Hi everyone. Welcome back to the logical
Bible study podcast. Thanks for all your support of
this ministry. I hope you're benefiting from
going through. The gospel readings verse by
verse in the way that we do it on this podcast.
It's the only podcast out there. We do it every single day
providing you with an exegesis of the All sense of scripture.
So today, we're looking at quite a rich reading and this is John
chapter 6, verses 41 to 51. the Jews were complaining to each
other about Jesus, because he had said, I am the bread that
came down from heaven, Surely. This is Jesus Son of Joseph.
They said we know his father and mother.
How can he now say I have come down from heaven Jesus said in
reply, stop complaining to each other.
No one can come to me unless he is drawn by the father who sent
me and I will raise him up at the last day.
It is written in the prophets, they will all be taught by God
and to hear the teaching of the father and learn from it.
Is to come to me. Not that everybody not that.
Anybody has seen the father except the one who comes from
God. He has seen the father I tell
you most solemnly, everybody who believes has eternal life.
I am the bread of life, your fathers, ate the Manna in the
desert and they are dead. But this is the bread that comes
down from heaven. So that a man may eat it and not
die. I am the living bread which is
come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will
live forever. And the bread that I shall give
is my flesh for the life of the world.
So what's the context of this reading?
We're right in the middle of the Eucharistic discourse, very
famous passage and an incredibly theologically Rich passage Jesus
says a lot here about his identity and about the Eucharist
and all sorts of really interesting stuff.
So the lead up to this passage, you can hear on Wednesday of
week. 3 of eastertide. That's what comes just before
today's reading. So, we're in the bread of life
discourse, it takes place at the synagogue in Capernaum, so he's
in Capernaum and as well. He who speaking to the Jewish
leaders, in the last few verses leading up to this.
He's been inviting the crowds the people to have faith that he
really is. The Son of God, the true bread
from heaven, and in particular, he has been claiming.
I am the bread that has come down from heaven.
So, that sets the scene for today.
Verse 41, the Jews were complaining to each other about
Jesus. Now, of course, the Jews here,
refers to the Jewish leaders, And more, literally what it
says, here is the Jews then murmured at him.
That's the actual Greek word that's used.
So the Jewish leaders are not happy with Jesus.
And the language here of murmuring, refers, or recalls,
how the Israelites complained against the Lord, and Moses in
the wilderness wandering. So, if you know, Exodus and
numbers there several times, when the Israelites complaining
against Moses and against God, and the text there says that
they murmured. It's a very similar thing here,
and that's fascinating. If Think about it because Jesus
has been saying that the Manna in the wilderness came down in
the time of The Exodus and numbers and that was the same
time period in which the Israelites complained against
God will Jesus has just been saying that he is the true bread
that comes down from heaven the true Manner.
And now what are the people do? They complain against God's?
There's an interesting parallel. There it goes on because he had
said, I am the bread that came down from heaven, So the Jewish
leaders are murmuring against Jesus because they can't accept
what he's saying here about. I am the bread that came down
from heaven to them, that just doesn't make any sense.
The Jewish leaders, basically, Think Jesus is crazy, because
they know that Jesus is a man who was born on Earth in the
normal way, they know his father and mother as they're about to
say. So they know that he's not sent
from heaven, at least, in their way of thinking verse 42.
Surely this is Jesus, Son of Joseph.
They said we know his That and mother.
Now this sermon if you think about it is taking place in
Capernaum and that's not very far from Nazareth.
And given that Nazareth had a very small population Nazareth.
Only has about 300 people at this time.
It's likely that the Jewish leaders in Capernaum were
probably also the Jewish leaders of Nazareth as well.
So for whatever reason, the Jewish leaders know, Mary and
Joseph because they live in the neighboring town and I know that
Jesus is the son of Mary and Joseph.
So in there thinking, there's no way that Jesus can be sent from
heaven. How can he nail say?
I have come down from heaven. And of course, there's Echoes
here of Jesus sermon that he preaches in Nazareth in the
synagogue at Nazareth in Luke chapter 4.
When he first preaches that sermon, how do the people react,
they say, isn't this Jesus and isn't this Joseph and Mary son?
Isn't he? The carbon to us that they just
can't grapple with how Jesus can have these gifts.
It's a very similar reaction Verse 43.
Jesus said in reply, stop complaining to each other.
Now more literally what it says there is.
Do not murmur among yourselves. So Jesus knows what they're
saying and the word he uses here for murmuring.
He actually says murmuring. That indicates that he thinks
they're murmuring, he knows they're not simply asking
innocent questions. They are murmuring, which has a
negative connotation Jesus here in effect is saying that their
hearts are as hard as the In the wilderness who murmured in the
desert. And what did Moses say about
that generation? He said your grumbling is not
against us but against the Lord that's in Exodus chapter 16
verse 8. So Jesus he says that they're
being very similar to that grumbling generation.
So Jesus is now going to explain himself more fully.
He's going to explain. What does he mean by?
I am the bread that comes down from heaven.
No one can come to me unless he is drawn by the father who sent
me. So there seems to be a response
to their question about, how can this man be from heaven?
And so the answer appears to be, well, we are not going to
believe that unless the father gives you a revelation or leads
you to believe that. And this is amplifying a point.
He made a few verses earlier about his will and the father's
will be United. So, the main point Jesus is
making here, is that to believe Jesus is the son of God.
It's not automatic, and in fact, it's probably not easy.
So, the father must already be working in the person's heart to
help. A person realize that he is the
son of God. So in answer to their question,
how can this man say he's the son of God?
That he's from Heaven. Jesus answer is well.
Only the father can reveal that to you.
That's his basic answer and he finishes that thought by saying
I will raise him up at the last day and he'd actually said this
a few verses earlier that's the mission.
The father has given the sun, he's given the Sun, the job of
raising humans up bodily on the last day so that they can live
with him in heaven bodily. That's the mission.
The overall goal. Verse 45, it is written in the
prophets. They will all be taught by God.
So, this is Jesus quoting the Old Testament.
Now, it's not a direct quote, it's a paraphrase of Isaiah 54,
verse 13, and if you read that in context, that's a prophecy
that God gives about the end times.
Jesus God basically says, one day, you will all be taught by
Me by god. Notice that Jesus, though, says
prophets, it is written in the prophets plural.
So he's probably thinking of this General line of thinking
that all the prophets teach or at least a few of the prophets,
teach, for example, in Jeremiah 31.
There's the same idea that one day in the end times, all people
will be taught by God. So Jesus quotes this.
And then he says, and to hear the teaching of the father, and
to learn from it, is to come to me.
And that will be quite shocking to the crowd because Jesus
quotes the Old Testament passage no one.
Sorry. It is written in the prophets,
they will all be taught by God. So, he quotes that.
And then he says, it's fulfilled in me in Jesus.
So the Jews who read the Old Testament, they did believe that
these passages would be fulfilled one day in the end
times, but they imagined that what the passage was teaching
was that God would speak directly to them in the end
times. Well, here comes Jesus and he
says that's exactly what God is doing.
The sun has received his message directly from the father and now
he's Indicating it directly to the people.
This is a fulfillment of that. Passage the end times are here.
God is speaking directly to his people through Jesus.
So in other words, it's the father's will that the people
listened to the sun, learn from his message and come to him for
salvation. That's Jesus.
Main point verse 46. Jesus says not that anybody has
seen the father so Jesus here is probably correcting their idea
that they had that God himself as father would teach them
directly. He's saying not that anybody has
seen the father but then he adds this qualifier except the one
who comes from God. He has seen the father.
So who is the one that comes from God?
It's the Sun. So, Jesus point is since the
only person who has seen God directly is the sun.
No one else has then people should listen to the sun if they
want to know the words of God. So it's an interesting.
Well, it's a very clever way of going about it.
Jesus constantly starts with things that the people agree
with. He starts with presuppositions
that they accept, and then he gets them to think a bit deeper
about it. And what that means in the
context of him, being the son of God, Verse 47.
I tell you most solemnly. So that means is about to say
something fairly important, everybody who believes So
believes, what anyone who believes?
What Jesus has just been talking about.
So anyone who believes that Jesus really is the Son of God,
and they choose to listen to him, has eternal life.
Now notice that's a present tense.
Jesus says that, anyone who believes already has eternal
life, they already have fellowship with God.
So that's verse 47 and that's the end of that particular
thought. We now get to Voice verse 48 and
verse 48 to 58 is what a lot of Scholars would say, is the
second half of the bread of life discourse.
So, if the first half was an invitation to Faith, we're now
starting the second half which is an invitation to the
Eucharist. So at this point on verse 48 on
words, Jesus starts to get explicitly Eucharistic and he
starts to talk more about flesh. And bread.
So up until now, he's been asking the crowd to believe in
his identity as the one who sent from the Father, the one who's
from heaven. Now, he's going to take it a
step further, and he's going to invite the crowd, to go deeper,
and to actually eat his flesh and drink his blood.
That's the language that Jesus eventually ends up using.
So the general flow of the sermon is the Jesus starts by
getting them to believe in him or to believe that he's the son
of God. But then the believing leads to
eating That's what we're about to see.
Believing leads to doing something verse 48.
I am the bread of life, so he's already said this once in verse
35, and he's just restating it, your fathers, ate, the Manna in
the desert, but they are dead. So, Jesus brings up the Manna in
the wilderness. Again, this is something that I
brought up earlier, which you would have heard in the last
couple of days on the podcast. So he brings up the manner
again, why? Because he knows that the crowd
has a really places a really big importance on this event where
God provides a Manna in the wilderness.
So Jesus keeps referring them back to that, and he wants them
to think a bit deeper about that event.
So, Jesus is saying, the Manna in the wilderness was bread from
heaven. He wants them to realize that
even those who ate the Manna in the wilderness in the book of
Exodus, they died even though they ate this bread from heaven.
So Jesus wants to point them to a greater version of this bread.
From Heaven one that will sustain people eternally and
will not lead people to die, eventually verse 50.
This is the bread that comes down from heaven.
So that a man may eat it and not die.
I am the living bread, which is come down from heaven.
Anyone who eats this bread will live forever.
So Jesus says that to eat the Son of God as the one who comes
down from heaven will give one eternal life, unlike the manner,
which could not give eternal life.
The new bread from Heaven is here one greater than the Manna
in the desert. But Jesus hasn't answered the
question yet. Of what does it mean to eat the
bread? He hasn't said that yet, all he
said, is that I am the one who's come down from heaven, I am the
true bread. If you eat me, you will have
eternal life but he hasn't actually said what to eat him
means just yet. So what does it mean to eat the
son of man, or to eat Jesus? Well, on one level, it could
refer to taking Jesus as spiritual nourishment as in, you
need to absorb his teachings, you need to meditate on him, you
need to follow him so that's certainly Possible.
And that's probably true. However, Jesus is going to
amplify this in a much more physical literal way in the
coming verses and in the coming days will see that and certainly
that's the stumbling block. Block for the crowd.
If you just meant, you need to absorb me spiritually, they
wouldn't have had a problem with it but you'll see the language
that the crowd uses, they really are quite sceptical that he can
literally give them his flesh but that seems to be what he's
getting at. So, this is what he says next,
whoever eats this bread will live forever.
And now that's probably an illusion to the Tree of Life In
the Garden of Eden. Remember in the Garden of Eden,
there's this tree of life and if they eat the fruit of it, they
can live forever. But then when they sin when Adam
and Eve sinned, their cast out and they can no longer access
that tree, So, in a sense, Jesus is fulfilling the original Tree
of Life. He's opening the way to
immortality, which was lost when Jesus was cast out from the tree
and that is essentially part of Catholic belief.
The Eucharist is in a sense, the fruit of the tree of life, it
doesn't give us physical immortality but it does give us
a spiritual immortality. So that probably is at the back
of Jesus mind here when he's speaking verse 51.
And this is the last verse for today.
The bread that I shall give is my flesh for the life of the
world. So, Jesus now gets more
specific. Up till now you could have
thought the bread from Heaven is just Jesus in general.
But now Jesus says the bread that I shall give is my flesh.
So the bread that comes down from heaven is Jesus flesh.
So let's think about what Jesus has said so far, he said that to
achieve eternal life. One must eat his flesh.
That's the teaching so far. And then he adds this bit, the
flesh that I shall give for the life of the world.
When did Jesus give his flesh for the life of the world?
Well, there's probably different interpretations.
Probably in his Incarnation, he's giving his flesh for the
life of the world. Certainly, the main event would
be his sacrifice on the cross. That's Out of love, he gives he
gives up his own flesh for the life of the world, but neither
of those events, the Incarnation and the crucifixion lead to us
being able to actually eat. Jesus flesh.
We can't actually partake of his flesh from those events at least
not in a physical literal way. So, when Jesus says the bread
that I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world.
He's probably thinking of it of a future event and in
particular, his probably thinking about the Eucharist.
At the institution of the Eucharist at the last supper.
If you look at the accounts of the Last, Supper Jesus says,
when he holds up the bread, this is my body.
So there's probably a connection here.
In fact, if you look at the other gospels, when they talk
about the last supper, and the institution of the Eucharist,
the same Greek word is used there.
When, in the Last Supper, it says, this is my body given for
you. And here Jesus says, the bread
that I shall give He's My Flesh for the life of the world that
same really specific Greek word, which were translated into
English as for is used in both cases.
So I think Jesus here, we can reasonably say he's probably
thinking about the institution of the Eucharist at the Last
Supper, that's when he gives his flesh for the life of the world.
And that's the form of the sun's flesh that he has given us to
partake in, its the Eucharist And this teaching about flesh
and blood is going to get more graphic and more literal in the
coming versus and we're look at this in the coming days.
So, how does this get taken up into Catholic teaching?
And where can we find a reference to verses 44 251 in
the catechism? So there's a few verses or a few
paragraphs and I'll just read out some of them which are the
most striking. So paragraph 259 is about the
Trinity and how the different roles of the Trinity play out in
the world. Quite a deep complex,
theological teaching. But this is what it says, being
a work at once, common and personal the whole Divine
economy makes known both, what is proper to the Divine persons,
and their one divine nature. Hence, the whole Christian Life
is a communion with each of the Divine persons without any way,
separating them. Everyone who glorifies the
father does. So through the sun, in the Holy
Spirit, everyone who follows Christ does.
So because the father draws him and the spirit moves him.
So, earlier at the start of our podcast today, we looked at how
it says, no one can come to the Sun and less the father draws
him. And that's the verse that the
paragraph in the catechism is referring to here.
To be part of the Trinity, is to be a part of all three persons
of the trinity. Paragraph. 15 one is about
believing in Jesus Christ. As the Son of God, for a
Christian believing in God cannot be separated from
believing in the one, he has sent his beloved Son in whom the
father is well pleased, God tells us to listen to him.
The Lord himself said to his disciples believe in God
believe. Also in me, we can believe in
Jesus Christ because he is himself.
God, the word made flesh. Quote, no one has ever seen God.
The only son who is in the bosom of the father has made him known
because he has seen the father. Jesus Christ is the only one who
knows him and can reveal him. So there we see the catechism
bringing together various things.
Jesus says in the Gospel of John about his own identity, as the
Son of God, who has come to reveal the will of the father
And then in paragraph 13 feet 1355, we have a reference to the
Eucharist and in particular, the way the Eucharist is celebrated
in here in our modern Mass. It says, in the communion
preceded, by The Lord's Prayer and the breaking of the bread,
the faithful receive the Bread of Heaven and the cup of
Salvation, the body, and blood of Christ who offered himself
for the life of the world. Because this bread and wine have
been made. Eucharist Eucharist stood,
according to an ancient, Greek. Expression we call this food
Eucharist and no one may take part in it.
Unless he believes that what we teach is true, he has received
baptism for the Forgiveness of sins and New Birth and lives in
keeping with what Christ taught. So that's the end of our text
for today. If you want to hear the next
part, it gets even deeper. So Jesus is in the next part of
the Eucharistic discourse is going to say anyone who eats
this bread will live forever and the bread that I shall give is
my flesh for the life of the world.
And so the conversation between Jesus and the Jewish leaders.
Really amplifies, if you want to hear this next part, you can
hear it a few different times in the lectionary.
So it's on Friday of week, three Avista tired and also the
solemnity of Corpus Christi in year a and also the 20th Sunday
of ordinary time in year be, which might be the next Sunday
for you depending on when you're listening now, thanks for your
support of this ministry. I hope you'll tell other people
about it, and we'll see you again tomorrow.