JOHN CHAPTER 6.

JOHN CHAPTER 6.

            The Lord miraculously feeds the five thousand. v. 1-14.

            The Lord withdraws lest they make him a king.    "  15.

            The Lord meets his disciples on the Lake.           "  16-21.

            The multitude came to Capernaum seeking Jesus  22-24.

            Seek the bread that abideth unto eternal life.       "  25-34.

            Jesus himself the bread that gives life to men.   "  35-40.

            "I am the bread which came down from heaven." "  41-51.

            "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"       "  52-59.

            Sifting: most fall away and only a few are real.   " 60-71.

           

The central theme of the chapter is that Christ is the true Bread from heaven, who gives life to men.  Sit down. - The missionary who proved the value of this advice. (v.10) :

           

1/   The Bread from Heaven.  The multitudes over-concern for the material things and the needs of the body.  The Lord confronts them with a far greater importance of spiritual and eternal values.  The people refuse to believe that he has anything to give that Moses had not already given them.  For Moses gave the people the Law and the Manna on which they fed, a symbol of the Law, but the bread which Christ gives is greater than the Law (Torah).

           

2/   Jesus the Bread of Life.  (v.35).  There is certainly an allusion to the Lord's Supper in this chapter, but Barrett is on the right ground when he writes;  "It suggests that the primary thought in John's mind at this point, is not the Eucharist, which must be regularly received, but the all-important and unrepeatable contact with Christ by faith, through which life is conveyed to man; in sacramental terms, the thought corresponds to Baptism rather than the Eucharist."

           

3/   His death.  (v.51).  "The bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world."  He will give his flesh in death.  In these verses (51-56) there seems to be an allusion to the Lord's Supper. 

           

4/  Two tests.                                        Flesh- true humanity.

a. The Cross.                                        Spirit-resurrection.

b. The New Birth.  The Holy Spirit.          The flesh the vehicle of the Spirit.

           

5/   The Holy One of God.   The Spirit - comprehends going to the Father, so linked with the historic Jesus.

           

The comprehensive symbol of "the Bread of Life" suggests to a wealth of ideas, and we see the Lord's Supper as the focus of these.  Gregory Dix - symbol of Eucharist is colouring the evangelist's thought throughout verses 26-65 - but only 51-58 intended to refer to Eucharist as a rite, while the remaining section of the chapter is dealing with the much wider question of faith in Christ's person and office in terms of Eucharist symbolism.

                  

Give :                             The Father's Will:

1. Meat.                              6:27.                       1. Governed Christ in

2. True Bread.                      6:32.                          all things.                  6:38.

3. Life to the believer.                           2. That none be lost.                   6:39.

4. Believers given                                  3. That every believer

    to the Father.                  6:37,39.                       have eternal life.        6:40.

5. His flesh given.      6:51.