Could this be the Prophet?

The Eschatology of John Part 16: John 6 Part 1

Check back later today for an audio recording of this post.

For most of us who are active in a congregation, we often measure success by attendance. We had 68 people this week, 79 people last week, and 54 people two weeks ago. On the days when the attendance is up, our confidence in the future of the church soars. On the days when a few families are sick or out of town, we worry about the future—we’ve got to do something!

So when Jesus’s ministry grows to the point where five thousand of his beloved people were following him around the countryside, one would think it would be time to break out the wine and unleavened bread. It’s time to celebrate!

But for Jesus, what would be for many a time to put on a seeker-sensitive service and pass out the connection cards and a contribution basket, it marked a time when the very foundation of his ministry was being tested.

The Customer is NOT Always Right

Since we’ve already covered this story in an early article, which you can read here, I won’t get into too many details now. Instead, we’ll skip to the end.

After feeding the five thousand, the people looked around at each other and said, “When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, ‘This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world’” (John 6:14).

They were referencing Deuteronomy 18, which says, “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command” (Deuteronomy 18:18).

This idea would develop throughout Israel’s history until the point where the people expected a new Moses to rise up to lead them on a second Exodus and restore the kingdom to Israel.

So when the people, with their bellies full, began to make the connection between Jesus and Moses, it meant they were making some pretty major assumptions about the nature of Jesus’s ministry.

Without any conversation, Jesus simply walked away.

When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself. John 6:15

If you’ve ever worked in retail, then you might have heard the expression “the customer is always right.” Of course, if you’ve ever worked in retail, then you know this claim is beyond ridiculous and most of the time it’s the furthest thing from the truth.

So Jesus withdrew himself, but the people were quick to follow.

A Different Kind of Bread

When the people caught up with Jesus, they said, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” (John 6:25). Jesus responded by questioning their motives:

Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.” John 6:26–27

Here Jesus offers his challenge. Would they continue to seek after Jesus because of their hope that he would fulfill their desires to be a king like all the other nations had, or would they work for the imperishable food of a nonviolent kingdom?

At first their response seems hopeful: “What must we do to perform the works of God?” But this could be taken in different ways. Are they asking how they can “work for the food that endures for eternal life” or are they asking for Jesus to teach them how to replicate the feeding miracle?

We’ll soon see what they were hoping for.

Jesus told them that they could work the work of God by believing in the Christ. I take this to mean that Jesus wanted them to believe in the One who God sent, not the one they wanted God to send. That is, they should trust in Jesus as he is, not in what they wanted him to be.

In their response to Jesus’s explanation, we see what they were after the whole time:

So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us, then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ ” John 6:30–31

When they compared Jesus to Moses, it wasn’t because of the words he spoke, like Deuteronomy 18:18 says; instead, it was because he gave them bread.

Don’t we confuse these two all the time?

In discussions of church growth and revival, the conversations usually revolve around what we think will bring in the five thousand. What outward thing might we provide that could draw people in? But Jesus was the Prophet like Moses because of the words he spoke. These are Spirit and Life.

Our churches need to labor for this imperishable food, and here’s why: “Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died” (John 6:49).

We can eat everyday, but this will not prohibit our deaths. Likewise, our churches can come up with the newest gimmick or campaign, but these things alone do not provide spiritual nourishment.

But the people missed a major point in the Exodus story. It was not Moses that gave them bread it was God, and now God was offering them a new kind of bread—the true bread from heaven.

Sir, Give Us this Bread

After Jesus tells them about an even better kind of bread he could offer the people, they immediately ask for it. As it often goes in John, they don’t necessarily know what they’re asking for. In John 4, the woman at the well asked for living water, and here the people ask for the true bread from heaven.

Would they be able to accept the nature of the bread Jesus was offering? Would they, like the woman from Samaria, go and tell the world about this new kind of bread?

First, let’s see how Jesus defines this true bread of life:

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away, for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me but raise it up on the last day. This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day.” John 6:35–40

We’ll break this down line by line.

I Am the Bread of Life

Jesus is the bread of life. What he means by this is that he is the giver and sustainer of life. He nourishes those who come to him with his teaching and Way of life, which he describes as spiritual bread and water. Now this seems innocent enough at first. It would seem that any spiritual teacher could offer the same claim if they mean this mild interpretation I’ve given here, but there is more to this than meets the eye.

Remember, the manna “came down from heaven” (John 6:33). Jesus’s claim here to be the bread of life is far more radical when we consider this point, and it is this implication that causes the people to reject Jesus’s offer of radical discipleship.

They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” (John 6:42).

Just as Jesus said, “I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.”

In John’s gospel, “seeing” is much more than viewing with one’s eyes; in fact, it may not include that at all at times. In John 3, Jesus alternated between “see the kingdom” and “enter the kingdom.” He also talks about “seeing” life and “seeing” God through Jesus.

Jesus is saying here, “I’ve told you plainly who I am. I’ve showed you where I’m from. I’m a picture of the Father, but you refuse to accept it.”

All Who the Father Has Given Me

The next line in this paragraph deals with the idea of the security of the believers. The word “everything” is the Greek word pas which “pertains to totality with focus on its individual components” (BDAG). It’s used in John 1:3 to say that “all things came into being through him…” In John 1:16, John wrote, “From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” In John 12:32, Jesus said, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

Gerald Borchert made some interesting comments on the varying uses of this word in John 6,

There is at v. 37 (also v. 39) a fascinating use of the neuter singular pan (“all”). It may be used here as a collective and may suggest that the general intention of God’s gift is that people will indeed come. The use of the masculine singular pas (“everyone”) at v. 40 could then suggest that each individual authentic coming to Jesus would certainly not be rejected. Such an interpretation would keep the tension between the divine and human dimensions of salvation. It would also affirm the positive intention of God’s will (6:38) and at the same time recognize the role of the human will and the general negative unwillingness on the part of people to accept Jesus, even though they had a direct physical encounter with him (6:36, 40).¹

Of this group, Jesus says none would be driven away or forgotten or misplaced. They could be confident in the life that comes from this bread, unlike the physical bread given to the people in the Exodus.

The Will of God

Jesus says he has come from heaven to do the will of God. What is this will? Apparently it is that Jesus should “lose nothing of all that he has given.” It may not seem that this will has been accomplished given all the rejection Jesus would face, but he was confident that it would be fully realized “on the last day.” We’ll come back to that idea later.

The will of God is spoken of a few other times in John, and spending just a moment recognizing those instances may assist us in understanding what’s going on here:

But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. John 1:12–13

Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. John 4:34–35

“I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just because I seek to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me. John 5:30

Each of these passages pertains to a resurrection to eternal life. Being born of above indicates a change from the “flesh” to the “Spirit” (cf. John 3:6), which is the function of resurrection. The harvest imagery in John 4 is intimately connected to themes of resurrection. And John 5:30 is said directly after John 5:24-29, that passage about the resurrection at the “hour that is coming and now is.”

God’s will manifested in Jesus is to offer the path of life to pas, to everyone. Not all accept this offer in this life, but those who do are given the right to become children of God. God’s will is resurrection.

I’ll Raise Them Up on the Last Day

When interpreting this text, it’s important to keep in mind what we’ve learned already in John: the two hours of resurrection, the present hour and the coming hour, corresponded to the hour of Jesus’s death and the hour of the fall of the temple—the time when one would neither worship “on this mountain or that mountain.” In John’s epistles, he said, “It is the last hour!” (1 John 2:18). This suggests to me that whatever we may think of “the last day,” it ought to be consistent with John’s interpretation in 1 John 2:18.

Where does this idea of a “last day” resurrection come from? Can we be sure this is the same thing being discussed in John 5:24-29?

I believe so. If our understanding of John 5 is correct, then Daniel 12 serves as the foundation for Jesus’s teaching on the resurrection. Notice this passage from the end of Daniel 12:

But you, go your way, and rest; you shall rise for your reward at the end of the days. Daniel 12:13

Some versions translate this “end of the age,” such as the NASB95 and the Lexham English Septuagint, and I have no problem with this. In fact, it is quite convenient for me given the connection between Daniel 12 and other key passages in the Synoptic gospels, but it’s important to point out that the expression “end of the days” in Daniel 12 specifically refers to the end of the “one thousand three hundred thirty-five days” that pertained to the abomination of desolation spoken of in Daniel 12:11, a passage cited by Jesus in Matthew 24:15.

It was a resurrection that would happen when “the power of the holy people is shattered” and a “time of anguish” would afflict the people (Daniel 12:1, 7).

There’s another passage written by John that has a lot of these same themes. Let’s check it out briefly.

In Revelation 11, the temple of God in the holy city falls, and its time of judgment would last “forty-two months” (Revelation 11:1-3). This city is “the city where also their Lord was crucified” (Revelation 11:8). What would happen at this time according to John?

The seventh angel would blow the seventh trumpet, the last trumpet in the series, and a voice would say, “…The nations raged, but your wrath has come, and the time for judging the dead, for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints and all who fear your name, both small and great, and for destroying those who destroy the earth” (Revelation 11:18).

Could this be a description of the “last day” resurrection? Could this be the time when Daniel would be raised?

To me, this makes a lot of sense. We’ll talk more about “the last day” in John 7, 11, and 12.

But for now, we will take a break and come back to John 6 next week. There is still a lot to cover!

These articles take a lot of effort to research and write. If you appreciate them, consider subscribing, liking, or commenting to let me know to keep writing. Also, I promise the articles won’t be as technical as these last two every time.

1. Borchert, Gerald L. John 1–11. Vol. 25A. Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996. Print. The New American Commentary.