The Living Bread
41 The Jews therefore murmured concerning him, because he said, “I am the bread which came down out of heaven.” 42 They said, “Isn’t this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How then does he say, ‘I have come down out of heaven’?” 43 Therefore Jesus answered them, “Don’t murmur among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up in the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Therefore everyone who hears from the Father and has learned, comes to me. 46 Not that anyone has seen the Father, except he who is from God. He has seen the Father. 47 Most certainly, I tell you, he who believes in me has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. 50 This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, that anyone may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread which came down out of heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. Yes, the bread which I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
They object that they know his parents, and the answer is that nobody comes without being drawn.
The Jews therefore murmured concerning him, because he said, “I am the bread which came down out of heaven.”
The verb is the one used of Israel in the wilderness, complaining about the food God had provided Exodus 16:2. The writer has been building the parallel all chapter and now lets it close: a generation grumbling in the presence of bread from heaven, exactly as their fathers did.
They said, “Isn’t this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How then does he say, ‘I have come down out of heaven’?”
The objection is entirely reasonable on the evidence they have. They know the family. What they are refusing is not a claim they have examined but a claim that cannot fit beside what they already know — which is what the prologue said would happen John 1:11.
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up in the last day.
The answer does not argue about his parents. It goes underneath the objection to why they cannot get past it, and what it says is that coming is not within anyone's unaided reach.
The verb draw is a strong one, used of hauling a net John 21:11 and of drawing a sword. It is not persuasion. And it is used once more in this Gospel, in a sentence that governs how it should be read here: I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself John 12:32. The drawing is done by a crucifixion.
"It is written in the prophets, 'They will all be taught by God.' Therefore everyone who hears from the Father and has learned, comes to me" John 6:45 Isaiah 54:13.
The quotation is what keeps the drawing from being mechanical. It describes teaching — hearing and learning — and the promise it comes from is about a whole people being instructed. Everyone so taught comes, which makes the drawing effective without making it coercive.
Not that anyone has seen the Father, except he who is from God. He has seen the Father.
The prologue's correction again John 1:18: the teaching is not a direct sight of God, and the one who has seen him is standing in front of them.
Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died.
This is the sentence that dismantles their comparison. The manna was real, it was from God, and every person it fed is buried. Whatever else Moses's bread did, it did not solve the problem — it postponed hunger for a day at a time for a generation that died in the sand.
I am the living bread which came down out of heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. Yes, the bread which I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
Living is added to the title, and the promise is set exactly against the last verse: they ate and died; this one eats and lives.
"Yes, the bread which I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."
And here the discourse turns and the language becomes unbearable. Up to this point bread has been a figure a hearer could hold at arm's length. Now it is my flesh, and the preposition is for — on behalf of, in place of — which is sacrificial language, spoken at Passover, about a body.
The reader of this book has been prepared for it since the first chapter, where the man at the river pointed and said behold, the Lamb of God John 1:29. The crowd has not, and their reaction fills the next paragraph.
settled What this mark means