Page 69 - Gospel of John_teachers lesson_cp 1-10_Neat

(John 6:51) – A distinction is made to clearly establish that He is the living bread which came
down from Heaven. He is not like manna, consumable or existent for a single day. He is divine
bread filled with the yeast of life. Like the woman of Sychar learned about living water, He tells
this audience about living bread, the bread of His flesh, they will give them life forever.
The instructions for manna included gathering all that was provided each day per household
and consuming all that was provided leaving nothing for the next day. (Exodus 16:19) In
comparison to the physical manna, the metaphor of eating should be interpreted with applying
emphasis on fully consuming and devouring all the words of God leaving none of them as
inapplicable or un-useful for giving life.

The Son of God (God actively present on earth), gave His body (flesh) to give life to the entire world,
and it is not limited to feeding a single tribal nation like the manna given to the Hebrews in the
wilderness. The gift is memorialized in the declaration of the most well-known passage of
scripture: “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son…”. (John 3:16)

John 6:52 The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can
this man give us his flesh to eat?

Lesson Notes:

(John 6:52) – The Jews hearing the analogy that makes the flesh of the Son of God (God actively
present on earth), synonymous with bread and eating that bread to have life, stirs them to debate,
arguing among themselves about understanding how a man can give his flesh for consumption.
Their interpretation of His words was limited to the same natural standards they applied to
comprehending His identity. The audience of Jews could only see Jesus as a man and therefore
perceived His analogy as physical and not spiritual. They diminished the emphasis to be literal
and therefore impractical or impossible.
Like Nicodemus could not understand the analogy of being born again because he related it
only to a physical application, the audience of Jews had the same problems with their
perceptions. For them the plausibility of flesh being consumed, caused them to overlook the
emphasis pointing to how a man can have eternal life.
Certainly, the Messiah is not speaking about eating His physical body no more than He intended
for a man to return to the physical womb of His mother to be born again. Neither physical
application would produce a different outcome. A man re-positioned into his mother’s womb
or eating the physical body of another man would not alter his spiritual status. As Nicodemus
was told, that which is born of the spirit is spirit and that which is born of the flesh is flesh. The
physical (flesh) empowers understanding limited to the flesh; those born of the spirit can see
and understand spiritual truth that points to eternal life.

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