20  The Bread of Life—Part 1: Jesus,  the True Bread  from Heaven  (John 6:30–50)

So they said to Him, “What then do You do for a sign, so that we may see, and believe You? What work do You perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread out of heaven to eat.’” Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world.” Then they said to Him, “Lord, always give us this bread.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” Therefore the Jews were grumbling about Him, because He said, “I am the bread that came down out of heaven.” They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He now say, ‘I have come down out of heaven’?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught of God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me. Not that anyone has seen the Father, except the One who is from God; He has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.” (6:30–50)

The annals of church history are full of many notable preachers, men whom God has called to evangelize the lost and edify the redeemed. Beginning with Peter’s sermon at Pentecost (Acts 2:14–40), the powerful preaching of the apostles (5:42; 14:7, 15, 21; 15:35; 16:10) and their contemporaries (7:1–56; 8:4, 12, 35, 40; 11:20; 15:35) fueled the spread of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire. In the centuries that followed, gifted orators such as Basil, John Chrysostom (“golden-mouthed”), and Augustine took up that same torch of explanation and exhortation. A thousand years later, when the light of the gospel was shrouded in confusion, the Reformation was sparked by the bold witness of Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, and others. The seventeenth-century Puritan movement was likewise fueled by clear biblical preaching, as men such as Richard Baxter, John Owen, and John Bunyan faithfully expounded God’s Word. The Great Awakening of eighteenth-century America was energized in much the same way—through the passionate sermons of godly leaders like Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and John Wesley. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries also saw many gifted preachers, including eloquent Christian statesmen like Charles Spurgeon and D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

But the most noble and powerful preacher who ever lived was the Lord Jesus Christ. At the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount, “the crowds were amazed at His teaching; for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes” (Matt. 7:28–29). Luke 4:22 records that “all were speaking well of Him, and wondering at the gracious words which were falling from His lips.” Even His enemies were awed by the power of Jesus’ words. Explaining why they had failed to arrest Him as ordered (John 7:32), officers of the temple police force reported to the chief priests and Pharisees, “Never has a man spoken the way this man speaks” (v. 46).

Preaching was central to Christ’s mission. In His hometown synagogue at Nazareth He declared,

At the outset of His earthly ministry, “Jesus began to preach and say, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’” (Matt. 4:17). Matthew 11:1 records that “when Jesus had finished giving instructions to His twelve disciples, He departed from there to teach and preach in their cities.” Later in that same chapter Jesus pointed to His preaching ministry as proof that He was the Messiah: “Jesus answered and said to [the disciples of John the Baptist], ‘Go and report to John what you hear and see: the blind receive sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them’” (vv. 4–5). After a successful evening of ministering in Capernaum,

Luke 8:1 describes Jesus’ habitual practice of “going around from one city and village to another, proclaiming and preaching the kingdom of God.” The Lord faithfully preached the gospel to the very end of His earthly ministry: “On one of the days [during Passion Week] while He was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders confronted Him” (Luke 20:1).

The gospels record several of Jesus’ sermons, including the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5–7), the commissioning of the twelve apostles (Matt. 10), the kingdom parables (Matt. 13), the childlikeness of the believer (Matt. 18), the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24–25), the teaching on the Son’s equality with the Father (John 5:19–47), and the Upper Room Discourse (John 14–17). John 6:22–59 records another of Jesus’ most famous and beloved sermons, in which He presents Himself as the Bread of Life. Verses 22–29, along with the story of the miraculous feeding of the five thousand (vv. 1–21), set the stage for the Bread of Life Discourse, while verses 60–71 describe its aftermath.

John’s approach in his gospel was to record Jesus’ miracles briefly, matter-of-factly, and without fanfare, explanation, or defense. For example, the apostle describes the astonishing miracle of the feeding of the five thousand in simple, straightforward, unpretentious words: “Jesus then took the loaves, and having given thanks, He distributed to those who were seated; likewise also of the fish as much as they wanted” (6:11). John described Jesus’ equally astounding miracle of walking on the water in similarly modest terms: “Then, when they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and drawing near to the boat; and they were frightened” (v. 19).

It is almost as though the apostle hurries through the accounts of Christ’s miracles to get to His words. While His miracles reveal His divine power, it is Christ’s words that correctly define who He is. Jesus is no mere wonder worker; He is the Son of God and the Messiah. His miracles authenticate Him and His message as coming from God. But signs and wonders alone are not enough for salvation (cf. 12:37; 15:24; Matt. 11:20–24; Luke 16:31; Acts 6:8–14; 14:3–6; Rom. 1:18–32), because “faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17). The crowd that Jesus miraculously fed was a perfect illustration. Though the people never questioned Jesus’ power and enjoyed personally its benefits, they were indifferent or hostile to His gospel preaching.

The first section (vv. 30–50) of this magnificent sermon that Jesus preached in the synagogue at Capernaum (6:59) will be discussed under three headings: the contrast, the confusion, and the complaint.

THE CONTRAST

So they said to Him, “What then do You do for a sign, so that we may see, and believe You? What work do You perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread out of heaven to eat.’” Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world.” (6:30–33)

Incredibly, despite the miracles they had witnessed (6:2), including their massive meal the day before, the crowd said to Jesus, “What then do You do for a sign, so that we may see, and believe You? What work do You perform?” They were brazenly demanding Jesus’ credentials, in response to His claim in verse 29 to be the One sent from God. The people’s foolish demand demonstrated their thickheaded and self-centered curiosity graphically illustrating the spiritual blindness that engulfs the unredeemed. John Calvin observed, “This wicked question clearly shows the truth of what is said elsewhere: ‘A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign’ (Matthew 12:39)” (Alister McGrath and J. I. Packer, eds., John, The Crossway Classic Commentaries [Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 1994], 156). Jesus’ miraculous feeding of the huge crowd just the day before was ample proof of His deity.

Unbelief, however, is never satisfied, no matter how much evidence is given. Luke 16:31 says that those who reject the truth of God’s Word “will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.” At the crucifixion the unbelieving Jewish leaders said mockingly, “Let this Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross, so that we may see and believe!” (Mark 15:32). Yet when Jesus rose from the dead—a far greater miracle than merely coming down from the cross—they still refused to believe in Him. Rather than admit the truth, they desperately attempted to cover up the reality of His resurrection (Matt. 28:11–15; Acts 4:1–3).

Jesus had exhorted the crowd to believe (6:29), but instead they demanded another sign (cf. 2:18; Matt. 12:38; 16:1; Luke 11:16; 1 Cor. 1:22). Specifically, they wanted a repeat performance of the miraculous feeding they had just experienced, as is indicated by their statement, “Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written (cf. Ex. 16:4, 15; Neh. 9:15; Pss. 78:24; 105:40), ‘He gave them bread out of heaven to eat’” (cf. v. 26). Rather than worshiping Jesus as Messiah and Savior, they wanted Him to continually give them bread out of heaven to eat with their mouths, not their hearts, like Moses had done by providing manna in the wilderness for the entire nation for forty years. That, in fact, was what contemporary Jewish thought expected the Messiah to do when He came (Colin Kruse, The Gospel According to John, The Tyn-dale New Testament Commentaries [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003], 168–69; Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, The New International Commentary on the New Testament [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979], 363). Thus, the crowd challenged Jesus to prove He was the Messiah by providing them with an unending (cf. v. 34) supply of food.

Jesus, however, had no intention of gratifying the people’s materialistic whims. For Him to have done so would have been to assume the very role of political and social Messiah that He had just rejected (6:14–15). Using the phrase amen, amen (truly, truly) to underscore the significance of what He was about to say, Jesus rebuked the people for their fourfold misunderstanding of the manna in the wilderness.

First, it was not Moses who gave them the bread out of heaven, but God the Father. In Exodus 16:4 “the Lord said to Moses, ‘Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you’” (cf. v. 15; Deut. 8:3, 16; Neh. 9:20; Pss. 78:24–25; 105:40). Moses merely relayed God’s instructions about gathering the manna to the Israelites (Ex. 16:15–30).

Second, the manna was not the true bread from heaven. Jesus told them, “My Father now gives you the true bread out of heaven.” The present tense of didomi (gives) indicates that the true bread was not the manna of the past, but what the Father was currently giving. Further, alethinos (true) means “genuine,” or “real.” The manna, though it was truly bread supplied by God, was merely a type that foreshadowed the ultimate, true bread … which comes down out of heaven (vv. 38, 50–51, 58; 3:13; cf. 1:9, 14; 8:42)—the Lord Jesus Christ.

Third, the manna gave physical life, but the bread of God (the phrase is synonymous with “the bread of heaven” in v. 32, as “kingdom of God” and “kingdom of heaven” are synonymous in the gospels) which comes down out of heaven … gives spiritual life. As it does throughout John’s gospel, zoe (life) refers not to the physical and temporal life which the manna sustained, but to the spiritual and eternal life that comes only through Jesus Christ (cf. 1:4; 5:29, 40; 6:53; 10:10; 14:6; 20:31).

Finally, unlike the manna, which was given only to Israel, the true bread from heaven is for the world. God offers salvation through Jesus Christ to all who believe (vv. 40, 47; 3:15–16, 18, 36; 5:24; 11:25–26; 20:31), regardless of their national, racial, or ethnic background (1:29; 3:17; 4:39–42; 10:16; Matt. 12:18–21; Luke 2:25–32; Acts 8:5–8, 14–17, 25; 11:18; 13:46–48; 14:27; 15:3, 7, 14–17; 26:23; 28:28; Rom. 1:5, 16; 10:11–13; 1 Cor. 12:13; Gal.3:8, 28; Eph.3:4–6; 1 John 2:1–2;4:14).

So Jesus was the true bread sent by God from heaven, and thus infinitely superior to Moses (cf. Heb. 3:3). The crowd’s desire for more proof exposed both their evil motives and their ignorance of the Old Testament Scriptures and the words of the Son of God.

THE CONFUSION

Then they said to Him, “Lord, always give us this bread.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” (6:34–40)

The crowd’s second request (cf. vv. 30–31) again reveals their spiritual blindness. Completely missing Jesus’ point in verses 32 and 33, they eagerly said to Him, “Lord, always give us this (physical) bread.” Their continuing desire to use Jesus for their physical needs is evident from this demand and a clear indication of their superficial interest. It still marks the shallow, temporary followers of Jesus who fill churches looking for their needs and desires to be met. There are always churches that accommodate them. Today they are often the places that draw the largest crowds, but have the lowest percentage of true believers. Having first insisted that He prove Himself, they now insisted that He give them what they wanted. Kurios (Lord) would be better understood as their way to say, “Sir” (as it is in 4:11, 15, 19, 49; 5:7; 12:21; 20:15; Matt. 13:27; 21:30; 27:63; Luke 13:8), since it is clear from verse 36 that the crowd did not truly believe in Jesus. They were still focused on having their physical needs met (cf. 4:15), as with the provision of manna (Ex. 16:35). In their obtuseness, they exhibited the fact that “a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised” (1 Cor. 2:14).

Their dullness and lack of understanding prompted Jesus to declare unambiguously to them, “I am the bread of life.” The Lord had not been referring to actual bread, as they mistakenly thought, but to Himself; He is the very bread He earlier promised to give (v. 27). No bread, not even manna, or the fish and bread Jesus had just created the evening before (6:1–13), could permanently cure physical hunger. Thus, when the Lord declared that those who come to Him will never again hunger or thirst, He had to be speaking not of the body, but of the soul. Here, as in Matthew 5:6, the human need to know God is expressed metaphorically as hungering and thirsting (cf. Pss. 42:1–2; 63:1).

Two simple verbs in verse 35 define man’s part in the salvation process: comes and believes. To come to Christ is to forsake the old life of sin and rebellion and submit to Him as Lord. Though John does not use the term “repentance” in his gospel, the concept is clearly implied in the idea of coming to Christ (cf. 1 Thess. 1:9). As Charles Spurgeon put it, “You and your sins must separate, or you and your God will never come together” (“Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vol. 21 [Pasadena, Tex.: Pilgrim, 1980], 88). To believe in Christ is to trust completely in Him as the Messiah and Son of God, and to acknowledge that salvation comes solely through faith in Him (14:6; Acts 4:12). Repentance and faith are two sides of the same coin; to repent is to turn from sin, and to believe is to turn to the Savior. They are inseparable.

This is the first of seven highly significant statements in John’s gospel where “I am” is joined with metaphors expressing Christ’s work as Savior. In addition to the bread of life, Jesus also used “I am” to describe Himself as “the Light of the world” (8:12), “the door of the sheep” (10:7, 9), “the good shepherd” (10:11, 14), “the resurrection and the life” (11:25), “the way, and the truth, and the life” (14:6), and “the true vine” (15:1, 5). Jesus also used ego eimi (“I am”) in an absolute, unqualified sense (4:26; 8:24, 28, 58; 13:19; 18:5–8) to appropriate for Himself the Old Testament name of God (Ex. 3:14).

Having declared that He was the Bread of Life, Jesus rebuked His hearers for their unbelief (note the similar rebuke of the Judeans in 5:38–40), adding the indictment, “But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe.” The specific rebuke to which Jesus was referring (when He said this to them in the past) is not known, but clearly their unbelief was in the face of His self-revelation, so their rejection was inexcusable. Alia (but) indicates a sharp contrast between the crowd’s actual response and the one Jesus desired (cf. Matt. 23:37). Although they had seen Him, they failed to grasp the significance of His miracles, and missed the point of His teaching. As was the case with their forefathers in the wilderness, “The word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard” (Heb. 4:2). The miracles they had seen merely whetted their appetite for more miracles; they were intrigued by what Jesus could do to ease the difficulties of life, but they were not willing to believe in Him as their Messiah and Lord.

In spite of the crowd’s response, Jesus was not discouraged. His confidence in the success of His mission was firmly rooted in the omnipotent sovereignty of God. He knew that all those whom the Father gives to Him (cf. v. 39; 10:29; 17:2, 6, 9, 24) will come to Him. The neuter singular form of pas (all) views those whom God gives to Jesus as a collective body, those chosen in Him before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4). This profound reality teaches us that all who are saved are a love gift from the Father to the Son. The whole history of redemption is the gathering of this redeemed body—or the calling of a bride for the Son as a love gift from the Father. The Son views every soul given by the Father to Him as an expression of the Father’s irresistible love, so that all whom He gives will come to Christ.

From the standpoint of human responsibility, “God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent” (Acts 17:30; cf. Matt. 3:2; 4:17; Mark 6:12), and “whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Rom. 10:13; cf. John 3:15–16). Yet salvation does not depend on the human will. The redeemed are those “who were born, not … of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13). Salvation “does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy” (Rom. 9:16). Both repentance (Acts 11:18; 2 Tim. 2:25) and faith (Eph. 2:8–9; Phil. 1:29; cf. Acts 16:14) are granted by God. Otherwise no one would ever come to Him, since “there is none who seeks for God” (Rom. 3:11; cf.8:7–8; 1 Cor.2:14;2 Cor.4:4; Eph.2:1–3).

That God is absolutely sovereign in salvation is foundational to the Christian faith. Those errant theological systems (i.e., Pelagianism, semi-Pelagianism, and Arminianism) that make salvation dependent on man’s will in effect dethrone God, and are contrary to the clear statements of Scripture:

The unbelief of spiritually dead (Eph. 2:1) sinners cannot thwart the saving work of God. Having chosen them in eternity past, He graciously and irresistibly calls them to Himself.

Lest any seeking souls should fear that they might not be among the elect, Jesus described the one whom the Father gave to the Son as none other than the one who comes to Me. From God’s view, we are given by His sovereign power to the Son. From our view, we come to Christ. And, of course, our Lord would never reject one who comes as a love gift from the Father. So Jesus added, I will certainly not cast that one out. The strong double negative ou me states emphatically that Christ will not reject anyone who sincerely and submissively comes to Him. True saving faith can never be exercised in vain, but only at the prompting of the Father (v. 44).

Here again is the incomprehensible (to the human mind) interplay between divine sovereignty and human responsibility: only those given to the Son by the Father will come to Him, yet all who are “thirsty [may] come” and anyone “who wishes [may] take the water of life without cost” (Rev. 22:17). Though they seem impossible to harmonize, there is no conflict between those two truths in the infinite mind of God (Deut. 29:29). (God’s sovereignty in salvation does not negate the believer’s responsibility to evangelize the lost—Matt. 24:14; 26:13; 28:19; Mark 13:10; cf. Acts 8:25, 40; 14:7, 15, 21; 16:10; Rom. 1:15; 15:19–20; 1 Cor. 1:17; 9:16, 18; 15:1; 2 Cor. 10:16; 11:7; Gal. 1:8–9, 11; 2:2; Phil. 4:15; 1 Peter 1:12).

Certainly, the Son would never reject any part of the Father’s gift to Him. Such disunity within the Trinity is utterly inconceivable, as Jesus’ next statement, “I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me,” made clear. The Lord came to earth for one purpose: to perfectly obey the will of the Father who sent Him. To the disciples Jesus declared, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work” (4:34). Later He added, “I can do nothing on My own initiative … because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me” (5:30; cf. Matt. 26:39).”So that the world may know that I love the Father,” He affirmed in 14:31, “I do exactly as the Father commanded Me.” In His High Priestly Prayer Jesus said to the Father, “I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do” (17:4).

The reality that Jesus came to do the will of the Father who sent Him (vv. 39–40) guarantees the salvation of the elect and their eternal security. It is the Father’s will that of all that He has given to the Son, the Son should lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. As in verse 37, the neuter form of the pronoun pas (all) views the elect as a collective unit. No part of that group, which the Father assigned to Christ in eternity past and gives to Him in time, will be lost; the fourfold promise that the Son will raise it up intact on the last day (40, 44, 54) constitutes an ironclad guarantee of eternal salvation to all true believers. Jesus reiterated that truth in the strongest terms when He declared in John 10:27–30,

In His High Priestly Prayer He said to the Father, “While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition [Judas Iscar-iot, who was not one of those given to Christ by the Father; cf. 6:64, 70–71], so that the Scripture would be fulfilled” (17:12).

The rest of the New Testament echoes the Lord’s teaching regarding the perseverance and protection of the saints. The apostle Paul wrote in Romans 8:29–30,

The repeated phrase “He also” links the entire salvation process from eternity past to eternity future in an unbreakable chain. All whom God foreknew will be predestined, called, justified, and glorified; no one will be lost along the way (cf. 8:31–39). In Philippians 1:6 Paul expressed his confidence that “He who began a good work in [believers] will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” To the Colossians he wrote, “For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory” (Col. 3:3–4). All who are united with Christ in His death will return with Him in glory (cf. Rev. 19:14). In his first epistle Peter wrote that those who are

In the introduction to his epistle Jude described believers as “those who are the called … kept for Jesus Christ” (Jude 1). He concluded his letter with the marvelous benediction, “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen” (vv. 24–25).

The blessing of eternal security or the preservation and perseverance of believers is never apart from personal repentance and faith, so our Lord affirms that heaven belongs to everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him. It is they who will have eternal life (vv. 47, 54; 3:15–16, 36; 5:24; 10:28), which by its very nature can never end (3:16; 10:28; Matt. 25:46). That fact further reinforces the protection and security of believers taught in verses 37–39. The eternal life that comes through Jesus, the Bread of Life, should be sought with far more zeal than the physical bread the crowd selfishly sought.

THE COMPLAINT

Therefore the Jews were grumbling about Him, because He said, “I am the bread that came down out of heaven.” They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He now say, ‘I have come down out of heaven’?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught of God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me. Not that anyone has seen the Father, except the One who is from God; He has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.” (6:41–50)

Because their unbelief kept them from understanding, the Jews (this term has a negative connotation here as it frequently does in John’s gospel [cf. 1:19; 2:18–20; 5:10, 15–16, 18; 7:1;8:48, 52, 57; 9:18, 22; 10:24, 31, 33; 19:7, 12, 14, 20, 21, 38; 20:19]) were grumbling about Jesus (as their ancestors had grumbled against God; Ex. 16:2, 8–9; Num. 11:4–6). Specifically, they were disturbed by two things He had said. The first was His claim to be the source of eternal life (v. 35). The verb translated grumbling (gogguzo) is an onomatopoetic word that both means and sounds like muttered complaints and whispers of displeasure. They were also outraged at His declaration that He came down out of heaven. They thought of Him merely on the human level, as a fellow Galilean, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother they knew (cf. 4:44; 7:27; Matt. 13:55–57). They also knew that He came from the despised town of Nazareth (cf. 1:46). And so, like the Jews in Judea (5:18), these Galileans hardened their hearts against their Messiah, who called for repentance and faith as a prerequisite to entering His kingdom (Matt. 4:17) and who outrageously, in their view, claimed equality with God.

Those who continually reject the truth may find that God will judicially harden their hearts. For those who refused to believe His teaching, Jesus made the truth more obscure by means of parables. To His disciples’ question, “Why do You speak to them in parables?” (Matt. 13:10) the Lord replied,

John 12:37–40 says of those who rejected Jesus after witnessing His miracles,

In the end times, those who will “not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved” (2 Thess. 2:10) will find that “God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false” (v. 11). At the present time, there is a partial hardening of Israel (Rom. 11:25), leading to the salvation of the Gentiles (v. 11). But one day, during the future time of tribulation, God will remove Israel’s blindness, and all the believing remnant of the Jewish people will be saved (v. 26; cf. Zech. 12:10–13:1).

Rather than answer their confusion, Jesus commanded the Jews, “Do not grumble among yourselves.” He called for them to stop the mumbling complaints that reflected their rebellious and hard hearts. He had said and done enough, if they had been open and willing. Thus, there was no point in responding to their muttering discontent and disrespect with a detailed defense. They had willfully hardened their hearts, and would have only rejected the truth of His heavenly origin had He elaborated on it.

Then Jesus uttered some very solemn words: “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him,” emphasizing man’s helplessness and utter inability to respond to Him apart from God’s sovereign call. Unbelievers are unable to come to Jesus on their own initiative (cf. the discussion of verse 37 above). If God did not irresistibly draw sinners to Christ, no one would ever come to Him.

To explain how lost sinners supposedly have the power to accept or reject the gospel of their own free will, some theologians introduce the concept of prevenient grace. Millard J. Erickson explains,

But the Bible indicates that fallen man is unable, of his own volition, to come to Jesus Christ. Unregenerate people are dead in sin (Eph. 2:1; Col. 2:13), slaves to unrighteousness (John 8:34; Rom. 6:6, 17, 20), alienated from God (Col. 1:21), and hostile to Him (Rom. 5:10; 8:7). They are spiritually blind (2 Cor. 4:4) captives (2 Tim. 2:26) trapped in Satan’s kingdom (Col. 1:13), powerless to change their sinful natures (Jer. 13:23; Rom. 5:6), unable to please God (Rom. 8:8), and incapable of understanding spiritual truth (1 Cor. 2:14; cf. John 14:17). Although the human will is involved in coming to Christ (since no one is saved apart from believing the gospel—Mark 1:15; Acts 15:7; Rom. 1:16; 10:9–15; Eph. 1:13), sinners cannot come to Him of their own free will. (Moreover, a comparison of verse 44 with verse 37 shows that God’s drawing cannot apply to all unregenerate people, as proponents of prevenient grace argue, because verse 37 limits it to the redeemed whom God has given to Christ.) God irresistibly, efficaciously draws to Christ only those whom He chose for salvation in eternity past (Eph. 1:4–5, 11).

Once again, Jesus repeated the wonderful promise that all whom the Father chooses will be drawn, will come, will be received, and He will raise them on the last day (vv. 39–40, 54). Everyone who comes to Christ will be kept by Him; there is no possibility that even one elect person given to Him by the Father will be lost (see the discussion of v. 39 above).

In verse 45 the Lord paraphrased Isaiah 54:13 to emphasize that His teaching was consistent with the Old Testament. What was written in the prophets, “And they shall all be taught of God,” restates the truth of verse 44 in different terms. Those who come to saving faith do so because they are supernaturally instructed by God. Drawing and teaching are merely different aspects of God’s sovereign call to salvation; it is through the truth of His Word that God draws people to embrace His Son (Rom. 10:14, 17; cf. 1 Peter 1:23–25). As a result, everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Christ. Jesus’ statement was also a subtle rebuke of His Jewish opponents, who prided themselves on their knowledge of Scripture. But had they truly understood the Old Testament, they would have eagerly embraced Him (5:39).

As the only way to God (John 14:6), Jesus hastened to add that no one has seen the Father (1:18; 5:37; Ex. 33:20; 1 Tim. 6:16) except the One who is from God. Because He was eternally in heaven one with the Father, and then sent to earth by the Father, the Son can speak authoritatively about the Father (cf. Heb. 1:2). No one else can rightly make such a claim. Thus, only the Son is qualified to speak firsthand about the expectations of the Father and the truth of salvation.

Jesus’ solemn statement, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life” (cf. v. 40; 3:15–16, 36; 5:24) sums up the importance of trusting God’s self-revelation in Christ. Those who believe in Jesus not only have the hope of eternal life in the future, but also enjoy the possession of that life even now, as the present tense of pisteuo (believes) indicates.

The Lord concluded this portion of His sermon by restating the truth that He is the bread of life (cf. v. 35). He then contrasted Himself as the true bread of heaven (cf. v. 33) with the manna (cf. v. 31) that the Hebrew fathers ate … in the wilderness. Although it was miraculously provided by God to sustain the Israelites’ physical life, the manna could not impart eternal life, since the fathers who ate the manna … died (Heb. 3:17; cf. Jude 5). Jesus, however, is the true bread which comes down out of heaven (vv. 33, 35), so that one may eat of it and not die. Eat refers metaphorically to believing savingly in Jesus, which alone rescues sinners from eternal death (cf. 3:16; 11:26). Appropriating Jesus as the Bread of Life is the theme of the next section of this sermon.