sin and nature's night. Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature's night. Thine eye diffused a quickening ray. I woke, the dungeon flamed with light. My chains fell off, my heart was free. I rose, went forth, and followed Thee."
Listen to how Leon Morris puts it, and I quote, "People do not come to Christ because it seems to them a good idea. It never does seem a good idea to natural men. Apart from a divine work in the souls, men remain contentedly in their sins."

Child of God, you have come and you've embraced the bread of life. You believed upon the Lord Jesus Christ. You fed upon Christ, and that moment of salvation, that moment of conversion, you’ve tasted the goodness of the Lord and ingested the bread of life by faith. You embraced Him by faith. You came to experience that He is the soul’s satisfaction. All of your cravings and all of your soul’s longings were met in Christ: forgiveness of sin, cleansing, having a cleansed conscience. No more guilty conscience before God. Acceptance before a holy God.

And the best is yet to come. We have a glorious inheritance of the saints. We will be with God, and we will have fellowship with Him with an unsinning heart.

But maybe today, as you've been in the faith for a few years, maybe you're distracted. Maybe you're finding the remaining corruption drawing you to try this and try that. Fix your eyes on the Lord again. Recalibrate. He is the bread of life. Make sure you insulate your heart so that you don’t lose your first love. Don’t forsake that first love.

Here we see how dramatic, how oozing with complete commitment and consecration all of these metaphors used by our Lord are: coming to Christ, looking to Christ, eating, drinking Christ, faith in Christ.

Child of God, faith amounts to uniting our hearts and lives with His. Our purpose with His, our love with His, our hopes and dreams with His. We become, by faith, His brothers and sisters, His slaves, His soldiers, His subjects, and the children of His Father in heaven.

And this faith, this faith, is not merely a peripheral interest of one’s life. If you have it, it controls you. Our entire lives, therefore, are redefined and redirected, indeed recreated, because we believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that He came into the world to save sinners, and that those who trust in Him will live forever.

This is what people usually don’t realize about faith and how comprehensive a commitment it really entails to truly embrace Christ and feed upon this bread—not simply at the point of conversion. We need the bread of life every single day.

This was the crowd’s difficulty. It is this that kept them from believing in Jesus, even though they had themselves witnessed His breathtaking miracles.

And to confess Jesus as the Son of God, the Creator of heaven and earth, must mean that one stands ready to obey Him and to serve Him. To confess Jesus as the only Savior, the bread of life, Savior of sinful men and women, must mean that one is ready to forsake all others, including oneself, and to cleave only exclusively to Jesus.

To confess Jesus as the one sent from heaven must mean that we owe Him an incalculable debt of love, for which we have nothing to make in payment except our very own life. “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.”

How much, may I ask you, how much and how well do you—let me put it very personally, very poignantly, humbly, because I have to ask my own heart—how much do you, even you, a Christian of many years, perhaps and much experience, really live out your faith in Jesus Christ as the bread of life? How much faith do you put in Jesus Christ in a day?

Let me be more specific. How conscious, how present to your mind is the knowledge of what He has told you? How convinced are you of what He said in His word? How much credit do you place in what He has promised you? Do you live moment by moment conscious of His presence? Of His love?

He told you that He would never leave you or forsake you. Is it obvious from your life that you are absolutely convinced of that? Do you live every day in the light of the fact that He has told you that you must appear before Him at the end of days to give an account before Him?
Is there a spring in your step, a joy in your heart, day after day, because of the unsearchable riches of Christ’s grace to you? Is it obvious, so obvious that all could observe it, that you know full well that with Christ, you can do everything that He requires you to do? Or that His strength is made perfect in your weakness? Or that He ever lives to intercede for you? Or that He is coming soon to judge the living and the dead?

How decidedly, how wonderfully different our lives would be if we had just vibrant, growing, cultivated faith. If we lived in the conviction that Christ was with us as He’s promised to be, that God loves us as He has told us He does, that He will reward obedience and punish disobedience.

And for that to be true, my dear brothers and sisters, we need to be feeding upon the bread of life every single day. To be in the Word, to be in His presence, to commit to the public means of grace and the private means of grace, to be seeking to develop a conscious, pervasive awareness of His presence every single day, to be spiritually minded about all things. He is the bread of life. He is our daily food. He satisfies the soul.

Are you satisfied today?

Let's pray.

Father, we thank You for the bread of life, the Lord Jesus Christ, who satisfies supremely every longing that the human soul has. Help us as Your people, Lord, to delight ourselves in You, to feast upon You, to rejoice in You. Help us, help us, O Lord, every single day to be a people filled with joy in our hearts day after day and every moment of every day because of the unsearchable riches of Christ’s grace to us, and because, primarily, of who He is.
That every day, that would be the attitude of our hearts. Come, magnify the Lord with me; let us exalt His name together. Come, and I will tell you all that the Lord has done for my soul.
O Lord, help us to be more and more satisfied as we feed upon the bread of life, and the more we are satisfied, the more we want. Now, we have a sanctified dissatisfaction because we want more of it.

And Lord, I pray for anyone in this place who is outside of Christ, who’s seeking to fill that hole, to fill that vacuum with stuff, with pleasures, with more things, with this and that and the other. O Lord, that today You would open their eyes, that You would do a mighty work in their hearts. O Lord, that You would draw them to Yourself, that today they can say from the heart, enabled by Your Spirit:

"Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature’s night. Ah, but Thine eye diffused a quickening ray, and I woke, the dungeon flamed with light, and I walked away from this place today, my chains having fallen off, my heart freed. I rose, went forth, and followed Thee."
Save sinners in this place, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.