John 6:33

They understood that the meat, which remains to eternal life, was the work of God: and therefore they ask Him what to do to work the work of God, i.e. obtain the meat: Then said they to Him, What shall we do that we might work the works of God?

i.e. By keeping what commandments shall we be able to fulfill the law of God?

But they said this, not that they might learn, and do them, but to obtain from Him another exhibition of His bounty.

Christ, though He saw it would not avail, yet for the good of others afterwards, answered their question; and showed them, or rather the whole world, what was the work of God: Jesus answered and said to them, This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.

He does not say, That you believe Him, but, that you believe in Him. For the devils believed Him, and did not believe in Him; and we believe Paul, but do not believe in Paul. To believe in Him is believing to love, believing to honor Him, believing to go to Him, and be made members incorporate of His Body. The faith, which God requires of us, is that which works by love. Faith indeed is distinguished from works by the Apostle, who says, That man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. But the works indeed which appear good, without faith in Christ, are not really so, not being referred to that end, which makes them good. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes. And therefore our Lord would not separate faith from works, but said that faith itself was the doing the work of God; He said not, This is your work, but, This is the work of God, that you believe in Him: in order that he that glories might glory in the Lord.

To eat then that meat which endures to everlasting life, is to believe in Him. Why do you make ready your tooth and your belly? Only believe, and you have eaten already. As He called on them to believe, they still asked for miracles whereby to believe; They said therefore to Him, What sign show you then, that we may see and believe You? What do you work?

Nothing can be more unreasonable than their asking for another miracle, as if none had been given already. And they do not even leave the choice of the miracle to our Lord; but would oblige Him to give them just that sign, which was given to their fathers: Our fathers did eat manna in the desert.

And to exalt the miracle of the manna they quote the Psalm, As it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.

Whereas many miracles were performed in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the desert, they remembered this one the best of any. Such is the force of appetite. They do not mention this miracle as the work either of God, or of Moses, in order to avoid raising Him on the one hand to an equality with God, or lowering Him on the other by a comparison with Moses; but they take a middle ground, only saying, Our fathers did eat manna in the desert.

Or thus; Our Lord sets Himself above Moses, who did not dare to say that He gave the meat which perishes not. The multitude therefore remembering what Moses had done, and wishing for some greater miracle, say, as it were, you promise the meat which perishes not, and does not works equal to those Moses did. He gave us not barley loaves, but manna from heaven.

Our Lord might have replied, that He had done miracles greater than Moses: but it was not the time for such a declaration. One thing He desired, viz. to bring them to taste the spiritual meat: then Jesus said to them, Verily, verily, I say to you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. Did not the manna come from heaven? True, but in what sense did it? The same in which the birds are called, the birds of heaven; and just as it is said in the Psalm, The Lord thundered out of heaven. He calls it the true bread, not because the miracle of the manna was false, but because it was the figure, not the reality. He does not say too, Moses gave it you not, but I: but He puts God for Moses, Himself for the manna.

As if He said, That manna was the type of this food, of which I just now spoke; and which all my. miracles refer to. You like my miracles, you despise what is signified by them. This bread which God gives, and which this manna represented, is the Lord Jesus Christ, as we read next, For the bread of God is He which comes down from hearer, and gives life to the world.

Not to the physical world, but to men, its inhabitants.

He calls Himself the true bread, because the only-begotten Son of God, made man, was principally signified by the manna. For manna means literally, what is this? The Israelites were astonished at first on finding it, and asked one another what it was. And the Son of God, made man, is in an especial sense this mysterious manna, which we ask about, saying, What is this? How can the Son of God be the Son of man? How can one person consist of two natures?

Who by the humanity, which was assumed, came down from heaven, and by the divinity, which assumed it, gives life to the world.

But this bread, being essentially life, (for He is the Son of the living Father,) in quickening all things, does but what is natural to Him to do. For as natural bread supports our weak flesh, so Christ, by the operations of the Spirit, gives life to the soul; and even incorruption to the body, (for at the resurrection the body will be made incorruptible.) Wherefore He says, that He gives life to the world.

Not only to the Jews, but to the whole world. The multitude, however, still attached a low meaning to His words: Then said they to Him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. They say, Give us this bread, not, Ask Your Father to give it us: whereas He had said that His Father gave this bread.

As the woman of Samaria, when our Lord told her, Whosoever drinks of this water shall never thirst, thought He meant natural water, and said, Sir, give me this water, that she might never be in want of it again: in the same way these say, Give us this bread, which refreshes, supports, and fails not.

Further, the Word declares Himself to be the bread of heaven. “For Moses,” He says, “gave you not that bread from heaven, but My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He that cometh down from heaven, and giveth life to the world. And the bread which I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” Here is to be noted the mystery of the bread, inasmuch as He speaks of it as flesh, and as flesh, consequently, that has risen through fire, as the wheat springs up from decay and germination; and, in truth, it has risen through fire for the joy of the Church, as bread baked. But this will be shown by and by more clearly in the chapter on the resurrection. …

But how gracefully has the Divine Wisdom arranged the order of the prayer; so that after things heavenly, that is, after the “Name” of God, the “Will” of God, and the “Kingdom” of God, it should give earthly necessities also room for a petition! For the Lord had withal issued His edict, “Seek ye first the kingdom, and then even these shall be added:” albeit we may rather understand, “Give us this day our daily bread,” spiritually . For Christ is our Bread; because Christ is Life, and bread is life. “I am,” saith He, “the Bread of Life;” and, a little above, “The Bread is the Word of the living God, who came down from the heavens.” Then we find , too, that His body is reckoned in bread: “This is my body.” And so, in petitioning for “daily bread,” we ask for perpetuity in Christ, and indivisibility from His body. …

Let us consider, however, a little more carefully what is the Word which is in the beginning. I am often led to wonder when I consider the things that are said about Christ, even by those who are in earnest in their belief in Him. Though there is a countless number of names which can be applied to our Saviour, they omit the most of them, and if they should remember them, they declare that these titles are not to be understood in their proper sense, but tropically. But when they come to the title Logos (Word), and repeat that Christ alone is the Word of God, they are not consistent, and do not, as in the case of the other titles, search out what is behind the meaning of the term “Word.” I wonder at the stupidity of the general run of Christians in this matter. I do not mince matters; it is nothing but stupidity. …

“ And His disciples came to the other side and forgot to take loaves. ” Since the loaves which they had before they came to the other side were no longer useful to the disciples when they came to the other side, for they needed one kind of loaves before they crossed and a different kind when they crossed, on this account, being careless of taking loaves when going to the other side, they forgot to take loaves with them. To the other side then came the disciples of Jesus who had passed over from things material to things spiritual, and from things sensible to those which are intellectual. …

But we must seek to understand what is meant by “tasting of death.” And He is life who says, “I am the life,” and this life assuredly has been hidden with Christ in God; and. “when Christ our life shall be manifested, then along with Him” shall be manifested those who are worthy of being manifested with Him in glory. But the enemy of this life, who is also the last enemy of all His enemies that shall be destroyed, is death, of which the soul that sinneth dies, having the opposite disposition to that which takes place in the soul that lives uprightly, and in consequence of living uprightly lives. And when it is said in the law, “I have placed life before thy face,” the Scripture says this about Him who said, “I am the Life,” and about His enemy, death; the one or other of which each of us by his deeds is always choosing. …

2. Let us commence here, accordingly, with the notice presented by Matthew, [which runs thus]: “And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to His disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body.” Both Mark and Luke also gave this section. It is true that Luke has made mention of the cup twice over: first before He gave the bread; and, secondly, after the bread has been given. But the fact is, that what is stated in that earlier connection has been introduced, according to this writer’s habit, by anticipation, while the words which he has inserted here in their proper order are left unrecorded in those previous verses, and the two passages when put together make up exactly what stands expressed by those other evangelists. …

31. “And it shall please God:” that I shall praise Him, shall please: “above a new calf, bearing horns and hoofs.” More grateful to Him shall be the sacrifice of praise than the sacrifice of a calf. “The sacrifice of praise shall glorify me.” “Immolate to God the sacrifice of praise.” So then His praise going forth from my mouth shall please God more than a great victim led up to His altar.…Therefore above this calf my praising shall please Thee, such as hereafter will be, after poverty and sorrow, in the eternal society of Angels, where neither adversary there shall be in battle to be tossed, nor sluggard from earth to be stirred up. “Let the needy see and rejoice” ( ver. 32 ). Let them believe, and in hope be glad. …

Ver. 33 . “The bread of God is He which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.” Not, saith He, to Jews alone, but to all the “world,” not mere food, but “life,” another and an altered “life.” He calleth it “life,” because they all were dead in sins. Yet they still kept downward bent, saying,

[1.] What I have often said, I will now say, that Christ looketh not so much to His own honor as to our salvation; not how He may utter some sublime saying, but how something able to draw us to Him. On which account His sublime and mighty sayings are few, and those also hidden, but the humble and lowly are many, and abound through His discourses. For since by these men were the rather brought over, in these He continueth; and He doth not on the one hand utter these universally, lest the men that should come after should receive damage, nor, on the other hand, doth He entirely withhold those, lest the men of that time should be offended. Since they who have passed from lowmindedness unto perfection, will be able from even a single sublime doctrine to discern the whole, but those who were ever lowminded, unless they had often heard these lowly sayings, would not have come to Him at all. …

1. Nurslings of purity and disciples of chastity, raise we our hymn to the Virgin-born God with lips full of purity. Deemed worthy to partake of the flesh of the Spiritual Lamb, let us take the head together with the feet, the Deity being understood as the head, and the Manhood taken as the feet. Hearers of the Holy Gospels, let us listen to John the Divine. For he who said, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God , went on to say, and the Word was made flesh . For neither is it holy to worship the mere man, nor religious to say that He is God only without the Manhood. For if Christ is God, as indeed He is, but took not human nature upon Him, we are strangers to salvation. Let us then worship Him as God, but believe that He also was made Man. …

I. I will address myself as is right to those who have come from Egypt; for they have come here eagerly, having overcome illwill by zeal, from that Egypt which is enriched by the River, raining out of the earth, and like the sea in its season, if I too may follow in my small measure those who have so eloquently spoken of these matters; and which is also enriched by Christ my Lord, Who once was a fugitive into Egypt, and now is supplied by Egypt; the first, when He fled from Herod’s massacre of the children; and now by the love of the fathers for their children, by Christ the new Food of those who hunger after good; the greatest alms of corn of which history speaks and men believe; the Bread which came down from heaven and giveth life to the world, that life which is indestructible and indissoluble, concerning Whom I now seem to hear the Father saying, Out of Egypt have I called My Son.

X. If after baptism the persecutor and tempter of the light assail you (for he assailed even the Word my God through the veil, the hidden Light through that which was manifested), you have the means to conquer him. Fear not the conflict; defend yourself with the Water; defend yourself with the Spirit, by Which all the fiery darts of the wicked shall be quenched. It is Spirit, but That Spirit which rent the Mountains. It is Water, but that which quenches fire. If he assail you by your want (as he dared to assail Christ), and asks that stones should be made bread, do not be ignorant of his devices. Teach him what he has not learnt. Defend yourself with the Word of life, Who is the Bread sent down from heaven, and giving life to the world. …