Hamblin, John 6:25-51 1 Apr 13, 2011

John 6:25-51: The Bread of Life

After the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand (Jn. 6:1-21), many of the people who
had received the bread followed Jesus to Capernaum (6:24). There, in the town’s synagogue
(6:59), Jesus encountered the people, some of whom had wanted to make Jesus king on the
previous day (6:15). Overall, the discussion in the Capernaum synagogue does not go well:
“after this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him” (6:66). What
caused this quick transformation from wanting to acclaim Jesus king to rejecting him entirely?
In essence this was a problem of unfulfilled expectations: because of Jesus’ failure to fulfill their
expectations, they rejected that which Jesus offered, which paradoxically was actually far better
than what they had originally wanted.

Moses and the Bread from Heaven (6:25-34)

The discussion in the synagogue of Capernaum began with contention. Jesus accused the
crowd of having come to him for free bread (6:26), while ignoring the food of eternal life that he
offers (6:27). In other words, they saw Jesus in purely material terms, as the expected messianic
king (6:15) who would free them from Rome and provide for their physical needs. The rift arose
because Jesus does not fulfill this expected messianic role.

The Synagogue of
Capernaum where
Jesus taught his
sermon on the Bread
of Life. This building
dates from the fourth
century, but is built
on the foundations of
the first century
synagogue. (Photo
by William Hamblin)
Hamblin, John 6:25-51 2 Apr 13, 2011

Specifically, Jesus said that the people “are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but
because you ate your fill of the loaves” (6:26). But wasn’t the miraculous multiplication of bread
the sign? In fact, for John, the miracle is not the sign; the miracle only points to the sign that
Jesus is the Messiah and Son of God. Even though they saw the miracle, they couldn’t see its
significance as a sign. They couldn’t see past the physical bread to the eternal Bread of Life.
In this passage Jesus refers to himself as the “Son of Man (6:27b), a title found frequently
in John.1 In the Hebrew Bible the phrase “son of man” (ben ʾādām, alternatively “son of Adam”)
is generally an idiomatic Hebrew expression for “human being.” The prophet Ezekiel, for
example, is addressed as “son of Man” ninety-three times in Ezekiel, probably simply meaning
“mortal.” In Daniel 7, however, the phrase “Son of Man” (Aramaic bar ʾěnāš) was used in a
cosmic sense to refer to the celestial figure sent from before God to establish the everlasting
messianic kingdom (Dan. 7:13-14). The title “Son of Man” was also used in this cosmic sense
in other Jewish intertestamental writings (1 Enoch; 4 Ezra 11-13; 2 Baruch 36-39). By the time
of Jesus, the epithet “Son of Man” was thus widely understood to be a title for the Messiah.
When Jesus used the phrase “Son of Man” to refer to himself, he was claiming to be the cosmic
figure prophesied by Daniel.
Jesus further stated that “God the Father has set his seal” (esfragisen) “on the Son of
Man” (6:27b). What the Father’s seal, and what does it mean to receive it? In its most
immediate sense it probably has reference to the Son of Man receiving the seal of everlasting
“dominion, honor and kingship” over all the world from the “Ancient of Days” in Daniel 7:14.
In its broader biblical context, the practice of marking or sealing something as one’s personal
possession comes from the widespread ancient Near Eastern custom of stamping and sealing clay
markers with cylinder seals, stamps, or signet rings as a sign of ownership.2 In Israel the most
notable archaeological examples are the le-melek (“[belonging] to the king”) seals, but many
such Israelite seal stamps (often called bullae by scholars) have been discovered. Thus, marking

1Jn. 1:51, 3:13, 5:27, 6:27, 53, 62, 8:28, 9:35, 12:23, 34, 13:31. On the “Son of Man” see P.
Moloney, The Johannine Son of Man, (1978); Anchor Bible Dictionary, 6:-137-150.
2Gen 38:18; Ex 28:36, 35:22, 39:30; 1 Kgs 21:8; Esth. 8:8-10; Job 38:14, 41:15; Song 8:6; Isa
8:16; Jer 22:24; Dan 16:17; Hag 2:23; Jn 3:33.
Hamblin, John 6:25-51 3 Apr 13, 2011

something with the name, sign, or seal of ownership was widely practiced in ancient Israel. God
is said to have such a seal with which he “seals the stars” (Job 9:7, Sir 17:22), probably a
metaphor for celestial beings. At its most basic level, a seal was a mark or stamped impression
representing ownership or authenticity (1 Kgs. 21:8; Esth. 3:12, 8:8-10; Dan 6:17). 3 When God
seals something, it shows it belongs to him. Circumcision is described as a seal which all
Israelites receive to indicate they are God’s people (Rom. 4:11).
The most notable biblical example of God sealing someone as his personal representative
is when the name of God (le-YHWH) placed as a seal (Hebrew ḥōtām, Greek sfragis) on a gold
plate bound to the forehead of the High Priest (Ex. 28:36). When the Father sets his seal upon
Jesus, it is probably an allusion to sealing him as the new great High Priest (see further
discussion on John 17). In the New Testament all Christians are likewise sealed with the name
of God. The righteous receive the the seal (sfragis) of God on their foreheads (Rev 7:2-3, 9:4).4
This seal is said to be Christ’s “name and [the] Father’s name written on their foreheads” (Rev
14:1, 22:4), precisely as the name of God was written on the gold plate on the forehead of the
Jewish High Priest.
The people then challenged Jesus’ claim to be the sealed Son of Man: “What sign do you
do, that we may see and believe you?” (6:30). This is somewhat of a non-sequitur, since Jesus
had just feed the five thousand the day before. Not everyone in the synagogue, however, had
been with the five thousand, and it is likely that many of the five thousand had not realized what
the source of the bread actually was. What they were requesting, however, was that Jesus
specifically reproduce Moses’ miracle of “the manna in the wilderness,” the “bread from
heaven” (6:31). (“Bread from heaven” is a technical term in the Hebrew Bible for manna: Ex.
16:4, Neh. 9:15, Ps. 77:24, 105:40.) It seems that the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves
and fish was the replication of earthly food; some viewed this as inadequate because it was not

3Sealing also designates closing up or binding a book (or something else that can be sealed shut)
so it cannot be opened. (Dt. 32:34; Isa. 8:16, 29:11; Dan. 9:24, 12:4, 9; Rev. 5:1, 5; Rev 20:3).
This is not the sense used here.
4 The wicked, on the other hand, receive the “mark (charagma) of the Beast” upon their
forehead and hand (Rev 13:16-7, 14:9-11, 15:2, 16:2, 17:5, 19:20, 20:4). For detailed discussion
and sources see D. Aune, Revelation 6-16 (Thomas Nelson, 1998) 452-459.
Hamblin, John 6:25-51 4 Apr 13, 2011

heavenly food like Moses’ manna. Indeed, some contemporary Jews believed the Messiah must
imitate Moses’ miracle of the manna (2 Baruch 29:8; Sibylline Oracle, Fragment 3.45). Rabbinic
tradition likewise maintained that “as the former redeemer [Moses] caused manna to descend ...
so will the latter redeemer [the Messiah] will cause manna to descend” (Ecclesiastes Rabbah
1:9). This demand for bread from heaven was thus a challenge to Jesus’ claim to be the Messiah.

“I am the Bread of Life” (6.35-51)5

In response to this new demand for a sign, Jesus shifts the context of the discussion,
declaring that there is “true bread from heaven” which comes from God (6:33). The phrases
“bread of life,” “bread of God,” and “bread from Heaven” are unique in the New Testament to
John chapter six (6:31-33, 35, 41, 48, 50-51, 58), and continue the earlier the nutrition metaphors
with Jesus providing spiritual breath (Jn. 3), drink (Jn. 4), and now food (Jn. 6). This is reflected
by the fact that Jesus’ discussion of the “bread from heaven” has close thematic parallels to his
“living water” discourse in John 4.

living water (4:10) bread of life (6:35); living bread (6:51)

never thirst again (4:14) never hunger again (6:35)

leads to eternal life (4:14) leads to eternal life (6:40)

The metaphors of “water of life” and “bread of life” are thus two different ways of describing the
same concept, that accepting Jesus as the Messiah brings eternal life precisely as eating and
drinking sustains physical life.
The discourse seems somewhat repetitive, but in fact provides a set of interlocking ideas
that build upon one another like a type of metaphorical spiral staircase.
• Jesus is the bread of life. (6:35, 48, 51)
• Those who are of the Father will believe in Jesus. (6:37, 44-45)
• He is the “bread of heaven” who has come down from heaven. (6:38, 42, 50-51)
• Those who eat this bread (believe in Jesus) will never hunger. (6:35)

5 For details on the background on “bread of life” and “bread of heaven” see P. Borgen, Bread
from Heaven: An Exegetical Study of the Concept of Manna in the Gospel of John, 2nd ed.
(1997)
Hamblin, John 6:25-51 5 Apr 13, 2011

• He will “raise” his followers at the last day. (6:39-40, 44)

• Those who believe him have eternal life. (6:35, 40, 47, 50-51)
To believe in Jesus--that is, to accept him as “the Messiah, the Son of God who should come into
the world” (Jn. 11:27)--is to spiritually eat of his heavenly bread of life, which provides life not
only for a day, but forever (6:48-50). While the Mosaic manna--the original bread from heaven--
nourished only for a day and could not prevent the partakers’ ultimate death, Jesus’ bread from
heaven nourishes forever and provides eternal life. The point is that Jesus not only meets the
people’s challenge to match the Mosaic miracle of the manna/bread from heaven (6:30-31), but
surpasses it.
There is another important allusion in the Hebrew Bible to the “bread of God” (Jn. 6:33).
The shewbread, or bread of the presence offered on a table in the Holy Place at the temple was
called the “bread (leḥem) of God” (Lev. 21:6, 8, 17, 21-22, 22:25), or “holy (qōdeš) bread” (1
Sam 21:4-6). Only a priest in a purified state could enter the Holy Place to bring this bread to
God. Now in its original context “bread of God” probably meant the bread given to God, rather
than the bread given from God. But in the end, the priests ate this “bread of God” in the temple,
precisely as Jesus says his believers will partake of the “bread of God.” Thus, in a first century
Jewish context, eating the bread of God was the prerogative of priests in a purified holy state in
the temple (see also Mishnah, Menaḥ 11). This allusion to “God’s bread” places this discourse in
a temple context that I will discuss later.
Part of Jesus’ claim in this section is not only that he has brought down bread from
heaven (6:32), but that he himself has descended from Heaven (6:33, 38, 41-2, 51; cf. Jn. 3:13,
31). This is because Jesus is the Pre-existing Logos who was with the Father in the beginning
and who created the world and came to dwell in it (Jn. 1:1-14).6 John’s is also the only Gospel
that describes Jesus’ incarnation as descending from heaven; furthermore, John’s Gospel also has
no nativity narrative, nor does it ever mention the name of Jesus’ mother.7 For John, the

6 James McGrath, John’s Apologetic Christology, (Cambridge, 2001), 157-171; E. Sidebottom,

“The Ascent and Descent of the Son of Man in the Gospel of John” Anglican Theological
Review, 39 (1957): 115-122.
7 Jesus’ mother appears, unnamed, three times in the Gospel: Jn. 2:1-12, 6:42, 19:25-27.
Hamblin, John 6:25-51 6 Apr 13, 2011

formation of Jesus’ mortal body is irrelevant; it is Jesus’ celestial origins--“the word became
flesh” (Jn. 1:14)--that is crucial to recognizing and understanding his nature as the Messiah and
Son of God.
Many listeners, however, rejected Jesus’ claim to have “descended from Heaven” for an
interesting reason. “They said, ‘Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we
know? How does he now say, “I have come down from heaven”?’ ” (6:42). In other words, at
least some of the people there had known Jesus from infancy, and therefore maintained that he
had not descended from heaven. In the first century context the widespread expectation would
be that a being who had descended from heaven could not be an ordinary human. The messianic
figure described Daniel 7:14 is “like a Son of Man” (kә-bar ʾěnāš) who descends “with the
clouds of heaven.” John, however, maintains that the Word/Son of Man’s descent from heaven
occurred precisely through his being “made flesh” (Jn. 1:14). This creates a Christological
paradox that has been debated throughout Christian history: that Jesus could somehow have
earthly parents, yet still be the incarnation of God.
After this, Jesus begins to shift the discussion to what would have been a shocking
metaphor to first century Jews: eating his flesh and drinking his blood, which I will discuss next
week.

“I am”
A this point it is worth introducing an intriguing characteristic of Jesus’ discourses in
John. In the Gospel of John, and only in John, Jesus makes seven statements in which he says “I
am ...” (egō eimi) followed by a Christological title reflecting Jesus’ divine attributes and nature.8
These seven “I Am” statements are:
• I am the Bread of Life (Jn. 6:35, 48)
• I am the Light of the World (Jn. 8:12, 9:5)
• I am the Door (Jn. 10:7-9)
• I am the Good Shepherd (Jn. 10:11, 14)

8 For further details see R. Brown, Gospel According to John (1966) 1:533-38; C. Dodd,
Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (1953) 93-96; P. Harner, The “I Am” of the Fourth Gospel,
(1970); D. Mark, “I Am” in John’s Gospel, (1996); C. Williams, I Am He, (2000).
Hamblin, John 6:25-51 7 Apr 13, 2011

• I am the Resurrection and the Life (Jn. 11:25)

• I am the Way, the Truth and the Life (Jn. 14:6)
• I am the True Vine (Jn. 15:1, 5)
Elsewhere Jesus refers to himself as “I Am” in the absolute sense, with no predicate (John 8:24,
8:28, 8:59, 13:19), statements which are generally understood to be esoteric allusions to Jesus’
divinity. I will discuss the issues raised by these “I Am” statements in detail in my exploration of
John 8.