Bread of Life

As Jesus worked among the people, their fascination with His miracles made them willing to listen to His words. He had profound spiritual truth to give them, once He had their attention. That was the purpose of the miracles: to focus their concentration on His message. His message was shocking to unbelievers steeped in religion. They were intrigued, and many wanted to hear more. He continued with His discourse about what constitutes the will of the Father. It was not like anything they’d been taught before.

John 6:35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.  

Jesus expressed His deity with “I AM.” Perfect existence, just as He had stated to Moses at the burning bush. “the bread” (food) is essential to life. In this case, spiritual life. To receive Him means to never hunger or thirst again, for truth, meaning and purpose in life. The Samaritan woman had recently heard just such words, and she believed.

John 6:36-39 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 whoever comes to me I will never cast out.  For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.  And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.

The sign-seekers were not interested in spiritual truth. They wanted a show. Grand heroics. Parlor tricks. More food. They wanted some other explanation than the one Jesus was giving them. They wanted something other from Jesus than their own eternal salvation.

Here they were with Him, seeing the physical man, but not the eternal person. Here He was on earth, in His perfect human body, having been the creator of the earth and all its human bodies. In order to recognize Who He really is, they must believe Him. The Father has decreed that some will come to Jesus, believing, and none of them will be rejected. The gospel message is for everyone, but not everyone’s volition will be positive toward the gospel message. The Father allows man that freedom. Jesus came to provide salvation for everyone, by the Father’s decree, and those souls which have been given to Him are eternally saved.

Jesus wasn’t teaching Church Age doctrine in the gospels. There was no Church until the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came and indwelt all believers after the ascension of our Lord. In the gospels, we have the history of the incarnation of the Son of God, sent for a specific purpose: to seek and save those who are lost. Also in the gospels, we have Jesus’ own self-identification as the One sent by the Father, and the only way of salvation for mankind. In the gospels we find the Savior Himself, explaining to His chosen people Who He really is and how they can receive eternal life. The Church was yet to be born, and the Holy-Spirit filled Church would learn and grow through the mystery (not previously known) doctrines taught in the epistles to the Church; not through Jesus’ instructions to the Jews regarding the kingdom of God. It is important in the dispensation of the Church that we recognize this distinction when we study the scriptures. The gospel message as Jesus presented it, however, is still the gospel message today, even as it has been throughout human history:

John 6:40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

In other translations, the last phrase of verse 40 says “I Myself” will raise him up on the last day.” He was referring to the resurrection of the believers, of course, and He emphasized that it will be He, God the Son, the second person of the trinity Who having purchased the salvation of all mankind and having made that salvation known to them, would also be the One in charge of their bodily resurrection when the time is right for that event.

God the Son, the second person of the trinity, did all the work of creation, salvation and resurrection of the believers. He did all that under the direct authority of the first person of the trinity, God the Father.

This is the Father’s will.