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The Tenth Sunday after Trinity — Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost — is August 8, 2021.
Readings for Year B can be found here.
The Gospel reading is as follows (emphases mine):
John 6:35, 41-51
6:35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
6:41 Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”
6:42 They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”
6:43 Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves.
6:44 No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day.
6:45 It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.
6:46 Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father.
6:47 Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life.
6:48 I am the bread of life.
6:49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.
6:50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.
6:51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
It is important to cover the missing verses here. I suspect the Lectionary compilers did not include them because it would lead to a potential argument between Arminians (free will in approaching conversion) and Calvinists (God chooses whom He saves).
In providing John 6:36-40, I am including verse 35 again for context. Please note verses 37 and 39 in particular:
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. 36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 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. 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.”
We pick up where we left off last week. These events happened on the day after the Feeding of the Five Thousand.
Jesus pressed on with teaching the multitude that He is the bread of life, that whoever comes to Him will never be hungry and that those who believe in Him will never thirst (verse 35).
He reproved them again for seeing Him and not believing that He is the Son of God (verse 36). He knew that many found Him a sensation for His miracles. However, they did not want to hear His teaching about the life to come and His role as our Redeemer.
Matthew Henry’s commentary says that Jesus includes a sense of spiritual understanding in the use of the word ‘seen’:
… I rather understand seeing here to mean the same thing with believing, for it is theoron, which signifies not so much the sight of the eye (as John 6:36, heorakate me—ye have seen me) as the contemplation of the mind. Every one that sees the Son, that is, believes on him, sees him with an eye of faith, by which we come to be duly acquainted and affected with the doctrine of the gospel concerning him. It is to look upon him, as the stung Israelites upon the brazen serpent. It is not a blind faith that Christ requires, that we should be willing to have our eyes put out, and then follow him, but that we should see him, and see what ground we go upon in our faith. It is then right when it is not taken up upon hearsay (believing as the church believes), but is the result of a due consideration of, and insight into, the motives of credibility: Now mine eye sees thee. We have heard him ourselves.
Jesus explicitly said that all the souls that the Father gives to Him will follow Him, and those souls He will never cast out (verse 37).
He added that it is His Father’s will that He lose none of those souls whom God has entrusted in His care; in fact, He will raise those souls on the last day, the Day of Judgement (verse 39).
Henry says:
There is a certain number of the children of men given by the Father to Jesus Christ, to be his care, and so to be to him for a name and a praise; given him for an inheritance, for a possession.
No one knows exactly who those people are, only the Father and Son know. Some regular churchgoers will not be included. On the other hand, some unbelievers will certainly be in the number of the saved. One day, they will follow Jesus before it is too late.
Jesus reiterated that He will do the will of His Father in giving His Father’s spiritual children the gift of eternal life (verse 40).
Jesus told the crowd that He had come down from heaven to accomplish His Father’s will (verse 38).
That statement gravely bothered some of the Jews listening to Him (verse 41). They asked how He could make such a bold claim of coming down from heaven when they knew Him as the son of Joseph and Mary, with whom they were acquainted (verse 42).
Henry explains their error:
They took it amiss that he should say that he came down from heaven, when he was one of them. They speak slightly of his blessed name, Jesus: Is not this Jesus. They take it for granted that Joseph was really his father, though he was only reputed to be so. Note, Mistakes concerning the person of Christ, as if he were a mere man, conceived and born by ordinary generation, occasion the offence that is taken at his doctrine and offices. Those who set him on a level with the other sons of men, whose father and mother we know, no wonder if they derogate from the honour of his satisfaction and the mysteries of his undertaking, and, like the Jews here, murmur at his promise to raise us up at the last day.
Jesus told them to stop complaining among themselves (verse 43).
He reiterated that no one can come to the Father except through Him and he will raise that person — and others — on the last day (verse 44).
Jesus cited Isaiah 54:13 about the faithful being taught by God and said that all of those people will go and follow Him (verse 45), the Good Shepherd.
John MacArthur says:
Verse 45 is a very important verse, often overlooked I think. It’s a quote from Isaiah, Isaiah 54:13. “It is written in the prophets and they shall all be taught of God.” The only way anybody can come to the truth is if God is his teacher. “Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me.” People don’t come to God under the powerful sway of human reason. The preacher is not the means. The preacher is only a tool to present the truth. The drawing is divine. The Father is the true teacher. The Father is the instructor of the heart and the mind.
Henry tells us:
[a.] It is here implied that none will come to Christ but those that have heard and learned of the Father. We shall never be brought to Christ but under a divine conduct; except God by his grace enlighten our minds, inform our judgments, and rectify our mistakes, and not only tell us that we may hear, but teach us, that we may learn the truth as it is in Jesus, we shall never be brought to believe in Christ. [b.] That this divine teaching does so necessarily produce the faith of God’s elect that we may conclude that those who do not come to Christ have never heard nor learned of the Father; for, if they had, doubtless they would have come to Christ. In vain do men pretend to be taught of God if they believe not in Christ, for he teaches no other lesson, Galatians 1:8-9.
Jesus then reworded what He said in verse 36: no one has seen God ‘except the one who is from God’ — He Himself has seen His Father (verse 46).
MacArthur reminds us of the opening verses of John’s Gospel:
Over and over and over Jesus speaks of His preexistence. John began his Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God,” the Word meaning Christ. Therefore, Christ was there preexistent with God, coexistent with God, self-existent with God eternally. You cannot ever reduce Jesus to a created being. Yes, His body was prepared by God for Him, but as a person He is the eternal Son of God. He existed everlastingly in the presence of God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. He is God of very God. That’s why John 1:14 says, “We beheld His glory and it was the same glory as the Father.”
If you go back to John, chapter 3, there’s a helpful statement our Lord makes in the conversation with Nicodemus. He says, “No one has ascended into heaven. No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven,” and who is that? The Son of Man.
Jesus then exhorted the crowd to believe in Him because they will have eternal life (verse 47).
He repeated that He is the bread of life (verse 48).
He then picked up a point of contention from the crowd, John 6:31-32, included in last week’s reading, that Moses was able to give the Israelites manna for many years, yet Jesus performed only one grand feeding miracle:
6:31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
6:32 Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.
Jesus made it clear that the manna was not life-giving; Israelites died regardless (verse 49). Therefore, the people should not put too much stock in God-given manna for their physical sustenance.
He said that they should focus on the bread of eternal life that He will provide (verse 50).
Jesus reinforced this further by saying that He is the living bread that came down from heaven, that those who partake of it will have eternal life and, furthermore, that His own flesh is that living bread (verse 51).
Of course, that is a figurative expression, not to be taken literally, as Henry explains:
This is certainly a parable or figurative discourse, wherein the actings of the soul upon things spiritual and divine are represented by bodily actions about things sensible, which made the truths of Christ more intelligible to some, and less so to others, Mark 4:11-12.
However, we also have responsibilities as those called and those who believe, as MacArthur says:
It’s not enough to come and listen. It’s not enough to admire to get some kind of information. You have to eat. You have to appropriate. You have to receive Me. That’s our responsibility.
Since we don’t know who God has chosen, we can only know we have all been held accountable to come, see, and believe. Believe what? That I am the bread. He says that over and over, “That I am the bread that came down out of heaven, that I am the bread that came down out of heaven.” So it starts with believing in the person of Christ, okay? Believing in His preexistence, His incarnation, God in human flesh, believing in the person of Christ. But let me tell you something quickly, believing in the person of Jesus Christ as the living bread is not enough. Not enough. Something else.
You not only have to believe in Him as living bread, you have to believe in Him as dying blood. What? Verse 51, “I am the living bread. I came down out of heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. And the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.” Now, he’s talking about giving up His life. Very specific terms.
John 6 is one of the most powerful chapters in the Bible. It is well worth reading and rereading.
More on what happened that day will continue in next Sunday’s reading.
Churchmouse Campanologist 