John Chapter 6

vs 31

Jesus was right! These Jews aren't even after another miracle, they just want someone to give them free food. And now they expect the new Messiah to provide it to them. This might be a bit of a Middle Eastern thing, or at least from a culture which highly values its first sons. You always pamper your first son, he gets the best of everything, never has to work etc. That value then gets passed onto the nation as a whole (being children of God), and they feel as if they should get special attention. That's what it sounds like here. The Saudi Arabs are the same, I have heard - they feel like they are the special race of Allah, and so they slack off.

Their attitude could also be one of degrees - "Even our ancestors ate bread from heaven, as it were. You have only matched them. If you are the Messiah, you should do something greater than what has been done in the past".

vs 32

Jesus' response is to tell them that it's not Moses, or the Law, who gave them their bread to eat, but instead they should be seeking after the true bread of heaven.

vs 33

But this bread isn't actually bread, it is metaphorical bread. The bread of God is a person, who comes from heaven and gives life to the world. That would be Jesus. In the Middle East, bread is life - it was certainly the staple food of the people, and I hear they treated it with a special reverence. So it is not unbelievable that the bread of heaven (where no one is hungry) really is life.

vs 34

Of course, they want this heavenly bread instead. Do they really understand what he means? After all, he did just say that the bread from heaven was a person. Were they listening, or are they just answering with their stomachs?

vs 35

What Jesus says is true, if you take the long view, but it is also true immediately if you are talking about spiritual hunger and spiritual thirst. In heaven, no one will be hungry or thirsty, so those who follow Jesus will get that. But also, the Christian, while always pursuing further spiritual depth, should have a satisfaction that does not exist in the seeking non-believer.

vs 36

The problem for these people is that they have seen Jesus, they have heard his words, he has out and out told them he is the bread from heaven, and yet they still don't believe him.

vs 37

Ok, I cheated on this verse. I'm preaching on John this weekend, and so I have a commentary here. But this is the only verse I've looked up so far from chapter 6. According to the scholars (thank you Don Carson), Jesus is referring to the people that God will give him to fill his Kingdom, basically saying that although this crowd frustrates the will of God by not coming and being saved, Jesus knows that God's plan eventually will be fulfilled. The second part of the verse is a 'litotes', and means literally that whoever then does come to Jesus to join the kingdom, he will surely preserve and look after.

vs 38

This verse is not saying that Jesus had some other motive for coming to earth (like perhaps some sort of "Coming to America" fratboy party time) that was not according to God's will - it is simply pointing out that Jesus is obedient to God as the Son being obedient to the Father.

vs 39

So now we see why he makes the promise to preserve those who come to him - God's will is that all those he gives to Jesus should be kept close, and not lost. Jesus will therefore make it as easy as possible for them to come to God and stay near God. Looking at Christianity from a perfectly intrinsic perspective, you might think that God could have made it easier. But he does have the whole sin thing to deal with, and yet he has still basically opened his arms and said "Just accept my Son, and you're in". Everything on top of that is really window dressing, which makes me wonder how much God is disappointed in us for making it any harder for people to come to him than it already is.

vs 40

In many of the verses we've just looked at, Jesus has flipped from the group (all those who God has given him) and the individual (who he will protect, preserve, and raise up on the last day). Someone (Carson again) pointed out that John's gospel is the one most focused on the idea of individual, personal salvation. All the others are more concentrated on the whole people of God, the ecclesia. Perhaps that is one reason why I like John so much - because it is so relevant to our day and age.