Once more the people murmured against Jesus, saying among themselves: “how can this man give us his flesh to eat?” (John 6:52). Obviously, Jesus wasn’t speaking literally, when he said: “the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (John 6:51). Why didn’t these folks see that? Perhaps they did, but couldn’t think of a spiritual context in which to put his words. On an earlier occasion Jesus said:
“For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them” (Matthew 13:15).
One has to wonder how anyone could miss the fact that Jesus’ statement wasn’t literal. Therefore, it seems likely they did know Jesus wasn’t speaking literally. The problem came with the fact that these folks simply didn’t want to admit that they couldn’t see to tell good from evil, right from wrong (cp. John 9:40-41). In other words, they were still in rebellion against God in that they were eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. They believed they didn’t need to be told what was good and what was evil, because they were already able to understand right from wrong by using one or more of their five senses, vis-à-vis walking by sight and not by faith (2Corinthiand 5:7). Thus, holding on to that belief, they must conclude what Jesus claimed was nonsense (John 6:52), because they couldn’t see a spiritual context for his words (cp. John 3:3).
Therefore, Jesus concluded that his listeners had no spiritual life in them, if they didn’t “eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood” (John 6:53). In other words, unless they partook of his crucifixion, received Jesus as the sacrifice provided by God on their behalf, they could have no spiritual life in them. Jesus’ crucifixion is spiritual food for our spirits, but only if we would admit we have no wherewithal to understand on our own. We need God to give us the faith to choose to believe the One whom God had sent (John 6:29, 44; cp. Mark 9:24).
On the other hand, folks, who receive the sacrifice of Christ as an end of their rebellion against God (John 6:54), have placed themselves in a context whereby the Father will draw them to Christ (John 6:44), and he will raise them up, vis-à-vis their spirits (Ephesians 2:1-8), to eternal life.
The only way one can sustain life in his spirit is to receive Christ’s sacrifice for his rebellion, which translates to his separation from, or his walk away from God. The crucifixion, is real bread and real drink, meaning it is the only spiritual sustenance provided mankind (John 6:55). Therefore, to choose to believe Christ is to choose life (John 6:56), but to choose to believe one is already able to see (John 9:40-41), is to reject the necessity of Christ’s sacrifice and to choose death.
Speaking of his flesh, and alluding to his death by crucifixion, Jesus claimed that the living Father is his guarantee to the continuance of life (after his death by crucifixion). Therefore, just as the Father was Jesus’ guarantee of a resurrection, Jesus’ resurrection is the believer’s guarantee of life after his own death (John 6:57). In other words, Jesus is the Bread, or the sustenance of eternal life, which has come down from heaven. This, therefore, is in sharp contrast to the manna that Moses gave for the sustenance of life, because all who partook of that bread are now dead (John 6:58).
Jesus taught these things to both his disciples and to the disciples of John the Baptizer during the Passover season[1] (an eight-day festival) at the synagogue in Capernaum (John 6:59). This means, of course, that Jesus was speaking mostly with the representatives or leaders of the multitude he fed in the deserted place near Bethsaida.
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[1] This would have been Jesus’ second Passover during his public ministry, or the spring of 29 AD.
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