'Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.' They had a feeling that, in some way, the manna was a gift from above. They had an equally strong feeling that, in some way or other, it came to them from Moses. The impressions were confused; yet each was right in itself. The records in the Book of Exodus encouraged each. Those records taught them to regard the water which started from the rock, when it was struck by the rod, as bestowed by an unseen Giver. If the manna was found upon the trees, that book would teach them that it was just as much a gift as if it fell from the clouds. Our Lord brings this sense out of the old story. 'Moses,' He said, 'gave you not that bread from heaven.' And then He pronounces the higher Name—the new Name, the Name which He had come to reveal—'My Father.' It was He who gave that bread in the wilderness, and it was He who was giving them, then and there, 'the true bread from heaven.' What that Bread is, He goes on to explain. It is a Person whom they want to connect Heaven with earth,—themselves with God. The glory they gave to Moses showed they needed a Man to bring God nearer to them. Their eagerness to assert that the manna came from Heaven, showed that this was not enough for them—there must be a direct connexion between them and the higher world into which Moses ascended; their food must denote it. The name of Father told them that it was even so. That Name turned the material heaven into a spiritual Heaven, more real than the material heaven—a Heaven from which the best good could come, not to lawgivers or prophets, but to hungry Galilæans; for they could not really enter into that name of Father without acknowledging a Son who came to them as their Brother. They could not receive Him in these characters without believing that He had come to bring life—common life and the highest life—not to a few select men, but to the world.
'Then said they unto Him, Lord, evermore give us this bread.' The parallel words to this, in the dialogue with the woman of Samaria, were spoken, I thought, with the levity which characterised her till she discovered that Jesus knew all things that ever she did. I do not perceive a similar levity in these words. The people may have taken in very little of His meaning; but I think they were serious and awed. And surely the words in which our Lord answers them are very different indeed from those which He spoke to the woman; very different, also, from those in which He spoke afterwards to people who had none of her frankness, and who had a crust of intellectual and spiritual pride to break through. Before I quote His words, I will explain why I think that they wind up one division of this chapter, and that the remainder of it, though a continuation of the subject, introduces us to new topics and new persons.
It is evident that the conversation commences on the border of the Lake of Tiberias, with the people who had just crossed and found Jesus there. But it is said in the 59th verse—'These things said Jesus in the synagogue, as He taught in Capernaum.' There must be a break, therefore, somewhere. I can have no doubt that it occurs at the 41st verse. In it we are told that the Jews murmured at Him. The word Jews we have not met with before; the moment it occurs, the character of the narrative changes. Instead of the simple, confused observations of a crowd, 'which did eat of the loaves and were filled,' we have murmurs and reasonings of such men as were sure to be found in the synagogues—men who represented the sentiments of the Scribes and Pharisees of Jerusalem. They are evidently, I conceive, discussing a strange phrase which had been reported to them as having proceeded from the lips of the Nazarene teacher. All the controversies which have been raised about this chapter, arise directly out of the latter part of it. I shall not enter upon any of them to-day. We shall be far better qualified to consider them, if we dwell for a few moments upon that wonderful Gospel to the poor which is contained in the reply to their half-unconscious prayer—'Lord, evermore give us this bread.'
'You ask me to give it to you: it is given already. The Father has given Me to His creatures. I spoke of a Son of Man whom the Father had sealed. I, that Son of Man, am that bread of life. But how can such bread be eaten? He that cometh to Me shall never hunger; and He that believeth on Me shall never thirst.' If coming to Him was going to Him on their feet, they had done that already; if believing on Him was acknowledging Him as the Prophet that should come into the world, they had already fed on Him in the sense that He intended. Yet it was clear that their hunger was not satisfied—that it was only beginning to be excited. He goes on—'But I have said unto you, That ye also have seen Me, and believe not.' If Jesus was merely a Prophet of Nazareth, who could be shown by visible miracles to be sent from God, the distinction of seeing and believing is incomprehensible. Let a sufficient amount of probative evidence be addressed to the eye, the act of believing must follow. But if He was the Word who had in all times been the Light of men; if those who judged by the sight of their eyes had resisted this Light, and become idolaters; if those who received it, received it into their hearts, and so rose to the stature of Sons of God;—then it was certain that He would speak to another organ than the eye, or than any of the senses; as much when He stood before them in an actual body, and spoke with fleshly lips, as when He was only their invisible Teacher and Reprover. It must be their faith, not their sight, which must now, as ever, see Him and answer to Him. They might touch Him, and yet not come to Him.
But He proceeds:—'All that the Father giveth to Me shall come to Me; and him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.' The apparent advantage of being on earth at the time of His appearing—of being in the streets in which He walked, of sitting with Him, of conversing with Him—would be nothing. All these privileges might belong to those who would reject Him, hate Him, betray Him. But all that the Father of spirits gives to Him—all that yields to the Father's will—shall confess Him as its true Lord; and him that so cometh, in one place or another, in one age or another, He will not thrust away. 'For I came down from heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me.' 'I have not come forth to save some choice favourites of Mine, but to fulfil the will of Him who created the universe—of that Father to whom I said your spirits are yielding when they turn to Me.'
'And this is the Father's will which hath sent Me, that of all which He hath given Me I should lose nothing out of it (ἵνα πᾶν ὃ δέδωκέν μοι, μὴ ἁπολέσω εξ αὐτοῦ), but should raise it up at the last day.' I dare not paraphrase these words. They are too large and too deep for any conception I can form of them. The adjective and the pronoun, you will perceive, are in the neuter, as if the promise was to include not only humanity, but all that is related to humanity—the body through which the spirit speaks and acts—the whole frame of nature, which has shared man's decay and death. The final day cannot come till all that the Father has redeemed is raised to its proper life. But yet the neuter could not satisfy the intention of Jesus. He was speaking to distinct persons; He must add—'And this is the will of Him that sent Me, that every one that seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.'
Thus we are brought back to the original proposition; only it has gained immeasurably in strength and fulness. To each man in that crowd who had eaten of the loaves and been filled, and had followed Christ for no better reason than that,—to each man upon whom His light shined in the days before His incarnation,—to each man who has been born into the world since,—to each ignorant peasant of this land,—to every miserable dweller in the streets and alleys of this city,—to each one of us who may have been tempted by wealth, luxury, false philosophy, false religion, to seek some food that cannot nourish us, does He say: 'It is the will of My Father that this man should triumph over all the enemies that are drawing him down into death, and that he should be raised up at the last day by the might of Him who died and rose again; that he should enter into that eternal life of righteousness and truth, which was with the Father, and which has been manifested to us in His only-begotten Son.'