From any other than Jesus Christ this language would have been egotistical in the extreme. Coming from his lips, referring as it did to himself, this declaration is natural enough. For since he was the Son of God, no claim inferior to this would have been just. It is a marvellous metaphor, this, in which our Lord proclaims himself the true Bread, the Bread from heaven, the Bread of God, the Bread of life.

I. CONSIDER THE HUNGER OF THE SOUL WHICH IS PRESUMED. The body is dependent upon food for life, health, and strength; and the appetite of hunger prompts to the seeking and partaking of food. There is a correspondence between the hunger that craves and the bread that satisfies; an adaptation of the supply to the necessity. There is a parallel arrangement in the spiritual realm. Man is a weak, dependent, craving being, with an ineradicable desire for the highest good - a desire not to be appeased by earthly provisions. It is a spiritual appetite, which in many is deadened by carnal indulgence, by sinful habit, yet which ever and anon recurs. What a revelation of soul yearning would there be, could the inner nature and experience of any congregation be exposed to an observer's view!

II. CONSIDER THE BREAD OF THE SOUL WHICH IS PROVIDED.

1. Christ, as the true Bread, is the gift of the Father. All the family are dependent upon the liberality and thoughtfulness of the great Father and Benefactor. If "he openeth his hand, and satisfieth the desire of every living thing," it is not to be believed that, providing for the lower wants, he will neglect the higher. And, as a matter of fact, he has not done so.

2. Christ is the Bread "from heaven." As such he was prefigured by the manna of the wilderness. This gift is bestowed from the sphere of the spiritual and supernatural, which is thus brought near to our souls.

3. He is the true, the real Bread. There is no hollow pretence in this gift. God is not a Father who, if his son ask bread of him, will give him a stone. He who made the soul of man knows how that soul's wants can be fully and forever met.

III. CONSIDER THE SATISFACTION OF THE SOUL WHICH IS SECURED.

1. Christ is partaken, not by physical eating, but by communion of the spirit with the Saviour. Faith is the means of appropriating the Divine provision. Jesus in this conversation especially warned his disciples of the error into which some of them afterwards fell - the error of confounding carnal with spiritual participation of his body and blood.

2. The result of feeding by faith upon the Bread of life is - satisfaction and gladness, health and vigour of soul, and a life which is immortal. "If a man eat this Bread, he shall live forever." As the hunger of the Israelites was appeased by the manna, as the hunger of the multitude was appeased by the miraculous multiplication of loaves in the wilderness, so have myriads in every age partaken of the true and spiritual Bread, and have borne witness to its efficacy to satisfy their deepest cravings, and to nourish their spiritual life. - T.

1. The grand distinction of Christianity is that it makes its appeal to faith, and upon that rests the promise of salvation.

2. But this is the scandal of men. If we hold any truth by reason, perception, or on evidence what need of holding by faith? And if we hold it without such evidence what is belief, but a surrender of our proper intelligence?

3. It is proposed to show how it is that we, as intelligent beings, are called to believe, and how, as sinners, we can in the nature of things, be saved only as we believe. This text sets us at the point when seeing and believing are brought together as not united; in ver. 40 they are united.

4. It stands on the face of the language —(1) That faith is not sight but something so different that we may see and not believe;(2) That sight does not include faith or supersede the necessity of it, for after sight faith is expected;(3) That sight is supposed to furnish a ground for faith, and involving guilt when faith is not exercised. Let us look at three kinds of faith.

I. Take the case of SIGHT. It has been a great question how it is we perceive objects. Berkeley denied that we saw them at all. The persons who saw Christ had only certain pictures cast in the back of the eye which were mere subjective impressions. How then do we bridge the gulf between sensations and their objects; how it is that having a true picture in the back of the eye we make it a tree. Some deny the possibility of any solution; but the best solutions conceive the soul to take these forms as more than objects perceived, that we complete sensation or issue it in perception by assigning reality to the distant object. What is this but the exercise of a sense faith. We thus see by faith.

II. Take that FAITH WHICH, after perception is completed, ASSIGNS TRUTH TO THE THINGS SEEN, and takes them to be historic verities. Thus after Christ had been seen in the facts of His life, it became a question what to make of those facts — whether there could have been conspiracy or self-imposition in the miracles. The mere seeing of a wonder never concludes the mind of the spectator. How many testify to having seen the most fantastic wonders, and yet they very commonly conclude by saying they know not what to make of them, doubting whether sleight of hand, ventriloquism, etc., may not account for them. The evidence to one who saw Christ was as perfect as it could be; but all that can be said is that a given impression has been made, and that impression is practically nought till an act of intellectual assent is added. Then the impression becomes to the mind a real and historical fact, a sentence of credit passed.

III. We come now to CHRISTIAN FAITH. This begins just where the last-named faith ends. That decided the greatest fact of history, viz., that Christ actually was. But what is now wanted and justified and even required by the facts of His life is a faith that goes beyond the mere evidence of proportional verities, viz., the faith of a transaction; and Christian faith is the act of trust by which one being, a sinner, commits herself to another Being, a Saviour. In this faith —

1. Everything is presupposed that makes the act intelligent and rational. That Christ was what He declared Himself to be and can do what He offered to do, and that we can commit ourselves to Him.

2. The matters included in this act are the surrender of our mere self care, the ceasing to live from our own point of separated will, a complete admission of the mind of Christ, a consenting to live as infolded in His spirit.

3. Great results will follow.(1) The believer will be as one possessed by Christ, created anew in Christ Jesus.(2) New evidence will be created. As in trying a physician new evidence is obtained from the successful management of the disease, so the soul that trusts itself to Christ knows Him with a new kind of knowledge; has the witness in himself.Lessons.

1. The mistake is here corrected that the gospel is a theorem to be thought out and not a new premiss of fact communicated by God to be received of men in all the threefold gradations of faith.

2. We discover that the requirement of faith, as a condition of salvation, is not arbitrary but essential for deliverance from sin. What we want is God, to be united to Him and thus to be quickened, raised, made partakers of the Divine Nature.

3. We perceive that mere impressions can never amount to faith, inasmuch as it is the commitment of our being to the Being of Christ our Saviour.

4. It is plain that what is wanted in the Christian world is more faith. We dabble too much in reason. We shall never recover the true apostolic energy without it.

(H. Bushnell, D. D.)

Christians grow weak because they let their meat and drink stand by them. It is not the flesh in the pot, but the flesh in the stomach, that gives nourishment. It is not the drink in the vessel, but the drink taken down, that revives. Stir up spiritual hunger, and that will make you feed heartily on Christ. Eat and drink Christ by meditation, eat and drink Him by application. Let your faith draw in Christ in every ordinance. Keep your spiritual meals as constantly as you do your other meals. Your eating will help you to a stomach. Satisfaction and hunger are mutual helps one to another. Eating and drinking other meat takes away the appetite, but it increaseth the spiritual appetite. Fixed times of spiritual feeding every day are marvellous profitable. When you have prayed, call your heart to account what it hath taken in of Christ. When you have been reading, ask it what nourishment it hath received from the word. When the Lord's Supper is over, inquire what refreshment is received. Put yourselves forward to frequent, constant, actual feeding. It is a pity such precious meat and drink should stand in corners when the soul hath so much need of it.

(Ralph Robinson.)

If a man comes to a banker with a letter of credit from some other banker, that letter may be read and seen to be a real letter. The signature also may be approved, and the credit of the drawing party honoured by the other, as being wholly reliable. So far what is done is merely opinionative or notional, and there is no transactional faith. And yet there is a good preparation for this; just that is done which makes it intelligent. When the receiving party, therefore, accepts the letter, and entrust himself actually to the drawing party in so much money, there is the real act of faith, an act which answers to the operative, or transactional faith of the disciple. Another and perhaps better illustration may be taken from the patient or sick person as related to his physician. He sends for a physician, just because he has been led to have a certain favourable opinion of his faithfulness and capacity. But the suffering him to feel his pulse, investigate his symptoms, and tell the diagnosis of his disease, imports nothing. It is only the committing of his being and life to this other being, consenting to receive and take his medicines, that imports a real faith, the faith of a transaction. In the same manner Christian faith is the faith of a transaction. It is not the committing of one's thought, in assent to any proposition, but the trusting of one's being to a being, there to be rested, kept, guided, moulded, governed, and possessed for ever.

(H. Bushnell, D. D.)

Andrew, Jesus, Joseph, Judas, Peter, Philip, SimonCapernaum, Sea of Galilee, Sea of Tiberias, TiberiasBelieve, Faith, Yet1. Jesus feeds five thousand men with five loaves and two fishes.
15. Thereupon the people would have made him king;
16. but withdrawing himself, he walks on the sea to his disciples;
26. reproves the people flocking after him, and all the fleshly hearers of his word;
32. declares himself to be the bread of life to believers.
66. Many disciples depart from him.
68. Peter confesses him.
70. Judas is a devil.

John 6:36

     8836   unbelief, response

John 6:35-42

     7505   Jews, the

John 6:35-51

     5409   metaphor

John 6:35-52

     2426   gospel, responses

May 9 Evening
It is I; be not afraid.--JOHN 6:20. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.--I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. Woe is me! for I am undone; . . . mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphims …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

December 22 Morning
Your work of faith.--I THES. 1:3. This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent. Faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.--Faith worketh by love.--He that soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.--We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.--Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

August 8 Evening
Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.--ROM. 10:13. Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.--Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.--What will ye that I shall do unto you? They say unto him, Lord, that our eyes may be opened. So Jesus had compassion on them, and touched their eyes: and immediately their eyes received sight, and they followed him. If ye . . . being …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

November 21 Morning
Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.--JOHN 6:37. It shall come to pass, when he crieth unto me, that I will hear; for I am gracious.--I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am the Lord their God.--I will remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth, and I will establish unto thee an everlasting covenant. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

June 29 Morning
His commandments are not grievous.--I JOHN 5:3. This is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life.--Whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.--If ye love me, keep my commandments.--He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

March 14 Evening
The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.--JOHN 6:63. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth.--The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. Christ . . . loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

October 23 Evening
It is the spirit that quickeneth.--JOHN 6:63. The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.--That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.--Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

December 17 Morning
Quicken us, and we will call upon thy name.--PSA. 80:18. It is the Spirit that quickeneth.--The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.--Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

October 29 Evening
David encouraged himself in the Lord his God.--I SAM. 30:6. Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.--I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears. They prevented me in the day of my calamity: but the Lord was my stay. He brought me forth also into a large …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

October 14 Evening
Give us this day our daily bread.--MATT. 6:11. I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.--His bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure.--The ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook. My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.--Be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

September 8. "He that Eateth Me, Even He Shall Live by Me" (John vi. 57).
"He that eateth Me, even He shall live by Me" (John vi. 57). What the children of God need is not merely a lot of teaching, but the Living Bread. The best wheat is not good food. It needs to be ground and baked before it can be digested and assimilated so as to nourish the system. The purest and the highest truth cannot sanctify or satisfy a living soul. He breathes the New Testament message from His mouth with a kiss of love and a breath of quickening power. It is as we abide in Him, lying upon …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

June 22. "This is that Bread which came Down from Heaven" (John vi. 58).
"This is that bread which came down from heaven" (John vi. 58). We had the sentence of death in ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead; who delivereth us from so great a death, who doth deliver; in whom we trust that He will yet deliver us. This was the supernatural secret of Paul's life; he drew continually in his body from the strength of Christ, his Risen Head. The body which rose from Joseph's tomb was to him a physical reality and the inexhaustible …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

The Fourth Miracle in John's Gospel
And Jesus took the loaves; and when He had given thanks, He distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would.'--JOHN vi. 11. This narrative of the miraculous feeding of the five thousand is introduced into John's Gospel with singular abruptness. We read in the first verse of the chapter: 'After these things Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee,' i.e. from the western to the eastern side. But the Evangelist does not tell …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

'Fragments' or 'Broken Pieces'
'When they were filled, He said unto His disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.'--JOHN vi. 12. The Revised Version correctly makes a very slight, but a very significant change in the words of this verse. Instead of 'fragments' it reads 'broken pieces.' The change seems very small, but the effect of it is considerable. It helps our picture of the scene by correcting a very common misapprehension as to what it was which the Apostles are bid to gather up. The general notion, …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Fifth Miracle in John's Gospel
'So when they had rowed about five-and-twenty or thirty furlongs, they see Jesus walking on the sea, and drawing nigh unto the ship: and they were afraid. 20. But He said unto them, It is I; be not afraid.'--JOHN vi. 19,20. There are none of our Lord's parables recorded in this Gospel, but all the miracles which it narrates are parables. Moral and religious truth is communicated by the outward event, as in the parable it is communicated by the story. The mere visible fact becomes more than semi-transparent. …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

How to Work the Work of God
'Then said they unto Him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? 29. Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye, believe on Him whom He hath sent.'--JOHN vi. 28, 29. The feeding of the five thousand was the most 'popular' of Christ's miracles. The Evangelist tells us, with something between a smile and a sigh, that 'when the people saw it, they said, This is of a truth that Prophet that should come into the world,' and they were so delighted with Him and with …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Manna
'I am that bread of life. 49. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. 50. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.'--JOHN vi. 48-50. 'This is of a truth that Prophet,' said the Jews, when Christ had fed the five thousand on the five barley loaves and the two small fishes. That was the kind of Teacher for them; they were quite unaffected by the wisdom of His words and the beauty of His deeds, but a miracle that found food precisely …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Redemption (Continued)
"He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath life eternal."--JOHN VI. 54. We were made for holiness, union with God, eternal life. These are but different expressions for one and the same thing. For holiness is the realisation of our manhood, of that Divine Image which is the true self, expressing itself and acting, as it does in us, through the highest of animal forms. That perfect self-realisation is not merely dependent upon, but is union with God, at its beginning, throughout its …
J. H. Beibitz—Gloria Crucis

The Study of the Bible Recommended; and a Method of Studying it Described.
Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of Eternal Life. IT was probably in that synagogue which the faithful Centurion built at Capernaum [243] that our Saviour had been discoursing. At the end of his discourse, it is related that "many of His Disciples went back, and walked no more with Him." Thereupon, He asked the Twelve, "Will ye also go away?" the very form of His inquiry (Me kai humeis) implying the answer which the Divine Speaker expected and desired. And to this challenge of Love …
John William Burgon—Inspiration and Interpretation

The Attractive Power of God
THE ATTRACTIVE POWER OF GOD St John vi. 44.--"No one can come unto Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him." Our Lord Jesus Christ hath in the Gospel spoken with His own blessed lips these words, which signify, "No man can come to Me unless My Father draw him." In another place He says, "I am in the Father and the Father in Me." Therefore whoever cometh to the Son cometh to the Father. Further, He saith, "I and the Father are One. Therefore whomsoever the Father draweth, the Son draweth …
Johannes Eckhart—Meister Eckhart's Sermons

The Gospel Feast
"When Jesus then lifted up His eyes, and saw a great company come unto Him, He saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat?"--John vi. 5. After these words the Evangelist adds, "And this He said to prove him, for He Himself knew what He would do." Thus, you see, our Lord had secret meanings when He spoke, and did not bring forth openly all His divine sense at once. He knew what He was about to do from the first, but He wished to lead forward His disciples, and to arrest and …
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII

The Care of the Soul Urged as the one Thing Needful
Luke 10:42 -- "But one thing is needful." It was the amiable character of our blessed Redeemer, that "he went about doing good," this great motive, which animated all his actions, brought him to the house of his friend Lazarus, at Bethany, and directed his behavior there. Though it was a season of recess from public labor, our Lord brought the sentiments and the pious cares of a preacher of righteousness into the parlor of a friend; and there his doctrine dropped as the rain, and distilled as the …
George Whitefield—Selected Sermons of George Whitefield

On the Words of the Gospel, John vi. 53, "Except Ye Eat the Flesh," Etc. , and on the Words of the Apostles. And the Psalms. Against
Delivered at the Table of the Martyr St. Cyprian, the 9th of the Calends of October,--23 Sept., on the Lord's day. 1. We have heard the True Master, the Divine Redeemer, the human Saviour, commending to us our Ransom, His Blood. For He spake to us of His Body and Blood; He called His Body Meat, His Blood Drink. The faithful recognise the Sacrament of the faithful. But the hearers what else do they but hear? When therefore commending such Meat and such Drink He said, "Except ye shall eat My Flesh …
Saint Augustine—sermons on selected lessons of the new testament

On the Words of the Gospel, John vi. 55,"For My Flesh is Meat Indeed, and My Blood is Drink Indeed. He that Eateth My Flesh," Etc.
1. As we heard when the Holy Gospel was being read, the Lord Jesus Christ exhorted us by the promise of eternal life to eat His Flesh and drink His Blood. Ye that heard these words, have not all as yet understood them. For those of you who have been baptized and the faithful do know what He meant. But those among you who are yet called Catechumens, or Hearers, could be hearers, when it was being read, could they be understanders too? Accordingly our discourse is directed to both. Let them who already …
Saint Augustine—sermons on selected lessons of the new testament

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