The Bread of Life | Sermon 03/19/2023

John’s Intentional Signs and the Exodus Background

John chapter six, verses 22 through 40. Hear now the inerrant and infallible words of the living and true God. The next day, the crowd that stood on the other side of the sea saw that there was no other small boat there, except one, and that Jesus had not entered with his disciples into the boat, but that his disciples had gone away alone.

There came other small boats from Tiberias near to the place where they ate the bread after the Lord had given thanks. So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the small boats and came to Capernaum seeking Jesus.

When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, Rabbi, when did you get here? Jesus answered them and said, truly, truly, I say to you, you seek me not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.

Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on him the Father, God, has set his seal. Therefore they said to him, what shall we do so that we may work the works of God?

Jesus answered and said to them, this is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent. So they said to him, what then do you do for a sign so that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform?

Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness. As it is written, he gave them bread out of heaven to eat. Jesus then said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven.

For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world. Then they said to him, Lord, always give us this bread. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will not hunger, and he who believes in me will never thirst.

But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will certainly not cast out. For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me.

This is the will of Him who sent me, that of all that He has given me, I lose nothing but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I myself will raise Him up on the last day.

The Feeding of the Five Thousand and the Search for Jesus

Thus ending the reading of God's holy and inspired word, let's pray quickly as a church. Lord, we come before you as one body, under one faith, one Lord, one God and Father. We ask you, Lord, to illuminate the scriptures today by your Spirit, the same Holy Spirit who inspired them, Lord.

We ask, God, that you would teach us what you want us to know today, Lord, that they would go into the depths of our mind and our souls, dear God. Lord, we can often get jaded and we keep hearing the account of Jesus and who He is and how wonderful and divine He is.

Let us, as the song says, never lose the wonder. May we never lose the wonder of who Jesus is. So God, please speak through me today, teach your people and be glorified through the proclamation of the word.

Pray this in Jesus' name, amen. So church, before we exegete this huge block of scripture today, I want to lay out a brief background to this, something that I think we ought to have in mind. Everything the Apostle John has included in the fourth gospel has been very much intentional.

I've said this from the very beginning of this series. He wants whoever to read his gospel account, the whole book of John, he wants whoever reads it to come away believing that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.

You remember that's in chapter 20. I didn't see this before, but I think there is a slight connection between the feeding of the 5 ,000 and the passage today, the both dealing with bread, and those two things compared with John chapter four, the living water passage in Samaria.

Why? Because Jesus is trying to show that he is the greater fulfillment of what the Israelites received in the times of old. Exodus, I've mentioned many times, has been a big theme so far in chapter six.

Let me show you the connection, okay? I'm just gonna state it, you don't need to go there, but in Exodus 15, after the crossing of the Red Sea, the people are desperately thirsty for water. In fact, Psalm 78 mentioned it, if you heard it.

They were thirsty for water. And they come to a spring called Marah. And in Hebrew, Marah means what? Bitter, it means bitter. They came to a bitter spring. It was not fresh, it was not even safe to drink, okay?

The Lord spoke to Moses and the people, and he showed them a tree nearby, and God had the people and Moses place the tree in the bitter waters, and then the bitter waters turned sweet. That's what the text says, they turned sweet, they became fresh.

In other words, they became living water. And the people drank freely and they were revived. That's Exodus 15, okay? Then, in the very next chapter, Exodus 16, the people wandered through the wilderness of sin from Elim, and they were desperately hungry.

So they were thirsty, now they're desperately hungry. This is the very section where God rains down bread from heaven. The Lord declares in Exodus 16, and behold, I will rain down bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I may test them whether or not they will follow my instruction.

Then verse 31 and 35 say, the house of Israel named it Manna, and it was like coriander seed, white, and it tastes like wafers and honey. The sons of Israel ate the manna for 40 years until they came to an inhabited land.

They ate the manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan. Now, you might be thinking, okay, Exodus 16 really does explain a lot of the background of our passage today, the bread of life.

But do you also see Jesus has recreated miracle scenes from the Exodus to demonstrate his lordship, messiahship, and divinity? That's what he's been doing in John for the past couple chapters. John 4 had living waters, right?

He brought living waters. They weren't bitter waters. And they will cause you to never thirst again. And now John 6, there is a bread that if you eat it, you will never hunger again. The bitter waters in Exodus 15 turn sweet, and the manna in Exodus 16 kept people alive.

And he crosses the Red Sea, he crosses the Sea of Galilee, I'm sorry. He crosses the Sea of Galilee. He treads on the water like it's solid ground, showing he's the same Lord who split the Red Sea in what, Exodus 14, Exodus 14.

So Jesus, as John 1, verse 18 said, it says that Jesus is the exegesis of God. That's where we get that word. Jesus is the very explanation of the Father, and it makes sense that he would demonstrate who he is by going to Exodus 14, 15, and 16.

He's gonna do things that were characteristic of the Lord, the I Am, Yahweh, the one true God, and he's doing them now. The logos, the word became flesh. He's going to explain himself through his actions and words.

So keep that in mind. That's our background. Let's go through our verses. So 22 through 24, they're already up. I already read those. I'm not gonna reread them, actually. You can reread that. Basically, the people who were part of the crowds fed by Jesus who were still on the east side of the Sea of Galilee after he had fed the 5 ,000.

These people were still there, okay? But they saw that a boat was remaining, but Jesus was nowhere to be found. So a boat was left at the shore on the east side of the Sea of Galilee. They couldn't find Jesus.

And that, of course, I think proves very much so that he walked on the water as well because they saw. They saw the Savior taking the disciples and ushering them away, and all the apostles got in a boat.

And those people saw that Jesus didn't join the apostles. He stayed behind. And there was one boat, I guess, left, and Jesus didn't take it. So there you go. People were arriving back to where they last saw the Savior, but they couldn't find him.

And so they headed west across the sea to Capernaum, which if you remember from last week, that's exactly where Jesus went. He crossed the sea walking upon the waters, and they ended up in Capernaum. Go to verse 25.

When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, Rabbi, when did you get here? So they understood that the disciples departed in the boat, and Jesus was left. It's kind of like, where were you during the storm, Jesus?

How did you get here? That was a crazy windstorm. How'd you get here so quickly? We saw no one take you, right? That's kind of maybe their mindset. And the possible setting for this whole section of scripture we're going through, it's in Capernaum, and it's possibly according to verse 59, which we're not going over today.

Verse 59 shows him teaching in the Capernaum synagogue. So Jesus might literally be there teaching in a Jewish synagogue in Capernaum, and this is where this could be happening, all right? The people had just wanted to make him king.

They called him the prophet. Now they call him rabbi again. They acknowledge him as teacher, but they'll reject his teaching in just a moment, and they seem confused. Verse 26, Jesus answered them and said, "'Truly, truly, I say to you, "'you seek me not because of the signs that you saw, "'but because you ate the loaves of bread and were filled.'".

So Jesus doesn't answer their question, where were you? He doesn't answer them. No doubt, they would have been very impressed if he recounted, oh yeah, you wouldn't believe it, there was a storm last night.

You saw it, I'm sure, you heard the lightning, thunder, the wind. I crossed the sea, I walked on it. He could have told them that. Some would have believed him, maybe some wouldn't, but he didn't do that.

They didn't need any more inflating, okay? He hits at the heart of the matter. We're not even talking about miracles anymore. They aren't even seeking him for his signs, which if you remember earlier, John 3 -4, the people were seeking him for the things that he performed, for the things that he did, and I talked about how they had little faith in the sign giver, and they had more of a desire to just see signs.

But we see here that they've gone even lower. They've gone even lower. They didn't even recognize the miraculous creation bending power from Jesus to multiply the bread and the fish. All they saw was the results, Jesus says.

What'd they see? All they saw was lots of bread and fish to eat, that's what he says. You were filled, you were filled with loaves. The desire of their seeking Jesus was for more food. This has happened, of course, a lot in third world countries where Christian missionaries have brought hospitals and food and clothing, and they dig wells, and sometimes it is unbalanced.

They can do those things more than they give the gospel. So there's Christian hospitals in Africa, but there's no one actually giving the gospel to the Africans. These things ought to be given to, I do believe that, but they should be given in such a way where the gospel is primary.

The people loved the miracle of food multiplication. Sign me up, I'll get more, I'll follow this guy for more bread. But the sign pointed to him. It pointed to the glorious gospel. And they missed it, they missed it.

According to one theologian, the signs of Jesus according to the gospel were pointing beyond themselves, past the earthly and physical to the heavenly and eternal. The signs challenged those who see them, for they are a material testimony to the identity of Jesus.

Thus encountering one of Jesus's signs can lead to a foreshortening of one's sight, a lowering of one's eyes from the true object of the sign to its mere symptoms, the miracle. However, properly perceived, the signs can draw one's eyes directly to Jesus' deepening and strengthening belief in him.

So what he's saying here, that quote, is seeing these signs is gonna do one of two things. Either these people are gonna see simply the miracle in the material, earthly form that it comes in, or the people are going to see him behind it and understand the heavenly implications of it, okay?

For this reason, signs can be truly loving gifts to those who are called to see, but hindrances to those who don't see. Nevertheless, our Lord expounds on what he just said, verse 27 there, do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the son of man will give to you, for on him, the father, God has set his seal.

So he exhorts and rebukes them. There is a Jesus that they want. There's a Jesus that they want, the people want, then there's the son of God as who he is. They are choosing an inferior form of the Messiah.

They are laboring for food that perishes, serving the gods of their stomachs. The people have a specifically material expectation of the kingdom of God. The Messiah is gonna come and the Messiah is gonna bring us lots of things.

That's what they hope for. Messiah is gonna bring lots of things. This situation, as I said previously, is like the woman at the well. She was drawing water that would leave her thirsty, and he says, go to the well of water that will spring up to eternal life.

Remember, he said, if you would ask, I would give to you living waters. If you would ask, I would give you living waters. So in a similar way, he's saying, labor for the food which endures to eternal life that the son of man will give.

By the way, don't worry about that language in verse 27 that says, work for, okay? Do not work for the food which perishes, but work for the food which endures to eternal life. Don't be worried about that.

He wants the crowd to seek out the food that really matters. And he even says, just so we don't get confused and think, okay, do we have to work for it? He says, and the son of man will give it to you.

It's opposed to working. Will give you is in the future tense. This could mean after his resurrection and glorification, a gift only possibly given when the Holy Spirit comes and transfers it to the believer.

And it says here that God the Father has set his seal on the son. The Greek word is sfregizo, sfregizo. It is to certify the object that is sealed from the owner. Jesus is from God the Father. When one receives and attests to what Jesus is and what he is saying, they are in fact attesting to and receiving God the Father and God the Father's words as well.

So it means he comes with authority, authority from God. And that word as well can also mean that the object is marked with a seal. It has a mark or like a signet ring. There is some sort of impression on Jesus for identification.

Jesus is to be properly identified as God coming from God. That's what that means. Jesus has had the seal set on him from the Father. So the people respond, go to verse 28. Therefore they said to him, what shall we do so that we may work the works of God?

What is incredible and yet not surprising is that although Jesus just mentioned eternal life and being sealed by the Father, they are concerned with works, okay? Concerned with works. He is not given a new work, but condemning their current self-idolatrous work.

Clink says, the Son of Man has just declared who he is and what he can do. And all they can think about is themselves and what they can do. Isn't that funny? God has just come down and said what he can do for them.

And they're like, okay, what do we have to do now? They are presumptuous. They're like, tell us God what is required of us and we'll do it and we'll get what you're saying. Sure. But man can't earn the unearnable.

Verse 29, Jesus answered and said to them, this is the work of God that you believe in him whom he has sent. So Jesus answers their question about works, plural, they answered what works, multiple works do we have to do?

And Jesus answered and says, there's one work. There's one work. There's not multiple. He establishes what we call from the Reformation, sola fide, by faith alone. Believe in him. This isn't just a general faith, a trust that things work out.

This faith has an object and it's Jesus, the one whom God sent. It almost seems like an oxymoron. The work is no work. Jesus will do the work and he'll give them eternal life. And here's where that comes from.

You're like, well, this is a little confusing, Pastor Wade. Here's the big thing. In the Greek, that word work in verse 28, works of God, that is in the genitive case. That means there is possession. So those works, I'm sorry, in verse 29, this is the work of God.

That's God's work. He has possession on it. That is to say, it's not yours. This is the work and it's God's. It's not yours. Shows he possesses it. How do you work the works of God? You don't. Eternal life is God's work.

There's the possession that you believe in him whom he has sent. This will be God's doing. He will do his work, which will result in you believing in his son. There is absolutely a work that needs to be done, but that work belongs to the Lord alone.

The work of God is in complete opposition to man's work of the law. Man won't be justified by his works. Paul says it multiple times. Other authors say it. By the works of the law, no flesh shall be justified in his sight.

What does Paul say? We went over this at man camp. Grace is a gift from God, not of yourselves, not according to works. And these people who are saved will be like John 1. They will not be born of blood.

They will not be born of the flesh or the will of the flesh, nor will they be born of the desires of man, but solely of God and his will. That is to say, this is not to say, I'm sorry, that Christians don't perform works that God has prepared beforehand that we would walk in them, but that the work of eternal life belongs to God alone.

And Jesus was sealed and sent for this purpose. If man could do it, they would have done it by now. It's been a couple thousand years, right? If man could do it, they would have done it by now, but man can't do it.

As James, the brother of Jesus says, that if you fail in one part of the law, you've failed in it all. So look at their responses in verses 30 and 31. So they said to him, what then do you do for a sign?

So that we may see and believe in you. What work, Jesus, do you perform? Our fathers ate manna in the wilderness, as it is written, he gave them bread out of heaven to eat. Do you notice something? They have just become judges in their own eyes.

We will sit at the judge's seat, the judges stand with the gavel. You, Jesus, you're gonna stand on trial. You will have to prove to us whether you are who you say you are, and if what you say is true, and if you can really give eternal life.

And then, when you give a good enough sign, when you give us good enough proof, then we'll believe you. Then we'll believe. That's kind of what they're saying here. All that he has done thus far is not enough for them.

If you're greater than Moses, who produced manna for the people, then perform an even greater sign. Do more than what our father Moses did. Produce something grander, bigger. Can you do what he did? In their minds, Jesus fed the 5 ,000 with bread from earth, not bread from heaven.

It doesn't matter that he multiplied it supernaturally. These people bring up the fact that their fathers ate manna in the wilderness. The manna in the desert eventually went bad. It would rot. Jesus must have something better than the manna of Exodus to make the claim that he did, they think.

According to Carson, some rabbis argued that when the Messiah comes, that he will even call down manna from heaven. So it was an oral tradition. Rabbis argued, hey, when the Messiah comes, he's going to bring down bread from heaven.

That was going on in their minds at this time. He'll bring down bread. They may be requesting him to prove he is indeed the Messiah, but Jesus didn't come to be, again, what they wanted. He didn't come to be this political and social king Messiah.

He won't comply with their request. He'll show what the manna was truly pointing to. This passage, of course, comes from Exodus, as I already talked about, but also as Brother Andrew read today, Psalm 28, verse 24, "'He rained down manna upon them to eat "'and gave them food from heaven.'".

So if you can think about it, Jesus is at this synagogue in Capernaum, possibly at a pulpit, and he's about to preach the true meaning of the manna in the wilderness to these people. So verse 32, verse 32 says, "'Jesus then said to them, "'Truly, truly, I say to you, "'it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, "'but it is my Father who gives you "'the true bread out of heaven.'".

The True Bread from Heaven and the Bread of God

You see, church, the Jews often, often bestowed too much attention and praise upon Moses, all the time. Very much so, unbalanced. They would give too little attention and praise to the actual provider.

What Jesus is saying is that they completely misunderstood the point of God providing manna in their wandering, hundreds and hundreds of years prior. It wasn't simply to keep those Israelites alive in the wilderness, it was to point them to the true bread of heaven who comes down from the Father to not sustain them for a short time, but to give them life everlasting.

So there's a shift here from the past tense to the present tense. The Father was the one who gave you the bread in the wilderness, and he is also the one who now gives you the true bread of heaven. God did something back then, and he's going to do something now.

Listen carefully. Jesus wasn't sent by Moses. Moses foretold of Jesus. Jesus was before him as the I am. He established the need Moses did and demonstrated a greater fulfillment would arrive in the Son of God.

You see, many Jews often considered the law of God, the Torah, as bread from heaven. They would call the Torah bread from heaven. They would. So the true bread from heaven is now the greatest revelation and manifestation of God.

Jesus, the true Torah, the true bread, is him. It's not that the manna wasn't from heaven. It's just that it eventually perished. And it's not that the law of God wasn't the revelation of God. It's just that Jesus is the fullest form of revelation.

He is better. He is the fulfillment. What they've been waiting long for here is finally here, the Messiah. Verse 33, for the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world.

So he changed that title. Do you see that? The bread of God. It was the bread of heaven. I think Jesus considers these two phrases synonymously, bread of God, bread of heaven. It's much like the kingdom of God, kingdom of heaven sort of thing.

This phrase, bread of God, it's also in Leviticus. Literally, bread of God is in Leviticus. You see, this verse, verse 33, serves as a transition from Jesus being the one who provides the bread to the one being the bread.

He is the bread. And if we consider Leviticus, what did they do with the bread of God? It gives great detail in Leviticus. If you want the address of Leviticus, I'll send it to you. But it says what they did with the bread of God, and they would take the bread of God and they would offer it before God.

What did Jesus do on the cross? He was an offering. He offers himself. He's the bread of life. He's the bread of God. He'll give himself over. The priest had to make atonement for himself before he could even offer the bread of God to the Lord because of his sin, but Jesus will be the perfect high priest and will offer up the bread of God, his own life.

It's too perfect. It's too perfect. Regarding verse 33 again, I'm a little disappointed with the New American Standard Bible's translation here. For the bread of God is that which comes down and out of heaven.

The actual Greek where it says, for the bread of God is that which, there's actually a masculine pronoun there. It's not simply that which comes down. It's saying this. For the bread of God is he. Is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.

It's not an object. It's he. It's not Moses and manna. It's the Father and the Son from heaven. And notice too, it was only Jews in the wilderness who got the manna from heaven, but here in verse 33, he'll give it to the world.

He gives life to the world. It's now many people, a variety of people from all over the world. It won't simply be Jews. It'll be everyone of all types. Verse 34, they said to him, Lord, always give us this bread.

They actually call him Kuri, just like the woman at the well. And the NASB properly translated it, sir, there. I don't think Lord is exactly the best here. It should be sir. They don't see him as Lord yet.

They said, Kuri, sir, just like she said in John chapter four, the woman at the well, the Samaritan woman said, sir, give me this water so I don't have to come to this well again. So also these people say, sir, always give us this bread.

Their minds are still on physical bread. They don't get it just like she didn't get it in that moment. They might even be challenging him in a subtle way to see if he can produce this bread that he's talking about.

So where's this bread? We'll take it always, but he'll state it to him plainly. He will explain who the bread is right here. Verse 35, Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will not hunger and he who believes in me will never thirst.

Jesus makes one of the most powerful declarations in the Gospels. They wanted to see a sign more powerful than Moses could produce, a bread from heaven that was better from the manna in the desert. And here he is, right here.

He says, ego eimi ha artas tes zoes. I am the bread of life. The greatest provision of God for eternal life is God himself in Jesus Christ. This is no doubt one of the most clear confessions to deity in the Gospels.

People consider this part of the I am statements. If you Google the I am statements of Jesus, they consider this one of the most clear ones. Jesus is the very thing that sustains someone from eternal death.

If you get the bread of life, you'll never get eternal death. He'll sustain you from it. They thought the bread from God would need to be given over and over again, but he says this bread from God comes down once and for all and it satisfies forever.

It removes all hunger. Now it doesn't mean that someone doesn't have continual dependence on Jesus, but that the starvation, the starvation for eternal life is satiated. It's satiated. It's an already and not yet.

We've talked about that concept before. It's the promise of right now and later. This echoes Exodus 16 verse 12. I have heard the grumblings of the son of Israel speak to them saying, at twilight you shall eat meat and in the morning you shall be filled with bread and you will then know that I am the Lord your God.

That's what he says. So if you remember from my sermon last week, we learned that it was the I am that brought them to safety and made a way through the waters of the sea. He said, I will do this so that they know I am the Lord.

Jesus then said, I am, do not be afraid as he made a way through the waters. And now this, I will bring bread down to you and you shall know that I am the Lord your God. The Greek Septuagint, the Old Testament scriptures, the apostles would have known, said in this Exodus verse, Hati ego kurios hathaios humain.

In the Hebrew, Yahweh, Yahweh, so that they will know I am that I am. The connection Jesus then is making is undeniable. He brought all these Exodus allusions into this. When he walked on the water, he said, I am, and then he declares that I am the bread of life.

Just as the father said in Exodus, he said, I'll give you bread so that you know that I am that I am. That's the connection. It reminds me of this gentleman who had left Mormonism. I haven't seen him in a long time.

We were doing some counseling with him. He had still, he had left Mormonism, but he had still not yet accepted the Christ of biblical Christianity. I remember we were going over all his questions and challenges, and he really came to the gospel according to John, and he said something like, I don't know, guys, it just seems to me that we ought to reject the gospel according to John because it makes so many clear connections to the fact that Jesus has divinity.

Like John says too much with Jesus saying that he is God, and it's kind of like you don't say, right? Yeah, that makes sense. John is demonstrating that Jesus is God. It's interesting to hear someone who came from Mormonism say that about John, the gospel according to John, because we face it all the time, all you who have gone out doing evangelism, LDS will argue that John shows no claims of deity, right?

Oh, he's, John's not saying Jesus is God at all. Jesus isn't saying it, no, no, not at all. There's explanations for all of that, and this guy leaves Mormonism, and he's like, I think we should probably get rid of the gospel according to John because it shows too much that Jesus is God.

So what is it, right? What is it? But we can't throw things out that we simply don't understand or we can't agree with, or we can't see the truth of them yet, because the fact is we'd have to throw out the overwhelming majority of the New Testament if the condition was to reject anything that demonstrated Jesus is God.

So Isaiah prophesied of this very moment, back to the, I am the bread of life, Isaiah prophesied of this, Isaiah 55, one through three, he says, alas, everyone who thirsts, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and you who have no money, buy and eat.

Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Buy without money, without cost. He says, why do you spend money for what is not bread? Sounds a lot like the challenge of Jesus, and your wages for things that don't satisfy.

He says, listen carefully to me, this is God, listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in abundance, incline your ear to me, and come to me, he'll say later, all those who come to me, listen that you may live, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you according to the faithful mercies shown to David.